Title: Combatants Will Be Dispatched Vol. 1
Author: Masaki Kiasa (Art), Natsume Akatsuki (Story), Kakao Lanthanum (Characters)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Genre: Isekai, Comedy
Publication Date: September 24, 2019
The Story
Combatants Will Be Dispatched (Sentoin, Hakenshimasu!) is a comedy isekai series that centers around a young man named Combat Agent Six who is transported to another world along with an android by the Kisaragi Corporation who is bent on world domination. Upon landing on the new world, they were to survey the land and its people but end up getting attacked by some dog-like creatures. After purchasing a shotgun with evil points, they defeat the creatures just in time for Snow, commander of the royal guard, to show up.
She brings them into the city where she wants to hire them in order to help combat an army of demons who wish to use the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Grace for the Cursed Forest. The volume covers Six assembling his unit which consists of Rose, a chimera who grows characteristics of whatever she eats, and Grimm, a woman who seems to have a fetish with tantalizing men with no intention of them acting upon it… which Six does.
The first volume doesn’t really have much of a story other than what I outlined above. There was no real exploration of the world as the pacing was a bit on the fast side. Before you could even digest what was going on at the beginning of the book, you’re suddenly in this new world which doesn’t have much lore established. You hardly get any time to feel attached to any of these characters that were introduced… and there were a lot of them.
Characters
On the Kisaragi side of things, we have Astaroth, Belial, Heine, and Lilith… the latter of the four is a genius scientist (supposedly) who created the transporter to send Six and Tirith (the android) to the other world. The other three are just evil corporation higher-ups with no real redeeming personalities whatsoever. They have some quirks but they are written off so fast that you don’t really have much time to generally care about any of them.
The bulk of the manga focuses on Six, Tirith, Rose, Grimm, and Snow.
Six is a fouth-mouthed simpleton who doesn’t care about the repercussions of his actions. He is, as the volume describes him, a meathead. He’s supposed to work for an evil corporation and, therefore, thinks of himself as a villain but he’s just an average snarky pervert. He had a few lines which were funny but I just couldn’t get into this character at all.
Tirith seems like your typical emotionless, straight-to-the-point character which appears to be the balance to Six, only she’s not because Six will do whatever the hell he wants when he wants to do it. Tirith is both main and support and she switches between the two throughout the volume making you wonder just what her purpose is outside of making fun of Six and using a shotgun to protect him. Again, not a character that has much personality or is all that interesting.
Snow, at first, seemed like your typical “I worked my way through the ranks, commanding is my job” type of character until even she breaks her own mold by being upstaged by Six’s snarkiness. Anything that would closely resemble her archetype is thrown out the window in favor of useless bickering with Six… especially with the running joke of her being demoted by being put in charge of him and the group that they assemble.
Rose is a chimera and loves to eat. Really… that’s all there is to it with her.
Grimm loves to tease men, offering Six a look at her panties. Six takes her up on the offer and is shocked that he did so. Obviously she had no intention of ever showing him anything (pretend I’m rolling my eyes here.) What results is more bickering and yelling which seems to be a theme for all of the characters.
Final Thoughts
Sadly, I cannot recommend this series. It has a decent score on MyAnimeList (7.31 as of the time of this writing) so there is an audience out there for this. Unfortunately, that audience is not me. The story is very fast-paced and not really structured all that well. The series doesn’t really give you much time to get to know the characters before dumping you into another world with a whole new cast to learn. The world they arrive in is barely explained outside of that fact that there is magic and an invading demon army threatening the Kingdom of Grace.
This series is heavily relying on its humor… most of which I didn’t care for. There were a few moments that got a chuckle out of me but the bulk of the “humor” depicts the characters just yelling at each other. I’ve seen plenty of anime where this was the preferred style of humor and I, pretty much, dropped every single one of those shows. Those kinds of shows give me a headache and are usually hard to follow along with since all the characters do it try WAY too hard to be funny by yelling and screaming and over-emphasizing everything.
The dialogue and art in this series paints a very similar picture and it’s just not something I really care for. Then again, that’s me and my personal tastes. While I certainly wouldn’t recommend this series to anyone who has similar tastes as mine, I can recommend it to those who do enjoy this style of humor. Because of the above-average score I mentioned earlier, there are people out there who do like this style of humor. If that’s you, the go out and pick up this series as it’ll be right up your alley and I can see you enjoying the heck out of it.
Follow me on Twitter @JJPiedraTOH
You can also check out other The Outerhaven reviews on your favorite social media networks:
Subscribe to us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/theouterhaven
Subscribe to us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheOuterHaven
Subscribe to us on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/theouterhavennet
This item was provided for review by Yen Press
