Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious (Season One)
Ristarte, a novice goddess has been selected to save the S Class world of Gaelbarde from the Demon Lord. She’s allowed to summon a hero to help her and has set her sights on one with incredibly high stats!
What did you watch?
After the poor showing from the Isekai-filled summer season, I convinced myself to keep the faith with a genre that I have repeatedly enjoyed. As a fan of a good laugh and dry humour, the idea behind this series really appealed to me. I went in knowing absolutely nothing, as I tend to, and was pleasantly surprised. It started out strong and ended with something that I would never have expected. I’ll get to that shortly and there will be spoilers, so make sure you’re perfectly prepared to continue…
What happened?
So, Ristarte summoned Seiya from Japan and told him about the situation. He agreed to help her, but not until he had been able to adequately prepare. Ristarte reluctantly conceded to his request and sat impatiently waiting to begin their adventure. After some time, Seiya finally emerged from his training and agreed to go down to Gaelbarde with her. If Seiya’s training had given Ristarte cause for concern, his first encounter with a slime quickly confirmed what she feared. This hero is far too cautious.
However, his caution was rewarded when one of the Four Heavenly Kings appeared and attacked them. Seiya and Ristarte hurried back to the Divine Realm so that Seiya could continue to train before going back to face off against Chaos Machina. This process would repeat itself over and over as they face off against increasingly difficult foes and situations, but everything would be fine as long as Seiya was perfectly prepared!
What did you think?
This series was outstanding. For something that started out as a bit of a joke with Seiya always looking for a negative angle and refusing to budge unless he had prepared, it morphed into something for more sinister and tragic. The final two episodes absolutely flipped the series on its head. To be fair, I was loving it at the beginning and the way it ended just lifted it up to another level. One of the best things about this series is that it was constantly hinting and preparing us for the eventual twist. It was almost impossible to see exactly what was coming, but you knew that something was coming.
What was your favourite moment?
This is a tricky one as there were so many great moments, but I think it was the first time Seiya met Valkyrie, although he referred to her as an exhibitionist in his usual blunt manner. It was only a brief encounter but it was clear that this wouldn’t be the last we’d seen of her. Valkyrie is a very strong and outspoken character who doesn’t take anything from anyone. She gets what she wants and definitely didn’t appreciate being called an exhibitionist by Seiya. It’s one of my favourite moments because you could see it coming and knew it wasn’t going to go down well.
What was your least favourite moment?
That would have to be the flashback to Ristarte’s previous life. It was fascinating seeing it play out and finally getting the answer as to how Ishtar and Ariadora knew of Seiya was excellent. With the revelation from Warmaster an episode ago about how the hero would return to their own world when they die as he told Ristarte about the Demon Lord’s new weapon that would kill the soul in its entirety, it again prepared us for this moment. It made sense that a hero could be summoned multiple times and that the hero could die. The way that it went down, however, was brutal and we were lucky that Ishtar chose to end the vision before the conclusion.
Who was your favourite character?
Another tricky one, but I will have to go with Seiya. Right from his introduction, I knew that I was going to enjoy the ongoing joke of him always being cautious and expecting the worst in every situation. That said, it was the way that Ristarte reacted to his paranoia that really made it that much funnier and especially when he was right. It’s always funny to see someone who everyone believes to be crazy turn out to be the sanest of them all.
Who was your least favourite character?
Originally, I would have said Rosalie for being the complete opposite of Seiya. She was brash and impulsive, believing that the only way to be a hero was to blindly rush into action and defeat your opponent with sheer bloodymindedness. Then, when we realised that she is the character that Seiya had been on his first summons it all starts to click together and we see why Seiya was so heavy-handed with her. He had seen where that path leads and was not willing to see another suffer the same experience.
Would you like some more?
I want nothing more than to find out what happens next. The series ended with Ristarte being punished for abusing her godly powers and being assigned to a SS Danger Class planet which happened to be the one that she was from in her last life. Ishtar also revealed that Seiya had survived thanks to the Gate of Valhalla and that she could summon him to be her hero. It was a great way to end the season and if we don’t get a second season, I will be happy with that ending. I definitely want more though, so please don’t let it end there.
What have you learnt?
One of the things that really caught my attention in this series was the foreshadowing. There was a lot of little moments that stuck in my mind and helped to prepare me for the twist. So much so, that I have begun to put together a post detailing those moments and how they work. It may take some time, but I think it’ll be a great example of how to use foreshadowing well, which, in my opinion, is vital to good storytelling. If a twist is too surprising then you’ve not done it correctly. It shouldn’t be something that the reader couldn’t have worked out in advance had they pieced it all together. Sometimes, they’ll realise that they were given all they needed after the fact, but the twist will still make sense.
Other Posts in the Series
- Season One
- Episode 1 – This Hero is Too Cautious
- Episode 2 – Too Much For a Novice Goddess to Bear
- Episode 3 – This Hero is Too Self-Serving
- Episode 4 – I So Don’t Need Any Allies
- Episode 5 – This Goddess is Too Spooky
- Episode 6 – The Great Dragon Mother is Too Sneaky
- Episode 7 – This Lady Knight Is Too Doglike
- Episode 8 – Neat and Tidy but Overly Nymphomaniacal
- Episode 9 – This Reaper is Just Too Invincible
- Episode 10 – This Man Is Too Strong for Being So Old
- Episode 11 – The Truth Is Too Much to Bear
- Episode 12 – The Hero Is Overpowered But Overly Cautious
- Bonus Posts
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This one did pleasantly surprise me. I loved Seiya as a character early on and while I found the mid-season got a little bit repetitive that ending more than made up for it. Very nice entry into the isekai genre.
Agreed. I think the ending really raised it up a level and I’m about to go back through it and find all of the foreshadowing. I remember lots of it happening as the series went on which also helped the ending.
The foreshadowing was really well done. I knew when that other goddess mentioned her only failure, a B class world, that the topic would come up again. That and the way she looked at Seiya the first time she saw him. I wondered about both of those after I saw them so early on.
Yeah, it was really cool and I want to go back through and make notes of everything that leads up to the big reveal. I feel like there were a lot of them, but they were small and didn’t mean much without the context.
Have you made the post about the foreshadowing? I’d like to read it.
I haven’t got around to it, actually. I went through a big rebrand at the time and it ended up being forgotten. Seems like as good a reason as any to rewatch the series. Thanks for the reminder. If I remember correctly, there was a lot of subtle foreshadowing.
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