If my monsters are imagined, why do they trigger the motion sensor lights?
Nah, I’m going to judge every volume going forward on how much page-time my favorite two Goddesses get. What’s it called in English when you have been completely assimilated into a cult religion? I’ve become that. All Hail Karion and Urion.
<Take These Talents Elsewhere: A Delightful Demotion to the Countryside> Volume 1 - See this post.
<The Abandoned Reincarnation Sage: Building a Mighty Empire With Monsters Within the Monsters’ Forest> Volume 02 - some higher powers start to stir shit up and MC’s monster village of Beresdral is attacked by a human army. The volume isn’t bad, but there is some strange pacing. Some leading-up fights are unnecessarily lengthy and detailed, while more “boss” type of fights where you would expect a bit more hype and tension are quickly done and over with.
<Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody> Vol. 24 - Terrible volume. Just a single mention of Karion and Urion in a byline. Makes the volume barely worth the ink. Also, I guess Hiro Ainana is losing his patience with people calling it a harem because in this volume he isspelling it out twice and very clearly that Satou is not interested in anyone other than Aaze. I mean it was always that way but it hadn’t been spelled out that clearly if memory serves.
Volume 11 sucked. I mean, not the worst thing I’ve ever read but I really didn’t enjoy it. The ENTIRE book is from the perspective of side characters.
That’s the one where I dropped it. I always hated the chapters from the human’s POVs.
Actually the author marks the lewd chapters with heart emojis so you can skip them.
That’s actually something I like when authors do that. For example, in Campfire Cooking the recipes are marked so that readers can skip them if they don’t want to replicate them.
Take These Talents Elsewhere: A Delightful Demotion to the Countryside - I am currently reading “Take These Talents Elsewhere: A Delightful Demotion to the Countryside”. Sounds like a typical comfy slow-life LN, right? Maybe not:
Chapter 1: Middle-aged MC gets told that he gets demoted from his fantasy office job and is supposed to take over a job somewhere in the boonies. <-- all good so far. I like comfy, slow life novels.
Chapter 2: turns out he has to take the teenage princess with him in secret because she is in danger of being assassinated by political rivals. Cut to a flashback to MC’s school days, where he is secretly in love with a classmate, but she ultimately marries another classmate because he’s the crown prince. Back to the present, and the princess here is the child of his first love and the crown prince who died under suspicious circumstances. <-- here is where I start sweating. Please don’t tell me that this is going into the “if I can’t have my school crush, I’ll just get with her daughter instead” territory.
Chapter 3: They take a carriage, and she’s making constant suggestive comments, etc… Flashback to 8 years prior, when the princess was 6 years old, and she sees MC talking with her mother. She then develops a childhood crush on MC based on the stories she hears of MC from her parents. <-- My last hope that this would take the wholesome adoptive father route is shredded. Dropped
<The Amazing Village Creator: Slow Living with the Village Building Cheat Skill> Volume 1 - Very simplistic in every regard, but since Anno 117 is constantly crashing on me and Easigoing Territory Defense is stuck in the War arc, I need to get my city-building fix from somewhere. There is some off-putting part in the beginning with two girls thirsting for 12-year-old MC, but luckily that particular plot point is dropped after a while (for the most part) once there is more happening in the village.
<Zilbagias the Demon Prince: How the Seventh Prince Brought Down the Kingdom> Volume 5 - Conceptually, this is still the most interesting series I know. The dark tone and subject matter aren’t my usual kind of thing, but the struggle of the main character here is so interesting that I’m waiting for the next volume anyway. Reminds me a little of how Subaru in Re: Zero slowly degrades mentally, but without the silly slapstick humor.
<Flung into a New World? Time to Lift the 200-Year Curse!> Volume 2 - See this post
<The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects> Volume 11 - Dias befriends another race. This time, it’s a bit confusing, though, since they are called “goblins” even though they are shark-demi-humans. Every time I read the word “goblin” I have a completely different picture in mind than what is written. Good volume otherwise.
<Victoria of Many Faces> Vol. 3 - Okay-ish volume. The spy-centric parts of the first two volumes take a backseat to the generic parenting parts. Towards the end, it gets spy-y again.
<The Isle of Paramounts: Reborn into a Slow Life Among the Strongest in the World> Volume 1 - You know the guy from the meme? That’s basically the protagonist here, who gets his extremely blatantly basic wish fulfillment harem isekai. Complete with becoming the most powerful being in the entire world and the usual slew of underage girls of all races that fall in love with him. The only positive thing is a vampire loli-hag that just gets off on messing around with everyone to get rom-com emotions out of them (she feeds on emotions instead of blood and is extremely bored). I thought she was entertaining, and though she looks like a loli, she didn’t become a harem member.
Elemental Summoner sounds terrible. Seems to combine several things I dislike in other series (rambling, plot holes, continuity errors) into one.
I’m currently reading <Flung into a New World? Time to Lift the 200-Year Curse!> and it has the worst writing style I’ve ever had misfortune to stumble across. around 90% is written in inner monologue. Let me give you an example of how a typical paragraph would look like:
Well, I have to write a MidWeek post but I’m drawing blanks. What? I’ve switched to an every-other-week schedule? Yes, that’s true but I hope people don’t think that I’m lazy. What? You won’t? That’s nice but I just thought of a question and throw in a bonus post out of schedule to keep you all on your toes. Yes, that’s really mean of me. Hey, why are you all leaving. No stop, you’re mean now. Well, here is poor me all alone talking into the void again. Oh woe is me. What’s that? There is still someone here. Well, welcome. Hope you have great time. What? You don’t like my bonus Midweek post? Too bad, I won’t remove it! Serves you right!
This is around 85-90% of the entire book. And If you think I was exaggerating:
It’s the entire thing in this manner. This is not a cherry picked page but just the random page I was currently on. It’s insane.
I cannot tell if this is sarcasm or not.
No, I mean it. It takes more to change my opinion of a character than to form an initial opinion of them. And each of the three volumes so far has made me change my opinion about a character. In each, it has a character that is unlikable at first, then you learn more about them over the span of the volume, and at the end, I actually like them and want to read more about them. The plot isn’t world-changing or anything, but for a character-driven story, it’s good. Unironically.
Looks like it’s time to sell all Villainess stocks and put everything into Maids.
Death March, Frontier Lord and Victoria?! Great week for me.
<The Unwanted Undead Adventurer> Volume 14 - After all the wait, Rentt has become a pushover goodie-two-shoes character. ::: spoiler Spoiler After a group of thieves attacks him, he takes them under his wing, buys them new equipment, and plans on training them up in the dungeon until they can sustain their lives on their own as adventurers. I hate that so much. Later on, a pickpocket tries to steal his money, and he takes them in as well. He’s the Mother Theresa of Vampires. :::
<They Don’t Know I’m Too Young for the Adventurer’s Guild> Volume 3 - I understand the author’s MO now. Introduce a new character and make him really grating at the beginning of a volume. Then work on him for the rest of the volume until the reader actually likes them. This really works for me, and I hope the quality of the series will continue at this high level.
<Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord: Production Magic Turns a Nameless Village into the Strongest Fortified City> Vol. 6 - another war-centric volume. I hope this arc is done now, and the next volume goes back to city building.
I absolutely love the art for the series
So-Bin is a legend. Head and shoulders above everyone else. It’s the difference between “illustrations” and “art”. I wouldn’t mind having a So-Bin print framed on my walls.
Character Visuals:
I think I have kind of moved on/[grew out of(?)] from light novels.
Happens to me every now and then as well. Currently I feel that way about anime.
One of these days, I’ll pick up the series again. When I stopped reading it I suffered somewhat from FUNA fatigue and the story arc I was in wasn’t the greatest so it just fizzled out.
Lot’s of new series. Especially The Amazing Village Creator sounds great for me. Anno 117 released last weekend and I’m very much in city creator mood.
<Isekai Tensei: Recruited to Another World> Volume 11 - Okay volume. Mostly padding between arcs with some setup for the next arc. Some strange things, though. For example, someone gets more or less pressured into an engagement talk by the bride’s guardians, and when the bride meets that person, they don’t even mention it in their dialogue. Not even a mention or acknowledgment that they are aware of the talks going on. It seems like the marriage talks chapter got added at a later time, and the meeting part didn’t get updated.
I take a mid AI translation every time over an ideology injected version.
Everything is going to be fine again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dj5eoZvK0U
Renge from Non Non Biyori and Matsuri from Ichigo Mashimaro.