Review of I'm Standing on a Million Lives
100-man is a show that I really did try to like. I feel like my dislike for the show may just be down to the fact that Isekai is my fave genre and I’ve seen so much of it that I’ve become jaded. Regardless, I can only write and comment on how I feel. Premise wise, I think many people will enjoy what 100-man is about since it deviates quite a bit from traditional isekai tropes. For one, the characters are not permanently stuck in the new world, for two there is no harem and lastly, the MC is not super OP, but is infact pretty weak. The last point is quite significant. Mainly because one of the biggest issues people traditionally have with isekai is that the OP protagnoist removes all tension, drama or mystery in the series.
No matter what, you know the MC will overcome it with some power-up. Yotsuya being stuck in classes that are not really suited for combat forces him to rely on his companions and creates a rather unique dynamic. So story wise, 100-man may be for you if you want to try something different.
Personally, I found the characters to be quite bland. We get episodes that flesh out the characters backstories and their motivations, which I appreciated, but in shows like this that are pretty character driven, it’s important to connect to the characters and I just never could. From what I’ve been told, the arc that takes place after this in the manga is really good, so I will potentially check that out at a later time, but in terms of the anime’s arcs, I was not impressed.
From a technical standpoint, I was underwhelmed by the animation and art quality of the show. It’s not bad by any stretch, but I didn’t find it particularly pleasing either. The fight scenes were “meh” for me and I never really got into any of the hype scenes.
Overall, 100-man is a show that in all fairness does have some good things going for it. I appreciate that it tries to be unique, tries to introduce new concepts and does have potential. But, it just wasn’t for me and was my least favourite show this season. 100-man gets 5 game masters out of 10.