The new anime series "Isekai Ojisan," which will start airing in July, is a comedy piece that follows the popular template of other-worldly stories, telling the story of what happens after a man returns from another world. The beloved protagonist, an uncle, is hit by a truck 17 years ago and is transported to another world. He then wakes up from a 17-year coma and returns to the present, but the other world is a hellish place for the uncle. In this article, I'd like to introduce the contents of volumes 1 to 3 of the manga, including how the uncle was treated in the other world and what adventures he has had!
An Uncle Who Was Transmitted to Another World and His First Encounter with an Otherworlder
The uncle, newly transported to another world, was unsure of his surroundings and filled with anxiety. Fortunately, he encountered the otherworlders who lived there. However, the otherworlders were all beautiful, and their aesthetic sense was also raised accordingly. While their smiles may be slightly ugly in modern terms, they were apparently monster-level ugliness in the otherworld. The uncle was mistaken for a subspecies of orc by the locals he encountered and was brutally hunted down. This was the uncle's first contact with an alien from another world.
The uncle thought he could be accepted by showing his cheats using modern knowledge.
Though his first encounter with an alien from another world wasn't a good one, the uncle thought he could contribute to society by using his cheats, utilizing modern scientific knowledge. However, it turns out that the invention he invented was not religiously acceptable, and he was hanged and nearly killed for his appearance. The cruel other world, where appearance is 90% of a person's worth and ugly people should be killed, led the uncle to develop a severe distrust of humanity. Even after that, he was often mistaken for an orc by people from another world he encountered for the first time and was challenged to one-sided combat.
The Manci-Player Uncle Defeats the Demonic Flame Dragon
The uncle learned that a certain village was on the verge of destruction by a powerful monster known as the "Demonic Flame Dragon." Like in a RPG, the dragon was a formidable foe that could only be defeated by obtaining key items through various errands. The only condition for defeating the monster was to obtain the Frozen God Sword from Mabel, a girl from the Ice Clan, but I managed to defeat him by utilizing various patterns.
The Conscience of Another World: A Tsundere Elf and an Old Man
The old man rescues a brother and sister from a monster, but the very brother and sister he was supposed to be saving mistake him for an orc and push him off a cliff. The one who rescues him is a tsundere elf he met earlier. The elf, who has feelings for the old man, saves him. However, due to his past experiences, the uncle's distrust of people made him a fatal match for the concept of tsundere, and he completely crushed his connection to the elf.
Reunion with Mabel, a Girl from the Ice Clan
In a certain town, the uncle reunites with Mabel, a girl from the Ice Clan. After a series of events, Mabel was feeling unsure about her path in life, and her uncle explained to her his pride in choosing the SE●A console while others around him chose Nintendo or S●NY. The SE●A console was certainly high-performance, and it was a pioneer in online multiplayer games and download sales. However, its graphics technology and weak internet connections were unavoidable, and it was simply too ahead of its time. SE●A hardware was so niche that kids at the time tended to shy away from it. However, the words of the man who continued to choose SE●A hardware miraculously resonated with Mabel, and after a series of events, Mabel ended up meeting the man many times.
An Old Man in a Crisis in the Sealed City of Rupaldrum
An old man reunites with a tsundere elf in the sealed city of Rupaldrum, protected by a powerful barrier. While the elf lectures him on the advanced barrier, he accidentally breaks it. The city is on the verge of being attacked by a group of monsters, but realizing it's dangerous, the old man manages to re-establish the barrier. Somehow, everything turns out fine, but the townspeople unjustifiably suspect the man that the orcs living there were the ones who broke the barrier (which is true). Only the elves know the truth, but they don't tell the townspeople, and simply tell the man, "It'll be all for free if you treat me." The man, who distrusts people, takes this as a threat and immediately flees town.
The Conscience of Another World: Alicia, Edgar, and Lyga's Party and the Old Man
The Old Man and his party of adventurers, Alicia, Edgar, and Lyga, receive a request to defeat a horde of goblins. At first, they treat them as monsters, but they defeat them by applying the teachings of the classic side-scrolling action game "Golden Axe" by SE●A. Through these experiences, the Old Man becomes friends with the three of them. However, Alicia had actually seen the Old Man repair the barrier in Lupaldrum. When this is pointed out to her, the uncle becomes suspicious, erases the memories of the three, and flees.
The Conscience of Another World: The Uncle Who Wrecked Mabel's Life
After a long-awaited reunion with her uncle from the Ice Clan, Mabel turns her blade on him. After returning to her village, with the threat of the Demonic Fire Dragon gone, Mabel is forced to work due to the strict anti-hikikomori policy. While Mabel doesn't have much of a negative feeling toward her uncle, she is enraged by his misleading behavior and joins forces with the elf who rushes to her aid. However, a shocking truth is revealed: Mabel is originally the descendant of a Japanese person who was transported to another world, and the Frozen Sword was a special gift for that transport. In other words, transportees receive special gifts from God, but the man himself had no idea about this.
God Gets the Region Code Wrong
As the man recalls this, he recalls that shortly after arriving in the other world, he was mistaken for an orc and beaten up by the otherworlders. In fact, God had told him something along those lines, but because he was Asian, he was lumped together with them and spoke to them in Chinese. The man was completely unaware of this and simply wished to be able to communicate, resulting in him being given the ability to translate. Now able to communicate, the man was sold for a ridiculously low price as a "rare talking orc."
The Man Gets Off to a Good Start
The man was then locked in a cage in the basement of a freak show tent and forgotten by the owner. On the third day, despite nearly going insane, he maintained his sanity and, using his translation skills to communicate with the spirits, successfully borrowed their powers and escaped from the cage. When he frees the poor little monsters he's been held captive with, he's almost killed in return, but he manages to escape and survive by killing them and using them as food. Thus, the uncle (according to himself) gets off to a pretty good start. Soon after, he rescues an elf from a powerful monster, which leads to the monster stalking him.
The uncle reunites with the trio
One day, the uncle encounters Alicia and her friends, who had previously had their memories erased, and is mistaken for a monster and attacked. After surviving the attack and clearing up the misunderstanding, the uncle saw Alicia and the others about to defeat a hedgehog-like monster. The uncle, who had a soft spot for hedgehogs, tried to stop them, but the hedgehog that appeared was not the (blue, fast) one the uncle knew, and its thoughts were cruel, so he easily evaporated it.
[Uncle from Another World] Spoilers for Uncle's Past
Here's a compilation of the uncle's otherworldly experiences from volumes 1 through 3 of the manga! Uncle's exploits in this cruel and despicable otherworld were filled with horrific experiences, both traumatic and tearful, but the mix of hardcore SE●A love makes for a hilarious comedy. It's a very entertaining story, so I think the anime will be great too! It starts airing in July, so be sure to check it out!
