If you're reincarnated in another world, you will be naked and alone in the forest. The only things you can rely on without magic or cheats is your wits and fists!
10 Volumes (Ongoing)






Yajin Tensei is one of the better isekais among the seas of them that flood manga. It lacks the majority of the stereotypes shared by the genre and overall stands on its own without relying on the pillars of isekai.
Most importantly, however, is the protagonist, Yajin. He is everything that the average iskai protagonist is not. By that, I mean he is not the most powerful, the smartest, most attractive, not a secret successor, or any sort of deus ex machina you can imagine.
Yajin is just a guy who knows martial arts and survival skills, and that is it. He may gain skills, knowledge, a dragon familiar, or whatever else, but as of chapter 61, he remains a solid character.
The story is not the greatest in existence. It mostly follows a simple theme, sort of the Seinen equivalent of a Slice of Life anime. Travel, peace, conflict, struggle, and victory are the common cycle of the manga; however, they never overstay their welcome and are enjoyable to read.
Before I get to the fights, the real meat and potatoes of the manga, I should comment on the art style. It's a rather unique one in my opinion, and I the strongest point of the entire series. It generally keeps itself simple, never being overtly detailed; however, the monster designs and the character designs are always impressive and have this pseudo-realistic style at points that give emphasis to whatever is depicted, but now to the best part.
The fights are awesome. Their choreography is incredible, they have impact, never win easily, and most incredibly and sadly, the main part that almost every isekai falters in the protagonist is smart and doesn't win through the power of harems, hax, or other trash. Yajin poisons them, he spits spices at them, he fights like somebody who wants to survive. It's not the most bombastic thing you'll ever see, but their quality is guaranteed.
One teeny problem of the manga, though, is that it's updated monthly, so the pacing is horrible, and it feels like an eternity between every chapter. But if you are willing to tolerate the wait, it's a manga I recommend people who are annoyed at a majority of Isekai to read at least to the end of the first arc. Also, translation can be kinda odd. You'll know it when you see it.
Might be a bit of a ramble or badly phrased, but tldr; read the manga, folks, it's good.
This is a more grounded issekai story that can be summed up as a protagonist that gets transmigrated into a hostile medieval world and must survive using only martial arts and his wits.
There is a level up system but it is kept to a minimal, so the protagonist never gets too strong, while most of the world is antagonistic to the protagonist.
The story starts out strong, but the plot refuses to level up beyond the initial premise, so you get a story with a repeating plot that largely revolves around one character and an insignificant or hostile cast.
This could work if the protagonist grew more as a character throughout the story, especially upon being repetitively exposed to such a cruel world, but for the most part, he feels largely the same, just your stereotypical good guy Japanese protagonist trying to survive with his martial arts.
So, while this appears to be a fresh take on the issekai genre, being more grounded and cinematic, it unfortunately falls into a formula with a protagonist that doesn't reflect his circumstances and no other cast to root for.
The premise is worth a read at least, however.
I was a bit skeptical about picking this series; the name alone is silly enough. But the cover art looked interesting and i do like isekais so i decided to give it a go. Now this series got all the tropy ingredients for a disaster - reincarnated after getting hit by a truck, schmucky god, status screen and levels. But where other series would quickly slope into unparalleled strengths, underutilized but shockingly powerful skills, bold, sprawling, but empty and shallow plots, Karate Survivor stays strangely compact and down to earth. All the tropes used to build the world in the first few chapters are quickly abandoned in favor of the two local pillars - martial and arts and survival. They weave the story in a very organic manner, as the author is clearly intimately familiar and enjoys writing about both subjects.
The fights are another delight here - brutal, tense and steady. They're not realistic, but grounded, with people being portrayed as we are - quite fragile. It was strangely pleasant watching mc actually having to spend time to recover after being injured in a fight. Definite recommendation for isekai, survival and martial arts enjoyers.
This is an isekai with a more traditional western fantasy world, not an anime fantasy world, but there is a lot of karate.
It does feels a bit disjoined in the second half. Too many weird things keep happening to him, but I guess we could say it is that god trolling him.
Fun read overall.
Among the best isekai I've read lately.
Honestly, there's nothing particularly great about it, but it takes itself seriously, is "realistic", characters act naturally and so on. It's simply well done, pace is decent for the relative lack of action and the MC trying to get by in his new life both with it's reality and it's moral implications, relations, etc. is interesting.
I lacks a sort of arching story to bind the mundane survival life he's experienced so far, but it's been only 20 chapters, I have hopes for it.
So yeah, pretty much agree with what EijiNami says. For those that like isekai as a setting but are tired of the copy-paste harem, power, action mangas out there, this is a great change of pace.
A rather slow-paced story about a middle-aged man trying to survive in a new world.
As of chapter 19:
Pros:
-realistic story telling and battle scenes
-a slow leveling system
-absolutely no plot armor
-Although I can’t say that any of the characters are fleshed out, it’s most likely the author’s choice- not a lack of skill. They act based on their personality, not for the sake of story progression.
-The few bits of lore and mysteries about the identity of the main character give me hope that the story could develop in an interesting way later on.
Cons:
-the story lacks a goal. The main character just simply wants to live, making this as close to slice of life as a seinen action comic can be.
-the first few chapters are… honestly kinda boring
-The comic is machine-translated. I had to squint my eyes while reading the first few chapters (it got better later on)
Overall: it felt like a nice change of pace after reading all of those repetitive reincarnation shounens. Although the comic has its flaws, I enjoyed it for what its worth.