Review of Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody
A decent but mediocre anime unfairly maligned by factually wrong hipsters. This is a Slice of Life/Sightseeing anime that doesn't communicate what it's trying to be clearly upfront. The main thing that makes it interesting is that it subverts common tropes in the industry. The art style isn't all that great, and I feel it's a bit lacking in scene direction, but if you've been wanting a slice of life sightseeing anime in another world this could be exactly what you've been waiting for. There's my review, I'll now spend the rest of this review explaining why what Hipster Critics are saying about the Anime is factuallyincorrect.
--The Harem Trope - #1 Point of Criticism where the Critics are Wrong--
The Anime is widely criticized for having a Harem and I feel that many critics could not see past their preconceived ideas about what that meant. For example this Anime touches on issues like PTSD from rape, Statutory Rape being Rape regardless of circumstances, how Consent that isn't given freely can't be considered true Consent, and so on.
The show is deliberately subversive of the Harem Trope, the circumstances of the Parallel World are misogynistic but the Main Character isn't and all of his traveling companions develop an entirely platonic relationship with him based on mutual respect, only two characters even have romantic designs on him and he only returns the interests of one.
Starting at episode 3 it becomes clear that it's going in a different direction with it, and I feel that a lot of critics must have either not watched the Anime at all and are going entirely by youtube hipster reviews, or made up their minds about it so strongly before they watched it that they could not see past their preconceptions. The much talked about scene at the end wasn't in any way sexual, and wouldn't even be interpreted that way without the preconceived expectation for it to be.
--Responding to other common factually wrong Criticisms--
The Anime doesn't take place inside of a videogame. Critic after critic says it does, but the world the character finds himself in is a Parallel World and that becomes apparent to the MC as he explores it. The only thing from videogames is his interface, inventory, and mechanics that were carried over when he was pulled into the parallel world.
The Meteor Spell was based on expendable items that were only meant to help new players through a beginner dungeon, not to be used on a whole army of Lizardmen in another world, anyone saying "fix your game" must have missed this point even though it was very clearly spelled out in the very first episode.
How the Protagonist arrived in the Parallel World is explained. He was pulled in by a powerful being, likened to a goddess. This is explained during the Undead King arc.
The Main Character is a lawful pacifist, he tries to resolve situations without violence if at all possible. That's why he doesn't go around playing judge jury and executioner like some critics feel he should.
This isn't a Shonen anime, it deliberately skips the grind to focus on what it's trying to do. If we had to watch him level up from level one we may as well just watch any Shonen or SAO or something. The main sense of MC progression comes from the MC picking up new abilities and figuring out his inventory, but the main focus is on how the MC interprets the world and how characters in it interact.
No OP is not automatically boring, there are plenty of Anime with OP MCs that are really interesting. But this IS NOT an Action Anime, and those saying an OP MC is making it boring for the standard reasons are both factually wrong about OP characters and are missing the point of the anime. Death March is best understood as a Slice of Life and Sightseeing Anime.