World Customize Creator is a light novel fantasy series by Hero Tennki which both the novels and manga are published by Alphapolis. The novels were released in five volumes from August 7, 2012 to August 6, 2013.
Yusuke Tagami, an ordinary video game lover, finds himself guided by a mysterious compelling voice. It asks him what kind of power he would like, and he answers by saying that he'd like to be able to freely create and customize anything. When he awakens, he realizes that he is no longer in Japan, or even on Earth, but in a fantasy world called Caltsio. More specifically, he emerged from the shrine of the evil god of calamity, whose apostle is said to have black hair and eyes—a description he naturally fits due to his Japanese descent.
Yusuke lucked out, however, as one of the first people he meets in Caltsio is reasonable enough to understand that he is not inherently evil. He's shown around and learns that most people have elemental magic, and that their element can be inferred based upon their hair and eye colors. Yusuke's new friends on Caltsio defend his reputation by stating that as someone with black hair and eyes, he is not the god of calamity, but rather someone who bears all elemental magic, something that's not entirely incorrect. Yusuke's wish to be able to customize and create freely was granted. He can use the earth around him to make a stone tower appear seemingly out of thin air, heal the injured, and is only limited by his imagination.
As a powerful mage, Yusuke now finds himself enthralled in the politics and intrigue of the world of Caltsio and must work in order to survive and protect his new friends.
This work contains examples of:
- Adaptation Distillation: Zigzagged. The manga adaptation clearly removes or shortens numerous plot elements, presumably to remove more "objectionable" material, such as Plusha's Attempted Rape scene, Yusuke stumbling upon a den of naked prostitutes, and the scenes where Zeshald encounters slaves in Blue Garden. On the other hand, some content is added to the story, such as Yusuke trying to cultivate a field of vegetables, Talis trying to Salt the Earth, and Yusuke reporting it to the town council.
- Badass Normal: The people without magic have considerably higher strength (even Sun and Ms. Bahana) and cannot be detected by traditional magical means.
- Child Soldier: The countries in the setting of Caltsio have little compunction against using young children as soldiers. Folcnac is the most benevolent shown, as all soldiers have to pass some minimal basic competency tests to enlist, and are not conscripted, while Nossentes is the worst, as they're shown taking orphans and brainwashing them into Femme Fatale Spy and assassin agents, even bragging about having mindlessly obedient pre-teen little girls happily carry out any and every order without question or independent thought.
- Crapsaccharine World: The world of Caltsio looks like paradise at first glance. Clean air, water, and pristine landscapes are abundant. The general populace are honest and hard-working, leading a simple life. The majority also wield special elemental magics that they use in numerous mundane ways. It soon becomes evident that the world is actually locked in a cycle of revenge between those with magical powers and those without them, where the underdog tend to be exploited, oppressed, and abused. Every few centuries or so, an "Evil God of calamity" summoned from another world wreaks havoc on the status quo, allowing the underdog to rise to power and bring the downfall of those in charge. In the most current incarnation, those in charge, with rare exception, are actively jockeying for position, using any means at their disposal, regardless of ethics or morality.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The moral compass in the world of Caltsio is vastly different from modern Earth. Aside from Polyamory being the law of the land, the population at large is very laissez-faire about sex in general, and prostitution is regarded as a noble profession. So much so that a class known as "Song Princess" exists, and is very well rewarded by the nobility. Not to mention that slavery is perfectly legal in every country.
- Design-It-Yourself Equipment: Yusuke's power in a nutshell. He can repair items, make them from base materials, alter them, increase/restore their durability, build/deconstruct structures and add effects and stat boosts. The better the starting materials, the higher quality the end result.
- Elemental Hair Colors: People with magic have color-coded hair (and eyes) depending on their element. Red for fire, blue for water, yellow for earth, green for wind, and white for powerless.
- Elemental Powers: In order of strength there's fire, earth, wind, and water.
- Empowered Badass Normal: With Yusuke's stat-boosting equipment a powerless person can become even stronger.
- End of an Age: Each Evil God is summoned to bring this, but we still don't know what fate planned for Yusuke. Later chapters reveal that not all "evil gods" were human. Some were actually mindless beasts, and one of them served as a template for magical beasts that disrupt divine arts.
- Exotic Extended Marriage: While monogamy does exist, nobody bats an eye at the fact that Princess Violet has several male fiances (most of whom are arranged), and Violet herself doesn't have any trouble with Yusuke (who is one of them) having other female love interests, specifically Sun, whom Violet actually goes out of her way to make attractive to Yusuke, hoping to see them hook up, for her own amusement. When Yusuke gains a concubine, Violet wants that woman "entertained" too.
- Fantastic Racism:
- People without powers are often persecuted and looked down upon. Yusuke makes it his mission to use his newfound influence to improve rights for normal people.
- Within the elemental powers, in some nations, the elements are ranked from lowest up as Wind, Earth, Water, and Fire.
- In Gazetta, the reverse is true and people with Divine Arts tend to be treated as pariahs, at best, due to a lack of physical strength.
- Generic Cuteness: Nobody is a gonk or deformed in the world setting, and it takes some truly grievous wounds to leave a scar. This is justified both by the intense power of the healing magic and medicines, and by the fact that children considered "defective" do tend to get "disposed of" in one way or another.
- Groin Attack: Sun gives one to an old "childhood friend" (read:slimy local playboy) who tries to rape her. She is wearing a strength-enhancing ring from Yusuke at time, making the attack even stronger.
- Happiness in Slavery: Even in the same country, the treatment of slaves can be wildly different. While slaves are officially treated as livestock in the part of Blue Garden under Izapnar, in the temple district run by Rinshala, the slaves are, at worst, treated as employees, and are universally happy and healthy with all their needs met in exchange for their faithful service. Zeshald is stunned upon seeing the distinction.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Every antagonist that goes after Yusuke gets taken down by his own tools, tactics, strategies and actions. Every. Single. One.
- Knight Templar: The vast majority of the major antagonists, and a few minor ones, are so utterly convinced that their way of thinking is both correct and just, that not only do they ignore any and all evidence to the contrary, but almost universally react with murderous rage upon whomever dares voice dissent in any way. This inevitably leads to them being Hoist by His Own Petard, without exception. Latter antagonists fail to learn from the mistakes of previous antagonists and continue to think themselves vastly superior to Yusuke, on every level, and proceed to do the same abhorrent behavior that doomed their predecessors, utterly failing to understand where they went wrong, the only difference is in the scale of their atrocity.
- Laser-Guided Karma: When Nossentes was founded over 3,000 years ago, they, and their Evil God patron drove the White clan, aka Gazzetta, to the brink of extinction and stole their country, then they, after the fact, invent an entire religion, "The Four Gods Faith" proclaiming that their special elemental powers are granted by non-existent divine entities to justify doing so, and then implement a caste system on top of that, which the country of Folcnac latter adopts. After that, they start stealing little girls from orphanages to force them into prostitution, espionage, and assassination, even going so far as to brainwash them into obedience and bragging about it. They even go so far as to send agent provocateurs into every neighboring country to either incite civil war or use false flag operations to force said countries into war against each other, so they could go in and pick up the pieces after it's done. When all of that fails, they turn to modifying magical beasts to disrupt the divine arts of other nations and unleash them upon the world with abandon. No tears were shed when the country fell.
- Meaningful Name: On a meta level. The name of the new world where Yusuke finds himself, Caltsio, happens to be an anagram of a popular children's game based on various magnetized building blocks going by the name of Calisto.
- Morality Kitchen Sink: Just about every flavor of morality, good or bad, is featured in the story, from Complete Monster to Wide-Eyed Idealist.
- Opposites Attract: Princess Violet is loud, extravagant, flamboyant and tempermental, constantly seeking to be entertained, as well as being the crown princess. Sun is withdrawn, painfully shy, meek and humble, always seeking to be of service, as well as being on the very bottom tier of society. The two of them become best friends.
- Outside-Context Problem: Yusuke is this big time to everybody because his "Divine Art" is nothing like anything they've ever seen and basically makes him a low level Reality Warper. Because he can do things that seem to be impossible to everyone, they can't predict what he will do or how is ability will be put into play and the downfall of many antagonists has been due to predicting things going one way (which they normally would) yet have events go completely off script because of what Yusuke does.
- Personality Powers: Powers aren't just advertised by appearance of eye and hair colors but by personality as well.
- Pit Trap: One of Yusuke's standard attacks. He will add spikes below for added danger.
- Polyamory: While the concept of marriage, and monogamy, does exist in the world setting, numerous characters, especially those in the high tiers of society, have little compunction against having multiple romantic partners, or their romantic partners having multiple partners. As a prime example, Princess Violet not only has several fiance candidates, including Yusuke, after he became "The Hero of Gear Hawk," but she clearly enjoys seeing Yusuke having romantic interest in women other than herself. In addition, her first introduced fiance candidate, Hivodir, actually becomes far more cordial to Yusuke after Yusuke becomes a fellow fiance candidate. It helps that he, among many others, truly believes that Yusuke has more than earned the position by becoming "The Hero of Gear Hawk."
- Red Baron: Yusuke is known as "The Hero of Gear Hawk" for his first successful mission also his mission/battle.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Folcnac may have a caste system, and even though "powerless" tend to be lowest on the totem pole, they are still not viewed as livestock, at least not officially. Blue Garden, despite their claims of equality, openly treat the "powerless" as livestock, and on one occasion Zeshald witnesses one of them being whipped because he dared heal her injuries, until the slave merchant realized who he was.
- STD Immunity: Averted. While prostitution does exist prominently in the world setting, the light novel specifies that all sex workers from "night singers" (common whores) to "Song Princesses" (very expensive high-class prostitutes) must routinely get screened by healing-specialist water diviners to be confirmed free of disease before they're allowed to "conduct their business."
- Superpowerful Genetics: A mix of types 1, 2, and 5. While divinist powers most often run in families, this is not an ironclad guarantee that a child will inherit the power(s) of its parents. Ifoca is a prime example as she is a wind divinist born of "powerless" parents, and there are documented off-screen "powerless" children born to divinist parents. While divinist children born from powerless are routinely fostered in divinist families, powerless children born from divinists are often aborted, abanoned, or abused, although powerless childen born from divinists being fostered by powerless servants is not unheard of.
- Trap Master: Yusuke can use his powers to change the landscape into his liking. This includes such traps as Pit traps.
- Trapped in Another World: Yusuke is originally from modern day Japan and called by mysterious force to Caltsio where magic exists. Also, implied to happen to other "Evil God-s".
- Vapor Wear: Female characters are shown not wearing brassieres or corsets, as sometimes you can notice The Dark God Squad's Eisha's nipples through her clothes and clear view of Sun's upper breasts in very low-cut dress.
- World of Buxom: Many female characters above their teenage years have impressive racks. Take Sun, Ms. Bahana, and The Dark God Squad's Eisha for example.
- World of Technicolor Hair: The majority of people in Caltsio have hair and eye colors that correspond to the element(s) of magic they have, and it's illegal to dye your hair if you have magic. Yusuke is an oddity as his black hair, normal for a Japanese person, is the mark of the apostle of the god of calamity; a friend of his manages to spin a tale about him having all four elements mixed into a single power (which is technically accurate), the combination of the four colors giving him black hair much the same as four paints blended together.
