As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I’ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World Volume 1 (Light Novel) Review

Early last year I reviewed the first volume of the As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I’ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World manga adaptation. Now more than a year on, the anime has begun airing, so what better time to take a look at the original light novel? 

The story begins as many of these titles do with an unnamed salaryman dying and finding himself reborn in a fantasy world. In this new life, our protagonist is known as Ars Louvent, who has been born to an aristocratic household. Although he lacks physical strength (and magic, we later find out), he has a skill that allows him to see the value of those around him! Ars’s skill is known as Appraisal and once used, he sees the base and maximum stats of those around him reflected as a numerical value and aptitudes for various weapons and military skills, which are ranked with a grade from E to S (S being the absolute best). 

Being born into a noble family comes with plenty of responsibility. At the beginning of this volume Ars is only three years old, but thanks to being reborn and having his past-life memories he’s much more mature than your average child and is constantly thinking of ways to help protect his home. This is especially important when his family’s domain lies within the Summerforth Empire, which is quickly headed toward ruin, thanks to a civil war brewing. 

Both due to being a child and his lack of skill in fighting, Ars knows he can’t lead soldiers in battle like his father nor handle any political conversations but what he can do is make sure their current retainers are training with weapons they’re skilled in and use his Appraisal skill to recruit new talent. The first of these is Rietz Muses, a 14-year-old boy from an overseas region whose people are looked down upon and sold as slaves in Summerforth. 

Rietz formally belonged to a mercenary group that split up after a difficult mission went poorly. Now he’s been left to wander the country, struggling to find anywhere to belong due to discrimination for being a Malkan. Nevertheless, Ars’s skill tells him that Rietz has the potential to be truly incredible and he convinces the young boy to come back to his home where he quickly asks his father to make him a retainer. Unsurprisingly, Ars’s father isn’t thrilled by the idea but having seen Ars’s talent for being able to judge the abilities of others, he agrees to take on Rietz so long as he can land a single hit in a duel. 

Back when I reviewed the manga, Volume 1 ended not long after the duel between Rietz and Ars’s father, but here in the source material that’s only Chapter 1 of the 6 included! Needless to say, Rietz does end up being recruited and thereafter Ars is allowed significantly more freedom when it comes to seeking out talented individuals to work for the Louvent family. The rest of the book shows Ars finding people to join him as well as preparing for any hardships that look like they’re coming their way. 

This is a book that comes in at just over 300 pages, so perhaps it’ll come as no surprise to hear that there are some time skips during the story. By the end of Volume 1 Ars is no longer a 3-year-old and is instead now 11. Throughout the book, author Miraijin A does a good job of choosing snippets of Ars’s childhood to show us, usually when he’s meeting a significant character or something important to the world-building set-up. It never feels like we spend too long in any particular age range and I was happy once Ars reached his preteens since that felt more fitting to the way he conducted himself. Due to his past life, it was simply too unbelievable to have him walking around as a 3-year-old holding important conversations with those around him. 

I also appreciate that this is not your average ‘overpowered main character’ isekai. Ars may have a skill, but he’s not the only one in the world with one and he quickly comes to understand that while his ability is helpful, he also needs to figure out how to nurture someone’s talent for them to become the best they can be. He’s humbled several times throughout this volume by seeing problems that he just can’t solve right now or showing him that he needs to depend on those around him for help to resolve an issue. In many ways, it reminds me of How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom which is a similar situation of the protagonist not being particularly skilled in fighting, but with the help of those around him can improve the land he rules over tremendously. 

In the afterword Miraijin A talks about coming up with the idea for this series based on a video game where you chose units based on their stats. If you’re someone who enjoys strategy games, then you’ll get a lot of enjoyment out of watching Ars build up his team of retainers. There are action scenes in this book, but overall it’s quite slow and spends a lot of time developing the characters or the political landscape of the world which may cause some to bounce off it (particularly due to the length of Volume 1). However, if you’re looking for that kind of story, then this will scratch that itch. 

As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I’ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World Volume 1 comes to the West thanks to Kodansha under their Vertical imprint. It has been translated by Tristan K. Hill, who doesn’t handle the manga (that’s Stephen Paul), but keeps all the terminology and character names the same which is always a relief. This release comes complete with colour pages by illustrator jimmy which depict various members of the cast going about their daily lives. 

The series is still ongoing in Japan with six volumes currently available. Here in English Kodansha has gotten up to Volume 4 as of February with #5 following in June. As mentioned, Kodansha also releases the manga version, which is up to nine volumes in print at the time of writing. There is also an ongoing anime which is available to stream on Crunchyroll. 

Overall As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I’ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World’s first volume offers us an interesting kingdom builder with a reasonably grounded protagonist. If you’re looking for a slower read that puts emphasis on developing the world and cast, then you’ll certainly get a lot out of this. At the very least it’s refreshing to have a story where our lead can’t just magic away all of his problems and instead has to earnestly work toward his goals.

Our review copy from Kodansha was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).