Title: If the RPG World Had Social Media Vol. 2
Author: Sato Kamegoya, Yusuke Nitta (Story), LOL, Yukinatsu Amekaze (Characters)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 164
Genre: Fantasy
Publication Date: March 29, 2022
The Story
Normally, when a manga series ends, I would just skip to Final Thoughts and offer up my feelings on the series as a whole; however, this series only has two volumes and, because as such, the second volume felt like a normal volume of manga rather than a true conclusion so I will simply follow my standard review format this time around.
Here in volume two, Hero and all of the demon guards are still squabbling and flaunting each of their characteristics. They realize that tomorrow is the Demon Lord’s birthday but it’s also the Hero’s birthday as well. In a bit of a cute moment, both the Demon Lord and the Hero decide that they are going to make gifts for each other.
We also get some lore about the world pertaining to the six sages of the past and how the five towers on an island are the tombs of the sages that have died. Also, Hero learns a spell that can circumvent his curse… in quite the hilarious fashion!
At the Demon Lord’s birthday party, all of the demon generals return to the castle, leaving the Hero by himself. The Hero is captured on the conspiracy that he has turned traitor for traveling with demons. Meanwhile, all of the demon generals fall asleep one by one after eating and drinking too much. However, all of this was a clever ploy to get the Demon Lord by herself so that she could be captured.
A grand scheme to drain her power begins with the result being to use that power to resurrect the five deceased sages and wipe out all of the demons. The Hero gets rescued by an unlikely friend and sets off on gathering the demon generals. They formulate a plan to fight the six sages and rescue the Demon Lord. The series ends with that battle and its aftermath.
Characters
Funnily enough, there was zero character development here which, oddly, is to be expected in the final volume of a series but not expected in the second volume of a series. No one’s personality changed at all with the exception of the Hero’s.
While the Hero still can’t use magic and is still socially anxious, he could only summon the courage to rescue the Demon Lord if the Demon Lord herself asked him to? That’s…. odd… but, nevertheless, it worked so, yay? In the end, both the Hero and Demon Lord didn’t even change as characters meaning that any and all progress was moot and left to interpretation.
Outside of that, nobody really developed but, with this series being cut short, perhaps there just wasn’t a need for anyone to.
Final Thoughts
For what it was, the series was cute… even with its corny and cringy dialogue. Some of the comedy was too apparent and seemed like a crutch for a lot of the characters. The core story, though, was pretty adorable with two socially anxious people falling in love. If the series was just the Hero and the Demon Lord, I think it would have come across a lot better. I believe they oversaturated the series with characters which turned out to be nothing more than enhanced tropes and that kind of put a damper on things just a bit.
Had the series just focused on the two, it could have been about the Hero’s journey to the Demon Lord’s castle and the hardships he encountered along the way. With this being a comedy, they could have easily created some nice slapstick with the Hero constantly calling on the Demon Lord’s cries for help to give him the courage to hilariously solve each of his problems.
Be that as it may, this wasn’t a bad series. With it being so short, it was a bit of a mess but the core entertainment value was there. Some of the comedy tried too hard and several pages felt like artificial filler. In fact, I ended up skipping about 5-6 pages and didn’t even lose my place in the story. That unnecessary fluff combined with a lot of Deus ex Machina moments did cause the series to suffer a bit but I still recommend it because of two reasons.
The first is that the story itself is cute and when you read it just for the core storyline, it’s pretty enjoyable. The social media aspect of the series is front and center so it sticks to its gimmick and does a pretty good job at doing that. It doesn’t have a conclusive ending which is something that annoys me because I feel that a lot of Japanese manga authors are non-committal to things when it comes to relationships. I’m not sure if it’s a cultural issue or if people in Japan prefer things to be left open to interpretation but it’s far too common. I, for one, love a concrete conclusive ending when romance is involved. Anything less frustrates me but if that’s your cup of tea then you will enjoy the ending here as well.
The second reason is that it is a short time investment. With it only being two volumes, you can spend a little money and plow through the story in about an hour to an hour and a half’s worth of time. This makes it a comfortable read and is perfect for a quick shot of entertainment.
There are better fantasy stories out there but for what this one offered up, it wasn’t all that bad… even with some of the glaring issues.
Overall, I’d say 2.5 / 5 which is average.
Follow me on Twitter @JJPiedraOELN
Follow The Outerhaven on social media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheOuterHaven
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/theouterhavennet
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theouterhaven
**This item was provided for review by Yen Press
