The 8th son? Are you kidding me?!
Perhaps typical but in a sensible way.
The protagonist falls asleep and wakes up in another word as a pre-teen boy of an improvised noble family. That is how this all begins.
This is another isekai series based on light novel. There are manga and anime. Anime covers about up to volume 5 while omitting a whole bunch of goodies. Manga is okay, pretty much standard stuff.
Wendelin von Benno Baumeister is the 8th son of the Baumeister family who is a noble clan just barely. They are knights, meaning their rank is even below a rank of baronet. However, even so, the Baumeister family holds a fief. Such is the pride of the Baumeister family. They manage the land at the best of their abilities.
( Wendelin is attempting to count how many brothers he has while losing hope for a luxurious life rapidly.)
As the 8th son, Wendelin has no path of success within the family. In fact, bar the first son, all other sons are expected to leave the household once they become 15 years old. As expected from a protagonist though, Wendelin has a talent in magic. In fact, he has the potential to be the most powerful mage. Thus, he departs for an adventure academy to become an adventurer.
Soon enough, I mean within a single episode, he earns a rank of baronet, becoming a head of his own noble family line. By the end of episode 12, he becomes a count. (Knight 🡆 Baronet 🡆 Baron 🡆 Viscount 🡆 Count)
This is not a spoiler since you learn this within 15 seconds of episode 1.😅
It’s a harem but done differently.
I despise harem stories in Japanese light novels. For me, harem stories done specially by Japanese authors hardly make any sense to me. However, in this story, I’ve found it acceptable for a few reasons.
One, every woman who ends up with Wendelin has their reasons. His official wife, Elise Katharina von Hohenheim, is ordered to be his first wife and is fine with Wendelin taking women as long as she is recognized as the first and official wife. She was raised that way. She was raised to be the first wife and is fine as long as she gets to hold that title.
As for Louise and Iina, for them it is more about their circumstances than love. Their circumstances is that neither comes from a noble family, making it really hard to become an official wife. It’s either sticking with Wendelin, who is of their own age, or becoming a mistress of a man 20 ~ 30 years senior. The former would be of their own volition. The latter would be by an order of their fathers. I am pretty sure which the girls will prefer. Their ultimate goal is to become his concubines. I like that they are rational enough to realize that becoming his wives is not a realistic goal.
Basically, while a harem, none of Wendelin’s relationships begins with affections. In fact, weirdly enough, the only relationship Wendelin starts with some form of affection is with her sister-in-law as his “sex educator”. I can get by this kind of harem since it begins in a way that I can accept. It makes sense to me. I just cannot accept a harem setting where girls fall for MC as soon as their eyes are met.
However…, well, read on.
Anime makes this story look very cheap.
I was quite appalled how the anime made this series look very cheap as if it has no depth. In the anime, the story doesn’t dive deeply into any aspects of its story elements.
Everything in the anime is very much light-hearted. No one is too serious bar few select moments. If you don’t want a thought-provoking story and just want to watch / read something light, the anime adaptation will do a good job for you.
Any possibility for season 2 is zero.
Anime season 1 covers about 5th volume of light novel. By this point, Wendelin has an official wife and two mistresses. Light novel volume 6 introduces his sister-in-law as a sex educator who has two children with his elder brother already.
It may sound wrong, but, if you read the context, it makes sense for both Wendelin and the sister-in-law in question. Again, I realize this sounds fucked up …. and it is. But context matters. It makes sense for the sister-in-law at least. As for Wendelin, he does seem to like an elder sister type of woman.
Regardless, do you think such a thing can make it into mainstream anime? Nope, so any hope of season 2 is zero unless they choose to alter this small but important aspect of the story.
FYI, there are 17 volumes released as of 2023.
Conclusion
In the end, I dropped this around after volume 7 of light novel simply because Wendelin gets way too many girls. He gets like 4+ more girls later on. The first three girls (Elise, Louise, and Iina) have logical reasons for becoming close to him. The others…, not much so. It just becomes too much of a harem that I could no longer stand it.
Really, the plot itself is pretty solid. Only if the author had shown some restraint in throwing endless baskets of girls into Wendelin’s life, it would have been so much better…
Oh, well, what can you do. I am but a mere reader.
