Lloyd, a white mage trained by Lady Merlin herself, is a member of the illustrious Hero's Party—until they kick him out for being “too weak,” that is. What the Hero's Party doesn't know, however, is that he's actually crazy strong! No longer shackled to the party that never understood his worth, Lloyd is quickly scooped up by an S-rank adventurer who immediately recognizes his talent and invites him to join her party. Together, Lloyd and his new comrades set off on a quest to hunt a pack of high wolves, but they soon discover that there's much more to this simple job than what meets the eye...

Scooped Up by an S-Rank Adventurer! This White Mage is One Heck of a Healer has art by Wasabi Mukuno and story by Sora Suigetsu. English translation is done by Maddy Willette and lettering by Enver Özgüln. Published by J-Novel Club (September 10, 2025). Rated 12+.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Is it damning this with faint praise to say that it's more enjoyable than the first couple of episodes of the TV adaptation? I'm not sure, especially since I haven't read the original light novel. But as it stands, this start of Lloyd's adventures with an S-ranked party works better because it doesn't include his early years with his master Merlin except as little flashbacks. I say this both because Merlin's ridiculous and harsh instruction style isn't particularly funny (although it's plainly meant to be from what little we see of her in the book) and also because learning how Lloyd became so strong is less important than why he has such a dim view of his own skills.

The answer is equally parts of two issues: Merlin herself is unusually powerful and expected her pupil to be as well, and a raging asshole led Lloyd's first party. The so-called hero who kicks Lloyd out in the opening pages of the volume has an ego the size of Antarctica, and he's only too happy to assume that everything his party has accomplished is solely due to him. Since Lloyd's work as a white mage (which seems to be a special support and healing class) isn't all that flashy, he's willing to take Allen's words at face value, leading him to denigrate his own power further.

Regretfully, this is all fairly bog-standard as far as RPG-inspired fantasy goes. While it's a delightful surprise that there are no stat screens, the rest of the work is beat-for-beat the same as many others: the hero who doesn't know his own strength, the people who give him a chance and don't understand how he became so down on himself, the overweening pride of the “hero's party,” etc. etc. This Lloyd isn't even as endearing as the Lloyd of Suppose a Kid From the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town, although given that this isn't strictly a comedy, that makes some sense. It's not bad, but it's not good, either.

While the translation is well done, the art has some issues, and they aren't even how Yui's unbuttoned shorts stay up. (Although I do wonder…) Faces are the main problem, with the art looking oddly rough in comparison to outfits, and the creature designs are weirdly cartoony, which doesn't suit the supposed threat at all. This overall feels like more of a miss than a hit, and it neither makes me want to read more nor watch the anime.

Bolts
Rating:

I think this might've been the third series I've come across this year that has this setup, so I think we're starting to see a trend. Perception is everything because what we might think is normal, other people can see as extraordinary. Likewise, what other people can see as daunting or frustrating, we could see as not a big deal. This is the one message and thematic throughline found throughout this entire book. Is it enough to carry what ultimately boils down to a really boring group of characters going on an adventure? No, not really.

An expert white mage gets kicked out of a party because they are dicks that think he's not carrying his own way until it's eventually revealed that the only reason why that party was so strong is because our main character was buffing their stats like crazy. Turns out our protagonist is actually incredibly strong and capable after going through a hellish training regimen when he was younger. However, because he was kicked out of the party, and because I guess he just naturally had very low self-esteem, this creates the running joke that he constantly thinks he is not doing enough for other people when his skills are extraordinary. There is some humor here in the logical leaps the protagonist will go through to justify that worldview, but there comes a certain point where it gets a little bit ridiculous by the end of volume one.

We don't really get an idea of where this insecurity comes from outside of the book's inciting incident. So I don't know if our protagonist has always had this insecurity, because that would make a lot more sense if it were a deep-rooted issue that you overcome. However, the story doesn't really do a good job of justifying this mindset while simultaneously showing insane magical feats. Even though other characters constantly point out how capable he is, he finds a way to apply screwed up logic for the sake of the joke. This is a joke that isn't even that funny, so I'm not really sure why the book is so committed to it.

Outside of that, there isn't anything here that you couldn't find in another typical fantasy story. Most of the extended cast is pretty interchangeable, as a lot of them lack distinguishing features or skills. Getting glimpses of our protagonist's former party crashing out due to his lack of presence was fun, but we're ultimately just waiting for these characters to crash and burn, which is most likely going to happen in the next volume. The magic system introduced isn't even that engaging, as it seems to follow a pretty basic RPG structure. Maybe I'm a bit jaded because I've already read so many of these stories recently, but I do still feel like you could do a lot better in this genre.

Kevin Cormack
Rating:

I wonder if anyone ever got around to categorizing and numbering isekai subgenres like they do with fairy tales? Scooped Up by an S-Rank Adventurer fits firmly into the well-mined (some might say to the point of emptiness) vein of “grossly overpowered adventurer with an unusually broken skill is unbelievably rejected by his ignorant former colleagues and finds appreciation elsewhere.” I've lost count of the number of these stories over the years, and apart from Banished from the Hero's Party, most of them are awful. I actively avoid their anime adaptations now, which is why I'm completely unfamiliar with Scooped Up by an S-Rank Adventurer, which began as a light novel series and received its own anime last season.

In this instance, the wronged protagonist is Lloyd, an utterly broken white mage whose ridiculously strong buffs carry his entire party, but they, and their “Hero” leader, are apparently too stupid/arrogant to notice, so they kick him out. They're not portrayed as at all empathetic or likable, so he's probably better off without them, which of course is the story's entire premise. He's soon scouted by another group of adventurers who can't believe their luck at adding such an overpowered mage to their party.

It's a super-simple story set in Generic Fantasy Land #6258, but at least it has some cute girl characters, I guess! Thankfully, unlike other stories in the subgenre, there doesn't seem to be an uncomfortable undercurrent of resentment or revenge. Lloyd's just a nice guy, though he doesn't have a whole lot of personality. His new teammates just about make up for that.

Predictably, the Hero and his Lloyd-less party soon get their asses kicked once they attempt to fight without his support, so there's some pleasingly bloody schadenfreude in between the otherwise mostly light-hearted fantasy shenanigans. Such interludes obviously include Lloyd accidentally stumbling across his new female companions bathing naked, as appears to be a mandatory storytelling pillar of the genre. There's almost nothing to set this apart from other identical fantasies, with nothing remotely original or memorable on any of its pages. It's an otherwise fun throwaway read, though.