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

Saijaku Tamer is about precocious girl Ivy who is rejected by her village and family for not having good enough powers. Because having a power rating below a certain level is very uncommon, she gets the reputation as a cursed child, essentially. As a result, she gets scapegoated for the village's problems and has to make her escape. She decides to follow the advice of the local fortune teller, basically her surrogate mother after everything goes wrong for her, and travel to specific city quite a ways away. This anime is thus an adventure story where she discovers her tamer powers and meets people onthe road to that faraway city. It's kind of a daily log of what she does, who she meets, and how she manages the dangers and uncertainties of traveling with a positive, though cautious attitude. This child MC makes better decisions and is better at avoiding self-sabotage than most MCs, but the plot doesn't paint her as a genius, nor do the adults treat her like one; she is a legit child surviving in a world that's treated her harshly. I think she's one of the best, least frustrating child MCs I've seen in quite some time.

Unlike most anime you watch, this anime has heart, a character to emotionally connect to, and a coherent world for the main character to explore; a lot of anime have that lingering feeling that they're cobbled together on a shoe-string budget with no attention to detail or consideration of the soul of the story. This anime is not like that at all; it feels fully intentional and able to tell a story based on the MC's emotions, trust, and relationships. On top of that, the animation is beautiful and there is no fan service. It says a lot that this anime has a child MC but is not at all "cute girl does cute things" nor is it reverse harem nor is it a power fantasy.

I think this show is a real gem amongst the lifeless copy-pasted seasonal isekai that supersaturate the market these days; it has an isekai premise but it's extremely de-emphasized and subtle about it's "reincarnated protagonist" theme--basically a bell rings and MC hears something we don't, which she interprets to be her from her previous life communicating with her. There seem to be secrets and things deliberately not told, which I think is good suspense and a lingering anxiety throughout the anime.

All in all, it's not a super action-y anime, but I think it's still pretty entertaining and compelling. MC's power - if you can even call it that - develops slowly and organically as she moves between villages, makes money, and survives. It looks good, it avoids every lowest common denominator isekai temptation, and gives you enough in terms of animation, theming, and solid writing to make you feel something for the MC. A pleasant surprise, highly recommended.