Miss Savage Fang: The Strongest Mercenary in History Is Reincarnated as an Unstoppable Noblewoman (Manga) Volume 1
Envil is an infamous mercenary known as the ‘Savage Fang’, who is notorious for not using magic in a world where wars are waged over who’s the strongest. The ruthless queen, Mylene, also known as ‘God’s Gift’, due to her silver hair with red tips, terrorized the world with her unmatched powers. When she was eventually overthrown by her subjects revolting against her, Envil dies before seeing her executed. But instead of passing on, he wakes up not only in Mylene’s body, but also several years in the past, with memories of the future intact. Now with a chance to prevent wars, Envil uses Mylene’s influence and power to live his best life, but it’s not long before Mylene’s newfound love for combat catches attention from outside the kingdom.
This manga is an adaptation of a light novel of the same name (both published by Yen Press) and is being released mere months after the first volume of the light novel came out, so whether you’re reading one or the other, there’s not too much of a divide between the two in terms of timing or how far behind you’ll be if you choose to stick to the manga. Both versions are still ongoing at the time of this review, so there’s lot of story to read, should you be inclined to do so.
The story itself is a mixed bag in terms of tone: the first third of the book takes place in the ‘bad future’, where Envil spends his days battling Mylene’s forces one day to the next, until she’s eventually captured and sent to the gallows. Only for a neighbouring kingdom to tear their way through Envil and his fellow peasants who fought for their freedom, resulting in Envil’s death. The language used in this section (with noblemen using large words such as ‘esteemed’ and ‘plebian’) and imagery from bloody sword combat to a brief flashback to Envil’s orphanage being destroyed, really paint a grim future. Unfortunately, it does its job a touch too well. Going back into the past, we find Envil is now in Mylene’s body, but still swearing left right and centre, with shots of him not sitting in graceful positions in fluffy dresses, fumbling his way through dialogue with noblemen, and cracking jokes. It’s supposed to be funny obviously, but the whiplash is a bit much at the start. It admittedly took me a while to get into the story as a result; tonal whiplash can work but it must be set up and executed correctly to have that impact without leaving the audience feeling like they’re not sure what they’re supposed to feel.
Most of the manga story so far is set-up, although we get a big flashback dump at the beginning. The rest of the volume is Envil, in Mylene’s body, enjoying his new life as a noblewoman but also trying to change the future for the better. There is some nice character dynamic at work here, Envil/Mylene being set up for marriage with the prince, but trying to make the prince less spineless than he was in the ‘bad future’ is an interesting twist, rather than just having Envil try to break up the engagement altogether. Then there’s the Colette Von Colorne, empress of a neighbouring kingdom, who invites Envil/Mylene to her warrior festival after learning about her newfound sword skills, but with Envil trying to dodge questions about where this new fighting style came from, and ignoring baits to battle, is also a fun exchange of words. The snag in these scenes, however, is that we only know a small part of the future, notably filled with lots of fighting, death and magic, but not the specifics. So, when Envil says he wants to prevent a future, but he doesn’t know exactly the path Mylene took, he’s sort-of working blind, and it leaves the audience in the dark as well. It’s hard to feel tension in the scenes where Envil needs to work his way out of these conversations, because we don’t know what the stakes are. Sure, we know we don’t want Mylene to go power-hungry and make enemies of these people, but it’s too generalised to know where Envil’s actions or words are getting him deeper into trouble, or helping himself towards a better future. It also doesn’t help that there’s no set-up for what the kingdoms are like, how magic works, etc. We get a detailed explanation for Mylene’s nickname, which is nice, but I would have liked some more details. Maybe it’s there in the light novel, but so far the manga is lacking.
Art is provided by Umashi, who does a good job replicating Kayahara’s original character designs. Backgrounds are a little to be desired, in that there’s no set-up or distinction between the kingdoms or lands given, but all the panels are nicely packed with other details like sword combat, some magic blasts, and strong shading as well.
Translation by Sarah Moon is good overall; the switching from the noblemen’s snobbish speech to the commoners’ slang-filled dialect must have been hard to get right but it works. However, it should be noted that a UK slur for gay person (beginning with P) is used in this book, so be warned if you’re sensitive to that.
Miss Savage Fang has some enjoyable elements, and potential for an entertaining story, but the hard to pin down tone, and the lack of story elements to help set the stakes, makes this tough to recommend. Maybe the light novel version fixes these issues, but so far the manga isn’t helping this story to flourish in this adaptation.
Our review copy from Yen Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.
