Review of Ya Boy Kongming!

There is a reason why we all watch Anime. That given some disposable time we choose to watch anime, and not western TV shows. It doesn't matter what it exactly is for you, or how specific that reason might be - Kongming embodies that spirit of anime uniqueness so strongly that it rises above any differences in that regard, and reminds us why we choose to spend our time watching this medium, and care deeply enough to read a review of a Japaneese cartoon on a website called "MyAnimeList". "What do you mean SussyJack? Surely there must have been some reverse isekai stories done in traditionalwestern works of culture, right? So how can it be so unique?"
I'm so glad you asked. Yes, you certainly are right. Some even achieved a "cult classic" status, like "Les Visiteurs". And there indeed have been numerous others. So what do I mean by all of this? What is the difference?

The difference is how the premise of reverse isekai is executed. In EVERY SINGLE OTHER WORK, the entire storytelling axis of the movie/tv show hinges on the heroes of the story being portrayed as bumbling idiots who are unfamiliar with the modern world, and "hilarious antics ensuing":
"hey, look, he went to the bathroom, and he doesn't know how to use a toilet...!!! HAHAHAHHAHA LOOLOLOLOLOLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL"
"haha, he was told to contact this guy, but he doesn't know how to use a telephone!!!111111 XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD"
Fuck off. This is maybe one level above literal no-context potty humor, and is the entire identity of all western reverse isekai stories.

In Kongming, this entire axis of storytelling gets disposed of in THIRTY SECONDS, in a scene that is very humorous (like, actually humorous) to boot, the scene where he keeps asking Eiko questions, and finally asks about the Blockchain and she gets cutely anime-angry, lol. What instead is Kongming's identity is a mature story about pursuing your dreams, overcoming obstacles, complicated friend/rival relationships with conflicting motivations, all dipped in a sauce of Kongming shenanigans and Three Kingdom references.
This perfectly encapsulates what in my opinion is the essence of anime - the juxtaposition of a medium that is deemed to be "childish" and writing that oftentimes is more mature than "normal" movies/tv, and thanks to the perceived lightness of the medium can tackle some themes head on, without constant "hehe we're totally doing this ironically wink wink" signalling. This is something that you will not find anywhere else, and is the reason why we're all gathered here today.

For an anime to be "eligible" for a 10/10 from me, it needs to basically satisfy 2 conditions: It has to have a very high quality throughout with no obvious, glaring drawbacks (like the excruciatingly slow start in Steins gate or existence of Zenitsu), and in addition to the very high quality throughout it needs to have at least one element that is head and shoulders above the average seen in anime. In my opinion, Kongming has 3 such elements:

1. Mindblowing premise and its execution (went over that above)
2. Mindblowing opening number that is a shoehorn for best OP for the year, it singlehandedly forced a situation where the only relevant question in this category for the rest of 2022 is "is this OP better than Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?"
3. Mindblowingly good technical aspects of writing (more on that below)

What I mean by technical aspects of writing? So you know how sometimes you can see that the author had a list of events/plot points in mind, and while on their own they might be fine, good even, they are crudely stiched together with no regard for the transition quality, whether this destroys the show's pacing or character's motivations/development up until now and such. One example of this would be the infamous Annie eating cake scene from Attack on Titan - where the author clearly had two plot points in mind - Eren becoming the Founder/the whole fight on the island and the rest of the squad forming Avengers to stop him, and paid no mind to how a transition between these "arcs" looks like, how it goes completely against the tone and characters up until that point, just rushed it out in order to get to the action scenes.

In Kongming, every such aspect is a 10 out of 10 perfection. Some quick examples of what I mean:

- Everything about Nanami, like the way she looks/is drawn, how she speaks, how the VA plays her etc. screams that Azalea and the produced image "is not her", so her being dissatisfied with it doesn't come off as a forced storyline just to make her join eiko or quit Azalea or whatever, but as a very natural consequence of what she wants to do, what plans she has for her musical future and such. Many storylines in many animes where the temporary antagonist in the end joins the protag feel so awfully shoehorned, like somebody hammered a square into a circle-shaped hole just because it is a plot point the author envisioned, but here it makes perfect sense, you don't even question it once.

- The Key Time manager (Karasawa) is not a caricaturally guy but just a normal music business producer/"operator" who prioritizes making a profit. He isn't viciously exploiting 3 innocent girls because they mistakenly signed a contract or some shit, but that they went into this to escape the rut they were in - that way there is major tension in the story between their pure desires vs them coming to like the new reality of money and fame (at least the other 2).

- The first half of the show had a procedural, "case of the week" feel to it (it is not inherently bad by any stretch, just stating a fact) - where they go up against a singer/musician, kongming employs an elaborate strategy, and they manage to win against all odds. Then the show went into a buildup mode without any cases of the week, which prevented the pacing of the show from being formulaic and makes sure the episodes are not necessarily always "self-contained-arcs" with little-to-no carryover. But after a few episodes of that some more adhd-inclined watchers could be a bit worried about the slower pace maybe? So the show included a "timeskip" of 7 days at the end of ep 8, showing that the pace will be picking up next time, instantly alleviating these concerns. This "pacing yoyo" masterfully differentiated the tempo of the story, preventing it from becoming stale.

- Sometimes when the VA's cannot pull off a strong enough musical performance, the producers bring in singing voice doubles, but when this is not previously foreshadowed in any way at all (one example which comes to mind is the concert at the cultural festival in My Hero Academia), this takes you out of the immersion, that you feel a distinct "transition" from episode as normal -> big performance -> rest of the episode. Here, Nanami and Eiko just had singing doubles the entire time, which was absolutely the correct decision - you get used to it on episode 1, so there are no surprised down the road, and not to forget that they are supposed to basically shift the mood of anybody who listens to them on command, so bringing in top singer talent was completely warranted here.

And there is literally not a single, even smallest cog in the whole story/show like the ones I've listed above that is not completely natural, that doesn't make perfect sense given the tone of the plot and setting, and which is not absolutely perfect.

Some dare I say less in-depth reviews tend to be limited to a simple list of pros and cons. I rejected writing a review in such a format from the outset, but then I had this realization - if I HAD to, what would I even include in the cons list? I tried to come up with some "possibles" and, well, pretty much failed.
- The fact that they only sang one song during Eiko's, gigantic airquotes, "training montage" and didn't add any others? That was done on purpose, to "show not tell" her progress by having us hear the difference between first renditions of "I'm still alive today" and the rooftop performance. It clearly wasn't dictated by lack of budget or whatever, because there are other fully produced songs (Be crazy for me, Underworld, Roppongi Udon Shop/Dreamer)
- The fact that the show about midway through abandoned the "case of the week" style, and went into a buildup period? As I've mentioned above this was a very intricate way of differentiating the pacing of the story, so it doesn't become stale and it didn't. You cannot have payoff without buildup. and the only gripe people usually have with "buildup" episodes is that they're a slog to get through because you have to to perservere to get to the payoff instead of being instantly gratified, but the buildup here was not boring at all for 99% of the time.

Like, I genuinely cannot come up with a single drawback for this show that would not be an argument in absurdly bad faith, or a complete stretch. The only time the show in my opinion had a crack in the armor of perfection was on episode 10, the last buildup episode. That is the one time I had a tinge of a "hm, I wish something more would happen" feeling during the episode, but again I am only bringing this up because I am purposefully trying to find anything that was less than perfect.

The musical performances are breathtaking. The emotional scenes, which often ARE the musical performances, are heart-stopping. The funny scenes make actually make you laugh out loud. The slice-of-life scenes make you nostalgic for your college days.

It's been a LOOOONG time since I've looked forward to an episode of anime each week this much. It was a perfect condensation of anime-endemic uniqueness injected straight into your heart (and ears). instant 10/10. Let me put it like this - if you planned to only ever once follow some MAL user's advice that "you must see this show, this is amazing!!" use your "one time" on me and Kongming, satisfaction guaranteed.