Review of Redo of Healer
Felt compelled to leave a review because of the poor reception this seemed to have had in the West. A lot of nasally YouTube anime channels denigrating the anime and the people who enjoyed it, calling them "edge lords" and the like; and acting as if they themselves are standing on some sort of moral high ground for chewing it out. A lot of projection, really. And it speaks more to their immaturity of what I suspect is them being unable to handle something that makes them feel squeamish and/or isn't compatible with their PC programming. The anime was very satisfying and cathartic. Most isekai dropthe ball after a few episodes and become a generic shounen. But Kaifuku Jutsushi no Yarinaoshi kept itself engaging the whole way through. Often in a revenge-type scene of a similar manner, I will think the creator could have done more and left it rather generic or censored; here, the creator tends to surpass expectations of what kind of creative torture the protagonist is capable of.
He doesn't just want revenge, he wants to utterly break his wrongdoers physically and psychologically and in the most degrading ways possible. You are supposed to feel uncomfortable and disturbed during these scenes that depict torture, as his twisted machinations are meant to match or surpass that which was done to him. If you water it down, I doubt it would have the same effect, given the plot is so focused on his specific acts of revenge. I did unfortunately only see the censored version, though, so I cannot comment on the uncensored; but I suspect my opinion wouldn't change in the presence of nudity. The censored version implied enough.
The main thrust of this is the revenge angle, the harem and other stuff are supplemental. People say this has a poor story but I beg to differ. You generally don't watch anime or especially isekai for a masterpiece of story. But an engaging story is still there: the protagonist desires revenge on all the people that have wronged him, and he maintains this throughout, with a hint of an inner weakness surfacing/being realized near the end. Hardly have I ever binged an anime all the way through in one sitting, but I did with this one; mostly for the satisfaction of seeing the protagonist's revenge schemes come to full fruition.
Around the half way mark, the protagonist's manipulative personality and meticulous planning started to give Light Yagami vibes, which just added a little more. The plot also reminded me of one of my favorites, The Count of Monte Cristo.
Unfortunately, I heard the creator tamed and stifled his particular style for this kind of genre with his later Assassin anime, in order to get international release. That is a shame.