If there’s one thing Seirei Gensouki has going for it, it’s the way it’s handling its subgenre of isekai. This series falls under the “reborn in another world” heading, but it takes a slightly different approach than the bulk of the stories we see translated into English: protagonist Rio sees his previous self, Haruto, as a completely different person. In part we could easily frame this as a form of self-defense – after all, Haruto’s big issue in life (prior to dying in a horrific bus accident, of course) was that he missed his childhood friend Mii-chan and wondered what happened to her. Meanwhile Rio is starved, beaten, and otherwise abused, stuck with a group of thugs who took him in after his mother’s death. He does end up going to a prestigious academy on scholarship, but his coloring marks him as foreign-born (or born to immigrant parents, which seems to be…
