A story that is equal parts cute and adorable, and tragic and heartbreaking. Ivy’s smile must be protected at all costs. She is the titular tamer from The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash (Saijaku Tamer wa Gomi Hiroi no Tabi wo Hajimemashita), and despite being the cutest girl, she has the roughest life.
The series is set to premiere sometime in 2024. Until then, we have a cute and heartbreaking trailer to enjoy.
Studio Massket has set up a promotional home page, and an official Twitter page, to keep fans and potential viewers up to date on new series announcements. Bonuses, such as the key visuals seen below, can be found there.
A Girl Born Starless
In the world presented in The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash, at the age of five, the people of Ordoguz can go to a church and pray to a god to perceive their abilities. Most people can have two skills, and the strength of their abilities is determined by their star count, though there are those born with five skills in total. Ivy (voiced by Aina Suzuki), who had lived in a world without magic before arriving in this one, is born with only one skill, that of a Tamer, and no star count to determine its strength. With only one skill and no stars, people saw her as being abandoned by their god.
Ivy thought the words “this game is impossible” when she discovered her lot in life, a sentiment she would have had in her previous life. Her current life went from bad to worse when her parents began to mistreat her such that she fled into the woods, and her only friend was a one-star fortune teller. After years of forest survival, hunting prey, and making use of items left behind by others, and the loss of the fortune teller, she left her hometown of Latomi for good. Later on, she would tame and befriend the slime she named Sora (voiced by Mutsumi Tamura).
The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash Origins
Ivy first endured hardships in the novel series written by Honobonoru500, which he began to post to the user-generated website Shosetsuka ni Naro on August 9th, 2018.
TO Books acquired the publishing rights to the series and hired the artist Nama to adapt it to light novel format. They began to publish The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash to their TO Bunko imprint on November 9th, 2019, and have since released eight volumes.
TO Books also hired the artist Tou Fukino to adapt the series to manga format. The new run began on February 10th, 2020 in Corona Comics’s Comic Corona, with four volumes released thus far.
Last but not least, there was a drama CD released in November 2022. The voice actors from that time, Aina Suzuki as Ivy, and Mutsumi Tamura as Sora, will be reprising their roles for the anime series, which they both seemed excited to do.
If you happen to be looking for more cute girls from slime-related anime, the J-List Store has you covered. The Milim Nava 1/7 Figure from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is available now for pre-order.
Are you looking forward to the upcoming anime adaptation of The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash? Do you think slimes can make cute pets? How much do you want to teach Ivy’s parents a lesson for their actions? Let us know in the comments below.