Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Seiichiro Kondo, an average Japanese corporate slave, falls through a magical portal in ‘Isekai Office Worker’, while trying to rescue a young girl crying for help, as she was being sucked into the ground. Seiichiro and the girl find themselves in an ancient kingdom called ‘Romany’, where Seiichiro is offered a life of carefree luxury, instead, he chooses to work and becomes a workaholic who captures the attention of a handsome knight and also several high rank officials.
Based on the light novel series by Yatsuki Wakatsu, the anime ‘Isekai Office Worker: The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter’ is an entertaining fantasy romantic-comedy about how Seiichiro takes a job at Romany’s royal accounts department and becomes obsessed with fixing the accounts, but also gets involved in an unexpected intimate relationship with the knight captain Aresh Indolark.
The girl Seiichiro tried to save is named Yua Shiraishi and is believed to be a legendary ‘holy maiden’ by the Romany people. She was deliberately summoned through magic to help heal a deadly miasma spreading from a tree, which could prove fatal for the population. Seiichiro is simply her accidental tag-along, but the deeply religious people of Romany believe they’re responsible for the stranger and decide to support him, while the girl is expected to train in the royal palace to help cure the miasma. However, Seiichiro becomes their overworked accountant by choice and starts to uncovers several financial malpractices, which makes him new enemies in the kingdom.
Where does the gorgeous, young, powerful Aresh Indolark fit in all this in ‘Isekai Office Worker’? Well, he only accidentally crosses paths with Seiichiro at first, when he finds the stranger collapsed in the back alley, due to over-exertion and consumption of magical liquids. Aresh is capable of using magic, but healing others requires intimate physical contact. That’s how their romance begins, with Aresh saving Seiichiro from near death. Talk about life-saving sex.
But of course, Aresh Indolark isn’t just the romantic interest, as the captain of a powerful group, he is closely involved in the political and military activities of the kingdom, including the campaign to clear the miasma. In-fact, Aresh serves as part-time tutor for the young Yua Shiraishi, who trains in magic, in order to be able to tackle the miasma problem.
A primary conflict in ‘Isekai Office Worker’ revolves around Seiichiro’s attempts to find a more practical solution to the miasma while supporting Yua in whatever she wants, including her desire to return to her original home in Japan. However, a holy maiden summoned from another world is traditionally expected to spend the rest of her life in Romany as a symbol of hope, and Seiichiro is warned about the consequences of challenging such deeply held beliefs.
Spanning 12 episodes, along with a bonus 13th chapter, ‘Isekai Office Worker’ entertainingly balances the politics of its magical new world with the slow-burn romance that blossoms between Seiichiro and the tenacious Aresh. Their chemistry is established from the very first chapter, and as the story unfolds, we learn that Seiichiro has a poor resistance to the magical particles found in Romany because he isn’t a native of the realm. Yua, on the other hand, was granted magical protection as part of her summoning spell.
It is Seiichiro’s poor resistance to magical particles that keep him in poor health, which in turn means he is always in need of Aresh’s healing powers, which of course means physical intimacy. While the younger Aresh is quick to fall in love, Seiichiro as the protagonist of ‘Isekai Office Worker’ of course focuses more on his work than his handsome suitor. Unlike some animated shows where the nerdy character is oblivious of other people’s feelings, Seiichiro is perceptive and knows how Aresh feels, but pushes off confronting the true nature of their relationship for another day.
‘Isekai Office Worker’ also includes a small secondary romantic subplot involving Prince Yurius of Romany, who is in love with the holy maiden Yua. Yurius is highly suspicious of Seiichiro and his growing influence at court, while the latter finds himself in even deeper trouble during the second half of the story when he is appointed to audit the accounts of a powerful church.
This is a well-paced animated series that I binged in just two days, and my only real complaint about ‘Isekai Office Worker’ is that the animation quality could have been better. The storytelling is strong, and since the series takes place in a fantasy world with its own rules, I just went along with its logic, including the weirdly-hilarious sex magic stuff. However, there are moments where the animation looks noticeably undercooked, with some conversations carried by little more than rough sketches. Given the fantasy-romance setting, it’s a shame that many of the backgrounds feel rather plain and uninspired.
But overall, a solid fantasy romance, and I am totally looking forward to a season 2, hopefully with better animation. Fingers crossed.
Watch Isekai Office Worker on Crunchyroll.
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