Four stars.

Recently I’ve been binging YouTube videos that offer manga recaps of obscure series: an AI voice summarizes what happens in the first twenty or so chapters (or the entire thing, if they’re masochistic), which gives enough of a notion regarding whether or not you’d like to read the whole thing. I’ve already discovered four very enjoyable series that way, including this one.

It’s an isekai. What’s an isekai, you ask? Who are you, and why are you reading a manga review? Anyway, isekai is a tremendously popular genre in Japanese fiction that always involves someone getting transported from our world into a fantasy world. So many stories have been written in that genre that not only you expect to find the usual tropes (a Japanese citizen gets run over by a truck, usually a goddess is responsible for the summoning, the fantasy world is almost always based on Europe around the time when this continent initially contacted Japan, the fantasy world tends to feature magic, they have elves and such races, the protagonist receives superpowers, they usually have to defeat a Demon Lord/King/Emperor, etc.), but so many stories have also been written that satisfy all those tropes, that anti-tropes have been explored (the summoning goddess and/or the country involved in the summoning are actually evil, the protagonist turns out to be powerless and gets discarded, the protagonist refuses to follow the rules and instead opts for a chill existence, a person from a fantasy world gets sent to our world instead, sometimes the summoned person is reborn as a vending machine, etc.). In summary, isekais are comfortable stories about some random person exploring an unfamiliar setting, receiving powers, making friends, and kicking ass. I’m almost always up for such an adventure. These are also the kind of kind-hearted, non-political stories that don’t get made in the West anymore. Or at least, they don’t get published.

The twist on the usual formula for this series involves the fact that when the story starts, the protagonist has already won. Our guy, a freshman in college, got picked for no particular reason by a goddess from a fantasy world, who told him to defeat some bad guy. He became OP, gained lasting friends and love interests, but ended up returning home, ready to continue with his mundane life. However, he discovers that his magical abilities and OP skills have transferred to our world.

At that point, the protagonist could have gone nuts exerting his power over the peasants around him, but apart from threatening losers a few times, he uses his powers for good: assisting in accidents, solving hostage situations, improving the health of those around him, doing magic tricks for sick children (with actual magic), etc. He also finds out that he can summon an intelligent, shapeshifting dragon from the other world, so we get plenty of the usual manga/anime magic involving some fantasy character discovering modern Japan.

The story features a tight plot (just twenty-five chapters), entertaining secondary characters, some clever writing, and scenes that could only happen with such a concept (for example, the protagonist riding a motorcycle in a fantasy world, inside the magic equivalent of a hamster wheel, to barrel through a knight charge).

I didn’t have any issues with the story. So why four stars instead of five? Because the artwork is quite generic, and as an isekai, relying on known tropes to tell the story, it lacks the level of innovation that would be necessary to create a tale that can’t be easily categorized. Still, I loved the experience, and got through it in a single sitting.