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Mammoth post about a ton of isekai manga

After watching In Another World with my Smartphone and Knight’s & Magic, I became interested in seeing just how trashy and generic isekai (protagonist thrown into another world) series could get. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been going around the various manga aggregator sites reading what seem to be the most popular ones. Only there are so many isekais and they’re all so similar that I’m having a hard time keeping track of them. This here post is to help me keep everything straight while making some brief comments on each one.

Dungeon Seeker – Main character Junpei is thrown into another world with his crush as well as some bullies. He soon finds himself trapped in a dungeon after being betrayed by the one he trusted most. After somehow avoiding a gory death at the hands of a skeleton, he instead eats the monster and acquires news skills! And so it happens that Junpei goes around defeating and devouring various enemies while living for the day he can get his revenge.

Dungeon Seeker is one of the earliest ones I read and it’s one that I enjoy more than most. The main reason is the lack of a sidekick. In 9 out of 10 isekai series, the hero quickly acquires sidekicks. Usually attractive females, competent but not too good so they don’t outshine him, and of course madly in love with the hero. This series don’t have any of that nonsense so I can focus solely on Junpei’s exploits without an adoring audience standing around explaining every little detail for me.

The drawback of Dungeon Seeker is how hard it tries to be dark and edgy. Someone has been reading too much Berserk. Junpei himself also tries to be cold and hard but is actually pretty weak and easily flustered. It’s a bit annoying sometimes. But each chapter is fast-moving and full of interesting occurrences and cliffhangers, so it’s a good read.

Rising of the Shield Hero – It’s about Iwatani Naofumi, a hero summoned to another world who becomes bitter and angry after being betrayed by someone he trusted. He gets better though, and he has to work with other heroes to defend the world against a series of monster attacks.

The manga art is very good. While Naofumi is strong, he’s far from invincible so this might attract the crowd that likes isekai but doesn’t like overpowered heroes. It also takes a while for other characters to warm up to him, so this isn’t one of those series where everyone worships the hero from day one.

That said, it’s not that interesting a series. Probably the biggest disappointment on the list since I’d heard too much about it. Exhibit A of “the hero gets an adoring harem of competent but not too competent sidekicks,” which is cute the first time you see it but gets old quickly.

Since Naofumi fights solely with a shield, I was expecting him to use it in all kinds of unconventional and inventive ways, but he really doesn’t do much but just kind of stand there. The author too has been reading too much Berserk and now has an evil shield that threatens to take Naofumi over. Yeah yeah, whatevs. Dropped after 30-something chapters because it’s not that interesting, though I did enjoy seeing him get revenge on his betrayers.

Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou – This one is about Hajime Nagumo, who is summoned to another world with his friends but is abandoned and betrayed by one of his companions (we don’t know which one), which leaves him injured and bitter. Eventually he picks up some good skills and an adoring but not-too-competent sidekick and makes his way out of the dungeon. And that’s as far as I read before I dropped it.

I’ve heard good things about the light novel and web novel versions, but the manga is rushed trash. It zooms from one event to another without making any sense and the art is terrible too. The action is so hard to follow that I have no idea how they defeated that dragon – or indeed any other enemy in the series. It’s possible that the upcoming anime will be better, but the manga didn’t compel me to watch it.

Kumo desu ga, nani ka? – I love this one. It’s about a nameless heroine who dies in the real world and gets reincarnated as… a spider?! Yup, a tiny little monster spider in another world. And when you’re a tiny spider, everything’s out to either squish or eat you. How will she ever survive?

The best isekai I’ve read so far, 90% because Kumoko is just sooooo cute! I never thought I’d find a monstrous spider cute, but Japan managed it somehow. The other reason I like it is because of the minimal human interaction present. It’s all monsters all the time, no harem nonsense or political intrigue.

Kumoko gets very strong very quickly, but the enemies are always one step ahead so there’s still plenty of tension. The best part was the fight against the angry monkeys, in which she almost died several times and the enemies just kept upping the ante. That was a good one. The only downside of this manga is… I’ve caught up to the latest chapter, so now I have to wait! Waaaaaahhh…

Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken – A 37-year old man is stabbed to death and reincarnated in another world as a lowly slime. And he may very well have stayed a lowly slime for life if he hadn’t befriended and absorbed the most powerful dragon on the continent. Now renamed Rimuru, he’s a force to contend with as he goes about creating the world he’s always dreamed of.

This would have been really interesting if Rimuru had stayed a slime/monster all the way through. Unfortunately he soon gets a human form and looks and acts like all the other isekai heroes before and after him. Boring. Instead of a single groupie, he has an entire nation full of them, so that’s new I guess. Otherwise there’s nothing interesting about this series.

Rimuru meets someone, adds them to his host of worshippers, meets someone else, adds them too, and on and on. Repetitive and unexciting. I thought at least the fighting would be exciting since he was a slime, but once he gains his human form he mostly fights like a human. Blah. Dropped after 30-something chapters.

Jaryuu Tensei – The main character is run over by a car and dies. Then he’s reincarnated as a powerful dragon. An allegedly evil one, which has adventurers clamoring to defeat him. Still he’s so mighty that he doesn’t need to worry about puny little humans… until he accidentally eats a magical item and gets reduced to a human being himself!

Same mistake as Slime Datta Ken. Jaryuu Tensei was funny and different when it was about an actual dragon, but once he takes on human form he becomes like everybody else. Quickly makes friends, picks up an adoring and powerful – but not too strong – elf slave and goes around righting wrongs and fighting evil. Very forgettable series, and it’s sad because it didn’t have to be that way. Mr. Author, next time you write a series about an evil dragon, please ensure that it is actually about a dragon, kthxbye.

Kenja no Mago – A normal guy from this world is reincarnated as a baby in another world. He grows up as Shin, a magical prodigy and the adopted grandson of the most powerful sage in the whole world. Eventually he goes off to magical high school just in time to foil a plot to destroy the country with a demon. Now it’s up to Shin and his band of high school buddies to save the world from the evil demon wizard Oliver Strom.

The one good thing about this manga is that it is very much not a harem. Shin falls in love with one girl quickly, she loves him back, everyone is fully supportive and they get engaged within a few chapters. Refreshing! Apart from that, Kenja no Mago is just like all the rest. Shin is so clever, and so inventive, and everyone thinks he’s so wonderful, even the king and the royal household and all the enemies. He makes an attempt to train the rest of his team but it’s obvious he’s miles ahead of them. There’s no real story besides defeating Oliver either so, meh.

Isekai Tensei Soudouki – Strictly speaking, this is not isekai. Rather a baby in another world, Balud Cornelius, is possessed by the souls of an ancient Japanese warlord and a perverted high school boy. This makes him a powerful fighter who knows a lot about business and making money. He quickly catches the eye – and ire – of the rich and powerful as he revolutionizes the world with inventions like gold-plating, water pumps and… hair conditioner? The sky’s the limit for this unlikely trio!

As with the other series, Balud quickly gathers a troupe of loving fangirls and fanboys. And as with the other series, the author sends him off to magical high school, which made me groan in despair. Not another one! But before too long he’s sent on a political mission to Not!Spain where the series finally picks up and gets somewhat interesting. At least I want to know how he beats the pirates.

The problem I have with this is that the warlord and high school characters might as well not exist. They hardly ever show up except as Deus Ex Machina, then they’re quickly banished to the void until they’re needed again 3 chapters later. This makes the whole premise pointless.

The author was clearly trying to avoid the generic “reincarnated in another world” trope, but he failed to follow through with the full potential and implications of a split-personality hero. In short, despite his backstory Balud is just like all the other isekai heroes. Isekai Tensei Soudouki is still interesting once it gets the political focus the other series don’t have, but apart from that it’s nothing special.

Mushoku Tensei – A jobless NEET is thrown out by his family and dies a pitiful death. After being reincarnated as a baby named Rudeus, he vows to work harder and treat others better. As he grows up, Rudeus becomes a tutor and picks up some fans, but then the whole country is split by an earth-shattering disaster…

This one was actually surprisingly heavy on the feels. Especially the feeling of anger I get whenever Rudy’s good-for-nothing lout of a father is involved. Apart from that I read it quickly and forgot about it because it’s very slow. It’s good for marathoning, but as a monthly series it lacks the impact to keep me reading. The characters aren’t memorable at all either, since as usual they exist mainly to lick the hero’s boots. I might read the whole thing in one go whenever it’s complete since I like Rudy’s try-hard attitude. Otherwise it’s dropped.

Tensei Shichatta yo. Iya, gomen – A self-loathing high school boy with an unhappy family life is accidentally killed by “god” and reincarnated as Will, a ridiculously cute baby with all of the high schooler’s memories. By a lucky chance, all magic in that world is powered by kanji – and Will knows all of them already. Blessed prodigious magical talent, a supportive family and a loving group of buddies, Will is living the dream. Now if only those pesky assassins would stop attacking…

Not much has happened in the 17 chapters I’ve read. It’s a very feel-good manga with very cute characters and art. Despite his immense powers, Will is actually a very sweet and kind little boy. His small size also keeps him free from any harem shenanigans. I hope they keep him small forever.

Kuro no Souzou Shoukanshi – Tenseisha no Hangyaku – High school boy Tsuguna is accidentally killed by a “god” and reincarnated in another world. On the plus side he can summon otherworldly helpers through a special book. On the minus side, he’s born with black hair and black eyes, a curse and a calamity in that world. After years of ill-treatment, Tsuguna escapes from his family and takes on the challenges of the new world. But of course someone as special as him could never hope for an ordinary life.

I’d even forgotten that I read this one. Of course he’s taken in by sexy elves who are madly in love with him. Of course he quickly finds his not-too-competent but cute sidekick. Of course everyone who is anyone in the world is intrigued by this amazing black-haired boy. And there’s stuff about an evil church full of mysterious bad guys. Unremarkable, unmemorable stuff.

Manuke na FPS Player ga Isekai e Ochita Baai – An online FPS player nicknamed Schwarz Powder falls off the edge of the game-world and lands in another world. He can’t log out or go back, but for some reason he can still make in-game purchases. In-game purchases that include guns and advanced armor in a medieval world. Some guys have all the luck.

I’d heard this was terrible, but it’s not that bad. Certainly not compared some of the other dreck I’ve been trying. The gun thing is different. I don’t know enough about guns to rage over his gun choices like other fans do, which is a plus. And while Schwarz has an least one admirer, she hasn’t joined his harem full-time yet. I prefer solo players for these isekai series. Schwarz’s character design is a bit goofy but I like the world and I like the gun combat. I’ve only read 11 chapters but I like it so far.

Gunota ga Mahou Sekai ni Tensei Shitara – Not even going to bother with a proper description. A gun otaku revives in another world and forms a harem of gun-fighters. Because he was such a good metal-worker in the past that he can even create machine guns in another world. Dumb-looking art and a fanservice-heavy focus. I finished one chapter and that was enough.

Tenseisha wa Cheat o Nozomanai – Protagonist Mira is a normal 6-year old in a fantasy world. Until she hits her head one day and recovers memories from her past life in our world. She doesn’t remember everything, but she does remember enough to know that isekai protagonists always end up in a world of trouble. That’s the last thing Mira wants. “Please let me be normal, please let me be normal,” is her plea. Unfortunately fate has other plans.

Very cute manga, seems like the kind of shoujo that would run in Ribon. Female isekai heroines are rare enough, much less ones as small and cute as Mira. But of course she’s still overpowered with a moderately competent sidekick. When the scanlations left off, Mira was on her way to a magical academy (of course) where she is sure to catch the eyes of the whole world (of course) but she hasn’t gotten there as of chapter 6. When I get the time I’m going to hunt down the raws and find out what happens to cute little Mira… or that’s what I thought I’d do, but it turns out the manga is on hiatus. Noooo!

That’s all the isekai manga I can remember right now. Any future comments on these series will be on an individual basis and most likely not until I’ve completed them. There are a still a few popular series I haven’t tried yet, but I’ll remedy that in a couple of days and maybe do another post on that. I also watched one or two anime series in the past month so I’ll write about those some other time. ではまた。

Kaikisen manga review

I don’t have the energy to read long volumes these days, so I turned my hand to a one-volume manga by the late Satoshi Kon. The blurb of Kaikisen goes as follows:

The legend has it that once upon a time, a pact was sealed between the Shinto priest of the town of Amide and a mermaid. Ever since, abundant fishing has guaranteed the town’s prosperity. This pact has always been honored by the priests of the Yashiro family. However, the legend has attracted both media and property developers, and the acting priest has acceded to their demands. Yosuke, youngest of the Yashiro family, has doubts about the existence of the mermaid, but will soon change his opinion as strange occurrences begin to unfold…

What I liked:

The art was clean but detailed. The story was short but action-packed, it felt a lot like an action movie especially near the end. Not too much happened, which kept the events simple enough to understand. The “big bad” was a little ridiculous in the lengths to which he would go to keep the egg, but the other characters in the story were believable and understandable.

The tension between the islanders who wanted to modernize and those who wanted to keep things the same was easy to sympathize with as well. The resolution was positive, but it didn’t magically clear way all the tensions that had existed in the town.

What I didn’t like:

I can understand the motivation of some of the characters, but that doesn’t mean any of them are likeable. The main character Yosuke in particular is just a chain-smoking unmotivated slacker who happens to do the right thing for once in his life. Kudos Yosuke, but that doesn’t make you any less annoying. His friend might as well have been air and his not-really-relationship with that girl who just came back from the city smacks of one of those relationships Hollywood throws into every action movie just for kicks.

That’s the main problem with Kaikisen. You’re not really rooting for anyone, except maybe the mermaid who stupidly entrusted a precious egg to those perfidious humans. The bad guys are given a treatment at the end that suggests they might not be so bad after all but given that their motivations were never really explored and the ‘good guys’ weren’t that easy to sympathize with either, it just smacks of Satoshi Kon trying to end things on a realistic note (bad guys aren’t killed) while not leaving a bad taste in the reader’s mouth. It… doesn’t really work IMO.

Overall:

Well whatever. That’s the beauty of a one-volume manga. On the minus side it might rush a few things and tie up some ends too neatly, but on the big plus side, when it’s over, it’s over. Kaikisen is a short, action-packed read with a good mix of modern-day realism and the supernatural. There’s a bonus, unrelated short story after that, but I disliked it after one page so I dropped it. The main story is worth a read as long as you don’t have to go out of your way to do so. Enjoy~

Haikara-san ga Tooru manga volume 1 review

I enjoy older shoujo series, but there are so many of them my backlog just grows and grows. Still Haikara-san ga Tooru is one of the more famous and popular old shoujos, so I was going to read it sooner rather than later. The recent announcement of the remake of the anime gave me the impetus to finally get off my butt and actually read it. Or read volume 1 anyway, I’m not sure if I’m going to read much more than that.

Summary: Benio Hanamura lost her mother when she was very young and has been raised by her father, a high-ranking official in the Japanese army. As a result, she has grown into a tomboy — contrary to traditional Japanese notions of femininity, she studies kendo, drinks sake, dresses in often outlandish-looking Western fashions instead of the traditional kimono, and isn’t as interested in housework as she is in literature. She also rejects the idea of arranged marriages and believes in a woman’s right to a career and to marry for love. Benio’s best friends are the beautiful Tamaki, who is much more feminine than Benio but equally interested in women’s rights, and Ranmaru, a young man who was raised to play female roles in the kabuki theater and as a result has acquired very effeminate mannerisms.

The tomboy Benio is forced to marry the lieutenant Shinobu, who is from a wealthy family. At first Benio doesn’t get along with the distinguished way of life at all. When Shinobu is sent to fight in Russia, Benio makes her own way… as an emancipated woman in Tokyo of the 1920s!

Well first off, most summaries claim that Benio marries Shinobu, but actually she just moves into his house as his fiancee to undergo training so that she becomes a more suitable bride. So they’re merely engaged as of volume 1 anyway.

Furthermore, Benio isn’t as much of a feminist icon as people make her out to be. Again, at least in volume 1 anyway she’s not particularly interested in doing girly stuff like sewing, but neither is she all that into pursuits like kendo (also the sake drinking incident was just a one-off). It’s just the only thing she knows how to do because of the way she was brought up, and she’s painfully self-conscious of her lack of femininity, especially compared to her friends.

Additionally it’s her friend Tamaki who has the strong convictions about only marrying for love (but surely the fact that Tamaki is in love with Shinobu has nooothing to do with it, oh no sirree). Benio is more confused and conflicted about it than adamantly opposed.

That’s why she doesn’t run away and try to make it on her own when the topic of marriage comes up but rather goes along with it in the silly hope of being so difficult to work with that Shinobu’s family will cancel the engagement from their end. Instead she ends up winning everyone over and being won over in turn by Shinobu (even though she’s supposed to be trying to get him together with Tamaki. It’s complicated) and everything goes on as normal for a shoujo manga.

In short, Benio comes across as a regular teenage girl who just wants to have fun and do her own thing and isn’t quite ready to grow up yet. I thought I’d like her more than I ended up doing, but she’s so immature, naive and impulsive that I got annoyed at her more often than not. Going to Shinobu’s house and being difficult was a bad, childish idea to begin with, and she doesn’t go ahead with it anyway because deep down she really does want to be cultured and feminine so what’s the point of the childish rebellion? Teenagers!

And she insists she doesn’t like Shinobu one little bit (me neither) and yet her heart pains her at the thought of being parted from him… urgghhh, typical shoujo heroine, urrghhh. She’s cute, but nothing extraordinary. I was hoping for something more unusual from Haikara-san ga Tooru, but it’s just the usual “tomboy falls in love and softens up” story. At least in volume 1.

Will I continue to read the other volumes? I don’t know. It’s not as interesting as I was hoping for. I’m not that interested in Benio or her wacky hijinks. And I hate smug, suave leads like Shinobu. He’s basically Mr. Perfect so of course all the ladies can’t help falling in love with him but he’s slowly gaining feelings for wild, unconventional Benio (who as I’ve said is not that wild or that unconventional) blah blah blah.

I dunno… Okay, most likely volume 2 is where things will get more interesting when Shinobu is conveniently removed from the scene and Benio is free to “make her own way as an emancipated woman” as the blurbs say. Let’s give it one more volume and see.

Otouto Catcher Ore Pitcher de! volume 3 manga review

On on we go. Otouto Catcher Ore Pitcher de! volume 3 concludes the first match of Hirataka High School’s attempts to qualify for the Koshien summer tournament. They’ve been down by 3 runs since the first inning, and while Touma is pitching well, the Hirataka batters just can’t get a good hit off their opponent’s excellent defense. What’s more, the opponents are deliberately doing their best to burn through Touma’s stamina to make him easier to hit – and it’s working! Is Hirataka’s campaign doomed to fail right at the very outset?

While it would be awesome if that happened, you and I have both seen enough sports anime/read enough manga to know that something that anti-climatic would never happen. That’s why it’s a little irritating how writer Shinji Tonaka spends so much time pretending the other team actually has a chance. It would be one thing if he’d gone the usual route of having Hirataka face last year’s champions or some elite team, but the opponents are just some low-ranked team without much of a background. No purpose would be served by having them win, so of course they don’t.

What is achieved in this volume, then, is to show some bonding between the Touma brothers, to expose the flaws in Touma Ichiya’s pitching, namely his lack of stamina and his easy distractability, to show Yoshi’s intelligence and prove that he’s softening up a bit and, most importantly, to set up the inevitable showdown between Hirataka and their soon-to-be rivals, a showdown that Hirataka will inevitably lose.

Why am I still reading Otouto Catcher Ore Pitcher de? Mainly because there’s no reason for me to stop. It’s one of those things you continue out of inertia unless something better shows up or they mess up royally. Things won’t get interesting until Hirataka High is dropped from the tournament. A lot of mangaka lose focus once there’s no Koshien to keep things interesting (see: Ookiku Furikabutte) so I want to see how Shinji Tonaka handles the team’s future development. Of course I can’t guarantee I’ll read the manga long enough to find that out, but I’m still here for now.

Dragon Sister volume 1 manga review

I didn’t even finish Dragon Sister volume 1, but I’m going to “review” it anyway. It’s the only way to get relief from my suffering. I know near the end Tokyopop was licensing anything that looked even slightly like a manga, but I didn’t know the problem was this bad. When I think of all the delightful little series, maybe a little average but certainly not as bad as Dragon Sister, that could have been licensed instead, well it brings a little tear to my eye.

As usual, the blurb:

The classic Chinese tale of The Three Kingdoms–with all your favorite historical figures cast as cute girls! As the Han Dynasty collapses, two mighty warriors–Zhang Fei and Guan Yu–stand strong against the tide of rebellion. But because these fighters are female, their dreams of fighting in the Imperial army are nothing but dreams… until they find a patron and like-minded brother in Liu Bei, an idealistic descendant of royalty with dreams of his own. Forging a pact, the three form a volunteer army dedicated to restoring peace, which means first defeating three deceptively adorable sisters who oppose them, and who have their own, definitely cuter, plan for China’s future… One thing’s for sure–history’s about to get a makeover!

The first line is the beginning of my troubles – I have never been able to keep all the characters and plot twists of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms straight. Dragon Sister is probably the closest I’ve come to understanding all the different factions and which character belongs where, which they manage by keeping the main cast down to 6, 9 if you count a few extras. That’s a good start.

What’s not so good is that the mangaka (nini?) assumes that everyone is completely familiar with the plot, so s/he just jumps straight from important event to important event without any explanation. First the heroes/heroines meet up and decide to fight together. Next chapter they’re already in the middle of a battle, then suddenly the battle is over. Suddenly they meet Cao Cao, then just as suddenly he disappears. Next battle they’re already in the loyalist camp kicking up a fuss over something inconsequential. Is that how the original story went? I don’t know, but it’s hard enough to follow all the different factions without any smooth transitions from Point A to B to help keep things straight.

That wasn’t the worst of it, though. The worst was the waste of the premise. The idea is that due to a curse, all the heroes of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms have been reborn as women. It’s not the first time a writer has recast historical characters as different genders and it won’t be the last. In Dragon Sister though, the problems are threefold.

If all heroes are women, why are Liu Bei and Cao Cao still male? Aren’t they heroes? Or will there be a reveal later that they were women all along?
Zhang Fei and Guan Yu spend time kvetching because being women keeps them from fighting for the loyalist army. Then it turns out Dong Zhuo, leader of said army, is a woman as well. So being a woman isn’t the barrier it was set up to be, Why bother having that gimmick in the first place?
Turns out the gimmick exists for the sake of cheap titillation, nothing more. I should have known as much when I saw that cover. Dong Zhuo almost always comes across poorly in RotK adaptations, and this time she’s a sneaky lesbian who lusts after the heroines and dresses them in revealing clothing (that’s actually less revealing than Guan Yu’s standard outfit) so they can trip and show off body parts. What happened to telling a story?

It’s a shame the series is so sub-part because I quite liked the clean art style. It just screams “modern shounen,” like Naruto meets Full Metal Alchemist kind of art. Still good art will only take you so far without good writing. No wonder even Tokyopop dropped it after two volumes. If you’re that hung up on seeing your favorite RotK heroes redrawn as women, or if you’re such a big fan that you’ll buy anything set in that era, then I guess you might get something out of Dragon Sister. Otherwise it’s not something to go out of your way to read.