Happy Harem Making with the Mightiest Orc!

Edit: When this review was written the manga was finished with 112 chapters. But two years after chapter 112, new chapters suddenly started coming out. This review will be updated when the manga is finished again if the additional chapters get translated. This manga, as should be obvious from the title, is about a powerful orc gathering a harem. The Japanese title further includes the detail that this is an isekai manga. As such, this review will assume that the reader is okay with the aforementioned themes. After all, since the title is so clear, if you still read this manga despite inherently disliking its subjectmatter, then it’s your own fault and you really have no right to complain. With that said, the manga is somewhat different from what the title would suggest, though probably not in ways that would appeal to those put off the title. The protagonist, Olc, is the mightiest orc. That would suggest that he is overpowered and that this manga leans into the standard power fantasy elements that accompany that. However, it generally veers away from doing so. Olc is overpowered compared to most everyone in the world he’s in and thus there are a few chapters that focus on him easily crushing low level opponents. However, this is rare and the majority of fights are him facing off against those that are just as strong or stronger than him. He barely survives the fights at the end of most arcs. The action is decent and has the standard progression of him using new abilities in each fight. Though this very much still isn’t a battle focused manga as there aren’t actually that many fights. Rather, it spends just as much, if not more time, on Olc being a merchant and dealing with politics. He’s more clearly overpowered when it comes to these and he’s generally able to power through associated problems pretty easily in such a way that that it doesn’t really give the manga much depth. But protagonists that are overpowered in such a manner are much more rare and thus this is all still pretty interesting. This manga is an isekai manga, but he doesn’t really seem like a character from our world at all. The only area where the isekai aspect manifests is in that Olc cooks up a lot of the foods from modern Japan. The focus instead is on how Olc is a half orc. As a half orc he has the thought patterns of both a human and an orc. Orcs are massive perverts with a very strong instinctive desire to breed. Humans are much more subdued. In combination, this results in him being very open, explicit, and gentlemanly about his goal to gather a harem. For example, he goes to an elf village and says things like “I may be an orc, but I’m a good orc that only pushes down and impregnates girls that want me to.” He also absolutely refuses to take advantage of girls in the slightest, with him rejecting any girls that he’s in the process of helping due to them potentially feeling pressured due to how he’s helping them. But he absolutely does not back down on his dream of a harem in the slightest despite some of them initially having objections. He’s a very hilarious combination of traits that is really likable and fun. The first volume is essentially just a long training arc. Starting with the second volume it’s serious stories centered on a single heroine intermixed with lighthearted stories of Olc and his harem just hanging out. There are five heroines focused on, though the last is a daughter type character rather than a harem member. The heroines have solid enough character development and relationship development in their own arcs, but nothing substantial after that. Two of them don’t even travel with Olc and have pretty much no presence after they join his harem. Still, they generally are pretty likable, and even if they aren’t that deep, they’re really fun in terms of what they bring in terms of comedy and romantic fluff. And, thus the harem aspect of the manga comes across quite well. This is the manga adaptation of a longer light novel series. It only adapts part of the novels and it just kind of stops at some point right before the beginning of a new arc without much of a proper ending. But this is very much a manga that’s more about the journey than the destination so I would still have to say I was satisfied with how the manga ended and the manga overall. The art is somewhat generic in style but is still pretty good. There are loads of great character designs. The ecchi art is really good, though it should be noted that it isn’t very explicit. But the art was also great in terms of the comedy and action. The mangaka is especially great at doing crazy expressions. tl;dr: An isekai harem that’s a hodge podge of different types of stories mashed together, but that’s still pretty enjoyable.