"I'm Kuzuno Sekai, a second year high schooler. I may have been blessed with the ability to stop time in this strange world... But I've got less than two days to live. I'm one unlucky hero."
Wishing to disappear from the world after a compromising photo of his blows up on social media, Japanese high school student Kuzuno Sekai suddenly finds himself Trapped in Another World, a land of knights and magic overlaid with vague video game mechanics. In his hand Sekai finds a mysterious retro console controller. None of the buttons seem to work, except when he hits the "Pause" button which causes everything around him to freeze in place. Sekai quickly realizes he can stop time indefinitely as many times as he wants. After a day of flipping up skirts and chowing on food, a countdown timer no one but him can see makes itself apparent: he has altogether three days to accomplish some kind of mission or otherwise face the unknown consequences. Armed with nothing but his wits, patience, and the overpowered ability to stop time, Kuzuno Sekai must uncover the conditions to reach the "Stage Clear" and fulfill his destiny as the world's "Hero of Salvation"!
Time Stop Hero (Japanese title: 時間停止勇者; ― 余命3日の設定じゃ世界を救うには短すぎる Jikan Teishi Yuusha - Yomei 3-ka no Settei ja Sekai wo Sukuu ni wa Mijika Sugiru, "Time Stop Brave - A Game Setting to Save the World in Three Days is Way too Short") is an ongoing Japanese Manga series by Yasunori Mitsunaga, who is most famous for the long-running Princess Resurrection. It began serialization in September 2019 in Kodansha's Monthly Shounen Sirius magazine, and has been published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment since October 2021.
Time Stop Brave contains examples of:
- Actually a Doombot: In Chapter 20, when it looks like they managed to kill the King of Darkness, he reveals it was just an avatar or projection.
- All Amazons Want Hercules: Swordmaster Leafa becomes attracted to Sekai when she thinks he can outspeed her.
- Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Swordmaster Leafa constantly boasts about how she is unbeatable.
- Attempted Rape: Sekai's party finds a group of goblins about to rape some captured women. Sekai freezes time and kills the goblins to save them.
- Author Appeal:
- In an interview, when asked why the female characters wear panties even though they didn't exist during the Middle Ages, the author said a) it's a fantasy world, not the real one, and b) "As the author, I want to see people with modern panties, and so does everyone else."
- He also said he created the character Fury because he likes dark elves, citing Pirotess from Record of Lodoss War and Arshes Nei from Bastard!! (1988) as his favorites.
- The author is a fan of baseball, so in Chapter 20, Sekai has Gankichi play on a piano the cheer songs for the Yomiuri Giants, the Hanshin Tigers, and the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
- Censor Box: In the censored version, bare female nipples are blocked by a star while bare crotches are blocked by a chibi Niña holding a sign that reads "Can't Show". In the mainstream version, female crotches are just whited out while the chibi Niña is used for male crotches.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Sekai is totally perverted, but he also genuinely cares about people, like in one scene where a girl collapses in exhaustion and he freezes time so he can catch her before she hits the ground.
- Defeat by Modesty:
- Sekai gets faced down by the eldest princess of the kingdom, Clau Belltree, who is also a powerful knight. She challenges Sekai to a fight, believing him not worthy to bear the title of Brave. He gets annoyed at being forced into a fight, so he uses “disarmament” on her (which was basically stripping her naked while stopping time). Sekai then does the same thing to Clau’s other comrades when they try to attack him, forcing them to retreat in embarrassment at being seen naked.
- Some jerk tries to harass Swordmaster Leafa, but she slashes his shirt off in an instant to make him back off. The same jerk then tries to harass Sekai, but he uses his time stop to steal his pants, and then strip his female comrade when she tries to attack him, making them run away. However, this tactic fails spectacularly when he tries it on Leafa, who breaks his nose while he was gloating about stripping her. He returns her clothes and apologizes.
- Egopolis: The kingdom and the royal family are both called Belltree. There is another kingdom where it and the royal family are both called Mount Cape.
- Floating Continent: In the second timeline, the evil elves turn their forest village into a floating city using Lost Technology from a forgotten god. In a match of Evil Versus Evil, they attack the Forces of Darkness, who reference themselves having already destroyed a previous floating city in the ancient past.
- Funny Background Event: When Sekai strips Clau and her party and they run away, the castle's guards are shown in the background trying and failing not to stare at them.
- Get into Jail Free: Death row prisoners have to fight in a gladiator arena. Sekai decides to experience that, so he gets himself arrested on purpose by carrying a corpse he found (the man had already been killed by goblins, which he then killed) into the city.
- Gladiator Games: Condemned prisoners are forced to fight for their freedom in a gladiator arena.
- Going Commando: Most female characters wear panties, but no bras.
- Golem: Fury specializes in summoning huge golems to fight for her. She teaches Sekai how to do it, but due to his lack of experience and low mana, his golems are tiny in comparison. However, his golems can move while time is frozen.
- Harmless Freezing: It all depends on your magic resistance. For those who have a decent amount, being frozen in a block of ice is inconvenient rather than life-threatening.
- Here We Go Again!: In Chapter 4, Sekai finally gets a Stage Clear by rescuing several girls from goblins, but instead of disappearing, the clock resets to 72 hours. He realizes to his chagrin that he has to keep doing stages. In Chapter 9, he gets another Stage Clear by evacuating the entire city when the King of Darkness bombards it with a meteor shower, but the clock resets to ten days.
- The Hero: Kuzuno Sekai is stylized as the world's Salvation Brave, which really means he is the Kingdom's glorified errand boy.
- Heroic Bastard: It is briefly mentioned that Prince Will Belltree was born illegitimate, but he is a heroic knight and very friendly.
- Holy Burns Evil: Evil creatures like the King of Darkness and his minions are harmed by holy weapons and magic, which includes healing spells.
- Home Field Advantage: As long as they are in the Realm of Darkness, the King of Darkness and his minions cannot be harmed except by holy attacks.
- How Is That Even Possible?:
- People who are unaware that Sekai can freeze time often wonder how he can move so fast.
- Leafa sees that a Fiery Salamander was turned into a vampire and wonders how the vampires were able to bite it since it is covered with flames.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each chapter goes "[Word] and Stop". For example, the first three chapters are "Shift and Stop", "Search and Stop", and "Disarm and Stop".
- Irrelevant Sidequest: Sekai is in constant fear of wasting his time, but just in case it is relevant to the "Main Questline" he tries to complete every errand he comes across.
- Justified Tutorial: Sekai is sent into a tutorial dungeon by the elf village's sacred tree to fetch his beginner weapon long after such a thing would have been useful, leading Sekai to wonder if the intended main protagonist of the game was supposed to be an elf.
- Kill It Through Its Stomach: The Dark Shoggoth devours Swordmaster Leafa, but after it gets weakened by an army of clerics bombarding it with healing spells, she slices it up from the inside.
- Level Grinding: When faced with the giant sand worm, Sekai figured it would be easy to kill once he stopped time. Unfortunately, even with time frozen, Sekai couldn’t penetrate its hide with a normal sword. He then gets a stronger sword somewhere else, but is still unable to scratch the sand worm. Finally, Sekai realizes he had to build up his physical strength first, so he took a few weeks to train his body until he became strong enough to finally slice into the sand worm.
- Logical Weakness:
- Freezing time freezes the clock, but Sekai quickly realizes he can't freeze time when working with a companion, like when he asks the thief Niña to unlock a door he couldn't open, since they would be frozen too. Freezing time would also be pointless if he is waiting for someone or something to arrive. So he has no choice but to let the clock run down at those times.
- Sekai learns the hard way that since his body isn't affected by freezing time, it won't do anything to save him if he is falling.
- Magical Incantation: When he first meets Fury, he prevents her from casting any spells with a gag.
- Ms. Fanservice: Fury is a sexy busty dark elf wearing a Stripperific outfit that is basically a thong bikini with a loincloth and short cape. It’s because of this Sekai would do a time stop so he could fondle her body.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever Sekai did in his old world to make him a pariah on social media is not explained.
- Not So Invincible After All: Sekai starts to get overconfident because of his time freeze ability.
- He gets a big wake up call when he faces Swordmaster Leafa, who is so fast that she can hit him before he can react. She almost managed to kill him before his time freeze kicked in, and he still needed to crawl to a healer with a near-fatal wound before he bled to death.
- He gets another wake up call when he overconfidently attacks a cockatrice while time was frozen, only to get too close to its breath and get turned to stone. He was lucky that his golem managed to kill it, reversing the petrification.
- King Nazar Rope II notices that he has a peculiar habit of putting his hand in his pocket when he makes stuff happen, so he attacks the pocket and delivers a mortal injury. The life stone also just so happens to choose that moment to decide that it doesn't need to stay inside of Sekai anymore.
- Panty Thief: In the very first page, Sekai proves his powers to Niña by stealing her panties.
- Power Misidentification:
- Sekai pretends his ability to instantly strip girls comes from "Disarmament Magic" rather than freezing time.
- When Sekai uses his time freeze to strip and disarm Swordmaster Leafa, she thinks he has Super-Speed.
- When Sekai moves Swordmaster Leafa and a few others to the Great Seal on Offshore Rope with time stop, she thought that he used Teleportation.
- Power Perversion Potential: Sekai constantly uses his powers to grope, peep or otherwise perv on women with minimal if any repercussions. Fury is somehow able to tell when Sekai fondles her breasts during a time stop.
- Religion is Magic: Following a religion grants magical powers. Common clergy use holy magic from the light goddess. Fury and Sekai worship the earth goddess Entoura and gain earth-based magic. Lovisa worships Lavas, Ruler of the Netherworld, and gained necromancy.
- Revive Kills Zombie: The Dark Shoggoth is seemingly impervious to attack, but it is harmed by healing spells. It is revealed to be the same with all the King of Darkness' minions.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: All of the royals of Belltree are proficient warriors or clergy.
- RPG Mechanicsverse: Even without counting Sekai's controller, the world includes things like dungeons, fireworks at the end of each stage, and even the occasional cutscene.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When it looks like Clau Belltree is about to confess her feelings for Sekai, he freezes time and runs away.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: When Sekai is sent to the past and meets Fury's little sister, whom Fury mentioned was raped and murdered, he decides to protect her and prevent that from happening. It turns out there really was a very good reason the elf village was massacred or enslaved. While most of the elves were not party to it, a faction within the village had plans to Takeover The World. In the second timeline, Sekai manages to save the elf village, but fails to stop their plans at the same time, resulting in countless deaths as the evil elves annihilate dozens of nations with their superweapon.
- Spectator Casualty: When facing the sand worm, Sekai side steps its acidic spit, but the spit hits a few people in the audience and injures them.
- Sympathetic Slave Owner: After Sekai arrests Fury, who had been attacking anyone who entered her territory, the King says the penalty for her actions is the gladiator arena. Not wanting her to die, Sekai purchases her as a slave. She is not happy about this, but he treats her well, groping aside, and soon she is one of the True Companions.
- Talk to the Fist: Sekai gets sent to the past of the elf village and is immediately identified as an intruder. The elves have no interest in Sekai's explanations and respond to his words by telling him to shut up while dealing him a mortal injury.
- Time Stands Still: The fundamental concept of the story. Sekai can freely pause and un-pause the world at his discretion, so long as his controller is at hand. Although this is indeed a Story-Breaker Power, the appeal of the manga is how Sekai tries to solve the complicated problems frozen in front of him. It should be noted that this power really is a cheat in-story, and the game world will always have a route to complete the current mission objective that doesn't need it, but the cost of victory will often be a lot higher using the standard route. For example, when the King of Darkness annihilates the capital, the game only expects Sekai to save the princess, with the rest of the capital's citizens doomed to die. Thanks to time stop, he is able to evacuate the entire city. There is also the problem that the game is designed for an Action Hero. Sekai is a Non-Action Guy, even after earning Character Levels, so completing the standard route is often beyond his abilities anyways.
- Time-Freeze Trolling Spree: Sekai will often just pause time just to grope and strip the women around him at his leisure.
- Tin-Can Telephone: When the dragon Bahamut is in the sky, he or his riders lower one of these devices to communicate with people on the ground.
- Trial by Combat: Death row prisoners have to fight in a gladiator arena. If they beat their opponent, they are freed.
- Truce Zone: The island of OffshoreRope is this for the war against the Forces of Darkness. Many darklings mingle with the population there.
- Undressing the Unconscious: Sekai suffers a broken leg and passes out. When he wakes up to find his leg has healed due to the Life Stone, he is shocked to find himself in bed with Ranga, and they are both naked. It is not really clear why Ranga did that since she is not attracted to him, unless she wanted to freak him out.
- Video-Game Lives: Within the elven village, if Sekai dies, he simply resets. He has no idea what would happen if he died normally though, and for obvious reasons, he isn't eager to test it. One hypothesis he's had is that the Player Character will simply be replaced by some other random person, which might explain why he never experienced the game's Justified Tutorial.
- Wham Episode:
- Chapters 24 and 25. Sekai apparently encounters a glitch by going off the world map and encounters a new world. After a more careful investigation, Swordmaster Leafa manages to figure out the standard and considerably more difficult game route that doesn't require Time Stop and that what Sekai encountered wasn't a glitch at all. She also determines that rather than being a different game world or underground city, the new location is merely a distant eastern country on the surface that is connected to the previous island by a magic pathway.
- Chapter 32. OffshoreRope experiences a volcanic eruption and an invasion of vampires. Sekai loses his controller and gets slashed across the stomach, and the Life Stone doesn't heal him.
- Chapter 35. The party finds Fury's burned down, deserted village and a talking tree that is unaffected when Sekai freezes time.
