Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious - Reviews

Spoiler free

If you think just one episode cant ruin a good anime, oh boy you are wrong. Watch this and know that fact. Really, this anime ruined itself with just one episode, one turn from a good comedy-action mix to seriousness bullsheet. The whole plot and the mood took a complete u-turn from that one episode. I won't mention which episode was it, so that your surprise wont get spoiled. Lets leave that and move on to the actual review

Story (7/10)
Leaving that one episode aside, I think the other parts of the anime was great. The whole thing of the hero being too cautious and being too powerful was all great. The humor was nice too. Everything was right on track till that one episode came. Unlike other isekai, where the mc has to die to reincarnate, in this the mc is chosed by a God to reincarnate into another world, and can return back to Earth if he defeats the demon lord. 

Animation & Sound (7/10, 9/10)
The animation was nice. Fight scenes were ok, and the artwork was good too.
And about the sound part, Ristarte, or the yellow thing, 's voice actor did a great job on it. The op was good too.

Characters (7/10)
The characters were good too with different designs and unique powers. They progressed along with the plot, UNTILL THAT ONE EPISODE CAME AND EVERYTHING WAS FUCCED. Other than that, it was ok.

Overall (7/10)
If not for that one episode, I would've given this 8/10 overall. Way to ruin an anime. Leaving that aside, this anime was great, and it had the potential to be more that what it has currently become.
If you like anime, where the plot takes a complete 180, then you can watch this. If you expect this to be full comedy and his whole cautios thing to prolong for 12 episodes and so on, don't watch this.

Also one other thing. The 'one episode' completely blurred my review, as I couldn't think of anything else while writing this. I apologize if you find that annoying, but it just lets you know how much it affected my watch of this anime and my whole memory of it. Thanks for reading btw! 😊

Cautious Hero is yet another one of those isekai that have flooded the market because of Sword Art Online and in its attempt to stand out in this more than saturated subgenre that copy-pastes each other’s ideas with little to no variation, it went for the comedy routine. The guy who is summoned to another world in order to save it is overpowered as hell, which is a most typical element, but he is also ridiculously cautious, which makes him obnoxious to the people around him, despite that being the reason he constantly wins. And that is the only thought the author had while writing the script. The entire premise and plot are right there in the long ass title most light novels are notorious for. There is not much differentiation across its arcs; some powerful monster appears, the hero is constantly refusing to fight it because he is not sure, he runs away in order to train, and comes back with a strategy that wins the fight. And by strategy, I mean some overpowered ability that he conveniently learned in a few days just for the occasion. Don’t assume there is any actual strategy in the plot; it’s all basic fighting shonen stuff. As a result, the plot is predictable, the comedy is repetitive, and the characters are one-note.

The comedy becomes stale after a few episodes, because the protagonist is the only character who matters. Everybody else is there just for getting shocked with whatever he is doing, or for training him into becoming even more overpowered. The reaction shots of the goddess and the deadpan face of the protagonist can be quite hilarious at first, but it doesn’t take long before you start feeling bored with the lack of variety. Konosuba, another very light in plot comical isekai, is far more memorable just by having more than one characters who matter and it achieves that by not making any of them stronger than all the rest put together. Because that’s what the Cautious Hero did, and as a result the two kids who are in the same team as the protagonist have nothing to do, no matter how much they train. It even becomes an in-joke as they end up doing nothing more than chores, which can be funny for a couple of times, but then it gets stale because nothing changes and they never offer anything other than reaction shots.

The last two episodes try to change things a bit by shoehorning a lot of drama into the mix, but it came too late to make a difference and on top of that it was forced. There was no reason for all that to be hidden from the viewer, much less the protagonist and his teammates, and as such it feels like it’s something they threw in there at the last moment. They could have kept it as part of the protagonists’ characterization since the very beginning. His often asshole-ish behavior would have been far more enriched and he wouldn’t come off as a one-gag character. So it’s a misfire that ended the show on a bad note. Stick only to the comedy part.

And speaking of the comedy, even if you don’t get bored with how repetitive it is, you still need to like the type of humor it’s implementing. Being faithful to its origins as a crappy isekai, it’s something that will be best appreciated by horny gamers. Because there is nothing intellectual about it; it’s just ridiculous facial expressions, sexual innuendo, and vulgarity. And let’s not forget the videogame terminology. Magic and levels and statistic screens straight out of a generic Dragon Quest game. As a whole, there is zero creativity, no variety, and the ending is kinda crap, thus it’s not a show worth watching for more than a couple of episodes.

This anime has the same plot as the other 100 animes that have come out in the last few years about dimension jumping heroes. These cookie cutter shows are typically bad... but the fun kind of waste-some-time bad.

This show is bad... just bad.

I thought the twist of the overly cautious main hero might make for an interesting twist. Turns out, there is a reason why most of these shows start with weak heroes that become strong. The progression is fun to watch.

This show... spent the first three episodes split between the hero "training" (AKA doing pushups) and the mandatory ecchi fueled chick complaining about how the hero doesn't want to go on an adventure.  Well, I was thinking the same thing. Watching someone excercise is generally not a fun past-time, nor does it make for a funny parody fueled joke.

The hero is also an idiot. He blew up a town to make sure the person he had just beaten was REALLY dead. Even worse, he is a prick who treats those around him with apothetic distain, at best. Super Emo.

The anime has the same storyline as like 10 others. I think it could have been better if the characters weren't so fricking anoying, seriously the main lead girl makes me want to kill myself. The animation was average, nothing crazy, and i dont know what sound is, but i think it's the voice acters. The lead girls voice is anoying as hell, but the others are fine i guess.

I feel like the anime could have been so much more.

The pacing felt very rushed. Because an episode could feel like it was moving too quickly, Rista's crackhead-ish character felt a bit overwhelming at times (her VA was BOMB, though). Also, I think the more serious/poignant scenes didn't hit as hard as they could have because it would so quickly transition from a one-liner or gag, and the problem would be solved almost as quickly. (not to be "that guy" but this might not be the case in the manga or light novel)

One thing in particular I didn't like is the unnecessary character analysis of Seiya by Ishtar near the end of the anime. The "He did (x) because (y) and you all misunderstood," speech felt so out of place. It didn't feel like a person talking about another person, but someone reviewing a character. It was supposed to be a moment for the viewer to understand how Seiya came to be how he is and sympathize with him, but it just felt so lazy because it was all simply said and not shown. It was really blatant, too, with no room for the viewer to reach a conclusion on their own because everything was just so plainly stated.

Something I liked that comes around at the end (spoilers) were the character contrasts between the past and present Seiya, Rista, and Aria. Seiya used to rush into things without much preparation, like Rosalie, and became the way he is now after his big failure. Rista was more prudent and actually useful as Princess Tiana, as opposed to how we've seen her. Aria at the time was pretty much useless, like present Rista.

I really had high hopes for this adaptation. I really loved the manga but didn't get to finish it, so I was hoping to find satisfaction in finishing the story with the anime. I ended up feeling a bit bitter and pretty disappointed. I really do think the anime could've been something more memorable and special if done right. I mean, we've got the crackhead, useless goddess, the OP, methodical MC with a new character quirk and interesting story, and somewhat interesting world-building... Okay, it doesn't sound that special, and it probably wouldn't be a top-tier anime even if done better, but it definitely could have been more satisfying and poignant. (ngl I did choke up at THAT scene, but I could've BAWLED)