Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody

Death March kara Hajimaru Isekai Kyusoukyoku is an ongoing web novel series (2013-present) by Hiro Ainano.

Ichiro Suzuki is a 29-year old gaming programmer who was tasked with fixing several bugs in two games his company is preparing for publication.

After a thirty hour day he takes a nap on the floor by his desk. Then has a dream wherein he's waking up in a wasteland. He sees an RPG style menu that looks somewhat like a hybrid of the two games he was working on. It's not the first time he's dreamed about work, but this is the weirdest one. He's even turned back into a fifteen year old, and his name is displayed as Satou on the menu.

He plays along and follows up "All Map Exploration" with "Meteor Shower" to deal with all those hostile red dots. What gamer hadn't had that dream? He levels up to 310 after destroying the Dragon Valley.

He finally stops trying to convince himself it's all a dream after a week. Then winds up owning some slaves he'd protected. The steadily expanding family travel about sightseeing, eating, dungeoneering, and dealing with the occasional demon outbreak.

The series' success lead to Kadokawa commissioning Ainano to write a light novel version, wubsequently localized by Yen Press as Death March To A Parallel World Rhapsody. The latter features wildly different characterizations, storylines, tone, and even a different cast of supporting characters, it should probably be covered separately.


 * Arranged Marriage Normmal among nobles, although it is usually possible for the parties to to get out of them. Both Sistina and Ringrande broke one off prior to meeting Satou. Satou, however, was informed of his engagement by the king.
 * Blessed With Suck All of Hayato's retainers are badass, bathykolpian bombshells. He's a lolicon.
 * Complete Monster His Highness, 3rd Prince Sharlick Shiga
 * Fantastic Racism Beast and Scale kin are frequent targets of this in human lands. Fairy kin are less commonly targeted, but still experience some.
 * When Satou initially tried to free Liza, Pochi, and Tama he was talked out of it by Liza, since the best case scenario forthem in that territory would involve being beaten and driven from the territory by the army. It was very likely they'd be lynched instead. On the other hand, they had some legal protection as slaves.
 * "A world for humans, and only humans" is a popular slogan for followers of the Demon God.
 * Hero with an F In Good Three of the four current summoned heroes of Parion should qualify:
 * Yuuki is outright compared to a Demon Lord due to his penchant for causing collateral damage.
 * Meiko is incredibly haughty, abusive, and bloodthirsty. Her mocking the retainers who died protecting her managed to make her one of the most hated characters in the fandom.
 * Fuu is no longer considered a hero at all, and is actively working to destroy most of the world's population. However, the romantic necromancy probably should have been a hint it wasn't ending well.
 * Lolicon Hayato Masaki, summoned hero of Parion.
 * Person of Mass Destruction Satou genocides the Dragon Valley in the first chapter. Pretty much every demon lord, upper demon and high level spell caster counts also.
 * Older Than He Looks The author seems to love this trope:
 * Satou is a 29 year old de-aged to 15. But two years later in story he still looks like a 12 year old.
 * Elves, Leprechauns, and Brownies all have lifespans measured in centuries, but look like human children.
 * Aze looks to be in her late twenties, but her actual age is a nine digit number. The girl in the painting and the dryad are presumably in the same category despite usually looking like 6 year olds.
 * Phantom Thief Pipin and Shirarun both have this as occupations. And then there's the mysterious Arsene.
 * Shotacon Arisa was one in both her lives. With how popular Satou is, there might be a lot of women that qualify.
 * Unwanted Harem Satou has turned down over 100 marriage proposals. On the other hand, he does have a few fiancées at this point.