Quality Assurance in Another World: Great Concept, Mediocre Execution

Quality Assurance in Another World

Think about all the people you see walking to work or school every day. They may all seem like ordinary people with the most textbook stories to tell, but you never really know until you get to know each of them at a deeper level. Even with a few parallels, everyone has a unique story, and the hidden revelations may change your mind. So don’t be too quick to judge a book by its cover, for there is something to learn from everyone, be it something to do or not even attempt…

“Quality Assurance in Another World,” also known as “Kono Sekai wa Fukanzen Sugiru” or simply “Konofuka,” is a 13-episode TV anime series that aired from the 6th of July until the 28th of September in Summer 2024. It was produced by Lantis, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Kodansha, Delfi Sound, Crunchyroll, Bandai Namco Filmworks, Bandai Namco Music Live, and Hike, and brought to life by Studios Palette and 100studio. The main staff behind it includes Saitou Yuuki, Mito Kai, Takada Yuuki, and Murata Hideyuki as producers. This series of 23-minute episodes earned a rating of PG-13 for teenagers 13 years or older, featuring the genres of adventure and fantasy alongside the theme of video games.

The anime is based on the web manga of the same title, which began publication on the 30th of May 2020 and is still ongoing. It is the work of author and artist Satou Masamichi, and it got serialized in Comic Days. It was even published digitally in English via Kodansha USA since the 29th of June 2021 and in printed format since the 4th of April 2023.

The story is centered around the protagonist Nikola, who is a humble village girl working at the local inn. Her life drastically changes when a dragon suddenly attacks her peaceful home and threatens to destroy everything, but the day is saved by a mysterious man named Haga, who heroically enters the fray. Haga reveals himself to be an expert in all aspects of his surroundings, and his unique methods continue to confound our MC. Haga is also part of an elite society called "Seeker," an organization that is a secret royal team of investigators who are trying to address a series of maladies plaguing their typically peaceful world. So yes, “Another World” is simply the world Nikola lived in from the start and co-protagonist Haga is actually a real-life quality assurance debugger within it, which is actually a virtual reality game! But even Nikola has her secrets to hide, and their respective secrets are capable of changing each other’s very existences. Either way, the intrigued Nikola decides to travel alongside Haga and explore Clayborne, which is her home island consisting of five different conflicting nations. As they venture forth, they begin uncovering the true nature of their world....

Identifying anomalies, bugs, and glitches in a video game is an almost never-ending job that demands the undivided attention of developers 24/7. So imagine just how tedious the task must be for a VR game, which is what we get to experience through Makoto Haga, who’s just somebody doing his job as a debugger for a VRMMO that’s still in the development phase of quality assurance. All goes tediously well until he reaches a point where he cannot log out of the game, demanding that all the bugs be reported to guarantee a safe exit. As worn out as he is, the man gets to work with his “Debugger Stone,” which is a tablet that all debuggers in the form of characters use to send their reports to the developers with hopes of getting the countless issues solved. He soon crosses paths with a major anomaly in the form of Nikola, who is just a village NPC programmed to do the simplest of chores on the outside. Within the game's quests, her "role" is to live or die, but she survives thanks to Haga, who fully understood that she was supposed to die. The unlikely duo ventures into vast areas and lets the wind lead while reporting any bugs along the way, even meeting in-game debuggers from other companies alongside your typical fantasy elements.

I admit I liked the novelty of this “Isekai” being a game where quality assurance was taking place. In place of the typical heroes and villains, we have conflicts between fellow debuggers alongside professional work done by people for games, particularly the back-end with regards to development. However, despite the refreshingly intriguing premise and start, the story's progression falters as the novelty fades over time. Haga's determination to debug the game he finds himself in and Nikola's occasional "awakenings" are the only things that sustain this tale.

They deal with a number of “evildoers” who use the game world as their playground to do whatever they want, all leading up to the big reveal of who she actually is: the game’s neurotic consciousness or simply the big AI. Her real name is Tesla, and she functions as the in-game mod who micromanages all the players and NPCs should they commit any wrongs that warrant a ban.

Turns out Tesla even feeds on the players’ debugging stones, which are their lifeline in-game, doing so only if players breach the game’s justice parameters too much. So technically, the story should be plenty captivating with the main duo alone, but for some reason they choose to focus more on random players who serve as the major antagonists. The story pits the "heroes" against a group of debugger murderers, including furries, elves, and your typical fantasy cast. This wayward focus on these one-shot-worthy characters makes the story stale and tiresome, fueled by generic and repetitive supporting characters. Even the pacing is terrible, and the overall tone jumps between simple and complex way too often. There’s a bit of humor thanks to Nikola and Tesla, but it really isn’t enough to keep you invested in a show that doesn’t utilize its own core characters, right?

The Art and Animation department is decent; everything looks appealing and serviceable, but there’s nothing especially alluring here. The art style, while game-like and minimalistic, is easily forgettable and won't bother anyone. Meanwhile, the animation is destitute, and it doesn't feel like they even tried to work around it. This anime is about a game world full of bugs and glitches, so the bad animation could have been used to portray just that while the remainder of their visual efforts should have been focused on what isn’t faulty story-wise. The character designs are not those of your typical Isekai, but they are overly simple and don’t exactly liven up each frame. I generally have high standards for the look and feel of Isekai game worlds, so the subpar visuals really did take away some of the magic for me.

The Music and Sound department is very forgettable; it’s as though it wasn’t even there. The OSTs exist because they must and don’t contribute anything to the show. The opening theme is "No Complete" by Liyuu and the ending theme is "LOOP" by NACHERRY, which were both mediocre and easily skippable in my eyes. The voice actors did a decent job, but neither the story nor character writing allows them to bring out the better aspects of their characters. It’s like all the characters are either goody-two-shoes or evil-for-the-sake-of-evil maniacs, with nothing in between.

Overall, “Quality Assurance in Another World” is a very mediocre anime that has a great premise and start but falls flat really fast. It’s sad because the main characters are conceptually great and had the potential to spin a truly interesting tale from the back end of game development, but are instead overshadowed by shallow and generic side characters that aren’t worth anything. The writer clearly had many novel ideas, but they didn’t do a good job of executing them into one coherent story and perhaps tried to unnecessarily follow “popular” Isekai tropes. I don’t recommend this one because it’s like watching a great tower that has the potential to reach the skies slowly crumble down thanks to unnecessary side additions.