Ars Louvent is a three-year-old aristocrat, but also an isekai hero. He remembers his former life in Japan and the book learning he acquired there. (Mind you, here he's a gullible infant.) Anyway, as usual for this genre, he has an isekai superpower... but it's unspectacular and you'd laugh if it appeared on an American superhero. He can appraise you. He can see RPG game stats flying around your head as magic ribbons in the air. Leadership 10, Bravery 18, Wisdom 5, Magic 1, Strategy 50, etc. He'd be amazing in a Human Resources department, but this doesn't make him stronger or faster. Ars isn't badass. He's polite, respectful and nice.

I loved him. A child protagonist who has to work hard for his victories is a million times better than an invulnerable isekai superman. (I'm reminded of Ascendance of a Bookworm, which I also love and has been similarly successful. That has a fourth season starting next month, while the third season of this has been announced.) This series is fantastic.

Season 1 is a loop of "Ars recruits another retainer". This has a pattern. Ars meets someone unlikely whom no one else would look twice at, sees off-the-charts potential and tries to hire them. However, it's never that simple. Someone always needs persuading, be it the potential employees themselves, their families, racists who don't trust a child's judgement or even in one amusing instance Ars himself. (When he's five, he's told that he has a fiancee. That was just politics for medieval nobility. Anyway, he meets his polite little wife-to-be, Licia, sees her scary manipulator game stats and doesn't trust her an inch.) What I loved about Season 1's stories is that they give hope and a new life to people who desperately needed it. They have a strong emotional component. Ars will fight tooth and nail to make everyone accept his new friends. There will be slave traders, homeless children on the streets, persecuted ethnic groups, assassin organisations and visiting your father's grave.

These two seasons cover a decade, mostly in Season 1. Ars goes from 3 years old to about 12 or 13 by the end of Season 2. However, throughout, he's a child who can't match his retainers in their specialist areas. All he can do is support them, help them and bring them together. That's why it's great.

Season 2 has a war. This is a cynical medieval-ish world, where countries invade each other because they can and all other lords are potential enemies. Leaders are judged on their body count. Ars's father is admired because he's good at winning battles. Ars has to survive in this environment, against a range of opponents from "good and honourable" to "sons-of-bitches who see through your tricks and slaughter you". It's completely different from Season 1, but equally good stuff and it gives everyone a chance to shine. Ars's retainers make a difference and save their friends' necks. Everyone gets a focus episode. Season 3 will continue the war and I'm sure that'll be great too. War is a powerful story setting because anyone might die, courage is more meaningful and Ars's decisions can make you go HOLY SHIT. Honour in those circumstances is more stirring.

Ars is underpowered, but never overshadowed. He's the show's moral and emotional core, whether being amusingly aghast on being promoted, or personally writing letters to the families of fallen soldiers. He does a lot of growing up. However, I also loved his friends. Rietz Muses is a polite, respectful killing machine and frighteningly loyal to Ars. Charlotte and Mirielle never fix their personalities and can be extremely hard work, but they're invaluable allies. Licia is a child with no combat skills, but her Ambition rating is 100 and she might sweetly promise to crush anyone who gets in her way. I could continue, but I shouldn't spoil the show.

The show really worked for me. I loved its intelligence, compassion and emotional weight. It can be funny, e.g. their idiot recruit in episode 22. "His Ingenuity... is on the low side." It can be charming, e.g. the snowball fight in episode 23, but there's emotion in story beats as simple as an acknowledgement of letters Ars wrote to families. (Or, of course, heavier material like a lord being taken for execution asking them also to kill his two children. They're at the door and hear him say this.)

There wasn't an episode I didn't love. Seriously underrated.