At first glance, the Isekai anime Let Me Check the Walkthrough First on Crunchyroll seems like just another overly cute series that fails to take itself seriously, leaning heavily on common tropes. However, this lighthearted anime puts a creative twist on the classic “summoning” storyline that few others have tried.
In many fantasy reincarnation tales, protagonists either magically transform into powerful beings in a new realm or omnipotent forces intentionally summon normal people to save their worlds after killing them.
Let Me Check the Walkthrough First takes the latter approach, except the summoning of ordinary girl Lin Yinuo is a complete accident.
Moreover, her physical body remains alive back home, meaning she could potentially return before passing away.
Rather than a foretold hero on a serious quest, Lin is an amused tourist enjoying her temporary magical vacation.
With her genre-savvy meta-knowledge from games and anime, she cheerfully relies on online walkthroughs to loosely guide her fun adventure in this unfamiliar realm.
The series subverts Isekai tropes by refusing to take itself too seriously while putting its own spin on the summoning concept.
Latest Isekai Anime Offers a Unique Spin on a Traditional Trope, Setting a Refreshing Example for Others
After the accidental summoning, Lin is informed that someone else named Tian Enya was actually meant to be brought to this realm—not her.
Undeterred, Lin cheerfully sets out on her own whimsical adventure. She soon crosses paths with Tian and rescues the one originally preordained to be summoned.
By the second episode, it’s revealed that Lin got caught up in the summoning spell by sheer coincidence – she and Tian share the same birthday.
Rather than allowing Lin to return to her un-magical life as she hopes, Tian persuades Lin to stay on as her bodyguard.
Though initially reluctant to get tangled up in someone else’s foretold prophecy, Lin’s genre-savviness makes her the perfect companion on this journey. She lightheartedly supports Tian’s quest using her meta knowledge while hoping to eventually get back to her ordinary world unscathed.
Isekai stories typically follow a predictable formula – the protagonist is intentionally summoned to save a fantasy world despite originally being an ordinary person.
Let Me Check the Walkthrough First creatively flips this concept by having Lin accidentally brought to the realm instead of the intended heroine, Tian.
Interestingly, another 2022 Crunchyroll anime called The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent. It utilizes a similar subversive premise but in the opposite direction.
In The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent, protagonists Sei and Aira are both summoned, with Sei initially presumed to have been accidental. However, later revelations confirm Sei as the fated hero, while Aira had simply been near Sei during the summoning.
Unlike The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent, which hides and then reveals the “chosen one,” Let Me Check the Walkthrough First definitively establishes its protagonist as accidentally disrupting the ordained prophecy from the start rather than secretly being the heroine all along.
This makes the series stand out for daring to make the purposefully summoned Tian the protagonist later on, rather than the coincidentally summoned Lin, who drives much of the initial story.
The Striking Similarities Between Oshi No Ko and Let Me Check the Walkthrough First
Beyond its clever twisting of the overused Isekai summoning trope, Let Me Check the Walkthrough First throws another curveball in episode two by disclosing early on that Lin and Tian’s worlds were already connected.
It reveals they share the same birthday, which is how Lin accidentally got caught up in summoning the ordained hero, Tian. This is an extremely rare move for Isekai stories, which tend to withhold any surprising links between protagonists and their previous lives for maximum dramatic effect later on.
In fact, the only other major Isekai example that swiftly establishes an intriguing web of reincarnated characters is the popular manga-turned-anime series Oshi no Ko.
In Oshi no Ko’s very first episode, it shockingly unveils that esteemed doctor Gorou has reincarnated as Ruby while his former patient Sarina has returned as Ruby’s twin brother Aqua.
By transparently disclosing early why Lin and Tian are connected across worlds, Let Me Check the Walkthrough First separates itself from nearly all other Isekai that teasingly dangle knowledge of protagonists’ past lives as big reveal bait.
