2 November 2021: Maybe Saihate no Paladin is a better book than it is an anime
I would not have known she was a mummy if the series hadn't said so.
I wasn't planning on watching Saihate no Paladin (The Faraway Paladin) this season, but the first episode was better than I was expecting, and it turns out Hocchan is in this. When I say it was "better than I was expecting," I'm not suggesting it blew me away. Rather, I was just relieved it avoided most of the dumb isekai x JRPG nonsense I expected. Also, the storytelling was deliberate and did not rush through its setup, and I appreciated that.
There were no horny-baby jokes in this show.
That said, the pacing does seem sort of slow for an anime. Or, I guess I should clarify, it seems slow for a single-cours anime. I'm four episodes through its 12-episode run, and I have no idea what its plot or main story is going to be. This would be fine if subsequent seasons are planned, but it does seem as if a read-the-books non-ending ending is the most likely outcome. I have heard the books are good, so maybe that is the way to go. Then again, I've heard "the books are good" said about a whole lot of stuff which only turned out to be good for sufficiently broad definitions of good, so why should this be any different?
An isekai protagonist and his three undead parents can be a family.
Well, the isekai aspect is relatively muted so far. Where it has appeared, it mostly relates to William's dissatisfaction with his old life and his commitment to becoming a better person now that he's been given a second chance. Notably, he seems committed to following the less traveled path of becoming a better person by, you know, being a better person instead of coasting down the "becoming a better person by exploiting a fortuitous cheat power and basking in the adoration of comely, nubile companions who are attached to him" sluice. So yeah, it's at least plausible the books are actually good.
