Anime

This episode we finally got things underway in Rotsgard and, in classic anime/manga fashion, had a group of guys pestering a girl. After reining Shiki in, we quickly moved on to the teaching exam, to Makoto's surprise. This aint no Frieren mage exam arc, Makoto speedruns his way through the exam in just half an episode and becomes a teacher. Next episode we get to meet a new cast of characters, his students.

The show continues moving quickly through the story and rearranging things a bit, but I don't dislike how they rearranged things so far to keep this episode purely focused in Rotsgard. I am sure we will get to see what Mio and Tomoe are off doing on their own in due time. This series has such a huge cast of characters and multiple storylines happening in parallel, that it was always going to have to rearrange and trim things to help it flow in an anime format. As of this moment, there is a a story happening in Rotsgard with Makoto, each of our other isekai'd heroes have their own stories and supporting characters around them, the store, Rembrandts, and Toa's party back in Tsige, the demiplane with all its demihumans, where Mio is going, and where Tomoe is going. It's a lot to keep track of!

If I have criticism for this series generally, it is that there are too many wheels in motion at any given time. In this episode, we are teased about some kind of plot to keep out teachers from the practical exam and there is even somebody that was hired to kill Makoto (good luck). There was also the confrontation between the group of students and that waitress. The main dude from that group of students shows up in the OP, so he probably isn't just some extra. Lots of stuff happens in this series and you don't get the payoff until way later. Like, I found myself often having to go back when reading the source to remember where I know these people from.

Overall though, I am still enjoying this. The Makoto/Shiki bonding time is always fun. Also, this episode made me miss the restaurant that I used to go to for hot pot, but sadly it closed a while back :(