Gray, the B-rank adventurer, was a background character in the RPG known as Bright Fantasy …or at least that's what he thought. After saving orphans from being attacked by goons, he resolves to provide for them as a father. But one of the orphans is Iska, the other world's future hero, and his choice will greatly change its destiny.

The B-Rank Adventurer with a Scary Face Becomes a Father for the Hero and His Friends is written and drawn by Cogeme, original story by Enji, character design by Kazuhiro Hara. English translation by Nate Derr. Published by One Peace Books, September 9th, 2025.

Kevin Cormack
Rating:

Look, I'm as tired of lazy cookie-cutter isekai with paragraph-length titles as the next jaded manga reviewer, and my hopes weren't high for this one. However – The B-Rank Adventurer With a Scary Face succeeds at being different enough, and entertaining enough, that I'm willing to give it a hearty recommendation. Perhaps that's my innate father-of-three instincts coming to the fore, but I can really get behind a grumpy adult protagonist working hard to protect his found family of adorable kids. Even if in this instance his job involves hunting Elder Goblins for their testicles. They're potent ingredients for aphrodisiacs favored by the noble classes, apparently. So if you're looking for media featuring multiple instances of pixelated monster nutsacks, then boy do I have a manga for you.

Gray is a lone adventurer who at some point years in the past found himself reincarnated in the world of JRPG videogame “Bright Fantasy”. Unfortunately, he has only secondhand familiarity with the game from conversations with a friend who played it – Gray has no such direct experience, so therefore little idea what, if anything, he's meant to do. Deciding to act as a background character and steer clear from any “main story” events, he resolves to become an adventurer in an unimportant, mid-sized town with a steady stream of monster-slaying tasks for him to complete, in order to build up a nice little nest egg. He tends to work alone, partly because anyone who doesn't know him well is terrified of his unwelcoming expression and intimidating air.

Despite appearances, Gray is a deeply moral, caring guy. That's how he ends up caring for a group of six starving orphans, eventually adopting them as their father. He has no ulterior motives, despite accusations of such from other adventurers. It seems he desperately misses his family from his previous life in our world, and it's hinted that some kind of tragedy stole them from him.

Gray's adopted kids range from toddlers to teenagers, and one is even partly vampiric. We don't get to learn much about any of their pasts in this volume, but there are many hints of much deeper backstories that really make me interested to read further volumes. Most of the kids don't get a lot of development, apart from the almost maternal 13-year-old Ariamel (who I desperately hope doesn't become a romantic option), and the cute, tiny blonde toddler girl who is the first to call Gray “Daddy”. Perhaps the most interesting hint at a deeper story is that one of the boys, Iska, may be Bright Fantasy's central hero, making Gray the hero's adoptive father.

It's a compelling manga with fairly decent art and an amusingly earthy sense of humor. Gray is an unusual isekai protagonist, with multiple layers and significant depth to his character. Don't be put off by the awkward title, it's definitely worth a read.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

One of the best things about Manga Preview Guide is that I always find one or two titles that turn out to be far better than I expected. The B-Rank Adventurer is absolutely one of them. While it does share a lot of qualities with other mid-tier isekai stories, its beating heart is the family that eponymous B-rank adventurer Gray finds. Caring for six kids is, as most parents could tell you, an adventure all on its own.

This found fatherhood storyline stands out all the more because the story is otherwise awash in isekai tropes. Gray has been reborn into the world of an RPG he doesn't know much about, and based on his character design (appearance), he assumes that he's probably a villain or background character. Something happened to his family back in Japan that he's still struggling with, and the basics of his new life are firmly in line with a lot of what we're familiar with; all that's missing are those godforsaken stat screens. (Please don't add them in.) That Iska, one of the orphans he ends up adopting, is also likely the protagonist of the original game feels like par for the course.

But where this succeeds is that it only uses these tropes as window dressing. The story is only tangentially about Gray living in a sword and sorcery game world; what it's really about is him building his family. He meets Iska and Fio when they prostrate themselves at his feet, begging for him to heal Stella, their friend. When Gray accompanies them, he realizes that six kids from age thirteen down to maybe three are living alone in a shack in the slums, he immediately takes action: he tells them that he'll care for them for a month. That changes pretty quickly, though, when little Nina starts calling him daddy. When Stella follows suit, Gray's a goner – there's no way he can leave these kids now.

For Gray, fatherhood is far more rewarding than adventuring, and that's shown very well. He goes from tackling difficult quests to just doing the basics so that he can be home every night to have dinner with his kids, he worries about Iska and Fio wanting to become adventurers (especially since Iska could still turn out to be the protagonist), and he delights in everyday details like washing the boys' hair or bringing Stella home doughnuts. It's like the isekai fantasy trappings are just there to give Gray a chance to find a family, and I'm okay with that.

Of course, there are probably more dangerous plot points on the horizon. We still don't know what happened to Gray's family back in Japan or how he died, and at least one of the kids isn't entirely human, which, when paired with Gray's friendship with a top adventuring party, could be a problem. But with cute kids, no stat screens, and a clear heart, this is a very nice surprise, and I'm looking forward to reading more.