YMMV / The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Does Seiya act like an awful jerk to Rista because he can't remember his former wife or he truly remembers her and is trying to push her away after his blunder in the past cost her life, along with their child's?
• Angst? What Angst?: Mash spent some time being physically tortured by Deathmagla, with his broken tooth and nails shown near the torture tools. Sure, Rista healed his body quickly after being rescued, but all that torture doesn't seem to have any lasting ill effects on his mind at all, and this is not heavily explored later on. In the light novel, Rista notes that it's likely Mash will be too traumatized to fight ever again and Mash showed a negative reaction to seeing Dark Firus, but he recovers almost instantly after seeing Seiya defeat the monster.
• Awesome Music:
  • "TIT FOR TAT", the opening theme for the anime.
  • "be perfect, plz!", the ending theme for the anime.
• Base-Breaking Character: Enjoyment of the series tend to live or die based on viewers' feelings towards Seiya and his more mean-spirited comedy as well as the debate as to whether he's an interesting satire of the typical Isekai hero or if he's just another generic Gary Stu. Even Episode 11 failed to settle the debate as critics labelled it as a generic Dark and Troubled Past.
• Catharsis Factor: The demons tend to take every opportunity to torment the innocent and are smug about their countermeasures against traditional JRPG tactics. This makes it all the more satisfying when Seiya outsmarts them with his comically over-the-top preparations.
• Complete Monster: Xenosload, the Demon Lord of Gaeabrande, is a cruel ruler who has slaughtered entire cities and towns using his monstrous army in his search to Take Over the World. Making a deal with the elderly Emperor Roseguard, the Demon Lord restores his youth in exchange for Roseguard using Chain Destruction on Seiya and Rista to destroy their souls and prevent the gods from interfering in Gaeabrande. When Seiya survives the assassination attempt and challenges the Demon Lord, Seiya uses Valhalla Gate to defeat him. Furious at his defeat, Xenosload breaks Valhalla Gate and charges Judgement Zero, a attack with the power to kill all life in Gaeabrande, forcing Seiya to sacrifice his life to use another Valhalla Gate to save the world.
• Creepy Cute: Adenela, as she's somewhat the Token Mini-Moe of the deities of the Divine Realm and has a gloomy appearance.
• Crosses the Line Twice: There are a lot of moments where the story oozes it. One such moment is when Seiya buys holy water to fight the undead in the town where he's supposed to meet his allies in battle. When he suspects an undead is hiding among them, Seiya pours holy water on the priest because he already looked like an undead due to being elderly and feeble.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Seiya:
    • "Thot Slayer" no thanks to him rejecting some romantic context and/or advances from goddesses like Ristarte and Adenela, badmouthing Valkyrie, or in Episode 7, after he quickly slapped some sense into Princess Rosalie. This nickname is based on the Casting Gag of Yuichiro Umehara voicing stoic, serious or cautious knights, and fans made a "Slayer" meme out of Seiya due to Umehara's popular role as the titular character in Goblin Slayer.
    • "Goddess Slayer" for a tame and more specific version of the above nickname.
  • Rista's Butt-Monkey status has earned her a lot of mocking names from viewers:
    • "Useless Goddess", based on the "Useless Aqua" series of memes that the KonoSuba fandom started.
    • "Yellow Thing", another nickname for mocking Rista's uselessness as a goddess. This also ties in with the several comparisons that were made between her and KonoSuba's Aqua, whom fans call the "Blue Thing" when discussing the characters.
    • "Rancid Goddess", a nickname used to mock Rista's foul body odor, ever since Seiya and Ishtar pointed that out.
  • "Yandere Goddess" for Adenela, a deity who turned into a yandere after Seiya rejected her proposal and cake. She gets better though.
• Friendly Fandoms: Unsurprisingly with KonoSuba, which shares a humorous tone, comedic goddess female leads, and are both Affectionate Parodies of the "Narou Isekai" trend.
• Harsher in Hindsight: After The Reveal in Episode 11, you won't possibly be seeing the previous exaggerated gags and comedy skits regarding Seiya and Rista in the same way again. Or in retrospect, those would turn up to be a whammy foreshadowing or a deconstruction once you've rewatched the anime after this episode:
  • Rista lusting over Seiya? That is most likely her subconscious desire to be with him again, since they were lovers in a previous life.
  • Seiya going overkill and repeatedly incinerating his enemies' corpses just to ensure that they are dead? He's subconsciously driven by the trauma of losing from an enemy that can revive itself.
  • Early on, anime viewers joked that Aria spilled her tea when she saw Seiya in the Divine Realm because she just found him attractive and fell in love with him at first sight. Guess no one will find that scene funny anymore when it is hinted to be a foreshadowing. She became emotional after seeing that the hero she once summoned is now back.
  • Seiya slaps Rosalie so hard in order to shake her up from her recklessness until her cheeks got swollen. He doesn't want to see her recklessness because it subconsciously reminds him of his past self and the tragic incident that happened in Ixphoria.
• I Knew It!: Ariadoa is connected to Seiya's past. A lot of anime viewers knew that twist already midway through the series because it is hinted at through the built-up Foreshadowing from the past episodes. Aria's actions are very suspicious everytime she's near Seiya or when his name is mentioned. It's like she's distancing herself from him out of guilt. True enough, when The Reveal was shown, their theory was proven to be correct.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Ooh, six-pack..." (may be followed with "Sexy...")^Explanation Rista's reaction upon seeing Seiya shirtless and showcasing his well-toned six-pack abs. It became the go-to phrase for Perverse Sexual Lust on male fanservice on fan works, especially if said male shows six-pack abs. This can also work for particularly muscular females too, as long as they show well-toned abs. To reference to this particular meme, it's also imperative to say it like you're a little drunk, kind of like Rista, so it would sound like "Shix phax" or "Shexhy".
  • "Seiya's still prepping"^Explanation When the broadcast of Episode 3 was delayed by a week, the internet quickly joked this phrase as the probable explanation, which spread quickly enough that even the studio got in on it. The actual reason was massive flooding caused by a typhoon.
  • Due to the friendly fandoms with KonoSuba, there have been many jokes at the expense of the main characters:
    • "Rista Crying"^Explanation Rista is commonly compared to Aqua. Some even drew Rista in the style of the "Aqua Crying" meme.
    • "Useless Goddess". ^Explanation Rista is considered as useful as a medicinal herb by Seiya, which is comparable to how useful Kazuma considers Aqua.
    • "Gender Equality Personified"^Explanation The scene of Seiya slapping Rosalie in Episode 7 quickly exploded in the anime meme and YouTube communities when it aired. In context, he had to slap some sense into her because she was being reckless. Another case has viewers attaching a screencap of Kazuma's "I yearn for true gender equality" from KonoSuba to this scene.
  • "Ready Perfectly"^Explanation Seiya's Engrish Catchphrase is often imitated by fans and used in comment chains by those who were able to watch the anime episodes at the same time as Japan.
  • Episode 11 has these commonly-repeated comments from anime viewers due to how many were shocked by The Reveal:
    • "Not Ready Perfectly"^Explanation A variation of Seiya's catchphrase, coming from those who were surprised to watch a Tear Jerker episode.
    • "Gonna be Okay"^Explanation Fans repeating Seiya's original catchphrase in Ixphoria.
    • "Merry Christmas!"^Explanation To emphasize that this tearjerking Wham Episode aired on December 25, 2019, coming from fans who didn't expect to cry on Christmas Day.
    • "Fuck Spoilers!"^Explanation Used by viewers who watched the episode anyway, regardless if they have been spoiled by the twist from other online sources and already knew about what's to come.
    • "We enter the story as KonoSuba only for it to turn into Berserk!?"^Explanation Used by fans to compare the story by its Cerebus Retcon from how it was once compared to with another that ends up being very similar to the latter and suddenly Seiya and Tiana/Rista are compared to Guts and Casca.
• Narm:
  • The three deities who helped (but failed) to stop Crossed Thanatos, invoke exagerrated poses◊ à la JoJo's Bizarre Adventure for some reason, and there's even a written script overlaying the screen for a while.
  • Anime viewers were surprised to see that the Demon Lord of Ixphoria is just a giant demon toad. Even the Chimera is considered to be more menacing in appearance than him. Better yet, the Yen Press translation names him Ultimaeus, a name that doesn't really fit with his toad design.
• Narm Charm: Near the end of Episode 12, we have Cerceus and his protein cake. While the joke may get too old very quickly due to the deities constantly saying "protein" in a single scene, the context here is that they are simply trying to make Rista laugh, because they are concerned about their depressed friend and fellow deity, who is still silently grieving over the supposed death of Seiya.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The Demon Lord of Gaeabrande was hyped up as a No-Nonsense Nemesis who is smart enough to turn RPG and isekai tropes against the hero, as shown when he sends a general to the starter town, has the ultimate armor destroyed so Seiya can't use it, sets up an anti-magic barrier around his castle in case someone tries to nuke it, and uses Chain Destruction to kill heroes and gods permanently. By the time he's introduced, he gets less characterization than his minions and spends much of the final battle relying on brute force rather than wits, making his build up seem like a waste.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Rista states that dwarves are classified as peaceful monsters, yet Kilkapul is a demon general. Additionally, Kilkapul claims his family approved of him sacrificing them, implying that more than a few dwarves sided with the demons. There is potential worldbuilding for the dwarves' relationships with humans and demons, as well as how those relationships play into Kilkapul's motives. However, the series never explores this.
  • The lack of deconstruction regarding Seiya's cautiousness. Despite the message etched into his spirit from his former role as a hero, Seiya rarely truly suffers from being cautious and anyone who disagrees with him is always depicted and later shown as being in the wrong. This is fixed in the Warped Gaeabrande arc, where it turns out that the people of the warped world still have their souls connected to the people of the original world. When Seiya realizes the truth, he admits he was wrong for treating the people of the warped world as mere illusions.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Cautious Hero seems like a light-hearted comedy isekai at first glance, but it's rated TV-14 in the U.S. for good reasons. There is a Dark Fantasy-level of blood, gore and cruelty in Gaeabrande, as a reminder that this is an S-rank world: Chaos Machina threatens to kill a resident every ten minutes, Deathmalga tortures Mash, and there are some shots of torture devices and broken teeth on the table, Beel Bub throws soldiers until they become Ludicrous Gibs, etc. Also there's some (pixelated) female nudity on Rista's part when she has a Wardrobe Malfunction. And all that is before the Episode 11 twist.