First Impression: Quality Assurance in Another World

Nikola lives in a farming village. And then the frog-dragons attack! She meets a strange man named Haga who seems to be some kind of researcher. Nikola gives us a geography lesson. The villagers speculate that Haga is a King’s Seeker, a kind of elite investigator (a theory he later confirms when Nikola visits him again). The villagers are forced to flee when another dragon attacks. Haga, later aided by the villagers, defeats the dragon. But as they celebrate, Nikola and the others all spontaneously combust (literally!), as Haga sadly states that this event has a fixed outcome, and even if you find a cheaty way to beat the dragon, all the villagers will still die. “My real job is…to check for bugs in the game and report them!” Through flashbacks, we learn that he was one of several testers for a VR game called King’s Seeker Online. They somehow became trapped in the game, unable to log out, and it’s implied that the others have met with a terrible fate, leaving Haga alone. He can only hope that if he keeps doing his job of filing bug reports, maybe he’ll be let out someday. And then Nikola reappears, alive, leading him to wonder if she’s a bug too.

If you just watched the first half of the episode, you might think this is a pretty generic fantasy story. But then the clues start popping up, culminating in the Sword Art Online style twist, and by the end of the episode you’re looking at a very different kind of story. I admit, I’m rather intrigued by the mysteries that are set up. How and why is Haga trapped here? What happened to the other debuggers? What’s the deal with Nikola? I also want to mention that there are some really funny facial expression shots that I enjoyed. Only time will tell if this is just Great Value Sword Art Online or if it stands on its own as an original story, but I’m certainly willing to give it a shot and come back for at least the next episode. If you’re not deathly allergic to anything remotely resembling SAO, and if the mystery piques your interest as it does mine, you may want to check this out.

Quality Assurance in Another World is streaming on Crunchyroll.

JeskaiAngel
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