The Legendary Hero Is Dead! (Yuusha ga Shinda! Murabito no Ore ga Hotta Otoshiana ni Yuusha ga Ochita Kekka - "The Hero Is Dead! Because of the Hero Falling Into the Pitfall That I Dug as a Villager") is a manga by Subaruichi which was serialized from 2014 to 2020 in the magazine Ura Sunday, and published in English by Shogakukan Asia since 2015.
The northern continent's Hell Gate was believed to have been sealed by the hero three years ago by Shion Bladedarts. However, the seal has weakened during those three years to a point of allowing monsters to sporadically make their way through, and have begun to pose a threat to humanity once more.
In a current day, a radish farmer by the name of Touka Scott has been living a normal life with his childhood friend, Yuna Yunis, in the central continent's southern village of Cheza. As a way to protect his radish fields, Touka has been preparing for sudden monster attacks by building himself a pit-trap of bamboo spikes for monsters to fall into, but it ends up failing when a monster that appears at the farm isn't lured in by Touka's freshly roasted bacon. Hero Shion arrives to save the village from the monster, but after quickly disposing of it, the hero gets lured in by the freshly roasted bacon, and falls into Touka's pit-trap. In a shocking turn of events, the hero actually ends up dying to the trap's bamboo spikes.
With the hero gone, a new one will eventually need to emerge so that the Hell Gate can be sealed once more. A small necromancer girl named Anri Haynesworth was Hero Shion's companion that journeyed with him to Cheza village, and comes up with a plan to have Touka's soul transferred into the hero's body while Anri protects Touka's now soulless body in a tiny key-chain coffin. This action would mean that Touka would be able to play out the role of the hero using Shion's body, and be the one that saves humanity from the monsters. The catch? Touka acts like less of a hero, and is actually more of a pervert that loves the thighs of women. Much to Yuna's continued annoyance, Touka goes about showing this by trying to forcibly dress a women's legs using knee socks so that the thighs can show off their true beauty.
Together with Yuna and Anri, Touka's party of three head off on an adventure to reseal the Hell Gate, meeting new friends and companions along the way, and battling against any monster or enemy they come across.
The series announced a continuation in MangaONE beginning in May 2022. Titled The Legendary Hero Is Dead! ~Realm of the Gods Arc~, it follows our heroes finally traversing the place where Shion's soul currently resides. The original manga, meanwhile, announced an anime adaptation by Liden Films, set to premiere in 2023.
Not to be confused with The Detective is Already Dead.
This work contains examples of:
- Accidental Hero: Blake the Twin Spear is the second flavor of this. Highly regaled as a mighty warrior who has defeated a hundred demons by himself, he's actually an incompetent idiot that just happens to be around whenever a lot of demons are killed.
- Actor Allusion:
- This isn’t the first time Yuichi Nakamura has voiced a character who is always seen naked. Or one who has a God complex.
- Ricco Fajardo dealing with Undead? At least, he didn't turn women into Undead Idols.
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Subverted. Touka uses the fact that he now looks like the Hero to get a heavy discount on a magic staff and free food at the inn. This immediately falls apart when people stop believing he’s Shion, and he almost gets executed.
- Always Save the Girl: Shion was so desperate to save Anri from mana deprivation death (Necromancers are human-demon hybrids who need a steady supply of mana or souls to survive) that he deliberately imperfectly sealed the Gate to the Demon Realm — the source of mana — so that it would open in a mere three years. Unfortunately, he badly underestimated how powerful the Demons would become in those three years, leading to a lot of bloodshed and devastation. Shion's guilt over this was so severe that he purposefully walked into Touka's trap in the beginning of the series.
- Big Bad: While the series has had a lot of villains, the ones who are ultimately behind everything are the four original Necromancers who killed the gods and took over the mortal world. They are still active too since Necromancers can extend their lifespans by consuming souls just like Demons. King Larkvlad is one of them, as is his subordinate Isaac.
- Book Ends: Just as Touka's adventure starts with one of his traps killing the legendary hero Shion, so too does his adventure end with deliberately pushing Larkvlad (who was forcefully chosen as part of Touka's plan) into the biggest pit trap of all. Larkvlad's posture during his defeat even mirrors Shion's posture after being skewered.Shion: Let's end this the same way we started. With the hero's death.
- Body Horror: Touka is stuck suffering this after a Necromancer imprisons his real body and places his soul in the dead hero's corpse, eventually decaying to nothing more than a living skeleton, and spends an entire early arc working to get the body back to normal. After building up to a mana level of three he's capable of regenerating the body on his own, meaning he can now regularly be dismembered without it being a major plot point.
- Cerebus Rollercoaster: The story starts as a lighthearted thigh-centric fanservice and slapstick comedy. It quickly grows into a story full of political war, ancient conspiracies, a war between humans, gods, and demons, and lighthearted thigh-centric fanservice and slapstick comedy.
- Chekhov's Skill: Touka's trapping abilities with special mention to those damn pit traps eventually come in handy, as Shion and Touka's finishing move in the final battle pushes Larkvlad into a giant pit trap, killing him off once and for all.
- The Chosen One: Double subversion... sort of. Initially subverted by Touka killing the Hero Shion in the first chapter, but eventually the Holy Sword comes to accept Touka himself, and Touka is from then on considered the new Hero.
- Touka weaponizes this in the climax. By making the Holy Sword choose Larkvlad as the next Hero and then killing him, Touka gets Larkvlad's soul trapped inside it, foiling the latter's resurrection trump card.
- Combined Energy Attack: Parodied with the ultimate Naked Kneesocks Dash. While in function everyone giving up a bit of power to help Touka and Shion defeat the final boss is very much in tune with the trope, they do it by allowing their clothes to be ripped apart as Touka and Shion dart around to build up energy for their final attack.
- Distant Finale: The final two chapters initially make it seem like three centuries have passed since peace was restored, but it really only turns out to be three years.
- Empire with a Dark Secret: Farom is ruled by the original Necromancers who killed the gods. Many of its citizens are actually undead puppets under the control of King Larkvlad, one of the four Necromancers. Shion and other Heroes who tried to stop Larkvlad when they learned the truth were forced to stand down and go along with the deception by Larkvlad threatening to unleash his puppets on the human population of the kingdom.
- Foreshadowing: There are several hints that demons were originally humans.
- Adele has the ability to transform humans into demons, just like how they originated in the past.
- Necromancers were born due to humans adapting in hell gate, which includes inteerbreeding and since the necromancers themselves can reproduce, which is only possible if they are both the same species.
- Demons are shown several times to be attracted to human females.
- Insane Troll Logic: Early on, putting socks on leg-shaped radishes is Touka's idea of being a real man. He's not alone on this though, as a couple background characters can be seen hiding similarly dressed radishes when Yuna calls him a pervert over it.
- The Multiverse: Larkvlad reveals that there are several worlds, which includes a world for humans, gods, higher beings that are invisible to normals and one taken over by horses.
- The Necrocracy: Farom Kingdom is secretly ruled by a cabal of age old Necromancers, and a good number of its citizens are actually undead puppets controlled by them to keep any upstart Heroes who learn the truth about them from fighting back.
- Through His Stomach: Touka attempts to lure a monster threatening a friend of his toward a pit trap. Averted since said monster says it hates pork.
- The Reveal: Shion wasn't the unfortunate victim of Touka's pit trap—he had the reflexes and abilities to escape the thing, but willingly fell in.
- Was Once a Man: It turns out demons were originally ancient humans whose mana went out of control. This is why demons and humans can interbreed (resulting in the necromancers) — demons were originally human.
- Wrong Context Magic: When Touka's party goes to another world which runs on RPG-mechanics. They confuse the levels of that world with mana levels of their world.
