“To Sa-Kura”
What They Say:
Kenichi Hamada is just a regular, middle-aged man working as an illustrator in Japan. One day, he is transported to another world and wakes to find himself in the middle of a dangerous forest filled with ravenous monsters. He quickly discovers a massive online shopping site that can deliver him exactly what he needs. Join Kenichi on his search for relaxation in a new world!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Known originally as Arafō Otoko no Isekai Tsūhan Seikatsu, the winter 2025 anime adaptation of The Daily Life of a Middle-Aged Online Shopper in Another World has a lot of material to work with. The original novel series began in 2017 and wrapped up in 2021, but saw a formal light novel published in 2018 that has three volumes out. It also has a manga that began in 2019 and wrapped up in 2024, with seven volumes released through Comikey and Square Enix in English. The anime itself has Yoshihde Yuzumi directing it from the series scripts by Masano Akahoshi. Yuzumi has several directorial credits to their name and a couple of full-series ones such as Oneechan ga Kita and Yurumates while Akahoshi worked on a lot of Cardfight Vanguard and A Certain Magical Index among others East Fish Studio is handling the animation itself and they continue to be an interesting studio that kicked off back in 2017.
The season draws to a close after doing a lot of heavy lifting recently with the area that the group is in and Kenichi’s involvement in various Kingdom affairs. It’s taken time but he’s now able to have a formal meeting with King after all that’s gone on, but the thing that’s making him nervous is the queen. To Kenichi’s surprise, he has to face a match against a rising star mage of the kingdom that has most in the audience figuring that he’ll get wiped out quickly. It makes for a fun fight with his machine being brought in as well, but Kenichi is more surprised by the way the audience comess across as darker and meaner than he expected. His found family definitely has his back though and watching them operate in trying to deal with the summer lesser dragon is fun, especially since Anemone gets to step up in the heat of the moment and do well. It’s another reminder of how she’s more than she seems.
While things play out in a big way with the fight and how Kenichi stakes out some ground, he lucks out in that the princess helps to soften things and tone down the situation. At least until she basically proposes marriage to him to help smooth things out, which he naturally flatly refuses. With a little luck and plying her with a gift of a pearl necklace, everything does get things settled and a peace is now established as his activities are sanctioned. But the queen is the one who still harbors some anger over not having anything, which leads to Kenichi trying to figure out a gift for her and offering a different version of what he gave the princess. It’s all mildly interesting at best but kind of feels underwhelming when you get down to it. But it allows the queen to help pay him back in some ways and that loads him up on the money side of things for a good bit. A lot of what we get is some explanation and details to various events going on politically and with merchants that helps to show the bigger picture of what’s next in the larger story being told and it’s almost comical to see ho Kenichi learns that he was basically used to deal with an anti-royal faction.
In Summary:
While the series started with a good bit of strength and some interesting ideas, it kind of suffered in some ways and the finale in particular. It’s leaning into the mercantile elements and dealings with the kingdom that can be interesting but does so in an uninteresting way and kind of just feeling like it’s meandering. The lack of clarity kind of undercuts the good stuff even if the wrap-up of what happened works out for the best for Kenichi and his family. I really liked when the show ditched the original town and started a new life for Kenichi but so much of it ended up following him that it just lost some of the positive elements. I do like how things worked out with Primula and just the overall shift in storytelling across it, but it all felt like it needed a clearer and stronger narrative to tell its tale. It’s easy to see why it has fans as it’s got a loose kind of fun about it, but it suffers from group growth as you’d expect with more and more women in Kenichi’s life. That can just get tiring after a while. It’s definitely worth watching for a fun kind of isekai title, however.
The finale does have a post-credits scene to tease more.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
