The Executioner and Her Way of Life Collection Review

The Executioner and Her Way of Life is a popular light novel series that started in Japan in 2019. The series concluded in Japan earlier this year, but it’s still making its way to the West. In the meantime, fans will be excited to hear that MVM Entertainment have brought the anime adaptation out on Blu-ray in the UK. But is it worth your time? Let’s find out!

The story is set in a fantasy world where the nobility are obsessed with becoming as powerful as possible, and in order to do that, they summon ‘Otherworlders’. Our protagonist is Menou, an Executioner working for The Faust (who are the church of this world), and she’s tasked with killing the Overworlders as soon as possible. If you’re familiar with isekai tropes, then you’ll know the drill here: the Otherworlders are people summoned from Japan who gain powerful abilities upon reaching this new world. And this has, of course, caused plenty of disasters over the years, which is why The Faust now set out to kill them before their powers fully manifest.

Menou’s current mission is to kill an Otherworlder called Akari. Our protagonist always takes her time befriending her targets first, ensuring that she understands their abilities and whether they could hinder her assassination. At first glance, Akari only seems to be able to heal, so Menou expects this to be an easy job. Except that when she attempts to kill Akari, she finds the girl actually has the power to turn back time whenever fatally wounded.

Thankfully, Akari doesn’t seem to remember anything when time is turned back, so she still trusts Menou. With the assassin feeling out of her depth, she decides to take Akari back to The Faust headquarters, where they have more powerful magic capable of killing Otherworlders. Menou simply tells Akari that they’ll have the ability to send her back to Japan, which is what she wants most right now. But now that they’re travelling together, Menou is starting to grow attached, and there seems to be more to Akari than meets the eye.

This is a tense story with a lot of depth. As the series goes on, we viewers start to realise that The Faust aren’t necessarily in the right here, but nor are the nobles calling upon the Otherworlders. There’s a lot of history which is revealed slowly over the course of the duo’s journey, and it’s interesting to see the lengths the show goes to turn many of the usual isekai tropes on their head.

And more than that, Menou and Akari are a joy to watch over. Their dialogue is very naturalistic, expressed in a way that shows the two are growing very fond of each other despite occasionally bickering and being at odds. They’re keeping secrets from each other, not just because of their situations but also because they’re trying to protect one another (even if that actively goes against Menou’s mission). We meet other characters, too, who are just as much fun, even if they’re largely more eccentric (or evil) than our main duo.

A lot of this is helped by the fact that the team at J.C. Staff only adapted the first two volumes over the course of these 12 episodes, which is an unusually slow pace for light novels turned anime. Taking their time ensures that viewers don’t miss out on any of the world-building and that nothing related to Menou and Akari’s relationship is cut. With a story with as much depth as this, this approach elevates it above other fantasy series. And it helps that the original author, Sato was reportedly very involved with the anime, attending script meetings and helping determine the most important points to focus on.

The animation looks absolutely fantastic, too. The animation director Tofu has worked on several seasons of Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, which shows in the attention to detail when it comes to the battles as well as the colour palette. Quite a number of the staff have worked on both series, which makes it a real treat for the eyes. Hopefully, we’ll get a second season somewhere down the road, as it would be a real shame for it to end here.

Music for the series is handled by Michiru (Given, Ascendance of a Bookworm), and it works well to heighten the tension and/or emotion of a given scene. It’s what you’d expect to hear as part of a fantasy series, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it comes off as generic. The opening song is “Paper Bouquet” by Mili, while the ending theme is “Tomoshibi Serenade” by ChouCho, and both songs do justice to the themes of the story lyrically and visually.

This Blu-ray release includes the series with both the original Japanese track and the English dub. Menou is played in Japanese by Iori Saeki (Shiori Asakura in A Mangaka’s Wonderful Life, Kano Minami in SSSS.Dynazenon) and Annie Wild (Eleina in Lazarus) in English. Akari, meanwhile, is played by Moe Kahara in Japanese (Lilia in The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest, Fuuko Izumo in Undead Unluck) and Melissa Molano (Fran in Reincarnated as a Sword) in English. I watched the series in Japanese and really enjoyed the chemistry between Saeki and Kahara. What I sampled of the English dub sounded fine, but having not watched it at length, I don’t have a particularly strong opinion there.

As mentioned, the release comes to the UK thanks to MVM Entertainment and is available as a complete collection, which contains all 12 episodes. The usual extras of a clean opening and ending video are also present here.

Overall, The Executioner and Her Way of Life is a fantasy series not to be missed! It starts as a reversal of the popular isekai tropes, but there’s a deep mystery that slowly unfolds and draws you in. J.C. Staff sometimes get a bad reputation for their adaptations, but this is them at their very best.

Our review copy was supplied by MVM.