When you do a little research and realize just how many light novels Sweet Reincarnation currently has, you know that the anime adaptation can only scratch the surface in twelve episodes. With twenty-four books out as of July 2023, the show has two options: condense like mad or resign to serving as an advertisement for the source material. Although I have yet to read the books, which are unavailable in English, J-Novel Club is releasing the manga version. It feels like the TV series chose option two, resulting in a story that doesn't come to any actual conclusion and is forced to leave multiple plot threads dangling.

The plot mainly centers on young Pastry Mille Morteln in his ninth year, although cursory time is devoted to his demise and growing up. Pastry is the son of the impoverished but noble Morteln family, the younger child of doting parents who try their best to support him even though they don't entirely understand what he's talking about. Pastry still has all his prior memories, making him seem preternaturally mature in some scenarios. However, the series does a good job of having him act like a child at others; his enthusiasm often comes across as childish to the adults around him. At his coming-of-age ceremony, Pastry awakens a magical gift known as Replication, which does what it says on the tin: it allows him to replicate anything he sees. That goes for everything from likenesses to other magic powers, making him the requisite overpowered isekai protagonist. Fortunately for the plot, Pastry is so invested in his second chance at becoming a world-renowned pâtissier that he is devoted to finding ingredients and making desserts with his own two hands.

The problem arises when he deals with the political landscape around him rather than just focusing on making cakes. In Pastry's ideal world, he would spend his days finding the ingredients he needs; in the real world he's stuck in, that has to become a side quest, making it imperative to help his father Casserole resolve the situations that arise so that he can get back to doing what he actually wants to. As a problem-solving technique, it is a double-edged sword for Pastry because he's gaining a reputation for the wrong thing, although it also allows him to acquire things like goats and fruit that he needs for his baking.

This show is an uncomfortable combination of engaging and utterly dull. The political aspects are mostly so basic within the genre that they have little appeal outside of isekai fans. They all follow the same basic formula that we've seen a million times before: an impossible and dangerous situation arises, and the hero fixes it with his previous life's knowledge. If you were hoping for Food Wars!: The Fantasy Version, you may be disappointed. That said, there is some effort made to ensure that the politics and wars are tense enough to still be interesting, even with the comfortable expectation that Pastry will bail the adults out yet again. While they do go too far at times (that ritual he undergoes is too dark for most of the show's ambiance), there's a real sense of someone trying to make this work. The most successful example of this comes in the final episode when a young man is badly emotionally scarred by his first experience of war and death – yes, he's helped by the magic of tarte tatin, but his reaction is grounded and real.

Given that this comes at the very end of the adaptation, it gives the impression that Sweet Reincarnation is a story still finding its balance in the material covered. That's a risk anytime a long-running series gets a partial adaptation, which does not necessarily pay off here. We can see that things are moving in a positive storytelling direction. Still, they end before we get the chance to actually see it happening, which makes this a somewhat disappointing experience. It tries but feels held back, which is a shame.

There are also some distracting choices made, presumably by the original novels. Characters' importance can be determined by whether or not they have food names: Pastry and his dad Casserole have much more prominent roles than his mother (Agnes) and sister (Josie), and he becomes engaged to a girl named Licorice, whose less-plot-important sister is named Petra. Interestingly enough, one character (the one with the snot-green hair) is named Feuille in the subtitles, but you can hear the Japanese voice actors calling him “Sheets;” presumably, the subs went with the French version (as in a sheet of puff pastry; the French term is a “leaf”) because it would sound less silly to Anglophone ears. The fact that apples are called “bonkas” is also a choice, and one that feels a lot like someone just went with a deliberately funny name to highlight linguistic differences. Animation is also not a great strength of this series, with numerous shortcuts taken whenever it comes time to show a fight scene.

Sweet Reincarnation has its moments and potential, but its truncated feel and lackluster visuals do it no favors. In a second season, it might improve, but as it stands, this show feels like an advertisement for the source material rather than a piece of media that can stand on its own two feet.