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Reverse isekai as a genre hasn’t been done to death as definitively as its unreversed sibling. In A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics, the parallel world conceit is primarily employed to provide us with two very different fish-out-of-water characters and mine their odd situations for whimsical comedy. After the first episode, the presence of fantasy and magic almost completely fades from the story, leaving us to focus on hilariously offbeat character-based shenanigans.
The absolute star of the show must be awarded to perpetually upbeat, utterly clueless retainer Livia. Spending much of the first few episodes living under a bridge with a random homeless dude, fishing (and washing!) in the river, she has little idea how Japanese society works. She finds herself prey to shady characters who entice her into some rather suspect fields of work. After a thankfully chaste but disastrous spell in a seedy escort bar, she’s then pushed into becoming that most evil of modern scourges – a limited edition Gunpla scalper! Boo, hiss!
Along the way, Livia makes friends with Puriketsu, a sweet and peppy struggling musician, and Noa Minakami, a terrifyingly corrupt yet innocent-looking female cult leader who recruits unfortunates to her flock using mind control. Noa also makes zero attempts to hide who she is from Livia, Noa views her subliminal messaging and predatory scam tactics as essential to running a good, profitable cult operation. Despite refocusing away from overt fantasy trimmings, A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics remains persistently and delightfully bonkers.
I love the insane cult subplot so much because Livia’s completely oblivious to how her new friend Noa is, in fact, completely evil. Livia shrugs off Noa’s bizarre behavior because perhaps that’s how people act in this world? Noa develops a growing (clearly romantic rather than religious) obsession over Livia, naming the confused retainer as her cult’s new savior. This mostly seems to mean that Livia stays in Noa’s house for free, gets money to waste on Pachinko, and is also obliged to (naked) model for Noa’s 3D scanner. There’s a several-episode-spanning gag where Noa produces an… erm… “anatomically correct” Livia doll that even uses her real hair for accuracy. Livia’s attempt to gift this cursed item to her former Princess is hilarious, in a surprisingly ribald way.
Livia’s story gradually escalates in strangeness, linking back in with Puriketsu as they, along with Noa, form an idol-singing supergroup, with packed gigs attended by hundreds of worshipping cult members. Every episode adds more and more crazy, yet everything always originates from the well-drawn characters and their bizarre foibles. Characters drop in and out of each others’ stories, sometimes engaging in their random side plots that often pay off many episodes down the line.
Sara and Sosuke’s plotlines are less deranged and therefore not as entertaining as Livia’s. Their relationship is super-heart-warming though, as the soft-hearted and caring Sosuke provides Sara with a safe, loving home and a normal life, unlike anything she had in the other world. Though he initially drags her along on his detective cases, eventually she starts school, and her interactions with the other kids liven up her segments. It seems that once royalty, always royalty, and her eventual graduation from elementary school and Sosuke’s horrified confusion at everyone’s deference to this tiny child, is a hilarious scene.
While not the best aspect of the series, Sara and Sosuke provide the emotional core, with many heart-warming father-daughter interactions, with thankfully not a hint of inappropriate weirdness between them. Sosuke’s work colleagues are particularly strange, especially 34-year-old pink-haired lawyer Brenda Aisaki, who is (not-so) secretly in love with him. Oddly, she looks like a little girl, and her every attempt to seduce him is met with tragicomic failure.
Sadly, A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics is decidedly less impressive visually, looking like it was probably made on a shoestring budget. It rarely looks bad but the characters sometimes appear over-simplified, and there’s a general lack of dynamism or movement to the animation. Much of the time this isn’t too important, as this is primarily a quirky slice-of-life comedy, with so many clever little blink-and-you-‘ll-miss-them visual gags. The story flows well from one seemingly unconnected sub-plot to the next, tying unexpected elements together pleasingly later, often with a vicious sense of humor underpinning it all. Enough loose ends are left by the end that I’d welcome another season of these adorably odd weirdos bouncing off one another’s eccentricities.