Summary
- Cautious Hero excels in blending comedy with isekai action, creating a unique and refreshing experience.
- The series offers a fully fleshed-out world and concept, leaning into isekai power fantasy expectations.
- Despite its comedic core, Cautious Hero delivers emotional depth and memorable moments in just 12 episodes.
KonoSuba –God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! is a title that is extremely famous for the manner in which it turned the various tropes and character archetypes that have become part of the blueprint of isekai, commencing a whole new direction for isekai as a whole. The reverberations of KonoSuba’s influence continue years after it first aired, and one title that emerged in the aftermath of the “KonoSuba Effect” is a title that perfected the blueprint set out by the legendary isekai comedy.
Let’s talk about the comedic and storytelling brilliance of Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious, the funniest isekai anime that is NOT KonoSuba.
Cautious Hero is available to watch on Crunchyroll.
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Plot and Background
What It Says on the Tin
Like with most titles that emerged from light novel websites like Japan’s Shousetsuka ni Narou (Let’s Become Authors), Cautious Hero has an incredibly long government name that is shortened for ease of reference, but this full title explains in short what the story is about. The goddess known as Ristarte is tasked with saving the world of Gaeabrande from a Demon Lord through summoning a chosen hero; however, Gaeabrande is a treacherous world that has been given an S-Rank for its severe difficulty, so Ristarte will have to choose a powerful hero who will be able to fell the enemies.
She selects Seiya Ryuuguuin, a young man who had stats that were far beyond any other contender, but upon summoning him, Ristarte realizes she is going to have his hands full because, despite his overwhelming stats, Seiya is cautious to the point of ridiculousness; the kind of “hero” who would use his ultimate technique against a slime in case it happens to be far stronger than it lets on. He refuses to enter even the safest parts of Gaeabrande without undergoing rigorous training until he reaches a level that he is comfortable with. His obsessive caution seems ridiculous to the goddess until they arrive on Gaeabrande and see just how justified Seiya’s caution really is.
Cautious Hero is based on a Japanese light novel series written by Light Tuchihi and illustrated by Saori Toyota, which has been running on Kadokawa’s novel publishing website Kakuyomu from 2016, before being acquired by the Kadokawa subsidiary Fujimi Shobo, who published the first light novel volume in February 2017 under the Kadokawa Books imprint in February 2017. The manga adaptation with art by Koyuki was serialized in Fujimi Shobo’s shōnen manga magazine Monthly Dragon Age from November 2018 to October 2022, and collected into six volumes. An anime adaptation of Cautious Hero by White Fox (Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World) aired from October to December 2019, running for 12 episodes.
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Cautious Hero: The Hero is Overpowered But Overly Cautious |
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Animation Studio |
White Fox |
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Director |
Masayuki Sakoi |
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Script |
Kenta Ihara |
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Episode Count |
12 |
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Airing Date |
October – December 2019 |
What Cautious Hero Gets Right
Great Blend of Comedy and Isekai Action/Adventure
Cautious Hero’s best attributes are the way it applies itself to being an isekai comedy. Rather than simply subverting all expectations and attempting to pass the meta off as humour, Cautious Hero is an isekai that has a fully fleshed out concept and world, and leans into these with refreshing sincerity. It hilariously leans into the expectations of a power fantasy that have become part of the isekai experience, and found a way for an overpowered character to be no less relatable because of it, and also managed to use the same architecture that makes Aqua and Kazuma work so brilliantly as a comedic duo in KonoSuba and create something completely new, rather than just an approximation of the aforementioned dynamic.
Beyond that, the action moments are still every bit enjoyable because of Seiya’s tendency towards cautious overkill, and how their bickering straight-man and idiot routine is informed by more than just disbelief of Seiya’s actions.
Their relationship is perhaps the single most emotional aspect of the story, and while that isn’t given as much screentime as it needed, the series drops in one of the most intense twists towards the end of the series that might even undermine the series’ comedy genre tag. Despite the abrupt emotional intensity of the ending; however, Cautious Hero still manages to stick the landing despite being so short-lived. Perhaps the fact that it was also done and wrapped up in 12 episodes adds to its memorability, but it’s a title that deserves more recognition for how outrageously funny it was at its silliest, and how downright tear-jerking it was at its most emotional.
For those who enjoy comedy and isekai, as well as love to see how these subgenres grow and change due to the influence of significant shows, Cautious Hero is the perfect example of a title that embodies the isekai trope’s rapid convergence with comedy in the wake of KonoSuba’s success, yet also manages to be its own unique experience amidst the oversaturation of isekai as a storytelling device in anime.
