The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious manga review (ending spoilers included)

Japanese authors may not have invented the isekai “going to another world” genre, but they sure come up with the most interesting spins. The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious (Kono Yusha ga Ore Tueee Kuseni Shincho Sugiru) by Light Tuchihi takes the usual trope of a summoned hero saving the world, then cranks it up to eleven by giving him a hilariously pragmatic and cautious personality. It’s extremely refreshing, at least at the start. It’s also short and complete at six volumes, so even though the final twists were garbage (more on that later), it’s still worth a read for what came before.

Summary: Can a neurotically overprepared hero and an underachieving goddess save a parallel world together?! When the inexperienced goddess Ristarte is tasked with the daunting mission of saving the S-ranked world Gaeabrande, she thinks that summoning Seiya Ryuuguuin, a Japanese teenager who has utterly broken stats as a Hero, will finally turn her luck around. Seiya’s abilities (and good looks) are all she has ever dreamed of, but she soon wishes she had read the fine print about his “overly cautious” personality… (Yen Press)

It’s a fine comedy series – not ROFL hilarious but very amusing as we follow Seiya’s efforts to always be perfectly prepared in any scenario. I read the first three volumes, took a long break and read the final three, so I don’t remember every single antic, but there were things like buying tons of potions, suspecting every single person of being an enemy, insisting on being healed for the tiniest scratch, and escaping from battle to train more if he felt he couldn’t win.

Page from the manga The Hero is Overly Cautious
999,999,997… 999,999,998… 999,999,999…

His antics are set off against the naive, noisy and largely useless goddess Ristarte (Rista for short) who exists mainly for fanservice, to be the butt-monkey of jokes (think Aqua from Konosuba), and to play the straight man to Seiya’s deadpan but crazy antics. Since she gets the most screentime, and it can be argued that she’s the actual main character, whether you enjoy The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious or not will depend largely on how much you can stomach Rista. Personally I found her a wee bit irritating, but the series didn’t last long enough for her to truly grate on me.

There are some other characters here and there as well, but most of them, especially the enemies, are fully forgettable. The vaunted Demon Lord only gets a few pages in the end, actually.

As the series goes on, it turns out that Seiya is right to be cautious, as the enemy is just that wily and dangerous (corrupting his allies, destroying the weapon and armor he needs, etc.). It’s a refreshing difference from those isekai series where the hero is just overpowered and there’s nothing the enemies can do. If Seiya is overpowered and overly cautious, so are they. It’s a constant game of oneupmanship, and it is interesting to see Seiya being proved right time and time again.

Unfortunately the series begins to fall apart towards the end in two ways. Firstly, the initial “normal” fanservice begins to slip into vulgar, softcore hentai of the kind I can’t even screenshot here. The scenes with Valkyria and Mitis in particular were completely gratuitious and added nothing to the series.

Secondly, and more importantly, the author tried to give a logical explanation for Seiya’s overly cautious traits. Major spoiler: he had actually been summoned before in the past but failed to save the world. At the time he was the usually genki hero who relied solely on his talent and the power of friendship. As a result of his lack of preparation, his whole party was wiped out and he died. When he was summoned again, his memories were gone, but vestiges of the traumatic experience had manifested in the form of his “Overly Cautious” trait.

To be honest, I really didn’t need a logical explation of his personality. It’s a comedy series, and I was okay with him just being that way naturally. And I liked Seiya being “a hero with actual common sense for once” instead of “a hero with common sense only because of trauma.” But if an explanation had to be given, then it’s as good a one as any, so I took that in stride.

What I had an issue with was Ristarte’s backstory. Turns out she was Seiya’s companion and lover in the past world. EWWWW. As the volumes wore on, she had engaged in increasingly explicit and inappropriate fantasies about Seiya while he treated her as a portable healing herb. Then suddenly the series claims, “Oh, they cared about each other all along because of the past”? Yeah no, I wouldn’t buy that for a dollar.

You sign up for a comedy isekai and then the author decides to change the genre tags to “romance, reincarnation, tragedy” at the last minute. It’s their right to do so, but I don’t have to like it. If the The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious hadn’t ended shortly afterwards (was it cancelled? It was popular enough to get an anime) I would have dropped it. But since it’s only 6 volumes/36 chapters, it makes a good short read and ends before it would have gotten really bad, so I finished it, and I recommend it with some caveats. Give it a try if you get the chance.

Update on False Confession (Korean manhwa) – Still going nowhere fast, spoilers up to chapter 64

Long title, but it summarizes everything I want to say about False Confession even after it came back from a long hiatus. You can refer to my first post about False Confession, in which I said it was promising but sluggish and not satisfying because of the extremely long-drawn out pace. 18 months and several chapters later, my opinion remains the same.

Even worse, the previously nice art has devolved significantly, especially in the case of the hero Cavert, so it is much harder to get excited about the future of the relationship. You can talk all you like about lookism and egalitarianism, but it still remains a fact that beautiful people attract more eyeballs than plainer ones.

Look how they massacred my boy

Fans of the series are already familiar with the premise. If you keep reading regardless, you have to get used to the way things are in False Confession instead of wishing it was something else. There are other series with more decisive heroines or more attractive male leads, better art, faster paces, etc. That’s why this will be my last time whining about a series I choose to read, and one that has clearly shown that it is a deliberately slow and meandering and wishy-washy series.

But since this is my last time whining, and I’m gonna have a good and proper whine. Priestess Renesha is soooooo annoying! They might as well have titled the series, “Renesha learns to say no,” because eventually she will learn to express herself clearly, but for now it is super irritating.

Blush, then indifferent, then blush
  • She doesn’t love Cavert. She has some affection for him, and there’s some part of her that feels she should like him because he’s so obviously into her, but no, she doesn’t like him yet, much less love him. It’s only at chapter 64 that she claims to have some sort of romantic feelings for him, but it’s more because she was frustrated he didn’t kiss her than any other reason.
  • Nevertheless, because of her inability to clearly say no or turn anyone down, she is stringing him along and giving him false hope. This is by her own admission, that she is just going with the flow until some other lady appears for him. But how will any other lady appear when you are firmly occupying the “lady” seat, going on dates with him, visiting his home, being his escort to parties, etc? It’s just cruel.

  • She keeps entertaining the shady Prince Elviniraz even though she can tell he’s up to no good. She does this because she’s still attracted to him and flattered by his offer of an affair (she says otherwise but it’s obvious) so you have to watch this girl officially date Cavert but get all blushy and flustered around Elvin. Pick one, girl. Or pick neither. Or heck, both. But PICK!!!
  • The rest of the story isn’t going anywhere fast either. The Imperial family is still being shady and trying to recruit Renee. An unspecified threat is out there in the world and there’s going to be an expedition (yes, another) but at the rate it’s going it will take till 2025 for them to go. Meh.
  • Even worse, another expedition will mean having to watch Renee in close proximity with Prince Elviniraz again, acting all confused and upset when he flirts with her, then all weepy and trembly when Cavert confronts her. It was annoying enough the first time so I am not looking forward to a second dose.

TL;DR False Confession is irritatingly slow. The romance isn’t going anywhere fast, the rest of the story isn’t going anywhere, the art has dropped in quality and is getting worse. I actually worry about the health of the artist, especially after what happened to the Solo Levelling artist. There isn’t any reason for me to follow this regularly.

That said, as I already mentioned, there are all kinds of series out there even in the genre of isekai romance with magic and politics. Some may like a faster pace, some like Mary Sues, some like more flawed characters with more room for character development. I’m not sure what group I fall into, but I do know I get pretty impatient with slow series, so I think False Confession will be one of those series I catch up on once a year and binge-read. That’s for the best.

Update on Divorce Me, Husband after a year (spoilers up to chapter 59)

I told you guys to remind me to check back in six weeks, but before I knew it a whole year had gone by. I recently started catching up on Divorce Me, Husband, or rather the much-better officially translated version, “Let’s Get a Divorce, Husband.” I like the fan title better, but everything else is superior in the official version.

So, how did things fare for Claude and Aila (Ayla in the fan translation)? Well, in terms of plot, the series is still rather mediocre and slow-moving even after 59 chapters. On the romance side, things are slightly better. First, and most importantly, Aila has decided to stay with Claude and to actively use her knowledge from the book to change his fate. Whoopee!

Secondly, Aila has realized that she is in love with Claude. I don’t know why, he’s only been very sweet and kind and protective and generous and respectful and caring, nothing more, right? But she doesn’t know if Claude loves her back. And actually, I don’t remember if he has said he does? He considers her precious, he wants to keep her by his side and protect her and all that, but does he actually love her or does he only fear losing her? And what was the real relationship between past Aila and past Claude?

Apart from the romance, there is some other stuff going on, quite slowly but still progressing. We have met the big bad of the series: surely the Emperor is going to be the one. Or possibly someone possessing or controlling him We’ve met Aila’s deadbeat father. We’ve discovered that the original hero, the second prince, is most likely just putting on an act and isn’t as lazy, rude and incompetent as he pretends to be. There are undercurrents in the royal family that require him to act out to survive.

Most importantly, Aila has become the owner of a sacred relic that insists it’s her duty to “restore order to the world.” She also met the “god” of their world, Lahas, who brought her to that world. In many isekai/transmigrated series, the heroine never finds out how she ended up in that world, so at least there’s a bit of closure on that score.

The story is that bad people are summoning demons into the world and creating rifts, so it’s Aila’s job to do something about it with the relic bracelet and its divine power. Simple enough in theory, though it’s not very convincing because Aila’s life has been so plush and shiny so far. Her life is pretty closeted, so she never goes around town or anywhere near the hoi polloi. It may very well be that the world at large is in turmoil and the people are suffering, but you wouldn’t know it so look at the glitzy lifestyles of the nobles. The biggest threat is directly from the Emperor himself, who doesn’t take kindly to people who will not follow his orders.

But anyway, stopping the bad guys is somehow linked to saving Claude’s life… and living happily ever after with him? Where did original Aila go? What happens once fake Aila/Baek Hayul completes her job? Why her? Lahas conveniently runs out of power before he can explain the most important bits, so we’ll just have to keep reading, haha.

That said, this is a pretty optimistic and positive kind of series, so it will all work out in the end. The only question is how? And when? Will I have to wait another year for closure? Hope not, but a year comes faster than you think, so I’ll just keep reading.

Before I end this update though, let me say one thing I absolutely LOVE about Let’s Get a Divorce Husband: Aila actually tells Claude whenever she notices or encounters anything shady. Not always immediately, but before very long she tells him what’s going on, they discuss it in a mature and reasoned way and come up with a plan together. None of this “Must be just my imagination” or “I don’t want to worry him” or “I can handle it by myself” nonsense that leads to so much unnecessary drama in romance series. Claude is also pretty open with her whenever she asks about things. That alone makes this series a breath of fresh air and makes me want to keep reading it.

Well, that was your yearly update on Let’s Get a Divorce, Husband. See you all in 2023, God willing!

Is it a Fortune or is it a Woe? (Korean romance webtoon I want to like but don’t)

Ever read a series that you know is good, objectively speaking, but for various minor reasons you don’t like it as much as others do? That’s Is it a Fortune or is it a Woe for me. On the face of it, the heroine Dylan is funny and likeable, the nominal male lead Cedric is… not completely terrible, but still detestable. Yeah okay, only three sentences in and I’m beginning to realize why I don’t like the series. But first the usual summary:

Summary:

Our heroine Dylan finds herself reincarnated as the villainess in a novel she read before. The twist this time is that her little sister is doomed to be cannon fodder who dies in childbirth after marrying the male lead Cedric. In her determination to keep her sister and Cedric apart, Dylan somehow ends up marrying him herself… Hilarity may or may not ensue depending on your sense of humor.

Whether you like Is it a Fortune or is it a Woe will all depend on what you find funny. If you like seeing the female lead subtly and snidely mocked and disrespected a lot of the time, this is the series for you. Personally it made me angry and uncomfortable much of the time. The problem is that Dylan doesn’t want her sister to marry Cedric, but she doesn’t want to marry him either. He only wants to marry her because of some family promise to her grandfather.

So the first 20 or so chapters are all about the creepy old Grandpa manipulating and emotionally blackmailing first Cedric then Dylan into marriage. All because the creepy Grandpa wanted to marry Dylan’s Grandma but was rebuffed. Forced marriage by proxy, so creepy.

But Cedric isn’t any better. Screw what Dylan or any woman wants, as long as Grandpa is happy, right? On the face of it, he treats Dylan with a certain amount of respect, but in actual fact he’s always gently sneering at her, teasing her, mocking her simple rustic ways. Almost every chapter has him laughing or smiling at her, quite apart from all the sarcastic comments he directs her way because he thinks she’s too simple to get it.

He doesn’t even hide it.

And it’s not just him. A large amount of “humor” and “heart-warming-ness” in this series comes from looking down on Dylan. Other summaries make it sound like everyone in the Duchy comes to love Dylan, but honestly it’s more of the love one has for a clumsy, loveable Labrador puppy than for a human being one respects. Even her nominally supportive mother-in-law is on her side mostly because of her simplicity and naivete.

In a recent chapter, Cedric’s cousin Cecilia made the express trip to Dylan’s house just to mock and be rude to her, knowing she could get into it. The past ten chapters or more (34-44 as of writing) are all devoted to helping Dylan shape up a bit so she isn’t utterly disgraced when she goes to a banquet which is more or less being organized with the specific purpose of embarrassing her. The poor girl can’t catch a break.

The one saving grace was supposed to be the cheerful, indomitable nature of Dylan herself. Unfortunately, as the chapters progress, she is becoming more and more neurotic and anxious about measuring up and pleasing those around her. You’d think if Cedric really cared about her and her standing in society, he would have waited for her to get the necessary training before marrying her and bringing her into his house. But of course he doesn’t really care about her, or about anything except himself and pleasing his Grandpa, so why am I surprised?

She is pretty cute, NGL

So after all I’ve written, the reader will naturally ask, “Why are you still reading, then?” Good question. The short answer is that I’m not reading it regularly. Every once in a while it pops up in front of me, I read it, then I remember why I don’t like it. Hope springs eternal that the series might improve. Most likely though, it will “improve” by making Dylan a perfect lady who somehow inexplicably falls in love with the sneering Cedric and he with her, and I honestly don’t want to see that. So… yeah.

I don’t hate Is it a Fortune or Is it a Woe, and I like Dylan and feel sorry for her but… I’ll probably drop this one and catch it again when it’s finally all over. There are better male leads and less pitiful heroines out there.

A Returner’s Magic Should be Special… but it’s not (Korean webtoon review)

I had a conversation with someone a while ago where I likened “A Returner’s Magic Should be Special” to an airplane endlessly taxiing on the airport runway but never taking off. I said this when about 100 chapters were out. 58 chapters later and I still feel the same way. A Returner’s Magic Should be Special has a lot of potential to be an interesting series, but endless, draggy arcs and very slow progression towards the main point mean that it’s probably never going to fulfill that potential. The pacing is just too bad.

Summary

The good part of A Returner’s Magic Should be Special is that it has a nice team of main characters and a few memorable supports. The core team of Desir, Romantica, Pram and Adjest comes together quickly and has stayed together solidly through 160 chapters (as at time of writing). Pram is a shota who is not annoying. Adjest is an ice princess who is also not annoying. The story is not bogged by romantic subplots (!!). It’s bogged down by a lot of other things, but romance isn’t one of them… yet.

I also like the colorful, slightly goofy art style. The action is also easy to follow, though the battles can be interminable. So the art is nice, the characters are nice, the story is promising. Despite all that, the problems are so many with no solution in sight that it will probably take A Returner’s Magic should be Special another 160 chapters to unravel everything and finally start getting somewhere.

  1. There are too many parties and characters that don’t get enough attention for us to care about, but they still show up here and there. Too many factions even in the real world, so I can’t keep track of all the kingdoms and different parties working together.
  2. It’s natural that as a poor commoner Desir will have to spend some time building up enough influence to change the world, but it’s still a tedious process to read through. All that whining about discrimination between commoners and nobles, the tragic backstories, the comically evil noble villains who never amount to much, etc.
  3. Desir’s time travel advantage is very quickly negated when a third-party called the Outsiders show up who didn’t’ appear in his last lifetime. So now instead of preparing for the Shadow Worlds like the premise suggests, almost all of the time in the real world in the series is spent on fighting the Outsiders, then, maaaaaybe one day, we’ll eventually possibly get closer to the secrets of the Shadow World invasion.
  4. Even after 160+ chapters there is a lot left unexplained, with no sign that they will be explained any time soon. Things like the Shadow World which are a mystery in the series as well, but all things like Circle Magic and how exactly magic works. For a series called “A Returner’s Magic should be Special,” the author does precious little to explain the ins and outs of the magic system. What’s a first circle magician, second circle, what’s the difference, what is vision magic, what makes Desir so special that others can’t imitate him, what what what. So many questions.
  5. Since we’re the good guys, we are automatically right, so there’s no need to try to understand the other party.
  6. Because there are so many questions, it’s painful to have so many chapters wasted early on on petty academic squabbles, cheap discrimination plots, etc.
  7. The arcs drag on way too long. Any arc where Desir and friends enter a Shadow World should be a cue for the reader to sign out for 30 chapters and come back when things pick up. Because there’s still no clear answer to the relevance of the shadow world or why they later posed a threat to the real world, everything that goes on right now in there is 90% filler which could be entirely removed for faster pacing. Maybe eventually, way down the line it will all make sense, but again it’s like I said. The series takes forever to get anywhere.
  8. Speaking of forever, I hope you like long drawn-out battles against irrelevant enemies. Like most of chapter 160 was Adjest versus some random guy who was introduced two chapters ago, hyped and quickly disposed of. And then after battling another enemy for several chapters, only now is Desir Arman getting round to “part two” of the battle. Ridiculous.

TL;DR maybe one day it will be good, but for now A Returner’s Magic Should be Special is not special at all. It’s a long series of chapters, a lot of fillers, some charming characters and some intriguing ideas that are not explained. I kept reading because I liked the main party and their interactions, but that can only take you so far. It’s something I’ll have to come back to in about five years to see if/when it ended. Either that, or I’ll have to read the faster-paced novel so I can see things happen before I forget who did what or why. But really, it’s not worth my time when there are so many other faster, more tightly-plotted series out there.