A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation Episode 12 Review - It's Still Not A BL (Season Finale)
I think knowing that this is the final episode of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation made me more sad than Isekai Office Worker. I’ve become a fan of this show. Is it crazy to say that this is my favorite anime of this season? I love the fantasy elements, how chill everything is and the story, even if there isn’t much. I must read the manga and I do hope they license the novels.
The finale of the anime has them doing odd jobs again, BUT the beginning gives updates to the characters of importance. Judge and Studd are hanging out at Judge’s shop due to work-related reasons as Judge is appraising the elemental stones that Lizel’s group gathered and gave to Studd. Ray is at his manor; I didn’t know he was a single father with no plans to remarry—what shocked me even more was that he was considering Lizel as marriage material if he were a woman…sir, just say you’re gay for him! Your butler even mentions it! There’s also Insigh who’s hanging out with Shadow at his manor as they talk about the stuff that happened with Judge. It’s still cute to see Insigh being an extremely doting and protective grandfather to his grandson. I do like that the anime showed them at the end to showcase that they are still characters of importance at the end of the day.
Anyways, Lizel and his party do odd jobs again. This time, Lizel gets the attention of a woman who falls in love with him at first sight. Medi, girl, you’re 12 episodes too late. There’s already a line of around five or six men who are extremely possessive of him and are begrudgingly sharing him. You do NOT stand a chance, but I admire your tenacity. To be honest, I can relate to her because I also like quiet and intelligent men like Lizel! The job itself is mostly helping out at the apothecary shop. Lizel wants to learn how healing potions are made, which is mostly from grinding magical stones.
After their job, Lizel keeps hearing the sound of a bell that only he can hear, which concerns Gil and Lizel. It’s to the point that they get extremely concerned when he had a fainting spell. It turns out that it’s due to the King from Lizel’s world calling to him via magic. I’m sure people were wondering what the King has been doing since his appearance back in the post-credits of Episode 5, but here he is! He was doing all he can do track Lizel—that’s quite the dedication there. Since Lizel described the King as his ideal type, after answering Eleven’s question, it does make me wonder if they’re in a relationship or not. Because there’s definitely going to be a lot of explaining to do when he gets back, especially gathering a harem of men. Also, Lizel’s father is adorable as heck—they’re very alike in personality.
In terms of voice actors, Medi is voiced by Yo Taichi who usually voices either young boys, boyish women or mature older ladies like Hiro Sohma from Fruits Basket, Takeo Kamado from Demon Slayer and Mari Kurosawa from Cherry Magic. Lizel’s father is voiced by Kazuhiko Nakatani, who is a name I’m not too familiar with, but I think Google Translate read it wrong…
Overall, this anime was surprisingly fun because it’s so chill. I think the fun mostly comes from the homobromantic moments that makes you wonder how this anime is not BL as it can feel more BL than the actual BL anime of this season, Isekai Office Worker. It’s fun to see Lizel gathering his army of handsome men and having them wrapped around his fingers. I also like that this isekai story doesn’t follow a lot of the usual tropes in that Lizel was isekaied from another fantasy world that’s similar to his instead of the usual Earth and that he doesn’t gather a harem of women but a harem of men instead. On top of that, while he’s extremely strong in magic, he’s also physically weak, so he’s not omnipotent—he’s just extremely intelligent.
I do think that the voice acting is the anime’s charm point because you get big names like Soma Saito, Yuichiro Umehara, Tetsuya Kakihara, etc and you put them in a very BL-esque anime and you know they’ll deliver. However, Umehara and Yamashita (Judge’s VA) actually don’t participate in BL media—the most they do is BL adjacent stories like this one—but they’re still seasoned voice actors that they know how to deliver; everyone else had or have done BL. To be honest, maybe BL experience isn’t a requirement for stories like this one, but I do think it’s a necessary factor.
I do wish the animation quality could be a bit better, though. Some episodes do look like it has a 10 dollar budget at times, but I like the color palette. I do like the art in the manga a lot better as it’s prettier. This is one of the reasons why I want to buy the manga, but I’m struggling on whether to get omnibuses or singles…
If you want to watch an anime with a cast of cute boys doing cute things and a lot of homobromantic tension that could easily mistake this story to be BL, this is your thing. I feel like a lot people who watch this instantly like it because it’s very BL-coded and some say that they liked it more than Bean Counter… Anyways, I feel like I’m rambling too much. If you have watched this anime, let me know your thoughts about the finale and the anime as a whole!















