First Impression: Death March kara Hajimaru Isekai Kyousoukyoku

Synopsis

This is the story of Suzuki Ichirou a 29-year-old programmer who suddenly wakes up transported into a fantasy RPG as a 15-year-old named Satou. While thinking he is dreaming he is dreaming he finds himself swarmed by lizardmen and uses a 3-time-use special power (meteor shower) which results in him becoming very high level. Deciding to hide his level, he travels to civilization in hopes of meeting new people and finding a way to “wake up” until he ends up saving a young woman from a wyvern and thus begins a tale of a regular man ending up in a fantasy realm

The Good

It is extremely, and from the memory of this writer, EXTREMELY rare that an isekai story with a male lead would show a concrete look at the life of the character before he ended up either waking up in the new realm or being reincarnated. Not only does the episode actually show the guy’s life as an I.T person but we actually see his face, another thing that has almost never been done, really just the whole first few minutes of the episode was one big refreshing piece of change from the usual.

Oh sure, the character is not all that different from the norm but the fact that we actually see what the foundation of his knowledge and skills for could be when he shifts is something different. What’s more, the fact that the lead ends up in a world that is mix of games, which are bugged at that is pretty hilarious.

Once the episode enters into the fantasy realm, the whole design of the setting and the monsters are rather good. The CGI is pretty solid and so are the action scenes as it got this writer’s blood pumping. Just the whole schematics of the fantasy realms was just commendable. Basically, the episode presented a good balance of before and after for the main character.

The Bad

Ok, this series by far has presented the weirdest transition from the modern realm to the fantasy realm to hit the isekai genre. Seriously, it may not have been the wake up or death transition, but really? A series of codes and he wakes up? I mean it isn’t bad but seriously, it was pretty out of the blue. Next to the second flaw for this episode however, it’s pretty small in comparison. What is this second flaw? The fact that the main lead thing that he’s in a dream, like, live action “Alice in Wonderland” level of thinking he’s a dream.

Even when he was injured and bleeding, he still believed it was a dream and it’s just, rather facepalm worthy to say the least. He’s a coder who knows his way around games and pretty borderline otaku if the manga has anything to say about it. It would have made sense if he tried to put logic into his situation, but a dream? Yeah that’s quite the minus point for the episode. Other than this, it’s the usual for this type of isekai story, from the overpowered lead to him ending up as a hero to the first female he meets, pretty standard.

Conclusion

The whole beginning of the episode was just one big refreshing change of things for the isekai genre. Outside of the weird transition for when he enters into the fantasy realm, the build-up of both the character and fantasy realm gave a rather solid introduction to the series. While the fact that the character thinks he’s dreaming is pretty eyebrow raising, the general way he was portrayed held a lot of potential for him. Overall the episode had a solid introduction, good art and animation and basically presents a lot of potential for the series.

Rating: 7/10