Life with an Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated into a Total Fantasy Knockout - Reviews

I know I'm pretty biased and I won't even try to hide it. If you're okay with reading a review that's clearly leaning toward this manga, by all means please read mine! 

Fantasy Bishoujo is such a fresh concept for the isekai genre - we get two characters who ended up being reincarnated into another world but not in the way that they expect. One is a generic office worker with buffed up skills and the other is a 30-year-old man in the body of a young, attractive woman. They've been close friends forever and are as straight as can be. Until they get cursed to fall in love with each other.

Do they both know they're straight? Yes.

Do they know that one of them is their friend who's a man and is 30 years old? Also yes. 

Does this stop them from having feelings being attracted to being drawn to each other? No.

And that's what I love! It's a non-traditional romance between two long-time best friends, which means they know each other's strengths and weaknesses very well, while the new situation puts tension in each interaction. There are so many tropes here that the mangaka explores and utilizes to drive our two leads together or to inject humor in the most serious  of situations. A few examples are Kabedon, getting kidnapped, being rescued, realizing that the other person values the other in ways they didn't expect, that cute bickering where everyone can see their relationship except for them. I can go on and on and on but I don't want to spoil the surprise completely.

If that's not what you're into, maybe the clean and crisp art style is more up your alley. The poses and the situations are drawn so neatly and creatively that the length of each chapter is a pleasure to go through. You can clearly see how skilled the mangaka is when it comes to storyboarding and portraying each scene because each panel just jumps out at you. Humorous situations are magnified with each stretched expression and exaggerated movement. I'm not kidding. It's funny.

The mangaka pokes fun at the isekai and fantasy manhwa in general. They showcase the common tropes and they end up going the extra mile to subvert it - like how elves are supposed to be conservative and powerful but in this manhwa, they're the complete opposite. Or how heroes supposedly appear in fantasy situations but there's a high likelihood that they don't get taken seriously by the locals. I feel like I'm not giving it the exact justice it deserves but you'll see when you read it. 

I'm glad to say that this also has an anime adaptation! It's currently up to episode 6 but it's pretty good so far and I love what they've done with it. Do read the manga first before the anime because there are some moments that they glossed over in the show but are important in the plot.

Reviewed at Chapter 100.

This is a fantastic original story definitely outside the normal isekai tropes. Two male friends get sent to another world but upon arrival one is a girl and the other is exactly the same. Are they in love? They'd rather not be. The art is beautiful, the characters are good looking and interesting, the plot has a spin I haven't seen before. Even if it's not to your taste it's a quick read that you'll enjoy. 

The story follows two childhood friends Tsukasa Jinguuji and Tachibana Hinata. Both are 32 years old and single. They are kind of opposite of each other Tsukasa is tall, strong, very cool, confident and smart looking. However, he is bit lone wolf and introverted. Women like him and purse him, but his experience with women disillusioned him in regards to character of such women. He is much more comfortable in dealing with men. Tachibana is rather short, trying hard with women i.e. failing miserably. On the other hand, he is much less stiff and more extroverted, than his friend. Both admire the positive aspects of each other. Especially Tachibana is looking up to his friend.

Everything begins, when they are going home after a goukon (group dating). Suddenly both are transported by a goddess to different world. In that opportunity both are granted their desire. Thing they wished for before being taken by the goddess. Tachibana was expressing it would be easier to be cute girl. Tsukasa was expressing how he would stay with his friend rather than getting married.

How the characters get defined by combination of backstory and modified settings by goddess make the series pretty fun. Tachibana is not only transformed into opposite sex. His character status is to have peerless beauty, but no fighting skills whatsoever. Tsukasa becomes opposite. He is OP character, but soon he notices he is very attracted by beauty of his friend’s new body. Similarly, Tachibana now as woman starts to have feelings towards the friend. Both are convinced it is effect of the goddess’s curse, but is it?
I like how Tsukasa is salaryman version of one-punch man. After all he wears his business suit still. His dealing with some isekai common scenarios is pretty enjoyable by itself [1].
Tachibana’s power of attraction is very strong and hard to control. Straight men under her charm do anything for her. This includes some hilarious scenes [2].

There also some side characters introduced along the way. I won’t go into details [3], but they do add some additional weirdness and comedy to the story.

Visuals and arts. Backgrounds - classroom, castle wall, etc. - can be nice in the series. The character design and details are more average in my opinion. There are way better-looking manga series out there.

Japanese difficulty 5/10 (see my profile for details about various difficulty scores)

Pretty much standard seinen difficulty. No hiragana.

The series has some generic isekai tropes in it. The style of humour is something like Konosuba meets One Punch Man. So far, it’s been enjoyable, but the story didn’t go for long. It’s too soon to make better more overall opinion on the series.

This review is written after reading 3 volumes (all existing at the time).

Spoilers

[1] Like when a young enthusiastic hero challenges him for a duel in city. He lets local guards to apprehend the boy for destroying city properties like proper adult member of society would do.

[2] Bunch of bandits start to proposing to her on the spot and then proceed to fight each other to death.

[3] Angry elf female envious of Tachibana, young hero – bit chuuni, assassin interested in Tsukasa.