Quality Assurance in Another World

Episode 9

Man, I can't tell you how nice it is to add a (probably) sane adult woman to the Quality Assurance party. Like, sure, Akira Kagami is a little…intense but for all of her clingy comedic foibles, she doesn't seem to be an outright sociopath like practically every other surviving debugger that we've met so far. More importantly, Akira adds more texture to the party relationships that fantasy shows like this need to stay fresh and interesting. Haga and Nikola's friendship is cute but fairly straightforward. While Amano's snarkier demeanor is nice, there's only so much he can do to counterbalance the other two's laid-back personalities on his own. I could see Akira's shtick getting a little overbearing if the show doesn't know how to balance its ingredients properly, but for now, I am happy to add a little bit of weirdness to the mix.

Also, in the absence of a more propulsive storyline like Amano's quest for revenge against Play-Ing, the group will need Akira's added voice to keep the hangout-comedy parts of the story more interesting. It's so interesting how, even in completely fictional settings, it sometimes takes the arrival of a completely new person to allow the already present dynamics to settle into place. I don't know how well Quality Assurance could have pulled off sitcom banter and silly cooking contests with just Haga, Nikola/Tesla, and Amano, but it all works when Akira is added to the mix. While there isn't anything overly romantic about Haga and Akira's connection yet—which is fine, by the way—I could see the show developing a cute parental unit thing between those two and Nikola, with Amano serving as the grumpy uncle who hangs around because he has nowhere better to be.

The episode picks up the pace once giants start falling from the sky, which must be a simultaneous gold mine and a living nightmare for an obsessive debugger like Haga. Even more interesting is that we meet Gadol, the relatively giant…boy. Man? What makes Gadol so unique is that he is a Seeker that is also an NPC, one who was “recruited” and given ungodly strength by the mysterious player-character “Yamanaka”. So, now we've got a decent hook for a new storyline where the gang has to investigate what this guy is doing messing with NPCs and console commands all willy-nilly-like.

I'm invested in this new plot thread from an almost entirely meta-narrative angle. I don't care much about the giant boy or whatever Yamanaka is up to but I am curious to see if Quality Assurance is even going to try and square the bizarre parameters and rules for this RPG world. Strangely, NPCs and quest scripts will be so rigid and clearly “video gamey” whenever the story demands it, but then in another episode, the game's villagers will all be acting as if they all possessed completely natural and uninhibited artificial intelligence—which you think regular humans like our heroes would be more impressed and confused by. Maybe it's leading to something more compelling so far as the show's world-building is concerned… or maybe it's just amateurish writing? You make the call!

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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.