Review of The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me?

Every season there are a few shows that go under the radar. For me, this season Hachi-nan tte was one of those shows. While it is nothing revolutionary or amazing, it is a solid watch and a pretty entertaining show. It’s your usual isekai formula with a bit of a different take. The MC is reincarnated into another world as the 8th son of a poor noble family, meaning he basically has no rights to any of his family’s wealth or any sort of inheritance. He eventually works his way up and becomes your usual Isekai protag who is very OP. Where Hachi nan standsout for me is that unlike most isekai, its primary focus is not on an MC going to defeat a demon lord or saving the day, but on the development and bonds formed with the rest of his party, side characters, etc. It’s a very character and relationship driven story, so even if you don’t usually like isekai, you may find this one enjoyable. The art and animation are also top notch as the studio who were in charge of this are behind the legendary Doraemon series as well as Takagi san, therefore production quality remains great throughout.

Unfortunately, while I appreciate the show’s attempt to world-build and develop characters, some stretches of episodes just felt boring to me and did not offer anything to really hold my attention. I imagine some rather important bits of the story were probably omitted due to time constraints as well, which is typical for adaptations.

As someone whose fave genre is isekai, I found this not disappointing, but not great either. However, it is well worth a watch in my opinion. Hachi nan gets 7 concubines out of 10 from me.