Reviews – Tsuihou Sareta Renkinjutsushi-san, Saikyou no Dungeon o Tsukurimasen ka?
#1Banished Alchemist
It is a modern take on dungeon revenge stories, where the MC doesn't clear the dungeon, but instead becomes the dungeon master to repel heroes. Think of games like Dungeon Keeper.
The hero is a softie alchemist in a high fantasy setting, who specialized on the concoction of potions. Right off the bat, the story uses the ungratefulness you'd expect towards a supportive one-trick pony role such as that of the alchemist as trigger for launching him into the dungeon.
I call it a modern take because you'll see mechanics common in Gacha- and Mobile games with the tiers of monsters and the RNG spins that may be as old as JRPGs, but that have pretty much almost monopolized these markets only much later.
Characters vs Story
This revenge story appeals a lot to nerdiness with the MCs outlook, and has the MC play the villain by becoming the dungeon master. He is very true to his role with his personality and brings exactly with him what you'd need to work on a myriad of alchemicals, meaning he is very analytically dry, calculating and cold, while also being the pushover kind of soft. The outlook of the main character in this story basically sits on the essence of a scientific attitude.
And that is perhaps where the story breaks itself a little because while the elements that make up the setting can work as alchemical ingredients to concoct an entertaining manga, the characters in this manga set the tone and turn the experience into one where if someone told you to make a potion and they gave you exact instructions on how to do it and all you do is follow the instructions. And I don't even mean that the story is predictable, as much as it just gives you this sense of reading something that would make more fun to read if you took the reigns rather than what the author intended for it. It employs all these pretty cool concepts, becoming a dungeon master, summoning your own monsters, you have cute monster girls, the designs are slick and the drawings organic, but we're talking about 50 chapters here and when you are done with it, you feel like you've read a very short story as if not much happened in all those chapters, due to the character interactions being desensationalized by the MC.
It's not as if cool things or drama doesn't happen, but since you see much of these taking place with the MC involved and dictating the atmosphere, his calm and cold answers are kind of anticlimactic and distanced to these situations, it makes the experience for the viewer equally distanced from what's going on because if the MC doesn't care too much, why should the reader? On one hand that makes him a pretty cool character, a bit like those non-chalant and cool genius archetypes, while on the other you are waiting for some kind of red line or climactic moments. But whenever one of those appears, the MC just turns it into a half-assed moment.
The overarching theme works the same way. In other revenge stories, the story builds up to those moments where it feels good to see the MC get his revenge and the jerks getting what they deserve. It briefly casts the illusion of justice into reality, expressed in a feeling of satisfaction. But that's not how this manga does it. You follow a revenge story where the MC doesn't even think about revenge, anything more so just happens as circumstance, so the whole time you are more just rolling along with whatever happens without any clear goals. Instead, the corner stones that give perspective of whether things move forward or where they are moving are actual numbers, which are given as "DP". This, overall speaking, dims the hype of what's going on.
Conclusion
A lot of very cool stuff happens, much of the elements I want to see in such a manga are there, they just aren't weaved together in a meaningful way. Yet it still makes for a decent enough experience that I wouldn't tell someone to not read it. If the setting already sounds interesting, you should pick it up. Just keep in mind that a lot of the panel time is consumed by characters that aren't exactly likeable. If that's not a biggie, it sits somewhere between a mediocre to an enjoyable read.
It is a modern take on dungeon revenge stories, where the MC doesn't clear the dungeon, but instead becomes the dungeon master to repel heroes. Think of games like Dungeon Keeper.
The hero is a softie alchemist in a high fantasy setting, who specialized on the concoction of potions. Right off the bat, the story uses the ungratefulness you'd expect towards a supportive one-trick pony role such as that of the alchemist as trigger for launching him into the dungeon.
I call it a modern take because you'll see mechanics common in Gacha- and Mobile games with the tiers of monsters and the RNG spins that may be as old as JRPGs, but that have pretty much almost monopolized these markets only much later.
Characters vs Story
This revenge story appeals a lot to nerdiness with the MCs outlook, and has the MC play the villain by becoming the dungeon master. He is very true to his role with his personality and brings exactly with him what you'd need to work on a myriad of alchemicals, meaning he is very analytically dry, calculating and cold, while also being the pushover kind of soft. The outlook of the main character in this story basically sits on the essence of a scientific attitude.
And that is perhaps where the story breaks itself a little because while the elements that make up the setting can work as alchemical ingredients to concoct an entertaining manga, the characters in this manga set the tone and turn the experience into one where if someone told you to make a potion and they gave you exact instructions on how to do it and all you do is follow the instructions. And I don't even mean that the story is predictable, as much as it just gives you this sense of reading something that would make more fun to read if you took the reigns rather than what the author intended for it. It employs all these pretty cool concepts, becoming a dungeon master, summoning your own monsters, you have cute monster girls, the designs are slick and the drawings organic, but we're talking about 50 chapters here and when you are done with it, you feel like you've read a very short story as if not much happened in all those chapters, due to the character interactions being desensationalized by the MC.
It's not as if cool things or drama doesn't happen, but since you see much of these taking place with the MC involved and dictating the atmosphere, his calm and cold answers are kind of anticlimactic and distanced to these situations, it makes the experience for the viewer equally distanced from what's going on because if the MC doesn't care too much, why should the reader? On one hand that makes him a pretty cool character, a bit like those non-chalant and cool genius archetypes, while on the other you are waiting for some kind of red line or climactic moments. But whenever one of those appears, the MC just turns it into a half-assed moment.
The overarching theme works the same way. In other revenge stories, the story builds up to those moments where it feels good to see the MC get his revenge and the jerks getting what they deserve. It briefly casts the illusion of justice into reality, expressed in a feeling of satisfaction. But that's not how this manga does it. You follow a revenge story where the MC doesn't even think about revenge, anything more so just happens as circumstance, so the whole time you are more just rolling along with whatever happens without any clear goals. Instead, the corner stones that give perspective of whether things move forward or where they are moving are actual numbers, which are given as "DP". This, overall speaking, dims the hype of what's going on.
Conclusion
A lot of very cool stuff happens, much of the elements I want to see in such a manga are there, they just aren't weaved together in a meaningful way. Yet it still makes for a decent enough experience that I wouldn't tell someone to not read it. If the setting already sounds interesting, you should pick it up. Just keep in mind that a lot of the panel time is consumed by characters that aren't exactly likeable. If that's not a biggie, it sits somewhere between a mediocre to an enjoyable read.
