The Fall 2024 Manga Guide

I Was Sold Dirt Cheap, But My Power Level Is Off the Charts

What's It About? 

In another world, war is waged through battles of humanoid mechanical “Magic Suits.” These suits are piloted with a power called Ludea, intrinsic to each human from birth. One day, Yuta and his whole high school class are summoned to fight. Why? “People from Earth have high Ludea Rates.” So they say, but Yuta's Rate was only 2? As his classmates are auctioned off for fortunes, Yuta is sold as a slave for next to nothing. But before long, an encounter with a mysterious white Magic Suit sets him on the path to awaken his hidden strength!

I Was Sold Dirt Cheap, But My Power Level Is Off the Charts has art by Cambria Bakuhatsu Tarou, original story by RYOMA, and character design by Susumu Kuroi, with English translation by Jameson Taber. Published by One Peace Books (October 8, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

Why, yes, this series does involve slavery! How could you tell? The entire premise feels like an escalation of typical isekai slavery stories: an entire school bus of high schoolers is “summoned” to another world, but there's no nonsense about “heroes” and “demon lords.” Instead, one country has established a trade in selling imported “earthlings.” They've been able to pull this off because of the existence of ancient technology known as magic suits – but you may know them as mecha. Only people with a high ludea rate can pilot (or ride, in the series' terminology) them, and earthlings are more likely to have that. So while other countries are waging war with their magic suits, this one is busy summoning unsuspecting kids on class trips and then promptly selling them into slavery.

In a lot of ways, this is just as typical of its genre as the title suggests. Protagonist Yuta has a ridiculously high ludea rate, but because the arrow on the meter spins so quickly, his captors mistakenly think it's super low. While the rest of his class, including his crush Yui and his best friend Nagisa, are sold off for high prices, Yuta is bought for two pieces of fruit. But even crap isekai can't keep a good man down. Before long, he's saving and befriending a girl named Nanami, fleeing two sets of captors, and getting taken in by a kindly man with an isolated daughter…until he has to flee again. It's not quite nonstop action, but the story never slows down for a moment, even when the perspective briefly shifts to Nagisa, Yui, and the class teacher. It's one of those books where you can recognize the faults and the excessive use of tropes but still find it easy to keep reading.

I won't pretend that this is particularly good, and it certainly doesn't compare to the best-known isekai mecha series, Magic Knight Rayearth. It has a lot of issues, although, in all fairness, it does at least mildly acknowledge that slavery is bad. Yui and Nagisa's situations are drastically different from Yuta's in a positive way – they aren't sex slaves, and Yuta's companions Nagisa and Falma don't act like they're part of his harem; they're all on the run together as a team. But despite using some of isekai's worst hits, this didn't make me want to tear my hair out. That may be damning it with faint praise, but when you consider the glut of terrible isekai out there, it's nice to have one that I honestly didn't hate reading.

It's works like these that make me so frustrated with the stupid light novel trend of absurdly long titles. In days past, a mecha manga like this would've gotten something cool or evocative like Vision of Escaflowne or Magic Knight Rayearth. Instead, we get a mouthful of a title that's clunky and doesn't do anything to sell the vibe of the manga. I'll be cold and in the ground before I stop calling this nonsense out.

Anyway, Sold Dirt-Cheap reminds me a bit of the old fantasy-mecha series Broken Blade, but with the usual isekai twists. Instead of a pilot being a perfect fit for an “outdated” model that doesn't use magic (which is denser and stronger by necessity than the magical units, giving it an edge), our protagonist has a power level of “2”, making much of the magitech in his world playthings in his unsuspecting hands. But of course, that's only because his power level is actually so high (beyond six digits), that he can't be measured and that busted old magic suit is actually one that needs an absurd power level to pilot and yawn, I'm actually making myself lose interest in this series from that alone.

Sold Dirt-Cheap does have some proper decent framing. It's nice to see a series where the potato protagonist is the guy who experiences chattel slavery (no such thing as a “good slave owner” here, thank providence). It's nice to see our hero bond with fellow slave Nanami (even if the bit where they're bathing together is kinda iffy). And hey, there's even a bit of Escaflowne thrown in with the orphaned beast-girl Falma tagging along for the ride. The twist of Yuta's entire class, teacher and all, getting transported is a fascinating twist, especially since Yuta's classmates (two of which have unrequited feelings for him) are now scattered across the continent as chattel-pilots; it'll be interesting to see how they develop and what they're like once Yuta reencounters them. I even appreciate that there's a bit of attention given to Yuta's homeroom teacher, who is taking the initiative to gather her students back together, come hell or high water.

The “magic suits”, as they're called, are definitely neat, but they're screaming for an animated adaptation; because of their busy designs, it can be a little hard to follow their movements or make heads or tails of the big splash pages where they're struggling. They're undeniably neat, though, look forward to them hitting Amiami in the future.

If Sold Dirt-Cheap hadn't been saddled with all the annoying staples of a light novel series, it would be a pretty great mecha manga, especially for folks looking for something to fill that void Broken Blade left behind. And since I know a lot of readers probably aren't as exhausted of light novel conventions as I am, I'm giving Sold Dirt-Cheap a strong recommendation. I genuinely want more of this. Just... put a paper bag over that ugly title.