If I had a dollar for every isekai I’ve watched, well… I’d be able to put more production value in this blog. But think about it though. Have you seen any isekai that had such a serious tone, when they really shouldn’t? I mean it’s fiction, it shouldn’t be taken so seriously. Not to knock serious plots though, there are some good serious isekais out there. One that isn’t so serious though is The Fruit of Evolution!
But if you’re looking for a change-up and want something so silly, so hilarious and yet so dumb stupid that it knows its bad but runs with the satire anyway… then I may present to you – ‘The Fruit of Evolution’ ‘How my life had it made’.
Fantasy Gaming Mashup
Before I summarize and explain the details, you really should be familiar with other isekai as well as role playing/fantasy/dungeon crawler video games. In fact, be familiar with most animanga clichés and tropes. The Fruit of Evolution does a wonderful job making fun of several of these concepts.
For one example, the anime pokes fun at the silliness of an overpowered protagonist, especially when they’ve barely done anything to deserve such powers. He also goes through wild transformations that make him skinny and even gives him big anime eyes.
Another example pokes fun at the harem subgenre of the medium (media singular). The protagonist gets very attractive women to fall head over heels in love with him, even when he’s done very little to earn that love. Of course there are some wild twists to the formula that may sicken some viewers while being outrageously hilarious to others.
Poking Fun at RPG Mechanics
And of course there are plenty of examples of fantasy rpg video game mechanics that are made to be satire here. I’ll just list a bunch I’ve found here:
Getting loot from monsters is a thing. Straight out of an RPG, food, trinkets, and other items appear right out a defeated foe.
Mimic chests are real and just wanna be opened. Dark Souls may have perfected this design, but what if these sentient creatures were just misunderstood?
The boss of the dungeon has a tragic backstory you need to hear. Very tragic indeed.
Waypoints don’t always work, especially when they face a brick wall.
Adventure guilds are stupid and made up of some wild members.
Abilities and magic can be ridiculous and are learned from barely doing anything (like flipping a page of a book = pressing a button).
Status menus can get overwhelming to look at and leveling up doesn’t always work the way they’re intended to.
The power of love saves all.
Is that a Norse God Fenrir reference? Or perhaps a Great-Wolf Sif Dark Souls reference I see? Either or, it’s still hilarious.
Retro dungeon point-&-click adventures anyone?
I’m sure there’s several other examples of satire but these ones stood out the most to me.
The Plot
There isn’t much to the plot, and you shouldn’t expect much from it, but it has a lot of hilarious moments that made me go “hey, I get that reference!”.
It has a familiar pilot episode; grade-schoolers are transported to another world. One overweight guy who’s bullied and has no friends is separated from the group. This takes him on a revenge quest through the jungle to become more powerful than them and get payback for their betrayal. Well…not quite.
You see, Seiichi marries a gorilla.
Now hold on! There’s more to this. And it gets really good, oh it gets better.
Like evolution working backwards, Seiichi spots these monkeys who seem very intelligent, and he steals this fruit thing from them because he’s so hungry. It happens to be the fruit of evolution, and when he eats 10 of them he suddenly sheds weight and becomes a beautiful person.
Basically he gets skinny and gets big charming anime eyes (that last transformation made me laugh).
So when a reddish pink gorilla named Saria challenges Seiichi to a fight and somehow loses, she forces him into an unlikely marriage. My jaw kinda dropped, it was a funny scene. Literally they get married and he tries to get away. When he does get away and gets into danger, only does he realize the power of love can change all, and Saria becomes a beautiful woman.
Yep. Just like that. I really don’t wanna spoil more, I mean… everything seems fairly obvious from the get-go, but they go to a town and guild. They meet another girl that’s not actually a monkey but a tomboy sporting the nickname Calamity, and things happen from there.
Surprising Bits
I was honestly pleasantly surprised by a few aspects of this anime. Some of the dialogue seems surprisingly fleshed out and not rushed like many anime have (of course it can’t be that way all the time). Characters have conversations that aren’t always so one-sided. Of course… this is just my opinion.
There’s also a character introduced at a bar who has a much greater role than what they lead on, and that felt like a fresh idea.
There are a few more tidbits of the anime that I just got to talk about.
The Fruit of Evolution doesn’t hesitate to remind the audience that Saria is or was, in fact, a giant reddish-gorilla and is married to Seiichi. It even seems she has the power to transform back whenever she pleases, or maybe its just to quickly get other characters in the loop about her origins.
The studio also does a wonderful job making Seiichi a really colorful silly protagonist. For example, there are many, many scenes where he just has the greatest reactions to the oddball situations that he finds himself in.
I’ll just leave them here.
Season one of The Fruit of Evolution has already aired and hits both good and awful notes. Many would call The Fruit of Evolution trash, and… well… it probably is. But its the kind of trash I can sit back and laugh at and just enjoy the ride. Its not for everyone, but its something an otaku like me enjoys.