Fabiniku – 01 (First Impressions) – Old Pal-idigm Shift

Life with an Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated into a Total Fantasy Knockout is a stupendously ludicrous title; honestly, even my horribly punny title would be better. Fortunately, the show seems to be far more clever and engaging than its name, and it all comes down to its nucleus of two old friends.

Ordinary but horny Tachibana Hinata and hot but woman-averse Jinguugi Tsukasa aren’t friends because they’re similar—they couldn’t be more different—but the fact of the matter is they’ve been friends for 25 of their 32 years, and you can feel that history in the way they act.

A combination of a typical night of drinking and the classic tongue-in-cheek serious-voiced narrator gives us the skinny on their attributes and internal thoughts about one another. Tachibana is trying to get Jinguuji married off, while Jinguuji is fine being with Tachibana forever.

The mixer they attend goes poorly for Tachibana as usual (all the women gave Jinguuji their contact info) and he gets so drunk he’s face down in the park wishing he could be a beautiful woman whom everyone fawned over. Then an exhibitionist goddess makes it happen!

Just like that, Tachibana and Jinguuji find themselves in a strange forest in the daytime. More concerning, Tachibana’s body melts into green goo than reconstitutes into the body of a petite blonde beauty (with very sharp teeth!) voiced by MAO.

As Tachibana so eloquently puts it, she’s gained stuff up top and lost stuff down below, but her speech patterns and mannerisms are still the same old Tachibana Jinguuji knows…and she’s honest, loves, either in the same way as the friends played by Jonah Hill and Michael Cera in Superbad, or something more romantic in nature.

It’s not even that much in doubt that at least part of Tachibana feels the same way…and that’s before they insult and anger the naked Goddess of Love and Beauty while she’s trying to give them their mission to save the world that she casts some kind of mysterious curse on them.

The immediate effect of this curse seems to be that Tachibana and Jinguuji suddenly find each other even more attractive, something neither one wants the other to get wind of. Their brains simply are too used to each other as best mates to properly process what their hearts are doing.

To their credit, neither one immediately dismisses their feelings as a direct result of the curse. Maybe the curse increased their affection for one another, but it was always there. Only now Tachibana is a woman, and because she is still fundamentally Tachibana, she also happens to be the only woman the distrustful-of-women Tachibana could ever fall for.

This results in a Love is War style battle of wills, with the two trying to get the other to admit their attraction. As the the one with the cute girl’s body, Tachibana goes on the offensive, only to find Jinguuji irresistible simply by being Jinguuji.

Meanwhile, Jinguuji hides his outsized reactions behind his usual stoic calm—a skill well-honed throughout the years staving off all those women who fancied him. He’s never thought about his type, but now he knows it, and it’s his best friend in a girl’s body.

As the two struggle with their new reality, a seemingly harmless and cute-looking fluffy white bunny thing interrupts. No sooner do they call it cute than its face unfurls reveal a grotesque monster. Suddenly survival mode overrides scoring flirting points against one another.

Jinguuji instinctively gathers his suddenly much smaller, lighter, and pleasant-smelling best friend in a princess cary and shows off the fruits of leg day. The two fall down a cliff, enabling the monster to catch up, but rather than continue running, Jinguuji decides to make a stand. He never let some woman take away his best friend, and he’s certainly not about to let some nightmare-faced Gossamer do it!

That’s when he punches the monster right in its core, quite unexpectedly creating a huge hole in said monster’s body. Turns out while he doesn’t look any different, Jinguuji is actually a Level 70 badass. Yes, it’s revealed this world has RPG-style menu screens that pop up in front of one’s face.

Tachibana is a Level 1 Hero, by the way, making Jinguuji her ideal trusty knight. As for their castle, Jinguuji is able to summon what looks like the door to a modern Japanese apartment with one of his active skills; the proverbial rest and save point.

While all the isekai and RPG trappings and their quest to defeat the Demon Lord are sure to play a larger role as our two best friends continue to explore their new lives (and meet more people), I hope the focus remains on how the bond between those two old friends continues to morph and evolve due to a very new and unexpected development.

The Genius Prince’s Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt – 01 (First Impressions) – Can’t Lose for Wein-ning

Despite the obnoxiously-long title, this is not an isekai, but a comedy that happens to take place in a renaissance-level fantasy world. In it the Empire of Earthwold lords over many lesser kingdoms, including Natra, presently led by Prince Wein, whose father the king is ill. The thing is, Wein doesn’t wanna rule Natra, which is in dire financial straits.

He wants to make it just attractive enough to sell to a greater power, then begin the retirement stage of his life. He’s lazy, and wants to take the nearest shortcut, but he’s hampered throughout this episode by another quality he possesses: tactical and strategic genius.

Yes, while he acts petulant goof in front of his personal aide Ninym (and no one else), Wein is in fact too smart for his own good, and enjoys the fierce loyalty and admiration of his older military advisors, who would no doubt change their tune if they knew the jerk was planning to sell their kingdom!

But that threat of being found out doesn’t really factor into this first outing. Rather, Wein plays the role others aks him to play, rallying the troops and coming up with a plan to fend off the army of a neighboring kingdom. Again, he doesn’t wanna, but he’s backed into a corner.

As such, he gives a rousing speech to the toops and executes the battle plan, which works out far better than he was expecting. Part of that is due to his agreement with the Empire to train Natra’s royal forces, once again potentially shooting himself in the foot.

But when the enemy’s general charges his camp, Wein and his aides retreat, goading the enemy into giving chase right into a canyon trap, where Ninym and a force of archers mow the enemy down, cementing Natra’s victory. It’s here where the brutality of war and the quirky comedy clash the most.

Once back at the strategy table with his military advisors, whom Wein knows want to invade their now-vulnerable neighbor, he tries to propose a plan far too preposterous for them to accept…only for them to accept it immediately and assume he’d seen the plans they’d already made.

Prince Wein’s inner voice has a chibi avatar who does all of his internal, genuine reactions while maintaining his princely façade. But if it’s money he wants to put his kingdom in a better position to be sold, invading a gold mine is probably a net-profit proposition.

Genius Prince isn’t going to win any awards with its production values, but other than some muddy-blob-looking armies and quite a bit of still-shots with streaking white lines indication action, it’s an inoffensively adequate-looking affair. The comedy is similarly unimpressively competent.

Mostly, should I continue this show I shall look forward watching Wein’s interesting friend/confidant relationship with Ninym, who stays by his side despite his shenanigans, as well as watching him continue to succeed despite trying to fail. It’s Machiavelli-meets-Bialystock!