The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic: A New Twist on Isekai Tropes

The Intriguing Isekai Trope

A new anime from Crunchyroll called The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic is making a classic isekai trope recently popularized by The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent more intriguing for those who want more action and adventure. The trope in question – already one of the more compelling of the bunch – immediately puts the protagonist's legitimacy into question when it's believed they've been summoned accidentally.

King freaks out at Usato's healing power in The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

Possibly up for a third season due to popularity, The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent's protagonist meets such a fate when her fellow isekai'd companion is chosen over her. The problem is that the rejected protagonist has a choice of what she can do and, unfortunately, pursues a random trade that's the epitome of the very niche 'slow life' genre. Although her successes eventually bring action to her, those who want to see omnipotent magic power on the battlefield, as the title suggested would happen, are left waiting.

Rose's intense training for Usato in The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

However, Crunchyroll's new series The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic perfects this situation by forcing the hero into a line of work that's, while appropriate, different enough to make it exciting.

Rose gives Usato his new mission in The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

A Unique Approach to Protagonist's Journey

Produced by Frontier Works & Lantis, The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic brings a fresh perspective to the isekai genre. Originally a light novel series by writer Kurokata and illustrator KeG, this adaptation of How to Use Healing Magic Wrongly: Main Recovery Team Member Running Through the Battlefield gives the accidentally summoned hero Ken Usato a 'special' gift in relation to his Isekai'd classmates who have the stereotypical incredible powers, like in most isekai.

By comparison, Usato's 'gift' is healing magic, which is more of a support power than something a real hero would wield. However, rather than the power being misunderstood as is usually the case, the healing ability's 'catch' is that it attracts an oddly violent and overly rough healer named Rose. It's Rose's style of healing that gives the series its unique, more exciting approach.

So far, the anime has already done a great job of differentiating Usato's situation to draw in the viewer. The first episode effectively portrays Usato as a special case despite not being a hero by having the king and his subjects treat him with fear. Although that fear is misconstrued, the oddity behind the prospect of anyone possibly feeling threatened by a healer is intriguing.

The Impact on the Action/Adventure Genre

This is complemented by Rose's subsequent introduction, which promises her unconventional training methods that are enough to captivate any viewer. The second episode then delivers what the anime had only alluded to, and the effect should be welcomed by most anime-watchers, since it emulates a standard trope in normal action/adventure series but in a completely unconventional setting. The second episode's cliffhanger creates the same effect, except instead of training, Usato and Rose are bringing this unique form of healing into the field.

While still early in the season, The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic is already taking an isekai trope that usually puts the accidentally summoned hero on a less exciting path and giving it some much-needed extra oomph by twisting well-established story lines into something more suitable for an action/adventure series.