Isekai de Cheat Skill o Te ni Shita Ore wa, Genjitsu Sekai o mo Musou Suru: Level Up

Attachment 2022

"* Based on a fantasy light novel series written by Miku and iilustrated by Kuwashima Rein.

A mysterious door stands open, inviting a boy who's been brutally bullied all his life to take a courageous step forward into the unknown. On the other side, he finds a hoard of priceless artifacts and a world as filled with magic as it is with monsters. The most shocking revelation, however, is that he can bring whatever he wants back with him when he returns to Earth. It won't be long before this double life changes him forever...

Source: Yen Press"

Genre(s): Isekai, action, romance, high school

__________________

1-2

I thought this might be attempting to ape on Mushoku Tensei by having a rock-bottom character isekai'd and try to live a 'better' next life (not having read the series description). Instead of subverting the usual shallow writing and characterization of its peers, Iseleve somehow reduces the scenario even further into absurd caricature of modern Japan, as seen by... an uggo with an inferiority complex. In this world, if you aren't 9/10 hot, you are treated like trash and abused for being so unpleasant to the eyes. Even to the point of your parents trying to rob you of an inheritance and disowning you when the pesky legal system gets in the way. By the way, I'm talking about this world; not the isekai one, though you'd be forgiven for getting the fantasy confused.

The amount of misery piled on this one fat dude is downright wholesale! If you'll allow me just one more fat joke, the only thing his family did was feed him, apparently (they and everyone else are beautiful, you see), and yet the whole world seems to hate his truly plentiful guts. I expected him to take a one way ticket via truck-kun to his next best life after saving his waifu from some street punks who didn't take kindly to high calorie diets, but instead he finds a secret door to essentially an isekai shooting range with video game mechanics because of course he did...

But wait! There's more! After bravely killing stationary monsters kept at bay by an impenetrable barrier with a boomerang spear left by a sage that just happened to live in the isekai house his is connected to, his cheat stat buffs re-wire his body and make him super jacked overnight! Now he's the most handsome creature on the planet IRL when he goes back to school the next day, much to the ire of all his peers and siblings.

He is then approached by the shoujo he helped in full-fat cowling to invite him to a school for exceptional people as thanks in front of the thugs and siblings most responsible for his previous misery...

Sigh

Maybe, just maybe if this series were to introduce any actual commentary on the wish fulfillment and how attaining status and happiness shouldn't require an arbitrary magical makeover and his grandpa's teaching on living his best life now are the true source of fortune, this wouldn't come off as so cynical and creatively bankrupt. What's more, it appears to be written from a place of genuine spite and anger considering just how evil all of the other characters have been so far, and that Tenjou has no appreciable flaws aside from being apparently born fat? It's so juvenile it's almost impressive.

In the end, at least this managed to surprise me, which is more than I can say for most isekai. Animation also had some strangely processed looking effects that do give a unique look to the sharp, angular designs.

I have been reading the manga adaptation, and this story is so terrible I wouldn't dream of investing the time to watch the anime. I don't want to imagine how much the author was bullied back in school and how his own family didn't support him at all, to be able to write something like this. But at least he did find success in writing escapist novels instead of choosing to end his own life. That's the silver lining in all of this. The wish fulfillment part is so over the top that there're no words sufficient in the languages of men, elves, or ents to even begin to describe it.

This story would have actually had some little value if the MC's body/face wasn't transformed into that of a male supermodel. That way he would have attracted people to him through his own actions, not because he looks like a bloody fairy tale prince. It would have also left him concretely with his own old insecurity, created by the ugly countenance. Aided by his godly powers, he could have then worked to build his self-respect, also making the societal point that you can lack good looks but still make it in life. Now, funnily enough, this story is making absolutely no point whatsoever. It's just proving that if you are ugly, you get bullied, but if you magically get handsome, you will succeed in life. Sorry, all bullied kids out there, you are doomed, unless an external miracle fully saves you.