Title: Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody Vol. 9
Author: Aya Megumu (Art), Hiro Ainana (Story), Shri (Character Art)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Genre: Shonen, Fantasy
Publication Date: May 26, 2020
The Story
Volume nine of Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody sees Lady Karina and her artifact Raka join the party. It’s more traveling, cooking, gathering, and training as you would expect in the downtimes of the series. Lady Karina is really low level so they were trying to teach her how to fight. Once they move on from their usual routine, they make their way to the giants’ village where they meet one of their leaders with a name that takes twenty minutes long to say… so they just refer to him as Stonehammer.
Satou uses his Deus Ex Machina Plot Device ability to learn the language of the giants and communicates with Stonehammer. He is honored to have them there as guests after reading the letter the Witch of the Forest gave Satou to deliver to them. The only issue is Lady Karina who bears the last name of Muno. The Magistrate doesn’t exactly have a good relationship with the giants but Satou offers up an excuse and allows her to join them for some lodging.
While there, it’s more gathering and crafting time! This time, it’s all about giant fruit. This continues until we meet a Kobold who is in need of blue crystals… so Satou, initially, agrees to take her to a dwarven mine but instead, he decides to just dig a mine himself, create a log cabin, mark it with a giant boulder, and leave a note in the cabin explaining the location of the mine… all in one night. With that deed done, it is time to set out for Muno city and bring Lady Karina home. The journey takes them there where they discover the existence of a magic cannon… and that’s where we end.
Not much of a cliffhanger but Satou noticed that there are goblins amassing and a possessed army of knights mobilizing as well. Something is about to happen and we may end up in the middle of a grand battle pretty soon but I’m pretty sure we’ll get about half a volume of camping, cooking, gathering, crafting, exploration, and everything else before any of that happens. While this volume does have some action-oriented moments in it, they were once again overshadowed by a very-slow paced story. One of the things that I think is overused is just how many titles Satou acquires throughout this story. It seems way too convenient as if there is a problem, Satou just uses a skill and fixes it, acquires a title, and gets another skill.
Plus, there are moments in here that are also just too convenient… such as when they needed to cross a ravine and Satou just so happened to build a bridge overnight while everyone was sleeping. The volume didn’t even show him building a bridge. It was literally just like…
“This ravine has a river. If we were to fall, survival is not likely.”
“Oh, there’s a bridge! We can cross!”
((“By the way, I built it overnight”))
I would have hoped the series would let up on this as time went on but the convenient problem-solving issue still persists.
Oddly enough, despite these glaring issues, I’m still finding myself enjoying the series. Mainly because I like medieval lore-style stories and even though this is an isekai, it does offer up plenty of it. I just wish for more action and less plot device problem-solving.
Characters
Lady Karina received some focus at first with her inability to fight. She also has a hard time calling Satou by his name. Satou suspects that she has some sort of disposition when it comes to men. The volume also likes to draw attention to her well-endowed chest which becomes the object of everyone else’s jealousy… so much so that any time spent between Lady Karina and Satou is seen as lewd. Still, due to the Muno name, the giants don’t really care for her presence but make an exception. You can see how this impacts her when she cries to Satou that it’s not fair that she’s discriminated against just for holding the Muno name and not even being blood-related to them.
This, honestly, would have held more impact if the volume didn’t stuff her away for the majority of the back half of it. If we could have seen more interactions between Karina and the giants, we could have sympathized with her more. I think they missed an opportunity here to tell a better story in favor for more of the same tradeskill moments that have plagued this series.
Final Thoughts
Again, my issues with the series continue with not enough action and Satou just playing his plot device card to solve any problem. Outside of that, there were some good moments in the volume, such as meeting the Dryad that helped Satou back in the labyrinth arc where he fought Zen. There was even a mention of Zen’s wife’s tomb being “nearby.” The fact that this series doesn’t ignore past events and weaves them seamlessly into the story is just world-building at its finest. This is, probably, the biggest strength that the series has as it continues to make you think about the world and recall all of the past adventures that Satou has had.
It’s just everything else that needs work from problem-solving to the generic harem characters. Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody isn’t truly a bad series, though… which is why I continue to read it. I enjoy it because, again, I am a sucker for medieval lore-style stories and that is the one thing this series excels at. Learning about a world, its inhabitants, culture, and mixing all of that in with swords and magic is something that I always have found fascinating. It seems that this series is written with those kinds of people in mind so if you’re one of them and don’t mind the slower pace, then trust me when I say that the series is worth a read.
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
