OK, it's time to shake off the holiday hangover, look forward to my birthday at the end of the month and enjoy another month of Dealer's Choice reviews. There's no theme connecting these reviews beyond "I want to talk about them," and we're starting with another lady-led slow life kind of isekai book.
THE SAINT'S MAGIC POWER IS OMNIPOTENT (Seijo no Maryoku ha Banno Desu), based on the light novels by Yuka Tachibana and character designs by Yasuyuki Syuri, with art by Fujiazuki. First published in 2018 and first published in North America in 2020.
PLOT:
Sei was just another overworked office drone coming home to an empty apartment when all of a sudden she was transported to another world alongside an unknown teen girl. While the teen girl was whisked off to become the destined Saint of legend, Sei was left to her own devices. A trip through the castle gardens leads her to the Royal Research Institute, where Sei turns out to have a knack for potion-making. She soon finds herself applying her skills in all sorts of new directions, winning over not just her fellow researchers but also the hunky captain of the royal guard.
STORY:
In theory, I should really like The Saint's Magic Power Is Omnipotent. It's got the sort of pleasant, slow-life style of isekai storytelling that I find myself preferring these days. It stars a god-to-honest adult woman, one who is treated (mostly) with respect and dignity. If only the writer felt the same way about their readers.
Even in a story not starring a Potato-kun or explicitly set in a video game, we can't seem to get away from gamer stats in isekai. Sei's skills are quantified as video game-style levels on a menu she can magically pull up, transforming all her efforts into mere repetitive grinding. It doesn't help that the more she innovates, the more it feels like the writer is patronizing her and the reader. I'm used to isekai stories making a big deal about the protagonists introducing common Japanese dishes or cooking techniques to their fantasy worlds, but it was almost laughable to see everyone around Sei freaking out for innovating the concept of...cooking food with medicinal herbs or stockpiling and selling health potions for the royal forces. She's meant to be surrounded by some of the best magical and medical minds of the kingdom, but things like this make them all look like ninnies.
This first volume covers a fair bit of ground, and it mostly does that by having Sei narrate and exposit over a number of small timeskips. It's not the worst way to deal with this sort of tedious, wordy worldbuilding, but they did become these sort of odd little hiccups that threw off the momentum and mood of the piece. Thankfully, these do fade away as Sei establishes herself at the institute and becomes more active in her own story. That being said, I do wish she was given a little more time to reflect on her previous life. She's transported literally on the first page, so we get very little sense of what her life was like beforehand. The most we get are hints of a life that was stressful, lonely, and largely anonymous.
I can only hope that as the story progresses that maybe the romantic subplot will make up for the failings of the rest. Perhaps not surprisingly, the handsome captain who was literally saved from the brink of death by Sei's super-powered health potions is now smitten with his savior. Meanwhile, Sei is mostly kind of baffled by his attentions, having never had the time nor the headspace to consider romance. It's a decent foundation for a romance, but I do wish that there was a bit more spice to their scenes together. I do wish it didn't involve the usual 'oh, you're so much prettier without your glasses' set-up. Yes, the implication is that Sei's vision is improving through magic and that the lack of stress in her life is improving both her outlook and her complexion, but it's a distressingly common and annoying cliche that really didn't need to be replicated here.
ART:
Once again, I have found one of the rare instances where the manga art improves upon the light novel illustrations. Yasuyuki's Syuri's art for the light novels is alright, but the way they draw faces makes Sei and the rest of the cast look childish and vacant. In comparison, Fujiazuki's take on them makes everyone look a little more age-appropriate and puts some life and intelligence into their faces. It's not quite enough to save the ho-hum character designs or inject some beauty into the scenery of the story or the paneling of the volume, but it's still a step above your typical light-novel-to-manga adaptation.
RATING:
This series is published by Seven Seas. This series is ongoing in Japan with 8 volumes available. 6 volumes have been released and are currently in print.
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