- #1
So I started with the anime, which I watched twice.Then I read the webnovel here, because the anime only went through the first four volumes' worth of the story.After that I bought and read all of the officially translated light novels - several times. It's fair to say that I like the series.I'm rating it five stars because of my own personal bias towards this series, and I admit it.The Translation:Frankly the translation of the webnovel in some areas is a little lacking - I speak Japanese and it was a big help, I often found myself translating sentences back into Japanese to actually understand them or even having to ignore entire sentences wholesale. At the same time, I'd say it wasn't all that big of a problem?I'd rate it between 2 and 4 stars, depending on the translator? At least until the afterstory, which I'd give a solid 5 stars so far as I have read.The Plot:Overall this is another chuuni isekai power fantasy, and it leans into that. Our main character is dropped into the hell of the Orcus Great Labyrinth and there has his mindset, body, and soul completely reforged. People say this part is a revenge fantasy, but it's not, really - MC specifically says he throws all of that away, because he needs to to survive.Volume 1's hook is really strong, but it's nowhere near the end of the series - Hajime changes a lot in the Great Orcus Labyrinth, but he changes just as much outside of it, largely due to the influence of other people, either indirectly (he does things because he cares about them) or directly (they point out the flaws of his ruthless mindset and he takes that seriously).After Hajime becomes the strongest thing around and discovers a clue to getting home, he starts traveling around the continent and acquiring new, powerful magic and girls along the way, with the series basically continuing with that formula until the last volume of the main story.The Harem... and other characters:The way the harem starts expanding later in the story gets maybe a little out of hand - almost every developed female character ends up in it, but hey, this way everybody's favorite girl ends up with Hajime/their self-insert, so...For me what's really good about Arifureta isn't the plot - which I find engaging, in that it drives forward through the actions of the characters, but the "isekai'd away to get super OP" trope is kind of played out - it's the characters themselves. I think Ryo Shirakome does a really good job of giving everybody clear personalities and having them act according to them, and also of having those characters change, learn, and grow. I'd say this is probably the most lasting reason why I like Arifureta so much.The Chuuni:I mean, the author's handle on Syosetsu is "ChuuniLover, " what do you expect? This series revels in chuunibyou, both playing it straight (harem, magic chants, literally everything about Hajime) and playing with it (people pointing out to Hajime how chuuni he looks causes him physical pain). It's part of how fun the series is.The Afterstory:I haven't read too much of it, but what I have read I really enjoyed. I mean, it's as long as the actual story proper. The translation is pretty good to boot.Just the fact that there is an afterstory dealing with everybody's life back on Earth, taking more time to develop characters we didn't see much of before, compared to other stories that end relatively abruptly with the main antagonist's death (looking at you, Shield Hero) was really nice.Overall:Like I said, I've read it several times. I wouldn't call it a literary masterpiece, but I would say it's a very fun piece that deserves more credit than it gets.
