The Spring 2023 Manga Guide

Peddler in Another World

What's It About? 

After quitting his job at a toxic company, Shiro Amata moves into the house his grandmother left him in her will. There, he soon makes two life-changing discoveries: one, his grandmother was really a witch from another world, and two, said other world is just on the other side of her closet door! Thanks to a book she left for Shiro, he also manages to obtain an all-powerful skill called “Equivalent Exchange,” which allows him to turn money from his world into otherworldly currency and vice versa.

With this, Shiro decides to set up shop and sell convenient items like matches to the colorful inhabitants of the other world. His plan: make a massive profit on the goods he brings from home to become so rich that he never needs another job ever again!

Peddler in Another World is based on the light novel of the same name by Hiiro Shimotsuki (author) and Takashi Iwasaki (artist). The manga is drawn by Shizuku Akechi, with English translation by Bérénice Vourdon, and lettering by Arbash Mughal. J-Novel Club released the first volume digitally on March 15.

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

There's something appealing about an uncomplicated series, and Peddler in Another World makes no bones about what it is. It has no interest in deviating from its plot title, and that's perfectly fine. Because this first volume has no overarching ambitions, it can merrily roll along, checking boxes and being unassuming and consumable. It's like the manga equivalent of Wonder Bread.

Shiro, the protagonist, inherits an isekai adventure from his late grandmother, complete with the usual cheat skills of translation and inventory. But he also gets a bonus in the form of "equivalent exchange," which is much less sinister than the FMA version. It just means that he can exchange currency, which frankly sounds incredibly helpful. Having quit his terrible corporate wage slave job, he figures out that he can use Granny's bequest to sell modern marvels to fantasy medieval adventurers. While we've seen other light novel protagonists do the same, it's rarely with the comfortable business savvy that Shiro calmly whips out. It's basically a stress-free reading experience.

Naturally, there are ladies are vying for Shiro's attention, and I am delighted to see that Aina, the eight-year-old girl whom he meets first, does not appear to be set up as a romantic interest. If anything, I'd guess she's being used as a catalyst for him to strike up a relationship with her invalid mom, especially since she calls him "Papa" while half-asleep. But there is also Karen, the mayor of the frontier town where Shiro ends up, and Emille, the annoying interim guild master. So this story could take more of a harem approach. However, Shiro is mildly uncomfortable with the whole thing, which makes it less of an issue than it might otherwise be.

In all honesty, there isn't much going on here. Shiro goes to a fantasy world, learns that people will buy matches in ludicrous quantities, and is eager to see what other modern 100 yen store goods he can mark up. The art is simple and attractive, Aina's cute without being twee, and the whole thing is just what it says on the tin. There's something nice about that, even if it isn't all that exciting.

Jean-Karlo Lemus

Rating:

Long title, RPG mechanics as magic, you know the drill. Protagonist Shiro and his adventures in making mad bank in a fantasy world remind me tons of last year's Sasaki & Peeps, but not enough to be distracting. Still, the story is hurt by how easy things go for Shiro. Within three days, he not only gets his own store, he's also making money hand over fist. Spice & Wolf, this ain't; Shiro's cornered the market in his fantasy world with nothing but matches.

I'm honestly surprised the story doesn't explore the ramifications of his presence—what's going to happen in Giruam when their currency starts going missing because Shiro keeps converting it into yen? What's going to happen in Japan when Shiro's influx of converted yen potentially upsets its value? For crying out loud, how does Shiro handle taxes? I'm not saying this to be pedantic, I'm saying this because if you're going to give us a story about someone making a cross-dimensional market, I want you to go into the nitty-gritty; we have a manga about competitive bread-baking that goes into absurd detail about yeast, I want to know what Shiro's tax papers look like. I don't care that the local guild master is an exhibitionist.

Anyway, what we have here is perfectly serviceable. Shiro's just a dude who wants the easy life so he can spend all day playing off-brand Animal Crossing and reading off-brand Demon Slayer. We don't get to see him make any kind of particularly interesting business decisions, but here's hoping. Aina's a cute kid and I'm hoping further detail is lavished upon her home life in the following volumes. It's kinda cute how she triggers Shiro's biological clock, but the scenes of him being paternal to Aina feel forced in some way. Mayor Karen and Guildmaster Emille are colorful characters, but still fairly one-note. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it, but I'm also hoping the following volumes have some kind of genuine conflict because Shiro's just taking a cruise down Easy Street. Mildly recommended.

MrAJCosplay

Rating:

In an industry that is oversaturated with stories revolving around young people going to another world, I am both exhausted and curious about what new stories will be out on the market. Sometimes it feels like I'm so desperate for creativity in the genre that I will take even the most absurd new direction revolving around this premise. I'd like to think that desperation has nothing to do with why I found Peddler in Another World so appealing. I like simple stories that are easy to grasp but also easy to expand upon, and this book so far checks off both of those boxes. Instead of taking down the demon lord or saving the world, this is just a story about a random dude who wants to make money by abusing a very simple economic exchange system, and I feel like that automatically makes him one of the most relatable characters I have ever followed in a story.

Don't get me wrong, I like my power fantasies and the idea of escaping a lot of the general hardships of life, but sometimes all you need to show me is a story about a person executing a plan to get everything he needs in order to live a simple life. All you need to do is not make said character a giant douchebag and you've already won my hear. Almost every character here comes off as incredibly endearing. In fact, I was constantly waiting for the moment where it would be revealed a character is two-faced or malicious in some way, but that moment never came. Issues that are brought up in the story are very practical, from trying to figure out supply and demand to trying to make sure that a town doesn't go under from a lack of adventurers passing by. I breezed through this story like it was nothing, and honestly my biggest complaint is that I don't have more of it to read right now.