Discussion: I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World... episode 1

 They say that beauty is only skin deep. And yet, at times, it can feel like beauty is the only thing that people prize. This definitely appears to be the case in I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World, too. My pick among several Isekai series airing this spring season. 

Youya is a young man who is almost done with middle school. He’s fat, aesthetically unappealing, mostly timid, and loathed by everyone around him. Except his grandpa, who tragically passes away within the first five minutes of the show. You might be sitting there and going “Everybody? Seriously, Kat? Everybody.”

Yes. Everybody. To the point where his parents don’t want his laundry mixed with the rest of the family’s clothes. Enough that, when they cannot find a way to take control of grandpa’s inheritance, when it is left to Youya, they literally disown him. A fifteen year old. That kind of everybody.

Which is, of course, to make a key storytelling point. 

For the audience to appreciate Youya at his best—for us to root for him and revel in his upcoming successes—it is important that we first see him at his worst. That we see all he has been deprived of, as far as normal human experience. That we see how devastating the loss of his grandpa truly is.  

I wasn’t expecting this to release until Friday, and I’ve gotta say… It’s been kinda shocking seeing some of the reactions to Youya as a protagonist that I have seen in the past twenty four hours. “Why’d the have to make him fat? Hard to feel sorry for him when everything happening to him is his own fault. We all know he could change if he really wanted to.”

There are people who are more repulsed, by our initially fat protagonist, then they are by the widescale abuse that he endures. In 2023. I’m no fan of the fat acceptance movement. I sure as hell don’t believe in ‘healthy at every size’. But I also don’t believe in the ‘terrorize a fatty at the gym’ approach. Or the Sparky Palastri approach from Bring It On: cut what they eat in half or stop eating all together. In the real world there is no magic bullet that is going to make someone thin.

There are also many causes for obesity beyond ‘that guy’s just freaking lazy’. 

But that’s actually the point. 

Once Youya discovers the door, in the room beyond the secret wall in grandpa’s bathroom, his life will never be the same. He is transported to another realm, where reality functions like a video game. He finds that he has inherited the home and belongings of a powerful sage. And unlike many Isekai protagonists, Youya has his own unique advantage. He can enter and exit the Isekai world as he pleases. And anything he obtains within it—advancing himself, or discovered items—can go home with him.

Part of the goal of this opening episode is to show our protagonist falling into alignment with the expectations of the society he was raised in. If this story uses that initial premise well, there are a variety of ways that initial concept can be used for some different forms of good storytelling. I wonder which it will be?

Will this be a rags to riches or ugly duckling story, where we join Youya in celebrating his newfound status, and living a way better life than he was before he opened the door?

Will Youya discover that this strange new world that has given him so much in such a short time is in peril? Will his grandpa’s message to extend kindness to others compel him to move past his timid and frightened nature and fight for its citizens?

Will our tale take a darker turn, with Youya slowly becoming the very thing that terrorized him at the beginning of the story? Will he lose the things that made him HIM as a cost of acquiring wealth and status so quickly, like we see with people who don’t understand money when they win the lottery?

There is so much potential here. So many different ways that this story could twist or turn.

My favorite moment was right near the end. After a couple months of going back and forth and fighting monsters, Youya still doesn’t realize just how drastically he has changed. He recognizes he needs new clothes and gets those. But it has never donned on him to fix the bathroom mirror that he broke the night he discovered the door.

When he goes to high school for his first day, and none of the students recognize him, he tells them his name. And they do not believe him. We finally see his reaction to his transformation as he stands in front of a bathroom mirror. The reality that he isn’t just thin, but that he’s also no longer ugly, washing over him like a bucket of ice water. 

There is a phenomenon that happens to people in the real world, where their perception of their appearance, and their actual appearance, do not line up in their mind. So it makes sense, if Youya has been actively avoiding mirrors and not replacing the one that he broke, that his appearance is a shock to himself. Despite the fact that he knows his clothing measurements have changed.

Remember: the power and grandeur of beauty appears to be an underlying theme of this story world. So there is likely good reason that the mangaka has chosen to highlight it.

Wrapping my thoughts up on this episode… 

It appears that the girl in the limo, at the end of the show, is the girl that he saved and got beaten up over at the beginning. I wonder what she wants from him?

What I can tell you is that I had a great time with the first episode of I Got a Cheat Skill, and I’m eager to see where the story goes next. If my thoughts on this new Isekai series have peeked your interest, you can find episode one on Crunchyroll.