Zenshu Season 1 premiere recap: A refreshingly original Isekai

The wait is over for a brand-new Isekai, Zenshu. It’s an original animated production by the legendary MAPPA studio, and it promises to bring a new take on the incredibly popular genre.

Fans have been treated to an original and meta concept that merges the professional and personal challenges of being an animator with the medieval fantasy realm so commonly seen in anime.

Zenshu does well in not taking itself too seriously, while also exploring themes of mental health and physical exhaustion. If it can continue to strike this balance through the first season, this show has a lot of potential to be the next great Isekai.

A day in the office

Our protagonist, Natsuko Hirose, is a young and incredibly talented artist who becomes a national sensation after the release of her first anime. She goes on to make her directorial debut, but finds herself having great difficulty making progress. She’s stuck creating a show in her least favorite genre – romantic comedy.

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After several stress-inducing encounters in the animation office, Natsuko suddenly collapses and dies from exhaustion, thus kicking off our Isekai adventure.

Reincarnated

Natsuko wakes in the middle of some sand dunes and is immediately beset by some huge insect-like creatures (later identified as Voids.) She is saved, much to her bewilderment, by the principal characters in her favorite childhood anime – A Tale of Perishing. 

Comprising of a shapeshifting Unicorn called Unio, stereotypical elf Memurun, floating totem QJ, and their knight leader Luke Braveheart, they come across as rather silly and satirical. They are all quite hostile to our protagonist, referring to her as the “black-haired gremlin.” It all makes for a refreshing and amusing change to the stoic and stylistic characters typical of Isekai.

This is the intention however, as with some quite meta humor, Natsuko questions why she has been reborn into an Isekai, since that usually only happens to, in her own words, “shut-ins” or “NEETs” (not in employment, education, or training).

She slowly starts realizing that since she is so familiar with the world she has been reborn into, she knows everything about to happen. Including a huge ambush of Voids that will result in the death of beloved unicorn Unio.

Rewriting the story

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As the ensuing battle continues, Natsuko desperately struggles to think of a way to save Unio, recognizing that the ongoing events will inevitably lead to the poor unicorn’s death. 

Much to her surprise, her pegbar (a tool commonly used in animation) begins talking to her and telling her she needs to “draw.” Right before Unio’s final moments, she charges forward and begins to instinctively do what she knows best. 

Natsuko’s office equipment begins to appear before her (much like a Stand from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure). She frantically draws to rush through her project, and, when finished, she summons an enormous hand-drawn entity that decimates the Voids in one go.

What’s next?

The episode winds down there, with the fantasy characters finally having some respect for Natsuko. Luke Braveheart picks her up in his arms and finally declares her actual name. 

Going forward, we really don’t know what to expect, especially since there is no manga the series is based on. The theme of challenges in the animation industry will no doubt be explored, as Natsuko will have to find creative and successful methods of navigating the difficult path ahead of her.

What is unclear is whether the series will be grounded in this fantasy world she finds herself in, or whether we will see her travel to different anime worlds. Either way, this was a very promising first episode. It addresses serious and quite unexplored themes in the genre while also providing humor and levity through not-so-serious side characters. MAPPA may be on to something here.

Check out Crunchyroll for a new episode next week at 6:45 PT and see where Hirose Natsuko’s adventures take her next.