The Summer 2026 Anime Preview Guide

From Overshadowed to Overpowered: Second Reincarnation of a Talentless Sage

Eftal is reincarnated as a human, coming from modern Earth. In this new world where magic is real, he decides to devote the entirety of his life to the pursuit of magic. Despite his efforts, though, he discovers that he is absolutely talentless in magic, and breathed his last in anguish....But it isn't the end for him just yet. He reincarnates once again, bearing the same name, Eftal, 400 years later. Having retained his knowledge and power, he steels his resolve and once again sets his sights on the peak of magic.

From Overshadowed to Overpowered: Second Reincarnation of a Talentless Sage is based on the Rakudai Kenja no Gakuin Musō light novel series by author Arata Shiraishi and illustrator uodenim. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursdays.

Welcome, friends, to “Old Guy Fretting: The Anime!” Eftal, who appears to be into middle age when we first meet him, suffers from the conviction that he's not talented enough to be the acclaimed mage he clearly is. He worries about it from the moment the king proves him wrong by crowning him “Lightning Emperor” up until he (foolishly) takes a magical aptitude test (in front of his students) in old age. He is a self-fulfilling prophecy this entire episode, determined to look only at what he assumes to be true rather than what the people around him say, culminating in the idea that he never was good enough.

And then there's the reveal that he's been reincarnated after dying in “another world,” and a busty goddess is giving him powers in a white void, blah blah blah. That's easily the least interesting and least infuriating part of this episode, in no small part because it was the shoe I was waiting to drop from the word go. Ditto his third rebirth, although he almost immediately begins making the same self-defeating mistakes as in his previous incarnation. Live and don't learn, I guess.

Still, it's almost impressive how Eftal is missing the forest for the trees, at least in his second life. While he laments that he has a harder row to hoe than his fellow emperor mages, he's missing that it's incredibly impressive that he became such an accomplished mage without any inborn aptitude for magic. Anyone can be good at something if they have talent; it takes hard work and determination to start from scratch. Eftal has done that: he's become an emperor mage through hard work alone, he's beloved by his students and his adopted daughter, Merlin, and he's a good teacher. These are not small things, but his own mental block keeps him from seeing that. He's an aggravating sad sack, determined to see things in the worst light possible.

I'm not sure that this episode, with its ugly creature designs and an opening theme that foreshadows a slave girl character, is indicative of what the show will be like. Eftal Mark 3 is already ahead of the game, having been reborn with Eftal 2.0's magic skills, so it's entirely possible, and even likely, that he'll have the magic career of his dreams because of this goddess-given cheat. That's the premise of more shows than this one, after all, and it's a formula people seem to like. But unless Eftal engages in some active learning about not being self-defeating, I'm not sure it will be able to rise above this episode.

The first episode of this show wasn't great. The second is even less great. It's not really a feat so much as it is giving into the easiest possible narrative conventions – Eftal realizes that he's been reborn as his own descendant 400 years after his death. His father is a high-powered bigwig in the nation but doesn't care about his illegitimate kid. Oh, and despite the prevalence of magic aptitude tests, magic has gone way downhill in the four centuries since Eftal's previous life, so he has, in fact, become grossly overpowered. I don't know that I would have called him “overshadowed” before, but at least the second half of the series' title makes sense.

While episode one rushed to get through Eftal's old man phase, this episode slows the plot down to a crawl so that he can both learn how far magic has fallen and spend years training as a swordsman at his older brother Frasier's behest. I will give the boy credit; once he realizes how insanely overpowered he actually is, he decides that the best plan is to keep his magic under wraps, even if that means not going to magic school. His decision seems to come from a wish not to upset Frasier, because not only is he an actual good brother, but he also knows that without Frasier, he and his mother would be in trouble. Naturally Eftal has a plan to use magic anyway, but I kind of admire that he's able to think things through without going off half-cocked.

Speaking of cock, don't you love when a character is introduced crotch-first? While most of the art and character designs thus far have been bland (including Eftal's mom's prodigious bosom), the thing that made the biggest impression on me in this episode was that Moria, the military head of the kingdom, is not only at least eight feet tall, but he also wears his thong outside his pants. I am baffled by this design choice. It's not even that Eftal comes up to his groin when they first meet, it's that someone somewhere along the line said, “You know what'd be a neat choice? Let's have Moria wear his underwear outside, like 1980s Madonna!” It's in no way important to this episode or the plot, but it stands out more than anything else, including what a horrible twit Eftal's dad is, and that his eldest brother, Joachim, may be a psychopath. That's par for the course, especially in this sort of story, although at this point we see it more often in villainess tales.

From Overshadowed to Overpowered is taking its time, or at least feels that way because it's so stultifyingly uncreative. It feels harmless right now (because the promised slave girl hasn't come in yet), but you really could do a lot better than watching it.

As a rule, I try not to brag about my life and accomplishments, but From Overshadowed to Overpowered: Second Reincarnation of a Talentless Sage misunderstands the perspective of a person who cares about their chosen craft to such a degree that I have to break this rule. I was a placed in a my school's gifted and talented program when I was seven, earned a varsity letter my freshman year of high school and then every year after, graduated valedictorian, got into my first choice college, have largely been working in my chosen field since I was twenty-four, am now a respected figure in this industry, ran a marathon in three hours and thirty-one minutes, somehow wrote for a print magazine in the 2020s, and am engaged to the love of my life. I'm good at stuff. I'm good at a lot of stuff, even! And, because of all of this, I'm able to say with authority that people circling greatness do not care about being “the best” as much as the loser mage Eftal does in From Overshadowed to Overpowered.

Focusing on the wind mage of the destined hero's party (let's ignore the terrible composition of a party with four mages and one hero), From Overshadowed to Overpowered seems like it's going to focus on this wizened magician coming to terms with him not reaching the same heights as his peers and making peace with what he has been able to do in his life, like help defeat the Demon Lord and start a magic school. Except, plot twist, the mage Eftal is actually a reincarnated hero who is sent back to this fantasy world a second time after her croaks. This next time, though, he's playing on New Game+, and gets immediate access to all of the high-level magic he learned in his last life, even as a young child.

From Overshadowed to Overpowered tries really hard to make its audience sympathize with Eftal, but instead, he comes off like he has a massive inferiority complex. He's hailed as one of the strongest mages in the world, but he only focuses on how the other mages in the hero's party are stronger than he is. Rather than focus on how he was able to achieve such lofty heights despite the discovery that he has little aptitude for magic, he instead laments that he likely isn't able to reach greater heights. Eftal is a bummer of a protagonist, especially considering that anyone in the mix for the title of “the best” at their chosen craft is actually chasing that accolade. Most will say they're just happy to be standing among peers they respect and to be in a place where they can continue to engage with the craft they're passionate about.

Beyond this flagrant misunderstanding of the human condition, Reincarnation of a Talentless Sage also has all the hallmarks of a run-of-the-mill misogynistic isekai. When Eftal (who keeps his name, I guess?) reincarnates, his hot mom immediately dotes on him, his adopted daughter who had a crush on him in his past life is absolutely going to take on a big sister type role in his new life, and I saw a slave girl in the opening credits that Eftal is probably going to end up owning. Outside of being misinformed about basic elements of the human condition, this first episode of From Overshadowed to Overpowered has politics that are as terrible as they are boring.

God, I cannot wait for the isekai bubble to burst.

Now that I've watched twice as much From Overshadowed to Overpowered: Second Reincarnation of a Talentless Sage, this anime feels twice as perfunctory. By the end of its second episode, I hoped that the anime would have done anything to feel distinct from its isekai contemporaries, but it remains indistinguishable from the any other isekai outing. At the risk of being blunt or closed-minded, I cannot think of a single reason why someone should watch this show over any other hypothetical one coming out this season, and I can't wait until I finish this review and don't have to think about this title anymore.

Beginning with the introduction of Eftal's half-brother Frasier, this episode largely focuses on how our same-face protagonist is needlessly persecuted, as is a staple of this genre. Despite being able to use high-level magic that's exceptionally rare in this era, Eftal is discouraged from entering the Magic Academy due to his low aptitude for magic. Furthermore, it's revealed that Eftal is a bastard, with his father (who's a descendant of his previous reincarnation) having no interest in supporting either him or his (hot) mother due to the both of them having a low aptitude for magic.

While I am a little curious in how magic declined so much in the 400 years following Eftal's previous life considering how much emphasis was put on the upcoming advancements in magical studies and tutelage, I very much doubt Overshadowed to Overpowered will give an interesting explanation, if it ever explores this development. After all, this second episode spends most of its runtime building up Eftal as a badass—and creating hurdles between him and his goal of becoming a better mage—that he's almost assuredly going to clear it with ease. If Eftal can use magic that's exceptionally powerful and rare, it only seems like a matter of time until he gets into the Magic Academy, and to be honest I'm not really sure why he doesn't perform a level 10 spell immediately so he can skip past all of this needless persecution.

There's just nothing in either the first or second episode of Overshadowed to Overpowered to make it stand out from any of the other 10+ isekai that have been released every season for the past decade, and I can't recommend anyone check it out. The nicest thing I can say about it is that it's less skeezy and openly misogynistic as some isekai, but I know that slave-girl from the OP and his, now adult, adoptive daughter are going to show up soon and likely invalidate that compliment. Seriously, go watch just about any other release from this season before Overshadowed to Overpowered.

I had a whole paragraph of analogies to obscure horror movies and Godzilla rip-offs going in the first draft of this preview to set the stage for my thoughts on From Overshadowed to Overpowered: Second Reincarnation of a Talentless Sage, but you know what? It's not worth it.

The show's title is literally composed of nothing but articles and the most generic isekai cliches imaginable. If the anime isn't going to put in any effort, then there's no reason to bend over backward trying to get all creative or anything. Let's just get this over with quickly so we can all return to the parts of our lives that actually spark joy and a sense of purpose, shall we?

Our main guy is Eftal, who briefly distinguishes himself only by being a lot older than the usual protagonist of one of these things is before they get reincarnated. There's also the fact that we eventually learn that the “Second Reincarnation” of the title refers to how he first got reincarnated from our world in the usual sense, but wasn't bestowed any overpowered nonsense stats or anything. I can't actually give the show any credit for these minute remixes of the same old same old, since the premiere inevitably leads to Eftal dying of old age and coming back as a young kid with overpowered magic skills anyway. What was even the point of taking this long to set up a new life if absolutely nothing about the character's situation or outlook is going to be meaningfully different from a guy who just gets isekai'd once?

Well, I can think of at least one factor that keeps this first lifetime from being a complete waste of narrative space. The cute demon-girl that Eftal teaches in his first life, Merlin, is obviously going to be a factor. Even if the basic laws of amateur writing didn't already demand that a character with so much screen time come back, the show's key art on the Crunchyroll page shows a busty demon-mage with white hair. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce what's coming next episode. Do the four hundred years that pass between Eftal's death and resurrection make it less weird that the girl he raised from birth is going to reappear as the buxom poster waifu for his new life, or are the optics even worse now? You make the call.

The real question is whether Eftal and Merlin's almost certainly inevitable reunion will actually make for interesting television, but again, we don't actually have to waste time pretending like that's really up for debate. Nothing about this bog-standard first episode fills me with confidence that From Overshadowed to Overpowered contains any real vision, style, or personality. If it wasn't obvious from the lifeless direction or anonymous character designs, then the endless monologuing about the incredibly basic elemental magical system ought to clue you in. I'm honestly not sure who this anime is for beyond the most hopeless of slop addicts. The mandates from the Lords of the Preview Guide demand that I give the show at least one more episode to prove itself, but I will not be holding my breath.

It has only been a week since I covered the first episode of From Overshadowed to Overpowered, and I had already completely forgotten that it existed when I realized it was time to boot up Episode 2. It's not just the fact that the second reincarnation of this show's subtitle makes the meandering of the first episode feel even more pointless than a lot of the exposition in these kinds of shows already is. From Overshadowed to Overpowered is simply one of those sauceless creations that seems intentionally designed to make as little impact in the mind of its audience as is possible while still generating some form of profit for all of its investors.

Now that Eftal has been reincarnated as a young child for the second time in his long series of lives, we get to run through the same basic adolescent tutorial episodes that I was honestly hoping that the show had good enough sense to skip when I watched its premiere. There's a slight remix in the tropes here, given that Eftal's new brother Frasier has to take up doling out the life lessons since their father has no time to be caring for any of his bastard offspring. Don't get too excited about the prospect of a fraternal relationship giving this show any kind of real depth, though. Frasier is a well-meaning goober who exists to look gobsmacked when his little brother demonstrates his godlike magical powers. You know, just in case you needed someone's broad, comic reactions and narration to explain that Eftal is now overpowered and super cool.

As anyone could have guessed, this whole episode goes through the motions of the young, generic hero's rise to power with such dull and slavish dedication to the rote formulas of the genre that there's really no point in any of us being here. Do any of us really need to see Eftal wow his brother with a big magic explosion? Do we really have to sit through the scenes of Eftal impressing his big, buff tutor so he can learn even more overpowered magic? Do we have to endure the completely unnecessary scenes of Eftal getting smothered in his mommy's massive mammaries that bookend this waste of an episode?

Of course we don't. There will be plenty of folks out there that choose to have this gauntlet of trite and soulless filler inflicted upon them, but that decision remains between themselves and God. I cannot judge anyone who decides to kill a half-hour by using From Overshadowed to Overpowered as background noise while they sort their office supplies or figure out how to fix the toner jets on the busted copy machine that everyone has been complaining about. I can only tell you, readers, that I still do not like this anime very much at all, and I will not be revisiting it again unless professionally obligated to do so. There are far more interesting and entertaining anime out there that have actually put in the work to demand my attention.