- #1
I‘m baffled. Not because this novel is about a boy turning into a gay girl, no no...It's because it is so hard to give a proper rating to this read.Now, let me explain.If you’re new to eastern culture and eastern novels, be it Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, then this particular novel should be GREAT for you. Five stars, no contest. It has EVERYTHING, that represents the east (in this case - Japan and its mythology). Even the translators did an astonishing job, which is kinda rare. Just skip the rest of my review and go on a journey.Good luck and goodbye.Now, if you have some experience (let’s say, you did some reading, perhaps a hundred novels with a sprinkle of mangas), your experience will probably be no different from mine. At this point, let’s divide this novel into three parts.I. Chapter 1 to chapter 200.This is the part where the true representation starts. The story setting is great. The characters are great. The enemies are smart, and cunning and they feel real. The sad parts are overly sad, the drama parts are overly dramatic, and the battles are over the top - like they like to do in the East. And even the ecchi moments add to the atmosphere. MC seems like a smart bo... girl, and life seems good, even if it’s bad.One of the best novels I ever read. Great job, Author!II. Chapter 200 to chap. 600.Welp, it seems that all good things need to end somewhere... This is the part, where the story takes a strange turn. I have some vague ideas of what could happen - perhaps the author was affected by slightly dropping ratings, or he overestimated himself. After all, his characters aren’t dumb. In fact, they seem really smart. Even too smart.When you make your characters too smart, you’re kinda supposed to keep that level to the very end. And go even higher. The problem with this approach is that you can’t make them smarter than yourself. It just doesn’t work. In such cases, authors purposely dumb down their characters, at least at the beginning, so they could make them smarter later. But, as I said, this novel had smart characters from the very beginning. So the author panicked. While panicking, he decided to up things a bit... with p*rn.No, not the actual p*rn. The ecchi.In these chapters, ecchi becomes kinda annoying, because there is too much of it. Moreover, because of the ecchi moments, the MC (Lily) doesn’t look so smart anymore and her decisions become kinda dull and questionable. The enemies, though, remain as smart as ever. Perhaps they saved the ratings from plummeting to oblivion. Thank you, enemies!III. Chapters 600 to 800 and beyondAt this point, the novel becomes overly saturated with erotics, which is really BAD. I’m not even talking about erot*c moments - every movement of Lily and her friends becomes a gallery of p*rnhub. Even when the situation is truly dire and the heads of friends and enemies fly everywhere, every tiny movement of MC is oversexualized. Naked breasts, buttocks, and shiny white legs everywhere. Lily blushes whenever she can and even when she can not. Her decision-making skill becomes so impaired, that I was praying for the enemies to finish her off as soon as possible.Why? Because the enemies still remain the smart ones to the very end. That kinda SAVES the novel from bombing itself. Which is strange. Usually, it’s MC who saves the day, but who am I to judge... In the end, even translators start mocking the author in the notes, which indicates the level of disaster.The prose, though, remains on the same level. It’s still great prose... from a technical point of view. Everything else is going straight to p*rny hell.And here my journey ends on chapter 800... (sigh) So... Is it worth reading?The answer is a strong YES. Up to chapter 200, it is a great read, especially if you’re a beginner author. It’s a truly great example of how to build a world and your characters. And how to write proper prose.Just... keep the ecchi things to a healthy minimum, okay?The rest of the novel... up to you.3 stars out of five from me.