As two guildmasters sit down to have a drink, they discuss the recent trend of firing useless guild members. Aside from the financial incentive, there is apparently some satisfaction to be gained from kicking people out. After the guildmaster of Beast’s Fangs finishes his drink, he states his intention to try it out for himself. Unfortunately for our protagonist Rein—who happens to work at Beast’s Fangs—he becomes the target because his profession is not directly combat-related. Rein keeps protesting as he is unceremoniously thrown out of the building. But noticing on his way out that nobody vouches for him, his mind is made up. He’ll let them know soon how important he was to the organization. Rein has been using his own magic to enchant weapons and armor, so he can easily recall all of these enchantments, which he does the moment he leaves town. Instead of enhancing the gear of ungrateful customers, he decides to use it all on his own plain clothing and dagger. Rein might have zero combat experience, but with these massively enchanted items, he may just have a decent chance of becoming a successful adventurer.

Often, when fantasy anime attempt to be playful with their use of tropes, it can feel a bit clumsy. Not so with this one! This first episode is silly from start to finish, but there is not a single boring moment. The art, animation, and sound effects work together perfectly to make this feel like a committed, high-quality comedy anime. The pacing is good too: Within four minutes, we’re already through the obligatory “kicking out” segment, and that’s counting over 20 seconds of him screaming through the title screen. It’s clear that we’re not supposed to take the magic too seriously, because he can already upgrade weapons to their maximum limit, making them extremely overpowered. This indicates that we probably won’t have to sit through long training arcs, unless they too become a target for satire. I also appreciate that Rein’s goofiness is not overdone. Don’t get me wrong—he’s plenty eccentric—but that’s not supposed to carry the comedy by itself. The situations he’s put in are equally bizarre, so nothing he does feels particularly forced or out of place. Toward the second half, I started to fear for a moment that the comedy was over and that we were returning to unironic trope territory. But I judged too quickly, because the self-awareness stayed on track all the way to the end. With how well this first episode was executed, I don’t see how the next few could disappoint, so I’ll certainly be coming back for more.

The Laid-Off Cheat-Granting Mage Enjoys a Second Lease on Life is streaming on Crunchyroll.