The Faraway Paladin is another Isekai series with a minor twist – that our protagonist essentially has to restart life from being a child in another world. The main character of this anime, named Will, is under the care of three strange and mysterious undead beings at the very start of the story. In that initial phase, the core of the show is essentially the bond that develops between this new family, as well as the mysteries behind each of them and how exactly it is Will ended up in their care. I wasn’t very big on how the anime went about all this though. For one thing, we were rushed through 15 years of his life in just about the first three episodes, and that left precious little time to develop or meaningfully explore the relationships that Will had with his undead family of Gus, Blood and Mary. As a natural consequence of that, the moments that seemed like they were meant to be most significant ended up just feeling completely flat. It was clear that Will cared a lot for them, but the audience wasn’t given much reason to care and there hadn’t been enough time devoted to them to make what happened feel like an especially big deal, especially considering how thoroughly any stakes or tension got killed off when Stagnate made his appearance in the 4th episode. Unfortunately, like many African countries, the story continues to be plagued by underdevelopment throughout, and episode after episode passes by without feeling like anything especially impactful took place. From the more emotional moments where Will is at his lowest, to the moments meant to feel like great triumphs and even the resolutions to some of the “mysteries” I mentioned before.
For a while, I actually thought that watching this through to the end would turn out to be a complete waste of time, but things did pick up and mostly stay up around the halfway point with the introduction of best-boy Menel, and the real start of Will’s adventures. Menel, and a number of the other supporting characters, really did breathe life into this anime and helped to balance out Will’s own relatively bland persona in a way that genuinely felt fun to watch at points. There were entire episodes that were carried by how Will and Menel bounced off of each other whenever they shared a scene, and that includes the final episode of this first season, which was otherwise not anything spectacular. It is worth noting though we did get the show’s only passable fight scene to my recollection in that episode, so at least there’s that. Getting back to the supporting cast, even the Bishop was a surprisingly enjoyable character, and I did appreciate how they decided to make him a little more complex instead of just someone who’s stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. He’s a person with his own convictions and reasons for being the way he is even if he’s only a minor character in the grand scheme of things, and while that’s not a particularly high bar for a story to reach, it’s still one that many other Isekai just don’t. Of course, there were still problems with the character writing here, and Will in particular came across a bit too shallow, with a sharp turn in character towards the end and a backstory that got glossed over at the beginning. In at least one respect, though, him being so plain could be seen as a good thing I suppose, seeing how well blank protagonists lend themselves to the wish fulfilment aspect that’s kinda inherent to at least the post Sword Art Online Isekai genre.
Now, when I call it wish fulfilment or even power fantasy, I don’t at all mean that to be a negative comment since the popularity of the Isekai genre always felt to me like a result of escapism, and mistaken or not that’s how I’ve approached a few of these stories in the past, and that desire isn’t something I’m immune to. Will has the air of a character ideal for that, with his particularly vague sense of regret for failings in his past, his desire for a better life and to be a better person, and eventual sense of loss over something he can’t regain. It’s an outline easy enough for the audience to trace their own experiences and thoughts onto, and that would probably make each of Will’s successes all the more enjoyable and fulfilling to watch if you were projecting yourself into the story through him. It’s a lot more fun to watch when you go into every fight not only expecting, but also genuinely Wanting the protagonist to come out on top, even though on a technical level the fight scenes themselves usually felt really stilted, and didn’t carry a whole lot of weight. I’ve seen people say the original author of the faraway paladin created it for writing practice, and truthfully speaking it felt a little like the anime adaptation, too, was put together as practice for an inexperienced team a lot of the time. The art was good, the music and sound design didn’t stand out as bad or great, but the animation and timing for various scenes as well as the dialogue and pacing really left a lot to be desired on a weekly basis. The industry being the way it is though, it’s probably just that they didn’t get enough time or resources and since it’s far from the worst anime that came out even just in 2021 [ex-arm noises] I don’t wanna complain too much about its technical deficiencies.
So, all things said, The Faraway Paladin is a fairly standard Isekai, just without any of the ecchi harem stuff. And depending on the type of person you are, that could be a godsend, I know I definitely wanted something like this after Mushoku Tensei came out, which is why I started watching it in the first place. I mean, you have your unreasonably powerful protagonist and his ever-growing party, demonic forces at play, a medieval European setting, it doesn’t really do anything much to stand out from the crowd and honestly that’s okay. If you’re into crazier or more subversive stories within that genre then this isn’t gonna be the story for you, but if you’ve ever enjoyed an Isekai in your life then odds are decent that you’ll probably find Something about it to appreciate, and that was very much my experience as it aired. So this anime nets a 60/100, which is by no means a truly negative score, it’s almost like the new poster child for 6/10 anime in my mind, because it had a few downsides and most of its positives were just “okay” like the art and the supporting characters. Certainly not worth going out of your way to watch, but it won’t be an altogether bad experience if you do. If you want to read some more Isekai related content from me, check out this post from ten thousand years ago.
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