Title: The Reprise of the Spear Hero Vol. 1
Author: Aneko Yusagi
Publisher: One Peace Books
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 400
Genre: Fantasy
Publication Date: October 16, 2018
The Story
The Reprise of the Spear Hero (Yari no Yuusha no Yarinaoshi) is a light novel series that serves as a spinoff to The Rise of the Shield Hero. The spinoff is comedic in nature as it focuses around the Spear Hero, Motoyasu Kitamura. In this series, Kitamura is summoned to another world in order to become the Spear Hero, in which his spear possesses the ability of Time Reversal which activates after he’s fatally wounded in battle, throwing us into a familiar scenario as we saw with another isekai series in Re:Zero.
While the first volume does provide a synopsis of The Rise of the Shield Hero, I still found myself quite lost with some of the already-established character development and lore due to the fact that I have not read the previous light novel series, although that series is slated to receive a television anime adaption in January 2019 so I’m planning to check it out to see if it helps make anything I’ve read make a bit more sense. In fact, after doing a bit of research, most are suggesting not to start this series until you have finished around volume eleven of the parent series! No wonder I’m a tad confused!
I feel that’s also due in part to the fact that Motoyasu serves as quite the unreliable narrator. For instance, I had no idea why some of his mannerisms were the way they were. I could only assume that they were part of his character which I found to be your typical flirt/skirt chaser-type. The fact that he loved filolials more than anything is a testament to that character trait. He’s also quite naïve and gullible to the point where he will believe anything that a woman says. This ends up getting him into a few undesirable situations. I mean, he is the “Love Hunter that lives for love” after all and not just some mock hero!
As for the overall setting, I felt it was just your typical isekai fantasy series. A university student with two girlfriends gets summoned to another world after they have a fight over him and Motoyasu gets stabbed and killed in the process. There, he becomes a skirt-chasing Spear Hero, who is one of the four legendary heroes. Still, the humor and lightheartedness throughout the story kept a smile on my face and the dialogue really helped shape Motoyasu as a character (as such with the other characters, such as Filo, the Claw Hero, which will provide your fill of questionable furry romance). Despite not knowing much (i.e. nothing at all) about the previous series, I was still able to pick up on the gist of the story and it was pretty enjoyable for what it was; however, I don’t think it really stood out enough to escape the “generic” label.
Final Thoughts
I did have to do some research to try and make sense of a few things but it didn’t really help much but, then again, you cannot fault the series for that as this was intended to be a spinoff from an already-established franchise. I’ve been told that this book does spoil a lot from the main series and with me not being familiar with it at all, I opted to go with a very rough, generic review in case people are reading the parent story and have not yet caught up to the part where Spear Hero begins spoiling Shield Hero. I didn’t want to say something that ended up spoiling something for someone else which made walking a tight line with this review very tough.
I will state though that The Reprise of the Spear Hero was entertaining. I enjoyed the fantasy setting and there were some aspects about it that made me recall other isekai series with similar premises. Although the setup for the series and the overall atmosphere felt a bit generic, it was still an enjoyable read. I will say that reading this volume did pique my interest in the Shield Hero series so I have added that to my “to watch” list for the January anime season. Maybe once the anime ends, I will revisit the book and re-read it to see if I can find additional enjoyment out of it.
Obviously, if you’re caught up with Shield Hero, then this series will seem like a natural fit for you and I think you will find great enjoyment out of it. While it is a comedic spinoff, it should offer a different perspective since it is re-telling the story from a completely different main character. Just from reading the first volume, I can see flashes of why the parent series is popular as I feel it could be a bit more serious which is why I’m interested in checking out the anime.
If there’s one thing Reprise of the Spear Hero did right was it took someone who knew nothing about the entire franchise and made them interested in it. If you’re like me and haven’t read Shield Hero, I’d say check out the anime and hope it does a faithful adaptation of the light novels, see where it left off and if it’s close enough, pick up this book and give it a read. I’m sure you’d enjoy it!
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**This item was provided for review by One Peace Books
