Best Debut <Abducted Princess Running Rampant: Wielding Forbidden Magic in the Demon King’s Castle>

Oh, I thought that was last year. I want to change my pick now. That volume was great. Sadly seems to be dead :(

• Best Volume : Zilbagias the Demon Prince: How the Seventh Prince Brought Down the Kingdom - Volume 5

Love the internal struggle of MC.

• Best Debut : The Accursed Chef and His Pair of Furry Foodies

The new series from Yuu Tanaka of Sword Tensei fame.

• Best Protagonist: Devil Princess Yulucia from “The Devil Princess”

I have a thing for main characters that aren’t shackled by fake morality (you know the type that kills 1000 underlings without a thought but then is too “good” to kill the actual boss pulling their strings). And this year there wasn’t a character more ruthless than sweet Yulucia.

• Best Antagonist: The human heroes in Zilbagias the Demon Prince

Even if I were to disregard the whole flipped good/evil plot and just look at them as a counter to MC they are still written with a clear motivation and individual personalities that stay consistent.

• Best Supporting Character: Louis (Secrets of the Silent Witch)

Got even his own spin-off. He’s that good.

• Best Couple or Duo: Ai-Fa and Asuta (Cooking With Wild Game)

As always.

• Best Author: Matsuri Isora (Secrets of the Silent Witch)

Clearly written like Ascendance of a Bookworm with a clear outline of the entire plot already laid out.

• Best Worldbuilding: The world of Ascendance of a Bookworm

My favorite light novel world got fleshed out more in the Hannelore spin-off series.

• Best Overall Series: Cooking With Wild Game

Even though many of this year’s volumes were an arc that I didn’t like very much it’s still consistently great to read and every volume is a highlight for me. Silent Witch is getting there.

• Best Emotional Moment: The opening to “Welcome to Monstrous Miss Sophie’s Enchanted Salon of Healing”

Not going to spoil it, but man… God damn it man.

I don’t think I’ve seen anything this year that clearly stood out for the Illustration award, so I pass this one.

deleted by creator

<Peddler in Another World: I Can Go Back to My World Whenever I Want!> Volume 11 - Great volume. Killer cliffhanger. Can’t wait for the next one. Seriously, maybe the best cliffhanger I’ve read in years. That’s how you do it.

<Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden> Volume 8 - Tournament arc. Which means fights (my most disliked scenes in every series) back-to-back for the entire volume. With MC just waxing poetic about what makes a martial artist in the most esoteric ways between fights to break it up. The entire volume can be skipped.

I’ve read a little bit of the manga and I think this is exactly the type of series where KyoAni excels with.

I think I have that same Albedo figure.

Impeccable taste.

I got a new Holo for my collection.

a group of fans over on [email protected] as well

Can confirm. Nero is certified cool. Also, the series is objectively (as one can be) in the higher quality echelons of light novels.

To be fair, the crop is unusual. My hint was that it looked like a stagecoach, and I didn’t see anyone holding the reins.

A third person sitting in front of the girl, leaning forward with the head and arm cut off by the image crop. At least that would be be my interpretation of the picture without any context.

Yeah, I would say it’s around volume 28 when it started to get sloppy. The cover for 29 was okay again, so I thought it was just a one-off thing, but 30 and now 31 are just sloppy.

And the insight illustrations aren’t faring much better. Here is Rimee Ruu in volume 31 and 3.

Everything is just off-model and that’s especially jarring when you have read a series for such a long time. A series that excells at making the reader care for the characters.

So, basically it’s like “yup, that’s FUNA.”

That’s the most FUNA thing to say.

But joking aside, he got his style and runs with it regardless of series. If you like it you can literally pick up any other of his series and feel right at home.

Furry Foodies this week for me.

<In Another World with Household Spells> Volume 3 - There are 3-4 shotacon references in the volume (like when describing a classmate, she says that he’s too old for her taste, etc.). If they were to remove those completely unnecessary parts, it would be an okay series. They don’t add anything to the plot at all. All they do is make MC unlikable. I am still unsure whether this is a problem with the translation or not. In the west the term “shotacon” has a clear sexual connotation, but I don’t get that from MC here at all in the context. I think using the shotacon term in the translation might be an error since there is a different meaning over here. To put it differently, the use of the term makes you expect Rudeus from Mushoku Tensei, but the prose and actions of the MC give you Takanashi from Working!. As I said, it’s kinda unnecessary and sticks out negatively in an otherwise good series.

<Cooking with Wild Game> Volume 31 - End of the Observers Arc. I didn’t like this arc much, but I’m looking forward to the next arc since EDA is hyping it up in the Afterword. As a sidenote, I wish the illustrator would get his shit together again. Illustrations have become so rough and off-model. Look at this volume’s cover

and then compare it to volume 3, for example

(same peopleon the cover). Usually, the illustrations get better with time, but I consider this a step back. This is my favorite still-running series, so I wish the illustrations would get more care.

<Isekai Tensei: Recruited to Another World> Volume 12 - I don’t have much to say about this volume. List the last couple of volumes, it’s kind of boring. Feels like the series is treading water and the author is just trying to get something onto the page to fill the page requirements for a volume. Go into the dungeon with a different party. Then go into the same dungeon solo. Then go into the same dungeon again with MC’s own party. Then start discussing marriage with the in-laws. Then discuss the marriage with the royals. Then discuss the marriage with Mc’s grandparent. Then discuss the marriage with your close friends. Then discuss the marriage with another group of friends. Then, announce the marriage officially at a gala. Then discuss the marriage with the group of girls they had kept it secret from. And so on and so on. It’s boring to read the same thing again and again, and it honestly feels like a chore.

had an idea for an arc, and then after the arc was like “whelp… now what?

It’s what I always describe as “the story leading the author” type of writing. I have the mental image of a small kids being dragged around by a hyperactive, large dog trying to hold onto the leash for dear god. No clear say about where the story should go to and more often than not it really shows in how hard they fall after the first few volumes. Isekai Smartphone is one of the worst offenders from the top my head. On the other hand it really shows when a series follows a clear outlined path and gets only better with each new volume (Bookworm, Silent Witch).

Headhunted to Another World, from Office Worker to Big Four

That’s about my recollection of that anime. I think I gave it the ye olde 3 episode try and then forgot it happened until now.

Thanks NordVPN!

yes I hear they even implement negative ping tech.

Raul and Ray are friends? (The letter Raul sent to Monica was great)

I wouldn’t mind it if the next spinoff were about their shenanigans off-screen.

Well, he didn’t get any time to shine this time around. Just waking up doesn’t get a standing ovation from me. I’m sure to praise him in the next volume.

To hear that there’s an overarching plot bumps it up a few notches.

Even better. It’s an overarching plot that progresses without the protagonist. Too often, side characters seem to stop existing the moment the main character’s gaze is pointed somewhere else. Like a NPC in a bad video game. In Silent Witch, the overarching plot is progressing without any MC input, and she is just made aware of it in hindsight. Things happening behind the scenes become clearer with each volume but they are not things that MC has any active role in. It’s more like the actions MC takes are casting ripples, and those ripples have an effect on the big subplot. It’s good and I want to see where this is going. MC is also getting a lot less annoying in the later volumes. I initially dropped the first volume because I hate timid characters, but I’m happy that I picked it up again. Definitely one of the better series.

3 for me this week. Cooking with Wild Game, Nia Liston and Isekai Peddler.