賢者の孫

KENJA NO MAGO

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
June 26, 2019
LENGTH
24 min

DESCRIPTION

A young man is reborn in another world where he is adopted as a baby by the hero Merlin Wolford and named Shin. By his 15th birthday, Shin has accumulated all kinds of power by studying under Merlin, but one thing his adoptive grandfather didn't give him was a lick of common sense.

(Source: Anime News Network)

CAST

Sicily von Claude
Rina Honizumi
Shin Wolford
Yuusuke Kobayashi
August von Earlshide
Shouhei Komatsu
Maria von Messina
Yuuki Wakai
Yuri Carlton
Juri Nagatsuma
Alice Corner
Miyu Kubota
Merlin Wolford
Yuusaku Yara
Melinda Bowen
Gara Takashima
Olivia Stone
Saya Satou
Oliver Schtrom
Toshiyuki Morikawa
May von Earlshide
Maya Hinanogi
Lynn Hughes
Megumi Yamaguchi
Mark Bean
Shouta Hayama
Tony Freed
Chiaki Kobayashi
Thor von Fregel
Arisa Shida
Julius von Littenheim
Keisuke Koumoto
Diseum von Earlshide
Mitsuaki Hoshino
Michel Collins
Yoshihisa Kawahara
Miria
Sayaka Oohara
Zest
Kenjirou Tsuda
Miranda

EPISODES

Dubbed

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RELATED TO KENJA NO MAGO

NOVEL ActionKenja no Mago

MANGA ActionKenja no Mago

MUSIC Attouteki Vivid Days

REVIEWS

Afurodi
77/100
An Anime I enjoyed throughout. It sadly lacks innovation but happily lacks many common annoyances too.
Skip this preface if you want to get straight to the review

This is my second review and done over a 3rd party client, so please excuse formatting issues,
also I'm not really good at English.
If there's something you'd like me to do better, please write me that.

Now to the scoring system
The scores are exponential, meaning a 2 is much worse than a 3 while an 8 isn't much worse than a 9.
1. Indescribable / Way worse than nothing
2. The worst/ Worse than nothing
3. Indescribable void / Ties with nothing
4. Very bad / Disappointment
5. Bad / It had nothing I liked
6. Okay / It had intervals I liked
7. Decent / Overall decent
8. Good / I really liked this
9. Amazing / Genre defining
10. All time favorites / Nothing I didn't like
-I may be a bit biased on the scoring as I actually really liked this show, personal preferences will be marked though-
-Contains slight spoiler for episode 1 and further unmarked slight spoilers-

Premise
A guy dies and reincarnates as a baby.
The wizard and hero Merlin finds him and decides to raise him to a very powerful boy.
The boy has a peaceful upbringing and one day he gets send to a magic school and finds friend.
The story continues with him and his friends having fun, improving themselves and occasionally fighting versus underleveled enemies.

Characters
The characters are overall amongst the most likable characters I've seen in my recent Animes, though none of them are complex. There also is no character development as most of the characters are more or less adults and aren't really flawed in their personality.

The main character actually isn't that dense and only lacks some world trivia knowledge, but this isn't a major part of the story as you might would expect due to other Isekai.
E.g. In "The hero is powerful but is too cautious" the whole story revolves around him being cautious.
In this story, the hero is introduced as very powerful but lacking of common sense.
His lacking of common sense is merely touched by upon the story which helps to make this story less frustrating, but makes the main in return less recognizable and boring.
[E: I'm reediting this cause of english errors, but honestly got no idea what I meant to explain with this paragraph. I don't remember his lacking of common sense as I described it as a major part of his character, so let's leave it at that.]
He also loves his grandfather (Merlin) and grandmother (Melinda) and is generally a wholesome guy.

The powerful wizard Merlin. An old hero who loves the main character as his grandson. He taught him all that he knows and also learned from him.

The powerful wizard & co. Melinda. She's also a hero, but she gained her popularity from all the other things she's done. She used magic is revolutionary ways and more or less watches over Merlin and her grandchild because she's competent and they aren't.

Aug, the Prince, is just an Angel. He's the best girl and one of my all time favorites. Due to that I restrain from evaluating his character.
Just know that he is a kind guy with a good heart and a bromance kind of relationship with the main char.

Because they are a couple characters you can't remember the names of (you, I of course remember all the supporting characters names) and won't want to read in a review I'm trying to make it short.

The girl with blue hair is shy and very kind.
She has a total crush on the main.

The girl with red hair is kind and a good friend of the blue haired girl.

The girl without control of her power.
She also has a breast complex.

The blonde loli #1 with a breast complex (pettan).
She gets into rage quickly.

There are also 4-5 other characters but you get the grasp.
They're a class full of stereotypical characters with different but blant personalities which all share one thing tho. They're likable.
This makes the world, which is rather simple, colorful and enjoyable.

I won't go into the antagonist as this would regular contain spoilers. Just know that he's also a rather simple antagonist. Simple not as in "He's evil because he's evil" but as in he isn't a 5 head genius, does human mistakes, isn't overpowered but is still a worthy antagonist with motives for his doings.

Plot
A classic medieval world.
There are multiple countries occurring in the story but they aren't really touched upon.
This show isn't political and the countries are more or less just vibing in the world.

The story has a clear antagonist.
It does not revolve around fighting the antagonist but there is at least a valid reasoning for that (ignoring the antagonist for almost all of the story).
This is something the show is very good at, giving reasonings for things that would frustrate without proper reasoning and evading things it can't explain which makes this blant Isekai world feel somehow "complete" and gives a feeling for roundness.

The anime has powerfantasy, friendship, improving skills and weapons, adventure and improving bounds.
All in one this is more of a story between friends instead of an adventure. It still feels like an adventure though, but the focus isn't on reaching the goal but on the way to the goal à la epic theatre.

Animation & Music
I can't say anything about that except that the animation is good and the music is decent. Both fulfill their roles and the animation is definitely on the higher end which you notice. There isn't anything more I know about that and worth to mention for me so let's continue.

Other notable aspects
This Anime resolves a lot in progress. Progress as in there's nothing that sets them back in any way which is frustrating in other Animes.
There is no sudden quest they have to do or a sudden danger to which a whole episode is dedicated to. Everything continues clean and this is actually a much bigger positive point than you might think.

Also I mentioned that there aren't that many annoying tropes. There are tropes like the all-mighty main Isekai protagonist, but I rather meant annoying tropes like (These are real spoilers. Only read them if you've finished the show or don't care that much about one spoiler)

not confessing your love to the other person or not even getting that the other person is in love with you too.

And here's a just small, slight spoiler

or people just accepting that the main is a semi-god with his unreasonable, absurd and illogical powers. The powers are actually explained in an actually very satisfying way.

and a very light spoiler

his grandparents actually know from the start that he comes from another world and he isn't just keeping that a secret throughout the story as annoyingly done in many other Isekai.

The interesting thing is that this Anime is no satire.
We've really had almost no Anime without even one of these annoying tropes which wasn't a parody where tropes don't count cause satire.
The fact that this Anime has none clishés or almost none makes the Anime feel so much "cleaner".

This is something the Anime shines in. It feels very clean to watch. Explanations are given, very few/almost none negative tropes, progression, no sudden interference.

Also the characters are really likable which needs another separate mention.

To whom I'd recommend it
People who don't care about character development and just want a good and likable character cast developing in other ways than personality. Keep in mind that you thus don't really feel close to the rather blant characters .
If you're fed up with frustrating things this Anime will probably still have some frustration for you, but if you're just a bit fed up then you'll have a good time with this Anime.

These are the main two points making this story strong, the enjoyable characters and the clean storyline.

If any of these did not sound likable to you, I wouldn't recommend Kenja no Mago / Wise man's grandchild.
If you're still interested just watch one or two episodes.
I had the feeling that it got a bit boring further down in the story but you get a very good grasp after just one or two episodes. The worst that can happen is you watching 40min of an Anime that you'll mayble drop.

Closing words
I'm happy that you read all of this. It was fun writing this and thinking through the story and the episodes once again. If you've enjoyed it or didn't then leave a rating and I'd be happy for suggestions for improvement.
Have a good day and stay healthy!

[E: 3 years after writing this I finally found out that you mark spoilers as -!Text!- and not as -!!-Text-!!- o-o]
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Groenboys
65/100
I enjoyed this generic-ass isekai more then I should have
Wise Man's Grandchild follows a normal boy, called shin, getting into an unfortunate accident, causing his death. He reincarnates as a baby in a fantasy world, in which after another terrible incident he is stranded without his parents. He gets picked up by a powerful warrior, and through his teachings Shin learns that he is incredible powers. After he is turned adult (15 years old), the grandparents of Shin decides he is finally fit for the real world. Tiny problem: Shin doesn't really know how the world works, as his grandfather never thought him other then magic. Thus Shin gets into a magic highschool and has to learn about the customs of the world, which he does so easily because the actual focus of the anime is that Shin is fucking OP. He can do everything better then everyone, and even invents new magic. This attracts the attention of other nations, thus Shin gets into a political landscape with many people going after him.

I applaud you if you could read the last paragraph without falling asleep by the second line, you are a stronger man (or lady) then I am. The Wise Man's Grandchild is an isekai, and boy is it an isekai. It is a power fantasy, about a misfit boy with an extremely generic personality but still has unimagineable powers, thus everyone wants to be his friend and his enemies want his powers, but they fail because the misfit boy is so goddamn powerful. The plot synopsis read like the starter kit for every isekai ever. It follows the tropes very closely and it has very little original bones in its body. Especially the attempts at "self-awareness" falls so flat it is embarassing.

But there is something with the Wise Man's Grandchild that makes me enjoy it more then I should. And it isn't just because I am an "Isekai trash" that enjoys any isekai regardless of quality. Isekai Cheat Magician only came 3 months after Wise Man and fucking despised that anime, even though it has the same generic tropes as Wise Man's Grandchild. So what makes Wise Man's Grandchild so enjoyable?

I think a big part of my enjoyment comes from the fact that even though it is a generic isekai, it feels like the author somewhat cared about it. It has all the aspects of a generic isekai, but it feels like its goal wasn't just to make the protagonist a self insert, but also to make the isekai feel like a good time. The constant new introductions of the increasingly ridiculous powers of Shin never stops being funny (both ironically and non), with Shin also learning others his powers to others. There is positive vibe from this anime that keeps me engaged, even if it has some dark scenes.

Since we are talking about dark scenes, I want to mention that the story is surprisingly engaging. Ofcourse, I could sit here and pick apart any nonsensical or stupid part in the story, but as a whole I think the story has some nice twists and ideas that get expanded on just enough.

Also, and I can't stress this enough, there is actual romance in the anime! Yes, it has tons of cute girls to make it look like a magical harem anime, but these girls aren't there to be the love interest of Shin, they are just their own fun characters. Shin actually falls in love with one love interest, and throughout the series they actually get together and start to develop their relationship. There is barely any chemistry, but it is something!

Despite my praises, I still have some definite problems with this anime that aren't just "hurr durr generic". The characters are very hit or miss. The comedy feels like it runs in circles and never really goes beyond giving me a smirk. I like the animation and it has some nice sakuga, but the character design is so weak. Each character looks like the default skin when you make your own character in SAO. My personal biggest problem is with the anime is its ending, which honestly completely ruined my goodwill I had for this anime. Like I wanted to throw my computer in the sink for how many eyerolls I made during the last episode.

The Wise Man's Grandchild is on a technical level a bad anime. It has more flaws then it has postive aspects. The Wiseman's Grand Child is on a personal level an okay enjoyable anime. Maybe it is due to lowered expectations, the positive vibe tricking me into liking it or that the good aspects shined harder due to the negative ones, but I can say for sure that I don't regret watching this show. Even with its godawful ending, the Wise Man's Grandchild is a big "good enough" from me.
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TheWatcherMG
40/100
Another Isekai that just hopped on the hype train with the same tropes and Overpowered Mc
This anime was a generic piece of garbage that just hopped on the trope train but was somehow enjoyable.
Also, gimme a follow if you enjoy my review.

So let's talk about the animation in this generic anime, It was above average.
A solid 6.5/10 Nothing Great, but nothing bad either It got me hyped up in some scenes, making me forget how this show was no different from other generic isekai.

Let's come to the characters. First off, the art style didn't impress me, It wasn't unique or anything good. it was just a generic anime art style similar in many anime. But I'm not really picky about the art style so let's leave it at that.
This anime has some good cute waifu characters tho. I really love that's it not ecchi filled but has some to keep the viewer engaged

Not only is she cute but the mc ends up with her instead of having a 5 big harem with no one/everyone that's gonna end up with him.

Let's talk about the powers.
Going with the same old Overpowered mc trope, this anime has an mc that is overpowered too much. He uses his knowledge from the earth and gets stronger magically. He also invents things like a treadmill and the simple magic telephone over in the other world, surprising people like an overpowered mc always does.
He is a pretty bland character, and the magic in this show is nothing new either. Generic magic, with generic overpowered skills in the mc.

Everything goes how the mc wants, everyone trusts him immediately after seeing his strength, he has a group of ~~simps~~ friends who follow him and learn magic from him, it's a pretty generic anime.

Ok. Now let's see what the plot is.

Basically, we have the mc who gets isekaid. He gets born into a random family who gets attacked by a monster bear. After that, the "Wise man" comes around to find the house and finds the newly born mc. He gets adopted and the Wise man, now his grandfather, teaches him overpowered shit, which the cm makes even stronger with his knowledge from our world. For an anime named Wise Man's Grandchild they don't develop or exported the Wise man at all. And stuff happens, I don't really wanna write the entire plot but basically, the mc faces zero troubles because he is overpowered.

In the end, this was another trash isekai that I regret watching. Nothing unique or noteworthy about it, Nothing good, at least decent about it. It's the same old story told in a similar way. Something that would have made this anime better was not have everything go the MC's way and have him actually face some or the other major issue. Still enjoyable for me, but probably because it's my first isekai. Would not recommend it at all/
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