The Spring 2024 Manga Guide

The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life

What's It About? 

For an alchemist like Mariela, performing incredible feats of magic is just part of the job. So when a stampeding hoard of monsters threatens to devour the kingdom of Endalsia, she decides to put herself in a brief state of suspended animation to survive. Luckily, she awakens safe and sound―200 years in the future... Now, all Mariela really wants is a quiet, laid-back life in this land she barely recognizes. It's too bad potions have become a luxury good, and she's the only girl in town with the skills to make them.

The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life is a manga with art by Aya Obara adapted from Usata Nonohara's original light novel series. The manga's English translation is by Erin Husson and retouched and lettered by Rochelle Gancio. Published by Yen Press (March 26, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

Before diving into this book, the first thing to know is that you must have read either the source light novels or the first manga adaptation beforehand. Although there's a credible effort to let readers know Mariela and Sieg's history and what happened in the Labyrinth City two hundred years ago, it's not quite enough for newcomers to the series to use as a foothold. And believe me, for some upcoming plot points to hit as hard as they should, you really want to know the three main characters: Mariela, Sieg, and Lynx.

For my money, the original light novels are the best way to experience Mariela's story. The manga's creator even notes the major problem with adapting it: there's just so much that has to be left out. The novels are all in the 300-400 page range, and they're packed with world-building, character detail, and story, making it particularly difficult to pick and choose what to include here. I can see the manga creator trying to make the right choices – history, lore, and alchemical notations all need to be there, even though that means sacrificing some of Mariela's relationships and Sieg's personality. (Thankfully, the "Chubbiela" jokes did not make the cut.) It wouldn't be fair to call this strictly the Spark Notes version of the story, but at times, it can feel like it; including the necessary RPG-inspired elements without all of the character and world details makes it seem like this is just another game-style story when the reality is that it's better written and developed than at least eighty percent of them.

I do like the art quite a bit. All the characters are immediately recognizable, and the backgrounds give the feel of a once-thriving city reduced to near ruins, with humans slowly trying to restate their claim to the place. Mariela's profession, which needs to be hidden since there shouldn't be any alchemists after the events of two hundred years ago, is at the point where people are beginning to suspect that there's an alchemist among them. Her blithe lack of concern shows us how she may be living the present, but her thoughts are still rooted in the past. It's as solid an adaptation as possible, but still small potatoes compared to the source. If you're curious about the series, I strongly recommend picking up the light novels, but if you're opposed to reading them, this will do – mostly.

In their brief afterword, artist Aya Obara laments the difficulty they experienced adapting this six-volume light novel into manga format, finding it impossible to avoid cutting much of the original story. Unfortunately, this affected the lore-heavy first chapter, which confusedly cuts between current-day scenes and flashbacks. I had to read this twice or thrice to get the events' order clear in my head. This confusion persists in later chapters, too, as new characters are introduced without proper context or names, leading me to doubt myself and my comprehension of what, ultimately, is a fairly simple story of a girl with special powers learning to survive in a new environment.

Said environment – Labyrinth City – owes a great debt to popular predecessor light novel series DanMachi (Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?), with its seemingly bottomless dungeon in the center of the city. Adventurers flock to Labyrinth City, along with the military, to challenge the dungeon's depths. Deeper than fifty levels down, the dungeon becomes extremely dangerous, and with the loss of Endalasia's skilled alchemists, modern magical medicine has devolved, meaning the risks of dungeon-delving are high.

Mariela remains the only person who can generate "drops of life" from the local leylines, an integral ingredient in effective healing potions. In this cosmology, alchemical potions become useless once removed from the locality of the leyline at which they were produced. They can only be made by skilled human alchemists who have made pacts with the leyline's resident spirits. It seems since The Stampede that the spirits have moved on… Her mastery of a lost, arcane skill like this makes Mariela a strategically important resource, so she attempts to keep her true skills under wraps while also making a living selling her potions. She already makes some slip-ups in this first volume, so I can't imagine her anonymity will persist much longer…

Mariela herself is a sweet, wide-eyed protagonist – intelligent, knowledgeable, sometimes a little naive, altruistic, and principled. She saves the secondary character, Sieg, from slavery, heals his grave wounds, and employs him as an assistant. Unlike other fantasy stories like Rising of theShield Hero, the slavery aspect of the story is minimized. She doesn't buy Sieg out of slavery because she wants something from him; she feels it's the right thing to do.

The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life's world has a fairytale-like nature to it, filled with ancient ruins; strange, toothy, and threatening monsters; exotic plants, magic potions, beautiful nobles, proud soldiers, and fanciful myths. Fans of medieval fantasies like MAOYU or Spice and Wolf might find The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life's similar world-building and economics of interest. The art is decent, if not exceptional, and each character is well-differentiated with a multitude of facial types. I particularly like the clothing designs. "Lightning Empress Elsee" looks like she just stepped out of The Matrix with her sleek skinsuit, billowing hair, and sunglasses.

Some chapters read like print versions of JRPG fetch quests like "infiltrate the sewers and harvest slimes until you find the low-percentage-chance enemy that provides the correct item," so I didn't find the plot particularly gripping. It's a decent enough fantasy manga, but I don't feel compelled to read more.