So, who here enjoys the fantasy genre? Doesn’t matter what you play, whether it’s Final Fantasy, or Breath of Fire, or World of Warcraft (which is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a re-release of the classic version), or even something like Dungeons & Dragons or Magic: The Gathering…us fantasy followers see ourselves as part of some kind of brotherhood/sisterhood. We know what roles/classes we’re best at, and use them as mains. In case you’re curious, I’m a support main (especially in World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV), and let other players who are better at taking down big monsters do their job while I heal or buff them. The Winter 2019 anime season saw a lot of big fantasy shows, like Rising of the Shield Hero, Sword Art Online: Alicization, Fairy Tail. So one would think another fantasy show would be a bit of a bore, right? Well on the contrary, Endro~! turned out to be quite a refreshing look on the fantasy anime genre, by taking the classic dungeon-party-with-classes’ form, and adding the ‘cute-girls-doing-cute-things’ trait that is usually tried and tested. Sure, that sounds pretty dull and unoriginal, but just hear me out on this one…
Endro~! was written by Takashi Aoshima, the very same name behind Himouto Umaru-chan! and Gabriel Dropout, with character design by Namori, creator of Yuru Yuri and Release the Spyce. I’ve covered both Gabriel Dropout and Release the Spyce here on The OASG in my Otaku Theater column, and now I’ve seen Endro~!, I can picture this mixture of moeblob slice-of-life/cute girls doing cute things/mild yuri undertones being a whole subgenre of its own. The show actually begins at the end…sort of. Our party of four are able to vanquish the Demon Lord with forbidden magic and go home to celebrate…except the magic they used didn’t kill the Demon Lord, but changed them into a loli demon girl and sent them back in time, to when this party of four have just started Adventurer’s School. Knowing that the Hero who sealed her away, Yusha, doesn’t have a class yet, the Demon Lord makes it her aim to prevent her from becoming the Hero she aims to be.
The first episode starts off extremely well, by developing our main characters, bringing in a lot of moeblob humor, and even giving us a drive to support Yusha in her goal to be a Hero. Instead of being the first of what could potentially have been 12 episodes of moeblob mess, Endro~! has done a very rare thing in moeblob shows, and given us all sorts of things for us to enjoy throughout. Episode 1 sends the party of four on their first practical test (a simple dungeon…that teacher Mao fixes to be super-hard just for them).
This party of four consists of Yusha, the dim-witted yet extremely lucky Hero who begins Adventurer’s School classless, Seira, the knowledgeable elven Priest who acts like the mother of the party, Mei, the Mage who has an unhealthy obsession with magic cards known as Cartado, and Fai, the tomboyish Warrior who mostly uses her fists to attack, and enjoys eating…a lot. On the surface, this party of four does indeed sound rather unoriginal, but the character design behind them (as well as all the other characters in the show) have been done extremely well…so well that we are able to like them almost immediately. I mean, I found it very hard to find anything annoying in any of the character designs; that’s something that not a lot of character designers can do.
In time, Mao/The Demon Lord begins to lose sight of her original plan to prevent Yusha and her party from developing into mature adventurers, and decides to focus all of her time and energy into becoming a teacher. Also, in time, we see Yusha, Seira, Mei and Fai develop into more than just four girls wanting to become better adventurers. As each episode goes on, and as they find themselves on all sorts of quests, we see how close the four of them really are. One look at this could be that this is a reflection of any long-standing clan in World of Warcraft; the kind that has been around for years and sticks together thick and thin.
*I mention World of Warcraft quite a bit in this review since I’m only just getting back into it*
The big trend in fantasy-based anime these days is the isekai theme: where an otherwise very boring person (usually either a salaryman or a high school student) is sent to a fantasy realm where they are given the potential to become something bigger and better. It kicked off with the likes of Sword Art Online, No Game No Life, Konosuba: God’s Blessing On This Wonderful World! and Re:Zero, and moved on to more original ideas like Saga of Tanya the Evil, That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, and the more recent Do You Love Your Mom & Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks? (why do these isekai shows have to have such long titles?…). Endro~! is a change from this big trend, because this world is the only world they are in. There is no high-school for these girls, they weren’t originally office workers, this isn’t some MMO game, and this isn’t some afterlife/purgatory for them…Naral Island is the only place for them. The isekai trend is still very popular, and so it won’t be dying anytime soon. The fact that Endro~! has such a simple story, and a simple plot, with simple yet very well-done character designs, actually makes it stand out among all the epic fantasy shows of late.
Sometimes simple is best. It certainly worked here, and even though it’s highly unlikely that we’ll get a second season of this, Endro~! really is worth watching…especially if you’re in the brotherhood/sisterhood of the fantasy genre, like I am.