Yeah, it's not like it's Great Literature™ or anything like that, but it's still a story in the same sense that ham, cheese, and mayo between two slices of bread is a "sandwich". By comparison, most isekai are like a single slice of bread with mayo smeared on, and nothing else.
With "the actual story" I was more referring to the plot (so I should've used that word instead), which is fairly basic. But it's not a plot-driven story; it's a character-driven story, and that's where it shines.
Yeah, no, I'm following. And I agree, the characterization is pretty strong, especially for the MC in comparison to other isekai protagonists (who so often have basically none because they're supposed to be vehicles for audience projection and not real characters in their own right)
