Alexander Purchinov is the revered president of the country of Pursia. Despite his skills and wisdom, the life of politics bores him, and he can only get thrills from riding rare animals. One day, terrorists try to attack Purchinov directly. He survives, but is suddenly transported to a new world, filled with magical beasts and diplomatic tensions. And he sure knows what he wants to check out first.
The Ride-On King is a 2018 isekai manga by Baba Yasushi. It has been serialized in Kodansha's Gekkan Shounen Magazine and Shounen Sirius.
Tropes:
- Achievements in Ignorance: Purchinov deflecting Edu's hammer into a random direction accidentally kills the Dungeon Core in a completely different room, which lets them leave.
- Action Pet: By observing Purchinov all the time, one Pocchi called Bocchi went from a prideful transport to a karate bird who can beat up even demonic monsters. Bell's Pocchi similarly manages to learn some magic.
- Purchinov's tiger at home, Timur. He's registered as a car.
- Adventure Guild: After being indebted to Saki and also accidentally wasting a lot of her money, Purchinov signs up to the adventurer guild to "slay monsters or clean mansions" because the other option would be slavery. Ironically, the guild uses different-colored belts to indicate ranks, just like in karate. Their main purpose is to find powerful explorers to go into uncharted territories.
- Aggressive Negotiations: Purchinov dons his suit and tries to negotiate truce with Jilalie, arguing that due to the village getting destroyed many times in the past, Gorde's family has effectively abandoned that area. Since she doesn't take his offer, and wanted to capture everyone inside regardless, Purchinov's allies blow up her units from the back and he shoots Carvin with a gun he had with him the entire time, with Marcelos finishing with Boom, Headshot!. And now Jilalie is outnumbered and the talk continues.
- Animal Talk: The Pocchi have own language and often provide snarky commentary the others can't hear. It's ambiguous if Purchinov can understand animals, but when he replies everyone nearby thinks he's starting to go cuckoo.
- The Atoner: Dia has been scheming against the Black Tower before, during and after Rina became a Chaos warrior, each time unwittingly dragging other people into his problems. Each time he decides to dedicate his life on fixing his mess.
- Back for the Dead: The lich gets revived in another dungeon only to be blasted off again by Purchinov, who can only remember that his name "sounded rich".
- Battle Aura: Most magic that doesn't fall under categories of spells or utilization of nature spirits uses one's Fighting Spirit with variety of applications, which everyone can see by the glow around the warrior.
- Batman Gambit: Dealing with General Calhoon involves a lot of psychological trickery. First, Purchinov twice sneaks into his tent without attacking him, then bests him in a duel, then Garutz comes and offers his head, all while Edu is turning it into a show for soldiers. Calhoon has enough of his pride shaken that he doesn't feel like doing his job.
- The Beastmaster: One of Jilalie's mercenaries is a beast tamer and an assassin who specializes in creating Slave Collars.
- Bears Are Bad News: The previous mountain lord is a demonic bear, who Purchinov throws down judo-style and makes him obey.
- Bigger on the Inside: Donatello's hideout on top of him is three times larger inside.
- Blob Monster: Saki explains that aside generic slimes, there are slimes that feed on specific metals and have valuable cores.
- Body Backup Drive: To save Edu from dying from The Corruption, Bell uses the Tower's forbidden spell to create a homunculus in her image and transfer her memories into it.
- Breath Weapon: The mouth ray from Dragriffon tunnels through the entire Holy Kingdom's capital.
- Came Back Strong: Orcs and ogres can revive stronger if they weren't killed completely.
- Captain Colorbeard: Chapter 53 has an encounter with a pirate Captain Squidbeard.
- Child Soldiers: Since the village only has the elderly and former child slaves, Purchinov sees no other choice but to train them into a militia unit.
- Comically Missing the Point: When an elder lich resurrects in the Chaos dungeon with 1000 soul orbs, Purchinov recalls that minotaurs were bound for 1000 years and wonders if the Dungeon Core just really likes that number, instead of noticing his enemy's return. Considering the King Ogre was asked to get 1000 sacrifices, he may be right.
- The Corruption: The majority of the Holy Kingdom is taken over by the corrupted flesh, which is an ever-growing colony of meat parasytes that feed on Mana and makes their host aggressive.
- Crapsack World: The world has a recurring problem of royals starting wars against each other, systematic slavery of non-humans, monsters rampaging everywhere and The Tower performing inhuman experiments on everyone they can. The inhabited world is also composed of two small continents, while the majority of the world is considered to be lost to the Curse.
- Curse: The Dark Continent is a home to stronger beasts and races that have lost their intelligence. The black mist from there is collected by the Tower as bioweapon, similarly to the corrupted flesh. More importantly, maddened beasts are immune to Ride-On, but a giant multi-dimensional eyeball of Curse isn't.
- Deadly Graduation: Black Shadows are trained by siblings having kill each other. Saki remarks how cliche it is, while Purchinov says that they would have been stronger if the siblings were alive and competing against each other.
- Dem Bones: The dungeon near the village is home to animated skeletons, along other undead.
- Demonic Possession: When the party sleeps in a mana-deficient area, Bega takes over Bell's body.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Purchinov's opening monologue indicates that he's already been on top of anything he could want and is tired of presidency due to having nothing new to ride. He sure gets a whole new life worth of excitement.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When the turtoise dragon, effectively Physical God, gives Purchinov a Friend-or-Idol Decision offer of his friends in exchange to returning home, Purchinov responds by drilling its head and making it beg for mercy for treating human lives as trading items.
- Dinosaurs Are Dragons: Triceratops are referred to as "Earth Dragons".
- Dire Beast: A lot of monsters are giant animals. Giant bears, giant wolves, giant frogs, giant snakes...
- Dracolich: Purchinov has to fight a zombie dragon in the dungeon.
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: Saki and Bell let Purchinov try a magic lamp shortly after he first arrives to Gorde. Purchinov, who had no experience with magic before, wonders if magic is like Ki in martial arts, which proves to be accurate as the lamp explodes like a wide-range flashbang grenade.
- Easily Forgiven: After Purchinov solves the Holy Kingdom's problem with The Corruption, them starting a war against the Northen nations gets completely pardoned.
- Egopolis: Purchinov is the hero, founder and ruler of the country of Pursia and a glorified statue of him decorates the capital. When the village he saves brands themselves as "Purchinov's Village", he doesn't mind.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Chaos may be a Religion of Evil, but as long as you're loyal, nobody cares if you're human or non-human.
- Eyes Always Shut: Deputy lord Dia Lakastorm has his eyes constantly squinted. Despite being a Nice Guy, Bell remarks that this trait makes him not trustworthy. She turns out to be half-right as he is the former Tower head, but he did produce a lot of secret bioweapons to use against the Tower, which Carvin manages to steal.
- Family of Choice: While Rina and Joshua are actual siblings, all agents of Chaos treat each other like relatives despite being of different races, mainly because Rina doesn't understand a lot of concepts aside "family" and "foe".
- Fantastic Drug: Healing potions can cause addiction, as it would overheal and give the body a temporary boost if taken when not injured. Bell is one such addict.
- Fantastic Racism: The non-Crest sentients (Centaurs, spirit beasts, orcs, etc; basically anyone that's not a human, dwarf, or elf) are susceptible to slavery and discrimination. Even elves get enslaved once in a while. A few of the imperial soldiers don't consider that centaurs even have a concept of pride.
- Fictional Country: The republic of Pursia is a Central Asian country with only 15 years of independence.
- Ruritania: It's a mix of Russia, Poland and Chechnya.
- Final Speech: Jilalie manages to boast about the city's she's built despite her iron rule and warn about Purchinov before Rina kills her.
- Fish People: When they first arrive to the Holy Kingdom, the party helps out fish-like Triton villagers.
- Food as Bribe: Purchinov giving the orcs cooked meat makes them quickly defect from the Holy Kingdom.
- Forced into Evil: Minotaurs Vindos and Vortos were once followers of god Mauna before being cursed to guard the gate to Chaos realm for 1000 years.
- Fusion Dance: Purchinov's status as the King of Beasts lets him merge with Marseros. After everyone is wierded out by this, he figures out how to incorporate martial arts to having four legs.
- Genius Loci: The Chaos Labyrinth is controlled by the sentient Core.
- Go and Sin No More: Dia's punishment for experimenting with dragonification is getting fired and becoming Joshua's teacher.
- Gotta Catch Them All: Closing the all 7 corrupt Dragon Holes becomes the main plot, which Purchinov can do by absorbing them inside his chakras. The Tower is more interested in this skill than Purchinov's actions, as Nell has done the same with dozens of them by now.
- Guardian Entity: The queen garm Purchinov rescues agrees to protect the village of the children he saved in the same battle. Once the villagers make her their protector, it evolves into a guardian deity.
- Hand Rubbing: When Chaos takes over Gorde, local merchants try to negotiate for letting them manage the logistics. Their hand rubbing show their real priorities.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The minotaur warriors help the party pass the gate as the cave is falling in and they themselves turn into stone.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Purchinov spends time to find the most trustworthy sailor to get them to the mainland and his eventual pick turns out to be a treacherous pirate in disguise.
- Horse of a Different Color: Purchinov's life goal is to ride everything that can be ridden. Upon being transported to the new world, he is delighted to find out that his new targets include dragons, centaurs, Chocobo-equivalent Pocchi, and so on. It's heavily implied that Ride-On has became a magical technique to sync with the target.
- Hydro-Electro Combo: Bell and Saki combine their water and lightning magic to dispose of a few bandits in a single move.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every chapter is titled "The President and ...".
- I Like Those Odds: Gorde tries to dissuade Chaos from killing the citizens by warning them about the war with the human kingdom. Which Edu comments on is exactly what they want.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Orcs love eating flesh, the younger the better. This stops being an issue when Purchinov lets them hunt in his forest, turns out human meat was meant to be the last resort.
- Kick the Dog: The beast tamer tests the brainwashing of queen Garm by feeding her the soup made of her children.
- King of Beasts: Yamdoa is a lion-like deity who calls himself King of the Beasts. He passes that title along with his strength to Purchinov.
- Ley Line: The world has Dragon Veins, which flow the Mana across the world and can even reach other worlds. Purchinov is also directly connected to it through unknown means and acts as a walking Place of Power.
- Lie Detector: Bell has developed glasses that spark blue if the person looked at is lying.
- MacGuffin Delivery Service:
- Jilalie quickly deduces that Purchinov may be the one who's attacked her soldiers, and as she's seeking the Hidden Centaur Village, she figures she'll find it by following the one who's rescued the centaurs.
- The Tower realizes that they can just let Purchinov absorb the Dragon Holes and take them later in one package.
- Mana: Mana in this world can be considered like crystallized oxygen. Almost all beasts have a mana crystal somewhere inside them. Mana crystals, beside magical properties, are used as fuel, and normal humans become really weak at high altitude locations, while not getting hungry for a while in plains. Purchinov, who is not from a magical world, first rationalizes it as the "fighting spirit", but later deduces it's some sort of artificial elemental particle.
- More than Mind Control: Despite being freed from the brainwashing, Taktaros still takes Jilalie to safety as he has a personal connection to her mother.
- Moving Buildings: Kalmer the dinosaur gets a house built on top of him as the party's mobile base of operations.
- Mundane Wish: When he gets one wish from Yamdoa, instead of immortality or riches Purchinov asks for a photo of his deceased wife so he would never forget her.
- Narcissist: Griffons become very happy and full of themselves when Bell comments that they are stronger than dragons, which even the ogres picked up on and make them unaggressive by praising them.
- Narnia Time: The Black Tower was formed centuries ago, however the flashback shows its founders came from Purchinov's world around 20 Minutes into the Past.
- Near-Death Clairvoyance: After beating the zombie dragon and the lich, Purchinov's spirit temporarily leaves his unconscious body and speaks with King of Beasts Yamdoa.
- Never Found the Body: As far as Pursia's officials are concerned, Purchinov has disappeared without a trace. The general public are told he's hospitalized.
- Noble Wolf: Queen Garm is a magical wolf who agrees to help Purchinov after being released from slavery.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: In Chapter 30 the party acquires a dragon Turtle Island that can also transform into a jet.
- Nobody Poops: According to Kanya in a bonus chapter, pooping is the greatest dishonor to an elf, so their gut flora is evolved to metabolise food completely. Bell creates a magic spell based of it and the rest of the world learns an inferior version it. Turns out it just compresses poop into a tiny pearl that can be extracted every few months.
- Now That's Using Your Teeth!: In Chapter 53 Purchinov catches a pirate's Falcon Arrow with his mouth.
- Only in It for the Money: While Saki and Bell aren't impressed with Purchinov sticking into matters of centaur slavery, after figuring centaurs may be indebted to him and also may have Mithril ores, they quickly change their mind. When they pick up magical ores from orcs, they decide to not tell Purchinov that it would be more than enough to cover his debt.
- Only the Chosen May Ride: Purchinov is heartbroken to discover that the centaurs refuse to let anyone ride them as a matter of cultural pride. After becoming the King of the Beasts, Purchinov finally gets to ride a centaur, which to his extreme dismay becomes a Fusion Dance scenario instead of what he was imagining.
- Our Centaurs Are Different: To make childbirth easier, the centaur foals are mostly bipedal as infants; they aren't quadrupedal as usual centaurs until they grow a bit older and their lower bodies outgrow their upper bodies. During times of famine, centaur foals may have their forelegs cut off, and those who survive the process become satyrs, having much smaller bodies than centaurs and therefore needing much less food to survive.
- Our Demons Are Different: The Demons of Chaos aren't actual demons, as Rina's party includes a beastman, a dark elf and an ogre. Rather, anyone who's passes a certain ritual is treated as a demon, not helped by the Holy Kingdom using a Religion of Evil exclusively.
- Party Scattering: When the heroes go through the Labyrinth of Chaos, its Core throws each of them to a different section of the dangerous maze that connect at the end.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Beast tamers eventually get the taste of own brainwashing collars that would kill them if anyone jests a Suicide Dare. Purchinov makes them turn themselves to authorities, who quickly kill them for becoming useless.
- Perpetual Poverty: Saki doesn't have a lot of cash on her and has poor luck with monster-slaying, and the addition of Purchinov to the crew makes her nearly broke.
- Precursors: Humans and elves have fairytales about the Ancients who have created dragons as transportation. Based on "magical tools" showing from time to time, it's heavily implied they came from Purchinov's world at some point.
- A Protagonist Shall Lead Them: After rebuilding a destroyed village, the residents elect Purchinov as the chief, and it only continues growing from there.
- Race Against the Clock: Kanya is taken to the Holy Kingdom to be in two weeks used as a vessel to slow down The Corruption. When Purchinov learns about it she has 2 days left.
- Running Gag: Pretty much everyone Purchinov meets assume the absolute the worst of him from his stern face alone.
- Sarcasm Failure: Joshua tells Purchinov that Kalmer cannot be tamed by a human and he's free to try, which Purchinov does immediately by pushing Joshua off along with the saddle.
- Secretly Selfish: Purchinov's inner monologue betrays that he wants to ride a centaur despite seeing their treatment as slaves, though after brainwashing is brought up he decides to rescue them first.
- Serial Escalation:
- After Purchinov befriends Carvin's monstrous scorpion, the scorpion performs a Ride-On on a monstrous dinosaur, while Purchinov is still riding on it. The "Two Ride-On".
- A giant cross-dimensional ball of manifested Curse connected to an evil god is about to doom a city? Yes, it can also be mounted and tamed.
- When it's revealed that Elves used literal space whales as spaceships, Purchinov decides to see them repaired just to ride them.
- Shout-Out: In Chapter 63 Bell decompresses Saki's armor from a unicorn-shaped cube, which has an intermediate transition in animal form, a clear parody of Saint Seiya.
- Slave Collar: Enslaved centaurs wear a collar that erases the will and blows up upon forced removal.
- Standard Fantasy Setting: The new world is a classic fantasy setting, filled with castles, knights, magicians, and non-humans.
- Super Robot Genre: Somehow, inside the Sky Fortress there was a packaged giant robot, which Purchinov uses to wrestle with the Dragriffon. Which is actually just an Acients' toy and can't be used for combat, so Purchinov overrides it with his Fighting Spirit.
- Talking the Monster to Death: Purchinov lets himself be absorbed by the royal corrupted flesh, and after listening what its former human self has on mind, the flesh disintegrates.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Holy Kingdom has attacked Gorde seeking for the new Dragon Vein to stop The Corruption, intending to go as far to wipe the country out. Turns out Purchinov is that Dragon Vein and wants to meet them anyway.
- Transformation of the Possessed: Edu gets taken over by the corrupt flesh and turns into a dragon barely holding on her senses.
- Trapped in Another World: Purchinov is suddenly teleported to the corner of a fantasy world after an assassination attempt, with Pursia unable to confirm his fate. He prioritizes finding new beasts to mount over returning to his country. When he gets a chance, he refuses because he feels obliged to resolve the situation he's already invovled in.
- Translator Microbes: Most people have a divine blessing that lets them understand any language, and anything the person writes transforms into the appropriate writing system. Which is convenient to Purchinov who wouldn't be able to communicate otherwise.
- Treants: Huberry Ent is a massive walking tree who controls the forests in the Holy Kingdom.
- Turtle Island: Purchinov manages to get support of Zaratan, a truly massive tortoise-like sea dragon with a castle on top of it.
- Twisted Echo Cut: In Chapter 4 Marcelos reiterates that he hates humans and would never let one ride him, just as Purchinov in a remote location was thinking about just that.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: All previous opponents Purchinov has managed to overcome by channeling his Fighting Spirit harder and supplexing them. One shot from the Dragriffon makes him heavily injured and unconscious. He excuses this by building up a lot of stress lately.
- Weakened by the Light: Wraiths are pulverized by light, such as Purchinov channeling his energy into a mana crystal.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Kalmer develops his dragon breath to be a bubble foam. While useless for pretty much everything else, it's main property to solidify the more hatred it's attacked with makes it a perfect way to restrict enemies.
- The Worf Effect: After the grand entrance of the four Heavenly Dragons, they attack the corrupted flesh around the palace and quickly get absorbed.
- Wrestler in All of Us:
- Purchinov's fighting style is mainly composed of real world martial arts and wrestling moves.
- The fight against gate minotaurs quickly devolves to everyone using various throws and drops on each other.
