The spring anime season brought enthusiasts of the isekai genre an adaptation of the popular webtoon “The Beginning After the End” (The Beginning After the End). The anime is also sometimes referred to by a Japanese title, “What Will the Strongest King Do in His Second Life?” (Saikyou no Ousama, Nidome no Jinsei wa Nani wo Suru?). While only a couple of episodes have aired, the series has already garnered low ratings and significant negative feedback. Let`s dive into why this new isekai is being heavily compared to “Jobless Reincarnation” and what issues are being highlighted with “The Beginning After the End” anime adaptation.
Starting with the premise: the protagonist of this new isekai wasn`t some nobody in his past life, but a formidable ruler. King Grey inhabited a modern, technologically advanced world that lacked magic but possessed `ki` – a life force used to enhance the body and weapons.
His life came to a mysterious end, after which he awoke in the body of a newborn baby. Reborn in a different world, little Arthur (the former king`s new name) resolved to build his strength from infancy. This world lacks `ki` but is rich in mana – a magical energy wielded by one in every hundred people. Fortunately for the hero, his parents, like himself, are among those rare few.
In isekai stories where the hero starts life over from the cradle, the initial episodes are often the most unremarkable. The protagonist typically feels frustrated by their new role, tiny body, and the way unfamiliar adults baby them, eagerly wishing to grow up quickly to become independent and powerful.
Is this the case here? Yes and no. If you experienced a sense of déjà vu watching the first episode of the anime or reading the first chapters of the webtoon, thinking you were imagining things, rest assured you weren`t. The parallels with “Jobless Reincarnation” are undeniable, but primarily in the early stages. The hero is reborn, learns about the world and magic before he can even walk, devours books, and displays youthful genius – so far, the similarities are striking. Later, the protagonist is separated from his parents and embarks on a journey to reunite with them, a path that, predictably, spans several years – this also aligns. And yes, the main character of “The Beginning After the End” does indeed find his blonde elf girl, though her name is Tessia, not Sylphy.
However, this is where the major similarities with “Jobless Reincarnation” largely cease. In terms of personality, the hero of this new isekai is a stark contrast to Rudeus. Arthur, in his new life, is brave, decisive, responsible, and honorable, whereas the former king was characterized by cruelty and coldness. Finding a loving family in his new life softened Arthur`s character and instilled in him new values.
Moreover, Arthur is not a pervert, unlike Rudeus, and doesn`t construct shrines to strangers` laundry. For this alone, “The Beginning After the End” earns a point. The subsequent progression of events in the new anime deviates from that in the popular isekai about the reincarnated jobless individual, but if you are familiar with that work, you will inevitably spot similar character archetypes and plot beats. This is also partly due to the inherent tropes of the isekai genre itself.
The responsibility for adapting the webtoon was given to a small studio, A-CAT, whose portfolio mainly consists of lesser-known series with average or low ratings. This wasn`t the most promising choice… and the first episode of the new isekai unfortunately confirmed it.
Let`s look at the narrative structure in the anime. While the plot is relatively simple, the viewing experience feels somewhat disjointed and chaotic. Furthermore, certain moments in the anime do not align with the webtoon. For instance, the series added a tearful scene involving Arthur`s rescue when the ceiling nearly caved in after he unleashed his power. Following this, the protagonist and his parents were shown weeping and embracing. This scene was absent in both the webtoon and the novel. The anime`s creators seemingly decided to inject a bit of drama, along with a tiny burst of action, into the first episode. Did it help? Not significantly.
Frankly, the first episode is difficult to describe as interesting. On one hand, the feeling of déjà vu is persistent, as the new isekai closely resembles “Jobless Reincarnation” in its initial moments. On the other hand, the first episode places excessive focus on the protagonist`s infant body, showing him soiling his pants or learning to crawl. It seems that enduring this beginning might lead to more engaging scenes with a grown-up Arthur later on. This is true, but only to a limited extent.
The second episode offers a slightly more engaging plot than the first, but it might just end you with its abysmal animation quality. Prepare your tissues; it`s hard to watch without shedding a tear. If one word could describe the animation of this series, it would be “slideshow.” While it`s possible to overlook the mediocre animation in conversational or less important scenes, the action sequences are nearly unbearable to watch (unless you`re using the anime purely as background noise). We see the hero swinging his sword – that`s one shaky frame; the enemy flying back – that`s a second shaky frame; and then the hero landing on the ground – a third frame. If that`s not a slideshow, what is? This continues throughout the entire second episode. With animation like this, the whole purpose of an anime feels lost. Why watch separate images move poorly when you can just look at static images in the webtoon?
Differences between the webtoon and the anime are also present in the second episode. And this time, some of them actually make sense logically. During a training spar, Adam knocks young Arthur off his feet, causing him to fall to the ground like a sack of potatoes in the webtoon. In the anime, however, the child is caught using magic. After all, he`s only four years old. While he is the main character and a former king, currently he`s just a child, and a fight with him shouldn`t be treated with such serious physicality.
Another point is also quite logical. We were told that Arthur`s mother`s magic is very rare, so it`s best not to use it around strangers. However, in the webtoon, she calmly heals her husband in front of a crowd of bandits. This moment was altered in the anime. Arthur`s father explicitly told his wife not to heal him and reveal herself, but to run away immediately. Overall, her power was treated with more respect and caution in the series. These are admittedly minor details, but cumulatively, they slightly alter the perception of the story.
Adapting the popular webtoon “The Beginning After the End” was a decent idea, but its execution significantly failed. After just two episodes, the anime received an IMDb rating of 5.6 out of 10 from users. With such mediocre animation quality and careless storytelling, reading the webtoon is a far more enjoyable experience. The anime not only fails to meet the expectations of webtoon fans but also deters new viewers who were previously unfamiliar with the story.
Hope for future episodes to be significantly higher quality or more dynamic is extremely slim. And expecting impressive action scenes like those in “Solo Leveling” is clearly unwarranted. Each person can decide for themselves whether to watch the new isekai “The Beginning After the End”, but compared to the anime, the webtoon appears much more polished and presentable. It almost gives the impression that this whole anime production is a marketing tactic: create a poor anime adaptation to drive people towards reading the webtoon instead.
Finley Holt