Warning! Spoilers ahead for Reborn As A Vending Machine, I Now Wander The Dungeon!
The overly descriptive but aptly chosen title for the new Isekai manga Reborn As A Vending Machine, I Now Wander The Dungeon still doesn't do this Isekai satire justice for how well it resets the structure of this overly stagnant genre.
The Isekai craze arguably began taking hold when Sword Art Online exploded onto the scene. Although the series deserved the high praise it received, the title inadvertently unleashed a whole wave of weak, uninspired facsimiles that now inundate the manga industry. It didn't take long for offsets of Isekai to begin shaping current trends including the ever-popular reincarnation subgenre, with That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime energizing the charge. There have been a whole host of parodies taking massive satirical swipes at reincarnation manga since then but none of them do it quite so well as Reborn As A Vending Machine....
Nothing is spared during the manga's first and only chapter to get unofficially translated by fans - even the ridiculous trope where the hero gets hit by a truck is targeted. It's clear that creators Kunieda, Hirukuma and Yuuki Hagure are poking fun at this popular plotline. That's because the hero is so obsessed with vending machines that he sacrifices his life to save a particular stunning new model from an out-of-control truck. Like how some of the less terrible reincarnation titles immediately thrust their newly reincarnated heroes into a compromising area, the hero in this case is placed in the middle of a forest next to a lake. In other words, there are no customers to order his vast array of products - and this couldn't be more upsetting to this vending machine enthusiast.
This is not only an utterly absurd problem to have in normal cases, but the manga continues to throw curveballs at readers. Although they're aware by the title that the hero must have been reborn in a dungeon because of the title, it's not immediately apparent that this is actually the case, just due to the oddity of his placement. Dungeons are rarely beautifully lush landscapes. So, readers are still pleasantly surprised when evil-looking monsters appear on the scene and attack him, much to the vending machine's despair. This unusually hilarious predicament is further exemplified by the fact that the vending machine can say certain sentences, and the ones he chooses only anger his attackers more.
The common plotline where the hero discovers their powers and stats through some visual means like in a roleplaying game is also explored. But unlike most reincarnation Isekais, this stereotypical exploration stage doesn't feel rehashed nor can the reader guess what its abilities actually will be because this isn't a typical reincarnation Isekai. Best of all, the vending machine doesn't just possess normal abilities. It can also create forcefields and perform other tasks that normal models can't possibly do in real life. Another absurdity is that the manga hints at a possible taboo romance when a beautiful hero later stumbles upon the vending machine and becomes enraptured by his refreshments, even going so far as sleeping beside him. Everything somehow feels refreshing - even the most overused tropes - in Reborn As A Vending Machine, I Now Wander The Dungeon to the point where, even though it's undoubtedly a satire and shouldn't be taken seriously, readers can't help but get excited about future chapters. For the first time, they actually don't know what will happen next in an Isekai resurrection manga.