Light says goodbye to his family and sets off to become…wait for it…an Adventurer! This looks like a pretty typical lighthearted (ha!) fantasy story… Oh, humans are treated like scum by the other races and have a pathetic literacy rating? Ah, but surely his OP gacha gift will turn things around… Oh, it’s literally pathetic too, producing bent forks, rotten apples, and moldy bread? Never mind. Hey, look at the open-minded elf woman who takes pity on him! Now I get it—his new friends and budding love interest will take him on a journey to grow and change the world— Oh, they’re stabbing him and shooting arrows at him. But if Light weren’t so busy trying to survive, he might pay more attention to their talk of “Maestros” and a deeper plot at work… A last-minute stumble into a teleport trap sends him out of the frying pan and into the fire—that is, the lowest level of the Abyss dungeon. Surrounded by level 1000 monsters, he makes one last desperate pull with his Unlimited Gacha gift…
I’ve been looking forward to this one, having kept up with the manga, though I recognize this won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. In some ways, Unlimited Gacha is a non-isekai version of Arifureta, with all of the pros and cons that this comparison implies. But whereas Arifureta, in my view, started strong and then grew much less interesting, Unlimited Gacha has a decent, though not stellar, start and then maintains its stride over the long-haul. Unlike many protagonist-with-an-OP-gift stories, Unlimited Gacha provides an in-story reason that makes sense for why the OP gift doesn’t seem OP at first; and unlike most “my party kicked me out for being weak even though I’m really the strongest” stories, Light’s party has a legitimate (if morally wrong) reason for booting him out once his gift (which they suspected was OP) seems proven to be a dud—he literally brings nothing to the party in terms of skills, status, or anything else. And besides, they’re just following orders… Now, a sneak peak from someone who’s read ahead: The strength of this series is the worldbuilding. The characters, setting, and the like do tend toward the usual tropes, even stereotypes at times—though it also deconstructs the stereotypes, as for example playing up the elf lady as a bog-standard fantasy love interest before pulling the rug out from under that one. So if you like dark or revenge fantasies and worldbuilding, this might be for you, though probably not for anyone else.
My Gift Level 9999 Unlimited Gacha: Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon, I’m Out for Revenge! is streaming on HiDive.
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