Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 1 (manga) (Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody (manga), 1)

Wanted something new I haven't seen an anime of and picked this out, Usually go for light novels but wanted to see this world in the flesh and was not disappointed. Really enjoyed the main character and his journey through this unknown gameworld. He brings fresh and new ideas to falling into a game world.

Many series have recently adopted the "sent to another world" or Sekai genre, where the main protagonist is whisked off to another dimension or alien world. With this influx of the same thing you'd expect some to not quite be up to the challenge of feeling original, especially when it comes to being sucked into a video game. And so we come to Death March, a manga exactly about that subject. So does it work? Or is it just another recycled idea?

From my perspective I like this series a lot, and I believe that this mostly stems from the fact that our main protagonist is an older man stuck in his younger body. Satou, that's his name in the game, is actually a man going on 30 who took a nap after putting the finishing touches on a video game he was working on and awoke in said game. It's a wold of fantasy and magic, and were it not for the fact Satou's point of view has a HUD with working systems, it might not feel like a video game at all. The fact Satou is actually closer to my age made him feel relatable, as he acts more mature and level headed than his 15 year old appearance may let on. This actually brings up a subject I often think about: What if you, as you are now, with all your experiences, was somehow sent back in time to a much younger version of yourself. How would you act? What would you do?

But back to the story at hand. After waking up in the game, Satou has almost no time to think about this strange dream he believes he is in, as an army of lizard people attack him. He freaks out upon being hurt and uses three very powerful magic attacks, summoning meteorites that decimate the army. After getting his bearings, Satou soon realizes that his victory has earned him a boatload of loot and more experience than he knows what to do with. While he is limited in the number of skills he has, he soon learns that earnings new skills is as easy as seeing someone do something or trying to do something himself. It's an interesting way to put a limit on his OPness, though it's not really necessary as he realizes a stranger with unlimited power showing up might raise some alarms with people.

Satou's next destination is basically the starting city, but before he reaches it he ends up saving a pretty blond girl who takes in instant liking to him. This is our princess-knight character, very prominent in the fantasy genre, and her name is Zena. Well, she's not actually a princess, but she certainly comes off like one. Blond hair, blue eyes, a magic user, and with just enough armor to have you nodding in approval. After some amusing internal dialogue about how Satou might have fallen in love with her back in the day, they reach the city where Zena takes her leave and is almost immediately replaced by the daughter of a local innkeeper; she's not important enough to name though. To this point it's made pretty clear that Satou has a thing for older women and has experience with romance, so it was nice to see that he doesn't act like a slobbering dog or a shrinking violet around them.

As Satou explore the city he learns many things about this world he is in, including the fact that slavery is a common place thing. Being that this is a totally banned thing in the civilized world, Satou isn't quite ok with it and ends up stopping three halfbreed slave girls from being stoned to death. However during this conflict a demon appears, bursting from the previous slave owner of those girls, and creating a labyrinth that Satou, the slave girls, and many others are pulled into. After a brief introduction to Satou's new companions, earning their trust with jerky and naming them, the troop sets off to explore.

Thus ends the first volume.

I'm satisfied with my read, and I actually enjoyed it enough to pick up the anime which is now airing.

so most manga/light-novel parallel publishes in america i read both volume 1s to see how i like either side. This is a manga that I think suffers very strongly without the text being narrated by the main character so if you have any interest in "nerd gets stuck in a game-like state/place and has ridiculous super powers", I strongly recommend you read the light novel instead of the manga because without the narration, the manga plays out in a somewhat boring or even generic manner.

This volume was pretty much flawless as far as translation goes and it's the first time I brought a manga in which they actually have the color pages colored in instead of black and white. The reason why I gave 3 stars is because of how they got rid of Pochi and Tama's speech pattern.

Pochi usually ends her sentences with "nanodesu" or some variant of that while Tama almost always says her lines in the form of a question and drags out the end of her sentences, she also usually says 2 to 3 words per sentence only, she never speaks in full sentences. Considering they left the Japanese honorifics in like "sama", "San", and "Chan" I don't know why they chose to leave out "nanodesu". Plus, another character called Martha sometimes drags out the end of her sentences whenever she's happy which they indicate with the "~" sign so there was no reason why this couldn't be applied to Tama as well.

These choices was such a huge blow to what defined thier identities as well as what made them unique that I couldn't reasonably give this book 5 or 4 stars. Other than that it was a good read. They only had like 1 or 2 lines tho so if it changes next volume I'll be happy.

Good story with interesting characters.

Excellent book series. Safe and fast delivery.

good writing