Isekai de “Kuro no Iyashi Te” tte Yobarete Imasu reveals one of the biggest flaws of Japanese isekai manga: they take too long to complete! This is a simple story of a girl who goes to another world, finds out she has special powers and falls in love with the lovable but slightly crazy male lead. It’s the same as hundreds of other series in the genre, but it took almost five years to tell because of the monthly release schedule of isekai manga. By the end, I honestly didn’t care that much any more.
Summary: One day, 22-year-old Kanzaki Misuzu is suddenly transported to a strange world. Based on the pop-up screens she can access, it seems she’s entered some kind of RPG as a magic user! Luckily, she can use the gaming skills she acquired as an otaku to make her way in this new world. But before she knows it, people start calling her “the Black Healer”!! (from mangakakalot)
In short, the heroine is reincarnated as a healer in another world. The world is full of cute guys, but naturally she will end up dating Noche, the handsomest and most powerful and craziest. Nothing but the best for our baby girl.
Kuro no Iyashi blah blah (the long title just means “In another world I am called the Black Healer”) has some decent background explanation, i.e. an explanation of why things work the way they do, and how Reene/Misuzu (she goes by an alias for reasons I can’t remember) got there. And even why she and the male lead are drawn to each other, which is often lacking in a lot of series. The explanation is “it’s magic, and that’s just the way the world works” but at least it’s an explanation. Their chemistry isn’t the best either, but he’s decent and treats her well, and after reading one too many crazy Korean and Chinese “evil prince/duke/CEO” series, this is amazing.
As a bonus, Reene doesn’t immediately fall head over heels in love with Noche, and she agonizes for a long time about whether to go back to Earth right away or not. Even though we know what she’s going to choose ultimately, it’s still nice to see some wavering, versus the usual trope where the character forgets all about her home world once she spots a bishie. On top of all that, there’s a super-happy development where she will eventually get to go back to her world once she’s done with living in the other world. Nice.
Other pluses: the art is nice and easy to follow, Noel the demon pup is adorable even though he doesn’t get to do much, the story has its dark moments so it’s not all saccharine sweet, and things don’t drag on forever – and not just because the series got axed.
On the minus side, I think the story went on for about 10 chapters longer than it needed to. Yeah yeah, we know Reene and Noche are going to end up together, why add unnecessary rivals and kidnappings and extra drama? It really would have been better to wrap it all up with a fluffy happy ending since the last-minute drama bombs involving Guzherban and Viola went nowhere. Obviously cancelled series was obviously cancelled.
It was only 49 chapters but between the monthly manga schedule and the infrequent scanlation releases, it feels like it took a lifetime to come out. Just as an aside, I really hate it when a translation group picks up a ton of series and then releases them in drips and drabs? I’ll leave it at that to avoid wading into scanlation drama, but let’s just say a lot of groups are lucky my Korean and Mandarin aren’t very good… for now.😏
Back to Kuro no Iyashi tte, by the end I couldn’t remember the most relevant things like why Guzerbahn’s king kidnapped her, or what was going on with the church and the white healer. The most important thing was that she was brought over to that world to be the soul mate of the demon king. And she waffled a bit, but eventually she became his soul mate. And maybe they all lived happily ever after, maybe they didn’t. The rest is left to the reader’s imagination.
Overall, it’s not a bad series to read if you’re looking for a complete romance shoujo isekai. There are so few of them out there anyway. Even though the ending is abrupt, the real ending came several chapters earlier and the rest was just sloppy tying of loose ends. So if you want something short, fluffy and complete, try Isekai de “Kuro no Iyashi Te” tte Yobarete Imasu. This is the best time to do it now that it’s finally over.