Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody

Ichirou Suzuki (CV: Shun Horie) is a game programmer. While he’s doing a death march before the release of games, he has to sleep at the office. However, after falling asleep he finds himself in a body that looks like a younger self and his name is Satuu* and he is level 1. He notices the environment and UI are similar to two of the games he has worked with and thinks it’s a dream, but is it really one? Using a few overpowered starting skills against a horde of monsters, he finds himself levelling up – but he to everyone else he’s just level 1. Soon enough Satuu gathers friends he can journey with in the mysterious dream world with.

* The Crunchyroll subtitles use “Satou” as his name, but it’s written サトゥー (Satuu) which has a different pronunciation than サトウ (Satou). I decided to make a difference due to the different writing in Japanese and the fact he finds his name lame.

THOUGHTS
If you want something that reminds you of Log Horizon with more “living in the game” focus, this is your show. It focuses a lot on world building and Satuu exploring it, and you’ll learn about it as you go. This is a slice of life show in a fantasy setting, and while there is some action (and Satuu is clearly overpowered) there is absolutely no focus on it. Much like Satuu (at least initially) is thinking he is dreaming, the show is like a long dream which isn’t all that bad, although we don’t know if he actually is dreaming. There are suggestions he might be dead – or in a coma or similar – but as Satuu don’t know, we don’t know.

I think this is a hit or miss show. Give it a couple of episodes and you’ll either like it, or you won’t. I personally find it pretty charming and like that the main character is true to his ideals which he appeared in the world with, even though society might frown upon his choices. He also doesn’t try to stand out – he just tries to live in the world, not take over it (Overlord) or become a hero (KonoSuba). So I’d say it’s a good show if you like to know more about the world than see a character grow or be a hero.

“But static characters are bad!” you say? Not true. Static characters can be exactly what a work needs, and as the focus isn’t on how to get out of this world, taking it over, or being a hero, Satuu just being Satuu is all the show requires. It’s the use of characters that make them good or bad, not whether they are static or dynamic.

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