Free Life Fantasy Online: Immortal Princess (Volume 1) – Second Life After Death

Kotone’s little sister won a copy of the first full-dive VRMMO and is giving it to her. It’s not the sort of thing Kotone would normally do, but she might as well give it a go. Now, what race to be? How about a zombie?!

Free Life Fantasy Online: Immortal Princess (Volume 1) – Second Life After Death

What happened?

Akina plays a lot of games and won a copy of Free Life Fantasy Online. Since she already has a copy, she’s giving it to her big sister Kotone in the hopes that they will be able to play online together. Kotone reluctantly agrees although she wants to try it on her own first, free from her sister’s advice. Upon entering the setup, Kotone adjusts the AI’s reliability to make the game more interesting. As a result, the AI becomes next to useless and ends up making several mistakes, such as not equipping her base avatar with underwear. It also skips the race selection criteria and the spawn point, making Anastasia (Kotone’s online name) a zombie and setting her in the catacombs with the other zombies.

Anastasia could restart the whole thing, but after smashing one zombie’s head in, she decides to give it a go and see what happens. After several days, she’s really getting into the game and has mapped most of the catacombs. However, she’s not found a single item beyond the pile of rotting meat the zombies drop. There is a dead space in her map that makes her think there might be something there. She finds a hidden room which has a trap that instantly kills her. She spends the next several days working out the route to get past the trap. When she does, she unlocks a special evolution and equipment set. Anastasia is now the Immortal Princess!

What did you think?

My first thought about this story is that it is basically an ecchi version of BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense. There are a lot of similarities such as the protagonist being pushed to play a game that they wouldn’t normally. They go in alone and make what might be considered rookie errors that turn out to be inspired choices. Their persistence pays off as they turn mundane encounters into something incredible. BOFURI is the sweet option and Free Life Fantasy online is the spicy one. Both are great.

I’ve read several big-name shounen manga volume ones of late and they have left me rather uninspired. They were fine, but they didn’t make me want to shout from the rooftops about it. This book did. The big difference as far as I can see was that this was fun. It was also relatable. I saw a lot of myself in the way Anastasia played the game. I’m a grinder. I’ll explore an area to death and level everything up way beyond necessary before moving on.

One of my favourite things about this volume was how it showed Anastasia working on the puzzle in the real world too. She became obsessed with mapping the path past the trap. This was just a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to reading the next one. I picked up volumes one and two on a whim and am delighted that it’s paid off. Volumes three and four are due to be released in April 2023 and June 2023, so I’ve got that to look forward to.

Volume highlights

Series Information

English Title	Free Life Fantasy Online: Immortal Princess
Japanese Title	Immortal Princess, Hajimemashita: Free Life Fantasy Online
Genres	Action, Adventure, Ecchi, Fantasy, Game

Manga

Author	Akisuzu Nenohi
Artist	Ao Sonohara
Volumes	Ongoing
1	Second Life After Death
2	Let Me Be Your Ruler
3	An Army Marches on Its Stomach!
4	The Other Day I Met a Bear!
5	The Magic of Punching!
6	Food Brings Smiles!
7	New Skeleton Friends!
8	Off to the Mining Town!

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