Kajiya de Hajimeru Isekai Slow Life Chapter 331 Discussion

I never thought I'd say this about a novel, but the harem made this absolutely terrible.

The girls themselves are fine and the protagonist is fine, I don't particularly mind how they live with him without anyone trying to advance the relationship further than "warmly watching over him as he pursues his hobbies".

What I mind is how otherwise intelligent people who are aware that he's the best blacksmith in the country, maybe even the world, request him to go into dangerous situations. He may be able to defend himself, but in the arcs where new heroines join the household after the catgirl and dwarf, he's forcibly thrust into a place he doesn't particularly want to be, doing something he's not interested in or experienced in, and his presence there doesn't particularly affect the success or failure of the mission, just so he can be there to protect a heroine and have the people in charge go "oh, she should live at your place for a while" to him. The lord's sister was still okay, and the monster-fighting expedition at least started off reasonably, but

Spoiler

who in their right mind would request a legendary blacksmith to go on a spy mission into an enemy country right before a revolution? And how it ended, literally anyone could have taken his place and it would have worked just as well. And then the mess with the imperial princess, where the whole thing about "I'll only make top quality weapons for people who come meet me so I know my weapons aren't in the wrong hands"? Yeah, that gets thrown out the window and he agrees to make not one, but four top quality weapons, without even knowing the name of the person getting them, when he really didn't need to agree.

[collapse]

And the reason for these things? Only to add women to the harem. Which, even though in theory the women like him, they're more like... high school club members? With him as the club advisor? Yeah, that's how the relationship feels. It's just not worth having the author drop everyone's IQ by 100 or so just to force them on the protagonist, that's for sure.