Review of The Fruit of Evolution: Before I Knew It, My Life Had It Made
Recommendation: On an objective level, there is almost nothing positive to say about this series, and it is easily one of the worst shows I have ever seen. And yet it was so bad that I actually perversely enjoyed it. If you enjoy watching bad shows ironically, this is a fun one, but otherwise steer clear. Story: Our protagonist Seiichi is a fat loser with no friends when his entire high school class is transported to a fantasy world. The god that transported them takes pity on friendless and bullied Seiichi, giving him the ability to eat Fruits of Evolution, which more or lessevolve him beyond being human and make him on par with a god almost instantly. This is a pure power fantasy through and through, and is not to be taken seriously in any way. The show itself knows this, often lampshading its own ridiculous isekai cliches and showing some level of self awareness, but that doesn't actually make the story very interesting. The rest of Seiichi's class is shipped off to Barbador Magic Academy to train as heroes, and it seems clear that something is going to happen with them if this ever gets a second season, but just going off of what we get in the first season, it's a completely pointless dead end of a subplot, as Seiichi still has yet to see or interact with them in any way by the end of the season, even though there are usually a few scenes about them in each episode. In general, the rest is highly predictable, with a new girl showing up in most episodes, having a personal crisis solved by Seiichi's ridiculous power level, and joining his harem. The harem, by the way, is mostly animals that have also eaten Fruits of Evolution and become human, but they also transform back and forth, so you get treated to the occasional sight of Seiichi kissing a big pink gorilla on the lips, for example. It's certainly unique and ridiculous and the spectacle almost makes it worth putting up with this complete nothingburger of a story.
Audio: Have you ever wished for a show where Zenitsu from Kimetsu no Yaiba would do his whole obnoxious screaming routine for 25 minutes straight every week? Because that's pretty much what you have here. There are a lot of things that make this show bad, but this is the thing that makes it close to unwatchable.
Visual: Cheap and lazy animation to an almost shocking extent. This show looks like its budget was whatever change the studio found in the couch cushions. Animation is stiff and unnatural-looking, action scenes are almost all slideshows, and there are cut corners everywhere, sometimes to the point of hilarity. I specifically remember one scene where they put a reaction pop up bubble over the head of a character who was already on screen just so they didn't have to animate him turning his head toward the camera so you could see his expressions. The only positive thing you can really say here is that at least they didn't go full CGI for the series, because that's about the only way it could have looked worse.
Characters: What characters? At most, you have a few one-note gag characters like Guscle, the muscular bodybuilder of a guild leader that only ever wears thongs. Seiichi is a blank slate isekai protagonist, and apart from a bit of minor character development around Artoria and her inability to get close to anyone because of her bad luck, all of the harem members are 100% devoid of any personality beyond "really likes Seiichi".
In conclusion, this show just sucks. It literally doesn't do anything right or have any redeeming qualities, and I certainly can't recommend it in good faith. But if you're someone like me that gets a kind of sick enjoyment from watching something terrible just so you can experience how completely idiotic it is firsthand and make fun of it, then this is one of the best of that specific type of show out there.