Isekai Quartet

Episode 10

Now that the field trip has concluded, what's left for major school activities? The Field Day, of course! Subaru raises a good point about how suspicious it is that this is arriving so immediately on the heels of the field trip, and that an entirely new class has suddenly appeared for the express purpose of competing. Frankly, I'd be fine if this was resigned to a gag and (as Roswaal puts it) “that's just the way this world works”.

That second class seems to be populated by a plethora of secondary characters from the four isekai series. From Overlord we have Pleiades, the monstrous combat-maids of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, who are individually powerful but a step down from the floor bosses who accompany Ains. KONOSUBA gives us Chris, a rogue that Kazuma's party has crossed paths with several times (and occasionally became a target of Kazuma's panty thievery).(1) The masked teacher of the new class is also from KONOSUBA: Vanir, a former general of the Demon King who becomes the manager of a magic shop that Kazuma's party frequents. Re:Zero also offers at least two new students; the lavender-haired fellow in the background is Julius, a knight who initially opposed Subaru, though they grudgingly came to respect each other. The faint shot of red hair is from Reinhard, Re:Zero's current Sword Saint. Subaru goes overboard in defining his ridiculous power in game terms, but he's definitely one of the most powerful characters from his world, enough to probably go toe-to-toe with Ains or Tanya. Saga of Tanya the Evil does not initially seem to be represented, perhaps because nearly all of the recurring characters from that series have already appeared, but the name written on the board as being absent is an in-joke that refers to a briefly-appearing character who initially looked to be mortally wounded in battle, but actually had to be discharged due to a bad case of food poisoning.

Subaru's Return by Death ability finally comes up, and apparently it's still active in this world as well, limiting him from talking about the power and having a side effect of attracting magical beasts. I had forgotten about that detail, so presumably that's also why Hamsuke is so committed to gnawing on him. (That joke hasn't gotten old yet, and the “Bad Hamster” sign only makes it better.) It's curious that it also attracted the Death Knight that Ains created in an early episode of Overlord, since technically it is undead, but it ultimately works for the sake of a joke. So does Puck getting involved in Tanya's “training regimen” for Kazuma.(2) Everyone's varied reactions to watching the training regimen – from adoring to envious to traumatized – are also fun.

As long as Isekai Quartet continues to maximize its opportunities like this, it will continue to get top marks from me. Can the series keep it up through the final couple of episodes? I feel confident that it will.

1. The joke is that Chris secretly is the goddess Eris that Aqua and Darkness are talking about, but not even Aqua knows this. Why she's undercover in that role has yet to be revealed.
2. The thing with the shovels is a reference to Tanya's trainees having to dig foxholes to protect themselves from aerial bombardments during their training.

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Isekai Quartet is currently streaming on Funimation.