The Day I Became A God – The Complete Anime Review

Now tell me, what will you wish for when you have access to MY divine power?

~Hina Satou AKA Odin

Here, I will split this piece into 2 parts, the first half will be the main review and the second half will be a discussion piece of some of the things that happened in the anime, as well as some weird observations that I noticed and the overall logic of the anime.

For the record, I own the blu-ray of The Day I Became A God and that’s how I watched the anime for the second time since it first aired, let’s get into the review.

The Visuals

The Art In The Day I Become A God

The art is a mixed bag of really good things but also has a lot of average things but ultimately, the art ends up looking impressive.

As you’ll see, the backgrounds in this anime do look good, the colors are vibrant, it has just enough detail for things to catch the eye but the lighting and shadows is the highlight of the backgrounds… literally.

They make the slightly above average-looking background pop more which makes it good enough to be impressive.

Funnily enough, the most impressive-looking thing in this anime is… the food in this anime lool.

The food in this anime looks staggeringly good and here’s where you’ll see the most detail in the anime; I don’t think I need to explain any further after seeing those images lol.

I do find it interesting as to why only the foods in this anime get this level of attention. All I can say is the food truly does look…

Moving on to the art of the characters and overall – it’s just ok. The characters don’t look bad or anything but it’s definitely the weakest part of the visuals, it’s just not great, especially the main character.

On top of that, you add in his generic main character design and he has the personality to match, it begins to not look so good for him. That being said, I believe they do a good job in utilizing this generic formula and I’ll dive more into that later on.

Though the main character’s design looks pretty basic, the rest of the cast (visually) looks solid. The best-looking character (aesthetically) is Kyouko Izanami in my opinion.

The Animation

The animation overall is more on the average side of things but this anime does have moments where it peaks (as in, reaches its best). At specific moments to give more impact to what’s happening during certain moments, like in this clip here.

The art also does this as you can see here.

Overall, I think the art is in the B2/B1 tier (consistently) and peaks up at the A3/A2 tier (on average). For the animation, it’s more in the C1 tier and very briefly peaks at a B1/A3.

The Reception Of The Day I Became A God

Before this anime first aired in late 2020. This was a highly anticipated anime amongst the community solely because of one thing, because of the person that wrote and planned the story of this movie – Jun Maeda.

For the uninformed, he is the original creator for the legendary anime Clannad, the great animes of Angel Beats!, Little Busters! and Air, and even had a hand in Rewrite.

So when people found out that Jun Maeda would be writing the story for an original anime series (meaning, it not’s based on any manga) AKA, The Day I Became A God, people were curious… naturally.

Come to the end of the anime, this anime was hit with HEAVY criticism and the general consensus (that I’ve seen) was that it didn’t live up to what they expected from Jun Maeda for a variety of reasons.

The first thing I want to say is… this IS a good anime despite its shortcomings!!!

The Story In The Day I Became A God

The Plot

The Day I Became A God follows the protagonist – Youta Narukami and his best friend enjoying their last summer holidays of high school playing basketball when a mysterious girl appears, claiming to be a God.

After hanging out with them, she informs them that:

Youta was obviously very skeptical but after spending the day with her, though he was still skeptical, he knew there was more to her than meets the eye.

From there, the story progresses into 3 parts which I won’t spoil.

The Good In The Day I Became A God

The story progresses and you start meeting the characters. The characters themselves really aren’t that interesting by themselves but what makes them so good is the dynamic between each other, for example:

Seeing Tengan and Hina clash was always amusing and because of Hina’s personality, she ended up being at the center of the group.

Hina is a very eccentric character lool. She’s very loud-mouthed and boisterous yet can be calm and understanding in serious moments.

What makes her so interesting is that she’s literally a walking oxymoron – she’s full of wisdom and even talks like a very old elderly woman (consistently) but is young and shows glimpses of innocence and immaturity.

Hina’s and Youta’s dynamic is one of the best dynamics in the anime, then you add in Kyouko for the emotional scenes… This anime ended up having many moments that were well executed.

From how they wrapped up Kyouko’s whole family dilemma to when they finally learn about Hina’s past, there are many, many moments where it was handled very well and lastly…

The visuals were the icing on the cake.

The Negatives

So far through this review, I’ve mainly been focusing on the positives of this anime because apparently, there weren’t any. But make absolutely no make, this anime has faults, a lot of them.

First of all, they could have used Hiroto (the silver-haired character) better than what they did in the anime.

They gave him a really sad backstory to then make him be irrelevant after his situation wraps up. It’s unfortunate because I really empathize with the character on a personal level.

What pisses me off is that the anime would often hint that he and Hina were from the same cloth, they both had a problem with having a name that’s most common, liked the names of Gods, but he wasn’t THAT relevant after the plot twist.

I guess they were just implying that both had the idiosyncrasies of being able to process superhuman levels of data which is wack, they should have done more with that.

Poorly Excuted Events

Not only that, despite the SERIOUS hardships that he’s been through, deep down… he’s actually a good kid.

He helped the lost little girl find her mother, helped someone find their way in the “sea of information” but the lack of screen time for him makes him seem like he’s just this extremely edgy kid that’s angry at everything.

They also never explain why he even has his idiosyncrasy of being able to process vast amounts of data. They explain everything to do with Hina but apparently, Hiroto was born the way he was… that doesn’t seem right.

Next, there are a couple of scenes that were poorly executed, to the point where it can appear that this anime has plot holes and is inconsistent.

I’ll be going into depth in the second half of this review for those that have watched this anime.

The Pacing

One of the biggest criticisms people had with this anime is the pacing. People thought that the pacing was bad throughout the entire anime and I would have to disagree.

To me, only one specific episode shows signs of bad pacing issues and two things occur in that episode. The first being, an event happens and when I was watching it, I literally said “Damn, we’re already here!?!?”

The second event is how they ended the episode, they really didn’t give enough time for people to be invested or understand why Youta felt the way that he did.

I was honestly confused because of how he was acting in the previous episodes.

Lastly, this anime tries to remain realistic but does one or two too many unrealistic things that makes you not take this anime seriously.

Such as, Youta literally jumping off a motorbike (that’s on the motorway/highway by the way) and lands on a moving truck to save Hina…

It’s because of things like this when the anime is actually trying to be serious in certain moments, its efforts get devalued (only in certain moments).

Overall – The Day I Became A God Anime Review

This anime was clearly ambitious. They tried to do a lot with what they can, sometimes at the detriment of the pacing but ultimately did a solid job with what was there.

By no means is this a perfect anime, very far from it, however, the positives outweigh the negatives in my opinion.

The second biggest problem in this anime IS the pacing but it’s not absolutely godawful like how others would like you to believe. It’s bad… but I’ve seen a lot worse.

Not many animes have as beautiful moments as what happens at the end of both episodes 5 and 12 (there are some, just not many).

I haven’t even touched the OST. This anime has 3 memorable OSTs – episode 1, at the 10:00~ mark and the other 2 OSTs would play during emotional events. I will say, this anime doesn’t have a lot of unique memorable OSTs but they make up for that by playing the same songs differently, the sound design was just ok.

The OST mainly comprised of a piano, a string instrument like a violin to bring, and sometimes some vocals to bring in the feels.

What Impressed Me In The Day I Became A God

The comedy was honesty hit-or-miss, it may have even missed more than it hit but the attempts of them making those jokes was oddly satisfying (even though it didn’t make me laugh most of the time).

I really love how the movie that Sora (Youta’s younger sister) directed has the same exact overall plot or premise as the anime itself – a sacrifice was made for the greater good of humanity.

The Voice Acting Performance

The last thing that I want to touch on is the voice acting. I have the Blu-ray for The Day I Became A God so I have access to both the subbed version and the English dubbed version and having watched a good junk of the English dubbed…

Please watch this anime in subbed, otherwise, you might think this anime is corny.

That being said, the English dubbed was way better than what I was expecting it to be, most notable, the English voice actors that voiced the researcher (at the end of the anime), Youta’s father, and the bodyguard for Hiroto – they did a FANTASTIC job.

Unfortunately, that’s where it ends.

Dubbed Vs Subbed

Everyone else either didn’t give a CONSISTENTLY good performance or they did but they didn’t sound tonally correct to how the character should sound (based on the character’s personality).

The English dub’s lipsyncing wasn’t the best, I did notice it would be off a couple of times.

I will say the English voice actor for Hina may not have tonally sounded like how Hina should have sounded for most of the anime (in my opinion) but she nailed Hina after the plot twist happens.

The Japanese voice actors really did a phenomenal job – the two voice actors that come to mind for their outstanding performances were Chiharu Shigematsu (that voices Hitoro) and Ayane Sakura (that voices Hina).

• 

There’s a scene where Hiroto had been pinned down and he was shouting at the top of his lungs. That MUST have been difficult to record.

When it comes to Hina, the way Ayana changes the inflictions of her voice, one minute, she sounds really old, the next minute, she sounds young and she can add different emotions on top of that…

It’s one of those things where when you stop, sit down, and think about it… it’s actually incredible.

Another voice actor I recognized was the main character’s voice actor – Youta. He’s voice by Natsuki Hanae, who also voices the main character of Demon Slayer – Tanjirou.

You can hear Youta sound so much like Tanjirou when he raises his voice or is wailing and complaining. Take a listen.

My Recommendations – Who’s This Anime For?

For newcomers to the anime world, this anime would be a great introduction to the whole “tragedy” genre of animes. The problems that an anime fan may have an issue with may not be a big problem for you and this anime is best suited for you.

For the more experienced anime watchers, people that have seen 200+ animes, you’re going to see most of the problems. In my opinion, it’s still worth the watch, there are still some good things to enjoy in this anime.

For the veterans, you’ve either already seen this anime or it’s on your watchlist so the only thing I got to say is… This anime isn’t as good as Clannad or Angel Beats, it’s more comparable to Charlotte (the anime) and you know the sigma people have with Charlotte.

The End of the First Half of The Review

This will conclude the end of the first half of the review. I’ll be speaking on specific events as well as speak on a very weird observation that I noticed when I finished the anime in the second half of the review.

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The Day I Became A God Anime Review

£323.61/$447.40/¥49500

8.7

OVERALL OBJECTIVE SCORED [THE MAIN SCORE]

8.7/10

MY PERSONAL SCORE

8.8/10

Pros

• Has really good visuals.
• Has a couple of really touching moments.
• The characters have really good chemistry with one another creating a really good dynamic the cast of characters.
• Has a good OST that brings in the feels.

Cons

• Has pacing issues.
• The ambiguous relationship between the protagonist and the heroine.
• Has unrealistic moments when its trying to be a more realistic anime.
• Should have been longer to give the viewer more time with the characters.