Tags: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Harem, Isekai

Sub-Tags: Ruthless Protagonist, Reincarnation

Tenma Becomes an Adventurer!

Straight off from another review comes yet another second volume finished pre-pub, Isekai Tensei.

Catching back up with Tenma three years after the destruction of his village, the series finds him settled in Gunjo City as an adventurer. Alongside catgirl triplets, Tenma’s adventuring quests will find him in all sorts of new danger, from battling bandits and guards to duelling a noble. Tenma’s new life will be anything but easy!

Changing up the vibe of the previous volume, Tenma’s adventuring plot seems quite a departure from the feel of the first. With all remnants of volume one all but gone, the series introduces a whole host of new characters and problems for Tenma to face. Volume two follows a more generic harem-style fantasy series complete with several villainous characters portrayed with varying degrees of success.

Tenma falls into the category of a “ruthless protagonist”, which is solidified by his actions throughout the second volume. Some of the better villainous encounters do their best to portray this with the guard interactions doing well to call back to his bad memories of their actions in the village, leaving them with nothing as a Zombie Dragon struck.

Otherwise, most of the other battles within this volume felt a little one-note and sometimes a little unnecessary. It often comes over as Tenma looking for a fight and being a lot crueller than necessary.

Perhaps a little unfairly, most of the characters introduced in this volume get a bad run-around development-wise, especially compared to how characters were handled in the first volume. Most only fit within their isekai archetype and it seems only Primera escapes this. It probably isn’t helped by the fact that none of these characters will appear in the next volume.

Primera seems a lot more open-minded than most in this universe. Willing to listen to both sides makes her popular with both Tenma and the people. She is likely the main reason that Tenma got such a good run at things even after he angered another noble.

To conclude, Isekai Tensei’s departure from its original volume causes it to take quite a step down, and it’s a shame considering how the first volume showed so much potential. Given how the characters and villainous acts were written, I’m at an impasse with this series, unsure as to continue it or not. Hopefully, the third volume sees a return to form.