If my monsters are imagined, why do they trigger the motion sensor lights?

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Cake day: February 10th, 2024

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  • <In Another World with Household Spells>: Volume 5 by Rika - ★★★☆☆, 168 MynePages™ - First half of the summer vacation arc. Since Patience is spending more time with her brothers, her obsession with them is in full force again, though.

    <Isekai Walking>: Volume 6 Eld Republic Arc by arukuhito - ★★★☆☆, 195 MynePages™ - It’s one of those where everything could be prevented if the guy with the all-powerful analyze/appraisal skill would use it once in a while.

    <A Livid Lady’s Guide to Getting Even: How I Crushed My Homeland with My Mighty Grimoires> Volume 7 by Hagure Metabo - ★★★☆☆, 131 MynePages™ - A weaker volume in the series, but the afterword makes it sound as if this was intentional, and this volume served as the prologue for the next volume.

    <The Abandoned Reincarnation Sage: Building a Mighty Empire of Monsters Within the Monsters’ Forest.> - Volume 04 by Miraizin A - ★★☆☆☆, 151 MynePages™ - MC goes on the offensive with a group of Beresdahl elites. Most of the volume is just one fighting scene after the other. Might be interesting if this gets an anime adaptation, but as a book it’s utterly boring to read.





  • Where to start. They have so many issues that there is something in there for everyone:

    • price hikes and end of the free tier
    • declining quality of subs and the use of AI for subs
    • activist localization slash “woke” changes to the subs when humans translate <— with the previous point, now both the pro-AI and anti-ai crowd are unhappy
    • data breach (at least one, but I think they had two)
    • Funimation customers got fucked since they lost access to purchased content after the merger with Crunchy
    • monopolistic tendencies and general corporate greed and tactics
    • comment sections got removed because people dared to be negative

    And possibly a myriad others. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Crunchy mentioned in a positive way.



  • As I said, I like isekais, so I’m not trying to shit on the genre, but my working theory is that for a lot of authors, this is used as a narrative crutch. A helper setting that allows them to describe the world in contemporary terms. The dragons were “large as a school bus” instead of “one score feet long and as high as a korrexian wabbit can jump”. Coming up with a working magic system is hard, but saying it’s like video game skills is a lot easier. They might also find writing something that they know easier than tackling something unique for their first steps. And tracing back many animes to the source, it makes sense as well. Many shows start as web novels from hobbyist writers. It’s no wonder they take to the isekai setting. It’s popular, and it makes writing easier. It’s a win-win in that regard.

    On the flip side, this also means that many isekais are written by first-time authors writing glorified fan fiction, and it shows in the quality of many shows. So the problem is not the setting but the quality benchmark Kadokawa has for what gets picked up.










  • <Heroine? Saint? No, I’m an All-Works Maid (And Proud of It)! Vol. 2> by Atekichi - ★★★☆☆, 166 MynePages™ - There are a few minor plot holes in this volume. Nothing too glaring, but they still stand out when reading the volumes back to back.

    <Heroine? Saint? No, I’m an All-Works Maid (And Proud of It)! Vol. 3> by Atekichi - ★★★☆☆, 200 MynePages™ - This time they go on a summer vacation, and the plot gets a couple more threads up to the point where it’s starting to feel convoluted. I hope it gets reigned in a bit with the different directions the plot tries to go all at once.

    <Heroine? Saint? No, I’m an All-Works Maid (And Proud of It)! Vol. 4> by Atekichi - ★★★☆☆, 182 MynePages™ - Young people beware - parenting anecdote incoming: You know how, when your kids do something genuinely funny, and you laugh, and they then repeat that same thing? While you laughed organically the first time you laugh out of obligation, the next couple times because you know that your kid is just trying to make you happy and it’s endearing, but after the 20th time, you are thinking that it wasn’t actually that funny in the first place, and you’re desperately looking for ways to distract your kid to make it stop? Yeah, that series is doing something similar with the deadpan narration. It was funny at first, and the author seems to have gotten the feedback. But now they’re trying to force it again and again because apparently people liked it. And by volume 4, it’s just hurting, and I’m wishing I could tell them that there is an ice cream seller near. Let’s get some ice cream, okay? You like ice cream, don’t you? Please?!