By Yuu Tanaka and Llo. Released in Japan as “Tensei Shitara Ken deshita” by GC Novels. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Mike Rachmat. Adapted by Jaymee Goh.
When this book first came out in 2019, I read about 25 pages of it and stopped, abandoning the book as I really didn’t like it. I mentioned this recently to some other folks, whose reaction was mostly “wait, you didn’t even get to the catgirl?”Sure enough, I guess there is a catgirl on the cover. And as I deal with a slow August, I thought that maybe I had just been in a bad mood that day, and I started the book again, determined to finish it. Well, I did finish it. And it definitely does improve when Fran shows up. But I also was not wrong back in 2019. This might be the worst start to a popular light novel series I have ever read. Our hero is annoying, he’s overly chuuni, he kills a lot of monsters without remorse (oddly, he gets the remorse later, after meeting Fran), and there’s also a ton of stat counting. And, of course, “Oh, I guess this world has slavery.” Said like you’re going to the deli.
Our sword protagonist, who doesn’t even remember his old name, is hit by… a sports car (not a truck!) and wakes up in a fantasy world as a magic sword. He spends the first eighty pages or so of this book trying out cool powers, defeating increasingly dangerous monsters, being being incredibly smug and annoying. Unfortunately, he then ends up stuck in a land that saps mana, and can no longer move around. Cue Fran, a catgirl who’s part of a group of slaves who ran into monsters. After taking care of the monsters, and the slave owner, Fran and the sword (who she names “Teacher”) team up, and head to the nearest large city. From this point the book gets far more generic and predictable, which is actually a point in its favor. The writer stops trying to make the sword entertaining and focuses instead on the sword trying to teach Fran how to get strong and also possibly not become a sociopath.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Aren’t I a huge fan of A Late-Start Tamer’s Laid-Back Life, by the same author? I am indeed. Oddly, the books seemingly start off very similar, with our main character going around, experimenting, and looking at their stats go up when they do things. The Tamer book, though, is actually a GAME, not reality, so I don’t need to apply the same morality to it. Yuta’s experimentation, due to his class, avoids fighting for the most part, while the sword’s revels in it. Yuta is generally nice to everyone and gives away things without realizing their value. The sword eventually starts to realize that killing goblins while literally imitating Stormbringer is perhaps a bit too evil, but since this is a world where all monsters are default evil, he doesn’t dwell on this too much. At least he doesn’t lech on Fran, who is only twelve years old. Her stoicness, while clearly the result of trauma, also makes her more interesting in contrast to her partner.
So yes, this gets better. I’m sure later volumes are interesting. But I’d rather stick needles in my eyes than read the start of this book again. Moving on.
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