Isekai Kokka Alchimaira: Saijaku no Ou to Musou no Gunzei
Different World Alchimaira: The Weakest King and Matchless Army

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I caught up on the latest translated chapter today.
It's a bummer it ended so prematurely, though health reasons in the Manga world have been common for a while now.

In a nutshell, this manga is very similar to OverLord regarding concept, setup, characters, etc.
With a handful of chapters, they are filled with passion and resolve most series are not capable of delivering.

I was starting to get used to the story even if the MC wasn't as capable as I thought.
At a mere 13 chapters, there isn't much to say; the MC is still inexperienced with his kingdom.
This could have been implemented better as it's very slow ... for the first several sets of chapters.
Likewise, the potential was there, it could have been better, but let's just leave it at that.

7.2/10


I’ll state the obvious: This manga is basically “Overlord” with a weak mc, and I don’t hate it, but I also don’t love it. Because of the blatant stolen concept, it’s a bit hard to not compare the stories, so I’ll do just that.

Well, before comparing the two, let’s get a simple idea on why “Overlord” is so beloved in the community and is no less than the pinnacle of a nation isekai story.

Overlord has good, strong characters that are unique and get balanced with loads of humor, making them more lovable the more they are on screen.
The world-building is unique and has ... honestly some of the best writing ever.
Most importantly, the mc is a misunderstood, op mc who balances the story well by acknowledging his circumstances and doing whatever is necessary to maintain his order.

Now that I’m done glazing “Overlord,” let’s see what we have here:
A mc with less balls than last time — in other words, living a good-guy mantra that will surely not bite him in the @ss one day (it has).
Characters that lack those lovable traits or small details, which you don’t really notice until you’ve seen something of a higher quality — in this case, “Overlord.”
The plot is actually alright; there are some surprises here and there that make for unexpected developments, but a lot of the content has, unfortunately, been a lesser version of “Overlord.”

Putting all that aside, the story is not horrible, as the writing for some characters is decent; however, there are just others that have no substance or act absurdly unnatural, which does ruin a lot of the mystique in world-building.

You could either read this to satisfy your craving of “Overlord,” since by concept alone, the plot shouldn’t disappoint or quite literally just go watch “Overlord” again (God knows I’ve watched that anime too many times.) I’ll probably do both.

Reading Rankings (Portnoy inspired + A Huang-Teizan Original)
10 - God’s penmanship
9 - Must-read. Drop everything else.
8 - Instant bookmark
7 - Entertaining
6 - Good to pass time
5 - Why are you reading this?
4 - Bad.
3 - Typical garbage.
2 - My head hurts.
1 - Retirement is a thought.
0 - “Did they even give you a story?!”

Hmmm..... Well it's difficult.

After seeing the premise which was oddly similar to one of the better established anime and ln series Overlord, I was sold. Not only it draws inspiration from my one of the, if not the, favorite isekai genre anime but it was apparently good too. At least it was told to be.

The premise was a blend of the starting seconds from Overlord with a little tang of originality. It was obvious considering the whole kingdom shifting thingy and he having several army generals. So I was weirdly delighted that I get to enjoy this as a pastime instead of endlessly waiting for ... another season of Overlord. And all the comments referring to this anime like this is the next Overlord only upped my standards.

And then I read the first chapter. And I liked it. Yeah. Which really made me believe that maybe it is the next thing. But as I continuously progressed through the story I saw more and more and more clichés. Predictable story which gave birth to uninteresting villains. Don't tell me someone couldn't have thought that the village is going to get attacked once the half elf showed her village. And the overused - "Elves are superior and Half elves are inferior which results into war" and with Hero as usual siding with the half elves. Something different could have been produced out of it but no one is willing to take leap of faith to instill some creativity.

It just lost its shines after the 1st chapter for me. It looked like the author tried to do something different but was afraid to do so. It appears to be behind this vast shadow cast by Overlord trying to make its way out. And people comparing this constantly with Overlord with some people even considering it to be the "better" one certainly did not help.

The art was simply horrible. And I do not have high standards whatsoever. But apparently the artist was lazy enough to only draw faces where there was only one character in the panel and completely left off areas where there were two or more than two faces in the panel. Some can say this can be an artistic choice but it came off as lazy to me.

The thing which surprised me were not so bad character designs. I mean what made me like the 1st chapter was the character designs of the side characters. Majority of the side characters were devoid of fanservice which I liked. I hate seeing good characters being used as a tool of moe.

There are glimpses in manga here and there showing what it can do if done right but that shine of hope fades too fast. At the end the manga failed to hit the strike zone, at least for me. And I really wanted to like it too, but it's just unfortunate.

But I definitely will continue to read it seeing if I can suck any more enjoyment out of it or it was just seawater advertised as lemonade.