Summary
Warning: Spoilers forThe Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible episode #1!Fans ofKaiju No. 8are undoubtedly reeling over the fact that season 1 just ended, and althoughCrunchyrollquickly announced a second season, a wait time is still expected. Apart from reading the original manga, these fans can at least experience a version of Kafka’s unique type of character in a new series on Crunchyroll that just debuted calledThe Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible. Although Kafka is compelling for a myriad of reasons,fans were initially drawn to himbecause there are rarely any protagonists who are over 30 years old and past their prime.
The eponymous Ossan newbie adventure perplexingly named Rick is just that type of character. He started becoming an adventurerat the ripe age of 30in his world wherethe time to start is in a person’s 20s -– or even earlier. As a result, he ismocked relentlessly by his younger peersand even instructors when he takes an adventurer test after training in secret for two years.
This might sound like Kafka’s unique and compelling situation, but the major difference is that, if Rick were Kafka,his story beginsafterhe inadvertently ingests the power-granting parasitic kaijuand expedites the process where his peers realize that he’s the titular eighth kaiju.
Rick Gives Kafka’s Situation in Kaiju No. 8 A Hilarious Spin
The Ossan Newbie Adventurer is based on the light novel series by Kiraku Kishima and Tea; produced by Yumeta Company
This is problematic on many levels for both fans ofKaiju No. 8and those who are just intrigued by Kafka’s unique dynamic. Although relegated to one episode, the debut ofKaiju No. 8was so effective becauseKafka’s origin story was tragic. He had tried and failed to follow his dreams, and, due to his “old” age, it was highly unlikely that he would get another shot. How flawlessly the anime captured his deep depression exacerbated his situation even more because it implied the great lengths it would take Kafka to pull himself out of his existential state, and since the continual passage of time massively decreased his changes significantly, the implication that he would likely not change any time soon made his outlook even bleaker.
It’s akin toKaiju No. 8beginning with Kafka in kaiju form, showing viewers for the first time memories where he’s still a cleaner living in his unkept room.
This entire dynamic is lost by the start ofThe Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible.Of course, the anime does show Rick’s version to some extent, but only as very brief flashbacks, which greatly reduces their impact, since Rick has already achieved what he’s striving for in these scenes. It’s akin toKaiju No. 8beginning with Kafka in kaiju form, showing viewers for the first time memories where he’s still a cleaner living in his unkept room. While emotional,the immediacy of the situation is lost.
Moreover, the fact that Rick quickly proves his own strength to his peers in the first episode also eliminates the amount of time it took for Kafka’s teammates to realize that he was the eighth kaiju.Kaiju No. 8flawlessly captured the effective trope popularized byOne-Punch Manwhere the protagonist doesn’t show their true strength and is mocked for it. In Kafka’s case, the only thing that made him strong was his kaiju powers, and since the kaiju were the enemies of the very organization he was trying to join, he had to keep that power a secret for as long as possible, thus prolonging what fans wanted, which was for Kafka to prove himself to everyone.
The Ossan Newbie Adventurer Also Finds Inspiration From Isekai Anime
Like many others before it, the new series builds on established tropes from its predessecors
Instead of this,The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party, Became Invincibleputs an absurd amount of focus on a very different albeit well-known trope that revolves around comical misconception, where the protagonist doesn’t fully comprehend their own strength and mistakenly believes everyone is much stronger than them. Unfortunately, the type of misunderstanding that fans truly care about, where the protagonist is thought to be weak when this is not the case at all, is thoroughly cleared up almost instantaneously.
Despite not being an isekai,The Ossan Newbie Adventureralso heavily borrows from some of the genre’s foundational plot points. More specifically, it employs the one where the overpowered protagonist’s overwhelming strength breaks their world’s way of measuring a person’s power to the point that a much lower reading is displayed because the measuring device just couldn’t register such a high level. Luckily, episode 1 has ostensibly exhausted almost all the types of scenarios that these specific stories employ, giving fans some hope that this trope is an isolated incident that will beget a different formula later on.
While possible, it’s unfortunately unlikely thatThe Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party, Became Invinciblewill explore every facet of what made Kafka so compelling inKaiju No. 8, butCrunchyrollhas plenty of time to prove these skeptics wrong, just like the characters who initially doubtedKafkaand Rick.
