A young man was at his home when he was suddenly summoned into another world. He was then judged to have no special ability and subsequently tossed away like trash. In dire straights and fretting, he ends up encountering a young priestess named Menou, who raises his spirits by offering him a place to stay and a deeper look into whether he truly has powers or not. And at a seemingly worn down church, he does indeed discover he has something special within him. With this and Menou at his side, the young man begins to think about vengeance, and he gets set to develop his powers even further in his new world.
Then he gets stabbed in the temple by Menou and dies. Unceremoniously, sorta. Just one extra display of his special ability leaks out, but nothing much. Just as he managed to amount to nothing in the real world, he dies managing to amount to nothing in the fantasy world too.
…What, this kid didn’t even get named in the entire chapter! I double checked!
The Executioner and Her Way of Life of course was never a story about Mitsuki. It is instead about Menou, who plays the role of priestess while also doing her job as an Executioner, those trained to kill otherworlders, known as Lost Ones. Due to the prevalence of Lost Ones being summoned into the world, lots of changes have taken place culture-wise, but also dangerous calamities as well. With this knowledge, Executioners identify these threats and kill them to prevent the world from continuing to deal with the unknown disasters they can possibly bring. And this all pains Menou, to have to end up killing kids who’ve been brought over and done nothing wrong themselves, but she has no choice to but to eliminate them before things get worse.
However, her story begins when she finds a target she can’t eliminate — because Akari, a seemingly bubbly high school girl, can simply control Time.
Not much more to add for Menou and Akari, if only because anything I could say regarding the pair now would be too all-knowing. As someone who watched and enjoyed the anime, the entire concept of essentially killing otherworlders is dark and probably twisted but when you read enough isekai, sometimes telling the same old story isn’t enough. So this was easily a series to embrace right off the bat and got me to purchase the light novels. Which will be read by me one of these days, so I’m curious how that experience will be!
But I’m now reliving the series in manga form, and overall it’s solid, but you might just be better off watching the anime or reading the light novel. Maybe volume 2 will swing my thoughts as whether it’ll be a good visual companion, but I didn’t quite fall in love with the art, and since the story just about 1:1, there are not too many changes that makes it so much better. There are minor differences (if Momo being all huggy with Menou in the anime was a turn-off it is toned down in the manga; the bubbles scene happens in the train car not in the station) but the main plot of Menou needing to kill Akari somehow and the mystery of Akari’s abilities and her personality is all the same in volume 1.
So you could wonder if the manga is an elevation of the light novel compared to the anime, and all I can say is the difference isn’t very large. It’ll then come down to preference, and so from that standpoint, The Executioner and Her Way of Life is worth a look if you’re in need of an isekai with a twist in manga form. You still have two interesting characters in a really fascinating world that’s worth exploring, so any format will be fine. You just might have an even more enjoyable time by starting with the light novel or anime first.