Onmyo Kaiten Re:Birth Verse Episode 1 has been released, and it’s a new take on Subaru’s Return by Death, in the form of the original anime by David Production. While I did find it pretty confusing, I do look forward to learning more and hopefully getting some explanations as to the MC’s incredible plot armor.
The episode starts with the protagonist already in an unfamiliar world running away from monsters. I already found the character designs cool from the trailers, and I was quickly again reminded that this was a David Production work after seeing Takeru. We are introduced the female lead with some fan-service, and he’s quick to confess. Or at least he tried, before some ruffians woke him up and we learned that was actually the 1999th time he’d dreamed of that world.
I found the following part to be a bit nonsensical. Takeru, despite apparently having gone through that dream for 1999 times already, is now completely dumbfounded and asking the ruffians where his crush had gone. It’s clear it’s meant to show how little he cares about his ‘predicament,’ but I thought it could have made some more sense. He talks about his family’s motto and goes on to beat the guys to some cool soundtrack, but I had to wonder how they managed to knock him out in the first place and why they were waiting for him to wake up. Him proclaiming how they don’t lose or admit defeat would have been more powerful if we hadn’t already seen him knocked out a few minutes before.
As he off-screens them all, the story moves on to showing his kindness, as he sacrifices his life to save the hamster-looking creature that was also in his dreams. Here I thought it was again weird that ‘that thing’ didn’t deserve to be called by its name after he had traveled to its world 1999 times and definitely should have learned it, but I can’t judge until we learn more about his relationship with Tsukimiya and how he’d spent all that time there before. The truck successfully isekais him, although this was one of the more interesting parts to me. I will explain why a bit later.
Now he wakes up in the other world and meets Tsukimiya, who has no idea who he is. This wasn’t that surprising to us, but it was to Takeru. The little hamster causes another fan-service moment, and he ends up getting deservedly slapped and kicked out of the play, which had just opened that day. At this point, I still thought Takeru seemed way too happy-go-lucky for someone who met and probably should have seen more in 1999 trips to the world. Maybe there is some difference from when he did it through his dreams vs this time, but I still felt like he should’ve been more knowledgeable.
At least he does seem to understand quickly that he traveled back in time, and we are shortly introduced to the main part of the show — the black mist and the onmyoji with their shinigami. As Takeru is saved by his mysterious MC power after proudly proclaiming that he ‘won’t run’ in the face of a giant monster he has no idea how to face, we also meet the first onmyoji, Yura and Atsunaga. They arrive to save the day, and we see the kind of mecha-style battles that will likely follow the entire anime. I’m not a big fan of mecha in general, but I thought the CGI was decent enough and the battles looked okay.
However, I again wanted to slap Takeru myself when he declared that he will take the monster out and asked the onmyoji to leave it to him. Even with his miraculous healing, he should have realized that he is outmatched and took the sidelines before learning more. It felt like he’s aware that he is the MC of the show and that he can just vaguely power through anything. As a major shonen fan and defender of power of friendship, even I thought that this was taking it too far.
Luckily, they ignore him and save him anyway, and he still has the nerve to be mad and say how he doesn’t lose. It’s clear the Narihira family doesn’t have any humbleness in its mottos, but I hope Takeru eventually shows some signs of growth and learns to not just run straight through anything. What might help is that this very episode punished him for his carelessness.
The second time the black mist showed, he instinctively learned to channel his magical onmyoji power and seemingly take down the monster. I am now left wondering why Yura and Atsunaga have to tag-team one shikigami while Takeru transforms alone, as well as what shikigami really are. Why Takeru can handle the black mist will also be interesting.
As the monster brutally send Takeru back to the past, it makes me wonder whether all 1999 visits so far were actually time leaps rather than dreams. Not sure how that might make sense, but the same feather animation played both when he ‘died’ in the future and when he died now fighting the shikigami. I look forward to seeing where they go with the whole time travel thing, as well as to any repercussions it has on Takeru.
Episode 1 is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
Disclaimer: Anime Corner was provided an early screener of the first episode.
©Sakuno Fujiko／Onmyo Kaiten Re:Birth Verse Committee
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