The Fall Anime 2025 Preview Guide - My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's

Akira Oda is the kind of guy who people forget is even there. His unassuming nature pays off, though, when his entire class is swept away to a fantasy world, and he slips easily into his new role as a silent assassin. Between his suspiciously high starting stats and too many details that don't fit, Akira is sure something is wrong. But digging into royal secrets is a dangerous game, and when Akira uncovers an evil scheme, he also makes a powerful enemy—the very king who brought him to this world.

My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's is based on a light novel series by Matsuri Akai. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.

“Here we go again,” I thought to myself as I clicked the link for the screener of the first episode of My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's. “Yet again, the first preview guide entry I write for the season is going to be for some dogwater cookie-cutter LitRPG with a summary that's indistinguishable from a dozen other shows I've written preview guide entries for.”

Then, “Oh, look! We're starting in media res with a context-free action sequence? Yawn… But wait, this doesn't actually look terrible?”

Turns out it's not total dogwater. I'm just as shocked as you are! Don't get me wrong, it still has plenty of the standard isekai beats that pull me right out of the story, including the job-assigning orb and diegetic stat screens. On the other hand, it's exceedingly rare to have an isekai where the whole class is summoned and the super-special protagonist decides to run off and do his own thing, where the classmates aren't actively antagonistic; in fact, for the most part, they seem pretty nice? It's not put on them that Akira tends to blend in the background, but rather something that he accepts about himself.

Though parts of Akira's character don't totally make sense to me, and I'm not sure if it's an issue with the writing or if I was just thrown off when the episode went against my expectations. He's noted for his lack of any presence, but he also doesn't really try at all. He doesn't seem to have much interest in his peers, even when they make friendly overtures toward him, and chooses to sneak off on his own at every turn instead of engaging. Rather than feeling organic, it ensures that he's always where he needs to be to figure out some super-secret information or meet the guy who will push the plot forward.

Speaking of which, I don't think there's a single viewer who grew up on 90's Clamp manga and Record of Lodoss War and is attracted to men who won't find themselves swooning over Saran. That luxurious, waving hair, those green eyes framed by thick lashes, that Junichi Suwabe voice… Normally, the men in these fantasies are so boring-looking, with all the character design effort put into finding new ways for the female characters' armor to leave their vital organs sexily exposed. While Akira isn't far off from the archetypal isekai hero, the design work overall looks great, with costumes that are more functional than you usually find. The animation team has clearly gone for detail over motion, but with industry veteran Nobuyoshi Habara at the helm, they mostly pull it off.

My Status as an Assassin distinguishes itself from other LitRPG by simply being a solid isekai fantasy with stats, levels, and other game mechanic horsedookey stapled on. I'm not inherently opposed to game mechanics in fantasy – I'm a Homestuck fan, after all – but you have to do something interesting with them instead of them just being there because that's the default worldbuilding mode these days. I wish Matsuri Akai had stretched himself creatively just a tiny bit more because, genuinely, there's some really good stuff to be found here.

I'm a little bit obsessed with the coloring style here, which may seem like a strange tangent to go down, but that's what happens when you have me doing two episode write-ups for the Preview Guide. It's unusually rich for the current era, with highlights as well as lowlights in multiple shades that create an impression not unlike 80s and 90s OVAs, especially partnered with the luscious locks and extravagant eyelashes some of the characters are sporting. While anime has cooled it on the glow filters that enraged me a couple of years ago, even the prettiest productions tended to lack the sense of depth created by a smart use of light and shadow.

The character writing has picked up somewhat this episode as well. Last time, I complained about him and his motivations being a touch too opaque, but now, I actually have a much better sense of him as a character, and he's not just a Potato-kun. His backstory isn't going to blow any minds – he wants to get back to his little sister and ailing mother – but at least he has a motivation other than spite. He makes mistakes befitting a teenage boy and struggles with some of his powers. Some of his classmates get extra texture here as well, continuing to shock me at the story's lack of misanthropy.

But man… every time Akira pulls up a menu, it takes me right out of the story. It's an unnecessary shortcut, the laziest kind of worldbuilding that actively detracts from a show that may not be especially original but executes the fundamentals well. I don't think any number of ruinously hot knights can make up for that.

There was a very brief moment watching this episode where I got genuinely angry. This premiere sold me in its first two minutes with gorgeous animation and pure aura farming with the action sequence on top of the mansion. Just suddenly cutting from that to a school setting felt jarring in all of the worst ways. None of this was helped by the fact that all of the characters except the main character come off as utter idiots. I'm sorry, I don't care how familiar I am with isekai stories, if I suddenly got transported to another world and a mysterious old dude told me to touch his orb, I won't immediately start doing whatever they say. I like how our main character had some common sense, but that overall setup was very rough, no matter how good this show looks.

My Status actually uses the fact that our protagonist's classmates are a bunch of sheep as a legitimate plot point. It's the fact that our protagonist is so skeptical and levelheaded about everything that actually earns him the attention of a comrade. I like that, even though it is arguably a situation where the show is dumbing everybody else down for the sake of highlighting a character being different. It's funny enough that I'm going along with it for now, but it's hard for me to get a solid grasp on what kind of tone this show is going for.

There are funny scenes like what I just mentioned, but there are also serious conversations about overthrowing a government entity, the burden of killing other people, and a large conspiracy that could potentially lead to the deaths of dozens of people. So is this show taking itself seriously or not? I genuinely don't know, and it's usually not a good sign when a series can't establish its tone within the first episode. The action is exciting, and I like that it is able to keep up the consistent level of quality despite the slightly more complex character shading and clothing. I'll continue to keep this on my radar, but I hope it manages to find its footing soon.

I guess we're just playing the fantasy completely straight? I was confused about the tone of this premiere and some of the strange narrative decisions about the overall setup. Good to know that my issues probably weren't meant to be taken as a joke, which does make me retroactively dislike some things about that first episode a bit more. However, understanding the tone does allow me to enjoy other elements a bit more as well.

I love the relationship between Akira and the commander. I fully bought their fatherly/brotherly bond, and I genuinely felt upset when he was killed off. I thought he was gonna be more prevalent throughout the show, given his importance in the opening, but I guess this is the main thing that gets a lot of the more dramatic story beats rolling, like Akira being forced into exile. It's also nice that we are now having the rest of the class act like actual smart human beings, even if they needed to be pushed to get to that point. It would've been better if they were already at that point or if there was just a little bit more pushback when they were being cursed, but it looks like we'll follow two separate journeys from now on.

I have to wonder, what was stopping the previous knights from just killing the king? Apparently, one of the knights has a skill that allows him to just completely manipulate a person, and they use them to break the curses on a handful of the students, but why couldn't they do that on one of the guards to stab the king in the back? Why not free all the students? It looks like the king wants to take advantage of the students to wage war in another country, but is that it? It feels like the show is building up the king as a malevolent force that is actually way more dangerous than we were led to believe in episode one, but I need to see more of that to justify why our heroes need to level up so high to take him down.

Other than that, this feels like a standard fantasy story, but the style and edge with which it's presented allow me to enjoy it on a more fundamental level. We're starting to see a little bit of the Mary Sue elements start to creep up, and I hope they don't become too prevalent this early. I like that Akira is just a practical realist who has found unique ways to take down enemies because he's an assassin. But if he switches up to shooting shadow blasts out of his hands and can heal all wounds, then it kind of defeats the whole purpose of his class, doesn't it? Also, I can't wait for a lot of the romantic tension between him and this random elf girl that we just happened to find inside a monster deep in this dungeon. Yes, this definitely has a lot more tropes than I would like, but hopefully it doesn't go too far with them.

This isn't the first anime we've gotten where an entire class has been isekai'd. However, it does come with the great twist of someone immediately going into full distrust mode. While the majority of the class are enjoying becoming the heroes of a fantasy story, only Akira is creeped out by the whole thing—especially once he realizes that his status is far higher than anyone else's, even the hero's.

From there, the episode is a conspiracy thriller more than anything else. Akira, despite his power, is a stranger in a strange land. He doesn't know the first thing about the state of the world or if the King is on the up and up or not. While the King's conversation with the Princess sounds sketchy, without the proper context it means nothing.

It's here that Akira meets Saran and makes his first friend. However, the original problem remains. While Saran helps Akira learn about the world and trains him to become stronger, the fact remains that Akira is basically doing what the other kids are doing. Sure, Saran may claim to be planning a coup but who's to say that he isn't part of the kingdom's system to keep summoned people under control—that he's not just a way to give rebellious kids the illusion of choice.

This show certainly doles out an extra helping of paranoia. Akira may be powerful but his isolation is a weakness—and so is the fact that he's just a normal kid. He's never taken a life and he realizes that, if he ever does, it'll be all the harder to re-acclimate to his life in our world—if that's even possible.

Other than that, I feel the need to shout out the music in this one. Far from generic, the score is excellently epic when the story calls for it. But better still, it also knows when not to use music—when to use ambient sound to unsettle the watcher on a subconscious level. It's good stuff.

All in all, I enjoyed my time with My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's and am interested in seeing how things unfold next week.

I'm happy to report that I'm still enjoying this anime as we move through its second episode. We learn more about the King's plan—that he has summoned the heroes from our world and is actually buying time with their training to fully get them all under mind control—but what's more intriguing is the princess. Though she is the one behind the mind-control magic, everyone seems to see her as the King's puppet. But who is the true puppet master?

In a meaningful character beat, our usually smart hero does something incredibly stupid. He reveals his face to the princess while freeing the hero of his mind control in an attempt to gauge her reaction. This, in turn, gets his only friend killed. While Akira likely believed that he would be safe due to his concealment ability and general strength, it never occurred to him that the princess would kill Saran, frame him for the murder, and use the mind-controlled students to sell the story to everyone else. Luckily, Saran clearly saw his death as a likely possibility and has spent plenty of time planning with Akira so that he wouldn't be lost on his own. Because this episode and the previous one work hard to show the brotherly bond between the two, the tragedy here is felt.

The back half of the episode is spent on Akira power leveling himself as quickly as he can, since not only a whole country but his classmates are now after him. Of course, as is the common trope, he then comes across a random, beautiful elf girl. However, this trope is twisted more than a bit by them both using a powerful analysis ability on each other. In a flash, they know each other's skills, history, and demeanor. And while he nurses her back to health, they aren't suddenly life-sworn partners. He doesn't even ask her to come with him, but doesn't object to it when she does. At the very least, he knows that she is trustworthy—i.e., not an agent of the King—which is a rare thing in his life at the moment. Unsurprisingly, they work well together despite no formal agreement between them, which seems to be laying the groundwork for a long-term partnership in the future.

Even if you haven't seen this episode, by reading the review so far, you've likely realized the elephant in the room when it comes to this series so far: the pacing. To call it “fast” would be a massive understatement. There's a good two, if not three, episodes' worth of content in this episode. And while it mostly works, it's clear some things have fallen through the cracks.

The most obvious of these is the “smoke bomb” the Princess gave the hero, which summoned the Minotaur. What was her plan in having him use this? Was it supposed to kill the students, implying she may be working for the demons? Or was it supposed to strengthen the ties of the students while also killing off the weaker ones? Or did it have something to do with casting the mind-control curse? We just don't know. And given how far the story has already moved on, I doubt we ever will.

Despite this, I am enjoying the anime so far. It has a firm grasp on its more somber, serious tone, and so even when the same old tropes show up, it still feels somehow novel. We have a protagonist who, while strong and generally smart, still makes mistakes—and has to deal with the consequences. Simply put, if it continues with this level of quality, I'll keep watching.