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Premiere Report - Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!

(The foolhardy villainess that our heroines first join forces to combat is a pedophile who's kidnapping young girls to "enjoy their company"—purely in a chaste way according to her, but the "joke" is that her drooling expression tells a different story.)

It'd be one thing if this pattern were limited to a few jokes about Adele's flat chest or other eye-rolling anime canards, but this lolicon element is prevalent enough that it becomes impossible to ignore that all the unnecessary gags about little girls are clearly a surface distraction from a sincere proclivity of the author's, which distracts from the otherwise charming comedy in all the worst ways.

Quote:

(The foolhardy villainess that our heroines first join forces to combat is a pedophile who's kidnapping young girls to "enjoy their company"—purely in a chaste way according to her, but the "joke" is that her drooling expression tells a different story.) It'd be one thing if this pattern were limited to a few jokes about Adele's flat chest or other eye-rolling anime canards, but this lolicon element is prevalent enough that it becomes impossible to ignore that all the unnecessary gags about little girls are clearly a surface distraction from a sincere proclivity of the author's, which distracts from the otherwise charming comedy in all the worst ways.

I've read the first six novels Seven Seas has put out (along with another 40+ fan-translated chapters) and none of this is ringing any bells. The girls certainly didn't first join forces to fight a villainess, and the only major gags about little girls in the first volume came in the form of Slayers-level flat chest jokes.

Not to mention that the other three main girls aren't even enrolled at Eckland Academy: Adele meets them after she leaves!

It sounds like the anime adaptation has decided to go in a very different and disappointing direction.

Unfortunately, "Average" bares its Achilles heel often enough to lose out on a significant portion of the audience who might otherwise be excited for a cute comedy about four weird girls struggling to succeed at an RPG Academy—and by Achilles heel, I mean the specter of an unmistakable lolicon fetish.

the director’s last work [...] was Uzamaid.

Quote:

(The foolhardy villainess that our heroines first join forces to combat is a pedophile who's kidnapping young girls to "enjoy their company"—purely in a chaste way according to her, but the "joke" is that her drooling expression tells a different story.) It'd be one thing if this pattern were limited to a few jokes about Adele's flat chest or other eye-rolling anime canards, but this lolicon element is prevalent enough that it becomes impossible to ignore that all the unnecessary gags about little girls are clearly a surface distraction from a sincere proclivity of the author's, which distracts from the otherwise charming comedy in all the worst ways.

I've read the first six novels Seven Seas has put out (along with another 40+ fan-translated chapters) and none of this is ringing any bells. The girls certainly didn't first join forces to fight a villainess, and the only major gags about little girls in the first volume came in the form of Slayers-level flat chest jokes.

It sounds like the anime adaptation has decided to go in a very different and disappointing direction.

Edit: I went back and checked, and yeah, this is almost a completely different story from the novels. Adele doesn't meet the other three adventurers until after she spoiler[drops out of Eckland Academy], spoiler[takes up a new identity], and spoiler[flees to a different country to become a monster hunter]. This is a real mess of an adaptation, and I can't imagine any of the existing Japanese fanbase are going to be happy.

Your average anime watcher will watch it. The people who wont will be the the artist snobs and such.

The lolicon stuff was probably thrown in to try to attract viewers, but, if anything, I expect that to backfire, because people who've read the novels won't like the change, and... well, I'd venture to guess that loli-fans have less awkwardly shoehorned options available, but I don't actually want to know. In any case, most anime fans aren't going to be drawn in just because of that, because most people wouldn't be, and anime fans aren't so far removed from the general population these days.

Edit: I went back and checked, and yeah, this is almost a completely different story from the novels. Adele doesn't meet the other three adventurers until after she spoiler[drops out of Eckland Academy], spoiler[takes up a new identity], and spoiler[flees to a different country to become a monster hunter]. This is a real mess of an adaptation, and I can't imagine any of the existing Japanese fanbase are going to be happy.

Yaafm wrote:

Your average anime watcher will watch it. The people who wont will be the the artist snobs and such.

This show would have had to vastly exceed expectations to get the average anime watcher to notice it; it's pretty niche even within its genre, not remotely Slime Isekai or Re:Zero levels of pre-popularity. MAL viewer counts for this season drop off quickly after the first 4 (Dr. Stone, Fire Force, Danmachi, and Vinland Saga), and people who use that site instead of "normal" social media are already more in the otaku sphere than most anime-watchers. Mediocre animation and questionable directing choices aren't going to improve its chances.

The lolicon stuff was probably thrown in to try to attract viewers, but, if anything, I expect that to backfire, because people who've read the novels won't like the change, and... well, I'd venture to guess that loli-fans have less awkwardly shoehorned options available, but I don't actually want to know. In any case, most anime fans aren't going to be drawn in just because of that, because most people wouldn't be, and anime fans aren't so far removed from the general population these days.