Finished The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent. I enjoyed it, I did. But I see some low ratings/reviews on this and I understand where those people are coming from. This show is like a plain sugar cookie: not what most people want when they order desert but it's passable. There's really no stakes. It has no actual antagonist. The only antagonist we get was Good All Along™ and he's set aside well before the ending of the series. I walked away from this show several times to get food or go to the bathroom, left the show running, and missed practically nothing of value. On one hand, that made it the perfect show for me to watch to relax but, on the other hand, I could see other viewers being really bored by it.
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I liked the concept of the Saint: a person from another world with other-worldly magic being desperately called in. But it seems she has no real purpose other than to be glowy and showy. I thought she'd be a figurehead for war, an omen for the successor to the crown, or a needed cure to a disease. I thought this was gonna be a bit more like Twelve Kingdoms where you need a specific type of person to be isekai'd in like the ruler or the kirin in that series. But it doesn't appear to matter who it is or what they do when they get here. The Saint can sit around making potions, reading books, and brewing tea for fuck all with her finger up her own ass. By the end of the show, it's clear that the Saint's best use in this world is traversing the land and using her saintly powers to fix miasma and cure folks. But she's never given orders or made to do so. Some of her friends were even trying to decline the crown's wish for her to go on expeditions. WHY? She's the all-powerful Saint and you want to keep at home? For what purpose? These aren't common, you know. There's no telling when they'll get another Saint. She regrew fucking severed limbs on injured soldiers. But, yeah, let's just have her chill at home.
I liked the idea of the romance between the Saint and the dude she saved. The execution was bit meh. This man is her's forever and ever and that's, just..., it. He's nice to her, she gets flustered and rinse and repeat for eleven more episodes. I mean, it would've been nice if there had some some sort of shake up somewhere to make it exciting. Like, I almost thought her being the Saint would mean she wouldn't be able to marry or something. I can think of about ten different ways to introduce a romance conflict that wouldn't have been a lazy love triangle. But, at the very least, there was no lazy love triangle in this story. Thank God.
Also, for being a society that's very limiting on how men and women interact, it's like they don't give a shit if it's Mary Sue, I mean, the Saint. There's a young girl also isekai'd in this story at the same time who was also the possible Saint. This young girl is all but outright slut-shamed for being mere friends with betrothed young men who were only trying to take care of her. But the Saint can hang out with all sorts of dudes by herself--high-born to scruffy--and nobody bats an eye. Even before she was the official Saint, she's hanging out at the sausage fest of an institute or the other sausage fest of the palace. She's alone several times with several men but heaven forbid she flashes an ankle? It seems extremely inconsistent. Early on we're told that societal behaviors dictate a lot of in this world but other than being used to bully the not!Saint or to have a romcom gag between the Saint and her love interest, nothing is done with this shit which makes it hollow and pointless.
For the Saint's love interest, all this guy has going for him is that he's hot and nice and protects the Saint. On one hand, that's a lot going for him. On the other, it's truly ALL he has. It's like, dude, didn't you have other goals or dreams before the Saint came around? It's all right if you didn't, but if that's the case, it should've been a plot point in the story. He compliments her and is nice to her and she just gets flustered, many times running away from him. There's only so many times I can watch her do that. I thought he was going to second-guess her feelings since she's giving him so many mixed signals but that never happened. At the end, you can kinda infer their relationship progresses, but this show needed a bigger payoff than what we got.
Oh, yeah, and it was kinda funny with the last couple of episodes where they clearly ran out of money and we got a shitload of still frames during an action sequence.
Finally, I have to give a shout-out to the Grand Magus dude, who was the most interesting character of the show as he manages to both greatly aid and greatly irritate the Saint. He also is self-interested and works towards his own gain, which was actually refreshing in a show that wants to paint so many people as being so annoyingly selfless. Too bad the guy's asleep for a large chunk of the show.
