Arifureta: Similar Story, Different World
is a story that starts off similar to the plot of Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest, but focuses on a different character. Yamamoto Eichirou is a student who recently transferred to the same class with Nagumo Hajime after spending nearly his whole life abroad from Japan. When he gets transported to the World of Tortus along with his classmates, Yamamoto refuses to participate in the war against the demons and resolves to find a way for all of them to return home, but there're many bumps on the road ahead in his adventure, and it only gets worse from there.
Warning: Certain spoilers will be hidden.
Arifureta: Similar Story, Different World provides examples of
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- Thanks to Yamamoto's influence, Hajime ends up closer to his classmates than his canon-self was Pre-Orcus.
- In canon, Liliana is one of Hajime's lovers (and later wives). Here, she is one of Eichirou's two lovers.
- Adapted Out: Many of Hajime's lovers in canon are not present in this story.
- Apologizes a Lot: Whenever Amanogawa or Shirasaki tries and fails to make a situation better, Yaegashi ends up having to apologize for either of their misguided actions. Yamamoto deconstructs this by sternly pointing out that all of Yaegashi's apologizing would do is allowing the situation to get out of hand, and that her inaction to speak out against her friend's actions makes her an Accomplice by Inaction.
- Crush Blush: Iselda blushes like crazy when she sees Yamamoto shirtless.
- Giving Radio to the Romans:
- Once Yamamoto applies the concepts of modern science and physics to the casting of Tortus magic, he was able to cast five different elemental spells simultaneously (which is thought to be impossible due to the amount of mana it would take to perform) to heal the poisoned guests (by using his knowledge of biology). Obviously, this left the Court Mages stunned and eager to learn from the bespectacled teen of this discovery. Chapter 9 shows him coming up with the theory of "semantic shift and information entropy" in magic casting, and lecturing it to others.
- After a month of Took a Level in Badass, Nagumo is able to utilize more of his abilities by showing an intuitive casting of spells that could rival an Apprentice-level Tortus Mage, and using his "Transmute" skill to create the process of "printing" that would eliminate the long hours of writing books and scrolls by hand.
- With help from Yamamoto, Aya is able to discover the magic equivalent of an X-ray scan with light magic.
- Meaningful Name: Yamamoto (山本) means "base of the mountain" while Eichirou (英一郎) is "heroic/outstanding #1 son". As one reviewer points out, his full name is "heroic base of the mountain", which shows in Yamamoto's support to Nagumo's predicament and saving the poisoned guests from death, along with being more heroic than Amanogawa. Eichirou could also be spelled with (叡一郎) which means "wise first-born son" alluding to his intelligence and analytical outlook.
- Point of Divergence: It is stated the Loophole Abuse Yamamoto uses is regarded as blasphemy, which is why more people don't use it.
- Shout-Out: Yamamoto references Sailor Moon and Full Metal Alchemist in the first chapter.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man:
- Shirasaki (one of the school idols) has a crush on the well-meaning Nagumo (an unpopular Otaku) for his inner strength to stand up to an adversary despite his weakness.
- Like Liliana, Iselda has this for Yamamoto as well.
- The Six Stats:
- Strength
- Vitality
- Resistance
- Agility
- Magic
- Magic Resistance
- With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Deconstructed. When Amanogawa tries to get Yamamoto to reconsider joining in the war by citing the responsibility to help others for possessing great abilities, Yamamoto also points out that just because he has the power to save others doesn't mean that there aren't consequences that'll come with the choice. It also doesn't help that Amanogawa is basically forcing his own naïve idea of responsibility onto the bespectacled teen despite possessing the "Hero" job class himself, and Yamamoto stated to Mia that he'll also be held accountable for the actions of reckless fools (i.e. his classmates) who are already dancing to Ishtar's tune.
