Okay, let’s not beat around the bush, Rio is basically Kirito from Sword Art Online. Aside from having the same look, attitude, OP abilities and voice actor—yes, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka does Rio’s voice—Rio is a carbon copy of our favorite isekai black swordsman. Despite the copy and paste job done on Spirit Chronicles MC, we still like Rio and his attitude works well in this series. Rio gets the attention of many female leads—no shocker there—but you can’t deny his OP abilities make him a truly cool character. We just wish Haruto would have been different in terms of mindset to occasionally make Rio and Haruto clash internally. In our minds, that would have made Rio a completely different person but unfortunately, Spirit Chronicles misses out on a relatively cool idea.

A major problem with Spirit Chronicles is that it really doesn’t try to be different from the set isekai ideology. MC dies and is reborn in a new world with OP skills and now must explore this new world…it’s an idea that has been done to death in the anime world. Even the few “surprises” Spirit Chronicles tries to show like Haruto’s past “lover” being in this new world too aren’t fleshed out enough and only appear near the final episode. If Spirit Chronicles season 2 airs one day—which we wouldn’t mind seeing—then we feel the story could enter some unique territory. For now, though, don’t expect this isekai to be different than the millions of others before it.

One element that keeps Spirit Chronicles from being mediocre entirely is the nice fantasy art/animation. While most of the characters—like the tiny professor Celia Claire and the young sister-like Foxkin Latifa—don’t change the game in anime tropes, we still love their design and how well they were animated throughout the show. Rio’s various fights—like the finale with him facing off against soldiers and wyverns—wowed us and utilized some impressive animation feats like stellar lightning effects and solid fighting choreography. Spirit Chronicles looks good and that is always a plus in the world of anime.

Spirit Chronicles isn’t an original story, has very unoriginal ideas and isn’t something that warrants a lot of attention. Despite those issues, Spirit Chronicles is a fun anime to just binge. Nothing in Spirit Chronicles is done poorly and that is why it isn’t a bad 12-episode series. Maybe Rio’s goal to find his home is done way too fast and maybe he’s a bit too much like Kirito but we still enjoyed our time seeing Rio rise from young homeless child to a teenager with skills and confidence. We really believe Spirit Chronicles held back some of its best elements—like the final shocking revelation of several Japanese being summoned straight into Rio’s world—but a second season could release and really push Spirit Chronicles to a further level.