Okay. One. More. Damn. Isekai.

Hachi-nantte, Sore wa Nai Deshou! (The 8th Son) looks and sounds exactly like the garbage that has been thrown at us for the past decade. Overpowerful protagonist? Check. Harem building? Check. World conquest? Check. Reincarnation? Check. Magical powers? Check. Shitty medieval fantasy setting? Check.

It’s a solid representative of this period of time. It could be yet another disastrous attempt like many before it, and indeed it is for some part of it. The 8th Son, however, is not as bad as it sounds and as the audience tired of isekais warns you. It is, to some extent, one of the most passable isekais with a male lead of the last few years.

The gist of the tale is that a random japanese office worker wakes up as the 8th son of a noble family of this fantasy setting. His family, however, is struggling with finances and the administration of this faraway land where they live. Instead of lavishing in the riches of noble society, young Wendelin must instead face the challenges of being the 8th son of this poor family… or not.

It doesn’t matter

The show let us know that, as the 8th son, Wendelin has no claim over his father’s land and his only decent future is to marry into a better family and end up being a guard or some retainer of a greater noble. Of course, he was a japanese worker in his past life, so this counts as something, right? Right?

Nope.

Once again, being a failed japanese citizen has only one outcome: infinite magical power. Instead of using the NAME of the show as a foundation and follow a tale of political treachery about an unimportant noble raising the ranks, the show instead gives Wendelin supreme magical powers, an undead teacher, and immediately jumps the gate by making him the most famous hero of the land.

It offers no challenge

Yup. Making Wendelin a powerhouse from the get go not only moves away from the premise of the show, but also puts it in the same soup of feces where most isekais belong. He slays a powerful monster, is gifted with unbelievable riches, is swarmed by friends and powerful allies, and ultimately gets to build his harem of colorful deres.

The nobility part of the tale teases you with some possibility of intrigue, only to be squashed by Wendelin’s magical prowess or the average cooking ability of a young-adult japanese. It’s shallow and quite boring for the most part. It doesn’t help that combat is also uninspiring, with the overall production quality of the show only being passable at most.

Hey! But you said it is a passable show!

Well, yes, it is. Although production is somewhat generic and we have all those standard isekai issues, there are few elements that make this a bit more tolerable than most.

Wendelin, for starters, is not exactly a dick. He is boring, yes, but at least he is not swarmed by cute girls because he treats them as an asshole. No, he is simply far too powerful, and thus attracts people to his side. What this means is that we have an honest show at heart, one that is ready to be about that bland boy raising in the ranks through asspulled reasons and undeserved magical power. There are cheesy harem moments here and there, but also a few more interesting events that slightly make use of the show’s political premise.

An important change here is also the fact that it really isn’t an isekai at all. I mean, there is this initial transition between the failed japanese citizen and the overpowerful magical boy, yet for the reminder of the show there is absolutely no reference to this event at all. This starting point is more a sales pitch to ride the isekai wave than anything else. The 8th Son could be any singular medieval fantasy show we have.

Also, remember that being a passable isekai with a male lead is by no means any feat, as is being a passable medieval fantasy crapfest. They are both genres so bloated with terrible shows that anything that simply not completely sucks manages to be passable.

I’m troubled. The 8th Son is a passable mess, sure, but like I’ve said in a previous review of a similar isekai, it is a dying corpse. There is no twist at all here, just less annoying focus on some elements, such as Wendelin’s fighting capabilities, and that is certainly not enough.

The 8th Son could’ve taken a road like the Ascendance of a Bookworm because of its premise, which could in fact make use of the protagonist being the 8th child of a impoverished family, yet the author just wanted to give that superficial feeling of “the weak lead that is instead the most overpowerful piece of shit in the world”.

Considering the genre, if you have a liking for the isekai, it may be a good filler. For anyone wanting anything else, however, it is what it is: yet another shitty isekai.