Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest (ありふれた職業で世界最強, Arifureta Shokugyō de Sekai Saikyō) is a Japanese light novel series written by Ryo Shirakome and illustrated by Takayaki. Originally a web novel, the series was published in print from June 2015 to September 2022. The series follows Hajime Nagumo, who is transported to another world with the rest of his class to fight in a war against the demon race. After he is betrayed and left to die by one of his classmates, Hajime begins a journey to improve himself and find a way to return home. The novels are licensed in English by J-Novel Club, with Seven Seas Entertainment publishing them in print. The English translation of the light novel was done by Murtaza Burhan. A prequel light novel was published in 2017.

The series has received a manga adaptation, serialized on Ovelap's Comic Gardo website since 2016, as well as a yonkoma comedy spinoff and a manga adaptation of the prequel novel, all three licensed by Seven Seas. An anime television series adaptation by White Fox and Asread aired from July to October 2019. A second season by Asread and Studio Mother aired from January to March 2022. A third season has been announced.

Synopsis
Seventeen-year-old Hajime Nagumo is your average, everyday otaku. However, his simple life of pulling all-nighters and sleeping in school is suddenly turned upside down when he, along with the rest of his class, is summoned to a fantasy world! They're treated like heroes and tasked with the duty of saving the human race from utter extinction. But what should have been any otaku's wet dream quickly turns into Hajime's nightmare. While the rest of his class are blessed with godlike powers, Hajime's job, Synergist, only has a single transmutation skill. Ridiculed and bullied by his classmates for being weak, he soon finds himself in despair. Will he be able to survive in this dangerous world of monsters and demons with only a glorified blacksmith's level of strength?

(Source: J-Novel Club)

Light Novels
Ryo Shirakome originally published the series as a web novel on the user-submitted content site Shōsetsuka ni Narō. The main story ran for eight books from November 7, 2013, to October 31, 2015, and has been followed by three after-stories and an extra story since. The series was picked up for publication by Overlap, and they released the first light novel, with illustrations by Takayaki, under their Overlap Bunko imprint in June 2015. When the anime adaptation was announced to have been delayed until 2019, the eighth volume of the light novel was also delayed by a month, from March to April 2018. The series ended with the release of its thirteenth volume.

Audio Drama
A series of two drama CDs were released with the seventh, eighth, and tenth volumes of the light novel on December 25, 2017, April 25, 2018, and June 25, 2019. The drama CDs share the same voice cast as the anime.

Manga
A manga adaptation by RoGa has been published on Ovelap's Comic Gardo website since its inception on December 22, 2016, and the first volume was published three days later on December 25 to coincide with the release of the fifth light novel. The series has been licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment.

Character
"Now where have I heard that before? Never thought someone who’s supposed to be me would take that shit so seriously. If that’s what the definition of human is, then yeah, I guess I’m not human anymore. Maybe I really am a monster who was born in the abyss. A monster, huh? But— Sure, I might be rejected when I get home. I may not have anywhere to return to now. But even so, I’m going to keep moving forward. Do you really think this road was such an easy one that I could have traveled this far by deceiving myself? This is how it’s always been. The opponents I’ve faced haven’t been kind enough to wait for me to solve my problems. No matter what doubts or fears I had, my only choice was to turn my resolve into a weapon and push my way forward."

- Hajime

A 17-year-old high school student and self-confessed otaku. In preparation for her future, she works part-time at her father's company, a game creator, and at her mother's work site, a girl manga artist. He plays video games all night long and always dozes off at school, causing those around him to think he is an unserious student. Most of the male students are hostile to Hajime because of the presence of Kaori, the school's madonna, who worries about him and takes kindly to him. Female students also disliked Hajime because he did not change his attitude toward life even though Kaori was giving him trouble.

He and his classmates are summoned to the other world of Tortoise, but he is branded as "incompetent" by those around him because his vocation is that of a weakest Synergist who is not suited for combat. During training at the Orcus Grand Labyrinth, he used his Synergist abilities to protect his classmates from the behemoths that appeared and held them back alone, but his classmate Hiyama pushed him into an abyss, where he was attacked by a demon and lost his left arm. He survives by discovering divine crystals and divine water with restorative effects in his escape, but is driven to despair both mentally and physically by the unreasonable situation in which he suffers from phantom limb pain due to the loss of his left arm and pain caused by a fierce hunger. However, his unusual obsession with life and his firm will to return to his hometown cause him to reemerge, albeit with a distorted personality. In doing so, he has formed a value system in which he divides the world into "enemies" and "others," and kills any enemy who stands in the way of his purpose and survival.

Immediately after his reemergence, he suffered the pains of hell, repeatedly destroying and regenerating his body with the deadly poison of demon flesh and divine water, while hunting down demons and eating their flesh in order to survive. As a result of the repeated destruction and rebirth of his body, his muscles have developed, his height has increased by more than 10 cm, and his hair has turned white. In addition, when he eats a demon of equal or superior rank to himself, his status increases and he becomes peculiar in that he can take in the demon's abilities. Furthermore, the discovery of "Green Glowstone," "Taur Stone," and "Blastrock" in the labyrinth led to the refining of weapons such as a large revolver pistol and a flash grenade, which he made based on modern weapons.

After winning a rematch against the clawed bear that took his left arm, he begins his search for the Great Labyrinth of Orcus, meeting the sealed Yue at the 50th level. After freeing Yue, he headed for the innermost level, where he defeated Hydra, who was waiting for him there, after a mortal struggle in which he even lost his right eye. There, Hajime learns the truth about the world left behind by Oscar Olks, the liberator of the innermost part of the world, but he does not care about it and uses one of the "Creation magic" he has obtained to create and attach a prosthetic hand for his left arm and a prosthetic eye made from a magic eye stone (he also wears an eye patch to hide his right eye), and sets out with Yue to find a way back to his original world. He sets out on a journey with Yue to find a way to return to his original world.

After falling into the abyss, his mental equilibrium is upset and he undergoes a paradigm shift due to despair and hatred of the unreasonable situation, and his first name changes from "I" to "me." He transforms into a cold-hearted character with an arrogant attitude toward anyone he perceives as an enemy, even his classmates, who he destroys without a trace of mercy. He is a cold-hearted and arrogant person who will destroy anyone, even his classmates, without mercy. However, he is able to avoid falling into a complete outcast because he meets Yue, who is in a similar situation. When he was reawakened, he had abandoned all feelings for Tortoise and his classmates, and he had been uninterested in anything other than returning to Earth and protecting Yue and his friends, but after being told by Aiko that this was a lonely way of life, he gradually regains his kindness, though clumsily. He also values humanity and keeps his promises to the Haurians and goes to help Kaori to let her know that he is alive." He is very protective of Yue, who is "special" to him, and of Sia and the others who have taken a liking to him, and he will not hesitate to use sanctions or coercion to silence anyone who tries to harm them. He is extremely overprotective of Miu, who has unwillingly become his daughter-in-law, to the point that Yue and the others call him a "parental idiot". When she learned that Freid had taken her hostage, she emitted such a murderous rage that everyone present cowered. He has a black history of having been a kitchen wreck in the past.

In the town of Brook, he is targeted by adventurers who want to get their hands on Yue and Shea, but he kills them instantly before they duel, earning him the nickname "Duel Smasher," and together with Yue, a "Crotch Smasher," he is known as the "Smash Lovers" (or "Sma-Lava" for short) and is feared by adventurers (men). They are feared by adventurers (men). In the town of Ur, he makes great use of Aiko's nickname "Goddess of Fertility" and calls himself "Sword of the Goddess. By the time of the final battle, he is called the "Demon King" for his unmanageable behavior.

A vocation Synergist has the ability to magically manipulate matter to process it and create weapons. At first, as a blacksmith, he could only process minerals, but as a result of his training, he was able to smelt the ground to create pits and outcroppings. After seeing him in battle, Meld Loggins changed his mind about Synergists not being suitable for practical use. In the battle against behemoths, he showed the versatility of the Synergist in battle by holding off behemoths by himself. As mentioned above, eating the flesh of demons in the abyss allows them to acquire the unique abilities of demons. In particular, "Mana Manipulation," which directly manipulates magical power, allows one to handle magic without chanting or using magic circles (an ability normally limited to demons only)." After learning "Mana Manipulation" and "Mineral appraisal," the player is able to create original weapons with the unique abilities of monsters, and from then on, the main focus is on fighting with weapons manufactured with the power of alchemy. After conquering the Great Labyrinth of Orcus, the "Creation Magic," which is the mark of a conqueror, can be used to create artifact-class magical tools and weapons of destruction. Since the aptitude for other divine magic is not high, other divine magic is mainly used to create weapons and equipment. By the time he has broken through all the great labyrinths, he is aware that his skills in alchemy have surpassed Oscar's.

At the beginning, his status was about the same as that of an ordinary person, but after eating the flesh of demons, his status improved to an extraordinary degree, and when he escaped from the Great Orcus Labyrinth, all of his stats were over 10,000 and he had the abilities of many demons, making him so strong that even his strongest classmate Kouki could not keep pace with him.

His main combat style is Gun-Kata with two guns, and he also uses various other artifacts for firepower. He has extremely high marksmanship, using ricocheting bullets to efficiently shoot through enemies and firing all bullets at almost the same time. His physical ability has also been greatly improved, so he can fight back with a certain amount of hand-to-hand combat even when approached. The combat skills he has acquired through his harsh experience in the abyss are very rational, and they have influenced Hajime's thinking as well.

He has not paid attention to favors from women other than Yue, but he gradually changes after he accepts Shea as an important person. He also accepts favors from Kaori and Shizuku, and after he is called "the Demon King," he opens up and declares Tio as an important person as well, effectively declaring a harem. Its membership was further increased later on.

After the final battle, she uses metamorphosis magic to change her hair back to black and her artificial eyes and hands to be as close to human as possible in order to return to her original world. The epilogue closes with her being welcomed back to earth by her parents, but she is not able to settle down after bringing Yue and the others home as her family, and it seems that she has come to know another world.

Abilities
In the Great Orcus Labyrinth, Hajime devours numerous powerful Demonic Beasts, manages to survive the lethal process due to the Ambrosia and his iron forged will. As a result, Hajime's constitution was mutated by the magic of the monster, granting him a tremendously high status, even breaking pass the level 100 limit. At the costs of his mutation, he will no longer be considered as human and no longer be afraid at anything anymore. After continuously devouring many powerful Demonic Beasts and absorbing their powers, by the end of conquering the Orcus Labyrinth, Hajime gained tremendous superhuman physical power that is completely monstrous and inhuman, his base strength being twelve times far superior to Kouki Amanogawa who is Ehit's strongest "hero", surpassing even Tio the strongest dragonborn in her dragon form, able to carry his oversized Pile Bunker or heavy artillery such as Orkan with little effort. Even without resorting to weapons, he can overpower the strongest humans, beastmen, and monsters with pure physical might, blocking a zombified Meld's swordsmanship who was the strongest Knight of Heiligh Kingdom with only one finger, throwing small harmless objects such as sugar cubes with extreme force to knock down knights. When using his true powers, Hajime can easily break bones and strike with enough force to rupture his enemies' internal organs even Humans who were blessed by Ehit with enhanced physical power, such as when Hajime broken almost all of Hiyama's bones and damaging his internal organs severely, as he brutally beat Hiyama up and gripped his neck to lift the latter with only one hand with no efforts.

After continuously devouring many powerful monsters throughout the Great Orcus Labyrinth, Hajime's mana developed to extremely powerful and massive levels, far surpassing Atavists such as Yue, Shea and Tio, all of whom have powerful mana themselves. His original sky blue mana changing to crimson color. When he releases his mana, it's powerful enough to block the immense mana pressure released from Noint, God Apostle, protecting Aiko who was about to fall unconscious. When enraged, he was able to cause all his classmates, who had overpowered cheat abilities to freeze in sheer terror. His mana capacity and regeneration are vast enough for him to operate the "Fenrir" flying craft, which consumes an immense amount of mana to travel between locations. "I'll protect you, and you'll protect me. As long as we watch each other's backs, we'll be stronger than anyone. We'll beat down anyone who stands against us and burst our way out of this shitty world!"

- Hajime to Yue

While his intellectual ability in academic studies is average, Hajime has proven himself to be an extremely clever genius in engineering. He has immense scientific knowledge which was self-taught from manga, anime, movies and video games. Hajime's intuition is also extremely accurate and spot on, as he was able to correctly deduce that one of his classmates is purposely responsible for the apparent misfired fireball that led to his fall into the deepest depths of the Orcus Dungeon and the reason being jealousy towards Kaori's infatuation towards himself and would also commit any horrific atrocities to force Kaori to become his sex slave when Hajime warned Aiko about it. He would later be proven correct when Hiyama had assisted Eri in massacring and zombified all the Knights of Heiligh Kingdom and also the death trap for their classmates and even murdered Kaori herself in order to make her his personal undead sex slave, a fact which even the extremely sharp minded Shizuku had noticed only when it was too late.

Hajime is an extremely resourceful and innovative inventor, combining his scientific knowledge learned from countless manga, anime, and movies with his transmutation skill to create various powerful techno-magical weapons and other advanced magic-powered machinery similar to Earth's modern military technology as well as science fiction technology. Hajime has shown to be an extraordinarily talented firearms designer, having managed to make firearms and artillery with unique customizations such as Donner & Schlag break action revolvers designed for mid-air reloading customized with make-shift swing out cylinders to incorporate the greater firepower of swing out revolvers, incorporating shotguns into Oscar's magical prosthetic arm artifact as well as Shea's Drucken War Hammer, modified the new Schlagen anti-material rifle to function as a sniper rifle by mounting a telescopic scope to shoot from long distances, designed Metzelei as a handheld portable Gatling Gun. Hajime is also a self-taught genius in vehicle engineering, having designed Steiff motorcycle, Brise pickup truck, a submarine and most of all Fenrir airship based on science fiction and military technology. Hajime has trained his craftsmanship as a Synergist to uttermost perfection, due to his earliest attempts to create modern firearms which are extremely difficult to create in comparison to swords and armors, eventually succeed after countless trial and error. With unrivaled precision and dexterity in his craftsmanship, Hajime became an outstanding master gunsmith. Combined with Age of God's creation magic, Hajime can create techno-magical artillery of tremendous power. In addition to guns, Hajime can also apply his skills into crafting melee weapons and armours of the highest quality including refining them to be much more powerful as well as perfectly repair ancient artifacts. {| class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Show" data-collapsetext="Hide" style="width:100%; background-color:white; margin-top:1em; border:white; font-size:100%; text-align:left;" ! style="background-color:#10a9db; color:#FFFFFF; padding:0.2em 0.5em;" | 《Treasury》 {| class="article-table" ! ARSENAL  While still inexperienced, Hajime possesses incredible artistic skill which he has learnt and developed by handling the illustrations of the game produced by his father’s video game company and helping assist his mother who is a famous shoujo mangaka for five years. Hajime would apply his artistic skills into drafting maps for exploring the Labyrinths on stone tablets, blueprints for his weapons and devices, and even incorporating aesthetic designs in his equipment.

TV Anime
An anime television series adaptation was announced on December 3, 2017. The series was initially intended to premiere in April 2018, but on January 15, 2018, its release was pushed back due to "various circumstances". Originally, the series would have been directed by Jun Kamiya and written by Kazuyuki Fudeyasu, with animation by studio White Fox and character designs by Atsuo Tobe, who also would have served as chief animation director. However, following the postponement, it was announced on April 29, 2018, that Kinji Yoshimoto would be taking over as director and studio Asread would be joining White Fox as animators. Additionally, Chika Kojima took over from Atsuo Tobe as character designer to adapt Takayaki's original designs, and Kazuyuki Fudeyasu left his position as scriptwriter, being replaced by Shoichi Sato and Kinji Yoshimoto. Ryō Takahashi composed the series' music. Void_Chords feat. LIO performed the series' opening theme "FLARE", while DracoVirgo performs the series' ending theme "First Song" (ハジメノウタ, Hajime no Uta).

Season 1
The series aired from July 8 to October 7, 2019, on AT-X, Tokyo MX, SUN, and BS11. It ran for 13 episodes. Two original video animations (OVA) were released with the second and third home video sets on December 25, 2019, and February 26, 2020. Funimation had licensed the series for an English simulcast and SimulDub. Following Sony's acquisition of Crunchyroll, the series was moved to Crunchyroll.

After the first season's finale, it was announced that the series would receive a second season. Akira Iwanaga replaced Kinji Yoshimoto as director, and Studio Mother replaced White Fox as the secondary studio. The rest of the staff and cast returned to reprise their roles. It aired from January 13 to March 31, 2022, on AT-X, Tokyo MX, and BS11, and is available to watch on iQiyi. The opening theme is "Daylight" by MindaRyn, while the ending theme is "Gedō Sanka" (外道讃歌) by FantasticYouth.

Season 2
A two-part OVA was released on September 25, 2022 titled "The Miraculous Meeting and the Phantasmagorical Adventure" (幻の冒険と奇跡の邂逅, Maboroshi no Bōken to Kiseki no Kaigō).

On September 10, 2022, it was announced that a third season is in production. Asread is animating the season, with Akira Iwanaga, Shoichi Sato, and Chika Kojima returning as director, scriptwriter, and character designer, respectively.

Picture Drama
A one-week limited voice drama will be available on official Twitter immediately after the broadcast of the main story. The original writer, Ryo Shirome, is in charge of the scenario and Misaki Mori is in charge of the manga. It will be included as a "Twitter serialized picture drama" as a bonus video in each Blu-ray volume.

Reception
The series was the 27th best-selling light novel series in the first half of 2017, with 84,372 copies sold.

Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network enjoyed the series, praising it for its central premise and how it was "good twist on the genre conventions" by making its hero have to work for his overpowered hero status instead of immediately gaining it like many light novel protagonists. She praised the series for its depiction of the romantic relationship between Hajime and Yue, which she called "healthy", and also felt that the translation wasn't as good as some of J-Novel Club's other releases.

The anime adaptation was subjected to extremely sharp and negative criticism. Christopher Farris of the Anime News Network, cited manufacturing issues as the main causes of the series's failure. Farris points to the poor quality of the animation and the first episode missing most of the original source of the original novel

Trivia
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