Isekai Samurai

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I have hit the ultimate best when it comes to my luck today. Two extremely good isekais in a day. Man I'm lucky.

So starting with what this manga is even about, it features a female samurai as the main character trying to find a place where she could die peacefully after participating in what she considers an honorable battle. But as a matter of fact, she is extremely strong. She does everything to find the destined who would kill him. After much efforts, failing, she goes to Buddha praying for her demise, that she could be killed and go to "hell". But, Buddha was not ... going to move his head with sync to the girl. Thus, he made her get isekaid.

*No truck-kuns were harmed in this manga*

Firstly about the art because I have to talk about it. After seeing the cover, I was like "if the manga really got the same level of art as the cover, I am literally gonna orgasm". And so I did. The art did what the light mode in screens does to a redditor, made me blind; but by sheer awe, as it is rare to get a good art in manga these days and it becomes even more rare if the said theme is an isekai. Its serious moments got serious vibes, has a different set of art style, it becomes more sharp and fast, become more detailed and the light moments have its cute, bubbly and chibi style. It knows when to make the reader laid back or when to make him get to the edge of the seat.

Now characters, they are extremely good, I like the designs of all of them so far, and the most favourite of all was undoubtedly the MC. I think we need more female characters of these type. I am tbh tired of seeing women getting used as harem fodders because at times they look absolutely bang average and just reek of clichés. I want females to be done right, whether they be actually beautiful or more cool like in this manga. About character development, the MC just wants a fair fight. But no is able to give her that. She is constantly in find of the warrior who would lay her down to her death. The other side characters are also all good.

At the end it has good action and a little bit of comedy and more importantly has good implementation of the theme of Isekai.

An extremely powerful female Samurai named Ginko, who craves an honorable death in battle is denied that honor due to her being so powerful. She proceeds to pray and beg at a Buddha shrine for circumstances to change and was then transported into another world that resembles a medieval fantasy complete with monsters, magic, and magical races/species such as Elves and Dwarves.

At first, I was really intrigued by the premise but as the story goes on the same situations keep reenacting itself: Problem that everyone struggles with, Ginko shows up, everyone warns her of the dangers, Ginko easily cleans house, then everyone has shocked pikachu ... face. Despite how many "high tier" heroes the story keeps introducing, it kind of feels like everyone is incredibly weak & incompetent compared to the Demon army and Ginko is just absurdly strong despite lacking natural mana that the residents of this world has.

The art is also a weird blend of really simple, almost borderline chibi, and really detailed at times. I'm not 100% on it as it can really downplay a lot of the seriousness of some scenes as this manga can come off as very hopeless at times with all the deaths.

The story itself is a little confusing as side and minor characters would show up, sometimes briefly share their backstory, and then lose to whatever threat is up at the time. Then the story would proceed talk up whatever Demon that's supposed to be a massive threat for the area and then Ginko would defeat them through sheer brute force. They introduce so many characters that simply die to Ginko regardless of their gimmick abilities, I'm having a hard time remembering them all and to be honest nearly all the side characters that follow Ginko are pretty useless and are only there to hype up the demon threat.

Personally I'm losing interest in this manga quite rapidly but I think the story has gotten past the point where they introduce all the Demon Lieutenants/Generals and they're starting to make their move so we'll see how interesting things will get but I'm not holding my breath.

My review of Isekai Samurai is OVERDUE as I have been reading for a while now and this is PEAK. It is just too undeniably fun. One aspect that immediately sets it apart from modern isekai is that the isekai aspect actually matters. Rather than immediately blending in or being a genius (already knowing of this world), Ginko Tsukitsuba is an odd ball from the setting every chapter; knowing absolutely nothing of the world, and being extremely dense in general of things such as magic (although she still has great battle intuition). An extremely personified, quirky, and honorable feudal samurai in a fantasy world plays ... out excellently, and the manga greatly benefits from being an Isekai rather than just being a fantasy, unlike most Isekai. I don't even know why I have to mention this, yet it's such a breath of fresh air: It's really important that Ginko was a young female samurai in Earth, and continued to be when she was reincarnated. She was not a modern day NEET who liked the play the samurai class in his favorite video game. From now, I want to move away from tropes and genre conceptions in this review, and focus on what actually makes Isekai Samurai itself good.

Ginko is also not overpowered, not only is she generally dense and unknowledgeable, she begins to struggle more and more with her fights as the chapters go on. It's not just a steamroll. The villains are also actual characters with competence, and ones of actual strength begin to pose actual threats as they become aware of Ginko's appearance in the world.

Next is that the art is 10/10. Might be the best ever. Although updates are infrequent, it makes complete sense as you are dropped with 40+ pages of excellence without fail. Ginko is aurafarming every chapter. I do NOT use that word lightly. I swear this time it's COOL. Ginko has SWAGGER. The double spreads are incredible. Every chapter is peak. No ongoing read is exciting me as much as every new chapter of Isekai Samurai, because of the immense work and detail that goes into every single chapter.

Lastly, aspects of adventure and a lively, beautiful world really bring everything together. As the party travels through the main lands, they head through a lot of very interesting environments. The background art is beautiful and the mangaka has a lot of fun with the types of monsters and environments they come across. However, there's certainly a lot of world-building still needing to be done, as the manga has not yet addressed much of the history of this new world, and we sort of just are in it blind with Ginko. Also, the supporting characters are admittedly not nearly as interesting as the protagonist. You will basically be reading this for Ginko. There are definitely some incredible designs, especially with the villains, but they are yet to be fleshed out whatsoever. I really look forward to and hope for a great development in the story and world-building (often takes many chapters), as well as more interesting supporting characters.

The isekai genre really sets the bar low, and while this manga does go above it, I would say it even sets the ceiling. This is extremely simple. Isekai Samurai works because the art is incredible, the main character is fun, and the Isekai factor plays a large part in the plot-- rather than being cast aside after the first chapter.