Review of Isekai Quartet

Avengers: Endgame wasn’t the only notable crossover last Spring. For the anime community were greeted to the ultimate Isekai crossover. A crossover that seemed too true to believe. A crossover of Konosuba, Re:Zero, Overlord and Saga of Tanya the Evil into one show. As a fan of all four of these shows, this felt like a wet dream. And as such, became a highly anticipated show for me. Did I enjoy it though? Well lets talk about it shall we? Sit back relax and get ready to snap those fingers as I present to you the anime review for Isekai Quartet. Lets begin. Story: 6/10The story begins with our characters all encountering a red button in their respected worlds and through either unluckiness, desperation or sheer stupidity, they press it (Except we don’t see the Re:Zero characters press it for some reason). Suddenly, they get transported to a school and have to start experiencing school life. The characters in question are our lucky idiots of Kazuma, Aqua, Megumim and Darkness. Subaru and his merry band of harem girls. The Devil of the Rhine, Tanya Degurechaff and her lieutenants. And THE GREAT SORCERER KING HIMSELF, AINS OOAL GOWN!!! As well as the floor guardians of Nazerick.

It’s as basic as plot as you can get. Our Isekai characters who get Isekaied into their own worlds suddenly get Isekaied into another Isekai and now have to experience school life in this Isekai world. What this show likes to focus on however, is the moment to moment scenes in which we see our characters interact with one another to help insinuate some humour. And when I say some, I mean a lot. This show doesn’t waste time in trying to introduce these characters again (well apart from the class introduction), you know who they are, you know what they are like so here they are reacting to a new setting. So the jokes and comedic elements all relate to the characters’ respective shows; with some in jokes from the moment to moment scenes, as well as some subtle and not so subtle 4th wall breaking. Now the humour really relies on your past experience with these shows. In context, they work well at delivering the humour, (Darkness will always be funny, no matter what). But if you have not seen every series in this show, some of the jokes will go right over your head; which will probably affect your enjoyment of this show.

Now one of the things I was concerned about is how will this show balance this large cast of characters from different shows and how they will balance their screen time? Well the show was struggling a bit at the start when it came to balancing out which characters got screen time. Re:Zero especially felt like it got the short end of the stick for the longest time. In order to highlight who is in its show, they have to have an episode dedicated to them, but Re:Zero’s spotlight should have been in the first half and not the second half. Otherwise, they feel like low end secondary characters. Of course, the latter half of the show came and it balanced out, as all things should be.

Characters: 10/10
Well I think that it is fair to say that the characters in this show are well translated from their respective shows. Their personalities still remain intact (for better or worse; depends on your opinion) but with an extra bit of comedic flair to it to add to the comedy. The interesting question though was how these characters were going to interact with each other. With such a large cast from different shows, the chemistry that could develop could be rather interesting. We kind of knew that Ains and Tanya would get along well and Aqua would try anything to kill Ains and co. But there were some interactions that I never knew would happen. Who knew that Albedo and Rem would get along with each other so well due to their understanding their love for Ains and Subaru respectively. It’s these kind of character interactions I want to see, even the small ones that last a few seconds. If you can create chemistry with these characters, then you can make for some interesting circumstances whether now or later on in the show.

Animation: 7/10
For this kind of show, the chibi art style is appropriate. Considering that Konosuba, Re:Zero, Overlord and Saga of Tanya the Evil had different art styles and were all made by different studios (Studio Deen, White Fox, Madhouse and Studio NUT respectively). Having a single art style makes it easier to animate and we don’t have a clash of art styles. The chibi artstyle though looks good and the characters are still expressive. Again, it is appropriate for a show that is meant to a laid back, comedic show and not to be taken seriously. So the animation does its job and does it to a good degree. When you compare the animation to the chibi spinoffs of each show, Isekai Quartet animates better than them. So it is nice to see them put some more effort into this.

Sound: 6/10
The soundtrack is rather basic to say the least. It has nothing of note and is merely used as background music to help the scene and set a mood. But the show also uses the more popular tracks from the respective shows to know who has got screen time here and who is taking centre stage at the moment. All I can say though is that it is used correctly at the right time.

The opening though was enjoyable. Simply titled “Isekai Quartet” and is sung by the main protagonists of each show, Kazuma, Subaru, Ains and Tanya. It is a nice way of introducing who is going to be in this show and backed up by a catchy song that you could sing along to. It helps get you into the mood of what kind of show this is going to be and has a nice pace to it to make it an enjoyable opening. Although side note, I am disappointed that MYTH&ROID didn’t do the opening since they have done the openings for all of these shows except Konosuba.

The ending sequence was also enjoyable. "Isekai Girls♡Talk” is the name of the song and is sung by the main female leads of each show, Aqua, Emilia, Albedo and Tanya. I like the use of the 8-bit art style for the characters and again, the song is catchy and matches the tone of the show. It helps keep up a light mood with its charm and, as such, was one of the more enjoyable ending sequences this season.

Conclusion
I didn’t come and expect Isekai Quartet to be the second coming of anime or anything like that. I came because I wanted to see four Isekai shows I like come together in a big a ball of fan-service. And I got that. I enjoyed what I saw from this show and got some very interesting character interactions from it. This is what I wanted and expected to see and I got it. For for fans of these shows, you are going to enjoy what you see and how these characters adjust to school life. But I think it is required that you watch all four of these shows to get the full experience and to get some of the humour. Otherwise you are missing out. So that could affect a person’s decision to watch it. But, like me, you have watched these four shows, then you are going to enjoy yourself.

My Personal Enjoyment: 9/10

Overall score: 7.6/10 Recommendation: Watch it (If you have watched the four shows beforehand)