So, after stating I was going on a hiatus from anime reviews, I end up getting one out fairly quickly by my standards, even more quickly considering I watched Cowboy Bebop at the same time as making my way through this oddly named title. I Couldn’t Become a Hero, So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job is something of a description more than a proper title for crying out loud. Hell, I would call it by its Japanese abbreviated title, Yu-Sibu, except for how I am adamantly against using Japanese names for things that have been officially translated. I don’t care if you prefer the name Hokuto No Ken, it’s Fist of the North Star, you dweeb.
I Couldn’t Become a Hero, So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job Review
Studio: Asread
Length: 12 episodes
Availability: subtitled on Crunchyroll
I Couldn’t Become a Hero, So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job’s synopsis can be buried through its overly specific title, though doing so almost immediately raises more questions than I can ask, but I’ll try. Raul Chaser originally wanted to become a hero for his fantasy based medieval world, fighting against a Demon Lord and living a nobel life as he brought forth justice by murdering monsters. However, the Demon Lord died while he was in hero school, so he reluctantly decided to work at a consumer appliance shop. A gig that has been going pretty well for him by the time the story fast forwards, at least until the Demon Lord’s daughter arrives at his place of employment and is now his co-worker… Where do I begin?
Let’s start with the lore, as I assure you my brief explanation is not skipping out on an absurd amount of details. This is a world where magic has more or less replaced technology in terms of industrial advances. Meaning that televisions, microwaves, and even cassette tapes are in existence, though they are not very much detailed, and are more or less identical to what would be found in a store today, or more specifically the seventies. As somebody who is upset that the idea of an industrial era or post-industrial era where magic is commonplace is seldom utilized, I feel more than a little let down by this rather simple approach, as large chunks of the show do not reference, or even feel as if they exist in the same world as magic. Hell, I don’t think a spell is properly cast until the last episode. It just comes off as lazy no matter how I slice it, though the world is arguably not the point of the show, even though it extremely easily could be.
What is important, however, is a question I struggle to answer. As the main story can easily be viewed as Raul teaching a demon girl, who is named Kino Bloodstone, how to work in a store and how she should not mention gore to old ladies who want refrigerators. As a core premise, it is not especially unique, though it does offer a good amount of chuckles, which is the intention from what I can gather. Though, the show is rather brutal with the amount of things on its plate if the premise holds any water, so it of course needs to be about customer service, monopolization, sex appeal, fanservice, and even the war economy. Just think about that for a moment.
Shortly after Raul manages to wrangle up his platinum blonde problem child for the most part and the story develops a fairly solid bunch of supporting cast members who work either at the store, which is referred to as Leon, or the store next door. Though, that barely lasts up to the halfway mark before it is revealed that a rival store, one with a far greater market share and far more resources than theirs opens up. With the next couple of episodes being almost unquestionably pro-smaller businesses, even though they never portray the bigger guys as bad in any way other than how they are a bit rigid and not quite as friendly. Although, they do have regular pop idol performances and employees dressed up in playboy bunny attire, so I guess that makes them bad-ish.
At least until the humble folks at Leon are decide to take the three big breasted employees they have and try to use far more blatant sex appeal to sell summer related merchandise through the use of swimsuits. If it sounds like a very unwanted twist, it isn’t, not by a long shot. In fact, I counted the number of scenes that contained jiggling sweater puppies, panties, or anything that even looked to wobble a young man’s wangle, and came up with 244. With the examples varying from an old man who feels up a girl’s ass while buying a lightbulb, to covering another in what looks like a bunch of cum.
It comes off as desperate, as if the idea simply lacked enough motsey in order to be a story that can stand on its own two feet, when they go so far as to have lady nipples included, albeit blurred, in the show’s finale. A finale that from a story standpoint I can understand how events reached their conclusion. Yet I cannot understand why nobody slapped the writer when he had to write about how the arms dealers of this world need war in order to make their money, and will send the world into eternal war in order to do just that. Even then, next to nothing is accomplished that couldn’t have been done in a grab bag of other, more consistent ways, while the world’s lore becomes even more confusing. I mean, people apparently own dragons, but there is no military or cops in this world? Though, the whole idea of applying logic towards this show is more than a little questionable, as a humidifier rapes two girls at one point… yeah, I don’t get it either.
Although, that scene did certainly highlight where I feel most of the animation budget went, right into the Kentucky funbags that are most often either double Gs and filled with some breed of goo. I would certainly not compare them to the likes of Eiken, but the sexualization on display is borderline nonsensical with everything to the golden shoulders being given this very odd rose tint to it. An already odd artistic choice that looks like the girls got some odd sunburn for their mostly pale skin, but operate on how certain males apparently find rose tinted features to be the feature that warrants a glowing rod. It certainly was more important than deciding upon a very distinct look for the world, as you could watch roughly 60-70 percent of the show without even realizing it took place in a world with monster based slavery.
I am not sure how or why this show was brought into existence, or why I decided to review it, but at the same time I can’t really recommend it. While it does have a decent amount of comedy, it more or less devolved into a game where I felt like I should not only count the milk filled chest rumps, but should count the points where the lore comes across as slapdash. It would make for an excellent drinking game, albeit one that often has peaks and bellows depending on the episode, and whether you want to count the jugs or the missed opportunities in world building.