Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! is the anime adaptation of a light novel of the same name by FUNA (story) and Itsuki Akata (art). The light novel gained popularity on the user-generated novel website Shosetsuka ni Narou (Let’s become a novelist!), ranking second place on the popularity ranking in 2016-2017. The anime is directed by Masahiko Ohta, with series composition and screenplay by Takashi Aoshima. The pair previously worked together on YuruYuri and Himouto! Umaru-chan.
The main character of the story is Misato Kurihara, a high school girl shunned by others due to her being quite a bit more capable than everybody else. She ends up getting killed when she pushes a child out of the way of an oncoming truck. After her death, she finds herself in front of The Creator, who appreciates her selflessness and promises to reincarnate her into another world. Misato asks to be reincarnated as a person with ‘average abilities’. However, when she is reborn into a world of magic, she realizes that the abilities she has been gifted with are way above the ‘average skills of human’. Instead, her skills are the average of all existing lifeforms, including ancient dragons with overwhelming power. This means her abilities way exceed the average of the humans in her new world. Even so, she aims to live her life as an average person. Using her new alias ‘Mile’, she forms a group called ‘The Crimson Vow’ with a magician named Reina, a knight named Mavis and a merchant’s daughter named Pauline. However, her search for average happiness will lead to some not-so-average incidents.
MANGA.TOKYO was kindly given the opportunity to interview chief producer and music producer of the anime, Hirotsugu Ogo.

Thank you for taking the time to speak to us today. Could you please tell us how an anime adaptation of this series came about? Especially right now, at a time there seem to be a lot of reincarnation series about.

I’ve also noticed there seems to be a lot of isekai (other-world reincarnation) anime around recently, but if the genre is so common then it must mean that it’s popular for a reason. I’ve also liked fantasy and reincarnation stories for some time, so I was really interested in working on a series of that genre.
I think when most people think of reincarnation anime, they will think of shows that originated on the website ‘Shousetsuka ni Narou!’, so I started my search there.
Out of all the stories, I thought Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! was refreshing, because even though the main character is blessed with strong abilities, she doesn’t want to use them and instead aims to live a normal life. There is also something fresh about the protagonist of an isekai adventure story being a young girl. She forms a hunter group with three other girls, which is amusing in the sense that it reminds me of school club activities. It may be an isekai series, but I although thought it would be fun to depict girls getting along with each other or worrying over things together as an anime. We decided to reach out to the novel’s publisher Earth Star and proceeded with the anime adaptation from there.

What did you focus on most for this series?

We wanted to focus on depicting the girls’ adventures as a hunter group just like they were high school girls hanging out with their clubmates. Yet, if we focus too much on the club concept, then the series would end up simply being a slice-of-life rather than an isekai show. That’s why we also inserted action and battle scenes. It was really difficult to find the right balance. Of course, it was also important to make it cute.

Is that why the story is set in a hunter school? To show off the club activity-like aspects?

It’s not quite like that. Originally we wanted to show off Mile’s life at Eckland Academy and her friendship with Marcela, Monika and Aureana, but that would have taken up the whole season. We didn’t want to make a whole season like that as it would have simply been a school-life anime with a slight fantastical twist, which is why we decided to go straight into the Hunter School arc. Instead, we wanted to be able to depict the kind of not-so-regular activities you only see at this kind of school. However, jumping right into the Hunter School arc means that we would end up skipping some really important parts of the story, so we had to think about how we could fit them in.

The light novel included many detailed explanations of the nanomachines and other things, right?

FUNA thought about the world-building in a lot of detail. When it comes to novels, the readers can slowly enjoy the detailed explanations at their own pace. However, putting such detailed explanations into anime means that a lot of the time would be taken up without the story progressing — which is why we only included brief explanations. If viewers are interested in learning more about these details, they should definitely check out the novel if possible. We were only able to simplify things so much because the light novel is still there for fans to enjoy.

The pasts of Mile and her friends are touched upon only slightly.

We had a bit of a hard time when considering how to fit each character’s past into the story. Mile has experienced a lot of hardships, so it would have been pretty tough to depict everything that’s happened to her all at once. I also don’t think it’s good to focus too much on the past, either. The staff worried about how to tell the story in just 12 episodes in a way that would satisfy the readers of the light novels. That’s how we ended up with the anime as it is.

We noticed that the cast comprises of some quite young voice actors.

This series follows four very young women, so we decided to choose the cast members via audition. We chose each actress based on how well they fit the personality of each character, and they honestly exceeded our expectations.

Nano’s voice is unexpected.

Nano may look very cute on the outside but is still a nanomachine. We thought it would be a good idea to use a calm, male voice that Mile would feel able to consult with and ask questions. We auditioned male voice actors and that’s how we settled on Wataru Hatano. Only Mile can see Nano and it can only speak to her. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if Nano could talk to the other characters.

Do you have a favorite character?

I just can’t choose between these four members of The Crimson Vow. I like them all for different reasons. Other than those four, there is also a character I like named Glen. He’s the leader of the hunter group ‘Roaring Mithrils’. The anime has some original segments right off the bat, and so the contents of episode three differ from the light novel slightly. However, I really liked Glen in the novel, so I pushed for him to get a cameo in the episode. That’s the only scene he appears in, but he’s a great older hunter who could provide a lot of guidance. That’s why I like him. Although he doesn’t even appear in the novel all that much. [laugh]

Here are some questions from our readers across the world.

windingninja: When are those ‘Nendoranoids’ being sold irl (ep 3)

I love for them to be released. If it looks like there is a real demand for them, then who knows.

Chandler Ingram asks: How is it having all the meta humor, self-aware jokes, and reference to other popular works for jokes in the show? They work well so it must be fun.

The novel has a lot of these parodies too. I’m sure Misato’s parents liked anime and that’s why she knew so much about much older series. Perhaps Misato had seen anime set in a similar fantasy world to the one she is reincarnated into, so she ends up bringing up a lot of references.

Some of the references are pretty old, too.

From the references that appear in the light novel, I like to think that Misato used to watch anime together with her dad. We tried to keep the references in the anime in keeping with the ones which appear in the novel.

Daniel Schaffer asks: Why skip all the backstory and change the graduation fight? Adele’s story feels ignored even though it could probably have taken up 1 or 2 episodes.
katsupunch asks: Why did the anime differ from the manga?
jasper_guce asks: Why are the light novel and anime totally different versions?

Anime and light novels are completely different mediums, so we wanted to make full use of the fact that this is animation. Some things are expressed better as anime rather than as text and vice-versa.

What was the general reaction from the viewers after the first episode aired?

I feel like it was a good reaction. Many people thought that the characters were cute.
I was also happy to see communication between the viewers once the show started airing. The references brought up in the anime seemed to be a big talking point. For example, some users would ask what anime a joke referred to and other fans would explain it to them. I thought that was pretty cool.

Do you have a message for our readers?

It would be wonderful if you have fun watching over Mile and her friends in The Crimson Vow right up until the end of the series.
I’m just like the fans and would also like to see Marcela, Monika, and Aureana would get up to, so let’s make it possible. I’m counting on your support.

Thank you very much

Hirotsugu Ogo

Manager and Chief Producer at Avex Pictures

Born 1979 in Tokyo.

Ogo has worked on various series including The Bride is a Mermaid (as producer), Nyaruko: Crawling with Love (as associate producer), Hamaotra (as associate producer), Assassination Classroom (as music producer), Kakegurui xx (as chief producer).