The Spring 2022 Manga Guide

The Abandoned Reincarnation Sage

What's It About? 

Belamus was once a great sage with the power of reincarnation...but as all lives must pass, so did his. He reincarnated with his memories, but was suddenly abandoned as a newborn child! Luckily for him, he was adopted by the nearby goblin tribe...but this moment of kindness may mean more for both the Goblins and Belamus than either of them know!

The Abandoned Reincarnation Sage has story and art by Miraijin A and Kikkaiki and English translation by Leah Surgent. The manga is drawn by Kurikaramaru and Kodansha Comics has released its first volume digitally for $10.99.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

The Abandoned Reincarnation Sage is, at least on the surface, a bit like The Strongest Sage With the Weakest Crest: both stories feature impressive sages who figure out a way to be reborn with all of their skills and memories intact. But where the latter's Matty discovers that the world has undergone some major changes since his first go-round, the former's Belamus is immediately left to die in the forest after his birth. We don't know what prompts his father to declare that an infant has “no talent,” but luckily for Belamus a young goblin mother named Alessa brings him home and raises him. That's probably the strongest part of the volume, because it completely subverts the way that goblins are typically depicted in manga; Alessa is a loving mother, the goblin village operates just like any other small town, and the first five years of Belamus' life are pretty much idyllic.

Then the orcs come.

But surprise! Because he still has all of his memories, Belamus speaks orcish! Disaster averted! Yes, it does all get very pat from the moment the main story starts, five years after Alessa's rescue of the baby Belamus, but the story itself is good-natured enough that it doesn't matter all that much. It's clear that Belamus just wants the best for the people who took him in, and he's prepared to go to any length necessary to make sure that he can give that to them. Seeing that happen when he's still only five is perhaps the biggest issue here; it's like the creators wanted to have their cake and eat it too, giving us an adorable little boy as a protagonist but giving him the intellect of a fully grown adult. Luckily the art doesn't take a fanservice angle, which saves us from a much more uncomfortable situation. When Belamus helps the goblins evolve into hobgoblins, there is a bit of a disconnect in that his seven-year-old sister Delarosa suddenly has breasts, but since her body isn't made the focus of anything (her personality is much more important), it's not as bad as it could be.

And speaking of breasts, that's another interesting aspect of the story – when the orcs who join Belamus' village rebel because of a lack of lady orcs, he helps them set out to negotiate with a nearby orc town and is surprised not to see any women…only there are women there, they just don't have the same secondary sexual characteristics as human and goblin women. That's a neat detail and shows more thought has gone into the world and creature design than you might have expected, and when you add in the fact that this is 100% video game feature free, it makes for a fantasy that's comfortably familiar but not like everything else that's coming out. It isn't perfect, but it's definitely trying harder, and that shows.

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Jean-Karlo Lemus

Rating:

A great sage finds a loophole in the cycle of life and death and reincarnates as a baby, but his birth family casts him out and leaves him for dead in the forest. Rescued and raised by a tribe of goblins, Belamus grows into an intelligent five-year-old and uses his skills to make life better for goblins, orcs and other monsters, setting off on a path that will lead to a great Monster Empire.

The Abandoned Reincarnation Sage is a rarity in that it's a reincarnation story that isn't an isekai, but it almost feels like one. Belamus has all of his intelligence as an adult, and parlays that into great power. This also means he's perfectly invincible compared to the massive orcs that raid his village and effortlessly solves every problem that comes his way. Are the goblins too scrawny to use magic? Feed them spiders so they evolve into hobgoblins (and the female goblins can grow bigger breasts, while they're at it). Are the houses collapsing too often? Use earth magic to make stone houses. Are the orcs raiding? Use your combat magic to oneshot him. With Belamus being only five, you'd think he at least has to deal with limited magical energy, but even that isn't much of a limitation when you can just have a team of orcs handle your heavy lifting. There's a cool quirk where monster evolution depends on monsters eating weaker creatures that reminds me of the SaGa games – that's fun. But on the whole, The Abandoned Reincarnation Sage is adequate but not particularly stellar. I'd like to hope it gets better.