Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu (WN) Chapter v417 part3 Discussion

Rating: 2.5-3 stars

Translation: 5/5

[[5 star = almost all readers will enjoy. 4 star = large majority of readers will enjoy. 3 star = 50/50 of readers will enjoy. 2 star = a niche audience will enjoy. 1 star = maybe portion of niche audience will enjoy.]]

[[5/5 = Minor spelling and grammar errors. 4/5 = bigger grammar errors, no loss of meaning. 3/5 = bigger grammar errors, some loss of meaning. 2/5 = difficult to read and understand. 1/5 = unreadable.]]

I have dropped this, so I will not vote an official rating. I am a fan of the currently only anime season produced so far, and I wanted to read ahead. I started reading from the epilogue of V3 of this WN, where the anime leaves off. The story is about a high school MC who gets transported to a fantasy world while on a trip to the convenience store. He encounters a half-elf girl, befriends her, and tags along with her. He runs into fatal situations, and discovers that he reappears as himself several days before dying, and retains his memories. However, he is unable to tell anyone about this ability. MC is on a journey mostly to stay by his new "love interest's" side and protect her from these dangerous events, while trying to figure out why he's there and what his ability is for. There is romance, not-quite-harem, magical fantasy world, demi-humans, fantasy monsters, magic cults, martial skills and/or magic combat, and hints of political factions. No nation-building or cultivation. MC doesn't have any powers or ability progression, except the 1 mentioned.

I liked the anime, but not the novel. I can't speak about the first 3 volumes, but V4 so far is incredibly boring to me. The majority of the text consists of uninteresting or redundant dialogue. An entire chapter can be 1 conversation that goes around in circles or repeats the same details over and over, without providing any new information or adding to the story. This also affects the already slow pace.

As an example, the characters have already decided to go somewhere, but then they sit down and spend the entire chapter talking about going to that place. Then the next chapter is almost the same exact dialogue all over again while they sit in a carriage. The chapter after that, they arrive at their destination, hoping to find answers to some questions. But then it's another chapter of dialogue where they talk in an extremely roundabout way to reveal almost no new information. It makes me want to put the WN away and do something else.

The next issue is the content of the dialogue. Most of it is the MC one-sidedly flirting with the girl, and teasing a side character, with little reciprocation. I guess it's supposed to be cute and funny, respectively, but to me it doesn't convey well and just feels creepy and douchey. Last main issue is that the MC sometimes sounds possessive and jealous. The anime also showed he is at times arrogant, angry, and immature. This seems like the start of an abusive relationship to me, which taints the romance. But, he is a teenager, and the guy dies over and over again and sometimes loses his mind while he is tortured, so maybe it's understandable? I really want to like the WN, because I enjoyed the anime. But the 1st 2 issues are huge. I don't know why this is so different from the anime's style. It could be that V4 is just a slow volume; there are no battles and MC doesn't have to use his ability, compared to the anime where MC dies all the time and has to figure out how to overcome each challenge. I'd give it 2 stars for uninteresting, long dialogue, and add half a star because there are interesting chapters in between the boring ones. Fans of the anime, like me, still want to know what happens next, so that anticipation might bump up the rating to 3 stars for some readers. However, I am dropping this because I want to spend my time reading other things. I suspect Volume 4 is just slow, so maybe if you stick around longer, it might get better.

Other thoughts: This WN version is ahead of the LN. The English LN has also been licensed, so you may have some trouble finding translations. WN should still be free. I'm not sure about differences between the 2 version, but I think the TN wrote that the differences are minor.