Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. Over the last few years isekai has been dominating the anime scene. I think it’s safe to say we’re in the middle of the isekai boom just like how we were in a mecha boom back in the 80s and 90s. It’s hard to say when this boom got started but a lot of people point to No Game No Life as the anime that got the isekai ball rolling followed by Konosuba, Re:Zero, Overlord, and Tanya which showed isekai in an all new spotlight and showed us how new and unique they could be. Over the years we’ve seen a lot of unique isekai anime, but every now and then you get one that’s really behind the times and feels out of place in today’s society such as Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody. Or as I like to call it Death March Fantasy. Making it’s debut as a light novel in 2014 and written by Hiro Ainana, Death March Fantasy is a series that really shows how behind it is in terms of the concept of isekai. In 2018, Silver Link (Baka and Test) and Connect (Strike the Blood) came together to turn the series into an anime in the hopes of cashing in on the isekai popularity. Did it succeed, the quick answer is no, the long answer is yes, and here’s why. Let’s take a look at Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody.
Opening and Ending Theme
The opening is “Slide Ride” by Run Girls, Run! I didn’t like this song all that much. Every time the song starts to get a rhythm going and build up it stops and switches over to a different to repeat the process. It was annoying, it was like they couldn’t decide on what beat they wanted to use so they decided to just use them all and see what would stick.
The ending is “Suki no Skill” by Wake Up Girls. This was a very soothing and relaxing song. It really gives off that vibe of heading out on an adventure with my companions and I just love it. Definitely and overlooked ending in my opinion.
Episodes 1-4
We start off like all isekai animes, in the real world (where technology rules and magic is just a dream). We meet our main character Suzuki aka Satou voiced by Shun Horie, a 29-year-old programmer who works for a gaming company and is currently working on two games, War World and FFL (two games? How do you keep your sanity?). For the first few minutes we see Suzuki fix the bugs within the games while dealing with his manager who keeps making changes because of their sponsors. After working for 30 hours straight (a typical working day for the Japanese man I’m sure), he finally catches some Zs in the office where he finds himself in a fantasy world that is like a mashup between War World and FFL (crossover confirmed). Not only that, but he’s reverted back to a 15-year-old boy (29, 15, doesn’t matter, you’re still gonna find yourself in a harem situation. Trust me on that). He soon gets attacked by lizardmen and after almost taking an arrow to the face, he starts to realize that this dream is real and he’s about to die (killed off by your own creation. The irony here is enough to rebuild the Titanic). When cornered he activates the spell Meteor Rain a move that was added to help out new players which instantly wipes out the lizardmen (what killed the lizardmen? The programmer) except for one who barely survived the attack and challenges Satou to a swordfight where he wins by luck. After finally settling down he decides to turn off Meteor Rain after seeing how dangerous it is (scene here: https://youtu.be/iwMIck4YYgY. Yeah, talk about your overpowered spells) and begins to learn how to work his menu. He finds out he leveled up to 310 (just from the first enemies in the game? Man this game must be up there in terms of difficulty) and got quite a bit of loot from the lizards as well as skill points which he uses to max out his skills. The next day, he heads off to the nearest city which is Warrior’s Fort where we actually get to see him journey there and take everything in along with him (scene here: https://youtu.be/67T6Rah5rHA, just like this experience is new to us, this experience is new to him as well. He has no idea why or how he’s there, but he’s enjoying himself). He arrives at Warrior’s Fort where a group of soldiers gets attacked by a wyvern who is easily a higher level than them, but the soldiers do their best to fight it off all while Satou observes.
In episode 2 the soldiers somehow managed to defeat the wyvern (and they earned the title Dragonslayer) and Satou saves a battle mage named Zena (first girl?). Zena’s friends show up and don’t trust him but he manages to use his persuasion skills to convince them that he’s a traveling merchant who lost all of his wares due to the meteor shower (scene here: https://youtu.be/2PHWFs70Fac). He gets taken to Salue City where he gets his paperwork clarifying him as a merchant and then gets taken to an inn by a well-endowed girl named Martha who is only 13 (okay, no 13-year-old girl has breast that big. If she was 15 or 16 I would understand, but 13, you lost your mind) and runs the inn with her mom. Martha gives him a tour of the marketplace where we see demihumans are slaves and find out that the demon lord was defeated a long time ago and hasn’t come back since (give it a little more time). That night, he eats a good meal and then starts to think about his situation such as how all of this is so new to him and something he’s never seen before (scene here: https://youtu.be/Iot8czfHfrM). Once again, Satou is enjoying himself in this new world and admiring it from a game creator’s perspective. This goes beyond anything he’s even seen or imagine and wants to understand every nook of this world but at the same time admire it. He decides that for the future he’ll enjoy the situation he’s in (I know I would, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. You actually get to experience an alternate world firsthand. Just think of the possibilities this’ll have on your games) and figure out a way home as he continues on his journey (which will be a little difficult, MMOs really have no ending). The next day Zena shows up (wearing her best dress) to take Satou out on a tour of the city.
In episode 3 Satou goes on a date with Zena around the city where they take in the sights and try out some food (scene here: https://youtu.be/Lko6NrLOdPw). While riding in a carriage (where the driver actually plays a good wingman for Satou) they see someone posing as a member of a church group and accusing these slave demihumans of being creations of the demon lord. He tricks people into buying holy rocks (those rocks are about as holy as used tissues) to throw at the demihumans. Zena, seeing enough of this, steps in and defends the demihumans with her magic all while Satou figures out the demihumans don’t belong to the priest but instead some scumbag from the guild who has hidden members of his guild throughout the crowd to instigate people into throwing rocks (any other time I would applaud you for a good money-making scheme. But throwing rocks at cute animal girls? You dun fucked up). Satou takes out the members of the guild one by one and exposes their scheme in front of the crowd where the owner of the demihumans reveals that he’s actually a demon (one-eyed bat demon to be exact. Scene here: https://youtu.be/QmTn3PRx7qc). He kills the priest and transports Satou, Zena, some guards, and the demihumans to his master’s labyrinth (dance magic dance) where he wants them to suffer and despair, but he plays fair and creates an exit for them to reach. Satou winds up with the demihumans and gives them all names. He names the lizard girl Liza, the dog girl Pochi, and the catgirl Tama (not bad). He then gives them medicine to clean out their wounds, new clothes, and gives them food (scene here: https://youtu.be/wh9ejypb0po, this is sadly the nicest anyone has treated them). They come to recognize him as their new master (it’s either him or the demon. Who would you choose?) and decide to follow him through the labyrinth. He gives Liza a shortsword since she’s the only one besides him with combat experience and uses his skills to get a good lay out of the dungeon (hack! I call hack). As they traverse the dungeon, they come across a giant bug eating someone and Satou takes it out with his magic gun (a one of kind personal weapon. Scene here: https://youtu.be/WTX0FhJ2W2I). He uses one of the legs to construct a spear for Liza, Liza gets the core of the monster (this’ll catch a fine price at the market) and hands the shortsword to Tama (not sure it was smart to give a sword to a girl with no combat experience but baby steps).
Episode 4 starts off with Satou and his demihumans traversing the labyrinth where the girls level up, learn new skills such as detecting traps and setting off traps (that’ll be helpful down the line), and even finding magic scrolls in an abandoned house. Eventually, they find and rescue an aristocrat, slave trader, and racist townsfolk (sounds like the setup for a bad folk) and reunite with Zena’s group who are fighting slime (scene here: https://youtu.be/6nYFMxMxZSY). The demihumans dispose of the slime. After a priest heals up everyone, the demon reappears to fight them where their normal magic does nothing to him (too low). Satou wants to help but is hesitant to fight because he’ll risk exposing his level (and then have to make up some excuse why he’s so OP). Luckily, he gets pushed down a hole by a wolf who is level 40 (dude, you should be making that thing your servant, don’t let it push you around) and after he defeats the wolf he re-emerges in a disguise and fights the demon with rocks (it was a big rock). The demon summons his master which is a high-level demon lord with the only way to kill it is to use a holy weapon. Satou has a holy weapon but because he hasn’t obtained the title of Hero yet, the weapon can’t be used to kill demons (a weapon the doesn’t work unless you have a title? That seems like faulty game design). Since the holy weapon is out, Satou switches up his strategy and attacks with a god slaying weapon since demon lords are considered gods and he holds the title of god slayer, that should be enough to kill the demon and sure enough it is (scene here: https://youtu.be/GXUw6pXZ-bg, take that faulty game designers). They all make it out of the labyrinth where Satou gains the title of Hero (would have been helpful 5 minutes ago), becomes the official master of Liz, Pochi, and Tama and the slave trader offers to sell him two more slave girls named Lulu and Arisa who’s appearance shocks Satou (old girlfriend?).
Episodes 5-8
In episode 5 we see why Satou was so shocked by Arisa, she understands Japanese. Up until now she’s been the only person who hasn’t had trouble pronouncing Satou’s name and Satou actually whispered something to her in Japanese which she understood perfectly (no doubt there’s some place in this world that’s similar to Japan). Satou buys them and takes them all out to eat (they’re living the life of luxury with Satou) where he sneaks away and buys them all cloaks to wear. When they arrive back at the inn, we see that guest aren’t too keen on demi-humans sleeping in the same building as them, but Arisa uses her physic powers to persuade the innkeeper and guests to let them stay in the shed out back. So Liz, Pochi, and Tama have to sleep out in the shed while Arisa and Lulu get to sleep in the same room as Satou where they mostly sleep naked (I think we may have found a new loli king). In the middle of the night, Arisa sneaks into Satou’s bed and uses her magic skills to charm Satou into having sex with her (wow, usually it’s the other way around). Satou manages to break out of her spell and begins interrogating her where she really had no ulterior motive, she just wanted to sleep with him (she saw a hot guy and said I want that. Five times over). Satou is basically her ideal guy (and to just dangle all that sexiness in front of her and say she can’t have anything is just wrong) and she allowed her feelings to get the better of her. They continue to talk where Arisa reveals that just like Satou she was originally from Japan but unlike Satou who was sent here through unknown means, Arisa was reincarnated here by God (did she have blue hair and a smug personality?). Lulu is also Japanese or rather her heritage is Japanese as her grandfather was Japanese and was transferred to this world somehow (transferred. Reincarnated. This world just likes to throw in everything). Satou than asks about her backstory where we find out Arisa was actually reincarnated as a princess from some kingdom where she used her knowledge from her past life to benefit and help the kingdom, but something went horribly wrong. This resulted in the kingdom being taken over by their neighbors, the royal family killed, and those that were left alive being thrown into slavery. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a demon attacked and burned the whole kingdom down (and you thought your day was bad). Arisa and Lulu managed to escape into the mountains where they were on the brink of death until they were captured by a slave trader and eventually sold to Satou (where Arisa wanted to study his magic stick. Scene here: https://youtu.be/hLJjAMZ3wi4). The next morning comes where Zena walks in on Satou sleeping in the same bed as Arisa (who is still naked because why the hell not) and Zena totally misreads the situation. Luckily, Satou catches up to her and resolves the misunderstanding in style by complimenting her and doing a small dance with her in the streets (well he definitely maxed out his charm skills). The episode ends with Satou giving some money to Arisa to take the others to buy new clothes and daily necessities while he continues to entertain Zena.
At the start of episode 6 Satou and Zena try to find a house for him and the others to live so the girls won’t have to live out in the shed. They go to the Odd Jobs office where the worker Nadi shows them a few mansions on the west side (one of them looking like the mansion from Konosuba) but they all seem unsafe. The first one had someone get assassinated in it by the crime guild (that’s unsettling but you can’t beat that view and price), the second one is across the street from a brothel (good luck trying to explain that to Pochi and Tama. I’m sure Arisa could learn a few things from them), and the last one served as a hideout for the mob complete with a secret passage way and everything (that doesn’t sound too bad. If they come back you can handle them). Satou decides not to buy any of them and Nadi encourages them to come back later as her manager might be able to find a place for them. In the meantime, the two meet back up with the others and go watch a tragic play (Shakespeare and Game of Thrones it is not). After the play, the city gets attacked by flying ants (https://youtu.be/u2Yu7D2uaoE). Satou and the others help defend the town from the man-eating bugs (I’m gonna need a bigger can of raid) and he even saves Nadi from them as well as meet the manager of Odd jobs, Yusaratoya, an elf with green-hair and short ears (the kingpin of fantasy races has arrived). Later on, Satou walks the streets where the people he saved from the labyrinth take him to a brothel as a thank you for saving their lives and as he leaves he hears some commotion in an alleyway. He goes to investigate where he sees a wererat by the name of Red Mask getting attacked by these shadowy beings. Satou defeats them (he’s like level 300. If he lost, he failed at being an OP character) and takes Red Mask to the Odd jobs building to have Yusaratoya heal him up and see if he knows the little elf girl Red Mask was protecting.
In episode 7 we find out that the elf girl is Mia and she’s actually a princess from an elf village. According to Red Mask some dark wizards came to her village and kidnapped her (they are perverts). The wererats found her and tried to bring her to Yusaratoya for safety but the wizards followed them into the city and attacked them. Red Mask has no idea why they kidnapped Mia but he’s determined to keep her safe. In the episode we see how Mia grows attached to Satou (because he’s already going to jail with all the lolis around him so one more won’t hurt) and develops a friendship with the other girls. Later on, Satou buys a wagon and gets Lulu to teach him how to drive it properly. As they practice, Satou notices a strange owl staring at them that follows them all the way back to the Odd Jobs store where the girls are terrified of the thunder. The owl somehow managed to get inside (that is one smart owl) and reveals itself to be a dark wizard.
In episode 8 we find out that the dark wizard is named Zen and he’s no dark wizard, he’s actually an undead king. He uses a fear attack which paralyzes everyone except for Satou and Arisa who do their best to stop Zen but he manages to get Mia (I should probably go on record and say he didn’t beat Satou. Couldn’t you imagine if a level 41 character beat a level 300 character? The internet would pan this guy). Zen takes Mia back to a place called a Cradle a large tree which once used to belong to the elves until they abandoned it. Satou uses Zen’s portal to arrive in the throne room where Zen and Mia are but Zen calls hack (something I’m surprise a lot of people don’t do in this anime) and sends Satou out of the dungeon and do it all from the beginning like it was intended to be done. Satou fights his way up each level, kisses a dryad to restore her MP (if she joins the harem I swear I will declare Satou the new loli king), and eventually comes to the mid-boss which is 3 busty homunculuses and a golem (defense and distraction. Not a bad combination). Satou beats the golem with a headshot, two of the homunculus escape and Satou continues his way to the top where he finally reaches the throne room (it only took him 15 minutes. You broken character) but has to go through a mob of monsters before he can take on Zen (whose kind of being bipolar about this whole thing. He can’t decide whether to be shocked or impressed with Satou’s skills).
Episodes 9-12
Episode 9 starts with action as Satou takes on more homunculuses and golems (it’s basically a harder version of the mid-boss fight). After destroying the golems and knocking out the homunculus (they’re too cute to kill and a man with needs can only be surrounded by lolis for so long and not do anything) he finally goes to face Zen where Zen reveals that his only desire in life is to be killed. We find out that he was killed in an unjust way only to be reincarnated as an infant and given a second chance on life. He was re-born with respectable parents, met a good friend who he went on adventures with and eventually got married. Everything seemed to be going well in his life until one day a noble who fell in love with his wife imprisoned him on false charges and had him killed. The last vision he saw was the members of his family all killed with their heads strewn above the castle’s grounds and his wife lying dead before them. Feel with raged he became an undead king, raised up the bodies of his family, and killed the noble and his family to exact his revenge (nice story). After accomplishing his vengeance he sought a means to end his life so he could rejoin his beloved life but all his attempts failed. Even using a holy sword on himself had no effect since he didn’t carry the title of Hero (forced to walk the Earth as an undead being that can’t be killed). Zen hands the holy sword to Satou and begs Satou to kill him which he does thus ending Zen’s life and allowing him to pass on to the afterlife. With Zen gone and Mia safe (wait for it), the Cradle starts its self-destruction sequence and they have to escape or die (well that’s one way to make the dungeon only one-time). Satou gathers up all the homunculus in the throne room and has them escape with Mia while he goes to get the remaining homunculus in the mid-boss area. He finds the homunculus and finds the dryad where he gives her seeds and three times the MP (that girl will suck you try) which allows her to teleport them outside of the Cradle and make a run for it as a large wave of salt is heading towards them (surfs up). Satou manages to outrun the salt wave (by using science) and meets back up with the others and homunculus who thank him for saving all of them (all for the good of the harem) and pledge their loyalty to him after they return from resting Zen’s wedding ring on his wife’s grave. However, they leave one of them behind to look after Satou and he names her Nana (scene here: https://youtu.be/t3cffNGZljk). Once they return to the city, Satou makes up a story about Zen to cover for him and tells Zena that he’s planning on returning Mia to her home and will be leaving soon (but he’ll be back. He can’t leave the main girl hanging). The next day he and his harem leave with Zena chasing after them (he’ll be back. He promised) where she tells Satou that come spring her brother will have officially become the head of their family and has given her free reign to do what she wants and what she wants to do is join Satou on his travels when that time comes and he says yes (scene here: https://youtu.be/SymGIitwTSQ, having her along with Liz and Nana will stop people from thinking he’s a lolicon).
We get a boring episode for episode 10. Satou and his harem are traveling where all they do is hunt, eat, learn how to leaf whistle, Satou makes dolls for everyone, and save a few rat-men from slavery who were soldiers that helped Mia escape. The only things that are interesting in this episode is Satou and Arisa finding some ruins which remind Satou of a temple he used to play at when he was little, Satou discovery how his storage and item box work and how they’re different from each other (the storage is better), and finally he creates a new spell which cleans people up in a jiffy.
Well episode 11 starts off on a good note with Satou actually getting laid at an inn by a hot waitress (scene here: scene here: https://youtu.be/7lNnizXzOyU. Alright, now that’s what I’m talking about. Other world animes need this more. I also like how he doesn’t freak out and just goes along with it. While he may have the body of a 16-year-old boy he has the mind of a 30-year-old man who’s used to sexual situations so nothing that’s about to happen freaks him out). The next day the group continues on their travels where Satou begins to take on alchemy and starts making his own potions for their travels (he truly is a jack of all trades). He does discover however that he needs a special vial to preserve his potions otherwise they’ll degrade in power. As they continue traveling, they come to a town where Satou tries to buy some vials from an alchemy shop but they’ve all been bought from someone else. Later that night, Satou goes to investigate a dark area on the map where he discovers the forest of illusions (which is surprisingly quite peaceful compared to other forest of illusions I’ve seen). Once there he meets the witch of the forest as well as her apprentice Ine who attacked him upon entering the forest. The witch and Ine are in the middle of making potions for the city of Sedum as part of a pact they have. In return for keeping the forest safe, the witch of the forest will give them 300 high grade potions. The witch offers to teach Satou a special recipe in return of him delivery a letter to a giant for her (now we have giants in this world. First time hearing of them). They arrive in Sedum city where Satou tries to take up pottery in the hopes of creating vials to store his potions in but the girls come and take him home (no more Harlem nights for you mister). The next day Ine gets attacked while trying to deliver the potions to Sedum and Satou saves her. However, once she reaches the city she crashes and 180 of the potions get destroyed in the crash (you didn’t think to reinforce the veils with magic?). They go and talk to Birkinz the viceroy of Sedum and explain the situation to him but he doesn’t care and wants his 300 potions by sundown or they’ll pact will be abolished. Satou easily figures out that Birkinz and Dosan (a wannabe noble) set Ine up because Birkinz wants to take over the land the forest is on as his own territory and rule over it. Satou uses his negotiations skills and works out a deal where he and the others will replace the broken potions with potions that are of the same quality as the witch’s by sundown thereby completing the pact. They gather up all the ingredients they’ll need but without the vials (which were all bought up by Dosan) it won’t matter.
The final episode is pretty uneventful. The group creates the vials and thanks to a new spell that Satou created (he’s like the MacGyver of spells) the vials get heated up quickly. When the vials are in the kiln, Dosan shows up and destroys it thinking he destroyed the vials, but Satou moved them all to his inventory and after using a wind spell to cool them down, they deliver the vials with the potions to Birkinz before the deadline. The lord of the land shows up exposing Birkinz’s underhanded dealings (throw the sword at him) and has him and Dosan arrested. After this, we end with a few fanservice scenes as Satou and the others continue to travel and Zena receiving a letter from Satou about his journey so far.
Final Thoughts
While granted, Death March Fantasy isn’t awful or as boring as the Smartphone isekai and there are a few good moments like Satou enjoying the world from the perspective of a game creator and not panicking when a sexual act comes his way, this anime is still bad in terms of an isekai anime. Despite Satou being OP he’s an uninteresting and bland character. Just because a character is OP doesn’t make him interesting. The rest of the characters aren’t interesting either. The only one that’s somewhat interesting is Arisa and even than it’s nothing to get too excited about. The world doesn’t give us anything new. Everything they show in this world is stuff that we’ve seen in other isekai animes. From the monster to the magic skills, it’s already been done and seen in other isekai animes. The title system was unique and the way they use it in the series was down the middle. Some parts are good like Satou maxing out his speech skills to talk his way out of situations but at other times it can be annoying and pointless. The animation and soundtrack are nothing to brag about and the fight scenes aren’t really that good either. The anime is slow-paced and doesn’t end on the best note. Some people have said this anime should have been 24 episodes and while that probably would have helped the anime from a story perspective it wouldn’t fix the major problems that the anime has. In the end this really does feel like a mediocre anime. It’s not awful but it adds nothing new to isekai nor does it try to be unique and have his own identity like other isekai when it had plenty of chances to stand out.
Final Score
My final score for Death March Fantasy is a 4/10. Whether this mediocre anime is good or bad is really up for you to decide. Are you okay with an isekai anime that’s just basic and doesn’t try to do anything different? Or are you looking for an isekai anime to stand out and have its own identity in a market that’s becoming saturated by this genre? Personally, I feel that if this anime had come out years earlier it would have been a hit. Maybe even seen as unique and original that would have aspired others, but in a time where we’re getting Overlord, Konosuba, Youjo Senki, and Re:Zero that are unique and changing the idea of what isekai anime are and can be, you really need to step up your game in this genre and present something new and unique or you’ll get left behind quickly. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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