The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash is based on the light novel written by Honobonoru500 and illustrated by Nama. It's an isekai, fantasy and adventure anime with less emphasis on the isekai part. If you're going to ask me why the isekai tag matters in this series? it doesn't, as far as the content revealed on the first season at least.
This review only covers the first season and does not include the sourced light novel series.
Ivy was reincarnated into a world where everyone was blessed with skills and stars that corresponds to how potent those skills were. She has only vague recollections about her past life but they remind her only as passing thoughts at random times. When she was at an age where her blessings were appraised, it was revealed that she was a tamer without stars. It was believed that people without stars were abandoned by the gods for blessings imparted the gods favor.
Latomi village was already receiving a series of bad harvests and the backward thinking village Chief used Ivy's situation as a propaganda to spread superstition of fear and retain power. This lead to Ivy's family turning 360 on how they viewed her and the rest of the village ending up persecuting her, all except the fortune teller who took pity and cared for her while she was in hiding. Because Ivy had no stars written in her destiny, the fortune teller taught her what she needed to learn to thrive in the world knowing this weak shit tamer had no chance at life the way things are going.
But this relationship came to an end when Ivy discover's the fortune teller's demise within the village due to illness. An illness still pinned on Ivy's existence. Ivy decides to embark on a journey to the capital as advised by the fortune teller and discover the world and meet new people. Because she knew Ivy was going to grow up with a lot of unresolved trust issues and paranoia if she keeps hanging around near the village that constantly is on the lookout for her.
And the start of the journey led Ivy to meet a rare and weak slime that only has a life span of a day which made it rare and generally unknown on the monster textbook. She unconsciously managed to tame the monster and named it Sora making it another misery loves company moment.
And that's only just the plot because it gets thicker for the rest of the season.
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There's no announcement of a season second confirmed at the time of this writing but it was a nice show to wait for weekly. I mentioned that the isekai tag didn't really play a big role as far as the first season is concerned because her past memories functioned as a backseater as she interacted with the world. The interaction between her past memories and her almost seemed like two different people sharing the same body experience.Ivy as a character captures a child that matured too fast and this is justified by her tragic background. It's almost unbelievable to think that her entire family turned their backs on her the moment she was revealed to be starless when they were just laughing at meal moments ago. But this is kind of expected if you're dealing with medieval sorcery and magic located in a backwater village. The ironic thing is that it's the fortune teller who was the most logical among the villagers.
Ivy's journey as a character was already laid out during the first few episodes where she has to venture to the capital, meet new people and discover the world. So it's not only a journey of self discovery but also learning how to trust people again. While her wimpy demeanor can be annoying at times, I couldn't really find fault in how the show portrays her paranoia and dependency over Sora.
This was a child who had no human to rely to and resorted using a monster that was in the same situation as her. Her outlook about people was real because these are the same reactions you'd expect from a child that matured early from domestic abuse. Ivy's dependency on Sora turned out to be the best thing that happened to her because Sora's rare slime abilities got Ivy in situations where she needs to be in the most.
While the weakest tamer had a rough slow start in terms of action, it eventually picked up momentum as soon as Ivy starts her journey among villages and actually getting acquainted with more people. It's pretty wholesome to see how she starts building relationships that mattered and this was contrasted heavily from her own hometown treatment.
It's worth the watch if you're into fantasy, adventure and some slice of life drama. But don't expect a lot of action scenes, this show isn't that type. The show had the most believable depiction of characters you can find in real life and the pacing is just enough to get you invested with what Ivy would do next.
Thanks for your time.
