The Winter 2025 Anime Preview Guide

I May Be a Guild Receptionist

Alina Clover signed up to be a receptionist for the Adventurers Guild, thinking it would be her ticket to the good life. Unfortunately, her dream gig becomes an overtime nightmare whenever adventurers get stuck clearing a dungeon. To save herself from paperwork, Alina beats down monsters herself to solve the problem. Now, she just needs to keep her activities a secret.

I May Be a Guild Receptionist is based on a light novel series by Mato Kousaka. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Fridays.

The thing I like most about I May Be a Guild Receptionist is the simple fact that it completely recontextualizes the standard adventurers' guild/adventurer relationship in modern terms.

When you think about it, “adventuring” is basically a freelance contract job. You take on a job to kill a monster or collect some items, and then it's up to you to get the job done. And while you can technically set your own work hours, realistically, you're on the clock 24/7 until you take that monster down and get paid—especially if it includes days or weeks down in a dungeon. There's no real opportunity for work/life balance in adventuring. It's a career for workaholics who love their job or those who can't do any other kind of work.

Then, on the other side of the counter, we have the adventurers' guild and its employees. These people are basically service industry workers that are also part of the government bureaucracy. This means that it's a stable job with lots of perks, but you also need to deal with difficult adventurers who put their ego above little things like rules you have to follow, or you get fired. It also means you have a job with set working hours—unless there is overtime needed, of course.

When you frame things this way, it makes sense why Alina would want to work a 9-to-5 rather than be an adventurer. Sure, to others it may look like a waste of talent, but she sees it as a way to guarantee she has the time to do the things in life that make her happy. So, when things don't turn out that way due to pesky things like a boss monster who just won't die or an adventurer determined to get her in his party, she's not above bringing the violence to protect her way of life.

Of course, all this breaks down into an enjoyable comedy where things just keep getting in Alina's way and she keeps reacting in over-the-top ways as her stress levels rise. It got a few laughs out of me, and I generally had fun with it. Will it continue to be this entertaining as things go on? Maybe not, but I'm willing to keep watching to find out.

One of the lessons I had to learn as a teacher in the “post”-pandemic world is that the only way to do the job and remain functional and sane was to establish firm work/life boundaries. In far too many schools, the unspoken (or sometimes very loudly spoken) expectation is that teachers will sacrifice any amount of time, personal space, and energy needed to do all sorts of jobs and fulfill all manner of expectations that they will never be compensated for—because “it's all about the children” and “we got into this job because we love the work!” Well, call me a jaded veteran all you want, but that life is simply not sustainable. My hard rules over the past few years have been, barring genuine emergencies or scheduling arrangements that I have full control over, my job ends at exactly 3:00 PM. I'm not taking work home to grade, I'm not attending any extra meetings that I can't put on my time card, and I'm not playing tech support for students who can't be bothered to remember the steps to turn in their homework online six months into the school year. Also, there's the fact that I have this whole other job as a media critic and writer that takes up a fair amount of time besides…

The point is, when I say that I relate to the way that our heroine Alina is pushed to slay unholy beasts and conquer demonic foes in the name of getting out of mandatory overtime, you'd better goddamn believe that I mean it. I am cheering for this girl with all of my might, and I will be right beside her to laugh in the face of all of the clueless managers and doomed monsters that stand in the way of clocking out at a reasonable time. I was originally going to give this preview a 3.5, because the episode didn't wow me to pieces, but consider the extra half star my donation to the Guild Receptionist Labor Union, which should definitely be a thing in this world if it isn't already. Solidarity, sister, is what will break the chains of dominance that shackle us!

Now, to be clear, my violent anger in the face of the perpetual and unfeeling capitalist machine is not the only reason I dug the premiere of I May Be a Guild Receptionist… Like I said, the story is nothing special, and the episode doesn't have much going by way of surprise of novelty. It's merely another “Niche Job in an RPG Setting that Doubles as an Extravagant Power Fantasy” anime in many respects. The execution of these familiar elements, though, is rather excellent all around. The animation is solid, and occasionally borders on being downright great during the action scenes. Alina is a great protagonist, funny and ferocious in equal measure, but we've got a stable of supporting characters who are all just interesting enough to keep our attention from drifting whenever Alina isn't on screen. Simply put, it's just good entertainment. I don't know if I'm fired up enough to commit to an entire season of Alina's adventures, but I'll stick around long enough at least to gather material for my self-insert fanfiction: “I Was Reincarnated In Another World as the Mighty Slayer of the Demon Lord, But Instead I Created a Union of Radicalized Teamsters!”

It's not hard to feel for Alina. All she wants out of life is a secure, stable job that will let her have a life when she's off the clock. That shouldn't be so much to ask, right? And so when idiot adventurers who aren't nearly as good at their jobs as they should be keep messing up her dream life with their incompetence, why shouldn't Alina moonlight as an adventurer herself and take care of the problem? I honestly can't say I wouldn't do the same in her position.

But can you get an entire season of anime out of this concept? Even though there are multiple volumes of the source material (a light novel), I'm not sold on the idea after this episode. It's got all the hallmarks of a “lather, rinse, repeat” show: Alina has to work overtime because of a boss monster, she takes care of it, someone tries to find out who she is to make her join their party. We see this play out once in this episode, and the setup for it to happen again is in the closing moments when a hot-headed adventurer shows up, practically itching to get himself in terrible trouble. I'll grant you that Jade, the leader of the famed Silver Swords, isn't likely to give up on Alina just because she scared the crap out of him when he attempted to talk to her, but I'm unsure how much actual story can be squeezed from this stone.

That aside, this is kind of fun. Alina's relatability is a key factor; she's the poster child for the idea that just because you're good at something doesn't mean you have to do that thing forever. Her anxiety over potentially losing her cushy government job feels pretty accurate, too, as is her irritation with Jade for seeing through her disguise and having the temerity to say so. The world's level of technology feels uneven, though, with holographic banners over reception desks seeming to belie the otherwise low-tech world the characters live in. I also admit to getting stuck on the whole “one day our ancestors disappeared” since that seems to suggest that the current humans aren't actually descended from the original ones, which is awkward if nothing else. That's also how I feel about the characters' profiles; I can't quite put my finger on what's off about them, but there's definitely something.

The real saving grace here is that there are no stat screens or other game trappings. Yes, there's an adventurers' guild and license levels. Still, somehow, that's more palatable because there aren't stats otherwise, and the skills have in-world designations instead of the usual letter ranks. I don't know if this will do anything innovative in the realm of LitRPG, but it's worth the three-episode test to see if it can maintain a story.