“The Guy In Charge of Chores With Low Self-Esteem Turned Out to Actually Possess Incredible Skills”
What They Say:
One day, Kurt, a kind-hearted boy, is suddenly kicked out of the Hero’s Party for being “useless”. He finds that his aptitude for weapons, magic, and all other combat-related skills is the lowest rank, so he takes odd jobs repairing the castle walls and digging for minerals to make a living, where his exceptional abilities are immediately revealed. He proves to be skillful in cooking, building, mining, and crafting magical tools–in fact, his aptitude for every skill unrelated to combat had an SSS ranking! Kurt, however, seems completely unaware of his talent and ends up saving people, the town, and even the country through his unaware actions!?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on the light novel series from writer Yosuke Tokino and with illustrations by Zounoze, the ten-volume series has been ongoing since 2019, and obviously has a manga adaptation as well. The property has proved popular, and the animation adaptation has brought on Hisashi Ishii to direct it from the scripts by Deko Akao. Ishii has a lot of credits on the animation and episode direction side while also directing the Rainy Cocoa project and the recent I’m Quitting Heroing series. Deko Akao is involved in what feels like dozens of projects at any given time, and adapts them well. It also doesn’t hurt to have EMT Squared on the animation production side either.
The premise behind the show is an interesting if somewhat minor twist on a character being ejected from a party in a fantasy setting. Kurt is part of the Flaming Dragon group that’s making their way up in the arnks of well-known groups but the problem is that Kurt is basically the weakest and kind of useless member of it. And it doesn’t help that the party is made up of asshole characters either with just mean and cruel people who look down on those they save. They’re only about themselves, and since a party can only have four people, they finally kick Kurt out so they can get a proper fourth member to help get them to the next level. Kurt’s just too much of a nice guy in general and doesn’t put up any resistance, instead just trying to figure out what to do next in his life as he heads off on the back end of a cart. It’s a familiar sad start that leaves you quickly hoping that the kid will find himself some good people to be around.
What he ends up doing when back in a city is visiting the Hello Work building so he can find something to do. Unfortunately, all of his skills are anything but combat-related and that essentially keeps him from being in a party and instead pushes him toward trade work. Since he’s broke, he’ll take on anything and ends up doing castle wall construction. It’s through the test and his work on the wall that we see how he’s naturally talented toward these things with his mana even though he looks weak and basic. That he accomplishes more in a couple of hours than some day in days is hilarious but plays into the idea well while also showing his creative approaches to problem solving. Kurt, naturally, doesn’t understand why everyone is shocked because he manages to do pretty much all the work quickly but because he does it both so well and so fast, well, it stops the locals from getting money to help keep them fed and out of poverty. But he doesn’t believe it and just thinks it’s because he’s not good at things.
Where his luck changes more in the right direction is when Yulishia shows up at Hello Work looking to hire a miner for a problematic job, and to do so without any money since the mine is going to be put out of business soon. Kurt has familiarity with it from his hometown and offers to help, though she’s not keen on it at first because again, he looks weak and his niceness is even a little pathetic in the eyes of others. His time spent with Yulishia is one where it does take a bit for her to realize that he’s actually talented, but she has to do some careful tests of him first because she’s not an idiot and he wouldn’t be the first guy to try and assault her while she sleeps. Kurt being Kurt, however, he ends up sleeping outside and doing repairs on things for her so that she’s even better off. But like others, it makes her a bit wary of him because who could possibly be this good? Everyone is distrustful because that’s all that they’ve experienced and aren’t sure how to handle Kurt, his skill, and his amazing luck. I mean, the first geode he cracks up gives them a third of Yulishia’s goal for the week? Who would believe that?
In Summary:
As a launch episode, the series does all the things it has to do and it does it pretty well. It’s a surprisingly mellow show after the cold open with Flaming Dragon and it works out well in Kurt’s favor. It doesn’t try to introduce a ton of people at once but you’re left liking both Yulishia and the woman at Hello Work who is surprised by what Kurt is actually accomplishing. It’s a good foundation to work with while Kurt is still oblivious. I do like that kind of oblivious nature for a bit but I can see it wearing thin after a few episodes where a lot is accomplished because it won’t paint him in a good light and it’ll seem like false modesty. But the potential is here for an interesting kind of cozy comfort show that will have some bigger moments along the way because of things like Flaming Dragon and just other dangers in the world. But having spent a lot of years in MUDs where playing the fixers and makers is a big part of things, just having that as a focus is pretty welcome here.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
