Reincarnated as a Sword: An Anime That Defied Expectations

Ever wondered what would happen if your second chance at life came as a sentient magical sword? Reincarnated as a Sword delivers this unique premise through a captivating tale that defies initial controversy to emerge as one of anime's most rewarding viewing experiences.

The story follows Teacher, a human reincarnated as an intelligent, powerful sword who meets Fran, a young black cat girl sold into slavery after her parents' murder. Their partnership transforms both their lives—Teacher gains purpose and mobility while Fran accesses abilities that allow her to overcome the prejudice against her race. What makes this duo extraordinary is how their relationship evolves beyond simple utility into genuine care and mutual growth.

Immersive world-building sets this series apart from typical isekai fare. The fantasy realm features a complex society with guilds, evolution systems, and deeply ingrained racial prejudices that our protagonists must navigate. We meet unforgettable characters like Nell, the no-nonsense guild receptionist who wields administrative power with fierce confidence; Gallus, the meticulous blacksmith who creates only for those worthy of his craft; and Amanda, an A-rank hunter elf with a surprising connection to Fran's past.

The action sequences balance spectacular magic with strategic thinking, showcasing both Fran's growing combat prowess and Teacher's tactical wisdom. Each battle serves the larger narrative, revealing character motivations and advancing the plot in meaningful ways. Beyond the fighting, quieter moments—like Fran sharing her beloved curry with those she trusts—provide touching insights into her character development from mistrusted slave to respected warrior.

What truly elevates this anime is its willingness to explore consequences. Teacher's monster-hunting before meeting Fran inadvertently caused ecological imbalances with far-reaching implications, adding moral complexity rarely seen in the genre. As Fran strives toward evolution despite a world determined to keep her race subjugated, her journey becomes both personal triumph and social commentary.

Ready to discover why this underdog series earned its impressive 9/10 rating? Follow Fran and Teacher's remarkable adventure and see how this unlikely pair proves that sometimes the most powerful weapon isn't the blade itself, but the bond between sword and wielder.

Chapters

• 0:02 Introduction to Reincarnated as a Sword
• 0:56 Meet Fran and Teacher
• 5:22 World-Building and the Guild System
• 11:32 The Greater Demon Battle
• 22:24 Jet: A Powerful New Ally
• 27:00 Final Thoughts and Series Rating

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

what's good, everybody, all right. We are back now talking about reincarnated as a sword. This is actually a very interesting anime and one that I will say is absolutely one of my top favorite ones now. Albeit, this anime started off with a lot of controversy, so this one took a long time before it finally gets turned into an anime, so it's fairly new, but the story is already completed. In fact, the manga actually finished with 1310 chapters. It actually finished last year in february. If you're listening to this, you're recording 2020, I'm recording 2025, but, um, yeah, it was reported actually finished. The manga finished in uh, february of, and the thing about it is that this anime hit a lot, a lot of controversy. There was a lot of people who were unsure if they were even going to watch this, if this was even going to be great, primarily because of the beginning of the story.

Speaker 1: 0:56

At the very beginning of the story, we're following our main character, fran. She is a young black cat girl, and it's very important to understand that she is young. She's still a kid. Her parents were murdered, she was sold as a slave and she's just trying to live her life and be the best that she can be. The thing about it is that she wants to be the best that she can be. She wants to evolve, she wants to be good, she wants to do stuff, but she's not able to do it. Black cats are quote-unquote cursed. Now we wind up meeting our main character, shisho, who is Wanzo. He was hit by a white cocoon he didn't do a real easy copy of it this time and so Wanzo comes back in a sentient sword, kind of magical with intelligence. He has telekinesis, so he is able to float and levitate himself and do different things.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Now we only have season one of the anime out, so I'm only going to focus on just season one. So there are a bunch of characters that do pop up in season one. I'm not going to mention them because they're important for the story later on. They're not important for the story right now, so either one doesn't matter as much. So let's go ahead and focus into that Going really quickly.

Speaker 1: 2:14

I'd like to go ahead and give just a quick ideal range for this anime. This one is absolute 8.5 out of 10. I would even go so far as to say a good nine out of ten as well. It's not 100 perfect. There are different moments that we could absolutely dive a little bit further into. But however, it's just season one. We had an opportunity of kind of like seeing the story, getting understanding what's happening and really start to push things forward. So now that we got that, let's go ahead and do it. So, score, warning ahead. And this is like I mentioned.

Speaker 1: 2:51

We already started off with our main character's friend and teacher, and so she's. She's very rebellious, constantly fighting, pushed so badly to be stronger until finally their slave, uh the slave, uh, travel trade. That goes that she's with winds up running into a giant bear. The bear winds up killing the slave traders, killing all the others, killing some of the slaves. Some of the slaves escape and it just winds up leaving just her along with the bear, and she is about to die. But this is pretty much what it is, since I guess I don't have much of a choice.

Speaker 1: 3:31

I really was hoping to evolve, because in this world, beast characters evolve. They are able to progress into the next stage, them getting older. They do get older, but they can stay at their first level, but then they can evolve into a more powerful, more advanced form. Now we do not know. I'm not getting focusing on just see one of the anime. So I'm not. We do not know what the next evolutionary state is for a black cat. We just know it is possible, but it happens, because black cats are constantly killed off. In fact, the primary are blue cats. The story is that they used to trust the black cats but then they wound up slaying them off and betraying them and just started slaughtering them and then just killing them, just selling them off. So there is a couple of people that have to look at the market. This is a very important story. We can be frail, unable to do anything, and because of that we have an issue for it.

Speaker 1: 4:44

But then it also becomes a big surprise for a lot of people because she wants to doing things that they do not expect, introducing our main character teacher, our isekai buddy. So he winds up the green party, has a sword, he's looking for a wielder so this is before he meets fran and he's trying to see what it is that he can do. He's under looking at my stats so I can see what abilities I have, and that's cool. But he's like I want to be the best sword for somebody, for my wielder whenever I get one. So he decides it's wrong, he leaves his pestle, he starts slaying monsters. He starts off small like the goblins, then progresses to start slaying dragons, all types of different things, but he doesn't realize that what's causing a big imbalance was one of the biggest progressions into the story, because they're constantly having to fight against these imbalances of power, not knowing what's going on, so imbalanced, what has caused this. And no one knows what happens except the teacher, and he's like oh, I was just trying to level up. You know, I was just trying to get some good abilities, for whenever I got a wielder, you know, I got Fran.

Speaker 1: 5:59

Now and he doesn't realize that by him constantly slaughtering these monsters back and forth, he has caused a huge disarray, caused some monsters to move natural habitat into a different area, which has caused a lot of invasions, a lot of fighting, a lot of invasions into a lot of villages. It has caused a huge uproar and he didn't know that. He just thought he was just leveling up. And I love that we have that aspect into the story because a lot of times when playing games you see it happen a lot where it's like oh, it's just, I was fighting, I was battling, I didn't think it was anything important and sorry for saying that anyway, but you didn't think it was important, it just seemed so simple.

Speaker 1: 6:46

But all these monsters also maintained the habitat, they maintained the power stains of everything, and so, because he was capturing himself and just kind of doing this without checking in with anybody, it caused a huge issue and wound up helping progress with the story to how things have been going, in fact, going so far as the possibility that one of the greatest evils that gets awakened into this world which is probably one of the biggest beeline storylines that we will have to follow for the show is actually caused by teacher. It's one of those ones who just kind of sit and wait patiently, but he couldn't. He had to go out and do things. But, granted, also because he went out, venturing is one of the reasons that he was able to meet fran, because he winds up getting stuck in a complete mana um mana draining area, which is exactly where fran um the slave traders wound up crashing and meeting a current bear. That bear wouldn't normally not be native in that area, but again, teacher caused that, but it wound up causing him to finally find a friend. So he is super excited and ready to see what is he can do so now that he has met friend, he gets an opportunity of getting a better understanding of what is going on.

Speaker 1: 8:01

You know she has that what is really going on in the world. It's a good understanding of certain things. Now there's still a bunch of people who doesn't know. She doesn't know how to do it, she doesn't know how abilities work, she doesn't know how to use skills and things like that, so it's something that she doesn't know. When the first step, she doesn't know how to do it. So she can partner up with multiple guilds, different cities, uh, so that way she's able to take on different adventures. She's gonna get paid for it and it pretty much becomes a big shock on the fact that she has wrapped up a bunch of kits, because one of the things about it is that, of course, teacher has a pocket dimension that he's able to store stuff into, so he's able to pull out all these different items. They sell it, make a bunch of money and a lot of people instantly think, oh, you stole that for something that's not yours and she kind of has to set that record straight.

Speaker 1: 9:01

I love that we get to see Fran have her own development in these skills, because one of the things about it. Yes, she is a black cat. She has some skills of her own, but not as much. Most of her abilities and magical abilities. All of that is still linked through teacher. He winds up partnering up with her by having her equip him and he's able to share his abilities with her. So she has access to a lot of these special spells, a lot of these special advancement abilities, because he has them. But in turn by having him equipped she's able to. That does become a point later on into the story where he wants she wants to fall into a trap that winds up unequipping him and at that moment she loses a bunch of her abilities and she is about to die. But she still pushes forward and we absolutely love it.

Speaker 1: 9:43

I love this part of the story. It really had a lot of tension to it, but going back, just to pull, we build up into that. I love when we got the guilt because, again, this whole anime has such a fantastic world and not just the anime, the manga. It's like this story excellent world building. We get an understanding for each individual character. We get understanding of how all the builds together into the world. It doesn't feel like there's too much left out now. Granted, there are still some characters I would love to kind of dive more into. Like you know, the guilt not the guild leader, but the heavy fight person, jordan, like he was of having that like really tough build. He's extremely strong, that's some pretty awesome abilities, but we don't get a chance to dive as much into him as I would hope. But it's okay, we still get there's plenty still to eat here in this anime. So we get a good chance of diving into the guild, understanding that this guilt, even the guilt master he knows stuff is going on.

Speaker 1: 10:38

This guild has a patron. They have someone that they have to, um, get money from and this absolute corrupt individual, august Olsen, the fat motherfucker, who winds up having an ability for himself that is really also from him. It's the same as from his item. It's not necessarily his, but by equipping an item he's able to persuade that whatever he says is true and he lies a lot. He lies a hell of a lot, but no one really can know that he's lying because his ability allows people to believe him. It's just a very, very taxing ability to have, just really be honest there. But the thing about it is is that we wound up getting a chance to dive further for the guild, understanding that there are some corrupt individuals in the bill in the guild, and I have to say, when it comes down to having to deal with these individuals, I am so happy that they have one of the best fucking receptionists Nell.

Speaker 1: 11:31

Oh, she is fantastic. Love that kid for real, because she don't take no shit from nobody. She will say what the fuck she feels and not care, because she's like look you in my guild, this is my shit. It's like when you're the receptionist, I don't give a fuck. You want me, you want to buy these items? You want, you want me to buy these items. She gets some money. You got to go through me for that. You want, you want some money. You gotta go through me. You want to get your level up badges and stuff. You got to go through me, fuck with me and see if I don't get your shit like she don't care. I absolutely fucking love that. Oh my God, I love this shit. I think it's because I used to work at a phone center before and it's like I so badly wanted to tell these customers how I feel. I'm like you just want to talk to me any type of way, but you don't understand the amount of power that I had. Oh, nelson, I don't care, I got power. Try me. I ain't got to be super strong. I got the status. I I got the status. I control your status. I control your money. What you gonna do then, shut the fuck up. Let me shut the fuck up and just let you do what you gonna do Exactly. You do not get on Dale's bad side. Bruh, I absolutely love that.

Speaker 1: 12:39

I love also the chance to meet Gallus as well, our blacksmith, who was able to do his own magical stuff. A lot of people kind of they know he has excellent work but they don't really like look up to him as much because he's too picky. But I understand his point. He's like why would I spend my time and energy making you special items for you and a special armor for you and instead what you decide to do is just sell it off for the next quick buck? If I'm making this for you, I want you to use it. I don't want you just to sell my shit Like use it. I am powering you up because that's what my ability is. That's what I got. So I completely understand him being picky as hell, like I would, I'd be very upset about that. If I make something very special for you and the good idiot instinct is I'm going to sell it off to make a quick buck, why would I continue to work with you Like I'm not going to do that? Now, if I'm giving you something just for you to make a quick buck and not care about, that's a different story. But that's not how he is.

Speaker 1: 13:31

As a blacksmith, he puts his time and energy into his work, he cares about it, he loves his work, and that's one of the things that I can absolutely appreciate so much with this character and it's one of the reasons why I, no matter what, absolutely love his work. Like, even from what I've seen in the, the stuff that he's made for fran the sheath that he was able to make for teacher is fantastic, like it's really, really good ship. And on to basically drawing work um, he's definitely a good one. Of you want anime, from the manga to the anime, um, albeit the rcg. Like I said, this uh manga wound up having a lot of controversy, mostly because fran, she's small, she doesn't, she was a slave, she didn't really have clothes like that and things like that.

Speaker 1: 14:17

So there was a scene where she had to go underwater and do some shit to try to go fight a monster, just kind of explore things. That's kind of just what happened. She didn't really have clothing and it was not drawn out sexualized like that, and the thing about it is is that, yes, other characters will try to sexualize Fran because they're like you know, oh, she seems so cute, oh, we kind of want to take advantage. Because they wanted to take advantage of her, because they see her as weak, they see her as someone they can take advantage of. So it was pertaining to the story. But it's not one of those ones that makes like, oh, this is not a hentai. It's not one of those ones like you have to watch this and be like, oh, I'm all goo goo gaga over this. No, this is one of those ones like it was part of the story. It shows, it emphasizes, how much they disrespected her and how much of a growing glow up that she wants to get in later on because she went from being disrespected, underestimated, to being, oh, she, that girl. Oh, you don't fuck with her, she know what the fuck she doing. She got that, she earned her respect, and it's an excellent showcase of moving forward into that, because all the extra sexualization that happens at the beginning, when she's weak, when she gets older and stronger, it doesn't happen anymore. She gets the respect.

Speaker 1: 15:29

One of the biggest signs into that is another character. We wind up meeting amanda, who's also part of that first guild that she joins as well, too. Amanda is an a-rank hunter and also keep in mind there are different rankings into this. This is part of the story as well, that fran, she starts off with an e one of the lowest right now ranking, but very quickly moves up to a D rank. And it was a story too that, ok, people are questioning did she pay her way up, did she sleep, type of thing, and it's like, oh, it's just because the guild master's got a thing for little girls. And he's like no, I do not have no thing for no little girls, what are you talking about? And it's just like people want to push this narrative because they don't understand that she actually does have the skill. That's how much they undermine her and again, it's part of the story of that. It showcases what it is supposed to be as part of the building, so it's one of those ones. I know a lot of people have been upset about it, but you're, I have to say you're diving too much into that and you're diving too much into it the wrong way. It is part of the plot as far as showcasing why she was underestimated and how she was able to push past that and become even better, and that's where it is that you really want to focus more on. She gets better.

Speaker 1: 16:47

So, going back into Amanda, we wound up meeting Amanda, who's A rank and again, someone who's well-rounded, well-respected, and she's also one of those ones that she started off at the bottom and made her way up to the top. She started to the bottom. Now she here, now she rare she. She got this stuff, and the thing about it is that she uses her power to protect other children. She has an orphanage that she was helping kids who wound up losing their um, who wound up losing their parents. Amanda is old as hell, so, but she's an elf, so it's expected that for as far as elf ages, she's actually not that old, but compared to some other races she's probably, and the thing about it is is I love towards.

Speaker 1: 17:24

At the very end of the story we get a chance to see that amenda actually raised fran's parents and she wasn't sure that she was considering maybe I might know fran. She's like I kind of think I know you, or at least I know of you, and it wasn't until the very end that she gets that understanding that she's like I raised her parents. That's how you are from, so familiar to me. I knew your parents. Your parents were orphans and I helped raise them. I hate to know that they ventured out and died and was not able to achieve the goal that they wanted, and I am so happy to see that they had a daughter that is living, that is powerful, that is well and has a great teacher to really help her out.

Speaker 1: 18:06

And amanda is also one of the very few, because only two characters amanda, and also one of the very few because only two characters amanda and gallus are the only ones who know that fran's power comes from her sword, from teacher. Everybody else assumes it's just fran and they just kind of leave it as that doesn't need to progress any further. Amanda's so keen on protecting her to the point that if anyone else was to find out, she is very quick to be like I got to beat the shit out of you to make you forget. She's like I got to erase your memory because you can't know. I need to protect this girl because that's what I do. I protect kids. It's a big thing for me. I raised her parents. It's a big thing for me. I love them. I'm not going to have you fuck her life up and I just absolutely love that.

Speaker 1: 18:52

And so there's so much to go into and I can't wait for season two to come in. There's so much more to really talk about, so much more to kind of get into it. But again, season one is just the beginning, so we're not gonna get too much into that. So, really quick, we have excellent moments into it. Fran gets a chance of fighting some excellent adversaries. Now the very first adversary that we wound up really getting a big dive into for Fran winds up being the greater demon. Now, the greater demon fight is an excellent, excellent fight. It really pushes to see how strong Fran has gotten.

Speaker 1: 19:22

Now. She wound up getting in trouble for this one because she ran ahead outside the group, because what it is is that we have a goblin stampede, which means there are so many goblins out right now that they are absolutely about to like decimate the village, and this is about to become a whole big issue. So they're just like we gotta save the town, we gotta do something. So everyone goes to try to like we're gonna go to the goblins hideout and fight them. So wanza being the dungeon master of the guild of this dungeon where all the Goblins are at, he's weak and frail but he winds up getting really good lucky draw with goddess points and it's very interesting he mentions this like goddess points. We get a little bit of lore backstory that there was actually a goddess of chaos. Wanzo becomes corrupted and Wanzo them becoming corrupted and one of his split up, and so it's like, okay, you know a person with a player who kind of built their character to use these points in order to get like special up stat. So he was a pretty goddess plus and getting a real good lucky draw and summons a greater predictor. This is where it comes really dangerous, because this is greater demons is extremely powerful.

Speaker 1: 20:45

Fran. This because Fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, Fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran, fran. And then Anika Skywalker what he did to Count Dooku. If you don't know it, get some culture, anyway, no, I'm just kidding. So literally winds up slicing off her hand. Fred is distraught. She's like holy shit. And Tita's like oh fuck, we fucked up. This fight is entirely too much. Oh, my God, hold on a second. He winds up pulling out Big firewall defense man, this is huge, for that's pretty good. Okay, okay, and you were good. Like this is real good. And it's like no, bro, we got to get out of here. My friend's like extremely difficult fight.

Speaker 1: 22:19

It wound up getting to the point that they like straight up, straight up, teach, like he's ready to rejuvenate himself, and it wound of game that pretty much up. You know Fran was of getting credit for taking down this greater demon by herself. Oh, of course. So oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh, of course, the teacher just eats these crystals for power and to get stronger. It's okay that motherfucker who winds up using his lying ability saying that she's lying and stuff like that and it becomes a big issue. But they quickly were able to resolve that, which was bringing the second adversary that is distraught.

Speaker 1: 23:36

His ability has. That's an ability they got from greater demon, where he was like, oh, I can steal your abilities, and he doesn't realize that he uses like I stole your abilities, now you're just weak, now I can kill you. And then then Fran still uses the ability. This doesn't make sense. Oh, it's just, it's always the ability, it's just like. It's like Anyway, takes the sealed ability and winds up stealing the lying ability from. He's causing a bunch of issues now because, no, no longer has this ability to really push them. It's become all right, let's see what's going on. So he hires a blue cat. This blue cat is actually much more powerful than the demon sword is.

Speaker 1: 24:26

So this is a high-level adversary, one that really had the pleasure to be able to fight. And as much as I absolutely hate his fuck ass because how he enjoys slaughtering black cats and slaughtering enemies and shit and selling them off as slaves Absolute douchebag I will only give him credit for one thing as a warrior, he went down without crying like a bitch. He didn't beg for no mercy, he was just like just get that shit over with. He said you managed to beat me and I don't know how the fuck you did it, but who cares. I fucking lost Q-Mass and just let it be done with that shit. He went down talking his shit. So as a warrior, I got to give him respect as a person. Man, fuck his ass. He deserved it. Hell, fuck ass me. Anyway. So but so, but well, we finally get to be further into the spider. Well, actually, no, the spider want to come. My bad, I missed. Put them in different spots. Anyway, I wanted to meet um for this giant fucking spider shit.

Speaker 1: 25:34

Because we got introduced to one of the best fucking pets in anime, jets. Because jet is a able to do and another ability that he wound up stealing from another adversary. And in creating jet we have a brief moment that he has to understand that he does not know what is going on. But it also introduces another point of lore names. Because, understanding, he summoned jet but he didn't give him a name. Yet when, because he didn't give him a name, he summoned him with a lot of mana, a lot of power. Because, uh, frame was gone, frame was under.

Speaker 1: 26:08

Friend wanda was unequipped with anything. She was stuck with next, no abilities, no power and she was about to die. So it became a big issue they need to go ahead and save her. So he winds up summoning Jet with a lot more power than he should have, but in doing so, winds up sending him into an absolute rage because he's in pain. And then it wasn't being Amanda who wants to explain to teacher, because she finally now understands who teacher is oh OK, since you're sending. So she finally now understands who teacher is that. Oh OK, since you're sending so much power. It's going out crazy. Did you give him a name yet? And he's like what do you mean? The names help balance things out because they build a connection. You summon him with a lot of power, but you didn't give him a name. So there's no balance here. And it's like oh OK, got you. So I need to go ahead and do a balance for him. And so what he does is that he winds up giving him the name Jet Immediately. In naming him, winds up calming him down. And now we finally have the ability to be able to have this wonderful pep who was able to sniff out Fran. They were able to go ahead and take down the giant monster and everything is all good, and we're now able to progress on to the story, with it moving on to the next town.

Speaker 1: 27:15

So season one excellent, fantastic um is enjoyable to watch from beginning to end. Highly recommend it. So again, nine, I would even say 9.5. There are some characters I would want more fleshing out to, but because I have started reading the manga I know some of these characters get fleshed out.

Speaker 1: 27:32

I'm gonna go ahead and name drop one, rufus, who is a friend of Amanda. He's a merchant who winds up selling Fran just some cooking equipment and stuff, which is important. Love that Fran loves curry. And Teacher's like oh, I love that she loves curry so much. You can see how much Fran is willing to accept somebody. When she winds up sharing her curry with Amanda, he's like, oh, she must really trust her. Okay, yeah, that's cool, that's what's up. But, um, excellent job and getting a chance to really see like that, rufus, he, he, he gets development. He's important later. He is actually very important later, but for right now it doesn't seem as important. It's just kind of a name drop, you just understand. He's close to Amanda, that's about it.

Speaker 1: 28:12

So excellent anime again. Excellent anime again. Highly recommend it. Definitely check it out and until next time I will go ahead and talk with you guys again. Definitely check us out here on ZoneAlliancecom and our website. We have blogs, merchandise, all types of stuff for you guys. We have some really awesome things coming along. So thank you all so much for being long-time listeners. I'll talk to you all next time. Bye.