Title: The New Gate Vol. 1
Author: Yoshiyuki Miwa (Manga Adaptation), Shinogi Kazanami (Original Story)
Publisher: One Peace Books
Language: English
Format: Digital
Pages: 103
Genre: Isekai, Fantasy, Adventure
Publication Date: April 16, 2020
The Story
The New Gate is a brand-new manga adaptation from One Peace Book and Yoshiyuki Miwa. Miwa is adapting the original story of Shinogi Kazanami into a manga format.
The story centers around Shin who is one of The Six… a group of High Humans who were trapped inside of a virtual reality MMORPG. Defeating the final boss would grant everyone trapped in the game their freedom. Shin ends up defeating the boss, named Origin and grants everyone the ability to logout. Shin watches his friends logout one by one by monitoring their status on his friends list. When all of them are safely gone, he is about to logout himself when, suddenly, a gate opens and Shin is pulled into it. Shin finds himself trapped in a world based on the game he was playing, but 500 years in the future!
Since he defeated Origin, he received some new titles and a new ability to break the skill point cap which puts his character into God mode. The series even pokes fun at this by saying “game-breaking abilities are par for the course in these stories…” They even mentioned that getting transported to another world is a common story in anime and manga. Nice fourth-wall-breaking humor there!
Shin uses an item that leads him back “home.” There, he runs into a shopkeeper named Tiera who is an elf cursed with black hair. Shin uses Purify on her and removes her curse. She is so overjoyed that she gives him a letter of recommendation which gets him treated as if she were a noble when entering the city. There, he joins a guild as an adventurer and begins to learn about the world he was transported to; however, suspicions begin to arise… especially when a council is called to discuss the appearance of a high-level skullface jack that was single-handedly defeated by Shin.
The volume ends when an orphan named Millie comes up to Shin and wants some of his meat skewer. After he gives it to him, Wilhelm the Vampire, someone Shin met at an eatery, shows up to take her back to the church. Before Millie leaves, she asks for Shin’s help in a matter not yet revealed.
The story started off in a way where I was ready to lambaste it for blatantly ripping off Sword Art Online but when the series pokes fun at it, you kind of get the idea of why the did so. The series then transforms into something that resembles Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody in the sense that the character is obscenely overpowered and is doing his best to hide it to not draw suspicion and that the main character’s first objective is to learn everything he can about the world. So far, this seems to differentiate itself from Death March by not going the slice-of-life in a fantasy isekai route. It seems to be sticking more to the fantasy side of things by keeping things fresh.
While the story does seem a bit on the generic side for a fantasy isekai, more often than not, simple is best. It was easy to follow along with what was happening and the information about the world itself was highly interesting. Plus, you got to experience just what happens to a world once something like Sword Art Online is properly defeated. How would the game’s inhabitants react when an entire species just suddenly disappear? What kind of impact does that have on the history of the world? Those answers are actually found here in this series and it’s a nice way of looking at a subject that not many people really think about.
The story, so far, is quaint and has a lot of interesting things going for it. Right now, we are in the world-building phase and it looks as if volume two will begin to build up conflict as any good second volume should.
Characters
Shin, our main character, is about as plain as they come. He’s not timid or shy like a lot of main characters but there isn’t really anything that makes him stand out from other protagonists in similar series. He does have a bit of a reserved perverted side to him but he’s your typical well-mannered, “means well” main character who just so happens to be obscenely overpowered. He’s cautious about it to a certain degree but not too cautious as he outright claimed to beat a LVL 359 undead monster all by himself despite being Rank G… the lowest rank of adventurer. This is contradictory to the fact that he blatantly lied about beating the monster to his guild master just a few pages before. That kind of confused me but it also makes me wonder just how cautious is he really trying to be here? That would be my only complaint about Shin.
Tiera was pretty cool but it was a bit saddening to know that she was just a side character…. For now, I hope. She offered up so much information about the world and was even thankful to Shin for lifting her curse that I would have sworn she would have left the shop and joined him in a party or something. Maybe something like that is still to come but for now, we just get to know her as an elf of prominence manning a shop. Still, I liked her personality and thought that she would have made for a solid secondary main character. There’s still time, though but we’ll see.
Celica and Cilica… don’t try to get confused… are twins who assist the guild… and work at eateries… and serve as hostesses… and have this power to change their clothes on a moment’s notice, apparently. So far, they’re pretty entertaining. They provide a bit of comic relief but they’re also very supportive to the main character as well. As support characters, they’re doing their job and their hijinks are refreshing!
Els is Celica and Cilica’s superior at the guild and someone who has known Tiera since their time in their home village. She spent fifty years looking for a cure to Tiera’s curse so she is indebted to Shin for being able to remove it for her. Els seems to be a good ally for Shin as she has some pull around the guild, albeit not too much.
Barlux is the guild master and he personally welcomes Shin to the guild… by challenging him to a duel. Shin is able to defeat Barlux which earns his respect. He hopes that Shin could be useful to the guild in some capacity. We also see Barlux taking part in the council meeting at the end of the volume. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders but it seems he takes a little bit too much pride in his strength. He’s the kind of guy who likes to talk with his fists but he doesn’t seem unreasonable or drunk with power like some characters of this archetype. For a guild leader, I’d say he’s pretty balanced. I know I enjoyed the character.
Finally, we meet Wilhelm the Vampire. He’s called that because of his legendary weapon called Venom… a spear that can steal the lifeforce from his foes and give it to himself. Wilhelm is surprised that Shin didn’t quiver at the sound of his name. In fact, the two of them kind of take a liking to each other. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are friends, I would say there is a bit of a silent acknowledgment between them. It looks like Wilhelm will be sticking around for a while so I would think that he would be a candidate to join Shin’s party at some point in the future… probably as soon as the next volume.
Final Thoughts
As I said earlier, the story is rather generic. An overpowered main character gets sucked into an isekai within an isekai and has to learn about the world and figure out what’s going on. We’ve seen this kind of story before but despite it being nothing new, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t find it interesting nor entertaining. I felt everything was well-balanced and the characters were all likable in their own sort of ways. I know that you are kind of pigeon-holed into certain character archetypes in this kind of a setting so if you’ve seen a character like the ones in The New Gate before, then don’t act surprised because there is only so much that you can do with a fantasy setting.
Still, it’s how those archetypes are used which bring entertainment to the world. This world is certainly lively and you get a good sense of a certain amount of community within it. Shopkeeps knowing other shopkeeps, people of status, all of it is intertwined where a simple recommendation from someone can greatly alter your appearance to others.
As long as The New Gate can continue on this path and keep things as they are, this should be a rather enjoyable fantasy series. Of course, the end goal, much like any other isekai, is to get back to your own world but unlike a lot of isekai, this one seems more content with just learning about the world rather than finding a way out of it. That is a bit refreshing because it lets the reader absorb themselves into the story while not insulting their intelligence. What I mean by that is everyone knows escaping the world is the real end goal. It’s been stated so many times in other series that it’s pretty much a given at this point. Why state the obvious to the reader when you can just let them get absorbed in this world alongside the main character?
That’s what The New Gate does. It allows you to become part of this world and learn about it alongside Shin. So far, the world is pretty interesting. Then again, I’m a sucker for fantasy stories and this one is no exception!
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This item was provided for review by One Peace Books
