First Impression: The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest

Are you tired of the same old isekai formula? Bored of seeing a person from our world die and reincarnate in another world, overpowered and underestimated, surrounded by a beautiful/handsome yet strangely unwanted harem? Have we got a show for you! The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest mixes it up by… having a person from a fantasy world die and reincarnate into the same fantasy world.

Otherwise, the setup is pretty much the same.

Gaius the Sage, fighting some unknown enemy, declares that he needs a “crest” (magic tattoo) that is better suited for combat. He doesn’t explain why, and he blitzes through an explanation of crests for us, the audience, too fast to really follow. Since crests only appear at birth, however, that means he has to die and be reborn if he wants to get a new one. So… that’s apparently what he does—all off-screen and without any further explanation. How did he arrange his own death and reincarnation? *shrug* Next we see him as a high school-aged (of course) kid named Matthias Hildesheimer, or Matty-kun. We run through the usual shenanigans of being underestimated and starting his harem.

Oh, and all that stuff about the “weakest crest”? Lies. The crest does have its shortcomings, but Episode One reveals it’s actually the strongest crest. We are not amused.

But then we get to the good stuff.

In the interim between disposing of his previous body and suiting up in his new one, the demons that he thought he’d defeated for good have infiltrated human society and are steadily undermining it from within. So Matty, who is used to face-to-face battles, will have to learn to fight an enemy who knows how to hide among friends and manipulate from the shadows. The setup was kind of rushed, but I have hope that the following episodes will deliver the payoff.

In sum, it’s a pretty standard fantasy that nonetheless has potential.

You can watch Matty-kun pummel demons on Crunchyroll!

negativeprimes
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6 thoughts on “First Impression: The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest”

  2. I’m familiar with the series, and it’s a pretty generic isekai, harem series.
    It sounds like they crammed too many chapters into a single episode to get to the “good” part.
    Going to be a pass for me.

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