Most isekai fiction in recent years relies upon one of a few set formulas, with nearly all of them taking a person from our world and depositing them in another, typically game-based fantasy realm. (The presence of RPG elements even in a fantasy world detached from a game is often included.) There are sad loners and losers, exhausted office workers, and enthusiastic otome gamers aplenty, all of them finding a better, or at least more profitable or romantic, life in another world.

A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation eschews that. Its protagonist, Lizel, comes from an adjacent fantasy world and is already an accomplished mage who speaks the language and understands the basic social rules governing his new home. He's a high-ranking nobleman with a good job he enjoys, a good relationship with his family, and someone who is either a very close friend or a romantic interest. He's also not thrown at all by his new situation; as the title suggests, Lizel is ready to accept his isekai adventure as a bit of a vacation from his regular life. And since that “regular life” involves politics and a decent amount of time behind a desk, he decides to indulge in something that his own world doesn't offer: becoming an adventurer.

Thus begins Lizel's adventures in what we're told is a world parallel to his own. He's eminently practical about the whole thing right from the start: he begins by selling his decorative sword and ostentatious coat, then finds someone to help him navigate this new setting. Once he learns about adventurers and what they do, he seeks employment as an adventurer, happily fulfilling requests with his new partner Gil and learning as much as he can with each new mission. He's delightfully unbothered by pretty much everything, keeping his cool and using his old political skills alongside his new knowledge to eke out a very nice living for himself. He's the perfect antidote to most of his genre brethren.

While I wouldn't quite classify A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation as iyashikei isekai, there are definitely enough elements of that peaceful genre to make a decent case for it, at least before we hit the Variant Leader storyline in volume eight. Lizel collects books with wild abandon, interacts with people who all fall for him, and breezes his way through life. Even when he has a run-in with the absurdly named Forky Bandits, he keeps his mild-mannered cool. There's a sense that he never feels danger, even when the reactions of his partners indicate that he absolutely is. He truly is treating his time as an adventurer as a vacation, almost as if he's visiting a Medieval theme park.

This attitude is central not only to the title but to his relationships. As the series goes on, Lizel accumulates more and more men into his harem (female characters are present, but never as main characters), all attracted to both his beautiful looks and his nonchalant attitude. The main four are Gil, Eleven, Judge, and Studd, with the last being the most obvious about his romantic attraction to Lizel. The only one Lizel himself seems to take seriously is Gil, the first person he befriended in his new world. While there are several quiet, almost yearning scenes of Gil and Lizel touching each other while one is asleep (in a nonsexual way), their relationship is based more on how much they trust each other. Lizel only really relaxes around Gil and vice versa, and this only happens when they're alone. It's possible to read their relationship as quietly romantic, but it could equally be seen as just two best friends who understand and respect each other. This is absolutely deliberate, especially since the king Lizel worked for back in his world is also in the running for his true romantic partner, something that gains a bit more weight as the series goes on, in no small part because the king is a master of teleportation magic and does manage to track Lizel and let him know they're working on retrieving him.

The actual adventures Lizel goes on are much more typical than the setup for the story. He and Gil (and later Eleven) explore “labyrinths,” which are what other series call dungeons; they go on quests, and they help out with monster invasions. They're all three preternaturally powerful in their various ways – Lizel with his knowledge and otherworld magic, Gil as the legendary adventurer Single Stroke, and Eleven as a snake beastman, which gives him some enhanced senses. Judge is the shopkeeper they sell things to, and Studd is the inevitable guild receptionist. There are fetch quests, bodyguard quests, and even the weirdly specific “helping out with a play” quest, which is the school festival of the isekai genre. What sets this series apart is Lizel's attitude rather than the story itself.

Momochi's art is as gentle as the storyline. Everyone is as attractive as they can be, and random side characters can be indistinguishable from one another. None of the “older” characters look particularly old, and the creature designs aren't that exciting, but the backgrounds are distinct enough, and there's a good flow to the pages. A storyline in volumes nine and ten about elves showcases some interesting elf mythology in both story and art, and the volume ten chapter where Gil forbids Lizel from reading for seven days as a punishment for his reckless actions does a great job of showing the toll it takes on Lizel, both physically and emotionally.

While this series drags in places and can almost be too gentle for its own good, it's still an interesting entry into the isekai genre. Everything about it is mild, from art to plot, with the most striking element being how the volumes keep reducing the number of chapters included – early volumes have five, middle four, and by volume ten, there are only three chapters in the book. If you need action or overt romance, this isn't going to be the series for you, but otherwise, it's just what it says on the tin: a nice vacation with a very gentle story.