A manga by Kenji Saito & Parabora

In my last review, I somewhat ran down what the “genre” of Isekai is, pointed out that I usually avoid books like this, then pointed out that Goodbye! I’m Being Reincarnated! is fairly different to a lot of others. Before reading this review of volume two, I’d recommend checking that one out. Granted, this difference seems somewhat superficial seeing that a lot of the tropes are still there, just subverted for laughs. What helps is that the writer’s self-awareness of these tropes makes it a bit more enjoyable. This second volume still does the same, but does veer a tad bit towards being your standard Isekai which is a bit disappointing. It’s nowhere near the point where I won’t try to finish this at some point, but it is what it is.

“”Welcome to Phatulia… Great Hero.” Ange, princess from another world, has come to Earth to “reincarnate” hapless teen Yuya, so he can become the hero he’s destined to be. Unfortunately, the only way to trigger this is to kill him — and after a pitched battle, her blade has penetrated his heart! Is this the end of high-school life and the start of a breathtaking new legend, or…? “

At the end of the last book, Angelia seemingly got her wish of murdering Yuya, putting the chain of events into place that would send him to her world in order to become the destined “Great Hero” of legend. What she didn’t take into account was that Luciel had a convenient Deus Ex Machina device up her sleeve that granted Yuya’s childhood friend, and stereotypical top-heavy possible love interest – Konami, the power of a Dark Priestess. This is a “banned class” from Phatulia (since that plane seems to overwhelmingly have videogame rules) and has the ability to resurrect someone. The flip-side is that upon using this, it can nearly kill the wielder in the process.

The rest of the book goes to try to humanize Angelia a bit, and then explain that her eagerness to kill Yuya is directly tied to the fact that she will die if her quest is not completed. I’m sure this will result in her not actually being the villain, and everyone joining up to fight whoever is actually in charge. It’s a tad predictable, but in a “cheesecake book” like this, I am not exactly expecting earth-shattering writing.

I was a bit disappointed that the author opted for The Kingdom of Phatulia having videogame stuff in it – it would have been much better had this stayed more of a generalized fantasy setting in my opinion. Having the characters have access to what basically amount to pop-up screens, “level up” menus, lists of attacks etc. makes it somewhat silly. Had they established that Phatulia was, in fact, a virtual world of some sort it would have been better I suppose. This one choice put the story on track to being more of a generic Isekai, which made me sad.

Overall, I still like this story, I just wish they wouldn’t have veered too far into everyone’s comfort-zone as they did. I believe there are still two volumes out there, so I am really hoping the interesting premise from the first isn’t completely squandered. This volume also veers heavily into the “naughty” artwork area, which is expected in something like this, but teeters on becoming “an entirely different genre” if they don’t watch it. I’m no prude, I read tons of European comics that would be considered borderline smut, but the first volume is not that bad compared to this so it seems out of place. It appears it was a conscious effort to “spice the book up”. I will be reading more, so stay tuned for the next review in the future!