Review of The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash

“The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash” is what happens when You want to write a feel-good story but have no idea how to do it well. Judging by the positive reviews I’m probably gonna get some flack for this but… This show is pretty bad when it comes to logical writing. A lot and I do mean A LOT of plot points happen only because they have to, to evoke sympathy for the main character and not because they make sense. It uses a lot of the same cheap tricks as “To Your Eternity” but does it more heavy headedly. Let meexplain…

The plot revolves around Ivy - an 8 year old girl posing as a boy (“Kino’s Journey” anyone?).
When she was 5 she partook in a ritual to reveal her skill and proficiency in it. Turns out our heroine, then still going by the name Femicia has zero start (I guess point in proficiency? That part is also not explained well). As a result her family and the whole village turned their back on her and practically exiled her. After some really bad plot BS she’s forced to run and pretend to be a boy in hopes she won’t get caught by the residents of her former village.
Apparently she’s a reincarnate and possesses her memories from the past life but I don’t think it’s the proper statement. It appears that her former self (or maybe part of it) is communicating with her at some level. They even have short conversations often. That’s not how memories work, then again the way she acts as a child is more in line with possessing those memories. I have no idea why that changes but for most of the show she acts almost like having an imaginary friend who happens to be from another world. It’s really poorly explained and to be fair I could probably think of other options what that voice in her head could be. As a protagonist she’s one of the worst types possible - the type that can do no wrong and the whole world bends over backwards for her (minus the village incident of course). Let me spell it out better. It’s an 8 year old kid, who can’t do anything wrong. Even when she does something really stupid, like… oh I don’t know… walk to a wounded predator.
Her brain damage doesn’t stop there. She witnessed firsthand that Sora (a unique slime, she tamed) is able to heal her wounds and yet was still reluctant to feed him her best healing potion. Yes. It’s a slime that eats magical potions, but only certain kinds.

The “tragedy” that was the catalyst of the whole show is also a bit idiotic. You want me to buy that parents who cared for a child for 5 years would so easily just reject her? I’m more inclined to believe that her siblings would do that, kids are assholes after all, but her own father and mother? I’m not buying it. Mere-exposure effect is a bitch after all. If I have to guess, the author wanted to have a very specific protagonist and wrote himself into a corner of how to logically achieve it. Despite its heavy handedness I guess it works. Not as good as it could be but a start is a start.

Now the second logical shit show. The whole skills and stars system. It’s stated that people have one special skill given by god and stars represent it’s power. Ok. Cool, but.. How does that work? There are people who can run fast but how does that relate to people running without that skill? Do other people can’t run at all? That’s not the case as we see in the show. Does someone who trains and runs for miles everyday could never be as fast as someone with even 1 star? We meet a woman who has 4 stars (apparently a very unique trait) in cooking. But Ivy’s cooking is said to be delicious. How is it compared to someone with a starred skill? The whole system is poorly explained and full of logical flaws. Ivy has zero stars and yet was able to, I guess “tame” is the wrong word for it, “befriend” maybe… a dangerous predator that most tamers can’t tame. How does that work? Don’t give me the crap about the “power of kindness” or some other bs, let’s call it what it is “Plot armor” and “lazy world building”.

When it comes to people Ivy meets during her travels they are… basically NPCs. Most have one trait pumped up to 11 and pretend it’s character. They are there to tell Ivy how awesome she is and basically pump her self esteem. Listen, I get it. Ivy had a shitty episode (no, she didn’t have a shitty life, her first 5 years are portrayed as pretty good and full of love) and it’s good to have a scene where she’s praised and where she can feel that she’s not unwanted, but don’t give me that shit every 5 minutes. It defeats the point of having a story about a hard life and making something from it.

The other thing is that she isn’t really shown to struggle much. She finds a lot of useful things in trash heaps and people she only just met help her out. To the point that the whole of city guards in one of the cities watch out for her and protect her at every step. They must really not have much work.

The last arc really pissed me off when it comes to logic. A 8 year old girl (well… I guess for everyone she's a boy) practically accuses an adventuring party of benign the big bad guys and she doesn’t even have to give proof before everyone just believes her? She’s among a group of adventurers and she just tells them that another group whose members are friends of some of them, work for a shady organization and they just buy it? 8-fucking-year-old-kid! Because kids are known for their detective skills. Listen, I get it. She tells them about Sora’s power to detect lies but she does that AFTER accusing someone and only AFTER the adventurers give her self-worth a blow job. EFF THAT! That's one of the most idiotic if not the most idiotic plot points of the show. After that, they even let her come up with plans to arrest everyone. Are people in the city guard or other adventurers so incompetent that they need a child to do their work for them? It’s a bit like in most Final Fantasy games the world does jack shit and a bunch of kids have to save everyone and everything. No one questions Ivy, her education or even has a conspiracy theory about why a goddamn 8 year old practically plans a SWAT operation.

Sorry to say but the show is full of cliches and cheap tricks. Main of them is Ivy being scared and on the verge of crying. That state is enough for her to summon some kind of deus ex machina to get her out of trouble. Adventurers believed her without proof after she saw her like that. A town guard captain decided to help her with almost everything after he scared her a few times (unintentionally). I can forgive one, maybe two such cases but it goes on throughout the whole damn show. It’s like the writers never read a book in their lives and use only the same repetitive shit You see in other anime and movies nowadays.

Do I think this is a bad show? No. Despite having lazy writing and using cheap tricks to make You care about Ivy the execution is solid. I would even say that there are exceptional moments when the music and visuals work perfectly together. I can honestly admit that there were moments when I actually enjoyed myself watching it. But that’s not the question that MAL asks. The question is “Would you recommend this?”. The answer is no. There are shows that are much better in the writing department so unless You have a preference for shows where You don’t have to think, there are little to no stakes and the whole world bends over backwards for the MC I really can't recommend it.