#dismas in dismas tier true

[dlamp-dictator]

I recently finished the manga The Sword of Princess Gluttony, or Boushoku-Hi no Ken as it's originally called. I'll be calling it Sword of Gluttony from here on for simplicity's sake.

Anyway, this manga is yet another standard power fantasy. The main character gets an awesome power they luck into and go on a tear with it, trying to create their desired world of love, friendship, and so on. Nothing you haven’t seen before, and an honest 5-out-of-10 if I’ve ever seen one.

And... I wanted to break it down a little.

Honestly, I’ve been wanting to break down one of these sub-par power fantasies for a while now. Not so much to be mean, but just so folks know how I look at media. Sword of Gluttony isn’t bad per se, it just has some glaring issues that keep it from being fully entertaining. I honestly don’t mind power fantasy too much. Some of it is dumb fun and junk food to flip through, and some of it is… Well, self-aggrandizing nonsense that can be pushing some dangerous ideas and shouldn’t be distributed for purchase if I’m being frank. Sword of Gluttony leans closer to the latter for me. It has its share of fun moments, but it also wants to be so dour and cruel in tone at times that I don’t know if it recognizes that it’s a power fantasy and not an edgy seinen for people to angst over. Yet, for all my issues I couldn’t stop thinking about this story. The same urge and sensation that had me talking about Tomodachi Game has come back to me and I wanted to discuss this series for a bit. Again, not to cruelly poke fun at a subpar story, but to really get into the nitty-gritty of what I like and don’t like about the power fantasy genre. Consider this a sort of discussion post more than anything.

But first, a synopsis.

Sword of Gluttony focuses on a character named Dean Disma, a down-on-his-luck, bottom-tier adventurer and glorified item carrier. He had lofty ambitions to become a great and heroic adventurer when he was a child, much like in his storybooks. However, the reality of his actual abilities, several personal tragedies, and life in his twenties beating him down has left him a jaded man that can barely get work as a courier to pay the bills. In his low-grade job he's eventually left to survive for himself and betrayed by his employers after a bad turn in a dungeon. There, about to die and hiding in a small corner for survival, he finds the demon core of Beelzebub, the Demon of Gluttony who was ousted from her place in demon society due to her growing power. They eventually make a deal to work together and slowly Dean starts gaining the power he desires to see his dream of being a noble and heroic adventurer come true.

Pretty standard for power fantasy, but it's at least serviceable. That said, there are still a lot of issues with this story once you start reading it. I'll break it down into two main points.

It doesn’t make sense for Dean to be this kind and naive in such a cruel, brutal setting.

The antagonists are depressingly evil and the systemic roots of their cruelty don’t fit a power fantasy setting that well.

There are a few minor issues too, but these are the big ones.

So... let's get started on that first one.

A Cruel World and an Idealistic Hero

The world of Sword of Gluttony, namely the Kingdom of Ryuz that Dean lives in, is a world rife with corruption and cruelty. The kingdom is controlled by a power-hungry military with a lieutenant that does all he can to secure his power base by any means necessary. Adventurers are indifferent monster hunters that only care about payment and fame, many of which are willing to sacrifice each other for an extra gold coin or suck up to the strongest person that will protect them on dungeon dives. The few people that aren’t in the military or adventuring guild are victims to both parties, seen as fodder for the stronger, more powerful people that’ll follow whatever the strong say like the obedient sheep they are if they want to live to see tomorrow.

And Dean should not be as idealistic as he is after all that.

You’ll hear this complaint a lot in young adult stories, especially manga and light novels. The protagonist is too idealistic and forgiving of people he should really leave to their gruesome fates. They shouldn’t be able to snap their fingers and get bailed out of situations they get themselves into, so on and so forth. These complaints usually come from a mix of the series in question having a setting that is cruel or gritty with protagonists that should be more worldly and realistic about their situation, and adult readers in their mid-twenties and onward still reading children’s media while having adult opinions about them. Sword of Gluttony is thankfully in the former category, so I don’t have to confront that issue of modern fandom quite yet. But back to the point.

Dean lost his parents when he was a young kid, likely grew up as a poor orphan for most of his adolescence, and forced to do the shittiest jobs as an adventurer for what’s implied to be about 3ish years and is now around his early-to-mid-twenties. He should not be kind enough to save people that screwed him over. Even if he’s still holding onto the ideal of wanting to be the heroic adventurer that he remembered in his storybooks he should have the worldly knowledge and understanding that he doesn’t have that power yet. His constant attempts to save otherwise evil people, jumping into problems he had no business in, and actively causing problems for his friends, is annoying. It’s especially annoying when this is apparently a novel/manga aimed at folks around their 20s. Not specifically a seinen in terms of tone, but something clearly aimed at that college-student age. People worldly enough to understand and accept some crueler realities of life. The issue isn’t that Dean is nice, it’s that he’s too nice for a setting that actively kills and maims so many people without a care. Not in the too-kind-for-this-cruel-world sort of way, but in the too-stupid-given-their-background way. Dean has been on his own since he was a kid, likely depending on the kindness of his blacksmith friend and her grandfather while eking out a living. He’s been forced into being a low-grade adventurer and carrier/courier until the age of 20 and has had to deal with his fair share of cruelties from both life and the assholes within the system he’s stuck in. He should not be this kind or naïve about things.

Dean being a kind person at his core is fine, the issue is that he shouldn’t be getting away with things and bailed out by either his blacksmith girlfriend or Beelzebub as much as he does. For this to work he needs to either already have the power to save everyone and the conflict comes from the attention that’ll bring, or he needs to learn he doesn’t have the power yet and only stick his head out when shit truly hits the fan of his morals and he can’t stand by while a truly blatant injustice goes on in front of him.

To give an example, Dean going back to save Gilbert, the man that nearly got him killed and kicked off the inciting incident by leaving him to die in the dungeons, feels incredibly stupid because Gilbert has been shown to be a scumbag throughout the story and Dean has a logically sound reason to leave him to his fate: That the monsters about to kill Gilbert are way above Dean’s level and Gilbert got himself into that situation due to his arrogance, a repeat of what happened in the first chapter and would had been a decent end for him. I understand that Dean didn’t want to leave him to his fate because he felt he would be going back on his morals of being a noble adventurer, that leaving Gilbert to die would be no different than the other adventurers of this cruel world. However, by attempting to save Gilbert he’s risking both his life and the life of his friend/girlfriend Mahni, who told him they’d both be risking their lives if he tried to save Gilbert. Again, I understand that the moral here is to not sacrifice your ideals even if it means risking your own neck for people that don’t deserve it. I understand that the story wants us to praise Dean for sticking to his beliefs and that his first test of heroism being with someone he otherwise wouldn’t save is a moral challenge along with a physical one.

But… this is a power fantasy.

This isn’t a shounen meant to teach lessons to kids and teens about being a good person despite hardships. This story is marketed as a power trip of an average dude getting cool powers and a cool sword with a hot demon working with him to do cool things. This little moment only serves to be an annoying distraction to the otherwise cool fight scene that follows. And we, the audience, now must come to grips that this cool sword not only isn’t going to let Dean win fights easily, but him pulling stunts like this puts himself and his allies at risk for the sake of his naïve morality. Really, if this moment was followed up by Dean immediately chewing out Gilbert for his previous behavior, beating him up a little, saving the cat girl that Gilbert likely coerced and bullied into working for him before having Gilbert stripped of his rank and position in the adventuring guild then I’d let it go.

But… it didn’t.

So, it’s one of many stains on this manga’s record. And speaking of blatantly evil people not getting their just desserts…

Bad People and Exhausting Evils

This is the second issue. Several of the antagonists in this series are just… tiring. Like, their evil, they’re despicable, but… for no real reason.

Okay, that’s unfair, you can imply a few things. Magus Officer Malti wants to maintain his power base and will crack down on any rising adventurers that might rock the boat to make sure he stays on top. The Grey Order is a death cult that worships the demonic labyrinth and want as many adventurers and people to die within and around it as possible (they may also be trying to bring one of the demons that ousted Beelzebub to the human world), but the series doesn’t explain that. Again, this is something you see a lot in most modern light novels and power fantasies. The villains are grotesque, unreasonably rude, practically lust for violence, and will do the worst of acts just because they can.

This might be my western mind talking, but most villains like this are often entertaining along with being evil. They usually have a charisma to them that makes their evil somewhat infectious and enjoyable. The Joker might kill hundreds but he’s having a grand time doing it and doing it with a swagger. Lex Luther might be a greedy power-hungry businessman, but he’s suave and collected while making his next scheme from behind the scenes. I understand that a lot of Japanese media usually doesn’t like portraying their bad guys as anything other than bad people, but the few times they try they usually succeed with flying colors. Half of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon villains have some amount of appeal to them, and from the very limited amount of Sentai/Tokusatsu I’ve seen they also tend to make their bad guys more larger-than-life characters that are fun to watch. And even other power fantasy stories will usually just have a bad guy around for a single arc, let them be hilariously overconfident, then get shocked as their blasted by the main character. The anime I was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability (I hate this title name so much) is a good example. Most arcs had a main bad guy that was bad and arrogant, they’d beat up the side cast to show off their powers, and then Lloyd would kill them with style before ending the arc and moving on.

Most of Sword of Gluttony’s villains are just… scumbags. They don’t have any swagger, their goals are short-sighted and petty, their methods are needlessly cruel, and most important (and annoying) of all, they stick around for basically the entire series aside from Gilbert. They abuse their power, hurt the innocents around them, and are so despicable you just want them to get taken down. But… they just aren’t entertaining to watch and stick around enough to be more annoying and tiring than anything else.

I get the point, they’re cruel people meant to be hated and taken down, but all that negativity just drains on the soul and spirit, especially since they’re in the picture for so long and the story makes it a point to state that Dean has no hope of defeating them. The Kingdom of Ryuz is systematically corrupt and one adventurer with a single cool sword can’t just blast away systemic oppression and the abuse of unchecked power.

But again, this is a power fantasy.

The story’s premise is based on Dean getting that cool sword with cool powers that has a hot demon letting him do cool things. People didn’t come to this story to read about the inevitability of unchecked power destroying a country from the inside out, nor did they want to read about how the villains are always one step ahead of the hero and making it so they can only take baby steps compared to the villain’s wide gait. Again, this wasn’t marketed as a shounen, it’s marketed as a power trip. And the fact that I have to sit through these boring, annoying and oh-so-evil villains that won’t ever get punched in the face is just tiring and makes me want to read something else.

These are honestly the two biggest issues of the series that keep me from fully enjoying it. If they either gave Dean some more grit or gave the villains more pazazz I’d say this was a lacking, but overall tolerable, power fantasy. I’ve got my nitpicks, but overall, these are the main two. That said…

Nitpicks Worth Discussing

Like I said in the beginning, I’m not going to harp too much on a series not being the pinnacle of what it could be. This is a simple power fantasy story with only a few glaring issues that keep it from realizing what it was claiming to be. My dressing down aside, the series doesn’t offend me with how it is, just mildly annoys me. That said, I’ve got some issues still. Minor ones overall, but issues, nonetheless. I’ll be talking about some minor spoilers, but nothing going past the second major arc.

The Cerberus Fang Arc was… Messy

To quickly go over the Cerberus Fang Arc, it focused on Dean meeting the legendary mentor adventurer Fjodor, who was guiding a nomadic warrior named Edda in the ways of adventuring. Since Dean was still new to the full adventurer lifestyle due to his past of only having a basic supporting role, along with the infamous criminal group Cerberus Fang hiding in the dungeons, Fjodor takes Dean under his wing as well and shows the two the ropes of adventuring life. He’s a strict but firm teacher overall, but later the two realize Fjodor was only guiding them to eventually kill them and take their magical items, the twist being that Fjodor was Cerberus Fang all along. The twist villain being Fjodor just left a sour taste in my mouth. There’s a lot I liked about it, I think Fjodor’s introduction and personality were done extremely well. I legitimately wanted him to be an honest mentor to Dean and Edda. Even his crueler moments had a point of showing that even nicer, more heroic adventurers had to be pragmatic at times. Plus, he was spitting facts. Dean did have to let go of some of his naivety and be willing to kill both monsters and humans if he wants to make it in the corrupted kingdom of Ryuz. Edda did need to actively learn how to do the more tertiary tasks of an adventurer aside from fighting since she no longer had the backing of her tribe and was now a nomad forced to settle in a single place. Him being a villain just feels like it exists to give Dean more man-pain to angst over, especially when there were several ways to kill off Fjodor in a more noble way that kept his ideals and heroic perception intact.

Beelzebub is Kind of Useless After Arc 2

This is honestly a minor point, but Beelzebub, the Gluttony Princess in the manga titled The Sword of Princess Gluttony, isn’t really as powerful as she was in the first arc. She’s used more as a glorified meat shield than the power trip she was seen as in the first arc. This makes sense, as she’s an S-tier demon stuck in a C-tier sword and unable to use her full power due to both her medium and Dean’s lacking magical skill. Mind you, the fight scenes are not only cool, but also somewhat tactical because of this. Beel isn’t an auto-win button because she’s so weak at the moment, so Dean has to strategically cut his opponent, steal the right skill to neuter his enemy’s trump card, then take them out before they pull off some new, scarier trick they might had been holding back.

Dean’s Kind of an Awful Person

Dean is constantly in debt, spends a good portion of the manga borrowing money from his friend, and generally gets them into trouble due to his weird hero complex. If Mahni wasn’t so patient or in love with him and Edda wasn’t so desperate for a partner that could tolerate her abrasive personality they probably would have left this man to rot months ago. I get that Dean wants to be a heroic person, but that shouldn’t come at the very real cost of straining his friends and coworkers.

The Translation

I’m not going to harp too much on this as it was a manga I read for free, but the translation wasn’t that great at the end. A lot of it felt machine translated without someone going in to tweak it to look… not machine translated. Again, read this thing for free, so this is a minor complaint, but something worth bringing up if you want to read it.

The Good Points

This manga, despite its issues, has a few good points worth mentioning. Like I said, this is a power fantasy, but some elements of the manga are truly worth praising.

Edda & Mahni: I think the female leads, the nomad Edda and the blacksmith Mahni, are great characters. Edda is a cold and bitter warrior that calls out Dean on his nonsense and hesitation. She’s a stuck-up and arrogant brat, but in a world as cruel and corrupt as this one the fact she’s only a stuck-up and arrogant brat because she lost her tribe in a demon attack and is still carrying that hatred makes her much more sympathetic. I also love the fact that (at least in the manga) she’s strictly Dean’s coworker and only until the near end of the manga finally accepts his friendship after he directly protected her outside the dungeon in a more social situation. It was also the only time Dean sticking his neck out for someone and putting himself in danger feels earned.

 Mahni is just a good friend and girlfriend to Dean. Her more pragmatic nature and business savvy as a blacksmith helps with the bookkeeping as well. Her friendly and encouraging nature really helps me tolerate some of Dean’s more boneheaded decisions.

The Fight Scenes: Like I said when talking about Beelzebub, the fights are often more strategic than overpowering. The Sword of Gluttony can steal skills from an opponent with one slash, but only one skill per person and Dean is neither an expert swordsman nor does he have the stats to tank anything someone even above his level could handle. He has to be smart and work with his allies to open up his opponent for that one cut that can turn the tide of battle, and even then, his opponent still has a good amount of tricks he didn’t steal. This dynamic in fights is genius.

The Art: The artist of this series, Moronoide, was absolutely on point with this series. Say what you will about the story, but the art is spectacular. The detail and action are great, and I personally love Edda’s design, as fanservice-y as it is.

And… I honestly think that’s it. This is an overall average manga that has its good and bad points, but is otherwise serviceable. The breakdown was mostly for getting some of this off my chest and to discuss what I look for in power fantasy. If you wanted a more enjoyable power fantasy, then I’d recommend the previously mentioned Seventh Prince anime. If you wanted something to focus on a character going against a corrupt system, then I’d recommend Chivalry of a Failed Knight. Both of those are good substitutes for what this manga is trying to do.

With that all said I think that’ll be all for me. I’ll be talking to you folks later.

[pawacelsus]

going through tiermaker anon hate like

You are SUCH a brave soul, I salute you...