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Misunderstandings- a genre that moves the story forward by pitting its characters in situations that can be interpreted incorrectly, leading to a mixed bag of outcomes ranging from comedy to tragedy. Regardless of this, getting your intentions misunderstood in any situation doesn't feel very good. The genre is a balancing act, where the entire plot stands on a burning tightrope and where one mistake can plunge the whole story into an abyss. A prime example for this would be "The Darkness was comfortable for me", where the authors moves characters in ways that make the MC absolutely miserable. Does it work? No. Could it have been better in any capacity? Absolutely. On the polar opposite side of this stands "I am the evil lord of an intergalactic empire" where the main character's actions are dealt out with malicious intent behind them but more often than not end up being used as fuel for some repetitive, but hilarious moments. Could the evil lord be better? Absolutely, as it gets very stale as the story progresses. The same antagonist trying to get the MC to be miserable and the MCs sheer dumb luck and dedication to worship the antagonist gets old down the line. My experience with the misunderstandings genre has been, a mixed bag overall. Thus the love-hate with it.
[collapse]Now that my experience with the genre has been outlined with a semi-coherent rant. Let's take a look at this novel. This novel revolves around an alchemist, Thor Regus (later known as Thor Canaan) hailing from what can only be described as an empire quite severely lacking in the brains department.SpoilerAnd, true to the previous statement, the Duke of said empire had abysmally low IQ as they "pawned off" for the lack of a better word their own son, Thor to the demon lord. Even when Thor methodically removed himself from the Duke's family, they still made use of the poor chap as a hostage to "sate the wrath of the demons". This would later ensure the free-falling decline of the Duke and other parties involved.
When in reality the demon lord and the rest of the cast on the demon side are far more humane in contrast. They show concern and compassion to this stranger dispatched as an emissary to their lands which was more than enough for our alchemist to dedicate his skills to the betterment of the demons. The empire, being the melting pot of human malice that it is continued to find new ways to disturb the borders of the demon territory and so to squash these sinister schemes, our alchemist sets off onto a journey of misunderstanding items from the earth and creating "knock-off" magic tools that aid both in combat and daily life. The misunderstandings here is simply cultural. Like archaeologists trying to piece together puzzles in order to understand a long dead civilization that exists as nothing more than trivial records, Thor pieces together information from a book from the world of heroes. In the process, however, Thor ends up creating what can be called an arsenal of tools that not only serve as comedic gold (thanks, chancellor Kerve) but also in creating an overwhelming deterrent to the empire. The world building is lax, but present when necessary, the charcters are well written and each of them play quite a substantial role in progressing the story. [collapse]The core mechanic of the novel, alchemy is well explained, but still leaves room for improvement. Overall, I enjoyed the novel and would've given it a five star rating if not for the alchemy bits taking a backseat as the story goes on. I like the aspect of production, I would've liked it if the author tried to keep things a touch more believable by making the MC stumped on finding materials and whatnot, thinking about substitutes and the design of the tools they make and all that. I can't have it all, but hey, doesn't hurt to dream, yeah?I recommend it to anyone who likes production based slice of life novels and can put up with the misunderstanding trope being used for fun moments.Edit- Holy wall of text Batman! I guess I did rant a bit much even during the review, so I'll use spoiler tags to make it a bit easier to read in chunks.Edit 2- I failed to adress the harem element initially so I'm going to do it here. The harem is very standard, yeah, just that. However, the characters and their interactions with the MC in said harem are wholesome, which makes it a bit more easier to navigate around if you have reservations about harems.
