With just a little more training, animators will allow you to Do the Thing.
I wasn’t originally planning on watching Katainaka no Ossan, Kensei ni Naru (From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman), but its first episode came out early in the Spring 2025 season on a day when I had enough spare time to give it a try. At a minimum, the animation seemed better than usual for an anime set in a fantasy world with JPRG conventions, but surely this was going to be yet another example of “the weakest person is actually the strongest” schlock, right? Well, not exactly, as it turns out.
Allucia got so good with a sword she was promoted to doing endless paperwork.
Sure, the titlular ossan is a much better swordsman than he thinks he is, but I’m relieved his duel against the extremely Saitou Chiwa mage did not turn out to be the stereotypical case where he flips the tables on an overconfident braggart who underestimates him. We already had basically that setup in the first episode, and I was expecting an escalated version of the same here. However, the overly powerful mage keeps him on the run the entire time, and he never gains the upper hand. She backs off simply because she’s satisfied that he’s not a useless lout.
You can tell this will go well for him because she’s just standing there.
It doesn’t take much to make one of these shows watchable—just a bit of restraint. That said, I’m unsure whether Ossan Kensei will manage to also show restraint regarding another common pitfall. Specifically, what’s going to be the deal with the old man’s inevitable harem? Former students he instructed anywhere between five and 20 years ago all seem to harbor romantic feelings toward him in the present day. He hasn’t reciprocated at all, but how this plays out will likely determine whether From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman turns out to be better than expected or just another example of fantasy world anime being mostly clichéd rubbish.
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