Isekai Mahou wa Okureteru!
The Magic in this Other World Is Too Far Behind!

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This is my second review for an isekai light novel. I am keeping it spoiler free, so you can decide if you want to read this light novel or not after checking out the review.

Story-9/10
The story is pretty interesting. It starts out like the usual summoning and stuff, but the depth after it is quite nice. The protagonist does not get side tracked from his main task which is pretty good. Also the author gives some significance to the side character story as well, which makes it more interesting.

Art-9/10
The art for a light novel is less as usual, but it is pretty detailed ... which is quite good.

Character-8/10
The character development is alright. The emotional scenes between each character seemed quite deep which I liked.

Enjoyment- 10/10
When reading the action scenes, I was getting goosebumps. It was pretty intense. Some of the emotional scenes might make you want to read it again. Also the author has used some in depth magic system which is interesting to read. The magic used has a meaning behind it which makes the light novel quite deep.

Overall-9/10
I enjoyed reading this light novel. I read up to volume 8 and found it interesting until that volume. Looking forward to upcoming volumes. Also if you want to start reading light novels and need one to start off, you can try this one out. It is a fun read.




If you need more details regarding this light novel or other recommendations, feel free to send a message.

Minor spoilers for the prologue.

Protagonist guy gets summoned into another world with his friends: a girl (which name I forgot) and Reiji. But there's a twist. Suimei (protag-kun) actually already knows magic. In their original world (earth, supposedly our world) magic exists, and protag-kun is a "modern magician", and thus he starts to investigate the magic in this foreign world and found that the magic in this world, is less developed, and consequently, inferior (hence, the title of this novel). Oh, and the summoners told them that some evil dudes are trying to conquer their world or whatever and ask them to save their world. ... Reiji, the absolute gigachad that he is, accepts the quest, the other girl (who's having a crush on Reiji) also accepts because she wants to follow Reiji (or whatever I forgot). But our protag-kun, denies the request, his reason is that he has no obligation to save them, and the fact that they are outrageous and cruel enough to summon him without consent, and basically draft him to a war, doesn't help.

With the synopsis out of the way, here's my take on this:

The characters are nothing special, but to be fair some are decent. Although I called our protagonist a turbo-virgin, I don't actually hate him. He's fine, as long as an isekai protagonist goes.

The illustrations are actually good. The characters and environments look detailed. As far as I can see, there's no complain to be had.

The only thing that I don't like is how OP the MC is, considering his only advantage is his "modern magic", even though he said that he was just average in terms of talent in his original world. Yes, having more knowledge of magic would be a significant advantage, but not THIS significant. I feel like this fact has become a scapegoat for everything that the MC does. How did he beat one of the most elite magician the kingdom has to offer? Modern magic. How did he beat thousands of demons by essentially himself? Modern magic. How did he cure depression, end world hunger, invent erection, beat the CEO of racism, and enlarge penises? Modern magic. You get the idea. The novel sometimes acknowledges this fact, but just acknowledging doesn't fix the problem. Perhaps this is just me nitpicking, since I wouldn't consider this as a plothole, but it still bothers me either way.

Other thing that I don't like is how whimsical the MC is, sometimes even acting hypocritical. It's like the author is confused as to how to balance his edginess. Sometimes the MC explains why he did something that seemingly contradicts his character, but those explanations isn't the most convincing. But perhaps this is just my taste, and not an objectively bad aspect of this novel. So take this with a grain of salt.

Other than that, what does this novel offer?
- Dense and edgy MC (like, the kind that a middleschooler will think as cool).
- Harem featuring two lolis (don't worry, one of them is legal).
- Pretty good action scenes.
- Somewhat emotional scenes.

In summary, if you are looking the run-of-the-mill harem isekai with an edgy OP MC beating everybody's asses, then this will serve you well. Other than that, yeah you will probably find something you like, but nothing too considerable. 5/10.

Note: Dropped after reading ~1.2 volumes.

In one word, this LN is exhasperating. The author is trying way too hard but without giving it any substance. The story tries to incorporate meta-elements, where for example, the characters discuss their possibilities as related to existing in-world Isekai LNs, without going anywhere with it. In fact, this gives more the impression that he doesn't dare move outside the box since every scenario that happens is in line with the Isekai LNs. And indeed, he almost immediately designates the stereotypical tropes to all characters, e.g. the dense hero/MC, bashful tsundere love interest, the hero's 'rivals' as personality trait, etc.

The ... format of the novel is something like:

> MC: *Does something completely unnecessary and knowingly over-the-top*
> Character A: "OMG how did you do that"
*2 pages of nonsense jargon narration 'wow I was simply using the basic Teichmüller-Mochizuki theory of Kabbalah spaces as discovered in the secret Sanskrit spheres of 14th century Indo-Europe' blah blah*
> Character B: "No... that's impossible"
*2 more pages of jargon interlaced with stories of his intergalactic Earth-Church battles*
> MC: "It is incredibly important to me (for some inexplicable reason) that no one learns about how OP I am, I will now wipe your memories"
*2 more pages of memory-wipe jargon and how it was impossible to not know he was being over the top*


Further, the MC does things that are inherently opposite to his intention, and also, jumps through hoops to explain his inexplicable actions. For instance, he doesn't want his Earth-friends nor the Isekai-people to learn that he can use magic. For some reason, however, it is beyond his grasp to pretend to learn together with them despite it being a completely normal possibility and instead his long-term plan seems to be to never show that he can use magic (???). The other 'normie' in the group already learned magic in a week so it doesn't make sense. Further, he doesn't want to stand out in the Isekai-world with his magic, so instead of just performing covert actions (which he is clearly capable of doing), he leads on and demonstrates his full powers whenever he can, then forms contracts or brainwashing to cover his tracks, only to then actually let people still know about it (???).

In short, this LN does nothing new, and reads like yet another chuunibyou fantasy.