I'll be honest, and try to stick to being as diplomatic as possible. Just so that no one gets indigestion due to my standpoint.
First of all, I think this novel is good. The importance is on 'think' - and this is a shoutout to all the review writers that rated the novel low without even trying as far as writing 'I think' - since it's not a be all, end all, just an opinion. This one will be my opinion. I'll respect the fact that others have opinions, but I won't respect the actual opinions, unless they're adhering to some decent logic. End of first rant.
The series is a dark hero concept, which translates fairly well, because the actual dark hero isn't the usual extremity (like some other concepts), but a sort of apathetic dark hero. Psychologically speaking, the reason he shows only faint interests in most common flags of 'OMG it's gonna' happen' plot twists in the white horse, blonde prince style stories is that his capacity due to the events of Volume 1 amounts to that much only. Instead, we get a protagonist who's constantly dancing the fine line between being a dere housemat and a mad sociopath. And I find this concept much more interesting than either standard heroes, or standard dark heroes. Instead of focusing on one end of the spectrum, he shows a variety of extremities, which, coupled with his mature but mischievous character, creates a spectacle which is similar to a brat bully, but in fact isn't. So in my opinion, I find him a very good character, and enjoy that he's a stu. Maybe only Tatsuya from Mahouka was so close to my ideal MC, apart from Hajime.
As for the romance part, it's also an interesting and enjoyable perspective for me. Sorry that I like my novels 'happy and gay', but quite honestly, my belief is that if you want drama and tragedy, look out your window - consequentially, I can't understand people who actually enjoy tragedies. But that's also one way to look at things, so I won't condemn. End of second rant.
I personally prefer RomComs, and this one has a nice setting for me, with a little twist - having a harem situation while being a monogamous kind of person, which is also a novel (lol?) idea in my reading. I do like harem stories too, just so you know.
The 'pink space' power' of Yue, Shia's usual behaviour, Tio's entire being, and a certain closeted aspect of Kaori's all translate well to comic relief in my opinion. Overall, the RomCom aspect is a nice strike for my tastes.
The female characters are also nice representations of the standard archetypes of Japanese novel n' manga females. No actual fault there, I believe. I'll leave the rant related to this to later.
The story itself is sometimes a bit slow-paced - I actually didn't like the description of many combat scenes, as they sometimes suffer the illness of the "destruction of Namek", if some old-timers still remember that one. However, the description of feelings transmitted, ethics, morals, and some psychological aspects in the series are, albeit a bit iffy, rich and well-performed, I think. Also, I like my novels dense (as in Campione! level dense - text, descriptions, mostly related to feelings, less in the case of battles). That made it much better for me. Also, though I can think of a few examples off the top of my hat if I were to liken this series' plot to that of another (Konjiki, primarily), I still find it rather novel and interesting.
For the next part, those who can't take a bit of criticism, please don't open the spoiler tag, because it's mainly related to the justification of rants above. Those however, who can take it, and understand it without popping a vein, do read it, I recommend them to. If you still pop a vein, even if you were convinced you won't : well sorry, but just as I can disregard your opinion, you're free to do so to mine.
Spoiler
Now then, to illustrate some of my points, I'll just do some shoutouts again.
- To people rating this novel with 1 star, then justifying it with 'this novel is shit' multiple times, with a plethora of different sentence structures : if you do something, and whack up somewhere, are you interested in people pointing it out to you, and from their own perspective, no less? Yes, I'm pointing at you, LoL 'BG'-ers. You, "reviewers", are the same. In short: either review decently instead of an immature and uncivilised rant, or forget it.
- To people rating this novel with 1 star, then still recommending it : why are you even here? Why are you even reviewing?
- To people rating this novel with 1 star, then ranting it's clichéd, stereotypical, or not 'original' enough : why are you even reading Japanese fiction?
(Addition : Japanese entertainment has clichés. They work. Otherwise, the Shounen genre would've died out long ago. Instead, what do we have? Yes, ladies'n'gents, Shounen Jump. We have Shounen Jump. It's not specifically a problem for me if you don't enjoy somewhat 'clichéd' stories, but you really should switch to European or modern American literature in that case.)
- To people rating this novel with 1 star, when they read less than half the story : don't. Just don't. Self-sacrifice (actually reading something, and only after that, writing an opinion for other people to potentially reduce their wasted time out of the goodness of your heart) is different from su*cide (writing an opinion when your understanding goes only as far as 'this seems round, but not completely - is this an egg?').
- To people rating this novel with 1 star, then not giving any decent justification in general, and half of the anti-wall-of-text is "shit" : go get kicked by a horse and die. I have nothing more to say to you.
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And for the last part, recommendations, hopefully a bit more balanced than about... well, most of the recommendations in other reviews:
- If you enjoy thrill, drama, tragedy, virtually on every page of a novel : I think you shouldn't try this to avoid the letdown after Vol. 1. Instead, either try some other novels with more descriptive tags, or go for western literature.
- If you enjoy a stable RomCom with some twists and turns : I think you should give this one a try. It's a bit non-conclusive for male-female relationships from the harem aspect, but goes to second base fairly quickly with how MC's a mono instead of a harem king, and is a steady, all-out castle siege afterwards. Also, lots of comedy, laughs and stuff.
- If you enjoy a typical shounen development curve for characters : MC is a stu, so I wouldn't recommend this series, since there's a fair chance you won't get the meaningful power-ups that often, which may dampen your enjoyment.
- If you enjoy a dense-worded story regardless of the content's weight, or use novel reading as a time sink mainly : you should give this a try in my opinion. Lots to read, with depressing parts, sometimes, you'll go "awwww" from the cuteness, sometimes you'll get thrilled, sometimes you'll laugh. It's quite the varied experience, if you don't expect Earth-shattering events every 2 pages.
- If you only enjoy out-of-the-box concepts from every angle, with no repetition, and this isn't your first Light/Web Novel : you should leave this one be, since it won't fulfil your expectations anyway. Refer to point one of recommendations.
To summarise: this story is semi-bland. I don't think that it's even close to being bad. Some originality in my opinion, some stereotypes - it's 'just another Web Novel'. I find it good, and if you're interested even after hearing it's semi-bland, you should try it.
