Kinka 1-mai de Kawaru Boukensha Seikatsu

This is a completed series.

This is short and sweet. I enjoyed the story a lot overall, but the first half and the pacing they used really hit the spot for me. So many stories these days of heroes with secret skills or secret knowledge, aiming for revenge or trying to save the world with so many power ups and progressions that skills and powers feel like candy given out before a birthday party. Not this story though. It’s a slow and steady progression and growth of a kid who hasn’t had a good life. He grows thanks to the kindness of one elf, and we get to see his progression over time, and it’s quite wonderful. It feels like a real story rather than a cheap way to feed our addiction to being over powered.

If you have a couple of hours and don’t mind a story more about a dungeon party learning to work together and challenge each floor, then this is a good one.

I don’t think the premise, plot nor dialogue nor world are unique. This is very standard. One could say mostly built on cliches. But none of those things are what matter in this story. It’s a very similar journey to many classic hero tales, but the way the journey is taken and the pacing of the story is what allows it to be special.

Clearly this wasn’t popular enough with the populous (Cancelled abruptly), so take that into account, but as somebody who has read a lot of manga and manhwa, I think of this as a nice little respite from the normal works that we see.

7/10 I will save in my archives and revisit once in a while when I’m in the mood for something more tame and measured, and will definitely try to find more work by the author.