There is a lot going on in She professed herself pupil of the wise man. We have a protagonist who wakes up in a virtual world after taking a nap. There is political unrest, players have seemingly disappeared, and it's heavily implied that if you die in the game then you die in real life. Thankfully our young protagonist is incredibly powerful, and with some luck, was even able to reunite with old friends. Unfortunately, a calamity is just on the horizon, so it is up to them to go out and search for other powerful players in order to preserve the new world that they find themselves in. Did I mention said protagonist is also a dude that woke up in a woman's body that he made in the game right before falling asleep?

On paper, these are all fun elements to add to a story, even if they are a bit uninspired. While body-swap premises aren't personally my cup of tea, they can lead to some humorous moments or give a character additional perspective. Considering the presence our protagonist had before the story's inciting incident, being transported into an unfamiliar body is a difficult break in status quo that could have functioned as a catalyst for some compelling character growth. Moreover, there seem to be some significant differences between the current magic system in Arch Earth Online and how it used to work as a game, which also opens up possibilities for some nice worldbuilding. However, the overall structure and execution of these ideas leave a lot to be desired, and after reading through this volume, I really don't feel emotionally invested in its world or characters, at least not to a point where I could recommend this above the dozens of other fantasy or sci-fi stories that are out there right now.

Given that it's the first volume, it's only natural for some narrative elements to feel underexplored for the sake of setup or mystery, but even then, the manga has some trouble establishing a sense of place. We're given a general outline of the game's history and the political unrest that has unfolded during the 30 years that Kagami spent asleep, but despite being talked about like some disastrous event that could not be allowed to happen at all costs, it fails to lend any sense of urgency to Kagami's mission to find other players. Part of the problem is that we only get this breakdown from one character about halfway through the volume, and there isn't really anything outside of that one conversation that informs anything about this growing political unrest. The world feels very small and closed off, which could be due to the fact that Kagami is given a very “matter of fact” explanation of everything that kills any chance of emotional investment on the readers' part. The characters feel distant from the events occurring around them; they have private conversations about how dangerous things have gotten or what they need to do, but because they don't actually interact with much outside of these conversations, the world itself doesn't feel alive enough to hold my interest. It really does feel like the characters are completing the main quest of a game instead of carrying out an all-important mission.

The characters themselves aren't very well-defined either. After 150 pages I only know maybe two main things about our key protagonist Kagami: that he takes a lot of pride in the fact that he's one of the more powerful magic users in the game, and that he regrets his earlier decisions that led to him now living out in a woman's body. The thing is, aside from some jokes here or there, I'm not even really sure why the latter needed to be a plot point, since his appearance has no bearing on the overall trajectory of the story at all. It's not even really played up for comedy that much and just kind of comes off as a gimmick that's not even fully utilized and simply there to justify the story's title. His two companions don't fare much better. One of them is pretty much just there to make the main character occasionally feel uncomfortable, while the other comes off as more of a vehicle to remind us what the main goal is rather than someone with his own motivations and needs.

None of this is helped by the fact that the story's presentation is less than ideal. While the artwork is incredibly detailed and there are some memorable set pieces, there aren't really a lot of opportunities for said artwork to breathe. A lot of it gets lost in this mess of panels and text boxes. Pages can get very VERY wordy with some having exposition in almost every panel, making it very exhausting to read. So much of this world feels unnecessarily over-explained, which I suppose does make the pacing feel like it's constantly moving, but when you have to trudge through so much to get to the end, it kind of feels like walking in a swamp. Yes, you are technically moving forward in a straight line but it's far from comfortable.

Overall, She professed herself pupil of the wise man. feels like it wants to tell a story with important stakes without actually putting in the effort to make us care about the world or its characters. Either something needs to be stripped back a bit or more time needed to be spent on character and build up. As it stands right now, volume one feels like NPCs in a videogame telling you about the main objective and hoping that's enough.