Why Does Nobody Remember Me in This World? is an anime with an excellent mystery at its core. Kai finds himself in a post-apocalyptic version of his world (at least when it comes to the state of humanity). Yet explanations are hard to come by. Is he in a parallel world or has the past somehow changed? How is Rinne connected with everything? What are the forces behind this and why did they do what they did? Many of these questions are left unanswered throughout the series, but we are given just enough to make the ride worthwhile.

Moreover, this mystery allows for both an immediate villain for each arc along with a greater, largely faceless enemy hiding in the shadows. The Last Risers acting as a twisted, artificial version of fate make for a good wildcard, always showing up at the worst moment to make things even more chaotic and dangerous.

That Kai works well as a main character also helps to keep the story interesting. Kai is a person born at the wrong time. Born into a peaceful world, he seems to be one of the few who still takes training seriously. He knows how to fight each of the other four races—including their weak points and tactics. Thus, it's no surprise he finds his place in a world at war.

However, Kai is also the ideal peacemaker. Growing up in a world without conflict, he doesn't feel the same kind of hatred for the non-human races that the war-ravaged humans of the alternate world do. He accepts them as people and thus can forge peaceful ties where most of the humans he meets cannot. Likewise, it is with this skill that he can befriend Rinne.

Seen as an outcast by all five races, she hates herself almost as much as she hates all of them. However, Kai is the first person she can remember who has accepted her wholly and without prejudice. She bonds with him immediately and strongly—and he with her. After all, they are both outcasts in this world—and two of the exceedingly few with memories of Kai's world.

The rest of the main cast are doppelgangers from Kai's viewpoint. From Jeanne, the cross-dressing hero of humanity, to the bumbling pair of Ashran and Saki, we see how this new world has shaped them into different people while their core personalities remain the same.

But for all the strong parts of the story, there is one glaring issue. The first arc feels painfully rushed—far too focused on getting to the fight between Kai and the hero of the demons as quickly as possible. The result of this is that both Kai and Rinne integrate into human society much too easily. After all, the two of them are people who should not exist in this world. They have no history—no proof of their existence. All they have is a crazy story about being from a parallel world.

And while they do have a bit of proof to back that up—namely Kai's clothes and weapons—this is a world where humanity is on the edge of extinction. Some races, like the elves, can make themselves appear human with magic. This is exactly what Rinne does to hide her angelic/demonic wings. Everything about the pair screams “spy,” but it only takes a few short conversations for them to be at the center of an all-or-nothing attack on the demons. Their being accepted by the humans nearly instantly makes humanity seem painfully stupid at best, and completely unbelievable at worst. Luckily, once the first arc is out of the way, the pacing gets much better. Unfortunately, it's there that a new, even more serious problem comes into play: the visuals.

The animation quality of the first arc ranges from decent to above average. The combat is flashy and exciting. More than that, there is a lot of good visual storytelling going on. There are little details that show Kai isn't crazy—his uniform and its logo are subtly different from the humans he encounters. Likewise, Kai uses his unbelievable story about being from another world as a cover for Rinne—pretending her magic is a feature of his weapon. This is why he often screams the names of his attacks in front of others—he's giving Rinne directions for which spell to cast. This is never explicitly stated, just shown through his actions. It's an example of exceptionally competent direction.

However, once that first arc is done, things start to fall apart. Common budget-saving tricks become the rule rather than the exception. There's even a scene between a named character and a bunch of extras where none of the extras even appear on screen. Rather, we get a series of close-ups and mid shots of the named character—or even super wide establishing shots of the building she is in from the outside. Yet there is never any sign of the people she is conversing with.

While this is the most egregious example, there are many others. We get lots of static shots where only the mouths move—and sometimes these shots are reused several times in the same scene. Then there is the trick where, in a fight scene, the camera cuts away at the moment of impact so there is no need to show anything difficult to animate. And, of course, all this comes hand-in-hand with an overall drop in character detail throughout.

The voice actors are rather well-cast. Kai's Shōya Chiba portrays the perfect mix of competent badass and fish-out-of-water while Rinne's Kana Ichinose easily handles a role of innocence mixed with hatred and suffering. As for the music, it's nothing to write home about but it does its job of bolstering the story while never really standing out.

In the end, Why Does Nobody Remember Me in This World? is an anime with a captivating story hook and characters hampered by a substandard presentation. Part of me wants to recommend this to anyone who finds the premise intriguing—because there is a lot here to like in the plot and world-building—but the fact of the matter is that the final product is just barely watchable. You're almost certainly better reading the manga or the light novels—and that's a crying shame.