Review of I'm Standing on a Million Lives

(TL;DR This would have been average had the writing been anything but trash for much of it; it’s actually quite enjoyable in an endearing way, because it tries so hard to be good. If you don’t mind storytelling incompetence, this might be worth the watch. It's only 12 episodes, after all.) Crunchyroll certainly picked a fine couple of anime to promote for simulcast this season, didn’t they? Noblesse kinda gave them a giant pile of nothing, but at least this gave their viewers some fine entertainment value. Well, OK, maybe “fine” is not appropriate, but this show was nonetheless consistently among myfavorite viewings all throughout the season. The reason for this varied greatly from week to week, because boy howdy was this a roller coaster ride of quality.

Like all good stories, things start off innocently enough. Yuusuke Yotsuya is an unpopular loser whose only skill in life is at video games. He holds a grudge against society for how his life has turned out so far and hates or at the very least distrusts everyone he knows. Suddenly, he is transported to another world that functions on RPG logic along with two of his girl classmates who have been there previously, where he learns that they’re heroes meant to save the world etc. He learns this from the Game Master, who is this reliably funny (no seriously, he’s actually funny) entity in the role of DM.

Much of the early discussion about this show was based around comparisons to KonoSuba, likely due to the early emphasis on humor, which centers around how laughably underpowered and useless everyone is because they’re so comically low-leveled, and Yuusuke has a hyper-niche (read: useless) character class to boot. Additionally, the instructions everyone was given are extremely vague and unhelpful, resulting in our heroes stumbling their way to success. A lot like KonoSuba.

Which turned out to be an unfair comparison to make, not only because KonoSuba is the best at what it does, but also because Million Lives isn’t really supposed to be a comedy: it’s a drama, people. See? It says so quite clearly on the sidebar. What do you mean you couldn’t tell; don’t you remember our protagonist menacingly saying he wanted to destroy the entire city earlier? Clearly this show demands you take it seriously. I certainly didn’t, though, so maybe that’s why the comedy was so effective on me, both at the beginning and when the show very occasionally got out of its bad-drama-induced stupors.

Because oh my god this drama is terrible and impossible to take seriously. I haven’t seen anything quite like it, really, because on paper it’s perfectly fine. Good, I dare say. But the execution, the way they adapted these ideas visually… it just didn’t work, to put it mildly. One scene from early on that sticks out in particular is when Yuusuke’s three women compatriots were captured by bandits. One of the guards says something to the other that implies that he’s going to sexually exploit the ladies as he opens the door and enters their cell, and then we cut to Yuusuke leading the rescue operation with the knights he spent the episode recruiting. When we cut back, bizarrely, the scene in the bandit’s dungeon is shot exactly like it was before we cut away. After a few seconds of not even acknowledging what went down before the cut away, it’s then revealed that the ladies somehow fended this guy off. Even though it’s already been established that none of the heroes can harm humans in this world without losing a ton of experience, but whatever I guess since they never address the consequences of this. This information was conveyed in a way that was supposed to be comedic, I think. This is a standard example of how this show executes its drama scenes. You saw how I mentioned this idea of the heroes suffering a loss of experience when they harm humans, even in situations where no rational person could say this harm was being done immorally. This is a fantastic idea to incorporate into one’s story, but, even though the idea had already been incorporated, it was completely forgotten in this scene, and in the greater story it doesn’t come up all that often outside of this arc.

And that’s the gist of the show’s problems, really. Writing quality is an especially important element of dramas, as your story needs to be at a baseline level of consistency to make your audience emotionally connect with your characters. The drama in this show feels so ineffective because issues like I described in the above example are everywhere. The elements to make the drama work are all there, and we intuitively feel like this should be affecting us more, but because they’re so incompetently assembled it just doesn’t work.

The characterization is in the same boat. Much to my surprise, despite the best efforts of the actual storytelling, by the show’s conclusion 50% of the main 4 characters had undergone convincing character development and had appeared to grow from their journey. So a thumbs up is in order there, I guess. Additionally, everyone has a perfectly serviceable backstory and acts in much the way you would expect them to, given those backstories. The problem is, not much is done with these backstories outside of giving everyone their shounen hero moment after they flashback and suddenly find the strength to break out of the cornered situation they were in.

And just when it’s enough to make me tap out, suddenly the drama ends and the comedy act returns. Comedic scenes are clumped together throughout the show, and overall don’t have much of an impact outside of the few episodes they’re focused on, but they’re a real godsend once you get to them. They definitely aren’t anywhere close to the quality of KonoSuba, but they’re still effective. They’re just like any decent shounen’s comedy, just a silly series of events that will probably put a smile on your face. Or at least make you less miserable.

So how did this show end up like this? A lack of experience is my best guess. I can’t speak to the writing quality of the manga, but what is notable for this anime adaptation is that the director (and most of the staff in general) are brand new to their roles. The director has only ever worked as an assistant director on a couple (by which I mean literally two) shows prior to this, and that is the entire extent of the experience that was brought to this project. Suddenly, the incompetence makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s hard to be angry with the directors in situations like these. It’s still a real shame though, because, although the manga is far from perfect itself judging from its MAL score, there are so many potentially great ideas bubbling below this show’s surface, in addition to its other qualities. The show looks pretty good in general, with great visuals all around and competent enough everything else production-wise.

Studio Maho Film likely assigned their staff with learning in mind. And while I think it’s considerably unlikely that the writing in each episode was produced chronologically (though maybe it was, I don’t know anything about TV production), I like to believe a lot was learned on this job, because I genuinely thought the final arc of the season was an incredible improvement that I really enjoyed watching, which is hopefully indicative of a much-improved season 2. The storytelling suddenly improved drastically, and it honestly became quite hype. This was of course immediately followed by a return to old habits as the show suddenly remembers how much of a psychopath Yuusuke supposedly is even though he spends 99% of the season not being one, but by that point the show’s tendency to do things like this became quite endearing.

I’ll be honest. This show is mostly complete trash, but I can’t help but kind of love it, even the unbearable drama. Not even in a guilty pleasure kind of way, I just genuinely love how hard it tries. It’s the epitome of the little engine that could this season. Said engine combusted into a fireball before even getting out of the station, but it kept trucking along anyway. You gotta respect that. In conclusion, I can’t wait for season 2!