My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s Anime – Solo Leveling From Temu

My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s anime had me in its opening sequence. A dark and gritty atmosphere, a subdued color palette, and a brutal skirmish between an assassin and our main character. It’s animated well, the art style pops, and the fight choreography excels in all the right ways. Alright, I thought, this watch won’t disappoint. This isekai is already exceeding my expectations.

Speedrunning the Isekai tropes

Right after that ecstatic opening, we’re transported to a high school class. Oh no. Oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Yup, it’s one of those.

Our main character, Akira, is a quiet, barely noticeable otaku who reads fantasy novels or whatever. Each character in the classroom sequence calls the others BY NAME. That’s how we meet Akira’s class, and, well, our main cast. It doesn’t take long before a huge summoning circle appears and teleports all of them to a medieval world. Straight to the point, eh?

From then on, the My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s anime goes HAYWIRE. We immediately see that the King is weird. Then we have the “who got which class and who is the hero” scene where Akira finds out his stats wayyyyyyy exceed the supposed hero’s (I mean, the fucking title makes that obvious), and he uses his Conceal Presence broken perma stealth spell to leave the “enrollment ceremony” or whatever and spy on everyone around him. Now, Akira finds out that the King has a sinister plot for our summoned heroes. The princess curses his class members and brainwashes them with her ability. We quickly proceed to a training montage where we meet our mentor archetype.

Saran Mithray is the humble but capable Knight Commander of the Kingdom of Retice. He has special eyes, so he spots Akira waltzing around the place while his class trains. Saran appears to be a wonderful dude who also hates the King and takes a liking to Akira. The two immediately developed a friendship. Because his order of super-powerful knights isn’t all that powerful, I guess, Saran decides to train Akira for their upcoming coup d’état. At first, I thought Saran was just playing the nice guy. You know, he wants to take down the evil king. But then seize power himself and become an even more evil king. Turned out, that’s not the case. Saran is legit a valiant and steadfast fellow who opposes tyranny. As you can imagine, Saran dies rather quickly.

Sung Jin Who?

At first, I didn’t see similarities between My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s and Solo Leveling (whose Season 2 was pretty solid), but it slowly crept up on me.

The whole “you’ve gotta enter the labyrinth, where the higher the floor, the more dangerous the monsters are” trope isn’t necessarily exclusive to Solo Leveling, but the use of Shadow Magic and there being a system that saved Akira from certain death by healing his wounds definitely gave me heavy Solo Leveling vibes. The fact that he’s an Assassin doesn’t help, and his calm and collected demeanor, they all screams Sung Jin Woo. However, these are all traits of the typical brand “self-insert” protag of a power fantasy, so I might just be tripping. It’s been a while since I watched a power fantasy, so maybe I’m just out of the loop and all of these shows are like this.

By episode 3, our hero found a random girl who obsesses over him, a pet, he gets super strong, and teleports to the Elf island. He’s fueled by rage against the King for killing his mentor, but he doesn’t mind helping his elf girlfriend patch things up with her sister. A breakneck pace, wouldn’t you say? I’m genuinely intrigued by how much ground this anime plans to cover in 12 episodes.

So Generic it’s actually Entertaining

To be completely honest, I can’t stop watching this show. It’s predictable, the writing is very mediocre, and the pacing is a SPRINT. Yet somehow, I wanna see more. Which tropes will get speedrun next? Will more Sung Jin Woo similarities pop up? Can the My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s anime end up as something worthwhile? The answer to the last question is most definitely a “no”, but I will strap in for the ride nonetheless.

Maybe I’m being too harsh on the show. After all, power fantasy isekai isn’t exactly the most nuanced genre. For what it’s trying to do, My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s delivers. If you’re looking for Solo Leveling with a tighter budget, this is your show. If not, it’s still entertaining, but you have to look at it like it’s a parody of the genre. A parody that doesn’t realise it’s a parody. Maybe that’s what makes it so fun to watch?

You can watch the My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s on Netflix.

Anyhow, last season had some MUST-WATCH shows, so do check out Gachiakuta (it’s still airing, btw) and The Summer Hikaru Died. We also have a TON of manga recommendations, if you’re more of a reading person.