How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Part 2 - Episode 1 Review - Souma Declines Julius' Demand

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

Guess what isekai anime is back? It’s How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom with Episode 1 of Part 2! The story continues where we left off. Albert and Elisha, the former king and queen of Elfrieden, muse about how things are going great with the hero Souma Kazua as their new king. They have some mysterious talk about how things will be different this time now that a mysterious “she” has appeared earlier than last time. As if these events happened before and failed.

The next day, Souma is combat training with Aisha and Liscia. Aisha is able to break his defense with a range attack. Souma wonders if he can learn a magic type outside of his own attribute to use reinforcement magic, but Liscia says she’s never known that to be possible. Liscia also says her mother is a dark mage like Souma, but dark mages rarely exist.

Next, Souma has a meeting with Hakuya and Ludwin about improvements to Van. Souma thinks Hakuya overdid it by making the city too efficient and not considering what kind of city the people want and need. Meanwhile, Ludwin reports about transport improvements. And Souma suggests naming all the bridges after the royalty and stewards of Elfrieden. That way, if Prince Julius’ anti-Elfrieden faction ever destroys the bridges, they’ll receive hate and anger from the citizens. Suma also uses this meeting to teach Juna that redevelopment of Van is needed now, to stimulate the economy with jobs quickly enough.

Then, without warning, 50,000 Gran Chaos Empire troops appear right outside Van where Souma is. It’s an obvious show of force for the negotiations to reinstall Julius as the ruler of Amidonia.

So Souma and Liscia meet with Jeanne and Julius. Julius is obviously pissed and gets more so with the insults that Souma throws at him. Julius even takes out his sword! But Jeanne tells him to shut up and calm down every time. I feel like the same animation was recycled over and over to produce this scene, which is pretty lame.

Anyways, Souma points out how shitty Amidonia has been, and that they don’t deserve the protection of the Mankind Declaration. How the current state of things is Julius and his dead father Gaius’ fault for attacking Elfrieden and trying constantly to take over Elfrieden, and how the people of Van/Amidonia are actually happier now with Elfrieden in charge. Even how Julius isn’t needed in these negotiations, so Souma is able to dismiss the hostile bastard from the meeting.

Souma has Serina the maid take care of Julius in another room. Don’t know exactly what the importance of this is, other than that Serina will probably get him drunk in the next ep.

Anyways, Jeanne and Souma reintroduce themselves and get ready for the negotiations to really begin.

Image source: Amazon