Quality Assurance in Another World

Episode 13

Man, this last episode of Quality Assurance in Another World came so close to being properly “Good” that it just makes me upset at all of the ways that the show has dropped the ball as this first season comes to a close. Like the series as a whole, there are a lot of elements at work here that are perfectly solid ingredients for a video game isekai-fantasy-mystery-comedy-thing, but they simply do not come together in a fully satisfying whole.

Let's look at Amano's high-stakes poker game, for example. Nevermind the fact that Akira's little dog-thing friend is a character I simply could not give less of a shit about, because the concept of a climactic poker game in an anime like this is pretty fun! It is, if nothing else, something kind of novel for a show that doesn't explicitly frame its story around card games and such. Yet, the whole thing comes across like the creative team got really inspired after watching Casino Royale but had no idea on how to execute a sequence like this with any degree of tension or excitement. It feels about as exciting to watch as when I put on a podcast and grind out some rounds of blackjack in Like a Dragon to get those sweet, sweet completion achievements.

Also, it really doesn't help that the whole situation is solved by Haga coming in and bailing the group out at the last minute, which totally deflates what little excitement there was to be found in Amano trying to exploit the bugs in the poker game. This is actually a twofold fumble on Quality Assurance's part, as it kind of ruins Amano's plot and kills the momentum of Haga and Kinoshita's mission to foil the giant goat monster that was keeping them trapped in the library. I almost never like it when an anime cuts away from a tense situation, only to have it resolved off-screen and explained via intrusive flashbacks. It can be done well on occasion, but Quality Assurance is not that occasion.

It's a shame, too, because the creepy goat monster conflict was my favorite part of the episode. Using the sound-bugged leather books to foil the creature's senses was a creative solution, and it was both cute and exciting to see Kinoshita kick ass with a katana, adorable little disembodied rhombus that she is. It's also the first time that the show has featured a genuinely weird and compelling monster since that fantastic premiere. I mean, when was the last time you say a humanoid goat corpse sprout an evil squid Leviathan out of its dick?

Alas, even that cool and unexpected development carries the sting of the cheap cliffhanger, because despite its efforts, this season finale hardly feels like a finale at all. The closest that the episode get to hinting at any kind of narrative or emotional payoff is when the dejected Nikola regains her confidence and resolves to rejoin her still missing friends. I'm sorry, though, but pressing play on the Theme Song Button does not automatically make it exciting when the big climax of your season finale is “A small child gets yelled at and walks a bit away from town, only to turn around and start walking back.” Maybe a second season will be able to improve on this series' fundamental faults, but somehow I suspect that Quality Assurance is destined to remain a show that is forever trapped in the realm of The Pretty Okay, But Mostly Disappointing and Ultimately Forgettable Anime That Could Have Been So Much More.

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Quality Assurance in Another World is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.