fusenReading 無職転生 in Japanese
A jobless 34-year-old shut-in dies in a traffic accident and wakes as a baby in a world of swords and magic, determined to live this second life properly. He tells the story himself in casual, net-slang Japanese with few hard kanji, which makes volume 1 a manageable first fantasy light novel for an intermediate reader.
Estimated from the free sample of volume 1 (MFブックス) and the official anime site. Checked on . How levels are judged
- Level
- Intermediate (estimated)Estimated level: this book’s text can’t be analysed here for copyright reasons, so the level is estimated with AI from the publisher’s free sample and other public information, not counted word by word.
- Furigana
- Only on harder kanji (溢れ, 噂, 雑巾); words such as 雑誌 and 裕福 have noneSeen in the publisher's free sample of volume 1
- Japanese
- First-person narration in a casual voice, with net slang; spells in old-fashioned wording
- Length
- Volume 1 is about 345 pages; 26 volumes, finished in 2022
- Read it in
- E-book stores, the free web version on 小説家になろう, and manga
How hard it is
The narrator thinks and talks like the internet-raised man he was, so most sentences are short and conversational, and the kanji are everyday ones. The harder parts are his slang (中二病, リア充, フラグ), which textbooks don't teach, and the vocabulary of the new world: magic, swordsmanship and its many races. Volume 1 covers his early childhood in a village, so the cast and the setting stay small.
Other readers' ratings: Natively and jpdb.
| Title | Level | Known with 5,000 words |
|---|---|---|
| 葬送のフリーレン manga | — | |
| 魔女の宅急便 children's novel | — | |
| よつばと! manga | — | |
| 時々ボソッとロシア語でデレる隣のアーリャさん light novel | — | |
| 本好きの下剋上 light novel | — | |
| 無職転生 light novel | — | |
| SPY×FAMILY manga | — | |
| 羅生門 short story, 1915 | 86.5% | |
| 薬屋のひとりごと light novel | — | |
| Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活 light novel | — |
Words to know before you start
Picked by hand from the free sample, the publisher's description and the official character pages: the words of rebirth, magic and swordsmanship that volume 1 is built on. They carry no counts, since the text can't be analysed here.
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 転生 | てんせい | reincarnation; rebirth; transmigration |
| 前世 | ぜんせ | one's previous life; previous existence |
| 無職 | むしょく | without an occupation; unemployed; jobless |
| 引きこもり | ひきこもり | shut-in; stay-at-home; hikikomori |
| 魔術 | まじゅつ | magic; sorcery; witchcraft |
| 詠唱 | えいしょう | singing; chanting; reciting (e.g. a spell) |
| 治癒 | ちゆ | healing; cure; recovery |
| 剣術 | けんじゅつ | (art of) fencing; swordsmanship |
| 家庭教師 | かていきょうし | (home) tutor; private tutor; private teacher |
| 師匠 | ししょう | master; teacher |
| 冒険者 | ぼうけんしゃ | adventurer |
| 魔族 | まぞく | class of demons; demonic race; family of demons |
Meanings from JMdict (EDRDG), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this list is shared under the same licence.
Names
As the official anime site spells them. Nearly all are in katakana; the one in kanji, 人神, is read ヒトガミ.
| Name | Who or what |
|---|---|
| ルーデウス・グレイラット | the narrator, reborn as the son of a minor noble family; his family calls him ルディ |
| パウロ・グレイラット | his father, a knight and a skilled swordsman |
| ゼニス・グレイラット | his mother, a healer |
| ロキシー・ミグルディア | his magic tutor, from the long-lived Migurd race |
| シルフィエット | his childhood friend from the village, called シルフィ |
| エリス・ボレアス・グレイラット | the hot-tempered daughter of the mayor of Roa, a gifted swordswoman |
| ルイジェルド・スペルディア | a warrior of the feared Superd race |
| 人神 | read ヒトガミ: an unknown being who speaks to people in their dreams |
Things that trip readers up
- The narrator's slang is from Japanese internet culture. Words such as リア充 and フラグ, and game and anime references, come up in his thoughts from the first page. Look up the ones that recur; most single references can be skipped.
- Spells are recited in old-fashioned Japanese. Incantations use classical endings such as 〜し and 〜ん, unlike the rest of the book. A popup dictionary still finds their words; the grammar is the unfamiliar part.
- Thoughts in parentheses. Much of what the narrator says to himself is set in （ ）, separate from what he says aloud in 「 」.
- The books are not the same as the web version. The web novel ran on 小説家になろう from 2012 to 2015 and is complete there. The books revise it, and volume 7 tells the years the web version skipped.
Where to read it on Android
| Version | Where | Looking words up |
|---|---|---|
| Light novel | E-book stores such as BOOK☆WALKER and Kindle (MFブックス) | The store apps aren't tested yet; see reading apps compared |
| Web novel | 小説家になろう, free and complete | In Chrome: select a sentence, then ⋮ › Fusen lookup. Guide |
| Manga | E-book stores (MFコミックス) | Read the screen with the Lookup button, in any app. How it works |
Reading it with Fusen
Make a collection for the series and save words with + as you read. Magic and sword terms such as 詠唱 and 剣術 return in every volume; the second time, the popup marks the word Saved 1×, with the sentence you saved it from one tap away. For the method as a whole, see the immersion reading guide.