After his party defeats the demon king, Eftal the sage is recognized as one of the four greatest mages in the realm. Then he gets old and trains a new generation of young magic users. Eftal reveals to Merlin (one of his students) that he was never truly satisfied because he was never the strongest; his younger peers all surpassed him. He takes a new magic aptitude test that says he has zero aptitude for magic, to his great distress. Instead of finding satisfaction that all his hard work brought him to such heights despite a lack of raw talent, he’s just super bummed out. He dies frustrated, and we learn that he previously reincarnated from another world, and now he gets to reincarnate a second time. Soon he defeats a random dragon and realizes that already at age four, he possesses the same power he had at his peak in his previous life.
My first complaint is about Eftal’s motivations. Like, dude, so what if you were “only” the fourth greatest mage instead of the greatest? At some point in life you should have maturely come to terms with the fact that you accomplished incredible things through hard work and accepted reality, instead of dying grousing about how you weren’t the very best like no one ever was. Despite being an old man for most of the episode, he feels strangely immature and whiny. My second gripe is that there’s no real hook to bring back viewers, no point of intrigue that makes you want more. Judging by the show description and the OP, this anime is about a young guy with overpowered magic and his cute female companions. It’s a totally standard premise that we’ve seen before eleventy-billion times before. The episode offers nothing special in the way of plot or character development. It’s not overtly awful like some shows; I just can’t find anything notable to recommend about it.
From Overshadowed to Overpowered: Second Reincarnation of a Talentless Sage is streaming on Crunchyroll.
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