The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest Plot

Devils are trying to take over the world and the strongest sage, well, he is doing his best to hold them back. But out of the four crests, his is the weakest for combat. When the hordes and threats have been driven back. He takes the opportunity to cast a spell to reincarnate himself to come back stronger with a stronger crest to be able to defeat them once and for all.

That is how Mathias Hildesheimer is born. He is powerful, he has the crest he wants, but he needs to still grow in power and training to get back to the point where he wants to be. However, the world has changed a lot since he was alive before. And now his crest, what he knows to be the strongest is considered to be the crest of failure.

Why It Doesn’t Work

We’re deviating from the normal format. Mainly because I don’t have much good to say about this anime. Visually, I think that it is good, not amazing but certainly not bad. And the voice acting is fine. I think that a lot of the characters are fairly annoying, but the voice acting is acting them as written, not adding to that affect. But otherwise, The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest is not good.

I guess to say one more nice thing about it, I like the premise, but it flubs it. I’m going to be comparing this to two other anime that I’ve watched, the first being Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? and the other Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Came to a Starter Town. Why, because The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest does some things they do, but not as well. It’s more like The Wise Man’s Grandchild.

Mathias Hildesheimer

Let’s start out with the main character. I’ve mentioned that the characters are a bit annoying and he tends to be the worst. Mainly because for him, everything comes easily. There is no struggle with his character. Sometimes he fights a demon that is tougher, but only in the finale and maybe in the finale do you feel like there’s any threat to him. Otherwise he is just over powered.

Mathias always talks about how he needs to become stronger, but he’s already the strongest person alive. It might be true to some extent to get back to his power level, but it doesn’t seem like it’s much lower. In fact, in the finale, he defeats the boss without that much trouble, granted he needs a weapon to do so, but the danger, then feels contrived.

So he shows up to a school to learn and prepare. But he’s stronger than the teachers, he knows things that the teachers don’t know. And generally he just ends up being the teacher for everyone. Characters need a struggle and he has none. I guess his struggle is that he’s kind of clueless with the girl who likes him and he likes. But that also doesn’t make sense, he has his memories of a previously lived life. Was that not a part of his life? And if it wasn’t, why is romance a part of his life now?

The Comparison

So, I said that I was going to compare it to two other things. Let’s start out with the kid from the boonies, Lloyd. This does the same trope in some ways. The kid from the boonies near the last dungeon, you grow up there everything is hard. Monsters are hard to fight because it’s a high level town. So he goes to the starter town and he’s the most powerful. But to him, or for him, he can’t believe it. He doesn’t realize his power. He’s weak in his town, so now when he’s the most powerful, he doesn’t get it.

Compare that to Mathias, he is always the best out there. He knows he’s the best out there. He teaches teachers how to do things that were common place in his original time. Lloyd is struggling to fit into a new town. He’s struggling with realizing his power for what it is. Mathias is just the best there is, and he steps in and runs everything.

Then there is Bell from Is It Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon. Bell is a sweet heart, and someone who wants to get better and stronger. And he does so quite quickly, but there are always people stronger than him. I compare it because both Bell and Mathias are kids, but Bell is learning his powers. His struggle is to get stronger. Mathias never has that struggle. Even though that’s supposed to be part of his character. He is already strong.

The Premise

Finally, let’s talk about the premise, because I do think that it’s interesting, but the show or story misses on it. What happens, as I keep on harping on, is Mathias reincarnates to get a better crest. He does so and it takes a little bit but he regains all his memories. And he is just as strong, or nearly, as he was before, now with a better crest.

The problem, as I keep on coming back to as well, is that there is no character development. He’s instantly the strongest and mostly who he was before. He is just that as a kid. What would have worked better and they keep on hinting at, would be a struggle to get stronger. Have him know he should be better and get frustrated because his body can’t do what it used to do. Let Mathias struggle when he tries to do too much and it fails. Make there be problems for him, not a problem that is always resolved by the end of the episode.

The Comparison

Let’s compare the other premises, this time let’s start with Is It Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? and that story. It’s about Bell, who is a low level adventurer under a low level god, trying to improve. He’s always trying to push himself to be better because he wants to catch up to Aiz, one of the strongest adventurers because she saves him and he falls in love with her. But he doesn’t think he’s strong enough for her to even notice him. He has motivation and a struggle.

And with Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town, Lloyd’s struggle is that he doesn’t know what real life is like. And he doesn’t know how to balance his powers. He is amongst the weakest in his town, but it’s high level. So he struggles with actually being powerful, what his powers can actually do, especially in his town. And he just struggles with what normal life is actually like and the fame that comes with it.

The plot and Mathias in The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest, he knows he is the strongest. And everyone treats him like that. He isn’t pushed to be better, it’s just something that automatically happens. And there isn’t much need for him to get better. So he doesn’t have a struggle to improve. And he doesn’t have a struggle of dealing with life. So the motivations for the plot, they just aren’t there. It’s a story that doesn’t give you a good reason as to why it is being told.

Final Thoughts

I am disappointed. Like I talked about in the discussion on the plot, I think that there are elements that could have made a solid story. But those don’t really matter because Mathias is good at everything. And more so because Mathias doesn’t fail. Bell fails. Lloyd fails, though mainly just at life stuff. In both cases neither of them are perfect. Mathias is kind of perfect and he doesn’t fail.

I don’t think that there is a reason to watch this. It reminds me, in some ways, of the stories where the main character is an edge lord. Those are about the viewer or reader kind of getting wish fulfillment of being a bit bad and edgy. Mathias is wish fulfillment for the viewer or reader if they want to be good, but also be the most powerful. And it is a shame, because it could have been more.

Finally, I think a lot of this might be somewhat intentional, which is also disappointing. The plot level of this is very low. The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest, feels like it’s trying to target people who are new to anime. However, it does so by dumbing down the story so much and removing all danger it’s a bad story.

To do one last comparison. Harry Potter doesn’t really get in trouble when he does bad stuff. There are fun elements to the story and world, but great writing, it’s not so much that. Versus Keeper of the Lost Cities, it is a constant struggle for Sophie, she gets in a lot of trouble and there are real consequences for her and those around her. I wish it was more like that.

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The Session

So, I didn’t have much time to plan anything for this session I was kept busy with a toddler and making dinner before people showed up but it was still a fun session which changed some things up again. You can catch up on what happened in what I called Session 22. But the players immediately jump back into it filling in Assendial on more of what had happened.

They were also curious about what was going on with the Winter Court. It turns out that the member of the winter court has been trying to broker and agreement with Strawgoh to use some students to deal with a Rainman. The group, Barrai, Bokken and Kip immediately volunteer. And try and broker a deal which the school actually takes care of for them. They wanted 60 gold for it but ended up getting 250 which they do agree to split 4 ways with Thrain.

They kill a little bit of time with Bokken getting another fight scheduled at the bar and Barrai wrote a letter to his patron. But Kip puts the time to good use and researches what Rainman are. They are fey creatures who hide in the rain and aren’t fully corporeal. But more so, they try and drown you with their aqueous form and that will turn you into a puddle.

Going over to the embassy of the Winter Court in the town they set-up a trap for the Rainman. They make it look like the powerful fey princess of the Winter Court is standing out in the courtyard talking. Bokken spots the Rainman who is watching what is going on, but has realized that something is off. Mainly that the rain is still rain not snow like it’d be turning into surrounding a member of the winter court. So the Rainman is looking around for someone who is controlling this illusion. Bokken charges and the group gets into battle.

Things didn’t go completely as plan. Barrai does a great job opening up a barrage of magic missiles on the one of the Rainmen. And that’s where the issue really is, while the Winter Court had thought there was one Rainman there win in fact two that had been stalking the embassy. They initially focus on Kip because he looks like he’s the smallest and weakest. But when Barrai uses his magic missiles which is way more effective against them, the second one switches it’s focus to try and drown Barrai. Unfortunately for Barrai he rolls a 0 (1 with a -1 modifier) when it grapples him and he gets hit hard with a lot of damage. Eventually he becomes a puddle.

Bokken finishes off the last Rainman and feels very guilty about letting Barrai die. Some of that also due to the fact that one of his attacks had dealt damage to Barrai while he was trapped inside the figure. Kip and Bokken manage to get the puddle that was Barrai into a water skin and they rush his puddle to Assendial whom Bokken had seen use the reincarnation spell before. She is able to use it on him, but he comes back not as a Tiefling but as a forest Gnome.

Behind the DM’s Screen

Like I said, this was a lightly planned session. When they started asking about the member of the Winter Court, I knew that is the direction that I’d been taking the session and two Rainman were going to make a hard/deadly encounter for the three of them. Turns out it was in fact deadly.

And Barrai, and the player, actually got to pick between two different races. Normally you just get whatever you roll but because Kip had used prestidigitation to help get the puddle form of Barrai into the water skin. I decided to make it more interesting than just a straight roll. The player could have picked between human and forest gnome. Thematically they decided that it made more sense to be a forest gnome after all the torturing of Dorin that he had done over the school year.

Have you had a character die and become reincarnated in a game before?

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