- #1
I am an avid reader and consumer of yuri material, and I've watched plenty of isekai fare, so when I started this light novel I have had several chances to criticize its shortcomings, and it has many. There is much time spent on explaining war tactics, science, and engineering, which is not inherently bad for a light novel. We are able to take our own time and set our own pace when reading, and I had to for a lot of the light novel's run, but what I dislike the most is its tendency to reexplain concepts several times, pretending as if they hadn't been discussed in the previous paragraph.I am inclined to believe that much of this may be lost in translation, but that's not to disparage the work of the translator. I've read foxaholic novels before and they do a working job, and furthermore, it's clear that whoever translated this specific novel did it with much heart and passion. This is exemplified by the novel's terrifyingly fast upload speed of nearly a chapter a day, as well as the consistent notes about its historical accuracies or, as it sometimes is, inaccuracies.These reexplanations and translation for the novel are emblematic of the novel as a whole: there are MANY flaws to be found throughout. By no means is this a perfect book. However, I have a tendency to rate things by my enjoyment, and not much gives me joy like bloated gay power fantasies about beautiful women absolutely destroying the common sense of a fantasy world piece by piece. Just like its reexplanations and translation, its mistakes seem to be born out of love, not laziness, and this novel has a whole lot of heart to back it up.I am particularly fond of the novel's take on a transgender character, where it seems that not even the author themself knows whether Flora is a girl or a guy anymore. I crack a little smile every time Flora makes a second guess, or questions their decisions and their name and their entire situation, and this dilemma adds some much needed believability to her slowly progressing romances.The power fantasy is a slow burn, Flora's romances are slow burns, her revolution of technology is a slow burn, and I am here for it. This novel is what I read every night before bed, and its one chapter a night is perfect for that.I can't justify the 5 star rating I've given to this novel, and I will never be able to by speaking from logic, so let me say it with emotion instead: I wanted to read a dumb power fantasy with a protagonist that I relate to and by god I got that, so I'm a happy reader.TL;DR: I put a 5, but ONLY because it was the EXACT kind of bad that I wanted to read. Have a great day!