
[ad_1]
This rather wholesome entry into the isekai subgenre features Will, a good boy raised by the undead. Nick and Jean-Karlo debate whether a good, straightforward fantasy can hold an audience’s interest and overcome its workman-like animation.
This series is streaming on Crunchyroll
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
Nick
Good news and bad news, Jean-Karlo.
The good news is: it’s almost Christmas! And all the good little children of the world are about to get some wonderful presents from Santa.
The bad news is: we’re smack dab in the middle of the naughty list, and our penance is to watch another isekai anime.


…I’ll take it.

But hey, let’s look on the bright side. This one DOESN’T star a sex criminal! Can’t believe that’s an effective qualifier now, but I’ll take small mercies where I can.
Yeah. Full offense to isekai as a genre, but Faraway Paladin is basically a poor man’s Jobless Reincarnation only the protagonist wasn’t a total creep. Turns out, when you take the perv-angle out of Jobless Reincarnation, you’re left with a really boring show, as opposed to a boring show with a gross protagonist.























And I do actually like how this plays out. “Starting over” is all but the mission statement for isekai stories, but Will’s story isn’t a power fantasy where he gets gifted super powers and a harem of cute girls. Instead his “fantasy” is learning to cherish his own life and family enough to overcome the struggles that come with life.
The anime also makes a point that the stronger the blessing or the more-ambitious your pact is, the more crap will be thrown at you. So right from the get-go, it’s established that Will has an uphill to climb.

Yeah, but you don’t start Dark Souls by godmode-ing Gael, just sayin’.
He DID spend 15 years in the tutorial, to be fair.






Again, it’s a nice tidbit of characterization that makes the whole thing feel meaningful. Really my biggest issue with Faraway Paladin is that so much of this stuff is good on paper, but keeps getting tripped up by the presentation. This is a big, pivotal battle that barely moves and constantly pauses to have Will explain stuff to us, and I really wish it just…didn’t.
“Good on paper” is right, because Faraway Paladin is so boring otherwise. The presentation is absolutely workmanlike to a fault, the music is generic “folksy-fantasy” fare with the weird Scottish twist that so many isekai use, and it’s so ungodly slow. It takes five episodes to get to Will starting his journey in earnest. You could have done that in three, I feel.
Or take the opposite approach! Stretch out the origin story stuff and let us just spend time with this family alongside Will to give it all more oomph when he things go to pot. As-is, it just feels too cluttered in the anime, and honestly has me curious about trying the light novels instead.




I mean you could maybe cut that part out.
“You don’t understand, Will’s Oedipus complex is important writing”, the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 134,982 pages of heated debate on the merits of mummy-loving.

Eh. He’s no Deedlit, but we gotta make do, I guess.

“I-it’s not like I want to combat the forces of evil and bring light to a dying continent because I l-like you, baka!”











Catch Menel in his upcoming appearance in the next season of Interspecies Reviewers.
Oh god could you imagine Will stumbling through a fantasy red light district? He’d die so hard even Stagnate couldn’t bring him back.
I don’t wanna think about whether Will will make a beeline to the brothel with all the Undead women. Because I know the answer is “Yes, he would.”

Note: his companions are the hobbit and the old man, not the ape. That’s a different isekai from this season.




His actually answer is “the friends I make along the way” but the show doesn’t miss a chance to throw in more shipping regardless.





By the way: at this point in the story, Will still isn’t a paladin.
Thankfully a Wyvern shows up to give him a huge EXP dump.


To be fair, if the show was animated enough to make this look as cool as that sounds, I would totally be down for it. Unfortunately it’s all they can do to sometimes animate Bee’s arms when she plays her instrument, so cool monster fights aren’t in the cards.

Though speaking of cool nicknames, uh…





…Menel, why do your smallclothes look like bloomers…
Hell, he’s even ready to throw hands when a crown prince starts threatening Will.




Menel very decidedly does NOT want this twink obliterated.

Also, the show only just made Will a paladin in the (at the time of this writing) most-recent episode, episode 10. So even if this show goes two cours, that’s almost half of the show where your titular Faraway Paladin is just Faraway.

Welp


[ad_2]