I’m Quitting Heroing Volume 1 Review
Readers may remember I’m Quitting Heroing due to its anime adaptation early last year. Today I’m here to check out the manga adaptation brought to the West thanks to Yen Press. Does it deliver an entertaining read? Let’s find out!
Our story follows Leo, a hero who defeated the Demon Lord and brought peace to the human world. However, now he’s feared by the humans because of his power and finds himself with no place to call home. Forsaken by humanity, Leo decides to head to the Demon King’s Army which is in desperate need of help after his attack and will surely have work for him to do, right?
When Leo gets an audience with the Demon Lord Echidna, he wastes no time in explaining how he could help rebuild the army and restore the castle to its former glory. Naturally, Echidna isn’t fond of taking on the one who caused all of her problems in the first place, so she quickly rejects his application and kicks him out.
However, unbeknownst to Echidna, her Elite Four generals Shutina, Lili, Mernes and Edvard see the value in Leo’s offer and invite him to join them on a trial basis – as long as Echidna doesn’t find out. Having gotten himself employed, Leo hopes to have a relatively relaxed time living at the castle but his hopes are quickly dashed when he realises that Shutina is the only one with any idea how to run an army!
Leo soon steps in to take some of the burdens off Shutina. After some quick fixes around the castle, his next task is to figure out why food and equipment supplies are constantly running low. Unfortunately, this is because Lili has been put in charge and her proposal instructs everyone to have fun together rather than ensuring the work is done.
Having fought all of the Elite Four before, Leo already has a good grasp of their personalities and Lili is the one who worries him the most. She’s a beastman with the ability to turn into a Fenrir, plenty powerful in a fight but she has a carefree childlike attitude when it comes to anything else. Luckily for Leo, she’s open to his suggestions, but she’s still a handful for our protagonist. As is the rest of the Elite Four besides Shutina…
As you may have gathered from reading this far, I’m Quitting Heroing is more kingdom-builder than action series. Although the initial set-up makes it clear the demons are seen as the bad guys in this world, as we get to know them through Leo, it becomes clear there is a lot more to this and perhaps neither side is truly good nor evil.
This manga is based on a three-volume light novel series by author Quantum (available in English digitally through Kadokawa). Because of that, like a lot of light novels turned manga, it doesn’t feel as if we achieve much in Volume 1 besides setting up the cast. The art by Nori Kazato doesn’t bring a lot to the table either, as while it’s not bad, it often feels flat and crammed in around all the speech bubbles.
Perhaps it doesn’t help that Leo’s design is generic and with little in the way of shading, he doesn’t stand out at all, despite being the protagonist. He’s just flat. Most of all, I’m just disappointed that the action scenes weren’t given some bigger panels, instead of also being held back by how much text is squeezed into these pages. Some of the dialogue and exposition definitely could have been cut back further to make the manga flow better.
As previously mentioned, I’m Quitting Heroing Volume 1 comes to the West thanks to Yen Press. This volume has had a previous release by Kadokawa (since taken down) and they continue to sell individual chapters as well as ‘digital exclusive volumes’, which are set to be replaced slowly by the new Yen Press editions.
This release retains the translation from Kadokawa (handled by Aiko Funabashi credited to agency Lupin Inc.) but has been newly edited by the Yen Press team and lettered by Rachel J. Pierce. Thanks to having a new editing pass and better lettering, this certainly feels like a superior product compared to what was on the market beforehand. Now fingers are crossed that Yen Press will also pick up the light novel version…
The manga is ongoing in Japan with 7 volumes, whereas here in English Yen Press has #2 scheduled for a release in April with #3 following in August.
Overall, I’m Quitting Heroing Volume 1 gets off to an okay start but like a lot of manga based on light novels it has some issues that make it hard to recommend, compared to the anime or light novel versions. It’s certainly not a bad companion to the two, but newcomers to the franchise would be better off not starting here.
