Apparently, Disillusioned Adventurers Will Save the World

In Hikari no Ou, I was intrigued by the story but didn't care about the characters. With Apparently, Disillusioned Adventurers Will Save the World, it's exactly the other way around. The series managed to sell me on the four cardinal heroes, gave each of them an interesting backstory that I found relatable, and made them all hit rock bottom from which the only way is up. It was like The Rising of the Shield Hero but with an emphasis on relationships. Unfortunately, the depiction of the characters’ transition from "I don't trust anyone" to "I might trust these guys" wasn’t very convincing. I felt that this important development happened too quickly, in an uninteresting and unnatural kind of way. Plus, the storyline about Kizuna and the literal bonds between characters just felt weird and didn't seem to fit in with the whole. Some aspects of the story felt problematic from the beginning and didn’t match the overall vibe. The Japanese idols started to make sense to me when the real setting of the story was revealed (what the world really was). However, the mathematics battle still seems like a silly idea to me. What I will remember about this anime in a few months is the fact that there was a witch who liked gambling, a priest who liked girls, a dragon girl who liked food, and an adventurer who simped for idols. I doubt that I will remember what Stepping Man’s story was about and what was actually going on in the episodes in general. I'm interested to see what's next in store for the main four characters, and how they will develop as personalities and as a team, but I can already imagine that it will be wrapped up in weird, boring, or dumb ballast again, making me think of wasted potential worth nothing more than an average rating... 5/10 (21/03/2023)