- #1
I think I've read about enough of this to give it a review. Basically the author took Guts from Berserk (I'm surprised he was even able to get an LN adaptation, with how much of a ripoff his character design is) and mixed him with your standard fantasy LN fare. Including his attitude, obviously. If you've been around light novels for a while, nothing here will be particularly novel or compelling.Long story short, this isn't bad--it's entertaining enough--but it is shallow. And also relatively nonsensical.He constantly refers to how he was a mercenary but all of the references are almost filler. They exist to make it clear that he "was a mercenary, " but nothing more. It adds very little substantial to the story. If anything, it allows the author to simply skip character development, which isn't a surprising goal considering they seem apt to skip anything that requires any actual effort. The character knows things that make him easy to use as a focus in a combat-focused story, and the mercenary part just seems to be the explanation. He could have been a past experienced adventurer, a bounty hunter, soldier, whatever you want.He isn't a past adventurer because an easy way to add silly tension and whatnot to these type of works is to make the main character start from the bottom and go up. You have people underestimating him, and him showing off how much of a cool muscleman he is, etc. All of the references to his past as a mercenary are basically "well, if I were to imagine the life of a mercenary, given 5 minutes of research, I assume this is how it would be." It doesn't paint his feelings in any depth, his background is horribly vague, and his emotions are left a total vague mess.It doesn't really end there with the shallow world or character building, of course. The world's technology level is left vague. Its current way of life is also vague. Apparently they have toilets, but no one mentions how their plumbing is done and how the sewers were made, how advanced it is, etc. I guess this can be fixed later, but it's very hard to get absorbed or invested in this LN on any deep level.Finally, per the author's characterization, the main character is supposed to be surprisingly well learned (iirc), despite his background... but... uh... yeah. That's very inconsistently portrayed.
- His first outing and him going along with it, despite obvious misgivings... that can be forgiven, considering that he was desperate and, apparently very sleep deprived. It's one of the first and probably last times you ever actually see him mention his mental state with regards to his comrades dying.
- But... the rest of the continuation suffers horribly from "alright we've struck gold/at least silver" blues.
- Like why does he even keep going along with the female lead, even though he's supposedly a bit sharper than he lets on? It should be plainly obvious that she's Spoiler
being at least bit deceptive
[collapse]. Maybe he just likes her as much as she might or might not like him?- But why's he a tsundere about it? There's no point. This is supposed to be a mature work. His first party Spoiler
literally has its members having s*x before they soon die
[collapse].
- But why's he a tsundere about it? There's no point. This is supposed to be a mature work. His first party Spoiler
- Like why does he even keep going along with the female lead, even though he's supposedly a bit sharper than he lets on? It should be plainly obvious that she's Spoiler
- But the story must go on, right? The first light novel as a starter was probably around 4 stars, but everything and everyone suffers from severe degradation from that point out. It's like the author tried to make a mature work but is failing terribly at it.
- Their second outing has them Spoiler
choosing to go out and collect herbs because he lost his sword and decided it would be safer... only to have him melee battle a bunch of wolves trivially, and the girl stating that he could make some money off of their pelts... why even go pick herbs? You didn't need the weapon. And why was picking herbs even considered safer, given that you could have encountered these wolves either way?? And the girl already told you that she can use magic and she's shown that she's plenty strong in melee as well. Why is she even bothering keeping up this charade, and why does he go along with it?
[collapse]
- Their second outing has them Spoiler
- But... the rest of the continuation suffers horribly from "alright we've struck gold/at least silver" blues.
- I wanted to make this a subpoint, but this deserves its own bullet... another misgiving is also that I don't understand why he's so shy about s*x or the other gender in this work. Frankly for a work that's trying to target the audiences it is, him being so squeamish about this, is absolutely crazy. Especially considering he's a mercenary. Him and his comrades should have visited a brothel at least a few times, yet the author just quite obviously strays away from that topic and he's pretty much apparently immune to all male urges at every turn. Despite having enough hormones, testosterone, and steroid infused muscles to be probably one of (if not the) the physically strongest humans in the entire world. This doesn't make sense. It's not like the author is even lowering the adult content rating of this by any meaningful measure, considering what his first party does. What's the point of all of this tiptoeing around sexuality? It's just a nuisance in what's supposed to be a somewhat mature novel.