Many—and we mean many—isekai use the same theme of a main lead dying and then either restarting in a new body or just being reborn with super-human abilities. Spirit Chronicles blends those cliché concepts together and instead has our male lead’s memories implanted on an already living orphaned child trying to survive in the slums of a city.

In the first few episodes of Spirit Chronicles, Rio has become a student at an illustrious academy thanks to his prior deeds saving the king’s young daughter in episode 1. Quickly, Rio shows that Haruto’s previous life before his ill-fated death has given him special knowledge in both academics and in swordsmanship. Haruto was a kendo practitioner, thus Rio can handle a sword with little issue and shows up his classmates—to their annoyance—rising up the ranks as a swordsman with relative ease. Rio no doubt will need to rely on Haruto’s memories later on for even more possibilities and we can’t wait to see how that changes his character further.

Similar to The Rising of the Shield Hero, Rio isn’t beloved by everyone right away like in many isekai stories. Rio is hated by those who he shows up in the academic community. Episode three even has our poor Rio suffer a frame job that causes him to flee in fear of being killed or tortured. What awaits in the future for Rio is unknown,but we are excited to see his adventures on the run.

As captivating as Spirit Chronicles has been so far, we have to wonder if this show will ever really go beyond just being an interesting idea. The merger of Haruto and Rio is clever but will our hero ever have a massive identity crisis? and/or will we ever see more of Haruto’s tale? What will ruin Spirit Chronicles for us will be if it ends up being just another isekai story of an overpowered hero challenging foes left and right while a bevy of girls fall for him non-stop. Spirit Chronicles has the potential to be a dramatic and engaging story but it could also just be yet another isekai that will be forgotten once the summer 2021 anime season ends.

Seeing as how Spirit Chronicles is labeled as a harem on sites like MAL, we can anticipate that Rio will be getting swarmed quickly with a bevy of waifu potential. There are some cute anime girls that have appeared so far in Spirit Chronicles but in our minds, only one is the best and that is Celia.

Celia is one of the first ladies of the series introduced and we almost immediately fell in love with her. As a young professor—she was given that title at the age of 12 due to her impressive skills—Celia ends up taking care of Rio and forming an adorable bond with him. As Rio grows up, Celia clearly begins to fall in love with her student and we pray that Rio sees her love later in the series. Celia is amazing and we will no doubt be talking about her more as the season progresses.