Bogus Skill 'Fruitmaster': About That Time I Became Able to Eat Unlimited Numbers of Skill Fruits (That Kill You)

This fantasy anime series is set in a world where individuals, upon reaching a certain age, eat a skill fruit; this will bestow on them a random skill. To eat a second is fatal. Protagonist Light, and his friend Lena dream of getting top level skills; she gets one he though is disappointed. He gets the 'Fruitmaster' skill; this sets him up for a life as a farmer, growing various fruit, including the skill fruit. He adopts orphan Ayla who one day accidentally prepares a meal containing a skill fruit. To his surprise he doesn't die... it turns out the Fruitmaster skill enables him to eat more skill fruit and gain more skills; she gains the useful 'Appraiser' skill. He is soon living the life of an adventurer he dreamt of. Unbeknownst to him just as he gains his new skill the leader of the church has a revelation about a great evil; and it looks as though she will suspect Light. Over the course of the series Light will face various dangers and gain further skills.

This series started well enough with the opening episode setting things up nicely. Unfortunately as it progressed it felt more and more just like any other series set in a fantasy world. Light faces down various threats, some of which come close to beating him but nobody will think he could really lose. The ability to gain more skills is used less than expected... at least this does mean it avoided having him gain just the right skill each episode. The characters are solid enough; typical of the genre as is the animation. The final episode feels like a season finale; the story clearly wasn't over, I have no idea whether or not there will be more. Overall a decent enough series; perhaps worth a watch if you enjoy the genre but ultimately I suspect it will be forgotten about as the viewer moves onto the next series.

These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.

On the surface it looks very generic. It's your typical childhood friends in medieval magical world want to be adventures. They get powers and become adventurers, the twist is oh oh, the male lead got seemly useless skill "fruitmaster" while girl is OP sward saint. But wait "fruitmaster" not useless MC can get unlimited skills.

This leads to a few sub plots that get resolved fairly quickly. I liked that as many lower quality anime would spend half the season these kind of go nowhere subplots where you know the MC and female lead end up together anyways.

The main plot seems good too but only starts near the end of the anime. I totally get that and I agree with it vs rushing to a conclusion out of nowhere, for the sake of the anime.

Overall I think the anime is good not great a solid B for me, way above my generic expectations I had going in. It has surprisingly good art an animation for such an unknown anime.

I've hear some say " why isn't he OP right away, just eat all the fruit" . It's obvious they are going for a slow build with his powers.

Which I also agree with. Having a OP MC right off the bad is kind of boring unless you go the comedy route with it.

This give a better build. MC eats fruit only when he has too. I still would have liked them to give a reason for this though. Something like " even for a fruit master he's still risking his life" or something.

Main Characters could also be more exciting or have backstories but again. The main storyline barely starts so backstories could be coming.

Well that's my take if still unsure give it a 2 episode test should know by then if anime is for you or not.

Did they really just knock off one piece like the name, alone, skill, fruit, basically suggesting devil fruits.

When are anime is going to start being original again and why is everything either a 20 name or a knock off of something else?

I'm sure the show has some kind of potential but until people start coming up with original ideas again and can't stop copying each other. This is what we are going to have.

Seems like the days of Dragon Ball Naruto and one piece are far behind us, even though there are some good shows still out there. I'm not saying to not give this one a chance but this is what we are getting now.