Anime Digest
Shinkoshoto’s The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest is a Japanese light book series drawn by Huuka Kazabana. J.C.Staff’s anime television series adaptation ran from January to March 2022.
Mathias, the world’s most potent sage. He thinks rebirth is essential to become the greatest of all. The magical crest with which he was born restricts his might. Mathias is overjoyed as he gets the ideal crest for a magical battle upon his reincarnation. Unfortunately, the world he was born into has low magic standards, and everyone believes he’s doomed to fail! Mathias must now prove everyone wrong.
The Feel Good Part
The artwork is good.
The Disappointing Part
In a nutshell, the storytelling is awful. Mathias himself describes the events frequently. The story is jumbled together, and there is no clear plot thread as they do activities one after the other that are not commonly linked.
In-Depth Analysis
Mages are born with one of four “crests” that signify the amount of their magical skill. A man named Gaius, armed with a crest that specialized in creation, reached the pinnacle of his ability, being recognized as the world’s strongest sage. Despite his overwhelming might, he is dissatisfied with his powers and wishes to get the close combat mark. Knowing that a person’s crest doesn’t change, Gaius intends to reincarnate far into the future in the hopes of changing his fate.
Gaius is resurrected as Mathias Hildesheimer thousands of years later, finally acquiring his long-desired crest. However, he is astonished to hear that his magic has diminished in these times. The skills that were once extensively employed are now nothing more than a speck of legend. Furthermore, the crest he worked so hard to achieve is now regarded as the weakest, called the Crest of Failure.
Nonetheless, Mathias outperforms all expectations. He enrolls in the royal capital’s Second Academy, where he excels at every test. However, Mathias quickly finds the horrible truth behind humanity’s descent into magical mediocrity—demons—and tries to undo the consequences of his millennium-long absence once and for all.
Star Power
Mathias in the anime is not the same as Mathias in the manga. Mathias in the manga is an arrogant, slightly self-centered, confident man who exploits people while being friendly and helpful to others. Mathias in the anime is a gentleman who helps people and isn’t boastful or self-centered, with a very different tone and manner of speech than the manga matty.
The other characters in the show are dismissed as inconsequential and constantly remain in Mathias’ shadow. They are rarely allowed to fully express their unique identities since, for the most part, their actions and conversation are restricted to primary responses.
Overall Opinion
This series’ aesthetics, writing, or characters are probably not going to blow anybody away. Still, it has a sound framework and stays clear of the significant flaws a story like this may otherwise encounter. You may still find some enjoyment here even if you want to connect with media on a deeper level than the surface.
