A Second Look: "Isekai Yakkyoku"

Synopsis

A young pharmacologist and researcher who entered into the world of medicine for the sake of his sister who had passed away from cancer end up passing away himself due to overworking. Rather than ending up in the afterlife, however, he finds himself reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy named Falma in Medieval Parallel Europe. What’s more, it seems that he has been marked by what the realm called the “Medicine God” and added with his retained knowledge of all that he has learned, the reincarnated researcher soon paves a way to medical innovation.

First Read

For a work to take a shift from the usual regular person being reborn into a hero is a highly refreshing change. The fact that his new abilities and life connect to his former life as a pharmacist was a nice touch. Another thing to note is that while the main character is given immense powers, he comes off more as an intellectual character with high skills more than anything. The way he brings in medical innovations and how it connects with the social and political aspects of the story really helped in the plot and character development. On a smaller note, the way that the character learns from the side characters is rather nice. In terms of flaws, they’re mostly minor and on how there seemed to be a bit of information dump here and there along with a slight lack of exploration with the mystery that is the protagonist’s abilities.

Second Read

This is a truly refreshing work the steps out of the box that is an isekai involving a reborn male character. Sure there are other works that take out of the usual box, but one, those are mostly slice-of-life works and two, they still fall into the spectrum of a fantasy hero. With this work, it actually takes on a different concept and path with Falma being a growing medical figure. What’s more, the story actually takes time to explore other perspective and introduces interesting characters that help in developing the plot. Another plus of the series is that it doesn’t take the cliche route of creating the “greedy/evil nobles” as villains and actually presents and understandable opposing side.

Still, there are minor flaws such as with Falma still being a majorly typical type of character if you take out his intellectual and medical side. Then there is a formula that seems to be found with most of the chapters involving a patient being healed and at times introducing a new point for the series. Other than this it would be nice to see more from Falma’s perspective outside of him being a medical figure. Basically, a little more exploration on other aspects like with the battle arc would be nice.

Conclusion

This is a series that not only takes a step out of the box but also takes on a completely different spectrum. The way it introduces different characters to move the plot is slightly formulaic but the way it explores some of their perspectives make up for it. In addition, there are very little cliches to be found with the series though Falma has a rather typical personality outside of his intellectual and medical side. There’s a lot of positive points to be said with this series given how it moves away from what’s expected and is definitely worth the read.

Rating: 8.5//10