Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a goddess summons a taciturn young man from our world to a fantasy world styled not off of Tolkien, but off of JRPG video games, where he must save these metafictional backwater boonies not by his own Earth ingenuity and pluck, but by leveling up his stats so that he can better min/max his heroics. While The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious (henceforth to be called THiObOC) snuck a peek at this playbook, it is playing the rules of this subgenre tongue and cheek, by having its protagonist being a training junkie, so that he can level up not by grinding for XP and farming monsters to slay, but by getting his power-ups honestly and cautiously, through push-ups and other home gym essentials. As he adds reps, the goddess comes to a raging boil, wishing she had picked anyone but this overpowered, overly cautious hero.

There’s a very lean plot, but you don’t need to know it if you want to know if you’d like THiObOC, which exists less on the story level than it does a little higher, having been sent up to the easy-breezy land of spoof and parody. THiObOC has the virtues of not only covering familiar ground but poking at the thin, ticklish skin of these made-to-order fantasy worlds and their wish-fulfillment plots. It may not be unique or original, but it can’t be, seeing that its intent is blatant parody of a subgenre that enjoyers of manga, anime, and JRPGS already know by heart. While those who want to take THiObOC seriously may do so by treating it as genre criticism, it would be a shame to dicker around under the hood of this manga with its nuts and bolts for too long, not enjoying the crisp, clean line of this streamlined parody.

Overpowered

Yen Press sent the review copy.