Monday, February 20, 2023

In Another World With My Smartphone (Part 1)

 One of the few Isekai ("different world")  manga I've read. 

Touya Mochizuki finds himself talking with God. Apparently he wasn't supposed to die, so in order to make amends God gives him a chance to go to another world. Touya asks if he can take his smartphone with him and God says yes, and that he'll also have magical powers in this world as well. Excited to start his new life, he hitches a ride with a clothes merchant (who wants his clothes and pays top dollar for the fine pieces) and makes his way to the nearest city. He runs into twin girls who help him find the Adventurer's Guild so he can make some money and stay at the inn. The girls help and they split bounties. Touya finds that not only is his smartphone super helpful, but he has the ability to use all magics in this world. Being a helpful person he makes many friends especially among the nobles which helps him move up in society to where he eventually gets his own kingdom. But not all is as easy as it seems. Crystalline beasts are awakening and nothing, not magic or brute force, seems to be able to stop them. 

The plot of the crystalline creatures and Ende (who I think is a bad guy, though we don't know yet) has a lot going for it. The fact that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon is going to help defeat them is pretty awesome, though I personally could do without the mechtechs--but that's just me. I think it has a lot of promise. 

Touya, though, is a MarySue or Gary-Stu if you like, which would normally make me grade it a bit harder, but I still gave it a 4 Star because as the story goes on he finds challenges that are really difficult to overcome. I do think there are still problems with Touya as a character besides his Gary-Stu-ness--which I guess they give a bit of an explanation for but that isn't until later in the series. He doesn't really change throughout the course of the 12 volumes that are out at present. He's completely awesome (Gary-Stu) and girls flock to him (it is a harem after all) but he doesn't change. There are no faults to over come so there is nothing too change. 

I could also do without the perv-y moments that are sprinkled throughout the series. Because Touya is the only boy who isn't a dad or king of a country, all the perv-y people are robot girls or their female creator who's gross. I end up skimming or skipping through parts whenever they are around. Ugh. It' gets tiresome. 

But over all the characters are fun and the plot is creative. I even find that I enjoyed the "building a kingdom" part of the story where much of it was just trying to straighten things out. It's well illustrated and has a good story. We just need to have the main character not be so powerful at the beginning (give him some training sores) and less "panty shots" or plain sex talk. 

The series isn't complete yet, so when another huge bunch comes out, my hubby will probably have me check it out. 

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