Feb 23, 2025
[You can find more information about my review style on my profile]
▶Summary and recommendation: -----------------------------------------------------------------
[I May Be a Guild Receptionist, but I’ll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on Time] is a power fantasy with poorly written characters and missed opportunities.
It is not an isekai, but suffers from what most isekai with unusual ideas does. It doesn’t stick to its unusual idea for very long, and cannot help but become a generic fantasy action adventure story.
As fantasy slop you can do worse, and I know that having a female protagonist is enough for a lot of readers, so I am reluctant to say that I
...
do not recommend it, but I certainly did not like it.
▶Story: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[I May Be a Guild Receptionist, but I’ll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on Time] proves for what I think might be the 3rd time that the concept of a receptionist in a fantasy world, is a really difficult premise to build upon.
While the manga’s premise is made up of two parts. Being a guild receptionist, and fighting bosses, the author has so few ideas about the guild receptionist part that it is more or less dropped within 10 chapters, to instead focus on the “solo any boss” part of the title. The protagonist will however use any opportunity to mention overtime or paid leave and other desk job related buzzwords so we won’t forget the “guild receptionist” part of the title.
Exposition is very poorly done. Most of it is done by having a character stand still and talk directly “to the camera”, or to teammates who as inhabitants of this fantasy world should already know how the world operates. There is an emphasis on tell, instead of showing, poorly leveraging the advantages of being a visual medium.
Asides from these glaring issues, the plot is a quite straight forward and predictable power fantasy, following the same structure that most fantasy isekai stories do (even if it is not an isekai itself.
▶Setting: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With a generic medieval European fantasy setting as its foundation, it builds upon that foundation and offers a bit more than that. The systems that govern the fantasy world while poorly introduced are well defined. There are rigid skill systems and stat and quest windows exist within the universe, and the world is full of dungeons for adventurers to explore.
It also features the precursor trope, which will likely explain many of the rigid magical systems of the setting as the story unravels.
It is my hope that the author can eventually tie it all back to the Guild receptionist part of the premise, and put a larger focus on why it exists and its origins.
▶Characters: -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“If you don’t spend time watching real people, you can’t do this, [...] Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves. Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans. And that’s why the industry is full of otaku!”
-Hayao Miyazaki. Japanese filmmaker and founder of Studio Ghibli
Before I describe the protagonist, I want to highlight this quote by Hayao Miyazaki What he is criticising is that many of the creators in the industry spend no time observing real people as basis for their characters. Never knowing real people, only knowing characters from anime and manga. The result is that they create a character that is made up of a checklist of anime tropes, not people.
[I May Be a Guild Receptionist, but I’ll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on Time] embodies this quote. No character acts like a real human and feel like walking tropes.
The first villain is a good example. The story needs a villain, and throws in a shallow character whose motivations make no sense and whose actions do not match the motivations. He is of the “bully” archetype, and is cartoonishly evil, to the point of laughing maniacally as he destroys the very system that grants him the power he wants.
The protagonist Alina while likeable, is not much better. She features the “Berserk button” trope. Where the character gets enraged at a minor trigger. Usually in anime this is an overweight character going berserk when called “fat”. Alina’s trigger is having to work overtime. A poorly understood concept that the story uses to kick-start the plot.
She sadly does not get much better, with character development being some of the most shallow I have read in a manga. Amounting to “Wait... friends dying makes me sad? :0”
▶Artwork: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The artwork is quite nice. The character art is a bit on the plain side but the artist showcases expressions quite well. and the detailed background art complements the character art. It is all black and white, with no colour as is common with Japanese manga.
▶In conclusion: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While I went hard on the poorly written characters in the story’s abandonment of the “guild receptionist” part of the premise, in the context of fantasy manga you can do a lot worse.
It is a quite generic fantasy action adventure manga featuring a super powerful female protagonist, and I know that is enough for a lot of readers.
I would however like to recommend [Mookhyang: Dark Lady]. A dark fantasy manhwa featuring an overpowered female protagonist in an even more dangerous medieval fantasy setting. It is based on a relatively old novel, so it has quite a different vibe from recent fantasy manga. The protagonist is also a woman who used to be a man, which might influence your desire to read it. Politics and war is also a focus of the manhwa, which might turn away a lot of readers.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
What did you think of this review?
Nice
1
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
1Show all
2
Read Manga
.jpg?ver=20136946eea59bcbecd96d0a6e00cd2cd3cd2c96)
