Literature / How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom (現実主義勇者の王国再建記, Genjitsu Shugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki) is a Japanese Light Novel series written by Dojyomaru and illustrated by Fuyuyuki with a Manga adaptation by Satoshi Ueda. The novels are licensed and published in English online by J-Novel Club and in print form by Seven Seas Entertainment.

Kazuya Souma is a student who has just started university when his grandfather dies. Before the latter's passing, Kazuya is told to get married and live a fulfilling life. Not long after his grandfather is buried, Kazuya is suddenly summoned to another world in the continent of Landia where various fantasy races exist. The king of the Elfrieden Kingdom, who summoned Kazuya, asks for his help as the demons from the Demon King's Domain have invaded from the North, forcing the various rival kingdoms to unite and fight the demons. Elfrieden, which is suffering from various economic and socio-political problems, including an influx of refugees whose homes were destroyed by the demons, is bullied by the larger Gran Chaos Empire to summon a hero from another world to help in the war effort.

However, instead of setting off to slay the evildoers as one might expect in a story like this, Kazuya instead tells the king and his ministers how to help Elfrieden and make it stronger using his knowledge from Earth, including a "realistic approach" to solve the nation's grievances. Impressed, the king decides to abdicate the throne and make Kazuya the new ruler of Elfrieden, along with making his daughter, Princess Liscia, Kazuya's fiancee. Thus, Kazuya begins his quest to rebuild and save Elfrieden as its 14th ruler, "King Souma".

An Animated Adaptation by J.C. Staff premiered in July 2021 for 13-episodes, with a follow-up second part that began airing in January 2022. Altogether, the anime adapts the first four volumes of the novels (plus a bit of volume 5 aired early).

The afterword of the 19th light novel revealed that the series will end in its 20th volume.

Has a recap page in need of help.

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How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom provides examples of:

• Abdicate the Throne:
  • The story begins when the king of Elfrieden gives his position to Souma.
  • In volume 16, Maria breaks up the Gran Chaos Empire, with the northern provinces defecting to Fuuma. She then abdicates her throne in favor of her sister Jeanne and becomes one of Souma's secondary wives.
• Absurdly Youthful Parent: Considering some of the long-lived races in the Kingdom, that's bound to happen, but best exemplified by Duchess Excel, who is Juna's grandmother but looks like her big sister, and Aisha's father, the village chief, who Souma first assumed was her older brother but is actually 80.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • The Three Dukes, Roroa and her butler, and the Euphoria sisters all appear briefly on the first episode of the anime, before they were introduced in the manga and light novel.
  • Season 2 of the anime concludes with the last scenes of volume 4 of the novels, but the sequence the episode prior where Duchess Walter gives The Talk to Souma's harem is from the middle of volume 5.
• Adaptation Distillation: The anime removes minor plot points in various story arcs, such as Souma using the decapticated heads of corrupt nobles and has Liscia present them to their own soldiers claiming they tried to rape, pillage, and plunder the areas outside of Van and Souma won't have it. This is what instills fear into his army to obey and not retaliate against the enemy civilians.
• Adaptation Expansion: The anime shows prior to his summoning, one of the books Souma is reading at the university library is The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli.
• Adopting the Gender Binary: Dragons can shapeshift into humanoid forms. These forms are androgynous until and unless they form a bond with a humanoid Dragon Rider, at which time they'll take on either masculine or feminine forms in order to be the opposite sex from their rider, who is also their mate. It's noted that the logical consequence of this is that only dragons who bond with males are able to birth new dragons, since humanoids cannot lay eggs.
• Altar Diplomacy: All of Souma's queens have an element of this, even if it wasn't the original intention:
  • Liscia, as the daughter of the former king and queen, gives him some legitimacy on the throne.
  • Aisha serves as a connection to the Dark Elves, as she's the daughter of their chief.
  • Juna is the granddaughter of Excel Walter, one of the most powerful and respected military figures in the country.
  • Roroa is the only member of the Amidonian royal family who isn't dead or exiled, giving legitimacy to Souma annexing that country.
  • Naden serves as a connection to the Star Dragon Mountain Range and their leader, Tiamat, who is both a powerful political ally and worshipped by many as a god.
  • Yuriga is the sister of Fuuma Haan, ruler of the Great Tiger Kingdom.
  • Maria is the former Gran Chaos Empress and sister to the queen of the newly formed Kingdom of Euphoria.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Subverted. Mankind doesn't actually know anything about the Demon Lord's Domain, but they all assume that is the case. It takes Souma to point out that it could be different since he has first-hand information from Tomoe that at least one Kobold spared her village.
• Amazonian Beauty:
  • Aisha. She's taller than Souma and quite powerful. When she loses her restraint, she reconfigures the landscape around a small town near the border just by swinging her sword.
  • Amidonian general Margarita Wonder is even taller than Aisha, but still has a pretty, if stern, face.
• Anger Born of Worry:
  • In volume 16 Souma is so upset at Maria's unscripted fall from the balcony, which would've killed her if he and Naden had been unable to catch her in time, that he headbutts her twice.
  • In volume 17 Souma's usually mild-mannered young son Cian pummels his leg in a rage after his father went to war despite his pleas and Cian's caretaker Carla nearly died Taking the Bullet.
• Animal Mecha: Mechadra, which Genia made by stealing a dragon skeleton and encasing it in armor. It has no controls built into it, but Souma's Living Poltergeists magic gives him the limited ability to control it. It finally sees action in volume 13, being used in the battle against Ooyamizuchi.
• Anti-Air: This world has specially made ballistae incorporated with enchanted arrows that follow movement. Souma notes the similarity with homing missiles. However, because of how other magics which degrade or don't work at all over the open sea, these are used only on land-based locations and not on ships.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Some of the kingdom's nobles despise Souma due to choosing his ministers by merit and skill and not by lineage while wasting their time and money at brothels rather than helping the country.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Souma gives one to Hal, who wants to join Duke Carmine's rebellion, that if he does so, will he allow Duke Carmine and his allies to kill innocent people and commit Rape, Pillage, and Burn against those loyal to the King like his childhood friend Kaede Foxia, who's a member of the Royal Guard? This causes Hal to realize the error he was about to commit.
  • When the Amidonian general Margarita tells Souma to go ahead and remove her head for singing the Amidonian national anthem (at his request, yet), he simply asks her, “Why?”. When he explains that having the freedom to do such things is among the things that makes a good country, you can see her dawning realization that he might not be the sort she’s used to dealing with.
  • Souma posses one to Jeanne Euphoria that shakes even Liscia and Hakuya's preconceptions. This is namely for Souma monsters, demons, beastpeople, and dragonnewts are very indistinguishable for him. He has a hard time seeing the difference, if any are between them. The others quickly realize there is a lot of merit and it was only some cultural ideology they all accepted long ago that make them think there is some difference. They further recognize if this question was recorded for the records and other human-supremacist or elf-supremacist nations heard it, they could start making war on innocent beastpeople and dragonnewts. Jeanne is so shaken that she admits she would kill anyone beyond Souma, Hakuya, Liscia, and Aisha to keep this question silent for now.
• Arranged Marriage: It's actually rare to find a person of high standing inside the Kingdom who doesn't have at least one of these. Even Souma arranges a marriage for his Captain of the Royal Guard, Ludwin. Souma himself hasn't actually chosen any of his future wives, they all came from one arrangement or other.
• Author Appeal: The author clearly loves Machiavelli's The Prince. Possibly to fetishistic levels. Souma regularly recites from The Prince when considering harsh actions that need to be done, or warning others off some path they are one. In the anime, Souma is shown reading The Prince just prior to his summoning.
• Babies Make Everything Better: Marx, the castle chamberlain and former Prime Minister, certainly seems to think so, since he keeps hounding Souma and Liscia to "produce an heir" already. Later in the story all the other fianceés get on the bandwagon too, since, out of respect for the Top Wife, they don't want to have sex with Souma until Liscia is pregnant. Fortunately for all concerned, Liscia conceives fraternal twins within two months of Their First Time.
• Badass Bureaucrat: While not skilled in battle or powerful in using magic, Souma's greatest strength is his intelligence and his skills in bureaucracy and how to run the kingdom efficiently.
• Bad Future: The former Queen, Elisha, has the power to send her memories to her past self. She uses it to send both her and her husband's memories to the past in order to avoid total destruction of the Kingdom and says that she also used that power to win through the Succession Crisis that occurred before she married and took the throne. In the particular instance that's elaborated on, instead of making Souma king, Souma was made prime minister, and while his policies helped the kingdom, pressure from the nobles still ousted him from office. Later, Amidonia invaded, the corrupt nobles started a coup, Souma and Liscia were trapped in Duke Carmine's burning mansion, and the king and queen were cornered inside the castle, at which point their memories were sent to the past. The Volume 10 bonus story reveals that it might not be as bad as it first seems since it's revealed that Souma and Liscia managed to escape, meet up with Naden, and with her help managed to save the king and queen, with the group planning to rendezvous with Duke Excel and rally together the army and public to turn things around.
• Balance of Power: The military of the Kingdom of Elfrieden is set up as such that each division of the military is commanded separately by a major power. The Forbidden Army, the kingdom's elite forces, are run by the kingdom while the Army, Navy, and Air Force are each run by one of the Three Dukedoms. Individually, the Forbidden Army has the most troops, but if the Dukedoms decided to overthrow the king, they could combine their armies together and outnumber the Forbidden Army. Souma notes that such a system would work in times of peace and stability, by discouraging the King from becoming a tyrant, but that the division of power is too risky to maintain in the Kingdom's current state. Thus, he decides to merge all the forces into one army under the absolute command of the kingdom.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Duke Carmine is a man who sees many steps ahead. Armed with the knowledge from King Albert about the alternate timeline, he acts as a focus point for the Elfrieden nobles who want to rebel against Souma and whose lands and money was confiscated for their corruption. Carmine knows that these men have deeper pockets than what Souma took, and so will get them to pay for mercenaries from the Mercenary State of Zem. Once Souma defeats him in their civil war, he will capture not just the nobles but the mercenaries, who Souma can then ransom back to Zem and recover the money the corrupt nobles had hidden from him. He does this out of Undying Loyalty to Albert and Elfrieden, knowing full well it will mean his own death and the destruction of his house.
  • Margarita Wonder attempted one of these by singing the Amidonian national anthem during Souma's music broadcast only for her to be Out-Gambitted by Souma anticipating her song choice. She finishes her song expecting him to execute her for her defiance, which (along with the patriotic fervor incited by the song) would inspire the people of Amidonia to rise up against him. However, she fails to account for the possibility that Souma might not actually be a tyrant, and might in fact respond to her song in a manner fair and even-handed enough to make the previous regime look bad by comparison.
• Battle Couple:
  • Hal and Kaede become a powerful duo after Hal is forced to join the Forbidden Army and serve under her.
  • The Dragon Knights are this as well, because the moment the Knight bonds with a Dragon they are essentially married as far as the Dragon is concerned. Hal and Ruby fit this type.
• Battle Harem: Souma’s fiancees (with the exception of Roroa) make one. Souma is barely a passable fighter, but Liscia is a Pretty Princess Powerhouse, Aisha can make craters in the ground with her sword, Juna is a trained spy and retired marine, and Naden is a dragon who can take human form.
• Behemoth Battle: The battle against Ooyamizuchi briefly turns into one when Mechadra gets deployed, grappling with the sea monster for a time and dishing out a number of heavy blows before its experimental weaponry is spent or rendered unusable. Souma resorts to having Mechadra hold Ooyamizuchi in place so their more conventional forces can give it a proper Coup de Grâce.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: Souma and Shana, king of the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago, create a fake war between the two to bring their combined naval might against Ooyamizuchi, the monster responsible for the fishing problems in the archipelago.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: Almost all of volume two is one battle sequence after another, culminating in an open field battle between Elfrieden and Amidonia.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • The Elves of the God Protected Forest coming to aid the Forbidden Army of the Kingdom against the Army of Duke Georg and the corrupt nobles.
  • Souma and the dratroopers flying to the rescue of the besieged city of Valois, with Souma catching a falling Empress Maria in midair.
• Big Eater:
  • Poncho spent most of his money traveling around the world to find the best meals. Souma uses Poncho's knowledge because it can help in increasing the culinary diversity of the kingdom and alleviating the food crisis.
  • Aisha is another example of this. There's a Running Gag that she'll always be tamed with food.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family:
  • The royal house of Elfrieden used to be this. The king prior to Albert led his country through several wars of expansion, and his death created a power vacuum that, between the ambitions of those in the line of succession and the maneuvering of factions taking advantage of the chaos to settle old scores, engulfed the whole country in a bloodbath that wiped out the entirety of House Elfrieden save for Liscia's mother Elisha, who fled the conflict and initially gave up her right to the throne by marrying down into Albert's family.
  • House Chima turns out to be this. Duke Mathew Chima groomed his children's talents so that other countries would take them as retainers or even spouses. This upbringing created rifts in the family, especially when his second and third sons, Nata and Gauche, started picking on Ichiha for being seemingly talentless. Any remaining semblance of unity the family might have had is irreversibly shattered during Fuuga Haan's conquest of the Union of Eastern Nations, and though a few of the siblings do remain on good terms, it's clear that none of them have any intention of putting the whole family back together again. Given that two of them would try to kill each other if given the opportunity, that's probably for the best.
• Bilingual Bonus: The true name of the "Demon Lord Divalroi." She's known as Maou (Japanese), as in Maou the Demon King, but she's actually Mao (Chinese), as in a Cat Girl.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: During a visit to a museum, Souma tried to understand how evolution worked for different races in the world upon seeing skeletons of different races side by side. Later volumes point to this not being due to evolution, though the exact mechanism is unclear.
• Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Dragons' human forms are born Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous, but shift to take on masculine or feminine forms based on the sex of their humanoid riders, who are also their mates. This has the side effect that only dragons who partner with males can birth new dragons, since female humanoids cannot lay eggs. Dragon reproduction runs on Either/Or Offspring, with the other possibilities being the race of the non-dragon parent, or a Half-Human Hybrid race (dragonewts from Western-style winged dragons, sea serpents from Eastern-style ryuu like Souma's partner Naden Delal).
• Black Box: Even using it all the time, no one actually knows how the Jewel Broadcast works.
  • That actually is the same for several other artifacts that exist in the world.
• Bland-Name Product: Most blatantly in volume 17, in which essential plot points are a mecha from Assault Suits Jangar and an AI using the form of the virtual singer "Divaloid Mao", much to Souma's disbelief.
• Blessed with Suck: Souma is transported to another world with magic and the only thing he can use it for is to manipulate inanimate objects. It changes a bit with Mechadra, a metal dragon that Genia created because she was bored, but its combat capabilities are quite situational, like in the battle with Ooyamizuchi.
• Blood Knight: Nata Chima. He betrays his father because he's promised the prospect of more and stronger opponents if he enters Fuuga's service.
• Bodyguard Babes: Because Souma isn't a warrior, Liscia and Aisha take this role, with Juna and Naden later joining them.
• Bodyguard Crush: Aisha begins as Souma's self-proclaimed bodyguard that ends up being his Second Primary Queen, behind Liscia.
• Born in the Wrong Century: Thanks to his knowledge of Earth’s history, Souma is well aware of the existence of this trope, bemoaning the missed opportunities that resulted in his world’s history from these people being ignored, censored, or persecuted for having ideas ahead of their time. In contrast, Souma actively seeks these people out, aiming to foster their brilliance, and put it to use for the good of his country and mankind in general. To that end, he eagerly recruits people like Poncho, Genia, Merula, and Ichiha, no matter how eccentric, or even heretical, others might find them.
• Both Sides Have a Point: The narration explains that there are valid arguments for both Empress Maria's cautious approach to combating the Demon Lord's Domain after the Empire's first campaign ended in disaster and her subordinate Lumiere's desire to be more proactive.
  There was no way, at the present moment, to know who was right. In fact, even later generations wouldn't be able to tell.
• Boy Meets Girl:
  • Souma's first meeting with Liscia started with him literally browbeating her into helping him with paperwork before he even knew who she was.
  • Subverted with Roroa. She tried to engineer a situation like this but Souma saw through it before it happened.
  • Played straight with Naden, but it was engineered by Tiamat.
• Bring It: Liscia proudly announces to the Amidonia forces to come at her if they dare when she is leading a battalion in the One-Week War.
• Canon: In volume 6's afterword, the author states that the Light Novels are considered the definitive canon for the series.
• Carpet-Rolled Corpse: Roroa smuggles herself into an audience with Souma rolled up in one of the bolts of fabric Herman presents to him as a gift, and is disappointed by how quickly he figures it out because someone from his own world did it first.
• The Casanova: There are a lot of rumors around Souma, which are believable enough that many people in the Kingdom buy into them. This is very much to his annoyance, since he really isn't: in fact when he finally consummates with Liscia in volume 5, it's the first time for both of them.
  • Two of his wives, Aisha and Juna, came from his first round of recruitment, which included a beauty contest. Many people believe he held that contest for that purpose (the beauty and singing contests were actually to find loreleis, this world's version of an Idol Singer).
  • There are also some who believe he went to war with Amidonia just to take Roroa as his wife. Confusion over this almost leads to a serious international incident in volume 13.
• Cassandra Truth: Invoked by Souma in volume 17. He dissuades Fuuga from taking the head of the "Demon Lord" Mao by pointing out even if he manages to behead a hologram, no one will believe the dreaded Demon Lord is a cutesy Cat Girl.
• Character Development: Lampshaded in volume 5 by Souma when he comments on Liscia asking him about the meaning of the new program he's producing. Before, whenever he did something like that she would ask if there was a meaning instead. It's almost the same thing, but the meaning is completely different since the former implies that she trusts him more now.
• Character Focus: It shifts a lot, especially when a character is being introduced. Even some minor characters receive this treatment.
• Cheerful Child: Tomoe, after she was adopted by the former Royal Couple.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Roroa is described to sport this more often than not, especially when in relation to making money.
• The Chessmaster: Roroa. She manipulates from behind the scenes so many things that both Souma and Hakuya are dismayed to discover that their plan to take over Van ends up with them having to annex the entirety of the Amidonian territory because of her manipulation.
• Chick Magnet: Souma, though not all of them become part of the Supporting Harem.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • Souma's plan against the rebelling Duke Castor is first to make the battleship Albert into a mobile land fortress equipped with anti-flying weaponry not typically found on battleships, as the magic for it doesn't work over water. This is a distraction while Souma, Aisha, and Liscia in the body of his big puppet infiltrate Red Dragon City using hidden tunnels that Souma learned of from his castle's library. Then while Aisha is fighting Castor one-on-one, Liscia joins in at an opportune moment to defeat Castor.
  • Souma's plan for an eventual fight with the One-Man Army Fuuga Haan is to forego single combat and pile on him with the entire Air Force.
• Comically Missing the Point: Julius Amidonia complaining that Souma's offered peace terms to withdraw from Van "make us look like a defeated country". Given the circumstances,^{to recap} Julius and his father Gaius invaded Elfrieden to take advantage of the Civil War between Souma and Dukes Carmine and Castor, then were caught with their trousers down when Souma won so quickly, counter-invaded, and defeated and killed Gaius. everybody else's reaction boils down to, "Yes, and your point is?"
• Competence Zone: At the beginning of the story Souma said to gather anyone who had a gift at anything. If they had a gift, he would use it, it didn't matter the race, age, gender or social standing. In spite of this, competence is clearly skewed towards the younger characters in the series. This is brought up by Gouran Taisei, leader of the Republic of Turgis, who sees that it's the younger ones who are making big things happen in the world, leaving the older people like him behind.
• Conscription: During the Elfriefen-Amidonia War, after Gaius loses about half of his forces during the ambush in a valley, he forcibly recruits about 10,000 men from villages on their way back to Van. His daughter notes such heavy-handed tactics will make the people hate him all the more and risk incurring a rebellion from the commoners.
• Contamination Situation: In order to avert this Souma introduced the concept of hygiene to the Kingdom and created a plumbing and sewer system on the capital.
• Cool Big Sis: Tomoe sees Liscia as this.
• Cool Ship: The first Wyvern Carrier, the Hiryuu. It actually acts as a research and training facility for the Kingdom.
• Corpsing: In-Universe. Souma and Kagetora start cracking up on the air during their post-rehabilitation visit to Georg Carmine's grave.
• Cruel Mercy: How Souma deals with Castor and Carla Vargas after their rebellion, partially because they're too potentially useful to just kill but need to be punished.
  • Castor is stripped of his military post, his titles, even his name, and then left in the custody of his mother-in-law, Excel Walter. As usual, Souma has an ulterior motive: Duchess Walter commands the Elfrieden Navy, and with Castor's experience as commander of the Air Force, Souma plans to have her train him as a Navy officer then use him to command the first-ever aircraft carrier in the setting.
  • Carla is made a slave, forced to work as a maid under the sadistic Serina, and has a standing order to kill Souma if he becomes a tyrant (which could also kill her due to her Slave Collar).
• Cruel to Be Kind: Souma's ultimatum to the refugees displaced by the expansion of the Demon Lord's Domain is this. The refugees, having set up a camp right outside the capital, have been allowed a lot of leeway, but Souma knows that he can't leave them in that state forever. However, many of them still wish to return to their homelands someday, and simply want to stay in Elfrieden until that wish is fulfilled, which Souma is well aware might take years, if it happens at all. To avoid tensions rising between refugees and the residents of Elfrieden, Souma forces a stark choice on them; either integrate fully and become citizens of Elfrieden...or leave.
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • Dark magic isn't actual darkness, but a catch-all classification for magic that doesn't fit the other categories. Souma's magic, Living Poltergeist, is used for something far from evil, animating and controlling objects. Aside from Souma, the only other dark-magic users to so far are Tomoe, who can talk to animals, and Queen Elisha, who has the ability to send her memories back to her past self.
  • Dark elves are called that simply because they have darker skin than other elves. They're much closer to the wood elf concept than to drow.
• Dawn of an Era: A Hero summoned to the world isn't viewed as 'The One who Slays the Demon Lord' but as 'The One who brings about a New Era'.
• Dead Alternate Counterpart: In the Bad Future that Queen Elisha sent back her memories of to prevent, Souma and Liscia are presumed to have been killed in the rebel nobles' sack of Randel. A side story depicted in volume 10 reveals that not only did both actually escape, they rescue Elisha and Albert from their burning castle and plan to rally the remnants of Elfrieden's military to counterattack.
• Death by Origin Story: Souma's parents and grandparents all die preceding his summoning. His grandfather's words about obtaining a family and protecting them become part of his mantra.
• Decapitated Army: This is invoked in the civil war of Souma against the Dukes. Both sides agree if the enemy leader is captured or killed, then that side will immediately surrender and be absorbed into the victor's side.
• Defiant to the End: Amidonian general Margarita Wonder invokes this with the expectation of her death in retaliation when she joins Souma's music broadcast to sing the national anthem of Amidonia, which is about Amidonia attacking Elfrieden and taking back lands. Once she is done, she fully expects to be executed, but Souma just compliments her singing and explains that in Elfrieden, there is no law against singing another nation's anthem. So, while he is ruling Van, he will apply the same laws.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: With the Medieval European Fantasy setting, there's going to be at least some of this.
  • Slavery is often viewed by the enslaved as a reasonable alternative than going hungry and homeless. However, Souma pointedly disagrees, and though he enslaves Castor and Carla as punishment for their crimes, he plans to work with the Empire to gradually abolish the practice, and succeeds.
  • Middle Age emphasis on bloodlines, underdeveloped medical and hygienic practices, unstable birth rates, and lower life expectancy mean that polygamy is legal in Elfrieden, with the expectation that the polygamist is wealthy enough to support the additional spouses (and children). Notably, though, the dominant partner in a marriage is allowed to be polygamous regardless of sex: Liscia says her mother (the actual inheritor of the throne even though in practice she was only queen consort to Albert) could legally have taken multiple husbands had she so desired.
• Demihuman: A variety of humanoid races with animal traits like cat ears or dragon wings live side by side with humans in the kingdom.
• Democracy Is Flawed: Gouran of the Republic of Turgis believes that their republic won't last through the events that are coming. Before sending his son, Kuu, to Friedonia, he reveals that he has plans to force the country to become a monarchy so that Kuu is guaranteed to take over in the future.
• Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: Discussed. Souma hypothesizes about weaponizing magic-absorbing curse ore as firearm bullets as a countermeasure to Magic Knights, but realizes that they could make magic unusable where major battles had taken place and discards the idea.
• Disappointed by the Motive: Lampshaded. Upon meeting the Demon Lord: Mao, one of a pair of artificial intelligences designed to overseeing the terraforming of the planet that Soma was summoned to, Mao revealed that the reason that future humanity did not ultimately arrive to colonize the planet, as originally planned…was that humanity had developed entirely into a culture of shut-ins. With their technology having evolved to the point that all their physiological needs were able to be met without any required effort, as well as having developed perfect immersive virtual technology, mankind completely lost the desire to expand and explore, instead content to live in virtual worlds, while their previous plans for interstellar expansion were completely abandoned.
• Divided We Fall: The Empire headed the Mankind Declaration exactly in order to avoid this, but didn't realize that the act itself left loopholes that could be exploited.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Liscia's voice actress Inori Minase sings the opening theme of the anime.
• Don't Think, Feel: Souma tried to avert this by telling his people to study to understand the concepts of their own world, and not just chalk up to magic or work of spirits.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: King Albert's reign in a nutshell. Since every other candidate for the throne was dead, Elisha decided to make her husband the King, banking on him being reliable enough to keep the kingdom running, but mediocre enough that corrupt nobles would not see him as a threat and leave him be, in hopes that the next king would be able to bring the kingdom Back from the Brink if need be. Backing this decision is that every time Elisha had chosen a "competent" ruler, it resulted in a Bad Future where the kingdom fell and Elisha is most likely dead and forced to send her memories back to the past with her magic.
• Draconic Humanoid: Duchess Walter is a sea dragon, while her son-in-law Castor Vargas is a dragonewt.
• Drunk with Power: Subverted. Souma knows the temptations of power to the human mind and will. One of his fears is this could befall him. To prevent this, Souma tells Carla in no uncertain terms that if he ever becomes a tyrant, she's to kill him.
• Early-Bird Cameo: All of the retainers Souma would hire are briefly shown in panels in chapter 2 when he calls out for gifted people. They are mixed into crowd shots and unfocused so they are difficult to spot unless you know who you are looking for.
• Easily Elected: Souma Kazuya, a university student and aspiring civil servant, is summoned to another world with the expectation from the King and Queen of Elfrieden who summoned him that he will go off to fight the Demon Lord. After all relevant circumstances are explained to him, he offers the counter-proposal of an extensive reform program to rebuild Elfrieden's declining fortunes. After two days of talks, to the surprise of everyone including Souma, the King and Queen announce his betrothal to their Crown Princess and then Abdicate the Throne to him. This is just the first chapter: the rest of the story is about how he rose to the challenge.
• Easy Logistics: Averted, a lot of what Souma does to help Elfrieden is infrastructure improvements. Part of Roroa's grievance with her father is that Amidonia would have been a lot better off if he'd let her invest in infrastructure instead of spending everything she manages to scrape up on the military.
• Eccentric Mentor: Owen, Souma's educator and personal trainer.
• Either/Or Offspring: Interspecies relationships in the series tend to result in children being of one parent's race: for example, Juna Domo is fully human aside from having blue hair, but her grandmother is a sea serpent, while her cousin Carla is a dragonewt born of a dragonewt father and sea serpent mother. Pairings involving dragons are an exception to the rule, with three potential results: either a dragon egg (which is taken back to the Star Dragon Mountain Range for incubation due to the fact it can take longer than the non-dragon partner's entire life to hatch), the partner's species, or a Half-Human Hybrid race (dragonewts for standard winged dragons, sea serpents for ryuu like Naden).
• Elemental Powers: The world's magic is divided into the typical six elements.
• Enemy Civil War: Happens twice. Due to the Gambit Pile Up below, the Principality of Amidonia uses the rebellion as an opportunity to invade. Later due to the rebellions led by Roroa, Amidonia is annexed into Elfrieden, turning it into the Kingdom of Friedonia.
• Establishing Character Moment: Liscia comes running to the Castle after she hears her father abdicated the throne to the Hero that he summoned, thinking the throne was usurped from him. She's ready to tear the new King a new one when she finally meets him, he has bags under his eyes from working non-stop since becoming King which affected everyone in the castle, who tried to work hard as well.
• Everyone's Baby Sister: Tomoe, who is officially adopted by the former king and queen just so nobody can complain about a peasant refugee living in the royal palace.
• Evil Chancellor: Hashim Chima, who encourages the Hot-Blooded but naturally idealistic Fuuga Haan to increasingly underhanded and ruthless acts. Souma thinks of him as "Machiavellian (in the sense that word is used by people who didn't really understand [Machiavelli])."
• The Faceless: Kagetora, leader of the Black Cats, a special commando unit who responds directly to Souma. His face is a Tiger Mask but it's implied, and later revealed, that it's Georg Carmine.
• Fair-Weather Friend: Souma recognizes the danger in these and when the chance arises to kill twelve powerful nobles who are this at the best of times and outright traitors at worst, he does. When Liscia notes they had served the royal family for generations, Souma counters that they are people who will back whomever keeps them in power and use their connections to cut ties with the more opportunistic corrupt nobles to evade any investigations into their own corruptions. He much prefers to have around him those who will Speak Truth To Power and disagree with him if they believe he is wrong.
• Famed In-Story: Exploited by Souma in order to create the lorelei, which are basically Idol Singers, a concept that was adopted by the Empire later.
• Fantastic Racism: The Kingdom of Elfrieden averts this when compared to other nations, hence the loyalty of so many demi-humans towards the kingdom.
• Fantasy Conflict Counterpart: Souma provides an In-Universe example when he obliquely describes the Cold War to Jeanne Euphoria through a parable of a God of the East who believed all mankind should be made equal, and a God of the West who believed all mankind should be made free, and other nations caught between their worshipers just trying to survive their conflicts.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Mystic Wolves and the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago for Japan. Malmkhitan for Mongolia (complete with a Genghis Khan Expy).
• Fantasy Gun Control: There are cannons, but very few pistols or rifles. This is because of the rules of magic: the amount of magic that can be channeled through an object is a function of, among other things, the size of the object in question. The typical bullet is so small that the amount of magic it can carry is negligible. So even if a bullet is more powerful than an ordinary arrow, an enchanted arrow is so much more powerful than a bullet whether it's enchanted or not, so guns simply aren't all that useful as weapons. Gunpowder weapons are significantly more useful at sea, however, since elements other than water are noticeably weaker.
• Fee Fi Faux Pas:
  • It almost happens when Souma first sees Kaeda. Due to his lack of knowledge of beastmen species, he initially assumes she is a Mystic Wolf like Tomoe. Aisha, Juna, and Liscia explain she is a Mystic Fox and it would be bad to call one species another.
  • When hosting Amidonian Crown Prince Julian and General Jeanne Euphoria during a discussion about Elfrieden returning Amidonia's capital city Van to Julius, Julius' anger towards Souma causes a detriment to the discussions. So, after having Julius leave, Souma has Head Maid Serina hold a banquet for the Prince to keep him entertained. Serina requests that she can use a high vintage wine as part of this banquet, which Souma agrees to, to everyone else's discomfort. After Serina leaves, Souma learns that wine is known for its sweet flavor and is quite good, but will knock out anyone unaccustomed to drinking it very quickly. As Julius is unlikely to be familiar with the wine and not recognize it, Hakuya guesses the banquet will be over in ten minutes. Even Liscia feels bad for Julius at this moment.
• Fictional Geneva Conventions: The Declaration of Mankind's Common Front Against the Demon Race—usually shortened to the "Mankind Declaration"—is a treaty backed by the powerful Gran Chaos Empire in the west of the continent following the appearance of the Demon Lord's Domain, and is very important in the continent's geopolitics. The treaty essentially outlaws war among the nations of the southern half of the continent, so that "mankind"^note not just humans but also the other Standard Fantasy Races that lived there can form The Alliance against the demons: military conquest is outlawed, the rights of minorities are to be respected, and states far from the front lines are expected to support those directly threatened. Not every nation has signed it, however, notably the protagonists' own Kingdom of Elfrieden, which is very important to volumes 2 and 3: through negotiation with Princess Jeanne of the Empire, Souma Kazuya is able to position Elfrieden as a non-signatory co-belligerent, allowing him to adhere to the Declaration in spirit while preserving Elfrieden's independence and allowing him to continue building it into a competing superpower.
• Foreshadowing: The first three books and a good portion of the fourth hint at things that only come together at the end of the fourth volume.
• From Nobody to Nightmare:
  • The Kingdom of Friedonia on a national stage. Elfrieden as a nation suffered from a devastating Succession Crisis two decades ago and, under the care of a kind but passive king, hadn't recovered much. Corruption ate away at the kingdom due to the lack of royal oversight, with several nearby nations ready to take advantage and invade. One hero summoning changed the course of the kingdom leading it to absorb its hostile neighbor Amidonia. The combined nations declared themselves the Kingdom of Friedonia and became a technological, economic, and military powerhouse in a few short years, nearly able to stand up to the Empire and having forged alliances with the most powerful nations on the continent.
  • Souma fears that Fuuga Haan will become this. On the surface, he's the king of a nation that's unremarkable even within the Union of Eastern Nations. Given his combat prowess, unbelievable charisma, and ambitions to conquer the entire continent, Souma is extremely wary of Fuuga's potential, making the comparison to Genghis Khan multiple times. As of Volume 14, he's taken over the former Union of Eastern Nations.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Genia Maxwell.
• Gambit Pileup: The first four volumes comprise an extended one of these, involving at least two kingdoms worth of people putting plans into motion:
  • The Three Dukedoms of Elfrieden all have differing opinions about Souma and his rule. Castor believes that Souma forced his way into the throne and wants to oust him, Excel wants to avoid needless bloodshed, but ultimately throws in her lot with Souma after he delivers an ultimatum, and Carmine believes that Souma is unfit to be a ruler and wants to reinstate Albert back to the throne. The reality is much more complicated. Castor realizes that opposing Souma is a horrible idea, but wants to personally back up his friend Carmine out of hope that he knows what he's doing, Excel was colluding with Souma long before the ultimatum, thanks to having sent her granddaughter Juna as a spy and later contact, and Carmine is actually trying to gather all the corrupt nobles opposing Souma in one place so that he can seize them and their dirty assets and hand them over to Souma.
  • The Principality of Amidonia, led by Gaius VIII and Julius, wants to exploit the brewing civil war to both seize farmland for their own food crisis and get "revenge" against Elfrieden for an earlier war. They end up Out-Gambitted by Souma, who tricks them into over-committing their army into the invasion, leaving their capital city of Van vulnerable when Elfrieden's civil war ends much faster than expected. As an end result, Gaius is killed in battle while Julius is forced to escape to the Gran Chaos Empire to invoke the Mankind Declaration pact and regain control of Van.
  • The Gran Chaos Empire ultimately just wants to appease the other members of the Mankind Declaration, which is why they requested Elfrieden to perform a Hero summoning and why they have to return Van to Amidonian control, even though they personally think Amidonia deserves to lose territory since they were the ones who started the war. Ultimately, Souma agrees to return Van in exchange for reparations (expecting the people to revolt against Julius and bring the city back under his control), while also establishing a secret alliance between the two nations.
  • Princess Roroa of Amidonia, the only member of her family aware of how self-destructive their "vengeance" against Elfrieden is, grabs several ministers and generals and skips town with them. Later when Van rebels and requests annexation by Elfrieden, she instigates several more rebellions, all across the nation, forcing Elfrieden to annex them as well.
  • Souma is mostly just playing Xanatos Speed Chess in response to all the plans above, trying to take advantage of the situation to strengthen the kingdom where he can. The only thing he really plans on his own is a purge of corrupt nobles who he's reasonably, and correctly, sure would turn on him if things ever went badly.
  • And finally, the Man Behind the Man who set everything into motion was former King Albert, who had received memories from an alternate timeline where Souma became prime minister instead of king. In that timeline, everything went horribly wrong, and the King used the Queen's ability to send memories into the past to warn his and the queen's past selves. Having received those memories, his past self-abdicated the throne to Souma, hoping that this would change the outcome of the events to come, and only told Duke Carmine of what happened (prompting his above plan) until he was reasonably sure that the future had changed.
• Gender Is No Object: Few people bat an eye at women in positions of power in the Kingdom, but in the Principality of Amidonia, they are pretty segregated.
• Giving Radio to the Romans: A lot of Souma's reforms can be seen as this. From hygiene to free education.
• Good Is Not Soft: Souma is a good person that truly wants to improve the kingdom, but he's still capable of going to war to protect it.
• Got Volunteered: Carla as the villain of the tokusatsu segment of the morning educational show. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the Stripperific outfit that Serina made her wear.
• Government Conspiracy: Happened in the Bad Future and Souma, unwittingly along with several others, goes out of his way to ensure that it doesn't happen in his time.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: The ability to recognize this is Souma’s greatest strength as a ruler. Throughout the series, he has repeatedly shown that his defining skill is the ability to recognize overlooked and easily dismissed talents in others and figure out how to put them to use for his nation. It reaches the point where Hakuya and other characters often call Souma a “recruitment maniac” for his incredible ability for finding talented personnel.
  • The first example is Poncho, whose “talent of eating” was recognize by Souma as a way to help the kingdom get through its food crisis by having Poncho compile knowledge about foods that the people of the kingdom typically didn’t eat, such as octopus, locusts, and slime monsters.
  • Tomoe’s ability to speak with animals is definitely unique, particularly her ability to speak to demons, which Souma is quick to recognize as a possible way to head off future conflicts. However, he quickly realizes several other possible uses for her gift, such as making arrangements with the large Rhinosauruses, which, combined with his creation of a road network, allows Souma to create an efficient cargo transportation system across the kingdom. And that’s only the beginning.
  • Ginger is a slave trader, who’s too kind-hearted for the job he inherited from his deceased grandfather. Hoping to find good owners for the slaves in his care, Ginger goes through the trouble of teaching them reading, writing, and arithmetic; right about the time Souma kicks off his reforms that change the way in which territory is assigned to his retainers, switching to a meritocratic system that prioritizes their ability to manage their holdings; which kicks off a mad dash from said retainers for skilled personnel; their desperation reaching the point that they will snatch up anyone who can read, write, and do arithmetic (since only about 30% of the people in the kingdom are educated enough to write). Because of that, nobles flock to Ginger and buy up all his slaves, immediately freeing them so that said slaves can work at helping manage their former owners' estates. Souma immediately recruits Ginger to build a school and training center to elevate the skills of people throughout the Kingdom, as well as create a shortcut to bringing an end to slavery (something that Souma wanted to do, but realized was too deeply entrenched in the culture to accomplish overnight by typical methods).
  • Naden Delal, a resident of the Star Dragon Mountain Range, is ostracized by most of her fellow dragons, due to not having wings or being able to breathe fire. However, Souma is quick to recognize the merit of her ability to control electricity, and especially her ability to predict the weather days in advance; the latter of which he uses to create a weather forecast that the citizens of the kingdom find indispensable in their daily lives. On top of that, he’s able to recognize her as a Ryuu (Eastern-style dragon), and correctly guesses that she is still able to fly, even without wings.
  • Ichiha Chima is the frail, sickly, youngest son of a series of siblings, the rest of whom are renowned for their incredible talents, skills, and good looks; while Ichiha is looked down upon for his hobby of drawing the monsters that frequently attack his family’s domain. However, after Tomoe suggests that Souma look at Ichiha’s drawings, Souma quickly realizes that Ichiha has created an effective categorization system for monsters, which prompts him to arrange to bring Ichiha back home with him, and trigger a massive advancement in the study of monsters, a serious field of study in a world where there is an entire region that has been overrun by them and the lands beyond that region are dotted with dungeons that randomly spit out small hordes of them.
• Hero's Slave Harem: Defied by Souma. After Carla Vargas is taken prisoner during the Civil War and slapped with a Slave Collar to control her until a trial can be held, Liscia, her childhood friend, starts talking her up to Souma as a potential bride, hoping to spare her from punishment. Souma shuts that down: aside from his strong distaste for slavery, he doesn't want hypothetical future traitors to think they can buy their way out of punishment by offering him nubile women. He instead sentences Carla to be enslaved to the royal family as a Ninja Maid, with secret orders to kill him should he Jump Off The Slippery Slope into tyranny.
• Historical In-Joke:
  • Early on, Souma cuts back on food expenses at the castle while wealthy merchants continue to send confectionery to curry favor with the royal family. Souma jokes that they might have started living on cake.
    Souma: Hahaha... I nearly put "If they have no bread, let them eat cake" into practice myself.
    Liscia: If people didn't know the circumstances, there could be a revolution over those words...
  • Souma directly references the Church of England and its head office, the Archbishop of Canterbury, when he names Souji the Archbishop in charge of Kingdom Lunarian Orthodoxy.
  • Fuuga is persuaded to take over the conquered capital of Sharn rather than build up a new capital in his home country. The narrator specifically mentions Xiang Yu as an example of someone who made the opposite choice, but it also bears some resemblance to the founding of the Mongolian city of Karakorum.
  • Friedonia's three wyvern carriers - Hiryuu, Souryuu, and Unryuu - share the names of World War II-era aircraft carriers.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Margarita Wonder tried to incite a sense of patriotism during the occupation of Van with her singing the national anthem of Amidonia during Souma's broadcast of his first singing show. She (and the rest of Amidonia) was fully expecting Souma to execute her on the spot for that act of defiance. Instead, Souma complimented her singing voice, and used this opportunity to talk about how he thinks everyone should be free to sing whatever kind of song they like, making Amidonia's previous king seem like a tyrant in comparison.
  • Souma and Hakuya bring in fourteen nobles from corrupt families to judge what punishment Castor and Carla should face for rebellion. Two of the nobles argue for mercy, while the other dozen men call for their execution. Souma has that dozen, who have all committed their own crimes against the Kingdom, executed instead.
• Hold the Line:
  • During the reign of Albert's predecessor, Georg Carmine held the line for a retreat of that king against a stronger force. Carmine succeeded in protecting his side, survived to continue to serve his kingdom, and he also claimed the head of the opposing general.
  • Interestingly, done without a single battle but with cunning and deception instead. During the invasion by Amidonia their Army was besieging the city of Altomura, but the Lord kept going to Gaius, their commander, to ask for more time to convince the rest of his people to surrender. This goes on until Souma is able to put down the rest of the rebellion and launch a counter-invasion in Amidonian territory, forcing Gaius to retreat.
  • A straighter example would be the defense of Nelva, a city in Amidonian territory that fought tooth and nail against the invaders from the Republic of Turgis when Amidonia was sent into chaos after most of their territory rebelled against the government until the Kingdom forces came to relieve them and repel the invading Army.
• Horse of a Different Color: There's a number of different animals used as mounts in the setting.
• Human Subspecies: Mankind in the world is defined not as humans, but as sentient species that are humanoid.
• Hypocrite:
  • Julius during the war between Amidonia and Elfrieden. He (and his father) use Elfrieden not signing the Mankind Declaration as justification to invade, which causes Elfrieden to launch a counter-invasion and take their capital city, Van. Julius then goes to the Empire, claiming that they have to force Elfrieden to return Van because Amidonia has signed the Mankind Declaration. Everyone knows exactly what Julius did, but they're forced to go along with it to save face, at least at first.
  • Roroa calls Liscia out for this at their first meeting. Roroa offers to marry Souma to legitimize his annexation of Amidonia, but Liscia objects to such a politically motivated marriage, which was exactly how her marrying Souma happened in the first place.
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: During his speech at the beginning of the year, Souma goes to great lengths to make his people try to avert this.
• Ignored Expert: Defied by Souma, which is increasingly regarded as one of his greatest strengths. Much of the series consists of him digging out such experts, recognizing them for what they are, and then throwing his support behind them regardless of what anyone else thinks. With this, people like Poncho, Genia, or Ichiha, who would ordinarily be the subject of ridicule for their oddities, not only get much of their pariah status removed thanks to the power of the king's word, but also gain government funding so they can apply their talents to the fullest.
• Immortal Procreation Clause: It's established that the Long-Lived races (mainly elves, dragons, dragonewts, and sea serpents) are less fertile than the shorter-lived ones such as humans and beastfolk.
• Important Haircut:
  • Liscia cuts her long hair short to show her determination to Duke Carmine in case they meet on the battlefield.
  • Maria invokes Liscia's example when she cuts her hair (or rather, has her sister do it) to symbolically shed the burden of rulership.
• Impossibly-Low Neckline: Juna Doma, Liscia's mother, and Duchess Excel Walter have it so low magic must be the only thing keeping them in place.
• Insistent Terminology: One of Elfrieden's earliest kings declared that he couldn't abide having some of his Royal Harem not be called his wives because he loved all of them, and insisted they were all full queens, not mere concubines. The modern concept of primary and secondary queens, as seen in Souma's harem, derives from this: primary queens have to be of noble birth, while secondary queens can be of any origin but their children cannot inherit.
• Interservice Rivalry: The kingdom's military don't get along with one another due to their loyalty to their respective leaders (The Royal Guards are loyal to the King and the Army, Navy, and Air Force each to one of the Three Dukes). This is an intentional arrangement, as the king is human but the Dukes are of different races, meant to prevent the human king from oppressing the other races. After subjugating the Three Duchies, Souma dismantles this arrangement to reform the military into a single unified command structure, the Elfrieden Defense Force or National Defense Force, for greater efficiency, rather like the US Department of War and the Department of the Navy were reformed into the Department of Defense and the Air Force separated from the Army in 1947.
• It Belongs in a Museum: One of Souma's earliest reforms to help raise the funds for Elfrieden to jumpstart its economy was by reorganizing the nation's treasury and selling off some of its contents: deciding to keep the Historical and Culturally-significant pieces to be placed in Museums for fundraising.
• It's Raining Men: The Dratroopers that Souma is training. Paratroopers dropped from Wyverns.
• Jerk Jock: Nata and Gauche Chima, renowned for their martial abilities, used to bully their brothers Nike and then Ichiha for their seeming lack of talent and their sisters Yomi and Sami because their talents were magical and not physical. It's so bad that when Gauche dies trying to assassinate Fuuga, none of his siblings really mourn him; his younger siblings shrug it off, Hashim coldly writes him off as having had it coming, and even Mutsumi can barely muster any anger and sadness at his death, and even that much is only because of how stupid and senseless it was. Nata's reaction is not shown, but given how easily he is swayed by the prospect of battle, if he cared at all then it probably wasn't for long.
• Just Following Orders: During the civil war against the Dukes:
  • When Souma captures a defeated Castor, his retainer Toleman asks what will happen to the men who fought under Castor against Souma. Souma uses this justification for sparing their lives but notes that any future rebellion will be punished harshly.
  • A day later, when Duke Carmine executes his gambit and captures all the corrupt nobles and their mecenary forces, he has a message sent to Souma that Carmine's men were all just following his orders as part of the rebellion.
• King Incognito: A common occurrence, as Souma can get a better idea of how the world works if no one around knows that he's the king. It starts with Souma, Liscia, and Aisha dressing as normal students to enjoy some time off in the first volume, eventually becoming an almost regular occurrence, up to sneaking into another country in disguise (while bodyguards also dressed as regular people follow at a distance) to get an idea of what it's like.
• Kryptonite Ring: Carla is this towards Souma. She's at the castle most of the time and frequently travels with him, along with having a standing order (enforced by a Slave Collar) to kill him if he starts to become a tyrant.
• Land, Sea, Sky: The three Great Dukes control one of these each, Duke Carmine controls the army, Duchess Walter controls the navy and Duke Vargas controls the air force.
• Lap Pillow: Episode 6 has one of these occurring between Souma and Liscia when they think their escort, Aisha, has fallen asleep. They quickly react surprised when it turns out that she's faking.
• Leave Behind a Pistol: After the civil war ends, Souma leaves Carmine a bottle of poisoned wine so that he doesn't have to face the shame of a treason trial and execution. It later turns out that the wine was drugged, not poisoned, and Carmine was permitted to serve his country under a new, masked, identity after the traitor Carmine was declared dead by suicide.
• Lensman Arms Race: While Freidonia is not at war with anyone, after Amidonia was defeated and annexed, Souma nonetheless continues to seek to build his nation’s power with the goal of enabling to stand beside the Gran Chaos Empire as an equal, despite the Empire’s massively greater size. In order to accomplish this, Souma chooses to forgo the territorial expansionism that most nations would utilize to increase their strength, instead seeking to build his country’s power through development on multiple fronts, from creating carriers that will allow him to field wyverns at sea (something that was previously unthinkable), to massive developments in medicine and education in order to make his country a suitable match for the Empire, even with a fraction of the territory.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • The Mankind Declaration states that nations cannot war with other nations until the matter of the Demons is resolved. Amidonia claims that since Elfrieden hadn't signed the treaty, they weren't protected by it, and thus could be legally invaded. After losing the war, they then claim that the treaty requires the other signatories to aid them in reclaiming the lands they lost when the nation they tried to conquer launched a counter-invasion, at which point it turns out that the Gran Chaos Empire (which wrote the treaty) wasn't amused by their lawyering and tells them that if they don't sign a peace treaty agreeing to war reparations, they will be struck from the list of signatories to the Mankind Declaration, which, under their own logic, means that any other nation will be free to invade them without consequence.
  • Souma uses another loophole in the Mankind Declaration to take back Van after the Empire forces Elfrieden to return the city to Amidonia. While a country can't use military force to change their borders under the Declaration, it also gives people the right to self-determination. While Elfrieden is occupying Van, they give the people freedom that they never had under Amidonian rule. Between the people's dissatisfaction when Julius tries to repress those freedoms and the Black Cats coordinating a revolt, Elfrieden is then able to annex Van by claiming they're merely giving the people what they want, not invading another country. Roroa also takes advantage of that loophole, coordinating revolts across Amidonia that force Elfrieden to annex the entire country, not just the capital city. It helps his case that Roroa then gets engaged to him, essentially turning the whole thing into a real union between the royal houses a la the marriage between Queen Isabela of Castile and and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, which led to the foundation of the modern state of Spain. The two countries are renamed the United Kingdom of Elfrieden and Amidonia, or the "Kingdom of Friedonia" for short.
  • Related to the self-determination loophole, Souma observes to Empress Maria that the Mankind Declaration is a potential trap for states that pursue cultural pluralism, as with both Friedonia and, ironically, the Gran Chaos Empire itself: extremist movements have the potential to exploit the loophole and use the self-determination principle as a shield against foreign intervention. Souma's Internal Monologue cites the 1975 Helsinki Accords preventing intervention in The Yugoslav Wars as an example.
  • The Lunarian Orthodox Papal State wants Souma to make Lunarian Orthodoxy the official religion of Friedonia, in exchange for naming Souma as a holy king. Souma doesn't want to accept this offer since it would give the church power over him and the country, but he doesn't want to outright reject them since that could lead to them stirring up more problems down the line. Thus, Souma agrees to make Lunarian Orthodoxy a "state religion", but rejects the holy king title and requests a specific bishop to oversee worship in the region. Souma then nationalizes religion, making it so that any religion registered with the country is a "state religion", and the bishop he requested is a corrupt one whose job is to separate the country's worshipers from the main church so that they won't be incited to stir up trouble.
• Loving a Shadow: Sir Krahe is so obsessed with his idealized image of "Saint" Maria that he would kill her before seeing her reduced to an ordinary, flawed person.
• Machiavelli Was Wrong: Deconstructed. Souma was a humanities undergrad before being Trapped in Another World as the King of Elfrieden—previously ruled by a king who was likable but no great master of rulership, before he betrothed the summoned hero Souma to his daughter and abdicated—and has extensively studied The Prince among other historical texts. His narration often quotes Machiavelli directly, including explaining the popular misunderstandings of its various theses and why Souma's actions are Truer to the Text and what makes them superior courses of action. In essence, this series argues that The Prince is a very good guide to rulership if you study it well enough to actually understand it properly: for example, "cruelties" are a useful tool, but you must wield them precisely, decisively, and rarely, as Souma does when he concludes the Civil War arc by having a remaining cabal of nobles who conspired against him extrajudicially killed by his secret service.
• Marionette Master: Souma's Living Poltergeist can be used to animate dolls. These dolls are a lot more combat proficient than Souma himself is, can move as if Souma were inside it, and aren't subject to any distance limitation (unlike with other objects). Souma commonly exploits this by creating dolls based on a mascot character called Little Musashibo to battle and go on adventures with as well as smaller dolls which he uses for scouting. He takes this to its logical extreme when the Friedonian navy brings out Mechadra to grapple with Ooyamizuchi, dealing a number of powerful blows and preventing it from escaping to sea.
• Massive Numbered Siblings:
  • The eight children of the Duke of Chima.
  • Kazuya's children are quickly approaching this, with him currently having 6 kids between Liscia, Roroa, Juna, and Maria.
• Meaningful Name: The gourmet enthusiast Poncho Panacotta. Souma also bestows him with the name "Ishizuka" for his extensive knowledge of food.
• Medieval European Fantasy: Most of the Continent is stuck in a quasi-medieval Schizo Tech heavily based on Europe circa 1500 or so, with cannons but few man-portable firearms due to the rules of magic. Though notably the Republic of Turgis to the far south is more of a mishmash of China and Finland, while the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago is basically medieval Japan with demihumans (which Souma finds comforting when he visits).
• Military Mashup Machine: Souma comes up with the Hiryuu (and eventually two sister ships), an aircraft carrier sculpted to look like an island. It's designed to carry wyverns out to sea: they normally refuse to fly out over open water for fear they won't be able to get back, but the artificial island provides them with a roost.
• Modest Royalty: Souma is so modest and wants to save as much money as possible he eats in the kitchen with the common soldiers and servants until Hakuya and other people in the castle convince him to stop.
• More Deadly Than the Male: Considering that Souma doesn't have any martial prowess, his fianceés are this to him, with the exception of Roroa.
• More Experienced Chases the Innocent: Played for Cringe Comedy in volume 5. Duchess Excel Walter, the 500-year-old admiral of Friedonia's navy with numerous descendants, takes it upon herself to give The Talk to the virgin Souma and his wives-to-be (who include one of her granddaughters). She attempts to make the former a practical lesson, which Souma frantically talks her out of. Though it's left somewhat ambiguous whether she actually meant it or if she was just messing with him for laughs.
• Morning Sickness: In volume 7, after returning from the Star Dragon Mountain Range in a gondola carried by Ruby, Liscia is not feeling well. Initially everyone attributes it to motion sickness, and she stays home when Souma goes on to visit the Republic of Turgis. However, since she and Souma have been regularly sleeping together since volume 5, a couple chapters later they receive a letter from her confirming that she's pregnant with their first child (much to the relief of the royal court).
• Morton's Fork: Invoked by Souma against Julius Amidonia over the occupation of Van. The peace settlement negotatiated between Souma and Princess Jeanne Euphoria of the Empire requires him to pay twenty percent of Amidonia's national budget for the next ten years in reparations to Elfrieden, so his choices are 1) cut back his military spending to afford it, 2) break the deal and give Souma casus belli all over again, or 3) tax the hell out of his people in an attempt to resume his father's irredentist policies and be overthrown. He chooses Door #3 and and is overthrown in a revolt organized by his sister within months.
• Mugging the Monster: When Halbert meets Souma, he sees a cocky guy with three beautiful women near him who interrupted his conversation with Kaeda about the worthlessness of King Souma. When he moves in a threatening manner towards Souma, Aisha, Liscia and even Juna get ready to murder him on the spot. It's only Souma's reasonable approach that prevents things from escalating.
• Mundane Utility: Souma gives his newfound magic a very good use, signing several papers at the same time.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: But he can also make signing papers with his "Living Poltergeist" look pretty badass.
  • Souma realizes instantly that the Jewel Broadcast is a great tool for announcing and creating revenue for the Kingdom in the form of a variety of programs, educational programs, and singing contests.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Souma invokes this with his broadcast program, Nameless Heroes, which highlights the accomplishments of regular scientists and researchers working behind the scenes, so that the credit for incredible advances in science and technology don't all go to Genia.
  • Many of the advances that Souma introduces are this, as they repeatedly demonstrate how revolutionary various things that are taken for granted in the modern world would be to a roughly medieval society. Souma starts out by introducing such basic concepts as sanitation, making cities much cleaner and easier to live in. The Jewel Broadcast, which was before only seen as a means to make official announcements is capitalized on by Souma for use as a tool for the mass dissemination of information, allowing him to help keep his citizens educated and informed. Naden’s ability to know the weather up to a week in advance becomes downright invaluable in an agrarian society, where knowing when and where bad weather will strike could mean the difference between life and death for regular citizens.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: Liscia's mother looks more like her older sister, and Aisha's father looks more like her older brother (the latter is justified since they're elves).
  • And Excel Walter looks barely older than her granddaughters Juna and Carla. Interestingly, Carla's father had romantically pursued Excel herself before going after her daughter instead, which is not as creepy as it sounds due to dragon demihumans having extraordinarily long lifespans.
• Name Order Confusion: Souma is his family name, not his given name, which everyone assumed because they use Western naming order. By the time he realizes this, it's far too late to fix, so he's stuck as King Souma, although those close to him will call him Kazuya in private.
• Nasty Party: After Fuuga Haan prevails in the civil war in the Union of Eastern Nations, the rulers who stayed neutral are invited to a banquet. Those who attend are all murdered, and the blame placed on Fuuga's enemies.
• Never Found the Body: After learning from the former King Albert that he and Liscia apparently perished when corrupt nobles attacked Randall in a Bad Future, Souma tries to propose that the fact that his and Liscia's bodies weren't found meant that they actually managed to escape. While Souma is mostly trying to offer the former king some peace of mind, a later side-story reveals that they actually did survive.
• Never My Fault: The national policy of the Principality of Amidonia in relation to the Kingdom. All their problems are because of the Kingdom, from famine and poverty to the lack of freedom. Souma later uses this against Amidonia, showing the people they would be better under the Kingdom's rule and that the Principality created those problems themselves (for example, spending so much of their tax revenue strengthening their military instead of doing things that would actually benefit the citizens).
• Nice Guy: Albert rode out the Succession Crisis and then kept the kingdom together by being thoroughly inoffensive in a time when a more assertive person would have drawn attention and made enemies.
• Ninja Maid: Carla, after being sentenced with Slavery is this, given that she was a Wyvern Knight before being sentenced and handed to be a Maid in the castle. She even has a mission that if Souma ever becomes a Tyrant, she's to kill him.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Mechadra is a metal dragon built using the skeleton of an actual dragon as the base, animated by Souma for his Tokusatsu shows. The Mad Scientist group consisting later arms it with a pair of gunpowder-propelled piledrivers and the ability to attach the experimental icebreaker vessel being developed to use as a drill weapon. These enhancements come in handy during the battle against Ooyamizuchi.
• No Biological Sex: The dragons, prior to forming a contract with a knight. They're mostly androgynous before bonding with a human, at which point they start to take on traits of the opposite sex for the sake of breeding. Shown with Naden and Ruby, who become more feminine after bonding with Souma and Hal, respectively, and Pai, who becomes more masculine after bonding with a princess.
• North Is Cold, South Is Hot: The continent Souma transferred to inverts this trope, implying the setting is in the southern hemisphere.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Fuuga Haan is a clear stand-in for Genghis Khan, a point that Souma brings up repeatedly as to why he's so terrifying.
• Non-Standard Character Design: In the manga, the corrupt nobles of Elfrieden are drawn more gonkishly.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy:
  • Souma's first meeting with Liscia. A beautiful woman has just entered his office, but after several straight days of long hours, all that matters to him is whether or not the new body that showed up is capable of helping him audit the budget.
  • The Lunarian Orthodox Papal State sends a "saint" to Souma to try and get him to agree to be their holy king. The saint is a beautiful girl with traits similar to Liscia, Aisha, and Roroa, deliberately chosen in an attempt to get Souma to fall for her. The resemblance actually makes him uncomfortable.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: In one timeline, instead of making Souma king, King Albert did something more reasonable and made him prime minister. While the reforms Souma passed helped the kingdom and made him beloved by the common masses, the corrupt nobles saw him as a threat and demanded that King Albert fire him. He eventually caved, but Duke Carmine took him in, which led to the nobles, still fearing Souma, to stage a coup with Amidonia.
• "Not So Different" Remark: When confronting Komain and her brother about their position as refugees and how Souma needs to end this, Komain demands to know how he could understand their plight at being sent away from their homeland. Souma calmly reminds her that he has been irrevocably taken from the land he knew and friends he had there, so he knows what it is like to find one's self in a new place and having to integrate into a different society.
• Nun Too Holy: Bishop Souji. He has very little interest in the teachings of the Lunarian Orthodox Church, mostly using his position to drink and pick up women. This ends up making him perfect for being the official bishop in Friedonia: they want him to be horribly corrupt and disconnect the believers of the Kingdom from the church to reduce how much of a threat they are.
• Obvious Rule Patch: Jeanne Euphoria, and by extention Maria, agree to Souma's terms for the return of Van in exchange for hefty financial compensation, namely two years worth of Amidonia's GDP paid over ten years, as it shows nations who have signed the Mankind Declaration and those who haven't, the Empire will not tolerate the sophistry and loophole abuse attempted by Amidonia in their invasion of Elfrieden and when they lost Van from Elfrieden's countermove come crying to the Empire for help. As a signator, the Empire helped return the land as is their duty, but it makes clear there is a big cost for trying this again.
• Odd Name Out: The Euphoria sisters - Maria, Jeanne, and Trill.
• An Odd Place to Sleep: Souma doesn't have a bedroom; he just has a cot in his office. Empress Maria has a proper bed in her own office.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The defense of Nelva during the Amidonia's Uprisings and invasion by foreign nations.
• Older Than They Look:
  • Unsurprising for elves. Aisha's father is 81 but looks barely older than his daughter.
  • That's actually a problem for Souma, because there so many long-lived races in the Kingdom, the law says that for traitors three generations of the family of the traitor, both before and after, will be slain along with him/her.
• One-Man Industrial Revolution: Souma uses his knowledge and skills to bring many inventions to this world, such as concrete and internal plumbing. Averted as the series goes on; Souma was a history student, not engineering, so there's only so much he can do, so he turns to Genia and a large number of researchers to recreate things from his world and work with how magic fundamentally changes what's possible.
• Only in It for the Money: The Mercenaries from Zem. This is exactly why Souma wants nothing to do with them. He understands that they can have their loyalty bought by the highest bidder.
• Only Sane Man: Princess Roroa Amidonia of the Principality of Amidonia, unlike her brother and father, realizes trading with the Elfrieden Kingdom is a better deal to help with Amidonia's food shortages instead of wasting their country's resources trying to invade Elfrieden. Based on the information flow, she knows her father's plan is doomed to fail.
• Open Secret: Everyone in the castle knows that Kagetora is Georg Carmine, despite the fact that Kagetora constantly denies it and Souma never lets anyone get as far as asking the question or saying his name.
• Original Position Fallacy:
  • Amidonia's Prince Gaius VIII attempts some Loophole Abuse of the Mankind Declaration's ban on military conquest for the duration of the conflict with the Demon Lord: he argues that since Elfrieden is not a signatory, then trying to reconquer some of the territory Amidonia lost in their last war is not illegal. Souma soundly defeats Amidonia, killing Gaius in action and occupying his capital, so his heir Julius goes running to the Gran Chaos Empire (the western superpower that backs the Declaration). The Imperial heir apparent agrees to negotiate on their behalf to end Souma's occupation to save the credibility of her sister's treaty... and then, after negotiating with Souma, informs Julius he can either accept Souma's perfectly reasonable demand for war reparations and handover of war criminals for prosecution, or else be kicked out of the treaty entirely and risk other neighboring countries making the same Loophole Abuse argument to prey on a now much-weaker Amidonia. Julius folds after some grumbling.
  • In a scene rather reminiscent of Act II, Scene 2 of Henry V, Souma asks a hand-picked jury of nobles to determine Castor and Carla's punishment for treason. All but two of them call for execution - and once those two are removed, the rest of the jury is promptly decapitated for their own treasonous activities.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The series mainly features the Western kind as well as smaller and less intelligent wyverns, which are basically treated like mountable animals, but volume 6 introduces Naden, an Eastern dragon that grew up among Western dragons (much to her distress).
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Souma's attire when he wants to move around the city incognito. A straw hat and a black cape.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage:
  • Even though all of his marriages had a political angle and none were entirely his choice, Souma really loves all of his queens. Liscia deserves special attention. She first thought Souma was a usurper who forced her father to give up the throne and wanted to force himself on her, but she genuinely falls for him after seeing what he's really like. What makes it so special is that this was actually invoked by Albert, who had memories of an alternate timeline where Souma and Liscia eventually fell in love on their own without the arranged marriage, so he already knew how well they would work together. Among his brides, Juna is the closest to being an actual love match, asking to marry him as a reward for her military service.
  • Souma de facto orders Captain Ludwin of the Royal Guard to marry his childhood friend Genia Maxwell as a way of keeping her scientific discoveries bound to Elfrieden, but they don't really take much convincing.
• Physical God: Lady Tiamat, the Mother Dragon, is worshipped as one.
• Playing Both Sides: One of the survival strategies of the House of Chima was to split the family between each side of a conflict. The ones who ended up on the winner's side would try to intercede for the losers, and either way some of them would live on. This plays out again when the current Duke of Chima joins the conspiracy against his daughter's Mutsumi's husband Fuuga Haan.
• Please Spare Him, My Liege!:
  • After Souma takes in Carla after defeating her father, Liscia tries to suggest to Souma that he take Carla to be one of his brides in a more subtle version of this trope. However, Souma realizes she is trying to suggest a way for her friend Carla to not be punished for treason and tells her to stop.
  • Juna attempts a similar line when she is asking a reward for her military service in the Elfrieden-Amidonia war. Duchess Excel realizes she plans to ask for leniency for Castor and Carla as well, and stops her. Excel instead tells her to ask Souma for what Juna truly desires, namely to be Souma's wife. Excel herself offered her own life if Souma would spare Castor and Carla (respectively her son-in-law and granddaughter), but Souma refused—which turns out to be because he didn't actually plan on executing them anyway.
  • Invoked by Yuriga Haan, who comments that if she becomes one of Souma's queens she'll be able to plead for her brother's life if Souma ever defeats him.
• Polyamory:
  • It is a common practice among many levels of Elfrieden society. As Souma learns from Liscia, Aisha, and Juna, it is a common way to allow a household to continue on if tragedy should strike part of it. There is also nothing against a woman with many husbands, but that isn't as common. As King and head of a royal family, it is incumbent upon Souma to have several wives to make sure there is a large base of children to pass the crown off to. That said, as the Top Wife, Liscia notes she will tolerate no more than eight wives^* This is due to the world Elfrieden is located in having eight day weeks thus one day for each wife , including herself. As of the end of volume 16, he's up to seven.
  • This is averted with the previous royal couple, King Albert and Queen Elisha. As Albert married into the royal family, it is her choice to have more husbands and she chose not to.
• Portmanteau: The country formed from merging Elfrieden and Amidonia is known as Friedonia.
• Power Nullifier: Curse Ore is widely believed to be this, as it seemingly cancels magic up to a point where it instead explodes violently if too much is used against it. Genia reveals that it does this by absorbing magic, and the explosion comes from the ore reaching full capacity. Having figured out how to retrieve the energy stored in Curse Ore for more controlled use, she uses it to power machines that she designs for the Kingdom, starting with jet engines.
• Pragmatic Hero: Forms the basis of the series. To save money and run the kingdom effectively, Souma sells 30% of the Kingdom's most valuable treasures (the ones without magic power or cultural/historic significance) for funds, tells his people to eat locally made food rather than imports, and hires people for their merit and not from their lineage. He even eats simple food in the castle's kitchen alongside servants.
• Pretext for War:
  • A multilayered one in volumes 2-4. Main character Souma Kazuya, the summoned hero-turned-King of Elfrieden, baits the antagonistic neighboring country of Amidonia into aiding the other side in an uprising against his rule by corrupt nobles. Amidonia is itself using the Civil War as cover to retake some of the territory they lost to Elfrieden in a war two generations earlier. Souma defeats them and occupies their capital, and deliberately makes himself look good to the citizens compared to the ultra-militaristic Amidonian royals by investing in their arts and culture, the goal being to make them long for him to come back after he withdraws and give him an excuse to occupy that part of the country permanently. He miscalculates slightly: Princess Roroa of Amidonia orchestrates a nationwide uprising that forces her brother Julius to flee the country, and then betrothes herself to Souma to unite them into the United Kingdom of Friedonia.
  • Subverted in volume 13. Souma gets into a conflict with the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago Union over fishing rights, and spends several months with foreign propagandists trumpeting to the fiercely independent islanders about how he's coming to attack them, with the fishing dispute as the pretext for invasion. The war itself was the actually the pretext for a Genghis Gambit he arranged ahead of time with the Nine-Headed Dragon King, Shana, who used it as an excuse to get the islands' fleets to marshal in one place after their terminally fractious chiefs couldn't agree on a plan to deal with the root cause of the problem—a kaiju named Ooyamizuchi—as well as give Souma's heavier naval vessels an excuse to be there to help.
• Product Placement: During the first broadcast of the "King's Lunch" where Poncho reveals various dishes people were ignorant to in order to survive the famine, Juna is his co-host and plugs the tavern she works at as well. Poncho gently asks she not do that again.
• Propaganda Piece: The Jewel Voice Broadcast was most often used like this before Souma saw a different way to use it. Even much of what he makes has some of this, though usually with more positive messages.
• The Purge: Souma decides to perform this to get rid of the corrupt nobility and officials of the kingdom to ensure the rebuilding of the kingdom goes smoothly. However, he is quick to point that Niccolò Machiavelli, the author that inspired Souma's plan, also warns that purging can be only be done once since doing it every time you want change makes people despise you and makes it more likely for them to rebel against you. Also, Elfrieden's laws call for the extermination of rebellious noble families out to three degrees of consanguinity; Souma is only just able to reduce this to two degrees before the Civil War breaks out, and deeply regrets not having been able to abolish collective punishment entirely: a lot of innocent people still ended up facing a headsman.
• Pyrrhic Victory: How Souma gets Fuuma to eventually stop his expansion of his territory. Friedonia may or may not be able to beat Fuuma, but it demonstrates that it can make defeat costly enough to ruin Fuuma's reputation for invincibility, and force him to use troops needed on the main front against the demons, endangering the rest of his nation.
• Raised by Grandparents: Souma was raised by them after his parents died, and his grandfather passed away shortly after he entered college.
• Really 700 Years Old:
  • Duchess Walter may look like a woman in her twenties, but she mentions she has been around for a very long time - over 500 years.
  • Most of the races of Elfrieden, other than beastmen and humans, have long lifespans and age slowly, making this a very common occurrence.
• Rent-a-Zilla: Ooyamizuchi is a giant sea monster, causing Souma to introduce the word "kaiju" to everyone. The battle against it is treated exactly like a Kaiju movie.
• Revenge Before Reason: This is national policy in the Principality of Amidonia, which suffered an invasion by Elfrieden under the king before Albert, which stole a third of their lands (including most of their arable land). As a result, the king of Amidonia went so far as to change his title to "Sovereign Prince", and changed Amidonia from a "Kingdom" to a "Principality", declaring that he would not be a king until he had reclaimed their stolen lands, a policy that was passed down to his successors. On top of that, Amidonia's entire culture shifted to militarism, with the intent of building up their strength until they would be able to take back their stolen lands by force; a policy that has driven most of the citizenry into poverty and starvation. Their sole use of the Jewel Broadcast System is to make a yearly announcement that they won't forget their hatred for Elfrieden, and that the recovery of their stolen lands is national policy. Even their national anthem was rewritten into a song calling for an invasion of Elfrieden. As it stands, Amidonia forgot that it had no legitimate basis to invade Elfriden, as asking for humanitarian aid from other countries generally solves food shortages better than declaring war upon a wealthy neighbor.
• Reverse Psychology: Souma asks Maria to have agents of the Empire encourage the people of the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago not to go to war with Friedonia, knowing this will provoke them to the exact opposite.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something:
  • Liscia is not only a skilled soldier but also helps Souma in his work.
  • Souma spends almost all of his time and energy coming up with better policies for the kingdom or helping develop people with the skills to help him do so.
  • Even after becoming a queen, Naden serves as a weather forecaster (complete with flying across the country), flies into battle, and even wanders around the castle town helping shopkeepers make deliveries.
• Royal Harem:
  • Polygamy is established as being a norm with nobles in Elfrieden, and when Souma expresses discomfort at the prospect Liscia tries to quells his worries by letting him know that she fully anticipated that he would have to take multiple wives as King due to having to form alliances with other nations.
  • The series also establishes that there are hierarchies within such a polygamous relationship as well. "1st Wives" are fellow nobles or royalty whose children are anticipated to actually be in line to inherit the throne. "2nd Wives" are commoner-born, and are therefore akin to a Concubine. A noble is unable to take on a 2nd wife, unless they have already married the first.
• Running Gag: Everyone in the castle stopping just short of openly acknowledging that Kagetora is actually Georg Carmine, and his failed attempts to deny it.
• The Scapegoat: When a crisis hits and they realize they need Naden's unique abilities, the dragons who scorned her behind her back turn on Ruby, the Alpha Bitch who mocked her openly. This leads to Naden developing a grudging respect for Ruby, who was at least honest about how she felt about Naden.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: The anime adds these to Souma's glasses when he is Clark Kenting in Parnam Castle Town and decides to have fun revealing his true identity to an ignorant Halbert.
• Schizo Tech: Despite the medieval setting, there are technologies that would be considered modern by our standards. These were explained by magic or monsters native to their world allowing for alternatives. One example is that there are steel battleships. While it was possible to build a steel boat that was able to float, there was no way to move it until the invention of the steam engine. Here, large sea monsters are used to tow the ships.
• Secret Test of Character:
  • Hakuya towards Souma during his selection of personnel. He sees that Sir Poncho is a key person to solve the problem of food shortage of the Kingdom, and wants to see if Souma will realize it as well. It's only once Souma welcomes Poncho with open arms that Hakuya offers his services to the kingdom.
  • After the Elfrieden Civil War, Souma brings Carla and Castor to trial for their treason and rebellion against the Crown. Serving as advisors are fourteen noblemen. Twelve of them Souma knows but cannot easily prove are guilty of many crimes including conspiring with Amidonia. Two other nobles, Saracen and Jabana, speak in defense of Castor and Carla seeking that Souma not execute the two. The twelve corrupt nobles all speak of the law being clear and the pair should be killed. They fail to realize Souma is testing them and giving them one final chance to repent and atone for their heinous actions. After having Saracen and Jabana removed from the room, Souma has Kagetora and his squad kill the remaining nobles.
• Sex for Services: Defied. Souma refuses the idea of taking on Carla as a wife when Liscia and Castor promote the idea in hopes of a pardon for treason. Souma refuses because he doesn't want future traitors to think they can bribe him with nubile women.
• Sexy Dimorphism: Male beastmen have animal-like faces, while the women are a Little Bit Beastly.
• Shout-Out:
  • The warmongering Prince of Amidonia and his son are named Gaius and Julius.
  • Gatsby Colbert shares his surname with Louis XIV's Minister of Finance. His first name may reference Jay Gatsby as a financially astute individual working for the interests of someone who will never really appreciate their work.
  • On the first novel, when Souma meets Liscia for the first time, her outfit immediately makes him think about The Rose of Versailles.
  • The capital of the Gran Chaos Empire is Valois, one of the former royal families of France.
  • The anime has Souma undergo a temporary Art Shift to the traditional Yu-Gi-Oh! style, then explain his ideas to Liscia as a character would a card's effect. He even uses terms like "activate", "deck", "card", and "chain". The latter is especially interesting, since Souma aptly describes his "Time is money" idea as a response to Liscia's, accurately reflecting how a chain would work in the game.
  • The song Juna sings during the ceremony in episode 3, is "Give a Reason" by Megumi Hayashibara, the opening theme song from Slayers NEXT.
  • In episode 4, Souma's preparation of burdock roots is a reference to the Salt Bae meme.
  • The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli is quoted from by Souma a few times. The key part is the warning on tyranny and the minimal use of the purge against enemies.
• Significant Anagram: Kazuya Souma's King Incognito alias is Kazuma Souya.
• Slave Collar: There's special collars used by slaves that will instantly tighten around their necks if they so much as think something disrespectful against their master. If their master dies, they die as well. However, the master of record can be changed before that death or when the slave is purchased.
• Slave Liberation: A very uncommon thing in the world as killing the master will kill the slave. This is more likely to come about if someone buys the slave and frees them after the fact. Two of Ginger Camus final slaves are bought by Piltory Saracen are promised by Piltory to not only free them but take them as his wives.
• Spanner in the Works: Mathew, Duke of Chima, realizes that Fuuga Haan's hitherto-unheard-of successes on the battlefield against the demons are leading to many to clamor for him to become overall ruler of the Union of Eastern Nations, and starts conspiring with other rulers opposed to Fuuga to take him down. However, before they're fully ready, his son Gauche tries to assassinate Fuuga on his own initiative, provoking Fuuga to war early.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Tomoe Inui has the rare ability to communicate with animals and demonic beasts.
• Statuesque Stunner: Aisha is almost a head taller than Liscia, and is taller than Souma. She also happens to be a beautiful dark elf warrior.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: The Black Cats who are the elite special forces and spy unit answerable directly to Souma specialize in this. One appears to give a report to their superior in the seconds as the superior opens a book, covering the space where the Black Cat wasn't and then was. The Black Cat leaves in a similar fashion when another page is turned.
• Succession Crisis:
  • One happened in the recent history of Elfrieden; the "winner" was Elisha and by extension her husband Albert, thanks to being overlooked by all the other contenders and Elisha's magic allowing her to send memories of how she failed to the past, avoiding her death.
  • The Civil War that builds up in volumes 1 and 2 is sparked by a nonstandard version of this: Albert and Elisha adopt Souma as their heir and betroth him to their daughter Liscia, then Abdicate the Throne to him. A significant chunk of the nobility, including initially Liscia herself, don't accept this, especially after Souma begins his reform program, and Dukes Carmine and Vargas ultimately rebel with the intent of restoring King Albert. The whole thing was a Zero-Approval Gambit set up by Albert, Elisha, and Carmine themselves in order to give Souma an opportunity to purge the nobility of corruption and permanently secure his power in one fell swoop.
  • Julius Amidonia hopes to prevent one after reclaiming Van. He fears what problems Roroa could stir up or fight his claim of legitimacy. As it turns out, she is plotting against him and hopes to have Souma reclaim much more than just Van, but all of Amidonia.
  • After volume 3, Souma's advisers start pushing him to produce an heir with at least one of his fiancees to secure the succession and prevent yet another succession crisis: if he and Liscia should die prematurely at this point, Friedonia's royal family would be extinct altogether. He and Liscia have Their First Time in volume 5, and she becomes pregnant about a month later.
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: At the moment this is averted, but Souma makes a speech asking for people to question the meaning of things that they had taken for granted until now, including how magic actually works.
• Supporting Harem: Souma is dismayed to discover that not only Liscia does not care about him having more than one wife, she actually doesn't understand what's wrong with it, since the Royal Family needs to continue, though she does put a hard cap at eight wives so each wife may enjoy him to herself one night a week, as the calendar in this world has eight days to a week. Liscia is also seeking to build a power base among the wives who will respect her place as Top Wife as she knows the power balance will shift the more who join them, as she suspects will if Souma needs to marry another country's princess or some high ranking official's female representative to maintain a treaty or agreement.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: After Liscia hears Kagetora speak.
  Liscia: ... Hey, Souma, is Kagetora...
  Souma: No-one knows his true identity. Got it?
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: A written variant. In Volume 7, in the middle of a diplomatic trip to Turgis, Liscia sends a letter to both Souma and Aisha. Souma's letter explains that Liscia is pregnant, which immediately causes Souma to stop reading and declare that he's going home. Aisha's letter is a command to Aisha to hold down Souma when this exact scenario happens and get him to finish reading the first letter, which tells him not to worry about her and continue his diplomatic trip.
• Technician Versus Performer: The Hiryuu's R&D Department versus Genia Maxwell respectively. Genia is a Mad Scientist with a specialization in studying and understanding out-of-place artifacts. She is capable of creating technology far ahead of her time like vehicular suspension and hovercraft. The Hiryuu team, drawn from the best researchers in the kingdom, are more conventional researchers who rework Genia's inventions into mass-producible and cost-effective designs. While Genia naturally gets all the attention, there's a concerted effort (a broadcast show called Nameless Heroes) to highlight the work of the more conventional researchers.
• Tempting Fate: Gaius of Amidonia invades Elfrieden in hopes of reacquiring the rich fertile lands of the south, which Amidonia lost in war during the time of King Albert's predecessor. Because of this invasion Souma captures the Amidonia capital Van and initiates several social programs which grant people more freedom. Then when they depart, Souma plans to cause some internal strife so the people of Van will ask to be annexed by Elfrieden, thus not violating the Mankind Protection. Gaius' daughter then instills more unrest in a majority of the rest of the country, so all of Amidonia rebels against Julius and wishes to be part of Elfrieden. So, in the end, the people of Amidonia gain access to those fertile lands because they are now part of Elfrieden.
• Their First Time:
  • After the war with the Three Dukes and Amidonia is dealt with, Souma's advisers start pestering him to produce an heir to prevent another Succession Crisis. Souma and Liscia finally make Love Confessions to each other at the end of volume 4 and have sex for the first time on the bed in his office in volume 5, after the Saint of Lunarian Orthodoxy, who was picked to resemble an amalgamation of his three publicly known fiancees,^note Liscia, Aisha, and Roroa; his engagement to Juna is not public knowledge yet subtly tried to seduce him during a State Visit.
  • In volume 6, Souma propositions Aisha while they're staying in a village at the foot of the Star Dragon Mountains. She gives him her First Kiss, but turns him down at that time out of respect for Liscia: she doesn't want to consummate until after he and Liscia have a child together. Unbeknownst to any of them, Liscia has already conceived.
• Theme Music Power-Up: In-universe. A research group notes that peoples' magic appears to get stronger if they sing music associated with that particular kind of magic. Merula suggests that the music in question is strengthening the caster's mental image of their spell, and thus the spell along with it. Souma develops a large-scale experiment to test the idea, under the guise of a mock battle, which sets two armies against one another, while cycling through different kinds of music to test how their magic responds. The experiment winds up proving that music can have a tangible effect on a person's magic.
• This Is a Work of Fiction: To test her voice, Souma has Chris read out a disclaimer.
  Souma: Some magic words from my old world. If you say them, you can get away with practically everything.
• Took the Wife's Name: A convoluted example occurs in volume 10 when Souma Kazuya is formally coronated as King of the United Kingdom of Elfrieden and Amidonia and marries his Battle Harem. Due to Name Order Confusion early on,^note He didn't realize Elfrieden used Western name order until a couple months in, so "Souma Kazuya" ended up on too many official documents to fix it to Kazuya Souma. his original surname ended up becoming his given name, and as two of his wives are the princesses of the two kingdoms whom his legitimacy as king partly depends on, he adopts his third queen Roroa Amidonia's surname as his middle name and his Top Wife Liscia Elfrieden's surname as his surname, resulting in the regnal name "Souma A. Elfrieden". Those two queens keep their original surnames, while his second primary queen, Aisha Utgard (one of the daughters of the chief of the dark elves), adopts the Elfrieden surname to become "Aisha U. Elfrieden". His two secondary queens Juna Doma and Naden Delal meanwhile both choose to adopt "Souma" as their surnames (because it's his actual surname and to distinguish the fact that as commoners by birth, their children cannot inherit), becoming respectively Juna Souma and Naden Delal Souma.
• Trapped in Another World: Souma has no way of going back to his own world, though he also notes that with his family dead and no close friends, he has no pressing reason to want to go back. Volume 15 reveals that the world is actually Earth in the future.
• Translator Microbes: Souma can perfectly read, write, and understand the languages of this world. When he speaks, it sounds like Japanese to the people around him, but they still understand him. This is all explained as part of the magic that summoned him to this world. Later volumes suggest that, for some reason, him speaking Japanese is important, since it would've been much easier for the magic to just teach him the language, rather than for the magic to make everyone else understand Japanese.
• Treachery Cover Up: Inverted with Georg Carmine. The fact that he wasn't a traitor to his country was covered up, as his betrayal was a convenient cover for getting rid of a number of corrupt nobles that would otherwise have hurt the country. It is eventually revealed to the people that he wasn't a traitor to restore his family's good name, though a few sensitive details were still kept secret.
• Twin Switch: At the end of volume 15, it's revealed to Souma that King Garula of Garlan is actually his younger twin brother Gerula.
• Uncanny Valley:
  • In-Universe. Souma has this feeling towards Mary, the Lunarian saint. She's human, but her appearance bothers him because she was deliberately chosen as someone who resembled Souma's fiancées to try and tempt him.
  • Played for humor with Souma's Factory Hands, a workaround designed to circumvent the limitations of his Living Poltergeist magic. Souma's magic can animate small objects within a certain radius around him. However, if the object he is animating is some kind of doll, or object in imitation of a living thing, the radius limitation no longer applies, allowing him to manipulate dolls while hundreds of miles away. Therefore, in order to continue to do his paperwork, even when he's out of the country, Souma has Genia create an articulated model of a human hand, which he can use to write with. Unfortunately, Genia's design winds up being more than a little too real, and people who walk into Souma's office to see his Factory Hand at work wind up getting freaked out, with even Souma himself acknowledging just how unnerving it is to see it in action.
• Underestimating Badassery: Gaius Amidonia VIII fully realizes how badly he underestimates Souma of Elfrieden as a military tactitian during the climatic battle of the One Week War. A short time into the battle, Gaius laments to Julian that their side is going to lose. Gaius rushed his men and conscriptions back to Van, through a trap which cost him half his trained soldiers, and arrived at the battle exhausted, while the Elfrieden forces have had a day's rest and are ready to fight. Gaius realizes now King Souma is not the weakling his predecessor was, and that Souma is coming for him personally. His only choice is to take the fight to Souma and hope to kill him because Souma will never stop hunting Gaius down for his invasion into Elfrieden.
• Undying Loyalty: Duke Carmine has the absolute loyalty and devotion of many of his men. Even if they were not privy to his full mind or machinations, they will march towards insurrection for him. Souma reflects on this trait when he is talking with the captured Carmine in jail, telling him that several of the men, including his second-in-command Beowulf, are petitioning to receive the same punishment as Carmine. And so, all of them have their deaths faked and they become the first members of the Black Cats, an elite spy group answerable to Souma alone.
• Universal Universe Time: Averted. There are twelve months of thirty-two days in the year in the world, and each week has eight days. This makes Souma realize that he's actually younger than Juna, since they are both 19 but with the days difference between the two worlds, it adds to a whole year.
• Unto Us a Son and Daughter Are Born: Souma and Liscia's twins, Cian and Kazuha, are the first children born to Souma and his wives.
• Utility Magic:
  • Because magic is common, it is used for things like cooking and cleaning.
  • Souma turns the Jewel Broadcasting system, which had only been used by the King in times of crisis or a yearly address, into a news report and weather report for his country. He adds entertainment programs occasionally. Jeanne Euphoria expresses interest in copying this use for the Empire.
• Unwanted Harem: While Souma loves all of his queens, none of the marriages were his idea and he was initially very uneasy about polyamory. Three of the marriages (Liscia, Roroa, and Naden) were arranged by someone else. Aisha and Juna initiated their relationships with him but Aisha's father is the one to ask Souma to take her as a bride as well.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Souma's first weeks as King have him dealing with this situation in his new nation. Despite the Elfrieden Kingdom facing a possible invasion from the Demons or the Empire along with having an economic and refugee crisis, some nobles refuse to work with Souma to solve the country's problems as they are still bitter that he hired people based on merit rather than lineage and his reforms benefit the people more than them. Furthermore, the leaders of Army, Navy and Airforce, the Three Dukes, are planning a coup.
• We Used to Be Friends: Georg Carmine used to be the King's most loyal subordinate and a parental figure for Liscia, but his resentment towards Souma's appointment made him rebel against the Kingdom. At least until it is revealed that the true point of his rebellion was to provide the genuinely rebellious nobles a rallying point so that they could all be crushed at the same time rather than having each of them undermine the Kingdom in different ways for years from the shadows.
• Women Are Wiser:
  • Duchess Walter is far more reasonable than the other two dukes. Played with in that she didn't see Georg's con to feign betrayal and draw out so many nobles.
  • Princess Roroa Amidonia prefers a non-violent approach, in direct contrast with her father and brother.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: To most of the people in the world, "Cursed Ore" is just a rock that sucks up magic and explodes, with Liscia even complaining the fact that their kingdom just happens to be built on top of a very large vein of it. After talking with Genia, Souma realizes that the ore is actually a magical "rechargeable battery" that could completely revolutionize the world. But he also has an Oh, Crap! moment when he realizes that when word got out about how valuable this ore actually is, and the kingdom is sole owner of this material, that there will likely be wars over it.
• Xanatos Gambit: During the Occupation of Van after the One Week War, Souma has the bridges built by the occupying Kingdom to be named after ministers in his court or members of the Elfrieden Royal Family. When the Kingdom leaves, they remain intact and gifts to the people of Van and the surrounding areas. Souma then notes that either Julius or the anti-Kingdom faction will have to accept them as named and be salt in the wound after their lose, or they can destroy them and gain the ire of the people which undermines his rule. Either way, Elfrieden comes out ahead with their actions.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Souma and Hakuya's approach to the civil war and following events in the first four volumes. The only scheme they're able to set up and pull off is The Purge of corrupt nobles. Everything else is them trying to make the best of a series of bad situations.
• Zerg Rush: How Souma plans to fight Fuuga Haan: having the entire Air Force pile on him all at once.

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