Reincarnated as a Sword - Reviews

A refreshing take on the Isekai genre, BUT still not good enough.

As Isekai has gotten popular, we had so much trash Isekai coming out every year. So to stand out among them you need a gimmick. Like being Reincarnated as a Slime or a Sword.

And believe it or not but the Sword gimmick actually works.

We have dual Protagonists here, the Sword and the Girl, Fran. A female protagonist, shounen story. It's fun how they handle things. We have some good art, especially during fights.

The shortcomings are regarding the Isekai-ness. It's still the same Isekai setting that is used in every bad story. Same "we have an Adventurers guild and a Dungeon system". We even have the Protagonists level up after gaining exp, like in a video game. A shit load of useless stats being thrown upfront that really don't mean alot.

Kinda feels like a bad Gameplay because of the heavy video game elements. Rather than a story. 

So Far I'm up to Vol. 3 and will continue reading this manga.

Even if this is just average. So far No one has started their harem, with an underage girl. Shocking considering this is an Isekai with a Cat Girl.

"Is this a good manga?"

Fran: "Nh."

Fran, a Black Cat beastkin, had been enslaved for several years until circumstances led to fem meeting a talking sword sticking out of the ground in the woods and being freed from feir shackles. Fe names the sword "Master." This sword has the reincarnated soul of a human from our world inside of it, but honestly the story could have progressed exactly the same if it was just a mysterious talking sword (the reincarnation detail is pointless). Anyway, Master respects Fran's goal of wanting to get stronger and evolve and wants to help fem achieve it. You see, most beastkin tribes are able to evolve to a higher form when they reach a certain power level, but there are no instances of Black Cat beastkin evolving. Fran wants to evolve in order to show that feir tribe isn't inferior and to instill hope in all of the oppressed Black Cat beastkin in the world.

After the initial introductory chapters and Fran getting settled in to the adventurer guild and stuff, the story seems to have reached a comfortable pattern. Fran (and others) will enter into a dungeon and will initially breeze through it, but then an unexpectedly high level monster/threat will appear and Fran will have an epic confrontation. Each dungeon has a general theme to the types of monsters inside it. So far, there's a goblin dungeon (chs. 8-15), a spider dungeon (chs. 16-27), and an undead dungeon (chs. 28-present).

[Reviewed at chapter 33]

Not a lot I can see, but I'll be honest. I found this manga to be very, very ✨boring✨

Overall: 2.5/5 stars

I found nothing extraordinary and suprising. Even, some parts were boring. I can recommend to read it at spare time. Light novel version is ok. It is nothing more than 5/10

You would think reincarnating as a sword is weird, but it works. Reincarnation element is somewhat unimportant, because the story would work with just talking/intelligent sword. The story is very adventurous and action packed, after several volumes a pattern starts to emerge. Introductory arc aside it’s mostly sequence of dungeon raids with two main protagonists at the centre. Speaking of protagonists, I like interactions between OP autonomous magical sword and young ex-slave cat-girl Fran, who with the help of sword becomes an adventure following in footsteps of her parents to achieve goal of evolving her racial traits – like in the slime series, monsters can evolve into higher tier type of monster. It’s a simple story and while Fran with the sword seems OP, there are battles and pinch situations that feel threatening and quite immersive. It isn’t exactly steamrolling over every obstacle. I also liked the fact Fran isn’t the strongest adventurer. There is obligatory half-elf beautiful onee-san Amanda, high ranked hero, who is stronger than MC. I did enjoy the master-disciple dynamic between Fran and the sword. Its hearth warming and funny at times. The series does have some fan-service, but it isn’t so common.

Visuals and art are pretty nice. I would say overall quality is pretty good.

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

The series has furigana only occasionally. It has a lot of RPG, gaming terminology like one would expect in such series.

I had good time reading the series so far and I’m intrigued how the story is going to continue. What kind of people will meet Fran and sword, what kind of adventures will have they and what kind of growth will they make? It’s basically more action/adventure packed version of slime isekai, except the sword/reincarnated character doesn’t transform into human form.

This review has been written after reading 8 volumes (all existing at the time).