The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life (Manga), Vol. 1: Cycle of the Elixir

生き残り錬金術師は街で静かに暮らしたい ~輪環の魔法薬~ [Ikinokori Renkinjutsushi wa Machi de Shizuka ni Kurashitai] (Comic) #1

by Aya Obara (Artist), Usata Nonohara (Original Story), Ox (Character Design)

For an alchemist like Mariela, performing incredible feats of magic are just part of the job. So when a stampeding hoard of monsters threatens to devour the kingdom of Endalsia, she decides to put herself in a brief state of suspended animation to survive. Luckily, she awakens safe and sound―200 years in the future... Now, all Mariela really wants is a quiet, laid-back life in this land she barely recognizes. It’s too bad potions have become a luxury good, and she’s the only girl in town with the skills to make them.

Genres: Manga, Fantasy

178 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2021

About the author

小原彩

Reviews

[Mark]

After her alarm fails to go off for 200 years, Mariela awakens in a brand new world where nobody save herself remembers how to brew potions. And potions are pretty important. Much moreso than characters, plot, or maintaining the audience interest.

I think the word “slog” was designed for stories like this, but even that implies a more or less straightforward trudge to get to the damn point. Whatever point this story has remains firmly unrevealed at the time of this writing and will continue to do so for my foreseeable future.

Which sucks, honestly, as several people whose opinions I respect ranked the light novel very highly. But you never know how it’ll go with an adaptation and the author note at the end makes it plain that they ripped the guts out of the original text to make it all fit (which makes zero sense in context of a multi-volume series).

As a consequence, nobody here is interesting. They drop in a good dozen or so characters who have nothing to say and some even look the same thanks to the underwhelming art. It is not a stretch to say that this is the worst light novel adaptation I can remember reading.

Hey, here’s Sieg, the slave who gets purchased by Mariela. It’s fine though - she treats him well and provides for him, so that makes it okay. And they might be childhood friends, although they could be siblings and you’d be hard pressed to know what the story was telling you with the choppy way it’s presented.

It explains way too much, but then also way too little. How do Mariela’s abilities work? Hell if I know. Why not summon a salamander? Or the mind-numbing details of their slime decanting whatever the hell? How are you supposed to care about this when you barely know how Mariela feels about anything?

Here’s the real problem - this is isekai without a visit from Truck-kun. The lead is overpowered and special, but here it’s because she slept 200 years instead of being instantly sent over from Japan.

I imagine the novel is more nuanced - we see that Mariela is scared of monsters for a whole five seconds implying deeper trauma - but what we get here has no time for anything that would act as a hook.

And don’t forget the economics and military being evil and so much other stuff that’s underdeveloped and given to the reader with the expectation that we should be invested, despite no effort to earn such a response from the audience. It’s practically insulting.

Lucky me, I still have to buy most of my manga for review, so I am pretty picky about it these days. It genuinely ticks me off that I spent money on this because it feels so utterly amateurish and the storytelling so poor. You could read Webtoons of far higher quality for free.

2 stars - it’s not the most offensive story I’ve ever seen, which saves it from the single star, but it sure feels like an absolute waste of time and some of the most squandered effort (if you can call it that) I’ve seen in ages.

[Rebecca]

2.5 rounded up because I love the novels.

...just read the novels.

[Laura A. Grace]

"Perhaps those are qualities all people ought to have. Strength in sincerity and foolhardy straightforward kindness.

This book was not for me, unfortunately.

I LOVE the art and love the very down-to-Earth feel I felt with the entirety of this volume. Despite that this is a fantasy world, more often than not I felt I was being "taught" something, which is really cool!

I just couldn't seem to get hooked on the story sadly. I'm not quite sure if it was because it's slow (though I wouldn't say boring) or has too much of a possible overarching political drive influencing our female lead or a combination or something else entirely. I thought many of the characters were great and that our female lead has a nice balance of seriousness, with the occasional humor. It was nice!

I think if you enjoy rich world building and fantasy with creative creatures, monsters, and lore, this is one I would recommend checking out! I might have not "clicked" with this story, but I think there's an audience for this kind of story, and hope people find it and enjoy it!

[AP]

3.8

I think I might have preferred the first manga version a tad more than this. It’s not bad by any means. It’s just very clear while reading this remake that you already need to have read the cancelled version when it comes to some background information - or I assume the light novels before reading this manga version. Otherwise, you feel rather lost/dropped into the setting compared to at least the first manga version. At least when it comes to the introduction/beginning of the story in manga form. Not to mention it is a continuation of the storyline from those volumes.
So, I’m glad I read someone stating in a review or reddit thread that you “needed” to read the original manga version first. If I had started on this one and skipped the other due to the cancellation, I would have done myself a huge disfavour. I wouldn’t have liked the story and world building as much and would have felt this series was a middle of the road/alright read rather than what I felt from reading the first two volumes.

[Sesana]

This is the second manga I've read recently that features an adorable and kindly protagonist who owns a slave. If this is a trend, it's not one I'm excited about. This book doesn't even do us the favor of being interesting. At its fundamentals, it's not really any different from standard isekai power fantasies, with the exception that this character didn't come from another world, she just slept a really long time. I guess that could be the basis for a decent enough story, but the only thing that happens in this volume is that the main character buys a slave.

[Danielle Booey]

Mariela puts herself in suspended animation to survive an attack by monsters and wakes up two hundred years later to a strange new world. The city she knew and lived in is destroyed and everyone she knows is dead. Mariela must learn to survive in this new world.

A good beginning. Some world building and introductions to quite a few characters. The background on Sieg was quite interesting. I have a feeling that Mariela is going to find a quiet life quite out of her reach.

[Jack]

I was very confused, wondered what happened to the original series, and why there wasn’t a volume three of the original manga. However, I like the story, the art work and the original light novel. Maybe this won’t be so confusing now that they have “caught up”.

[Stas]

PASS.

[Liza]

This desperately needs a volume 0 to explain things. Like the whole time I was reading I felt incredibly lost on the world and I feel like it glosses over plot points that should have more focus.

[TheMangaSloth]

Make sure you read the first two manga volumes for the series before this one. They do a nice job of picking up where the other manga adaptation left off with glimpses of the past for new readers. I enjoyed it more due to the fact I remembered the first two volumes.

[Grey Cloud]

I see now the light novel was released first, so I am definitely going back for that. However, the artwork in the manga is SO nice and clean???