The Spring 2023 Manga Guide

ELDEN RING: The Road to the Erdtree

What's It About? 

The epic and foreboding world of the hit video game Elden Ring gets turned on its head in this absurd comedy adventure! Follow Aseo the Tarnished as he struggles his way through the Lands Between. What he lacks in strength, speed, intelligence, charisma, skill, experience, intuition, and common sense, he makes up for in...uhhh... 

ELDEN RING: The Road to the Erdtree has art by Nikiichi Tobita, based on the best-selling video game by FromSoftware. John Neal provided the English translation and Abigail Blackman served as the letterer. Yen Press will release the first volume both digitally and physically on May 23.

Is It Worth Reading?

Christopher Farris

Rating:

Sure, the foundation of Elden Ring could probably lend itself fine to a straight manga adaptation, but where would the fun be in that? Communicating comprehensive lore is a job for a wiki; what we really enter the realm of Souls games for is to be screwed with. And The Road To The Erdtree is as enthusiastic about screwing with its main character, and thus the reader, as FromSoft's Game Of The Year was about messing with its players.

The meta-awareness is all part of the experience. Nikiichi Tobita lavishly recreates introductory narrative scenes and beautiful open-world vistas. Then, barely ten pages in, Melina is making horse puns at Torrent. It is a generally good-natured setup that you might expect from an officially sanctioned parody. Much like how players complain about FromSoft's propensity for opaque explanations and proper-noun-laden lore, the manga pokes fun at that too. But our exasperating nearly-naked Player-Character stand-in Aseo takes his own share of drubbing, being lambasted for having the nerve to spend time simply faffing about in this open world, or exercising the tried-and-true FromSoft gameplay strategy of just running away from enemies. At last, a way to experience all the fun of having no idea how to play Elden Ring without the inconvenience of dying over and over!

Perhaps the most amusing part is that this still actually explains a fair bit of Elden Ring's lore, along with some gameplay tips on the side, in ways that might entice those who haven't yet to check the game out. But while The Road To The Erdtree can make for a surprisingly effective alternate entry into The Lands Between for newcomers, the majority of its value will absolutely be found by experienced Tarnished. Most of the actual content concerns familiar characters like Patches engaging with Aseo in episodic misadventures. They generally don't outstay their welcome, save for a few (like Roderika's) which simply recreate game exposition sequences with a handful of jokes thrown in. But as a goofy companion book, The Road To The Erdtree is worth checking out, without feeling like a joke only a few people are in on.

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

I've never played Elden Ring, but I did my time in World of Warcraft and a few other similar games, and I still found this pretty funny. Whether that means it would be hysterically funny if you are familiar with Elden Ring, or if it's just a generally good parody of open-world RPGs/MMORPGs, I can't say. But I'm inclined to go with the latter because the story hits on many familiar gaming elements and happily tears them down. There's the newbie adventurer (who may be more of a noob), the thinly veiled quests that feel kind of pointless, and even the silly ways people name their characters and pets. It's entertainingly familiar, which makes the parodic elements stronger than if it were sticking exclusively close to its source game.

The running gag is that our "hero," Aseo, is buck naked for most of the book. (Okay, he's got skimpy briefs, but it's nothing.) Since clothing is typically not hard to find in these games, the implication is that he's both impressively bad at playing and really couldn't care less about covering up. The latter is a nice reversal of the more typical ladies' bikini armor. But it mostly serves to underline how utterly half-hearted he is about the whole "reach the Elden Tree" thing. Melina, the Maiden who has reluctantly agreed to help him, seems like she'd be just as happy if one of the many monsters he meets ate him and left her free to find a different guy to partner up with. It's not like she wanted him—the magic horse just liked his ass.

The book's strongest element is probably its art, which is beautiful with intricate details and a solid feel for the world—except when it comes to Aseo. Whether he's got flasks stuck to his butt, is running from bad guys, or trying desperately to avoid plot points, he always looks like he wandered in from another story. It's an easy and obvious way to reinforce the parody that doesn't feel lazy. Overall, this is a surprising amount of fun; I chuckled aloud in a few places. It's no Flintlock's Guide to Azeroth (anyone else remembers that?), but it hits many of the same notes.

Jean-Karlo Lemus
Rating:

Taking the grim, dramatic Elden Ring and playing the entire matter for laughs worked far better than it should. The penny drops the moment we see our hero: a deprived Tarnished that is given the name Aseo. From Melina choosing his stats to Godrick the Grafted being a big, scary-looking valley girl who just wants Tarnished to appreciate his art, and even Morgot patiently explaining the best early-game strategies, none of Elden Ring's self-serious characters are spared from the “parody” brush.

The humor still works, even if you don't know a thing about Elden Ring. There's a surprising amount of mileage to the gag involving Aseo and the storage of his flasks. It helps that the art is utterly gorgeous. Very seldom does The Road to the Erdtree break from Elden Ring's signature “look” (even if it's just in the name of doing wild takes or reaction faces). Elden Ring just looks phenomenal, even when it's punked to such a level. With the number of story references to in-game mechanics, it's easy to imagine the story as an isekai!

I'm deducting a few points because humor aside, I'm not entirely sure how well Road to the Erdtree will land with readers who aren't familiar with Elden Ring's lore and characters. Otherwise, this is a perfectly fine comedy that might be even better than a straightforward adaptation of the game.

MrAJCosplay
Rating:

I love Elden Ring. I've yet to beat it, but it's an incredibly expensive and well thought-out open world game. The lore is incredibly rich, so an adaptation that either follows the intended progression route of the game or maybe even a story that just happens to take place in the same world sounds like a great idea. If that is the book you were expecting to read like I was, please leave those expectations at the door because that is not this manga.

The Road to the Erdtree is basically a gag manga that embodies what it would actually feel like for a random person with amnesia to wake up in this world and be told you need to take on all of these incredibly difficult bosses. It is not subtle; it breaks the fourth wall pretty consistently and relies on a lot of deadpan, reactionary humor from characters you might not expect. Your mileage on that might vary, but as someone who has gone through about 50 hours worth of gameplay, I cannot help but feel like this embodies my state of mind whenever I want to throw my controller against the wall. It also helps that the manga is brimming with detail and life.

Even if you're not a fan of this type of humor, you gotta respect the effort in making this world feel lived in and involved. However, I think this manga is best suited for people who have played the original game and are interested in something a little less serious.