Jidou Hanbaiki ni Umarekawatta Ore wa Meikyuu wo Samayou: r/anime Awards 2023 Thoughts
This is part of a series of posts, reworking my casual writing from the r/anime Awards about the various shortlists and nominees. I do a lot of writing for the awards which never gets released outside of awards, so I figured I’d try bringing some of it out and putting it here. They’re not meant to be anything too serious or in-depth, just reworking my thoughts as I posted them in the awards server to here. This isn’t representative of the awards themselves or anyone other than myself involved in the awards. I’ll make a larger post with all the shortlisted shows from each category in the Write-Up Collections tab after I’ve posted all of the individual write-ups for that category here.
Of the categories I was juror for in the 2023 r/anime Awards, Jidou Hanbaiki ni Umarekawatta Ore wa Meikyuu wo Samayou was shortlisted in just Anime of the Year, and so that was the category where I discussed it.
Watch Links: Crunchyroll
I actually had some hype for this in terms of storytelling, since the source has been talked about as one of the best isekai light novelss out there, but unfortunately the scenario writing just isn't that good.
I feel somewhat conflicted about the movement of more slice of life isekai and fantasy anime. On one hand, I love slice of life, and I want to love isekai since I like fantasy, so this should be a good mix, and to be fair some shows do this very well. On the other hand, it’s led to a myriad of poorly made and kind of lame series. There’s a push for them to be comedic, and that can work, but Reborn as a Vending Machine has some pretty poor comedy sometimes. For example, the condom bit just felt unnecessary. Like, what was the point? They say their problem, Boxxo has a solution, it's gone. There wasn't even really a joke besides "Haha sex funny", and I think the main reason it existed was just so the author could flex his databrain about different types of "vending machines", which ends up feeling like the reason behind many scenarios in the show. The definition of "vending machine" is very loosely stretched to "any machine into which you insert money to dispense things", which I guess is a fitting definition, but it gets kinda wild, and makes the premise feel less special. I also just found the problem solving absurd at times. My favorite scenes were the Slice of Life times at the beginning where we were learning more about Boxxo and the citizens and the world, but the fights just feel dumb. Like, the coke and mentos bit. I know those things can blast off with a lot of force, but I feel like on a moving cart against moving targets launching them sideways, you're gonna have a tough time getting the bottle to even launch, let alone hit anything. The animation doesn't help either, as many scenarios play out in ways which visually just don't make sense to me. You kinda just have to accept that this is a fantasy world and things don't work like in the real world, but the way in which physics works in this world in the absence of magic is weird. One of those "It works in a light novel because you don't actually see them doing the stuff and you just have to imagine it, but once you actually try to make people see it, it doesn't work" kinda things.
I do like the main duo kind of. I think the series delves a little heavily into the wish fulfillment pool, as Lammis is very much meant to be a waifu for people to fawn over. And she is hot, and some scenarios aid in achieving that goal, so goal achieved on that front. They do seem to form a believable bond for the most part, and their friendship through limited communication is kinda neat to see develop and play out in different scenarios. I like some of the supporting cast as well. Hulemy is fun, although, at the end, her just kinda joining the harem put me off a bit. The other adventurers provide some variance to the scenarios, although when they go on a quest they very much blend together. Their dialogue is also at times very bad...like, awkward and blunt.
Probably the biggest pulse I felt was in scenes where Boxxo wonders if anyone would like him anymore if he became human. In this form, he's special, and it's an interesting exploration of the overpowered main character trope where, if they lost what made them overpowered, would anyone still care for them? This was a nice beat and gave Boxxo as a character some depth compared to many isekai mains.
Overall I enjoyed this show, but it's hit or miss, and it's not super well constructed. Just light fun, doesn't feel like it is up to snuff with the other shortlists.
