A little girl in ragged clothing collects a variety of objects from hidey-holes in the woods. She also engages in dumpster diving (hence the bit in the title about picking up trash). She’s on the run, fleeing a village that wants to kill her. She casts aside her old name, Femicia, in favor of calling herself Ivy. She finds a tiny, rare slime clinging to a leaf, and proceeds to give an infodump monologue…to the slime…about how humans in this world receive skills from the gods at age five, and those skills have a number of stars to indicate how strong they are. Ivy received a monster-taming skill, but only one skill, rather than multiple as is the norm, and with a shocking zero stars, making it practically useless. Her family and village decided this means she was cursed by the gods, making her an outcast, and eventually they decided to kill her. The town’s fortune teller still showed her kindness, but she was the only one, and now that she’s dead, Ivy is alone. But it turns out this slime is so weak that even Ivy, with her 0-star taming skill, can tame it; she does so, and names it Sora. Ivy plans to journey to the capital.
I guess this will be a CGACSDCT (cute girl and cute slime doing cute things) series? Oh, I want to clarify something because it really confused me initially: Ivy seems to speak to someone, even quoting them, when no one is there. Eventually, it becomes clear that Ivy has reincarnated from another world, and her past self speaks to her present self, signified by a chime sounding. Ivy then responds, sometimes looking at the camera almost as if addressing the audience, but she’s really literally talking to herself. That aside, not much happens in this episode: a cute girl goes dumpster diving and talks to herself and a cute slime. It’s a bit of an odd juxtaposition of cuteness and angst. It bears repeating that Ivy and Sora are cute, and her situation is so pitiful that you can’t help but wish her well…but I guarantee you’ve seen equally cute girls and cute slimes in anime before, so that’s not a huge selling point. The really interesting aspect of the story is Ivy’s starless status and what the gods have to do with it. Did they curse her? Are the gods unfair or cruel or even just indifferent? Is there a reason she only got one 0-star skill? I’m not saying this will be a theologically deep series, but this opening episode did potentially lay the groundwork for some theodicy…if it follows up on this point and doesn’t just relegate it to backstory. I’m definitely interested enough in the question of the gods’ fairness regarding how they bless people differently to give this series a chance.
The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash is streaming on Crunchyroll.
