Lloyd has always had a dream that sounds simple to most people in his country: to move to the royal capital and become a soldier. No one in his village, except the chief, thinks he can do it however because Lloyd’s so weak, but the thing is, everyone in Lloyd’s village is superhumanly strong! Descended from the heroes who once saved the world, this backwater village on the edge of the world believes that you should be able to heal broken bones in an hour, hold your breath for three days, and that anything that doesn’t have a “second form” can’t truly be called a proper monster.
Even if Lloyd can’t quite do all of those things, he’s pretty tough so maybe this dream of his will come true anyway!
Despite the title, Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town is mercifully devoid of video game mechanics like “levels” and “special attacks,” and truthfully RPG tropes have become so entangled with more traditional fantasy tropes that a familiar reader of the genre isn’t likely to bat an eye at any of them (even if they aren’t a gamer) — not that a typical reader is expected to enjoy this work. Last Dungeon Boonies is a perfect example of how saying “look, this thing is so funny! Isn’t it funny that I’m pointing this out?” doesn’t actually constitute humor.
As is often the case, the “straight man” characters in this story are the most likable solely because they’re the most tolerable (Lloyd himself is a bit bland and not overly annoying). Marie, a witch Lloyd comes to live with, actually has some past history with Lloyd’s village chief so she’s fully aware of the circumstances that warped Lloyd’s worldview and, with her baffled reactions to Lloyd’s unknowing heroics, she’s the closest thing the story has to an audience stand-in. Lloyd’s fellow soldier test-taker Riho also isn’t too bad since her personality quirk is “as a mercenary, I need to know how to best make use of others to make money” which results in her being rather perceptive and the most level-headed of the entire cast.
Unfortunately, both of these characters have to deal with some utterly insane other characters most of the time and end up sharing page-time with them throughout this book. Marie trained under Lloyd’s village chief, who the story reminds you every time she shows up (which is quite often) that she is a “loli grandmother” because she looks 12 while being decades older and she very seriously has the hots for Lloyd. I can already imagine that she is going to have the most shrill voice imaginable in the upcoming anime adaptation, though in terms of the most “annoying, made me want to throw the book at the wall” character it’s truly a toss-up between her and another of Lloyd’s fellow soldier test-takers, noble girl Selen. Selen has the utterly weird backstory of having a cursed belt wrap itself around her head for about 10 years, causing years of ridicule, but after Lloyd accidentally removes it within minutes of meeting her, Selen becomes a horndog for Lloyd to such a degree that many shounen protagonists would be put to shame.
One of the full-color illustrations at the beginning of this volume depicts the scene and, with how it’s drawn, I legitimately thought at first that the cursed belt had been a literal virginity belt instead of the accidental, metaphorical one it turns out to be.
The rest of the side-cast was also rather one note but in far less annoying ways at least, and it’s a shame that this volume doesn’t have an actual story to distract from the histrionics. Lloyd is trying to pass the soldier entrance exams and there’s a plot in the background to control the king of the county, a plot I expected to last several volumes. Instead it’s suddenly dragged to the foreground late in the volume and completely resolved.
Last Dungeon Boonies is a series and in some ways I can see why, as Lloyd’s journey has only begun and he clearly needs more time to regain the confidence that all of the constant teasing in his home village stripped him of. But, at the same time, there aren’t any stakes left in the story. The greatest threat has been dispatched and one of the on-going gags is how Lloyd, as the descendant of heroes, has resolved even greater crises without breaking a sweat or realizing what’s going on. So there truly aren’t any future stakes either; this kid from the last dungeon is too OP and he’s breaking the narrative!