Why I Won’t Ever Review Reborn as a Vending Machine

Article at a glance:

• Every anime season feels like déjà vu, 50 to 60% of new shows are just another recycled isekai or fantasy about overpowered nobodies in medieval JRPG worlds. The sheer volume of this slop is staggering.
• It’s not that fantasy or isekai are bad genres, far from it. They’re supposed to be limitless playgrounds for imagination, yet most studios keep copy-pasting the same tired formulas instead of taking creative risks.
• This constant flood of mediocrity doesn’t just bore fans; it buries genuinely great stories under mountains of sludge, making it harder for good shows to get noticed or appreciated.

Full disclaimer, I am about to go on a huge rant about the increase of SLOP content in anime, specifically in the isekai and fantasy genres. I don’t intend to judge anyone who enjoys these shows. Never once have I told people what they should and should not watch, for that is none of my business. These are just my thoughts on why I refuse to watch and review shows like Reborn as a Vending Machine. Or for that matter, insert any of the typical seasonal isekai/fantasy slop anime here.

I am well aware of the sheer amount of potential the isekai and fantasy genres bring to the table. I am also aware that sometimes the best works can be born from very cliché ideas. And I am also aware of the fact that some of these utter trash shows can be enjoyable at times; I have been guilty of this as well. I myself have dabbled in the sludge of mediocre fantasy and isekai shows, and have enjoyed some of them. Today, though, I want to talk about the weird increase in the sheer quantity of low-quality animes like these and why they’re kind of harmful.

So you know, let’s call out my own hypocrisy today and take a look at the absolute state of the isekai and fantasy genres in anime. Welcome to another article, and today, we are talking about why I don’t review things like Reborn as a Vending Machine and the saturation problem overall. So let’s get started,

The Potential of Fantasy and Isekai

Look, there’s a reason why the fantasy genre has been around for so long. It truly does open up a path to unlimited possibilities. In a fantasy story, the only thing holding you back is your own imagination. And that is the problem. Most people choose to iterate over something existing instead of trying something new. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that. An anime like Mushoku Tensei shows us that you can use every fantasy trope in existence and still produce something absolutely wonderful through sheer force of good character writing.

Isekai is much the same way. There are so many avenues to isekais that are not explored much. For example, reverse isekai is a HEAVILY underutilized thing. The best usage of reverse isekai I can think of is probably the Drakengard/NieR series by Yoko Taro. I know it’s not technically anime, but it’s anime adjacent, so… You can get so innovative with the concept of isekai, I don’t know why we are always circling the drain with the same boring fantasy isekais.

The Rise of Slop

I think that the main problem is not the lack of innovation. It is the lack of sensible innovation and the ability to write characters worth giving a damn about. I watch so many shows to review, but I remember the characters of only a handful of shows. Why is that? Why have I already forgotten about the protagonist of say The Water Magician, I can’t even recall his name, but I still remember some random character like Souka from Slime? And mind you, Slime has an insanely large cast.

This right here is the biggest problem. People are so busy writing their next isekai slop that probably will never get completed and get only 1 season of anime to promote the LN, that they forget what makes stories worth caring about. If you look at the anime listing for any season, 50 to 60% of it will be filled with your typical isekai/fantasy sludge, and in MOST of them, characters are literally just cardboard cutouts or paper-thin self-inserts of the author.

And with the advent of AI, now I am not even sure how many of these absolutely worthless shows are even being written by real people. Because so many of them have the same flat character and copy-paste settings that it just drives me nuts trying to even differentiate between some of these shows. And studios, in their infinite wisdom, will just eat up LNs like this because they know it is a low-investment AND low-risk way to print some money.

Why is it Harmful?

I don’t know if this has happened to you, but whenever I see the “fantasy isekai” tags on a random anime with a long title these days, I automatically roll my eyes and let out a sigh. Is that the reaction I should have when I browse the page for a new anime? These seasonal slop shows have saturated the genre. They have saturated the fantasy isekai genre so badly that it is genuinely difficult to find a good one now. And it is harmful because studios will keep pumping these out. Because they still do make money. As I said, low-risk AND low-investment.

Market saturation is never a good thing. We have been living in a saturated isekai market for a while now. Situations like these make it very difficult for genuinely good shows/LNs/mangas to blow up. Take Ascendance of a Bookworm, for example. A phenomenal LN, a beautifully written story complete with an interesting premise, great characters, and yes, it actually has an end. How many people know about it outside of our super weeb spectrum? Not many.

This is the exact issue I am talking about. When someone comes up with a good idea in the future, they may never get the attention they deserve because of market saturation.

That is all for now

But yeah, that is enough yapping for now. This is why I don’t review shows like Reborn as Vending Machine outside of memes. Again, no offense to people who enjoy this slop content. I have been there, I have watched some terrible shows myself. Sometimes you need to dig through the dirt a little to find the diamonds. It’s not a big deal. This article is more about the baffling increase in the sheer volume of slop content being produced these days. So let me know what you guys think in the comments. I will take my leave here. See ya!

Also, check out my thoughts on Demon Slayer beating Superman here!