Anime Review: Skeleton Knight in Another World

Skeleton Knight in Another World
Genres: Isekai, Action, Fantasy
Rating: R-17+

TW: Sexual Assault

As a preface to this review, I would just like to say that I generally don’t enjoy Isekai anime, and this series was certainly not going to change that for me. However, because a friend recommended it to me, I decided to give it a shot. At first glance, the thing that most stands out about this anime is its resemblance to other anime. Probably not a good first impression.

My first thought was that it was curtailing of the popularity of Overlord, another Isekai with a skeleton main character, but with a less compelling world. However, after watching the first episode, I also saw the resemblance to Goblin Slayer in its attempt to achieve shock value by depicting sexual assault on screen.

But it didn’t just happen once.

In the full twelve episodes, I managed to count five different on-screen depictions of sexual assault toward female characters. Often the main character witnessed the assault nearby and stood deliberating whether or not to intervene while the assault progressed, resulting in more of the attack being shown on screen. When he did finally intervene, the women he rescued would then shower him with praise and thanks by pressing their near-naked bodies against him. And it wasn’t just me who noticed it. The forum sites I frequent were littered with posts of creeped-out audience members and people keeping running tallies of how many times the author of this manga/anime would depict a sexual assault scene.

It makes you wonder if the author has a hero complex, a rape kink, or even both.

Going beyond this problematic reoccurrence, the characters that were there were flat and unappealing, the story bland and uninteresting, and the art mediocre at best.

1/10.