The Spring 2023 Manga Guide

Karate Master Isekai

What's It About? 

After losing a fight with a runaway truck, a karateka is transmigrated to another world, one full of swords and sorcery straight out of fantasy books. The goddess who sent him there offers him a superpowered cheat skill to assist him in his upcoming heroics⸺but naturally, he turns her down. After all, he already possesses the only technique he needs: karate! No matter what manner of otherworldly foe he may face, be they a minotaur, a gigantic steel-clad knight, or a wicked sorcerer, none of them will discourage him from walking his own path in the way of the empty hand!

Karate Master Isekai has story and art by D.P, with English translation by David Evelyn, editing by Zubonjin, lettered and touched up Adam Jankowski. J-Novel Club released the first volume digitally on March 15.

Is It Worth Reading?

Christopher Farris

Rating:

Even by the perfunctory standards of modern isekai, Karate Master Isekai feels pretty dang thin. It attempts to sell a feeling of eccentricity, particularly in its conspicuously unnamed main character (I just took to calling him Karate Guy) and his singularly karate-focused approach to everything. He being isekai'd in the first place because he enthusiastically attempted a sparring match with Truck-kun is kinda funny, sure. But after that, the story basically shrugs at any notion of expanding on the context for the kind of character Karate Guy actually is and instead content to simply chuck him into fight scene situations where his karate can be written to get him out of them.

It really can't be overstated just how uninterested Karate Master Isekai is in plotting out any connective tissue between fight scenes in this book. The majority of this first volume is taken up by a brawl that breaks out when Karate Guy gets taken for a visit with a royal minister which goes completely off the rails because…the minister is racist against isekai'd heroes? It's predicated on some clunky exposition and material which doesn't really gel with the context of how Karate Guy's character had been presented up to that point anyway. As stages of the fight are settled, declarations are made regarding the minister being the loser at whatever was in conflict here, but there never was any indication as to what the debate or wager attempting to be settled here was. There's a plot point about Karate Guy trying to find the reason he actually was summoned into this world, but that feels unintentionally immaterial to the fact that we generally have no idea why he's in any given place or conflict in the actual moment-to-moment story.

The real answer to that, of course, is "So this manga can show a karateka fighting various fantasy enemies". Unfortunately, even that singular central feature winds up wanting. Some singular splash pages and panels of the karate action can look cool, but the actual interconnected fighting isn't super compelling. Karate Guy might do something that seems off, yet turns out to be rooted in the philosophically appropriate deployment of karate and/or trivia about the martial arts. But it still feels disconnected when you go from "I ran away and dropped a chandelier on you" to "I could have just punched a hole through you the entire time because that's another thing karate was trained for doing". There is the whiff of an interesting idea in the final pages of this volume, in the concept of how cheat-skill overpowered isekai protagonists might shift the balance of power in a fantasy world, but that's too little, too late. You don't need to sift through this mess, especially when even the supposed rewards of the fight scenes are themselves disconnectedly messy.

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Karate Master Isekai is the sort of ludicrous, overpowered isekai story we've become accustomed to in the past few years, but it so gleefully leans into every ridiculous trope that it's hard not to enjoy it anyway. Our karate master protagonist tries to punch out Truck-kun and ends up talking to the goddess Glenn, who tries her level best to explain to him that he's been isekai'd for no apparent reason. (Seriously, she has no clue why he's been taken.) But he doesn't care, because he gets to use his hand-to-hand combat skills against a minotaur, a knight in full plate, and a knight on a dragon. If he ends up with a buxom half-elf princess to teach, it's a relatively fair trade.

Although it doesn't revel in pointing out the absurdities of its plot and genre, this book really enjoys using them. It's infectious because we know it's silly and it knows it's silly, but it's having such a good time that it's hard to hold anything against it. Yes, the ladies all seem to be holding their skirts up above their knees at all times and yes, the princess has balloon breasts while the villain is a slimy overweight guy. It's all very rote, and if you truly are fully sick of the genre, even its enthusiasm may not break through isekai fatigue. But it's hard to deny just how happy it leans into everything.

The art is, women aside, more on the gritty side. Lines are thick, muscles are massive, and men are ultra-manly. There's surprising detail to the backgrounds and the fantasy monsters, and gore is largely kept to a minimum, which feels like a point in its favor. (At least to me. I've lost my tolerance for it.) Our hero is suspicious of everyone who isn't Princess Wilma, but given that she's the only one who truly welcomed him with open arms, that makes a certain amount of sense, even if a guy who tried to punch a four-ton truck isn't the first one you'd look to for “sense.” Honestly, I'm surprised by how well this works. It's more fun than it has any right to be, and it would make a pretty good anime if (when?) it eventually gets adapted.