The Spring 2023 Manga Guide

Am I Actually the Strongest?

What's It About? 

Being reincarnated into another world with the promise of a "cheat" power is one thing, but being reborn as a baby, and then left for dead after your royal parents think you're powerless? That's another thing entirely! Now the newly born Reinhart--Hart to his new friends--must find his way through a dangerous world...but luckily he's got magic that's quite literally off the charts!

Am I Actually the Strongest? has story by Sai Sumimori and art by Ai Takahashi, with English translation by Jacqueline Fung and lettered by Nikki Dubois. Kodansha Comics released the first volume on March 7.

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Okay, stop me if you've read this one before: a shut-in young man gets chosen for reincarnation in another world with super-awesome powers, gets reborn as a baby, and ends up with a busty wolf girl and a cute little sister. Sound familiar? It probably should, but at least Am I Actually the Strongest? is fully aware of its distinct similarities to other works. Not that it does anything with that self-awareness. But at least it's there.

The story follows Hart in his progression from a talking infant who gets the Snow White treatment to the world's least convincing nine-year-old. When the goddess who promises him untold powers and an easy new life screws up in what is at least a moderately novel way, his royal parents unceremoniously chuck him into the wilderness, where he's taken in first by a wolf girl and later by a kindly nobleman. Gold, the noble, is the rarest of characters in fiction: a competent, loving father, and he's come for the abandoned infant because his wife has suffered a stillbirth. They both want the baby, and it's clear that Hart's being raised with a lot of love and affection. Naturally, he quickly gains a little sister as well, and thus far I am pleased to report that Charlotte isn't in love with her brother.

She is, however, suspicious of him, and frankly, that's the most believable part of the story. Charlotte knows that there's something weird about Hart, and as such she gives him a wide berth. She can't quite figure out that what she's sensing is his internal age not matching his external one, and frankly a series about her trying to figure that out would have been more engaging. But she's still fun and far from stupid in a very real little kid way. Her attempts to sneak around are laughable and very similar to my own similar efforts at her age. She does offer him a convenient explanation to cover his behind at the end of the volume, and that, too, is very true for her age.

My favorite part of this volume is its art, not because it's gorgeous, but because it's remarkably clear and easy to read. It's clean and simple, and that takes a lot of the jagged edges off of the story itself. It may help that the mangaka is the same artist who illustrates the source light novels; either way, it's just nice and comfortable to look at, humongous breasts aside. But this is a very mediocre offering, unlikely to persuade anyone already sick of isekai to change their minds…though it could have been much, much worse.

Christopher Farris

Rating:

As I wind down the final days of the Manga Guide, having exhausted all the releases in my preferred preview genres, I find myself delving into the depths of the isekai mines with not much to go on but vague titles and hope. So, I loaded up this copy of Am I Actually the Strongest?, ignoring its red flag of a genre-signifying name and thinking, "Hey, maybe this one will have something to it."

Readers, I must inform you: I chose poorly.

It says something that even many of the so-called "subversive" isekai stories these days are still swamped with the same gimmicks countless others have already deployed. It's not enough that Am I The Strongest frontloads its premise in such rote terms that, for a minute, I almost thought it might be setting up for some actual, original swerve. The issue is that this story's attempts at irreverence manifest in the form of cheap, easy writing and exhausting jokes. The first stretch of the volume features our hero as a talking, floating baby who figures out how to exploit his do-anything barrier powers within the first five minutes. We see that undercut by the first enemy he defeats, a massive demon wolf who tries to mate with and/or breastfeed him after transforming into a naked woman. It's still leading towards the same idle isekai exploitation thought experiments these stories are built on. It comes off like being faced with an oncoming train that tries to make you laugh by playing a Family Guy Funny Moments collection.

That's the most Am I Actually the Strongest? can give us to latch onto before we're whisked away to the listless plot of our hero trying to get out of doing anything in this story. It's a dull execution of a concept that kills time between manifesting bandits for our barrier bro to battle. I was already begging for the breastfeeding wolf jokes to come back by the last quarter. At least that was something! I'm hard-pressed to say whether this would have been more boring in the form of its original novel. But at least this version had a couple of funny illustrations in the back, such as the little sister dressed as a fried shrimp or the wolf lady dressed as a delinquent. So that's an extra half point awarded compared to what I would have given this thing.

Jean-Karlo Lemus

Rating:

Okay, so stop me if you've heard this one before. A shut-in gets reincarnated in a fantasy world as a baby with awesome magical power...

Am I Actually the Strongest? At least plays around with its idea. Sure, protagonist Hart is the strongest in the whole wide world and his barrier magics as a baby are incomparable! But because the RPG system they use to measure magic only has two digits, his Mag stat appears as “02” instead of “1002”. Also, he doesn't recruit a slave, a Fenrir simply binds herself to him out of genuine loyalty and turns into a cute dog-eared woman (never a bad time with kemonomimi around). It's cool that Hart's only ambition is to be lazy in his fantasy world, considering that's what his reincarnation goddess promised him, but the best thing I can think to say about Am I Actually the Strongest? is that the pacing is pretty darn brisk. We've gone down this road before, but at least this time they're not being coy about stuff and things are happening. Even the Reincarnation Goddess lays out that she'll be giving Hart an “overpowered 'useless'” ability. If you need to trod back down these played-out plotlines, I respect you for not wasting our time on it.

Maybe if you haven't already read any of the “better” isekai stories like the Slime one or the Spider one or the one with the useless goddess, Am I Actually the Strongest? is a good onboarding. It's brisk, it doesn't waste your time, and if we hadn't seen these plot points a billion times before they'd be pretty funny. Until then, this gets a very, very weak recommendation. At least the title isn't obnoxiously long.