The Plot – The New Gate

The story actually starts out a whole lot like SAO (Sword Art Online), there is a death game and all the players are trapped in it. But instead of starting at level one, we follow the player in the midst of the final battle against the boss. Shin, the hero, defeats the final boss and the log out button is enabled for the players. He watches as the world empties out and then sees a portal open.

He goes through that and wakes up in a new world, but not really a new world, just the video game world, 500 years later. Things are different, and while some of the world rules are the same, much has also changed. What has happened, how will he cope in The New Gate and maybe, eventually, get back to the real world, if that is even possible.

General Thoughts

Let’s just start out with some general thoughts on this, this won’t be my final opinion. But I think it’s worth chatting about because this might seem like a pretty standard Isekai manga, and well, it is. Now, I say that but also it’s a trope that is used a lot because it isn’t always a bad trope. And in this case, I would say it is a trope that works. This is not a manga that promises deep surprises and decisions. It is one where it’s meant to be fun action adventure reading and it is that.

Also, because it is for action and adventure and generally written for a male audience, it does have some fan service. It’s less of a put someone in a compromising position or someone walking in on them. It just is going to be images drawn where cleavage is very prominent, things like that. It is over the top at times and could be done less without affecting the story at all. But compared to some it is not that egregious either. It’s just more of the trope than anything.

What Doesn’t Work?

The writing or story is a bit like a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. And for me this is not a major complaint to it. Generally you get one session or one arc in one of the manga collections, so about five chapters. Some chapters do more to set-up future chapters. And other collections generally stand on their own. But the cohesive story that is being told isn’t that cohesive. It’s more vignettes that make some sense, but often times don’t as much. It might all come together, but I’m not caught up yet.

I also will say that while I don’t mind the tropes and that The New Gate is what I’d qualify as summer reading, it is not deep. This ties in some with that Dungeons and Dragons campaign feel, I wish I could see more of the story developing. I think I know some ways it might go, I’d just like to know more of them or to see some more plot lines being weaved through everything.

What Works?

The main character is likeable and the side characters work. Some of the side characters are even more interesting than the main character. I think that the writing, as a whole, is solid, and I don’t really have a complaint about it. Which, I think is a mark for this manga. It could lean into some levels of absurdity that it doesn’t. It could spend more time on the male gaze than it does easily, but instead it creates nice characters that you enjoy reading about.

I also think it matches up it’s tone well. I just talked about how it isn’t that deep, but I picked it up not because I wanted something deep. You know what you are getting into with this manga. So while I do have it as a negative that I’d like the through storyline to be a bit more visible or even for there to be one, I don’t mind that it isn’t trying to deal with weighty topics. The manga is what it sets out to be and is what it advertised itself as which is why I picked it up.

Who Is It For?

I don’t think that I’d recommend it as an Isekai that someone starts out with, but it could be one that you grab shortly there after. I have no reason to say that except that I think it leans so heavily on the tropes and knowledge of them, that it might need that tiny bit of explaining. But if you like Isekai, you’ll likely enjoy this one, knowing that it takes a genre of manga that is already fairly popcorn and makes it more so.

Final Thoughts – The New Gate

This is a fun series. I own nine books now and I know I will get more. Sometimes I read a manga and I enjoy it, I enjoy most that I read, but I don’t care enough to continue. In fact, I am almost caught up, book 10 of The New Gate came out in June of this year, so as far as I can tell it’ll be continuing.

This is what I wanted to read when I got the book. And that is really the main thing about it. It is not the best Isekai that I’ve came across. I prefer Sword Art Online to it, though that is more an story with Isekai elements. Or The Devil is a Part-Timer is better as well. But I wanted to read a story that is just a fun adventure romp. That is what I got, and that is why I will continue reading it.

Have you read The New Gate?

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The story starts with a young business man dying, and then being reborn in a fantasy world. There, he is raised as the grandson of Merlin Wolford. He learns about magic but not so much about common sense. When Shin, the grandchild, turns 15, the king of Earlshide recommends that Shin be sent to the magic school there to learn more about magic and maybe something about common sense.

Let me start by saying, this is an anime of two halves. The first half is a pretty traditional anime with an isekai. Shin knows that something is different and he can visualize magic in a different way because of what he knew from being science on Earth. The second half is something completely different. It goes off into an adventure of romance, fan service, and just being poorly written plus a weird storyline for the kingdom of Earlshide being under attack, and okay villains? It’s been a bit since I saw this, mainly because Kristen also wrote something up for Twin Cities Geek and you can see her article here.

I think that the story starts out with a fairly standard idea, they don’t really delve into the fact that he knows stuff from the Earth, and really that thread it kind of thrown away throughout the anime as it becomes less focused on that and more on the team of heroes being built up, some training montages, and fan service. Again, I think I’ll probably beat this part of it to death, they go off and spend time training, doing things that aren’t related to the fact that this team is probably the most powerful group of magic users in the land, more so than then trained adults, and they go off and have a training session because people dying isn’t that big a deal and because they wanted to. It loses the tone of the anime a lot.

The Wise Man’s Grandchild also lacks in character development. Merlin sends Shin to learn because he doesn’t have any common sense. In the end, Shin has maybe a tiny bit more common sense but not much. To put it in something like D&D terms, if Shin has a 6 in Wisdom to start, which is really bad and is a -2 modifier, he is maybe at 8 which is still a -1. He gets by on being able to manipulate magic with his knowledge of science. And the people he’s around don’t get much smarter either or have arcs of their own. This story could have done a lot with Shin learning and becoming a good leader, but that wasn’t needed simply because he’s always more powerful. There are other anime that have used that powerful trope well and they still have to learn, because as Uncle Ben would say, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

So, I’ve mentioned fan service, I’ve mentioned the story, I’ve mentioned the characters, do I recommend this anime. Nope, I don’t think it’s a good anime. If you were to stop half way through you’d have equally as good a story be just fine but nothing special. In terms of isekai there are so many anime out there that are better in the genre. The Devil is a Part-Timer, Overlord, No Game No Life, Sword Art Online, and Restaurant To Another World, and I don’t even love all of those. The Wise Man’s Grandchild is just a so so anime at the start and a below average one at the end. I’d skip it i I were you.

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The story takes place in the 1930’s in Malaya as British Colonization is still going strong. We follow around two characters, Ji, the main character, and Ren. Their stories eventually wrap together around a finger of Ren’s old master who has tasked Ren with getting the finger back to his grave before 49 days are up. However, things don’t go at all like they should for Ren and Ji ends up tied into as well. There is a bond between the two of them as well as Ji’s step-brother Shin and Ren’s brother Yi.

Like I said, this book was outside my normal read and I wouldn’t say that I’m the target audience of the book. It has some romance undertones throughout the whole book that feel like they are written in amateurish way that I would attribute to something more of a romance novel. And in those it felt a little bit Cassandra Claire in the tone it takes at times, though never sets up the dumb twist and it is just honest about the relationship between the two characters. All of that said, I do think the relationship works at least somewhat, and doesn’t feel like something that is impossible to have as a relationship, it just feels like it’s a little bit weaker in the writing of that than other parts of the book.

I do have one other criticism for the book before I get to some of what I liked. I think that the quality of writing changes depending on what character perspective you’re seeing it from. Yangsze Choo writes Ji’s chapters from a first person perspective and it works well. The limited information she has just makes a lot of sense, and the story flows well through her eyes. However, the other chapters are written from Ren’s perspective and once in a while another character’s perspective, but those are written in third person. And some of it is at the beginning of the book it’s jarring to have the perspective change, but the third person writing just seems a whole lot weaker. The writing has a choppier feeling to it that doesn’t tie together all that well with the rest of the story and every times the perspective changes, it takes you out of the story because the writing quality changes.

Now, I’m not going to just knock the book, and I don’t think the first one is really an issue, that I mentioned, I think that one is just something that I’m not the target audience for that some people who come to this site will find the same. But the use of Asian lore in the book is extremely well done and very interesting. I have some knowledge of Japanese lore and Indian lore, but not much from the Malaya area and Chinese influence as well. You can really see the care and effort of adding that depth to this story. It was very interesting to see that magical aspect of the culture and the lore brought to life in this book and it makes me curious to find more literature that uses it.

Let’s quickly talk about the magical realism aspect and what that means, since it wasn’t a term I was all that familiar with coming into this book. Basically, it’s adding the lore or magical into the real world, but to have it be normal. So, it’s different than something like Urban Fantasy where generally there’s something hiding the magical and people see it and treat it as something different. In magical realism it’s treated just like it’s normal. I think that Yangsze Choo does a solid job of mixing in that slightly magical aspect to the book well. It isn’t too over the top that it would feel jarring, but really focuses on the magical aspect in dreams and then in subtle ways. There is one moment where it is clearly magic or some power, however you want to call it, that feels a bit jarring, but I think, since it’s towards the end of the book, it’s to show off that there is something special going on.

Finally, I just want to touch on the plot quickly. I liked it quite well, the whole idea of the body needing to be buried full so that the spirit doesn’t wander is well done. And the use of tigers throughout is well done. I do have a knock on the story, but I’m not sure it would have been done differently. At the start of the story we’re introduced to the main plot in where Ren is told by his old master to find his finger and bring it back to be buried with him before 49 days are up. That storyline, which has always felt like the biggest aspect to the story wraps up well before the book is done. Choo has introduce other story elements that extend the plot out, but it feels like the story of the missing finger should run closer to the end of the book than it does. Instead, we have the story drag out longer and really starts to lean more on the romance piece. Though, that last section has a couple of nice twists to it, though, one of them, I thought was somewhat obvious.

So how was this book? I thought it was generally enjoyable, but not one that I’d highly recommend. The Night Tiger does some nice things and some interesting things. I’m not normally the biggest historical fiction fan, but this one handles it well, and liked getting into that lore. Have you read this book, if so what did you think of it? Or have you read other books of magical realism?

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