Review of Isekai Quartet

If nothing else, I appreciate the sheer cynical genius behind Isekai Quartet. Isekai is the most popular genre in anime right now, Kadokawa owns the rights to some of its most popular entries, so what’s the quickest ticket to printing all the money imaginable? Have them all cross over in a silly gag spin-off,using the combined star power of all these successful casts to rake in fans from across the anime spectrum, encouraging fans of one show to check out the others ones in the process, while banking on the relative quality of all the shows in question to make for an enjoyable experience onits own merits. That’s on par with the MCU when it comes to Galaxy Brain brand-IP management. And for what it’s worth, I give it all the credit in the world for achieving exactly what it set out to do. Isekai Quartet tosses the casts of Re:Zero, Konosuba, Overlord, and Youjo Senki together into a high school slice-of-life comedy short, transporting them from their own individual parallel worlds to yet another parallel world that requires them to follow classroom etiquette and generally get along with each other. The stage is set for wacky hijinks, in-jokey references, and conversations between all your favorite characters, all while the series itself begins establishing its own mildly intriguing internal lore as to why all these disparate worlds came crashing together in the first place.

The obvious appeal of a show like this is going to be in how well it can capture the spirit of the shows it crosses over. And what ultimately makes Isekai Quartet a worthwhile time, despite some flaws that I’ll get to in a second, is that it excels at this task. You never doubt for a second that the characters you see traipsing around the classroom are the same lovable idiots you’ve seen in their own shows countless times before. The writing does a fantastic job capturing the feel of every cast’s respective chemistry, to the point where I wonder if the original scriptwriters were working on the dialogue. And with the communal classroom setting, there’s a lot of fun to be had in seeing how everyone’s archetypes play into classic high school student archetypes. Konosuba’s cast are the stoner losers, blabbering their thoughts in a stream of unhinged improv-adjacent consciousness, courtesy of the fantastic seiyuu performances. Re:Zero’s gang are the jocks of the group, confidently taking charge with tightly written, intricately interwoven quips flying between them a mile a minute. Youjo Senki’s battalion are the preps who handle every situation with dorky seriousness, trying to keep a straight, formal face in the midst of all this madness. And Overlord’s people are... hm... I dunno, the utterly obnoxious LARPers who get way too into their roles and everyone’s too polite to tell them to stop? Look, Overlord fucking sucks, so if nothing else, Isekai Quartet properly represents how mealy, pasteboard and stiff that show is.

Which brings me to the first big issue: your enjoyment of Isekai Quartet will depend heavily on how much you like the individual shows. If you’re not invested in at least half of the properties I mentioned, you’re probably better off staying away. For my personal tastes, obviously, any time the cast of Overlord took center stage was an exercise in sighing heavily and waiting for it to get back to the characters I actually liked. But I also find it weird that Saga of Tanya the Evil was one of the properties chosen to cross over. I mean, that show is now known for its ensemble cast like the rest of the quarter here; Tanya and Viktoria are pretty much the only memorable characters. And none of the completely interchangeable soldiers who transport over with them leave any sort of impression here either, which just begs the question of why Kadokawa didn’t choose another popular isekai with a stronger character dynamic to take its place. I mean, Tanya’s story is all about plot and big ideas, it’s not well-suited to this kind of gag spin-off. Thankfully, Tanya herself remains a fantastic character here, so it’s not a total wash, and the remaining two properties are still as solid as ever. I think re-uniting with the Konosuba cast after so long really made me appreciate how much their seiyuus add to these roles; their voices are all so cackle-inducingly elastic, able to snap like a rubber band between low-key snark and utter batshit lunacy at the drop of a hat. And, of course, there’s Re:Zero, my favorite isekai of all time in no small part thanks to its wonderful ensemble dynamic, and I’m pleased to say it hasn’t lost an ounce of its charm. Any more time spent watching Ram’s incredible deadpan act is music to my ears.

But up until now, I’ve mainly been talking about the shows as separate entities. This is a crossover, isn’t it? What about the fun of watching them all clash and collide and fulfill every fanfiction author’s wet dream of seeing how X would interact with Y? Well, that’s where my real enduring problem with Isekai Quartet lies; it does not take good advantage of its premise. For a crossover show, we spend far too much time with each cast isolated in their own little community, rehashing and reheating the comedy dynamic of their own universe without expanding it to include everyone else’s influence. The appeal of this show should be seeing how people from different worlds would interact, but I don’t think even half of the show’s runtime is allotted to conversations between the four different properties. Sure, they’re all hanging out in the same classroom, but they’re mostly bouncing off Re:Zero’s Roswaal as their campy, sadistic teacher, with very little time to actually talk to each other. The bits we do get are great; Kazuma and Subaru’s meet-cute in episode 4 is everything you could possibly want it to be. And Aqua’s eternal rage boner for Ainz’ undead presence is probably the funniest joke anyone’s ever told with that character. Hell, I’ll even say that Ainz is able to show some genuine pathos and nuance in his conversation with Tanya, where he finally gets to act as himself instead of an all-imposing skeletal demigod. These bits and pieces do everything you would want from a crossover like this, bringing out everyone’s best qualities and making something even more entertaining in their collision. So why does this show feel so averse to actually letting that happen?

Maybe part of the problem is how big the casts are; I feel like it was a mistake to transport so many characters from each show over, as with so little time to spread around so many people, everyone outside of the leads from each show ends up feeling pretty shortchanged. And it doesn’t help that since Overlord has the biggest cast, they end up getting a lot of time in the spotlight, and, well, like I said above, Overlord fucking sucks, so that ends up being a drain on things (plot twist, this review is just my excuse to shit on Overlord some more). My solution? Limit the scope: have no more than four characters from every show. Obviously, the village idiots from Konosuba are fine as is. Re:Zero’s motley crew would work with just Subaru, Emilia and the demon sisters; Ram’s snark kinda removes the need for Beatrice to be there if she’s not an integral story element as well. Youjo Senki can pair itself down to Tanya, Viktoria, that one mullet guy whose name I forget, and one more soldier. And Overlord... eh, I’d say Ainz, Albedo, Shalltear and Demiurge, they’re the most important characters in the show, so they’d be the best option, and it’s not like the rest of the Tomb of Nazarick is any more interesting. Point is, with that decreased scope, I think the show would allow itself a lot more freedom to find consistently fun and interesting things to do with the characters it allowed itself. Because come on, guys, how can you have Megumin and Emilia in the same show and never have them interact? You’ve got two iconic roles by one of the best up-and-coming anime actresses, and you don’t make a point of showing off her talents by making her play them off each other? It’s like they tried to make this the least interesting version of itself they possibly could.

Still, for all my gripes and frustrations, I can’t deny that I still had a lot of fun with Isekai Quartet. Maybe it’s cheap, maybe it’s base, maybe I’m just a cog in a marketing machine, but you know what? Sometimes, it’s okay just to hang out with all your favorite fictional friends and not expect much more than a good time well told. This ain’t no masterpiece here, and I hope the inevitable second season finds more time to spend on the inter-cast dynamics, but I still had fun catching up with old friends and reminding myself why I fell in love with them in the first place. And now, the speculation begins on which new franchise(s) is/are being added in for the second season. Anyone know what other big isekai properties Kadokawa owns? Because I’ve got a sinking feeling that I might need to actually watch Shield Hero to prepare for season. God help us all.