Review of Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody

Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody has the single most overqualified score I’ve ever experienced in anime. Every single track is excellently suited to its task, and the way they all work together results in the perfect musical accompaniment for a whimsical, laid-back fantasy adventure more interested in the simple mundanities of life in a magical, quasi-Medieval world than any sort of grand, epic journey. The ED song in particular is so memorable and homey that I would rank it up with Konosuba’s fantastic relaxing fantasy/country fusions. There were so many moments across these twelve episodes where I found myself thinking, “Man, I’m reallygoing to enjoy listening to this music on Youtube once I finish watching this show. I might even imagine a better anime it hypothetically might have been used for so I can wash the stench of this fucking garbage out of my mouth.”

Seriously, the quality gap between Death March’s score and every single other part of it is so freakishly large that I’m half convinced some inspired, rebellious composer snuck into Silver Link’s studios some time during post-production and proceeded to record over whatever generic, lifeless musical mush was intended to be the soundtrack, just to fuck with the studio execs. Or maybe he just did it on principle, as part of some heroic quest to ensure that no anime production will ever be allowed to slop onto screens and streaming services without at least one commendable quality. Someday, I would like to meet this revolutionary man of music, to learn his craft and understand his ways, so that he may inspire me in the same way he is so clearly inspired by anime as a medium. Perhaps that day will never come. But I will hope on regardless, because the mystery he left me with is by far the only interesting thing to come out of Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, and were it not for his contributions, I would have spent six hours on this show and gotten nothing in return. So thank you, mystery man of music. Thank you for ensuring I at least had something, anything, of value to hold onto in this utter waste of a show with otherwise no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

The truly sad thing is, none of what I said in those opening paragraphs is hyperbole. Death March to the Absurdly Overextended LN Title is, without a doubt, the single most useless anime I’ve ever experienced, to the point where wondering how such a brainless fart of a show somehow obtained its one aspect of quality was the only thing keeping me from going insane due to excessive boredom. It is truly remarkable how completely unremarkable this show is, how not a single moment lands with any emotional impact, how not a single aspect feels like it was crafted with anything more than base-level commercial cynicism, how utterly disinterested it appears to be in its own existence. It’s the animated embodiment of a vegetative state; the only thing separating it from complete nonexistence is the fact that it technically does exist, and you can’t help but feel that pulling the plug and putting it out of its misery would be a mercy to everyone. There is no reason for this show to exist. There is no reason for me to have watched it beyond the first episode. But I’m an anal-retentive moron who never likes leaving a job unfinished, so here we are. And hey, at least now I can pass the warning along to you, so now you won’t be tricked into thinking the SIXTH MOST POPULAR SHOW IN ITS SEASON might be worth your time in any way. Seriously, this shit has more members on MAL than Place Further Than the Universe, how the fuck is that in any way justifiable?

I’d summarize the plot, such as it is, but that would be given this show far too much credit. It’s an isekai, so you already know the drill: teenage guy gets transported to a RPG-based fantasy world, instantly becomes the most powerful motherfucker in existence who gets all the girls and never has to be meaningfully challenged in any way, whether physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, or any other way that might actually make for a halfway-compelling story. Okay, technically, this guy’s in his thirties and working at a video game company (he gets sucked into the world of the RPG he and his team have been struggling to finish), but he reverts back to his teenage self the moment he sets foot in Candyland, so it doesn’t make a difference. And technically he’s not a virginal weirdo who can’t process sex through anything other than nosebleeds; he actually does get laid a couple times... but only offscreen and by random one-off prostitute NPCs we barely get to see, not by any of his steadily accumulating harem. Then again, considering how many members of his harem are Literal Children, perhaps that’s for the best. But on the other hand, at least if this show evoked moral outrage in me, that would, in fact, be a reaction of SOME kind. And that would have had some value, any value.

But no, the fact of the matter is, this show has no idea of where it wants to go, and it spends the entirety of its run time going nowhere, advancing no character arcs, plotting no greater narratives, introducing no interesting tidbits of worldbuilding, setting up no fun group dynamics for the central team to have any sort of chemistry, pulling off no feats of even notable animation, and never even attempting to rescue itself from its own lack of inertia. Again, no hyperbole here; we spend twelve goddamn episodes with Satou and his ever-growing harem and the only thing that changes in any of them between the start and end is that more girls just keep getting added. The few stabs at genuine emotion skip the apparently unnecessary process of making you actually, like, care about these characters and just assume you’ll already be invested in their well-being from the second they’re on screen. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the show’s run time is spent on watching this personality-defunct team going camping, eating dinner, learning to leaf-whistle, and a million other boring little distractions that do nothing to endear us to the characters in any way. But at least the complete lack of narrative moment is only boring, whereas the fight scenes are both boring and ugly as sin. Clearly I need to apologize to Overlord, because I was not aware of how abysmal CG monsters could look.

There’s something almost infuriating about how little effort was put into this show, how clearly no one working on it (besides the aforementioned symphonic daredevil) gave any sort of shit at all. It isn’t even trying to hide the naked cynicism of its existence, the fact that it only exists for the sake of selling the cheapest possible power fantasy and profiting off the rock-bottom standards it imagines its audience to have. But then it can’t even do the power fantasy well enough to justify the callous disregard for quality on display. None of the girls are interesting or hot, even by the very generous standards of cheap waifu bait; they might as well not even have personalities at all, for how token and half-assed their supposed fetish gimmicks are. The deadpan isn’t much of a deadpan, the hardass isn’t much of a hardass, the snarker isn’t much of a snarker, the flustered virgin isn’t much of a, well, you get the point. The only one who leaves any sort of impression is the bratty, squeaky-voiced, and that’s solely due to the rising desire to gag her with a dirty sock before she throws one more obnoxious tantrum about wanting to jump Satou’s completely uninteresting wizard staff, may it remain forever flaccid.

And speaking of Satou himself, good fucking god, he is legitimately the most insufferably bland motherfucker to ever grace the protagonist role. I don’t know whose decision it was that he should deliver all of his lines in the exact same quasi-paternal nice-guy drawl with an aw-shucks half-smile, but whoever it was should be fired, because the end result makes you want to reach through the screen and scream “EMOTE!!!” in his face, just so he gets pissed off and shows that he has the capacity for at least a single other emotional state. Especially when his nice-guy fantasy presentation clashes with his tendency to objectify every woman and girl he comes across, making internal comments about their boobs and attractiveness in the same dreamily genial way he patronizes them in reality. Because that’s what real nice guys do, right? Oh, and he’s not a lolicon. He’s definitely not a lolicon. It’s one of he first things his internal monologue tells us, so he definitely wants you to know that he’s not a lolicon. Never mind how much he clearly enjoys the felling of a thirteen-year-old’s boobs pressing against him, he is in no way a lolicon. And maybe if he tips his fedora harder, he can make you forget that most of the girls in his harem are his actual slaves, all of whom he took from other owners and could free at a moment’s notice with no averse affects or risk of them abandoning him, making them his equal traveling companions, but chooses not to because... I guess he gets off on being called “Master” by a ten-year-old cat girl. But he’s not a lolicon, guys. Swear.

At this point, I’m certain I’ve put far more thought into this waste of space than its creators ever did. Honestly, I feel dirty even affording it the benefit of my full thoughts here, because it doesn’t deserve any thought at all. It deserves to be wiped of the sole of our collective shoe and tossed in the garbage bin where it belongs. Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody is the single most mindless show I’ve ever watched, bereft of even the slightest speck of value to justify its existence. It never should have been made. I never should have watched it. But I did, and shame on every decision that brought us to this point.