Chapter 1.3 The banking is deemed unsophisticated based on high interest rates alone. Money cannot circulate aka this European's setting's "Culture has yet to blossom" and must be saved by this one young Japanese isekai victim who has only been in this world for a short amount of time.
Do you guys ever get tired of hearing this? I like these kinds of stories as much as anyone does and I don't mind it so long as it's not too balatant, but sometimes a lack of research (and ignorance) is a killer. I think this one came off insensitive. There's no need to insult people's culture because there's no cellphone or Doujinshi.
Reversi was originally invented in England (Wikipedia). There was even a dispute between two Englishmen over who invented it. Othello (patented in Japan by a Japanese man) is a variant of it. Reversi has been compared to Go, but if you want to get down to it, Go has origins in Ancient China under the name Weiqi. There have been countless other games since ancient times up until now and they've influenced one another or existed perhaps separately. Chess is not the only game the aristocrats played but I understand that this is a light hearted story and we need to make a tie in to Doujinshi and romance novels. Otherwise this may turn into a shoujo Yu-Gi-Oh.
But did you know that there's been all sorts of board games since ancient times? For example, the obscure ancient Roman game Ludus. There's the more well known Shatnaj as well.
Did you know tarot cards were not originally used to tell the future? They were used to play card games. Tarot card games were said to have originated in Italy (though playing cards are said to have come from Egypt). The oldest deck is the Visconti-Sforza deck. It was only later that it became connected to ideas of the occult, which was a trend in Europe for a while.
Banks have existed since ancient times. There's been records in Sumeria, Assyria, ancient Greece and Rome, India, China, and countless other countries! It is closely connected to the history of currency, which has existed for a very, very long time. In medieval Europe there were prohibitions against lending with interest as it was considered the sin of usury for both Christians and Muslims (however Jews did not have this prohibition). Eventually they found loopholes.
The famous D'Medici family were originally bankers who eventually leveraged it into royal matches. Medieval and Renaissance Italy is an important period of time in the history of banking.
It was a huge leap of logic for the MC to make that assumption that because interest rates were high at this moment, perhaps some implication of class difference (which is an issue I agree), therefore money is not circulating, there are a lot of barriers that prevented "culture from being able to blossom" ie the culture is inferior. Look, it's not like Japan didn't have poor peasant either and look how rich and interesting the culture is and was. Why would European settings be any different? Why did it have to go down to culture? This was likely not the intent of the writer or mangaka, but good grief.
I think my biggest issue was the lack of research that was used to justify the writer's ignorance about other cultures. It's true that you see the assumption or mention sometimes in other manga, where it goes beyond "I really want to share my culture with other people in different places", but never have I seen something so blatant over something so ignorant. I understand it's a fictional setting but the cross cultural situation makes it a bit difficult to read.
Wallace Company (mentioned chapter 1.3) was founded based on investment from her wealthy and no doubt well connected family because "interest rates were too high" ok, but even if interest rates were low, between a wealthy well connected aristocrat that (presumably, you trust and) has the connections to introduce good clients or only a bank, it's easy to see which one you would choose!
I know these are light hearted stories aimed at a Japanese audience and that it's my fault for thinking too much, but it can be hard to enjoy the story sometimes when you've some degree of cultural and economic knowledge and you can't put aside your suspension of disbelief. I had to drop Common Sense of a Duke's Daughter after a while because it felt too unrealistic as time went on.
This story can be enjoyable, but please make sure not to think too much about it.
Edited for spelling and deleting accidental duplicate paragraphs.