Title: In Another World with My Smartphone Vol. 4
Author: Patora Fuyuhara (Story), Soto (Art)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144
Genre: Isekai, Fantasy
Publication Date: February 8, 2022
The Story
The fourth volume of In Another World with My Smartphone sees Touya get rewarded with a title of nobility which he, not surprisingly, refuses. Rather than take the title, he is given a generous amount of gold coins as well as a mansion to live in. The mansion was clearly meant for himself and Yumiya; however, Touya wants everyone to stay there with him, thus adding another layer onto his perfect harem!
They come to the realization that the house is just too big to maintain themselves so a few calls later and they suddenly find themselves with a butler, two maids, a gardener, a cook, and two guards! Just as this whirlwind of a life change begins to wind down, Sue and Duke Ortlinde arrive to welcome them to the neighborhood! However, instead of bringing peach cobbler as a welcoming gift, they end up asking Touya for a favor.
They have entered into a partnership with the neighboring land of Mismede and it is customary for both rulers to meet. To avoid any attacks, opposition, or anything else, they want to make use of Touya’s Gate spell to get the king there safely but in order for Touya to use Gate, he has to have visited the place he’s teleporting to first so… that means we’re on a journey to Mismede and I’ll leave it at that for you to discover how the journey is progressing as it takes up the entire back half of the manga.
I will say one thing, though. Touya even gets something of high ranking to kneel to him which garnered a pretty good chuckle out of me!
Characters
Tons of new characters were added to this volume. There’s Rime who is their new butler, a former servant of the king himself, Lapis and Cecil, their newfound maids, Hulio the gardener and his wife Claire who is the cook, Thomas, and Hawk who will guard the mansion, as well as Garn and Lyon… those who will guard Touya and the others on their journey to Mismede.
We don’t really spend much time with a bulk of these new characters; however, Rime seems to be your typical respectful and loyal butler. Garn and Lyon are both friendly but have their own nuances about them. Garn seems more like the friendly, yet, tough guard that you can rely on to have your back in a fight while Lyon is more of a noble fighter who will fulfill his duty no matter what… plus he has a crush on Olga!
Since Garn and Lyon are on this journey, I’m sure we’ll spend some more time with them in the next volume but Lyon was given the most attention as this little side story with his crush on Olga taking center stage in this volume.
Touya, on the other hand, is still playing the part of the noble harem leader. Unlike other harem protagonists, he’s keenly aware that everyone is in love with him. Heck, they constantly remind him on a daily basis of that! Touya is just too pure for his own good as he resists temptation at every turn despite knowing all of their goals. I feel that he has to be this way otherwise his entire group would descend into a love-infused chaos! Plus, I feel as if he’ll end up choosing one of them at some point and can see this as a way for him to just ease into that eventual decision.
Final Word
This volume seemed a bit like filler but good filler. It was just like Touya to refuse a title of nobility only to end up getting rewarded handsomely anyway. Our cast expanded by leaps and bounds but a lot of these seem like one-off characters or ones that will be kept on the back burner until they’re actually needed but that’s fine. Every story needs a supporting cast and with most of the supporting characters tagging along with the main character all of the time, minor characters such as these are needed.
It only seems as if Garn and Lyon will have some sort of a bigger role… a least for this journey to Mismede arc. I do expect them to depart at the end of it only to conveniently show back up later on in the story when Touya is in a pinch. Characters such as those seem like they are built for that kind of role.
While the plot didn’t move forward much, we have a goal for this next arc and we happened to get some great action mixed in towards the end to help spice this volume up a bit. Also, we got a use out of the smartphone gimmick in this series! For a series that is based around a guy getting isekai’d to another world with his smartphone, it’s not really used all that much but this volume showed why. The smartphone is super overpowered! You’ll see what I mean when you read it!
Can’t wait to see the rest of the journey to Mismede and the eventual plot twist when both kings come together to meet. Come on… Do you actually expect this meeting to go off without a hitch!? Let’s see what happens! (In before I do my next review where I have to say that nothing happened.)
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
