Into every anime viewer’s life, a little Isekai must fall. Wait, no it doesn’t. You can leave. Turn your back on today’s schlock and watch whatever you want! Or you can go all in, I’m not your mom. What I am is a reviewer, and into every reviewer’s life a little Isekai must fall. My conceptual umbrella has gone unused for far too long, so today we’re going to look at Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody.
I’m not going to ask for much, I just hope to Haruhi it’s better than Smartphone.
We’re introduced to our main character to be in his life as a salaryman, working himself to the bone at a video game company. While in the middle of the “death march” that is crunch time for bug-fixing a pair of fantasy MMOs, going so far as to sleep at the office, he finds himself in what appears to be a dream of his unfinished work, complete with a young adult body and all the buggy last minute patches that were being applied.
Our hero, called Satuu in this life as that’s the name he uses for test characters, quickly finds himself beset by an entire army of high-level lizardmen. Panicking, he throws down the theoretically screen-clearing nuke spells set to be given to new players as emergency consumables, and wipes out the whole army. This transforms Satuu from a level 1 scrubnub into a level 310 Thousand-Stat-Man with maxed-out power and an inventory crammed full of top-end loot.
Because this is explicitly a universe based on the games Satuu was debugging (or at least hooked in with them somehow), I will spare us all the talk about video game mechanics in “fantasy”. I’m sure I’ll have a series to deploy it on later.
As he continues on, he uses his godlike power to shoo a wyvern like it’s an annoying seagull and then to follow it since it’s heading towards some regular soldiers and that might kind of be his fault. He watches the fight while the soldiers seem to have the hang of it, but when a cute girl is inevitably endangered, of course Satuu jumps to the rescue.
Must I really inspect any more of this one? Alas, ’tis my duty. We spend some time with Satuu getting comfortably settled in the local city, but of course he notices an eerily main-character-ish slave being hauled to market. Leaving that be for a bit, his plan, and what he seems likely to be served with both the girl he saved and the cute innkeeper’s daughter for starter company, is just sightseeing in this apparently fun world until and unless he stumbles on some way home or wakes up or what have you.
While out on a “totally isn’t a date”, Satuu comes across a trio of slaves being stoned by a crowd and a rabble-rousing preacher. His date intervenes, getting herself in a little trouble, and he decides to go around behind the scenes knocking out the plants stirring up the mob and finally the mastermind, who is the owner of the slaves. As things seem to turn against evil, a demon bursts out of the guys body and sends everyone to a magic dungeon. Since they were in physical proximity, Satuu ends up with the briefly masterless slaves and takes them on for the waltz through the labyrinth, showing basically no serious emotions
Now that the main character has acquired his seemingly obligatory demihuman slaves (two little girls dubbed Pochi and Tama and an older one named Liza), I feel like this is about as good a time as any to actually talk about the use of slavery in these Isekai series.
A lot of this is possibly due to something of a founder effect of Rising of the Shield Hero on the latest wave of Isekais. While Shield Hero didn’t get its anime outing until 2019, a year after Death March here, it first appeared back in 2012, a year before Death March’s source material. And Shield Hero was certainly a big name with big hype before its adaptation aired, and likely only louder after.
Even if Shield Hero isn’t the founder of the trope, though, there’s still plenty good reason to include slavery in a fantasy world based on pre-modern Earth. Bondsmanship, in one form or another, was a fact of life for much of human history across much of the globe, so in some ways it’s inauthentic to present this fictional universe that resembles the days before industrialization and not have slaves included as a thing in the setting.
Some settings will go ahead and leave it out despite that. Either they suppose that in a world with magic and generally higher standards of living than actual people in ancient eras would have enjoyed (what with fantasy worlds usually having good sanitation, refined foods, relative gender equality, and a great deal of personal liberties for commoners) would have moved into a more modernesque social structure, or they just don’t want to deal with the elephant in the room and thus shoo it outside. And you know what, if you don’t want to deal with that elephant it doesn’t have to be in the room. It’s not wrong if it is, but it’s also fine if it isn’t.
If you’re going to have slaves in your period fantasy setting, either because it more strongly evokes the nature of the period your fantasy is grounded in or because you have some more specific motive, there are still right ways and wrong ways to address it. For one, set dressing would be an option. Honestly, it’s one I’m surprised isn’t taken more often. If you put slaves or especially a slave market in a setting, it creates a stronger impression of it being dirty, barbaric, and something that doesn’t adhere to modern mores.
To use specific examples, Magi took full advantage both of what was needed for the setting (slaves are all over the Arabian Nights, which Magi is strongly based on, so including that element brings it more in tune with the original stories that serve as clear inspiration) and for its characters. Most notable is Morgianna, a long-term slave from a group that largely survives in bondage, who shows deep and long-lasting scars from her mistreatment.
Rising of the Shield Hero, of course, cleaves closer to what you see in most isekai series that include this, wherein a pretty normal dude from modern earth (who should therefore not be accustomed to the practice) somehow acquires one or more slaves who are of course cute girls and are also of course into him sooner or later.
To say that there are some issues with this is an understatement. More heated voices than mine were very harsh on Shield Hero when it first dropped for this… and I think unfairly, because Shield Hero does face up to the fact that this isn’t indicative of a healthy and normally functioning person. Naofumi is not a healthy and normally functioning person, he buys another person when he is at an absolute low with his ability to trust others having been dealt a fatal blow. And, any more on that, I have talked about or will talk about when reviewing Shield Hero and its later seasons.
The point is, it’s not casual. Here? It completely is. The girls never really emote. Even when their master staked them out to be stoned to death for a demonic scheme… they don’t seem to be hurt or angry, and just take that they’re magically forced to obey orders on pain of death as kind of a fact. Having no names and needing to be given new ones when automagically transferred to a new owner? Also totally matter of course. And said new owner just immediately treats them as generic party members without ever addressing that, if the naming rights and referring to him as master is anything to go by, he now owns these girls.
Sure, circumstances are what they are and Satuu is still sort of operating on the idea that this might just be all a dream, but you’d think he could at least introspect on this? Maybe comment? Make it clear how he feels about this situation of convenience and where it might go?
Or he could smile the same dumb smile he always does and just stroll through the events. It’s not that deep in the show, but we can already identify what’s going to be the death of it: the characters don’t really have emotional range. They never, or at least extremely rarely, seem to care about anything at all that happens to them or happens around them. And if the characters don’t care, why should we?
Anyway, Satuu and his slaves make their way through the labyrinth, as he carries them along as a fun little level grinding exercise. It’s not like his date might have been in mortal danger or anything and maybe linking up with her group should be a priority, or that there’s any reason to hurry or be scared or agitated when a creepy demon traps you in an extra-dimensional maze. How frog monster tastes is clearly more important.
They do eventually link up with no hint of intentional choice to it, and then get to fight the annoying demon. For some reason Satuu really doesn’t want to stand out at all and thus instead of gunning it down finds an excuse to take on a disguise before busting out any reasonable powers. You would think how he scaled a sheer rock face via jumping while carrying Zena (to finally name the girl he saved, who is also his current date) before would be enough of a hint that he could do cool stuff, and while keeping the full extent of his broken stats and overwhelming level a secret might not be unreasonable, he could probably pull the magic laser gun he was unafraid to use in front of his slaves and shoot the thing dead.
This gives annoyance demon a chance to do like D&D and Nethack demons are wont to do and summon its lord level boss, which forces Satuu (still in disguise) to actually fight with some of those skills and items he got for dropping a nuke on the lizard army. Naturally, he prevails within a fairly short timespan, though the show tries to make it seem like a struggle. In the wake of this, Satuu becomes the official legal owner of the slave trio (because they were really unhappy at the prospect of not having a master) and all’s well that ends well for this arc.
He’s also cajoled into picking up two more who didn’t sell at auction, a sweet waif of a girl (not sure how she didn’t get snapped up) and the one that he noticed earlier and flagged as trouble. I’ll stop beating the dead horse after this but seriously dude, these are slaves. Sapient beings. Young women who were placed in bondsmanship probably against their will. Not stray cats.
Anyway, he takes the two in like they’re stray cats, noting that one of them, Arisa, appears to herself be some kind of Isekai victim. She also proves to be terminally horny for our mercifully not a lolicon protagonist. The other, Lulu, I guess just comes with. There’s another date with Zena, but that one is interrupted after most of an episode by some ant monsters attacking the city. They aren’t much of a threat, but while on his own after that Satuu finds a rat knight and an unconscious elf princess being bullied, and fights off the shadow things attacking them. He takes them to some NPCs they know who he just happened to meet earlier.
After much more puttering around, we learn that the little elf girl was kidnapped by a creepy wizard and fell in with the rat after being freed by him and his. Then, a creepy wizard shows up. Well, he’s more of a lich or otherwise high-grade undead, and is shockingly polite about wanting to kidnap the little elf girl. Despite being a low-level scrub compared to Satuu (like everything else in this setting), he actually makes off with the kid, issuing a formal “come face me at my lair” challenge on his way out.
The undead wizard makes Satuu run a megadungeon to get the elf back, at the end of which he reveals that he was a reincarnation isekai who was horribly betrayed and murdered in fantasy land too, and that while his god brought him back as an undead to avenge himself and his family, after that he couldn’t die by any means other than a true Hero’s killing blow, hence creating a stupid RPG dungeon in order to get somebody who could run it and earn the hero title to off him. Satuu goes ahead and grants the suicidal undead king’s wish, earning him a bunch of loot and the elf back.
Tragic Skeletor was a load bearing boss, which wouldn’t have been too much of a problem except Satuu decides to insist on rescuing his eight knocked-out homunculus girl minions, one of whom was several floors down, meaning the teleporter was a no-go for that one. He’s successful and the most marginally passable episode of this show ends with the octet of busty blondes declaring Satuu their new master, because we hadn’t had enough of that. Seven of them find a sidequest to bugger off on, leaving Satuu with No. 7, dubbed Nana, who was the one he rescued most personally. We also get a decision to take the elf home and, because that involves traveling, a romantic goodbye-for-now with Zena.
It takes a while, but eventually by way of cryptic hints to actual setting details and a surprisingly nice little funeral for the ratfolk that died rescuing the elf the first time, Satuu stumbles into another plot wherein a random jerk we met earlier and a shady viceroy are scheming to kick an old witch out of her magic forest. What does this have to do with anything? Nothing at all but it’s on the way and it gets the show over so might as well do it.
The setup is trying to cause the witch and her apprentice to fail a contract they have with the local lord, and the schemers go through every dirty trick to ensure it. Satuu, of course, finds workarounds for destroyed potions, a lack of potion vials, and ultimately even a destroyed kiln, making the delivery with an extra message to the lord himself that gets the bad guys in deep trouble.
With a little more puttering and one (likely unintentional) love letter to Zena, the show decides it’s had enough and stops for the last time.
Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody was… a show.
At times, it did remind me of In Another World with my Smartphone, but despite the explicitly broken overpowered main character and strong harem-ish vibes, it was a lot less toxic to sapient thought and more just soporific. Most of the show is spent doing what amounts to slice of life, showing off all the food that Satuu and his slaves enjoy, watching them travel, or having Satuu go on dates with Zena. In that, it’s remarkably inoffensive.
The biggest problem in these phases is how one-noted each character is. Arisa actually gets a little play, but she defaults to really annoying so I think that balances out. Who is Liza? Flat affect matter-of-fact helpful. That’s it. Pochi and Tama? They’re toddlers who like to eat meat. I think they’re supposed to canonically be ten or eleven but they’re written like kindergarteners. Zena? She’s the cute wannabe girlfriend who has a very good chance. Arisa? Most of the time she’s the shrill and obnoxious wannabe girlfriend who has no chance, but she actually gets a second note with her being a less broken isekai cheater. Lulu? Barely in this but I think her bit was low self-esteem.
It’s not good, but I’ve seen worse. A lot worse.
When the show gets to things that better resemble plot, it falls short because of Satuu’s extremely limited emotional range combined with the fact that his effective omnipotence and the show’s general clumsiness usually leeches out what drama there could be. The stuff with the undead mage and the funeral for the rats were good moments because they had actual emotions in them. The rest of the show was just on autopilot.
Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody was lazy, and it was boring, and while it had a couple redeeming moments it was largely consumed by those traits. But, judged more as a slice of life into which the poor attempts at action and drama are ineffectual intrusions… it’s still not any good, but it’s at least a forgivable kind of bad. I’ll give it a D, but there’s no reason to watch this one.