As a little kid, Toka Mimori would be kicked around by an abusive adult who laughed and laughed like the Joker. Meanwhile, his mother just looked at the TV, her back to them. Time has passed, but Mimori’s world still plays by the same rules: in the present, his classmate Oyamada (who looks a bit like the Joker himself) has taken away the novel the bookish class rep was reading, and is goofing off in the school bus. The teacher is looking elsewhere, and Mimori’s classmates are silent—perhaps a whispered comment or grunt here and there, but nothing more. Despite himself, and despite fully knowing that his chances aren’t good, Mimori gets up and intervenes. He gets lucky this time: Kirihara, the class king, is tired of all the fuss: from the last row, surrounded by the cool kids, he declares that enough is enough; Mimori doesn’t interest him at all. But with a title this long, reader, you won’t be shocked to know that they all suddenly find themselves in the presence of the self-proclaimed, half-dressed goddess Vicius and some robed monks in a fantasy world. You know how it goes: demon king, desperate times, summoned heroes, videogame stats. But when Mimori happens to be an E-rank hero, the lowest of the low, he discovers that his classmates, his teacher, and the goddess herself are all more despicable than he ever knew.

For most of the episode, I was on the fence about this show, my impressions changing from scene to scene. The childhood abuse at the beginning made the tone heavy and felt a bit clichéd for my taste. On the other hand, I thought the class dynamics—and the very fact that everyone gets to be isekai’d!—were very well portrayed, and not that usual. Mimori’s pessimism and obvious psychological scars made his conduct all the more heroic and gave a realistic element to the scene. I felt more and more anticipation for the isekai twist, but when it finally came, the tonal dissonance alienated me again. Being transported to another world barely made anyone react, not because they were stunned, but because they were just that indifferent. “Goddess Vicius,” being a walking magazine cover, certainly didn’t help get me thrilled. The story picked up again, though, when the class started getting their powers, and the full extent of their callousness was revealed. Afterward, I initially rolled my eyes at the CGI monsters and the “useless” special ability, but Mimori’s introspection made it interesting again. There is an interesting mixed bag here, from the art to the characters to the story. I only decided that the show wasn’t for me in the literal last seconds, when a post-credits nudity scene (be warned) convinced me that the tone going forward will probably be more ecchi than I can stomach. You could almost call it a “failure frame”!

Okay, I’ll see myself out now.

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Failure Frame: I Became the Strongest and Annihilated Everything with Low-Level Spells is available on Crunchyroll.