Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s strongest, actually had some potential. Yes, I know, some of you are probably gawking right now, but it’s true. The show is a dumpster fire, I know. I did an entire review covering this monstrosity and calling it the worst anime of 2019. However, part of what made it so aggravating was the fact that sometimes I could actually see something there. Ideally, I’d want a humongous overhaul of the visuals and a staff that has the time, resources, and competence to make a visually pleasing work, but I’m only going to do some rewriting on the show. Some things will have more detail put into them than others. I’m not going to make too many radical changes that would completely change the course of the narrative or anything, either. I’m not gonna do the same for season 2 because I’m not gonna watch it, so here is my rewrite for the first season.
I must also mention that I did not and will not read the source material. Whatever knowledge I have of said material outside of what the anime presented comes from people I have watched or interacted with who are familiar with said material.
Episode 1: For starters, we’re going to make episode 1 about 26 minutes and we’re gonna do this properly. No in medias res like they did in the anime proper, and no OP or ED since we won’t have time. The first 5 minutes are going to establish Hajime as this reserved kids that constantly gets bullied by most of his classmates while he’s just trying to mind my own business. He has the hots for Kaori, though finds it awkward to interact with her since her interest in him sparks jealousy from some of the classmates, causing the cycle to perpetuate. He wants nothing to do with anyone except for Kaori and her friend who defend him since he can’t defend himself whenever the teacher isn’t around, and at one point thinks about punching one of the bullies before remembering he neither has the power to beat them nor the ability to get away with it consequence-free (because even here I want to establish the potential for this Hajime to turn into…Arifureta Hajime, unlike in the anime or probably the source material). After the teacher shows up, they get isekai’d.
Everyone begins panicking about where they are and if this means they’ll never see their family or friends again before the natives brief them on how their god summoned these people to deal with “mavericks”: a group of individuals hidden in their own labyrinths everyone training with the powers they’ve discovered while Hajime gets dumpstered for having lame transmutation powers before Kaori heals him, and Hajime learning about the world and about things that will become relevant later on in the episode. The teacher refuses to let her students go through this, but the people briefing them tells her that they essentially have no choice as they need people who can fight, and can’t send them back until the warring is over. This then becomes a small montage as his classmates get better and more powerful while he’s left practically in the dust by most of his peers. At the end of the montage, Kaori reassures him that she’ll be there to protect him, and the two just talk all alone in the library Hajime is studying at. He breaks it to her that he loves her but finds it a bit difficult to interact with her without the other classmates making his day a living hell out of jealousy. She understands this and reciprocates her feelings, but before they kiss, Shizuku interrupts them to say that another classmate told her that they are all being summoned for briefing. This all lasts 8 minutes.
One of the main things that made Arifureta almost doomed to fail was how its first episode, and most of the show for that matter, didn’t give you the context you needed to understand why we’re here and why we should care. Even when they tried to in episode 1 with their needless and utterly broken attempt at in medias res storytelling, they couldn’t time it right and often put the explanations before what they would explain. It took more than half the series for us to get all of the necessary information we need. It’s not like the show was built in a way where everything would reveal itself in due time for maximum impact. It’s just horrible storytelling.
They are all then summoned to take on the labyrinth. We learn that the floors start out small with it taking approximately 3 minutes to traverse the first one without fighting monsters and probably about 10 if a capable party fights them. I do this cuz the floors in the show itself are big, and there are some situations where time sorta becomes distractingly nebulous in certain situations regarding this first labyrinth, namely in episode 12. There are 50 of them this time. In episode 1 of the actual show, the main cast made it to number 65, albeit by teleporting, and Hajime fell quite a distance. Everything about this system was terribly communicated and nonsensical in the anime (how do you go down 60 in a 100-floor labyrinth and go down 10 more when you started at 65?) so I’m changing it to 50. All the exploring and the whole thing about them getting sent to a difficult room is the same once you put it in chronological order (just with some better presentation and a little bit of tweaking to make sure the dumbass who touched a teleportation crystal has a more pronounced reason like in the source material, that being he wanted to retrieve it to impress Kaori).
This should last about 7 minutes: 2 for exploring and briefing (we’ll have the explanations and exploring be done at the same time until we get to the teleportation crystal), 5 for the dramatic fight against a dragon & its skeleton army, and Hajime getting betrayed (and he’ll be able to actually see who did it this time). Then he wakes up a few floors below since he used his transmutation powers to make some kind of slope or terrain to roll downwards on as to not die from falling. He also hits a teleportation crystal and ends up a good few stories down below again. He then thinks about how he was hit before remembering that someone, in fact, betrayed him, before panicking about if his classmates will get him and if he’ll see Kaori again before he gets attacked and mauled by a beast. The rest of the episode plays out about how it did before except without the bad structuring. He gets mauled, he loses an arm, he nearly dies while being underneath a healing rock (whose name escapes me) with healing water. He doesn’t quite go full edgelord mode, but he does begin taking matters into his own hands as the beast approaches him. Barely escaping death’s door, he decides that he’s going to survive on his own. He kills the beast after running and setting traps based on his surroundings and skills, and then consumes a piece of it, causing him to writhe and have gray hair like before, albeit partially in my version because I want his hair to get grayer and grayer as time goes on. He begins vomiting after consuming the painful and disgusting piece of monster meat, and then passes out for a while.
A roar from a faraway beast wakes him up, and he realizes that the monsters respawn every day. Day 2 begins and now that there’s no turning back, he declares that he is going to surpass all of the monsters in this floor and get out of this hellhole on his own, even without Kaori’s help. He won’t even bother waiting for his classmates to come retrieve him, assuming that they cared enough to do so given that only 2 of the dozen or so members actually cared about him in any way. He also makes it his goal to get revenge on the bastard that betrayed him once he gets out of here.
This is more or less what the original material had in mind barring a few changes I’ve made. I don’t know why the anime tried to do some chronologically out of order storytelling with this outside of trying to get to the juicy action stuff sooner while sprinkling the more “boring” stuff in. It didn’t work…at all.
Episode 2: This is where things start getting a little less detailed, particularly in terms of how long scenes should generally last.
Whereas my version of episode 1 essentially covered the first 3/4 of the original episode 1 plus what they skipped, my version of episode 2 is going to cover the rest of episode 1 and some of his grinding in episode 2, with basically all of the focus being on that, particularly how he becomes more jaded, delirious, and independent he becomes as his survival skills start surpassing his morality and mental stability.
The beginning of the episode is on the cast back at the castle from episode 1 defeat, with Kaori mourning the supposed death of our main character while her friend Shizuku comforts her. Kaori’s heartbroken and in a borderline unresponsive state, occasionally muttering stuff like how she loved him and that she couldn’t protect him. The bully responsible for all this, who we have established has a crush on Kaori, realizes just what a mistake he’s made, filling him with a mix of regret for his actions and both jealously and resentment towards Hajime.
The crew in my episode 1 went down 15 floors before being teleported to number 30, and then Hajime fell and got teleported, going down another 15. He will learn where exactly he is in by wandering to the exit that signifies that he is going to the 46th after defeating every enemy in his path, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Hajime has several encounters that he barely escapes from thanks to his new powers that will actually be linked to the powers of the monsters he has beaten. After the first major fight of the episode after facing a few smaller beasts and finding himself beat and cut up, he writhes as he paces back to the healing rock with a piece of the beast for him to eat. After eating, writhing in agony, vomiting, and healing, he finds that the more he levels up and the more abilities he obtains, the better his transmutations can be as he can further manipulate the ground around him and begin crafting items and weapons such as guns with magic bullets like in the show proper. After finding himself completely exhausted from all of that, he realizes that at this point, no one’s coming for him which means they either all died or went back without him. He then sleeps to this miserable thought, quietly calling out to Kaori with tears in his eyes as he does so.
On the third attempt, he finally has a gun and realizes that the monsters haven’t respawned this time, meaning he’s likely gotten less sleep since last time. That or it was night time when he passed out the first time, not that he can tell in this labyrinth. This time, he’s capable of making most of the floor manageable, eating every brand new enemy he comes across, causing him to keep convulsing in agony until his hair turns completely gray. Every time he picks off a new enemy after clearing a batch, he retrieves a piece of them to consume at the rock which has become his starting point. His thoughts start really keeping him company as he strategizes how he’s going to clear this floor. During this trek, he recounts how back in his world, he tended to keep to himself with his anime and games unless he needed to interact with everyone thanks to all of the bullying. He constantly thinks of how he’s going to get revenge on the traitor and show off how much cooler he’s become to the classmates who will surely be jealous of him. Thoughts of reuniting with Kaori become more scarce as time goes on as he slowly embraces the edgelord aesthetic of being a gray-haired, one-armed badass with a gun. Never once does he think of actually rejoining everyone and working with them all as a respected member of the party, and instead, while he fights an entire swarm of bear monsters (the same kind that creamed him in episode 1) he thinks of ways to humiliate most of them when he gets back. He thinks of this amidst an exhibition of his powers being used to traverse the air whenever he’s sent flying or to provide cover from attacks he can’t just sidestep with the rabbit’s ability from episode 1. He thinks of Kaori one last time before going to sleep.
Day 3. He attempts to make a metal arm with an ability based on the claws the bear beasts had. He does so and uses it on a tall structure he conjures up, and begins cackling when he sees that the vents he left at the tips of his fingers shoot out this dark, plasma-like substance. After all, the series wants to embrace the edgelord aesthetic somewhat, and this will give it the ability to do so while having it tie in with the powers he’s acquired. Hajime then deems himself ready to make it to the next floor, so he begins attempt number 4. He walks out and sees the beasts ready to fight him, and he begins chortling. He has fully embraced the edgelord aesthetic.
The episode ends with everyone training while Shizuku tries to comfort Kaori as the backstabbing bully watches nervously from afar. Kouki, that one paragon classmate from the show, notices and startles him as he wonders what he’s doing spying on them. The bully then flees and Shizuku notices. She then talks to Kouki about him, with Kouki suggesting perhaps Hajime’s death combined with everyone being teleported to this world has spooked him, and Shizuku feeling suspicious of him. Kouki tells her that ultimately very few people liked Hajime so it’s not like the guy would be the only suspect, even though he doesn’t believe anyone would intentionally try to kill another classmate. Their conversation is cut short by Kaori who announces that she plans to go back into the labyrinth to rescue Hajime and clear the place, and that she hopes everyone will join her.
This episode will also contain a post-credits scene of Hajime reaching the end and realizing that he’ll be entering the 46th floor. There’s a sense of melancholy to his expression upon this realization before he begins walking, convinced that he doesn’t need anyone to help him, especially not those traitorous classmates of his.
Episode 3: The main reason I focused so much on Hajime’s descent in episode 2 is because the anime didn’t. He just dramatically shifts character because he was mauled and abandoned. While that is a reasonable catalyst for change, it shouldn’t be immediate. We should see the character gradually change thanks to his circumstances, especially because Hajime’s character arc is about learning to trust again and not be a major dick. The anime sorta flip-flops between him being downright awful and just a disgruntled tsundere edgelord. Let’s see him at his absolute worst now so we can begin building him back up.
We begin with Hajime wandering into floor 46, already pointing his gun so he can shoot whatever enemy he sees first before any of them notice him. He then thinks one more time of the bully that betrayed him and when he sees an enemy he’s locked on to, he imagines it as the traitor. We fade to black on a gunshot.
After the OP, we go to the party of classmates beginning their raid once again now that several days have passed. Kaori essentially takes charge here as she’s determined to get Hajime back as the others begrudgingly or nervously join her. They’re all for trying again, but most of them are concerned not just for Kaori as it’s been 4 days and she’s still mourning, but for the fact that this is being done for Hajime’s sake, and again, they don’t care for Hajime. They run into a horde of enemies and dispatch it handily. After she quickly heals a party member who suffered minimal damage anyway, Kaori presses forward while telling others to do the same with a look on her face that combines determination with anger. She recognizes that they must have respawned at some point, so she mentions that her goal is to get to the floor below the one they were halted at so they can search it for Hajime.
Cut to a dragon monster similar to the one from episode 1 falling over. Hajime begins harvesting a piece of it and then eating it, wondering what kind of ability he’ll get this time. Once again screaming in pain after consuming it though not as much as before, he finds his physical strength to have been increased, though he’s disappointed at the lack of new powers. He takes it out on the corpse by slashing it in half with his metal shadow claw attack, and that ends up impressing him. After realizing he hasn’t vomited this time, he marches towards the 47th floor, remarking on how it took him about an hour to clear everything. Once he enters, he feels a strange aura around and begins to investigate. He theorizes that perhaps there’s some ultra powerful boss down there whose aura resonates even several floors above. This prospect excites him, so he sets off running.
We then cut to the teacher and some of the younger students in the class. Like in the anime, not everyone went back to the labyrinth. As it turns out, she and the younger students are being sent to a cottage relatively nearby, as they have been determined to be more skilled in agricultural duties than in actual combat. We flash back to her saying goodbye to the students heading back to the labyrinth, and then we go back to her still feeling agitated about how her students were summoned for the deadly purposes of war against “mavericks”.
Hajime finishes slaughtering a sizeable horde finds himself agitated and disappointed that he spent an hour in the 48th floor and found nothing worthwhile. Just a bunch of mooks for him to slaughter mercillessly and with pure rage. There are even a few monsters whose skulls were pierced through like a head on a pike thanks to his transmutation powers being used to sprout spikes from the ground. He’s out of new kinds of enemies to consume as well, so he’s basically just grinding without anything especially interesting to show for it anymore. His malnutrition is also beginning to set in, as the only source of water around is healing rocks, which…he drinks the liquid to heal so he can’t just do it every time he’s thirsty. Consuming monster parts has done less and less for his hunger and hasn’t been providing him with new abilities, so he’s suffering for nothing by trying to consume them. They don’t provide any real nutrition to him anyway. He’s basically stopped doing so at this point.
He then reaches a doorway. He shoots at it, and nothing happens. Then as he walks, interested, he sees two statues reveal two giant enemies from episode 2 of the original show, and he remarks just as he did in the anime. The battle is pretty much the same, except with actually good animation and no terrible CG (just picture it). The only other major difference is that he’s wearier and by the end, his movements do get a bit more sluggish, but then he drinks the healing rock’s liquid. Then, the doors begin to open and he realizes this is where the aura has been coming from as he’s engulfed by a bunch of mist. The room is illuminated by purple crystals just like in the show, and he gets to witness this before looking up. He sees a silhouette amidst the smoke and points a gun at it. It’s a girl embedded in crystal, her eyes opening, scaring Hajime who proceeds to fire in her direction, scaring her as he misses. The conversation goes similarly to how it did in the show, except Hajime’s even more of a dick since he expected a boss and is well, in full horrible edgelord mode after days of being abandoned and forced to fend for himself as his body contorts in different ways. She asks for his help, he refuses and threatens her, and she gets sad. She tells him of how she was betrayed and sealed by her people after she grew too powerful for her uncle and relatives, and that it’s been 3K years so now the vampire race is gone except for her. For the first time, Hajime finds someone to relate to, so he frees her on the condition that she’ll be useful to him and that she’ll remain loyal to him even once they leave the labyrinth (ok this last part is also different than in the original). She hugs him as an act of gratitude for being saved, and Hajime is stunned. There aren’t any romantic undertones with the vampire loli this time, as they had absolutely no chemistry whatsoever, not even on a romantic level in the anime, especially not in the first half of the show. They might have had some episode 8 onwards, but even still, it’s minimal. To get back to the rewrite, Hajime conjures up some clothes for him, and they set off to number 49.
The last scene of the episode is the classmate party reaching the 15th floor, with Kaori giving off a determined smirk. She tells everyone to find the teleportation crystal they ran into last time once they finish. She makes a vow to get Hajime back, a vow that sounds almost too strong, even a little concerning.
Episode 4: I think it’s important at this point to establish the end goal with Hajime this season and the role that Yue serves now that she’s no longer the main love interest. By the end of this season, I want Hajime to have thawed considerably as he really grows as a person from a distrusting, almost merciless edgelord who generally dislikes people, to someone who is actually kind of willing to spare others and accept vulnerability while learning to forgive. It seems like the main narrative of the franchise is headed there at some point, but the anime never really gets there and Hajime’s already shallow characterization remains almost static across the show’s run. Yue is going to function as an emotional and moral center for him, more so than in the show itself. She’s there to keep him from going to far and to really help him not have his guard up as often anymore. Now for the episode proper.
As they begin entering the penultimate floor, Hajime tells Yue to stay out of his way, only for her to show him one of her magical abilities as she utterly annihilates a decent sized horde of powerful beasts with a volley of powerful icicle spheres. Hajime is impressed by the skewering and how she made such quick work of them, embarrassedly accepting her as someone who can hold her own and aid him.
After the OP, we cut to Kaori and the gang searching for the teleportation rock before her classmates suggest that they take a break and eat lunch, since despite their additional training, they’ve taken a bit longer than last time to make it this far. Kaori denies but then Shizuku convinces her (with the traitor nervously adding to the outcries for food) since she knows that Kaori is very stressed out and that she needs to keep her stamina up now that she’s working harder than before to heal and lead people when the latter is Kouki’s job. She relents and they begin to chow down.
We see a small montage of Hajime and Yue annihilating the floor as they remark that it’s only taken them 30 minutes to do so. Unfortunately, there are slight complications in that Hajime is visibly getting slower and more malnourished while Yue’s magic is depleting. They agree to rest up for a bit before entering the bottom area but before that could happen, three dragon enemies from the 30th, as well as an army of skeletons, show up. It takes a couple minutes for them to dispatch everyone, and some enemies get close enough to Hajime that not only are they only barely missing (or hitting his metal arm in a few cases), but he finds himself needing to use both physical attacks and transmutation more often. In his weakened state, he finds Yue needing to cover for him at points, which pisses him off. A few attacks manage to graze through, and one of the dragons fires a laser that Hajime barely has time to conjure up a defense for. Yue’s attacks have also weakened now that her magical ability is reaching its limit with how much she’s used it in such a short period of time and how she’s only awakened for the first time in several millennia. Once the battle is over, Hajime gets into a spat with her as he finds that he didn’t need her help and that she’s getting weaker before she reminds him of their circumstances and how he would have taken a sword to the face or upper torso if not for her. She then offers to help him heal as he can barely reach his healing item and he has sustained some damage, but he lashes and then heals himself. Yue then tells him that she needs to bite him for nutrition and so she can restore her magic faster than she would otherwise. He loudly rejects the idea and then tells her to keep walking since they’ll be waiting at the entrance of the final floor for a while instead. Yue begrudgingly accepts, annoyed that he won’t cooperate with her even despite what she’s been shown to provide.
Hajime then decides to create a buster rifle, which consumes a bit of energy from him. He tells her that he’s going to nap for a bit to restore some stamina and conserve whatever little health he has left and that he’ll shoot and abandon her if she tries anything funny like biting him while he’s asleep. At some point, he hears her voice asking him to wake up. She’s relieved, saying she was alone there for four hours and that her magical abilities have recovered to a point where she can expect them to be at top performance for a reasonable amount of time in the next floor. Hajime nonchalantly tells her “ok then” while being annoyed that he was disturbed from his slumber. They then descend to find the boss of the labyrinth: a giant dragon. Hajime then fires a round from his buster rifle, doing significant damage to the dragon. Based on that and the fact that its first attack isn’t that much more powerful than that of those other dragons, he concludes that this has to be a first phase, and that he was right to fire a round, though he won’t get the chance to do so again for a while since the dragon’s attacks are fairly quick. He continues talking about how you should get the first phase over with as quick as possible while preserving enough health and powerful attacks for subsequent phases before Yue pushes him out of the way of an AOE attack before countering with one of her own. The dragon gets close enough to swipe its tail at them, knocking them rather high (hitting Hajime’s metal arm, which is good because the tail is spiked and it’s already doing damage to the arm, so that would have probably killed him otherwise), and the two are able to get some more blasts in (Yue with her different kinds of magic, and Hajime with his small guns), which finally takes the beast down. Hajime then realizes what kind of role Yue plays: a crowd control person with a bunch of AOE attacks and moves designed to take down large swaths of mooks, whereas he’s more of a long-range DPS and sniper type of combatant. It pleases Yue to see that he’s recognizing some of her value, but before long, the boss goes into its second phase, that being a hydra.
This generally goes somewhat like the fight in episode 4 proper, with how the dragon does significant damage to both of them, how each head covers for one another (one heals the rest, the others have different elemental attacks outside of the head whose haze causes people to see horrible visions of their subconscious), how they figure that out and begin trying to work around that before getting pummeled, and how Hajime’s left eye is destroyed in the process. The point where we really see a diverge (aside from the dragon not being the awful CG monstrosity it was in the anime and the animation being terrible) is when Yue gets gassed and starts having horrible visions. Instead of her cowering in despair, she begins firing magic spells trying to dispell the illusion. Hajime hears her muttering and crying in despair about her family betraying her and how she doesn’t want to be abandoned, and this strikes him, giving him a resolve to rush to her. Hajime barely manages to avoid some of them while still reeling from losing an eye as he uses the last of his healing material since a lot of it gets destroyed under the rubble he gets pinned down under before escaping. He then rushes to hug and console her, which finally calms her down. He asks how her magic’s holding up, only for her to tell him it’s gotten weaker and that at this rate they may not win. Knowing he’s out of healing items and options, he relents and lets her suck some of his blood. They then work to dispatch the dragon, using everything they’ve got until it finally goes down for good. He then realizes that they’ve won but that he won’t be getting the damaged eye back. They walk as a corridor begins to open up, leading to a beautiful room just like in the original. Hajime is stunned by the scenery, being so used to the murky, horrible labyrinth environment. He’s overcome with joy as a tear starts forming from his working eye before thanking Yue. With the last bit of strength left, he lets himself be embraced by her before muttering “we did it…Kaori” passing out. We fade to the title card as Yue tells him that he’s welcome and that she’ll get him situated.
While this was already meant to be a big moment in the show as it’s the first time Hajime actively goes out of his way to help someone overcome trauma despite the awful situation he’s in, I found the kissing in episode 4 to be ridiculous and unearned given the lack of real romantic chemistry between the two and how at no point does Hajime seem to really love her until after the arc since the kiss isn’t a confession of love, just his way of helping her snap out of it. Changing it to a hug after narrowly avoiding her attacks when she went out of control, keeps the same effect without the romance stuff. On top of that, the changes to the rest of the episode make it so that he’s letting his guard down to help her after being so defensive and douchey beforehand. The end also allows us to see that she’s almost definitely going to provide emotional support on top of cover fire and crowd control from now on.
Episode 5: So…we’re keeping the anime-only filler of the classmates arriving at and overcoming the floor that gave everyone shit in the first episode. The main problem I had with it aside from the visuals is how we just abandon them for a few episodes and then poof, they come back to do their thing. There’s no build-up to it, even tho this isn’t the main climax of the arc (that already happened), just another loose end in the falling action that I want to expand upon before tying up. I want this victory to feel earned this time (this is another problem with the show I’ll have to keep dealing with as time goes on). They then begin constructing a teleportation system that would take them to the entrance of the labyrinth for fast travel and emergency reasons. One of the members also mentions how doing this will make it so that enemies won’t respawn in this room once the day ends. They then head back, satisfied with their progress, once they convince Kaori that they should call it a day and continue exploring tomorrow, in case Hajime’s still alive which most of them doubt he is.
At this point, we’re back at the point where the order of events and general pacing in episodes generally begin to align again (before I eventually make significant diversions again). You may have noticed we skipped the contents of Arifureta episode 3 entirely, and that’s because not only does it not add to much to anything if you ask me, but it contributes to a direction I don’t want the show to go in because the show never made it work and I don’t want Hajime to date a vampire loli he has no chemistry with…at all.
Day 5. We’re pretty much at the second half of the episode now. We’re removing the bed scene and replacing it with a wholesome wake-up from Yue as Hajime rests in a bed of flowers. He comments that everything feels warm, noticing that there’s some kind of artificial light source and system keeping everything in this room nice, pretty, and full of vegetation (because they never explained why this room is this way in the bottom of the labyrinth in the original). For the first time, Hajime seems to be in a good mood. Yue hands him a vegetable from the place they’re in, and he eats, happy that he can finally eat actual food again. He then notices the building close to them and wonders why Yue didn’t just take him in there. She responds that she wants him to experience the warmth of nature after being cooped up in the labyrinth for so long, as she wanted this experience as well. He’s unable to counter that logic, so he keeps quiet and begins heading inside.
They explore the place and find the room where the supposed maverick lies. The room lights up and the spirit of the “maverick” appears from a gem necklace from his corpse. He then begins info-dumping about the true nature of the mavericks (they were rebelling against an evil god and were driven away for it), about the general lore, and about how there are 6 of them, one in each labyrinth. He then grants Hahjme a power-up (a gem in his missing eye socket) which increases his transmutation ability dramatically before asking him to go through the labyrinths and obtain enough power to challenge their god so he can set the world straight. He also tells Hajime that only then will he be able to find a way back to his homeworld, after Hajime retorts that he isn’t from this world and doesn’t care about helping it. This changes his tune somewhat, making it so that he has a big challenge to overcome before he can head back home. He remarks about how if he heard this back when he was in his original state with his party members, he would have been petrified, but now, it’s become an inviting challenge. The spirit then offers Hajime an exit and says he can leave at any time after he destroys the necklace which his spirit resides, as he barely had enough magic power to put his spirit in there as his life was reaching its end in the lonely palace. Hajime accepts this and heads out with Yue. He then makes himself a new, edgy jacket to complete his edgelord design, and summons two black ATVs, as he considers this form of transportation the best course of action given the type of environment the outside world seems to be here. He also remarks that he doesn’t have a proper driver’s license, so he can’t use a car or bike and that he’d need something without as much acceleration and with a smaller speed cap. They then drive off as partners on a new quest as Hajime monologues in his head about how he’s finally made it out of there and that he’ll come back for Kaori eventually, and that’s how the first arc ends.
I wanted the exposition here to be a bit more direct and capable of clearing things up so that we don’t have to get two more lore and exposition dumps in episodes 6 and 8 respectively. I also wanted to further establish an end goal at the end of this arc instead of in the episode afterwards once they’re done with a side-quest that lands them another party member. We’ll get to that next time. Here’s hoping you enjoyed the rewrite. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in part 2.
Carmine Castle 