Hero Without a Class: Who Even Needs Skills?! Volume 1 Review

While I’ve been enjoying Usotoki Rhetoric from One Peace Books lately, it has been a while since they debuted any new titles. That changes today as we take a look at Volume 1 of their latest manga series: Hero Without a Class: Who Even Needs Skills?!

Our story is set in a fantasy world where everyone receives a class and skills at the age of ten, which are said to be blessings from the goddess. Our protagonist Arel is the son of the famous Sword Princess Farah and Archmage Leon, so everyone has high hopes for his blessing ceremony where his abilities should become clear.

Unfortunately for Arel, it’s quickly revealed that he doesn’t have a class nor any skills. While Arel isn’t too bothered, those around him are distraught as being classless is almost like being abandoned by the goddess. However, Arel refuses to let this get in his way, especially after having spent years learning the sword from his mother Farah. He reasons since he’s gotten good at it without a skill or class, hard work can clearly pay off!

Between his mother’s training and time spent duelling the village chief’s son (who we later learn is actually his daughter), Arel gets strong enough to take down powerful foes in a flash. And after a five-year time skip he heads to the capital in search of his mother’s old guild, where he hopes to make new friends and encounter new challenges.

Hero Without a Class is based on a light novel series by author Shichio Kuzu (currently unlicensed) and has been adapted into a manga by Akio Nanae. As you may have gathered from the synopsis, it’s your fairly average fantasy adventure with many tropes from the isekai genre. This, unfortunately, stretches to the art and character designs as well which certainly all seem like something we’ve seen before. It’s not that it looks bad at all, the action is serviceable and the cast are expressive, it just doesn’t feel new.

However, I will say that while I’m criticising it, I think if you like this particular genre you’ll still find it interesting. Arel as a protagonist is fairly one-note in personality, he feels like a self-insertable substitute for the reader more than we’re used to seeing lately as authors strive to make their work stand out in the crowded space. However, the other characters surrounding him are a lot more fleshed out and great fun to watch over. From his prodigy parents to his little sister and Reiner, the village chief’s kid, they’re all interesting people in their own right who care for Arel but whose lives don’t completely revolve around him.

Their reactions to Arel’s overpowered abilities are well worth reading for. Despite being generic, it is at least quite funny. There’s even a scene toward the end where Arel is asking Reiner to “beat me senseless” in a romantic pose holding her hands, which we readers know means he wants to duel but just for a second Reiner is taken in by the warm atmosphere and wonders if he perhaps means something else. I suspect there will be plenty of fun in watching how the relationships change over time, particularly now Arel is in the capital away from home. It’s these misunderstandings and well-meaning antics that slowly charm the reader over the course of this volume.

As mentioned earlier, Hero Without a Class: Who Even Needs Skills?! Volume 1 comes to the West thanks to One Peace Books and has been translated by Hengtee Lim. The book reads well and there’s some good lettering in this volume which ensures the jokes land effectively. There are a couple of places where the text isn’t centred properly in a speech bubble, but this is by far a vast improvement on other releases from the publisher. There’s also one instance where Reiner is misgendered by Arel as he refers to her as ‘she’ before finding out she’s a girl, which is an editing oversight but certainly not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things. In terms of extras for this release, we have a colour page at the beginning and a short story written by original author Shichio Kuzu at the end. There are also some four-koma bonus pages.

The manga is still ongoing in Japan with 8 volumes out so far. Here in English Volume 2 is scheduled for a release in October, although nothing beyond that so I suspect there will be a larger gap going forward. An anime adaptation has also been announced but at the time of writing, there are no real details about that yet beyond it being forthcoming.

Overall, Hero Without a Class: Who Even Needs Skills?! Volume 1 is off to an average start. Fans of the genre will find plenty of enjoyment from watching over the side characters, but everyone else is better off waiting to see if this will do more to differentiate itself in the volumes to come.

Our review copy was supplied by the publisher One Peace Books.