The Spring 2025 Manga Guide

Flung into a New World? Time to Lift the 200-Year Curse!

What's It About? 

Akira Tennou, an unremarkable thirty-five-year-old man, gets hit by a truck on his way home from work and, after a brief experience in some mystical limbo, wakes up in a gloomy forest. This forest is beset by a sinister black mist—his memories of his little sister's lectures about fantasy novels tell him that it's probably under an evil curse. He soon encounters one of the forest's residents: an enormous silver wolf. At first the creature is hostile, but he finds that it's been corrupted by the same black mist, and he only needs to cry "Purify!" to banish the curse and heal the wolf. Akira discovers that the residents of the forest are all animals, and once purified, they are far from feral beasts. His newfound magic allows him to speak to his new animal companions; he finds that they are intelligent and the rightful rulers of the forest. Akira decides to explore this new world, purifying the land and its inhabitants as he goes. But the source of the cursed mist can't be far away…

Flung into a New World? Time to Lift the 200-Year Curse! has a story and art by Tai Nakashima, based on a work by Honobonoru500. English translation by Josh DM. This volume is lettered by Richmond T. Published by J-Novel Club (April 2, 2025). Rated T.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

At least one whole star of this rating is for the “wolves” and “dog.” They're the major reason for picking up this manga, based on a light novel of the same name by the author of The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash, although I do have to admit that Honobonoru500 has a real way with a gentle fantasy. In this case, the story is isekai of the most boilerplate variety: a random person (who is, of course, familiar with the genre) is hit by a truck and ends up in another world. Whether that was on purpose or not remains to be seen; when Akira comes to, he's floating in space with four other people, eavesdropping on a conversation between apprentice gods. The other four are sent back, but Akira remains, which makes me wonder if he was the only true summon by the actual god, although parts of the conversation he hears as he's being dumped may not support that.

But whatever the reason, he finds himself in a ubiquitous fantasy world with magic powers he can half-ass by just saying spells out loud, and it's all very rote. The draw is that instead of people, Akira encounters what he mistakes for wolves and a dog. Unaware that they're actually Fenrir and a dire wolf, he happily begins geeking out over their fluff and uses his magic to heal them from miasma sickness. It's not exactly breaking new ground, but what can I say, I'm much more partial to a hero getting a wolf pack than a harem.

The draw of this first volume is, obviously, the Fenrir. They can understand Akira, but he doesn't speak canine, so he has no real idea how powerful and magical they are, nor how impressive it is that he wins them over, because they're only sick because of racist humans who sacrifice demihuman children in order to destroy the spirit beasts of the forest. In Akira's mind, he's just being nice to doggies, and no doggy deserves to be filthy and unhappy or to live in discomfort. The beasts are all kind of confused by their new hero, but decide to go with it, because hey, he's purifying their land and gives them good scritches.

There's almost certainly a darker story in here, and I assume we'll get there in a volume or two. Even if there isn't and it just turns out to be about a thirty-five-year-old man frolicking with canines in the forest, I think that'd be okay, especially since artist Tai Nakashima does some amusing dog faces. But really, the major takeaway from this review may be that apparently I will enjoy even the blandest of isekai if they throw some cute animals in there. If you're the same, this is worth checking out.

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. Yen Press, BookWalker Global, and J-Novel Club are subsidiaries of KWE.