When death tapped Renya Kunugi on the shoulder, he smiled and went willingly. After enjoying a nice, long life of 94 years, he was looking forward to shutting his eyes for the last time. He was, therefore, understandably upset when he woke up again in an empty space, devoid of memories, with a young girl in a tunic rambling on and on about how she’s God. So, he did what any reasonable person would have done under those circumstances: he sent the girl flying with a kick to the face.
It turned out that the girl was indeed God, and she was in a pinch. She urgently needed someone to do some interdimensional Resource smuggling, and Renya fit the bill.
His mission: cross the boundary into another world, then chill for a few decades. God would handle the rest.
To sweeten the deal, she offered him an eighteen-year-old body and a whole laundry list of ludicrously powerful skills, yet he remained hesitant. Then, she mentioned the food — an exotic world comes with exotic delicacies — and this sealed the deal. The next thing he knew, he was standing in a foreign land, younger, stronger, and more clueless than ever. Will he survive this world? And more importantly, will the world survive him?
My Opinion: ???200 pages, $6.99, Not Available on Kindle Unlimited
A translated work, this novel incorporated RGP mechanics with a transported to a fantasy world story. There’s good action, a little innuendo, but it’s mostly slice of life. What I was surprised to see, was the humor element to the story. The first 20%, is a comedy scene where a goddess tries to convince a soul she pulled from earth to be reincarnated into this RPG fantasy world (notifications, ranks, levels, item descriptions). If you’ve seen anime or manga, the type of humor used here should be familiar. While I thought it was funny, the humor may not land for everyone.
The novel is a bit pricey at over 3 cents a page (estimated, no actual page count as of this review), but translating anything and publishing it in english is an expensive proposition and the price is the same as other translated light novels.
Content wise, this is only the first volume, about equivalent to maybe the first two episodes in an anime series. Not a lot happens here. There’s some world building, character development, and a bit of action. But it’s again like the beginning of an anime series in that regards, lots of setup for hopefully something good down the line.
Overall, I liked the novel. I thought it was funny and entertaining. It felt fresh compared to the normal LitRPG I read weekly. However, for the price, it may not work for everyone. I’d suggest downloading a sample to see if the humor works for you.
Score: 7 out of 10.