Based on a light novel of the same name in Japan, Am I Actually the Strongest? is another isekai with someone getting reincarnated into another world and becoming overpowered. But here’s the twist: after becoming a shut-in due to bullying at school and eventually dying, an angel selects Haruto to be reborn in another world with some overpowered abilities. He’s reborn as a baby, one that’s self-aware (just can’t speak except in baby talk), and his parents seem completely swell. The path to the sloth life will require patience, but it’s forthcoming!
However, when analyzing his mana, not only do the mages determine he’s actually weak, but he can only use barrier magic. No, he is not in fact actually weak — it’s just their current system can’t actually determine his power level and the angel overlooked that fact! So what does those swell parents do about this? They denigrate him and toss him into a forest so he can die. Now Haruto has to figure out how to live the sloth life by overcoming this unexpected disaster!
Not that Am I Actually the Strongest? does anything completely new in the isekai space, but the more I read this manga, the more I began remembering The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest. Both feature some similarities where the worlds each protagonist are in — Haruto in this manga, Matthias in the other — can’t properly determine power levels, so they both start at the bottom with work to do. We actually see this happening in the Strongest Sage, where Matthias is in a new world as a child, takes on challenges while helping others, and then, at 12 years old, he heads to magic school.
In this manga, Haruto nearly gets eaten by a wolf, but he beats it. After accidentally naming it Fray (meaning he forms a contract!), that wolf then transforms into a wolf-lady — I’ll explain why she did so later — and soon after he is found by a distant relative who didn’t want to abandon him. The manga then skips ahead to when Haruto’s a 9-year-old in said relative’s care.
So we miss out on how he was being taken care of during this period, and then the manga tries to involve him in stuff where he can’t simply lounge around in his room, like a plot involving the one who rescued him, Gold, or his frosty relationship with his younger sister, who doesn’t want to talk to him. (Haruto begins suspecting she might be able to tell somehow he’s almost a 30 year old.) So in essence, the manga kinda rushes events. It didn’t have to take up all of this volume, but him as a baby could’ve led to many misunderstandings, so it sucks we missed that. We then see the reincarnated Haruto beginning to realize it’s time to use his powers to actually help his family, and it just felt off for some reason. Strongest Sage has a bit more serious tone, but its flow felt much more palatable than this first volume for this manga.
The jokes that would separate this from other isekai manga are also a disappointment. After the first chapter and a few pages after chapter 2, the rest are standard stuff with poor timing and forgettable lines. This series basically peaked when, despite Haruto being overpowered, he’s still a baby, so when he ends up feeling awful, it’s not just because he used a large amount of mana on a wolf, it’s also because he needs a titty. And yes, Fray transforms into her wolf-girl form to provide it, but proves she’s not the smartest one on the block! (slightly NSFW) Not helping either is the art, which was actually quite good towards the end where an ambush occurs that affects his mother and sister, but is pretty unmemorable for a majority of this volume.
Am I Actually the Strongest? isn’t terrible, but it squanders its early energy to the point where it’ll certainly be a while before I check out the second volume. Sure it could make Haruto more overpowered, continue to elaborate on who’s threatening Gold and his family (something tells me it has to do with Haruto’s former family), or bring in a new character to shake things up. But if it can’t improve on its humor, then it’s just not going to stick out in the glut of isekai works out in the market.