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Uncle From Another World is an interesting series. It’s a story of a guy who was a fish out of water in the Isekai world and now that is he back after 17 years is a fish out of water again. Having to navigate a modern day society and its technological advances with only his nephew by his side. What does he do to provide for himself you ask? Becomes a YouTuber of course to spread his love for Sega!


UFAW is a light hearted comedy similar in vein to Konosuba. Both MCs go on whacky adventures and have zany encounters with other people. The ... differences between the two really show themselves right away as UFAW has a fairly melancholic undertone to it. The MC (Uncle) was treated rather harshly by most of the denizens of Granbahamal (the Isekai world), that sometimes reflects upon the few people who try to forge bonds with him. Partly because of his denseness and the way he had been treated, he has developed a fear of persecution and a few insecurities. This will sometimes cause him to break potential friendships and possible romances without realizing it.


The Isekai story is told in an interesting way, we see his adventures in the past tense. He has magic that allows him to show his memories in a “YouTube” style interface with pausing, playing, and fast forwarding/skipping ahead. Overtime his Isekai adventures become a watch party where the nephew and friend watch/react to the antics Uncle gets into. This also allows for commentary that leads to revelations for things Uncle never thought of. Specifically for his magic powers and situations involving people he meets there.


The art in this series starts off rather rough looking, it looked like sketches in a notebook for someone practicing drawing. The art has improved a lot as the series has progressed. Characters started looking more refined and the author looked as if they were perfecting their style as the story went on. In the later arcs the author even started incorporating some nicely done action heavy chapters. One of the things the author excels at is the wide range of expression he gives the characters. One scene may have a character with an adorable expression and the next scene a disturbingly funny one. However the author still has trouble when it comes to drawing backgrounds such as scenery and buildings. The authors strengths definitely lie with the character art itself.


There seems to be some amount of depth to the story as well. Things Uncle has mentioned/shown as early as the beginning of the story has had relevance 50 chapters in. Hints towards future events, slow gradual build up of the magic systems and how it works, things about Elven culture, stories about other transmigrators who came before Uncle, and even stuff about Uncle/Takafumis family life before Uncle was isekai’d. Paying attention to the story and what Uncle says is pretty interesting, one off statements from him about Granbahamal or his life in general may have future relevance. For a somewhat cringey comedy Isekai there seems to be a good amount thought put into the story so far.


I mentioned a melancholic undertone when talking about the comedy earlier. The story tends to be unclear when it pertains things that happened to him especially because of his memory wiping magic. Every so often it feels the story projects a sense of tragedy, usually when Uncle thinks back on some aspects of his life in Granbahamal and the people he left behind there. Guess we’ll have to see how the story unfolds to know for sure.

UFAW does have some cons though.

Pacing: The pace of the story is a pretty slow one. I’m not sure if that’s because it’s a monthly series or if that’s just the way the story is structured. This is the type of series that feels better read in bulk after chapters have piled up.


Comedy: Some aspects of the humour can either be frustrating or repetitive. The jokes of Uncle being dense and being completely oblivious to feelings some characters develop for him. He wasn’t big into anime/manga (although did partake in some) and was mostly a gamer. He doesn’t know character archetypes like a Tsundere, with the joke being that he was isekai’d before Tsunderes were more mainstream/popular. Also the more Sega specific trivia jokes tend to go over my head. The repetitive humour has been toned down in the recent arcs but it’s still there. Comedy as they say is highly subjective so this may not be a bother to some.


Earth Stories: The Isekai portion of UFAW takes up a large part of the story. It would be interesting to see more of Uncle trying to navigate his way through modern day Japan. The overall mystery to the story is how Uncle came back to Earth so it’s understandable. Would still be nice to see more Earth related stories in the future.


Ecchi/Perverted Content: UFAW does have sexual content in it. However it isn’t in the amount you see in most series. You won’t see the usual stuff like underwear shots, bouncy things (you know what I mean), or characters wearing over the top skimpy outfits to show off “the goods” so to speak. Although there is some gratuitous content and nudity in it that may make some uncomfortable. If this was a 1-10 scale with 1 being nonexistent and 10 being absurd, I think a 6.5 would probably be a good place. It doesn’t bother me personally but I thought I’d put this out there for those it may bother.


All in all I believe so far this is a great Isekai series. It has an interesting story, fun characters, some great jokes, and a good ongoing mystery involving how Uncle came back and what happened to the friends he left behind. UFAW may not be an objective masterpiece but it does a lot that make it very fun. I’m very interested to see how the series progresses in the future.