Review of CHOYOYU!: High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World!
Honestly, I’ve been looking over quite a few reviews - ya know, expecting to find something that aligns with what I thought & experienced - and, although I understand the “bandwagon” that’s going on here (a mix between what we’ll call “Isekai’itis” - a cultural mob-like vexation and/or loathing of the Isekai genre for the ‘milk-cow’ that it is, currently - and ‘anime-elitism’ that stems from a shared desire for “just another taste from the fruit-garden of the gods”, which is rather understandable as most of us have our fair share of incredible narratives or spectacular or state-of-the-art abstract animation and art styles, or evenjust ‘something that moved us’), it’s extremely unreasonable to project such high standards unto a show that, from the very start, was only trying to be “fun”.
‘High School Prodigies blah blah blah’ is a show about 7 supposed-geniuses that get “carted to another world” (aka “Isekai’d”) and, basically, put all of their expertise to work in... well... starting a bloody (figuratively and literally) revolution unto the “oppressive empire and their sovereign liege, His Majesty, The Emperor” - a being so impressive that, it’s said, the world and all its inhabitants exist purely to be sacrifices for “his majesty” (punctuation intended).
...I’m just gonna refer to the show as ‘ProdigiesXL’ from here.
Anyways: ProdigiesXL is a show that aims to be ‘an adventure with tons of ridiculous feats going on, but with as little exposition as possible’—and it accomplishes just that. Even though ‘just about everything’ that the Group of 7 and Co. do happen to be absolutely super-human, you don’t really find yourself “sweating the small stuff” cos the show, itself, never takes itself seriously in this regard either. It’s just about ‘sounding awesome’ and ‘tying itself together (despite the “zero-exposition” policy it holds) perfectly enough that none of its “very obvious flaws” actually matter’. I think this is where many people really miss the point about this show: it’s a bit of a ‘super heroes/super humans’ vs ‘high school Isekai’ cross that wants to blend Magic/Fantasy with Modern-Day Realistic Tech (be it medicine, physics, or, lel, capitalism) - and I happen to think that it does an amazing job of doing so ‘as a Shounen’.
That’s the thing: this is a Shounen Isekai that pits a bunch of Mary Sues against Magical Forces of Nature - and it does so in a super fun AND methodical way! Throughout the 12 episodes of ProdigiesXL, every one of the 7 main characters gets an arc mostly-dedicated to “them strutting their stuff”, and it never gets confusing nor ‘feel convoluted’, ya know? It’s interesting because: here you have a show that’s trying to do an enormous amount of things in an extremely-short span of time, yet it’s simultaneously trying to be balanced, episode by episode, in being both ‘digestible’ AND ‘simple-fun’. ... THAT’S NOT EASY, YO. The pacing of ProdigiesXL is insanely good—making the ‘enjoyment-factor’ an easy 10/10.
Having said all of that: yes, the art and sound aren’t high-value. 7&5/10, respectively. The art was never ‘garbage’ or ‘inconsistent’, it just was never planned to budget for more than what it produced; and the sound was never a problem, and even the fight-scene folly was pretty good, but just like the art, they intentionally limited themselves to fit the budget - and they did so without damaging any of the ‘viewing-experience’.
On top of that: with 7 characters and 3 rather-significant extras AND a good 4-8 bonus characters, between the 12 episodes provided... although I have no idea what/how the manga goes (or... is there a Light Novel for this? Nfi - but probably) and how much it [they?] elaborate on each character for the volumes covered, it’s fair to say that Tsukasa (the ‘politician prodigy’ dude with different-coloured eyes) is the main character for this season/show. The show advertises itself as “7 kids go Isekai’ing”, but it’s fair to complain about the fact that a large amount of the story revolves around him as the protagonist - which, to be fair, isn’t unreasonable as he’s both the ‘least’ and ‘most’ talented of them all, as far as the story thus-far goes, and he’s also the (what you could call) “sheep-herder” of all the main cast.
These two points on the sound/art and the character-building are fair complaints—but I’d like to remind you all that ‘most Shounens are like this’ and you’re missing the point if you focus on ‘glass a bit empty’ rather than ‘glass pretty full’. ProdigiesXL is a really fun and light experience that manages to cram a ton of progression, characters, non-confrontational politics, and a fun blend of ‘magic meets science’ into an incredibly-digestible production.
Action, mind-games, pseudo-morality that’s hard to object to or be challenged by but isn’t mindless either (“a story of the people, by the people!”-kind of thing), armies and heroes, fun fanservice & light-hearted and inoffensive comedy, and... most of all, I mean, even if the title says “Isekai prodigies have it easy etc”, ...for once they actually don’t. The balance in this show between ‘our overpowered protagonists’ and, what would normally be “the human steppingstones”, is more of a Back and Forth of power-escalation that is almost-always seen in Shounens yet very rarely seen in Isekais—that’s what makes ProdigiesXL a fun and good show!
Yes, this isn’t “the next Fate; Zero” or “Re: Zero”, but it never intended nor was meant to be—quite the opposite in fact, as it simply had a goal of “an experience” that it knew (and budgeted) to deliver and, quite frankly, I believe it did - for me, at least.
If I were judging on facts, comparisons, objective analysis, etc, I’d probably give it a 7/10—but I’m not, I’m judging on ‘what I think it wanted to achieve’, and ‘how well I think it achieved “exactly that”’.
9/10. Bravo, you ‘humble show that’s only desire was to immerse its viewers in the “escapist-equivalent” of junk food’. ... (Second season, please)...