Noble scion Elymas undergoes the Ritual of Divine Blessing to receive a class. During the rite, he realizes he has reincarnated into a setting with classes derived from Magic World, a VR game he played in his past life. He becomes a Heavy Knight, his favorite class. Unfortunately, in this world, the Heavy Knight is despised as the weakest class of all. His scantily-clad and obviously-evil relative, a girl with the on-the-nose name of Malice, receives the more respected Master Swordsman class. This results in Malice being named the family heir and Elymas being promptly disinherited. Soon, Elymas begins adventuring, rescuing a random jobber by defeating a ton of frogs.

It wasn’t about a Jewish magician who goes blind like I was expecting, but that was pretty enjoyable. It’s all pretty standard fantasy fare, to be honest, but it’s done well enough to not feel completely stale. A couple points stood out for me. First, it’s a rather pretty anime, with some gorgeous shots of the outdoors and a cityscape. Second, Elymas discovers that while the classes and monsters match the game he knew, the world itself is NOT the same as the game. That could be an interesting wrinkle in the reincarnated-into-a-game formula, depending on the nature of and reasons for the differences. My biggest complaint is that early on there’s a no-context, set-in-the-future fighting sequence that is just pointless and confusing and throws off the pacing, but it’s not that big a deal. Overall, then, I’d say I’m interested enough to come back for the next episode. If you’re in the mood for a fantasy adventure anime this season, you might want to check this one out.

The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows How to Game the System is streaming on Crunchyroll.