Tomb Raider King

Episodes 1-4

I'm not quite sure how to feel about this one. On the positive side, there's enough of an edge (for lack of a better word) that Tomb Raider King shows potential. The inciting incident has enough bloody action and unanswered questions to spark interest. Jooheon is a worldly protagonist who is looking to make his mark and get paid, regardless of the time he's in, and that makes him relatable if not exactly admirable. And the overall look of the show has a nice shine to it, even if its mostly mundane life and environs for the time being.

The problems are that there's a lot of tropey stuff cooked into the foundation that I, personally, don't care for. Dungeons real in our world, time travel, litrpg elements where video game mechanisms are obvious to the character, that sort of thing. I've seen enough of these setups to know that they can devolve into rather dull wish fulfilment in a short time. Hopefully there's some daylight where this finds a unique angle and runs with it. If nothing else, Jooheon is pretty obviously a… scoundrel might be too harsh a word, but let's just say driven personality and the show makes no airs about his righteousness or anything of the sort. That's a breath of fresh air at least.

Sadly, episodes 2, 3, and 4 don't do much to alleviate my concerns.

I'm not sure who this is supposed to appeal to, but I know it ain't me. Jooheon faces no real opposition, is cynical and selfish, and overcomes every situation with trivial ease. In theory there is a catch to all this with the Crow lingering overhead like a Sword of Damocles. But in practice that feels like a weak justification for what is ultimately a tale of never-ending wish fulfilment. Everyone around Jooheon knows less than him, is dumber than him, and easily overcome by his secret powers. Maybe the out-for-himself protagonist who takes what he wants without consequences would appeal if the setting were interesting or the concepts uniquely novel. Instead, it's just our world for the backdrop, and all the ideas bandied about are the same old gaming tropes we've seen a thousand times already.

The events almost don't even matter. I audibly laughed out loud when he ambushed the young Japanese woman who held a book of prophecies and she fell in love with him, then he turned around and explained her powers to her before taking what he wanted and destroying her powers forever. Sure man, whatever, just do stuff it's cool. Who needs stakes or characters or tension? Just play Gary's Mod with the real world and have fun playing with the mobile game pop-up UI telling you you've just earned +3 Cool Dude Perks.

I guess the visual execution is clean enough to keep me from being miserable. But the actual contents of Tomb Raider King feel like a shallow and cynical exercise.

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Tomb Raider King is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.