The Fall 2020 Manga Guide

Record of Wortenia War

What's It About? 

High-schooler Ryoma Mikoshiba finds himself summoned to another world by the warmongering O'ltormea Empire. But Ryoma is no ordinary schoolboy – he has both talent and training in martial arts. Using his skills in martial arts to escape captivity and swearing revenge on the country that summoned him, Ryoma finds himself in a world where he can become stronger by absorbing the life force of whomever he slays – a world that fits his talents to a bloody T. Pursued by the O'ltormean court for killing an important official, Ryoma attempts to flee the border while keeping his identity hidden. But as he does, he encounters two twin sisters - Sara and Laura - an encounter that will change his fate. And so begins the epic tale of a young man and his journey of war and domination!

Record of Wortenia War is based on the light novel by Ryota Hori. The manga isscripted and drawn by Yukari Yagi and J-Novel Club will release the digital version of its first volume on December 2 for $8.99. The light novel that the manga adapts is also currently being released by J-Novel Club.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

I always enjoy it when a trope-laden genre like isekai tries to do something different with its formula, so by far my favorite part of this book was that protagonist Ryoma is so amazingly angry that he's been summoned to another world. That in itself may not be entirely unusual – Arifureta's Hajime comes to mind – but the turn-around time is: Ryoma instantly gets pissed off and starts killing people almost the second he realizes what's going on. In part this is because his grandfather apparently thought he was raising an assassin rather than a child; he's spent most of Ryoma's life teaching him how to kill others. Ryoma, however, is the one who decides that the appropriate response to “we summoned you because people from your world have potential” is “kill them all.”

Record of Wortenia War, the source novels of which are also available in English courtesy of J-Novel Club, is definitely on the bloodier side of things. Its characters are much more willing to fly off the handle as a first reaction, and even if we can understand that Ryoma is who his grandfather made him, it's still a bit hard to get behind a protagonist who's so quick to start murdering people. The soldiers and mage (or “thaumaturgist” as the story calls them) who initially summoned him are one thing, but Ryoma then murders a doctor and his aides in the infirmary before burning it down, something that a modern teen would definitely know isn't even acceptable in wartime.

When we add in the way women are treated in the story, things get even more uncomfortable. Slave sisters Sara and Laura seem to exist to be looked at (and their statement that they “can't even move” without their missing master's permission is disproven both directly before and after they say it) and to make Ryoma look better when he saves them from being raped. Celia is even more hot-headed than Ryoma is, making her power seem less like something she's earned and more like she's better off with adult supervision; that she's stopped by a man picking her up and physically removing her from the scene really doesn't help. I admit that my tolerance was exceeded, however, with the admittedly silly detail in the included prose short story that a girl would rather skip breakfast to fix her hair before school than show up fed and looking less than perfect.

So while I like that the story tries to do something a little different and think the art is nice and easy to read (panels are exceptionally well set-up), the actual content of the story makes me feel a little sick. It's more than just not being the target audience; it actively repelled me.

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Caitlin Moore

Rating:

I'm not quite sure what to make of Record of Wortenia War so far. It has the potential to be the worst, most mean-spirited kind of isekai, but doesn't seem to be totally leaning into that. At the same time, the hero, Ryoma, definitely commits some unnecessarily brutal acts. It's a strange, awkward blend, like the author wasn't quite sure how far they were willing to let him go.

Considering this is a manga adaptation, and thus the third draft of the story (first being web novel and second being published light novel), that's pretty inexcusable. Ryoma is summoned into another world where people absorb the power of those they kill, with the intention of being sacrificed. Unluckily for those summoning him, Ryoma is quite strong himself, and the prey becomes the predator. He goes on a killing spree through the castle, including a young doctor who absolutely did not need to die. Once he gets out, everyone is super nice and helpful, and since he's so strong, of course he has no trouble getting by as an adventurer.

After that, it's really hard to root for him. Sure, some of his kills can be justified as self-defense, but in a lot of those situations I'm pretty sure he could have gotten away with, I don't know, concealing his face and changing his voice. Since he's hypercompetent, he doesn't exactly come across as a desperate underdog. Heck, even when he's in the castle, he doesn't seem to be in shock or frightened; he just calmly murders everyone he comes across, escapes the castle, and then calmly goes drinking at an inn. The lack of any kind of psychological consequences for shedding all that blood is downright frightening.

And then there's the slave girls, because of course there are slave girls. There's always slave girls. They're twins with the extremely exotic fantasy names “Sara” and “Laura” and they're completely powerless to do anything without their master's permission, and I mean anything. They're threatened with rape but, like, totally cool and not traumatized since Ryoma killed their assaulters before they actually managed to do anything, and in an incredibly icky move, the panels focus on their thighs and boobs while they're being threatened. The volume ends with a cliffhanger, so maybe they won't be slaves anymore? Maybe they'll have some actual agency? I don't know, and I don't really care that much.

The art is strong, albeit pretty standard for a light novel-turned-manga: clean and ready to be adapted to anime, should the opportunity come up. It does have a decent sense of motion, especially in the action scenes, and Ryoma's design is attractive and, considering how burly he is, not totally generic. Everyone else around him, though, is pretty generic. And I do have to give credit to the worldbuilding for not just settling into video game mechanics and calling it a day, although it doesn't really innovate either.