Overview

Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious (Shinchou Yuusha: Kono Yuusha ga Ore Tsueee Kuse ni Shinchou Sugiru / 慎重勇者~この勇者が俺TUEEEくせに慎重すぎる~) is a comedy isekai adapted by White Fox from a light novel series.

And before you assume that Cautious Hero must be good because White Fox adapted other notable series like Steins;Gate and Re:ZERO, let me remind you that they were also the ones behind Arifureta — one of the worst anime of the 2010s. But don’t worry, Cautious Hero isn’t anywhere close to the level of Arifureta.

However, just like Arifureta, Cautious Hero also copies the more successful series which came before it. Specifically, you can see that KonoSuba was a major influence on this series, and it’s no coincidence this series was published a year after the KonoSuba anime aired.

When this series was airing, one of my friends mentioned that he was watching and really enjoying it. And while I didn’t tell him to stop watching Cautious Hero, I recommended that he go watch KonoSuba afterwards. Because the fact is that if you like Cautious Hero, you’ll probably love KonoSuba.

Just take all the best parts of Cautious Hero, throw away the bad parts, and what you’re left with is KonoSuba. It has the same plot, very similar comedy, and even some of the same characters — looking at you, Ristarte.

The plot goes like this: A guy gets transported into another world by a goddess so that he can defeat the demon lord and his generals. Said guy then chooses to bring the goddess with him as his one item. And then, where it diverges from KonoSuba, the guy is completely overpowered. But the goddess is still useless.

Characters

Seiya Ryuuguuin is the protagonist summoned from another (our) world. From the very start he takes his role as a hero seriously and completely prepares himself for anything he might run into. And while this is his his greatest strength, it’s also his greatest weakness.

There are many situations for which Seiya is completely prepared, and yet he chooses to retreat just in case — putting off his saving of the world.

Ristarte (literally just a play on the word “restart”) is the goddess who summons Seiya to save the world. She’s basically the same exact character as Aqua from KonoSuba, except not a goddess of water. She’s a useless crybaby who gets bullied constantly by the hero she summoned.

The other two “main” characters are Mash and Elulu, two dragonkin who join Seiya and Ristarte’s party. Compared to Seiya, they’re just as useless as Ristarte, if not even more so. They round out the party by being a brawler and mage respectively, but Seiya’s already so overpowered it doesn’t really matter.

So, in order to give them a purpose, Seiya allows Mash and Elulu to join his party as his pack mules who carry his stuff.

Finally, there’s a bunch of other gods and (mostly) goddesses who make an appearance in the series. Ristarte is the only one who’s newly made up for the series. All the others are actual gods from various cultures, such as Ishtar and Valkyrie. It’s sort of like DanMachi in the sense that it has all these gods mixed together.

Comparison to Similar Series

Alright, I’ve made it pretty clear that Cautious Hero is similar to a lot of other series, most notably KonoSuba. But just how does it stack up against them? Obviously, it’s far outclassed by KonoSuba in just about every way. Even the art in KonoSuba is better — the Cautious Hero art is pretty standard.

And if KonoSuba is at the high end of the spectrum, Arifureta is at the very bottom. With this in mind, I’d place Cautious Hero right in the middle. It’s an average anime, and that’s really how I would describe almost every aspect of it: average.

In that regard, it’s a lot like DanMachi. They’re both series which look good in theory, but then once you’ve actually watched through them and compare them to similar series, you realize they aren’t anything special.

The good news for Cautious Hero is that, although it’s completely average, that’s actually pretty high up on the rankings as far as isekai anime go. There are so many that are so bad, that somehow this was probably one of the better ones of 2019.

Just remember that if you enjoyed this anime, there are a whole bunch of anime that do everything it does, but even better. Use this as a jumping off point to find some higher quality viewing material.

Conclusion

Overall, Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious is a 5/10 — like I said, completely average. The art is plain and bland, and the animation is too. It also takes all of its best qualities from other, more successful series such as KonoSuba, leaving it with very little personality of its own.

And when you look at the OP and ED of the series, again you can see that it’s extremely standard. What, an isekai anime with a song by Myth & Roid used for the OP? That’s so unique and hasn’t been done like five other times within the past two years.

And as much as I do like Myth & Roid, Tit for Tat is a pretty bad song. It sounds like it was written specifically for this series, and that’s something that doesn’t often go well.

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