Grand Dwarf: The Smalltown Craftsman's Skills Are Unmatched In Another World

[MangaDex]

 

[Orekiswrld]

Nah this has crazy potential

 

[DlolFace]

Okay is it just me or the artstyle, at least the Main character design feels like a character from Dr.Stone

 

[SilverSupreme]

Chapter 1 sets up potential to be a decent isekai but it immediately squanders any potential.
Every single chapter is worse than the one before.
It’d be one thing if it were just one dimensional characters or the usual isekai tropes - plenty of manga do those and we still read them - but it’s not. Everything is done in cartoonish excess.

Fran is a healer with anxiety? Okay. Give her a Darkest Dungeon style breakdown any time she has to fight. Wanting to heal people and being afraid of everything are her only personality traits. For some reason Fujimura decides to make her the party frontliner even though she just wants to heal people.

Fujimura himself? He has one mode and it’s generic, cocky old man. He has yet to play any role in the story except building a gun, giving it to Fran, and picking fights that he expects Fran to fight.

Fran’s ex-party? So ridiculously evil that it’s stupid. They kill people in public a lot, lick blood, and repeatedly say they spread bad rumors about her in front of everyone. They even stab the (disguised) king. They have zero nuance and are, like everyone else in this series, one dimensional caricatures with only one personality trait and mode each. At least other manga we call trash have characters that can process more than one emotion. That’s how low the bar is set.

If it seems like a showdown is going to happen, expect interruptions. If it seems like Fujimura is going to do something, expect to be shown in a flashback that yeah actually he could walk the talk because he did before but just won’t now. Everything notable he’s done has been in a flashback so far. Otherwise he just instigates fights for other people to solve.

Fran even pauses in the middle of an actual battlefield to monologue her backstory as monsters are killing people around her.

One chapter even ends with a final boss giant ogre appearing and then the next chapter starts with the boss defeated.

It’s only been 5 chapters and yet this is easily one of the worst isekai I’ve read in a long time. Not because it’s the worst of the bunch but because it’s incredibly disappointing to read after chapter 1 tries so hard to set itself up to be something different.

It uses every bad shounen battle manga tactic both for storytelling and prolonging the story that both creators and readers make fun of and parody in better series.

I’m not sure if it’s a 4/10 or a 3/10. Chapter 1 and the art are really all it has going for it, and even then the art isn’t exactly fantastic. It’s just good but it makes you think it’s better than it is by drawing focus to character designs while finding ways around showing combat or fluidity. The paneling is also very basic. I think the only reason the art seems better than most other isekai and fantasy manga is because most other series don’t bother even drawing background details.

 

[shiftyskelabones]

Valk looks so cool why's he gotta be a b-word?

 

[samiri777]

i like his style, i wish other isekai who still have memories from the past would also act more mature and cool like this.

 

[CraniumAmbiguity]

Character design and background, and motivation are great. Even the world building is nice. But the rest seem one dimensional and rushed. Villains are cartoonishly generic and magic(stones) are the catch all for ever plot hole. As for plot; the moment you think something is going to happen, it gets interrupted or skipped with a flash forward. It also bothers me that a gun user almost never fires the gun.

 

[Luke_chase]

As someone who’s actually interested in manufacturing and being a machinist, they should have just made him a “inventor” or mad scientist if they’re gonna BS the machinist side of things this hard, like damn. Also, dude can make literally anything but he’s supposed to be one of those highly specialized machinists that got put out of business? Like plz

Not super related, but I do feel like it’s possible to do the whole creating stuff thing without making it feel so cheap, other than doc stone, I feel like overgeared does a decent job of making pseudo blacksmith interesting, but like the interesting part is the struggle and the problem solving in the first place, whereas this dude just uses his magical cure all gems and then pops out a magical expanding gun. Idk man, but you didn’t grab this machinists interest at least

 

[krippr]

Vulgar. 2/10.

 

[Phantom_Visage]

I kind of wish that Fujimura had retained his gritty old-man personality. I agree with most of the criticism regarding the flat characterization, but aside from that, I believe this manga deserves a 6/10. It's truly meant for binge-reading rather than being something to obsess over.

 

[donoghu]

For once, this has the refreshing side of having the MC keep his old-like attitude even if he got isekai-ed into a younger self. 99.99% of the isekai where the MC move from 30+ year to either being reborn or half or less their original age have said MC revert to their teen-like behaviour right around the corner and only use the "I' x years old inside" whenever it fulfill the author's goals.

There are obvious plot holes and weak side to the story, but for once those doesn't seems to be related to the story' progression, but more about what's surrounding the setting.

I see comments around about how the MC can build anything being an issue, but I don't see much of an issue there, except for just 1 single point which is how fast the MC learned to basically use magic. When it comes to what the MC did to turn the staff into a gun, this is something I know quite a few people who could also do it in 3 months like the MC if they had access to a whole workshop build up over 35 years. Maybe not the part where you see a field of monsters' corpses, but the staff-to-gun part? Yep, there's nothing wrong there.

 

[ulzeraj]

Love the baddies design on the slave den arc but god damn that stalling.

 

[mikmoo01]

as a machinist it pains me how this manga gets everything half right and so wrong when it comes to the technical side of things. do enjoy the art tho

 

[MiddleOut]

I'm very much here for this shit. New favorite trope is old people reincarnated as younger people but still acting like they're old as hell.

 

[DemonHide]

as a machinist it pains me how this manga gets everything half right and so wrong when it comes to the technical side of things. do enjoy the art tho

The welding portion seems to be fairly well represented if nothing else. That being said, I've never seen half those joints being used, and as far as I'm aware, you generally want to avoid burning through your base. But, maybe that's mostly true for thinner material.

In any case, I'm enjoying it so far. It took a while to get going, but it hit its stride in the last few chapters.

 

[SonicWizard]

had potential, squandered all of it

trash.

 

[LichKing234]

its overall pretty good i like the the MC keeps his age related wit about him even those he did regress in years personally im tired of seeing other isekai mcs just not act like adults when they where adults when they got isekaied as teens i cut them some slack but here old 70 year old man gets the body as a 15ish? teen and just not give any ounce of a fuck.
i do agree some plot points could have been touched up on like frans party and seeing what punishment they got for all the shit they did but oh well.
also the people saying about the villains nothing wrong with some cartoonish villains not every villain have to have this deep back story of why they became a villain or doing what they do because of society. sometimes people do evil shit just because.
also the he can build anything im pretty sure as someone working for majority of his life in machining im pretty sure he would know how to craft alot of things not only that his eye is also helping him do it his magic eye is also guiding him in what he wants to craft.
the only real thing is him learning magic way to fast thats the main thing.
maybe flesh out the characters abit more the world building is pretty good already and maybe a few other things but over all the manga is i would say a 7.5/10 maybe an 8

 

[Greenfox]

xD i like the story.
Even if its way to fast and forced in strength gahthering... could have done with a slower pace and experimenting and stuff.
He just goes bam and super duper equipment instantly.

But the whole age reversal is weird as always. Cause he certainly doesn't act like a wise 70 year old man.

Atleast the fan service is tame and they got a cute wolf girl xD.

 

[DeepSeaDingo]

Chapter 1 sets up potential to be a decent isekai but it immediately squanders any potential.
Every single chapter is worse than the one before.
It’d be one thing if it were just one dimensional characters or the usual isekai tropes - plenty of manga do those and we still read them - but it’s not. Everything is done in cartoonish excess.

Fran is a healer with anxiety? Okay. Give her a Darkest Dungeon style breakdown any time she has to fight. Wanting to heal people and being afraid of everything are her only personality traits. For some reason Fujimura decides to make her the party frontliner even though she just wants to heal people.

Fujimura himself? He has one mode and it’s generic, cocky old man. He has yet to play any role in the story except building a gun, giving it to Fran, and picking fights that he expects Fran to fight.

Fran’s ex-party? So ridiculously evil that it’s stupid. They kill people in public a lot, lick blood, and repeatedly say they spread bad rumors about her in front of everyone. They even stab the (disguised) king. They have zero nuance and are, like everyone else in this series, one dimensional caricatures with only one personality trait and mode each. At least other manga we call trash have characters that can process more than one emotion. That’s how low the bar is set.

If it seems like a showdown is going to happen, expect interruptions. If it seems like Fujimura is going to do something, expect to be shown in a flashback that yeah actually he could walk the talk because he did before but just won’t now. Everything notable he’s done has been in a flashback so far. Otherwise he just instigates fights for other people to solve.

Fran even pauses in the middle of an actual battlefield to monologue her backstory as monsters are killing people around her.

One chapter even ends with a final boss giant ogre appearing and then the next chapter starts with the boss defeated.

It’s only been 5 chapters and yet this is easily one of the worst isekai I’ve read in a long time. Not because it’s the worst of the bunch but because it’s incredibly disappointing to read after chapter 1 tries so hard to set itself up to be something different.

It uses every bad shounen battle manga tactic both for storytelling and prolonging the story that both creators and readers make fun of and parody in better series.

I’m not sure if it’s a 4/10 or a 3/10. Chapter 1 and the art are really all it has going for it, and even then the art isn’t exactly fantastic. It’s just good but it makes you think it’s better than it is by drawing focus to character designs while finding ways around showing combat or fluidity. The paneling is also very basic. I think the only reason the art seems better than most other isekai and fantasy manga is because most other series don’t bother even drawing background details.

Kinda feels like One-Punch Man to me. Not taking itself seriously, over the top villains/Heroes, and ridiculous displays of power.

 

[Jakerart]

This manga is kinda like the mixxed between OPM and Onizuka. Hopefully they can actually made some good writing for the story or this will be dull.