The 8th Son? Are you kidding me?

Little dude found an anime he wanted to watch with me. It is, of course, another isekai because he adores those. This time it is from a light novel series, though it has now been collected into a manga series as well. It's called The 8th Son? Are you Kidding Me?

The title character is actually the hardest to see in that image...he's in the middle with the glow-y light covering him up. Anyway, this time, Shingo Ichinomiya was a single salaryman in (probably) his 20's. He falls asleep and next thing he knows, he wakes up in a fantasy world where he's a young boy again. At first, he thinks, heh, this isn't too bad, as he comes to in the middle of a fancy wedding. The food's good. He thinks he's maybe the third son in a rich noble household. It's the eldest brother getting married.

But the next day he's in for a rude awakening when he finds out he's actually part of a very low level noble house with no money...and he's the 8th son. The eldest will be the new lord. The rest of his older brothers are setting off to seek their fortune in the larger cities to the north now that the eldest is married.

Things start to look up with he finds a crystal ball that tests for magic. It's an innate thing in this world and most people don't have it. But the crystal lights up like crazy for him. When he goes out into the woods to try and practice, he meets a man that will become his mentor/teacher. He has to keep his magic a secret from his family, however, as that would put him in direct conflict with his older brother...who might try and do away with him as a threat. And certainly, the family that is left behind are all pretty crappy (especially dad and eldest brother).

So he gains wisdom from his mentor but learns, in the end, that his teacher is actually a ghost/wraith that will soon turn into some kind of mindless zombie but has only been hanging on this long (years) because he wanted to pass on his magic/teachings. He ultimately has to cleanse his mentor's spirit, thereby enabling him to pass on safely. Which would be a heavy ass thing to lay on a kid, but since he's from another world, at least he was more mentally prepared/capable. I guess.

Fast forward to when he ultimately makes it to the age of 12 when he can attend a magic school in the big city. But after practicing for years and hiding himself away and with what he learned from his mentor, he's already master class. He's also a bit socially stunted after avoiding people for his own safety for years so when he gets there and all the other students are avoiding him (because they think they need to impress him and that he's so far above them) he thinks it is because they don't like him.

But he finally manages to pull together an adventure group of decent kids that seem nice. And save an airship with a bunch of passengers from an enormous undead dragon. And then gets his own title and a bunch of money...but soon discovers stuff like that comes with a lot of obligations. And that's where we are, 4 episodes in.

It's an enjoyable show so far and I see why little dude loves it. He loves OP isekai type stories, especially when the protagonist is a good person who succeeds not only because of their newfound powers, but because they are decent people. It's a nice one for us to watch together. And, so far, has been lacking in excessive boobage, etc. So that's a plus too, for me as a mum...

Edit: We gave up on this one after a couple more episodes because it devolved into truly ridiculous crazy OP lead + every girl turns into a concubine. Like, an actual concubine. With the official wife's okay. And they're, like, barely teenagers. Was hoping it wouldn't do that. So, oh well. Little dude was, like, "meh, they just turned it into fan service."