The Spring 2024 Manga Guide

The Invincible Summoner Who Crawled Up from Level 1

What's It About? 

After losing his father in a tragic accident, Shinobu Iijima and his younger sister Megumi are taken in by their father's old friend, Ayumu. Shinobu works hard in the hopes of starting a new life for himself. Megumi, and a mobile game called La Vita Online, are the only things keeping him afloat. One day, Ayumu reveals his true intentions of tearing Shinobu down and getting his hands on Megumi. But just after Shinobu learns that Ayumu deleted all of his game data in La Vita, their high-rise apartment catches on fire and Shinobu falls to his death, Megumi in tow. He wakes up in a strange new world... and realizes he's been reincarnated into the world of La Vita Online. An announcement from the devs tells him that Ayumu is already there, and a countdown to Megumi's arrival is ticking. Shinobu vows to protect Megumi after she arrives at any cost, even if it means he has to crawl his way up from level 1 to fend off all the other reincarnated players.

The Invincible Summoner Who Crawled Up from Level 1 is a manga by Rio Nanamomo based on a light novel series of the same title written by Arata Shiraishi with characters designed by Yunagi. English translation by Jasmin Thairintr. This volume is lettered by Hanna Helin, and published by J-Novel Club; PublishDrive edition. (April 17, 2024)

Is It Worth Reading?

The Invincible Summoner feels like an amalgamation of several similar stories. We have a protagonist who gets transported into a video game world and because of a glitch, can exploit his tutorial training to stack up levels. Now he's on a quest to find his sister who is also on her way to being transported into this world. Not a lot happens despite the fast and loose pacing of the book. Roughly half of this book is dedicated to our main protagonist grinding to get to a higher level, and the second half is just showing off the power he acquired. It's a shame when the majority of the book you're reading feels like a setup for something else, but I could forgive it if the payoff was at least interesting or intriguing.

There are moments of intrigue here that leave me curious. Particularly with the rivalry being set up between our protagonist and his adoptive father who feels like he was pulled right out of a PG-13 Disney movie. I'll give credit as the premise seems to facilitate the idea that multiple people are being transported to this fantasy world and one of them being someone that is tied to the protagonist's real-world life is interesting. But when you consider the dynamic between the two is very strongly framed as a noble brother versus an evil adult type of situation, it loses me a little bit. In many ways, I feel like The Invincible Summoner is already squandering its most interesting idea right out the gate and instead decides to focus all of its attention on making sure our protagonist is the most special little boy in the land.

The battle system for the game does remind me a lot of dungeons and dragons or even Final Fantasy. I wouldn't be shocked if those things were direct inspirations for the presentation of this manga. However, even with that familiarity and the gorgeous artwork, there's not a lot here that sticks with me. You've read a dozen other stories about a low-level weakening exploiting something to rise in the power rankings very quickly. Anything new or exciting here is minimally presented compared to that which should already feel boring and familiar to most.

This is not light novel author Arata Shiraishi's first foray into game-based isekai, which may explain the facility with which they pull it off. Sure, it's nothing new – there are stats and a game world that's now the real world, and reincarnation, the whole nine yards. But it also unfolds with a smoothness that a lot of these stories are lacking. There's a decently solid backstory for why Shinobu is now living in La Vita Online, the game mechanics make a reasonable amount of sense, and Shinobu's goal for leveling up and becoming strong is firmly rooted in a very believable goal: he wants to be able to protect his sister Megumi when she eventually dies of her injuries in Japan and is reincarnated in the game.

That's part of that decent backstory I mentioned: after Shinobu and Megumi were orphaned, they were taken in by a certified mustache-twirling villain who had the hots for their dead mom. He planned to torture her son (who looked like her husband) and groom her daughter in unspeakable ways. When a fire breaks out, the villain and Shinobu die and Megumi is slated to die in ten months, which the all-powerful System lets Shinobu know about. Since she'll be sent to the game world too, he's not going to let her second life be hell. And yes, she seems to be his actual biological sister and he treats her that way. After what they've been through, he's allowed to be overprotective.

Despite these definite steps in the right direction, the story drags in a way peculiar to its genre. There are system messages, potions, and item drops, game cheats, interactions with NPCs…if you can name the trope, it's probably in the book, right down to the impractical armor for women and a version of the archangel Gabriel who looks like a busty maid with wings. Shinobu himself is sympathetic and completely devoid of any hero complexes or desires to be the strongest just because, but if you've already soured on the genre, I don't see this book doing much to change your mind. It does have some nice art, with particularly good creature designs, and it reads very easily in several senses of the term, but mostly it's just a more-grounded version of a story we've read a lot before. That said, if you're a genre fan, this is worth checking out, if only because the villains are so utterly despicable that seeing Shinobu defeat them is going to feel very cathartic.