First time in a while that I haven’t finished anything for a week. I started “The Retired Demon of the Maxed-Out Village: Volume 2” but it has been a drag and then I spent the entire weekend with Kiryu and Ichiban in Hawaii so I couldn’t finish it.

Min Maxing and Hell Mode for me. And maybe I pick up Fluffy Paradise. I find the anime airing this season (mildly) entertaining enough. And I wanted to give the first volume of Jam in the Woods a try as well.

Record of Wortenia War: Volume 13 - Every now and again I pick up a series again that I dropped previously. I don’t remember much about what had happened in the first twelve volumes but this one was almost in its entirety an unmitigated information dump about the political state of the isekai continent. There was little to no story progression whatsoever to which I could latch on to jog my memory. It was honestly just an entire volume of the history of several kingdoms and empires. And it read just as boring as an actual history book. I guess this is aimed at history otaku who know every name of every soldier who ever fought in the warring state period of Japan, but to me this was boring and it took me the entire week to get through it even though I was starved for distraction due to being without internet for a good chunk of the week. There was also that strange thing where you are in the POV of a isekai world native and the exposition dump sets in again and suddenly the explanation takes comparison to Earth states/events. Sorry, I know this is an info dump, but weren’t we in the POV of a fantasy character? At least keep the exposition in the general confines of what the character would know. Really jarring to read. Can’t give this volume more than a 1/10 because literally nothing happens after the first short encounter in the beginning. It’s just plain boring to read and all the facts are forgotten two paragraphs later anyway. I’m not sure if this was why I dropped it in the first place or not, but I at least recall some story elements from the series. Maybe I give a few chapters of volume 14 a go and see if this was just a filler volume.

Isekai Tensai, Potions and Reincarnated as a Sword for me.

I often compare Cooking With Wild Game to Bookworm. In both series the isekai MC has zero powers apart from their knowledge that they brought with them. And not knowledge in the sense of “I’ve seen a gun in TV and games and I am suddenly able to recreate them without a problem”. Just like Myne in Bookworm has to painfully R&D the creation of paper, the MC in Cooking With Wild Game has to try to recreate recipes with isekai resources.

Another similarity is how the series both start with low-stakes, small-scale problems but slowly build up to become bigger and involving the lives of more people. Both also at the very core stories about class divides.

Where they differ is who carries the series. In Bookworm it’s Myne the main character. She is clearly the MVP of the books. In Wild Game it’s the side characters around the MC that are carrying.

My top 3 are Ascendance of a Bookworm, Tearmoon Empire (even though my hype is quickly dying off since the translator change) and Cooking With Wild Game.

I agree with Making Magic lacking a through line in the form of an overarching plot. I’ve come to think of it as completely separate stories with the little bit of overarching story as just the set dressing / part of the world building instead.

I’m in the mood for some kingdom building (maybe because I’m currently building my personal little kingdom here at the moment) and I’ll put Only the Villainous Lord on my plan to read list.

A Late-Start Tamer’s Laid-Back Life: Volume 8 - This time with penguins. I still feel a bit fatigued from the last copy and paste 4 times arc, but it looks like it’s getting better. - 6/10

Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 5 Avatar of a Goddess Volume 8 - Each and every volume is better than the last. I gave that incredible P5V7 an 11/10 and in all fairness, this one has to get a 12/10 now. I’m ready for a 13/10 volume next. Btw. is anyone else hyped to see Lessy animated by Studio WIT?

edit : The Diary of a Middle-Aged Sage’s Carefree Life in Another World: Volume 1 - Found the worst LN I’ve ever started to read. I’m only 2 chapters in but I can already tell that this really has no redeeming qualities. I can’t imagine how a LN could even be any worse. Maybe if it bricked your tablet. Wow, this one is really terrible on so many levels that I can’t even begin to list all the faults in the first two chapters. And right after reading Bookworm P5V8. Talk about whiplash.

Thank you. There are no problems with the move itself since I hired a firm to do this for me. So I can look forward to the new place without the stress that usually comes with a move. It’s just that until my provider deems to grace me with a new fiber line at the new address I have to go without an internet connection which turns out to be more than just a bit inconvenient when everything is somewhere in the cloud.

I’m moving beginning tomorrow and will not have internet access until it’s been set up at my new place, so I post the thread early. Feel free to ignore it until Monday.

That sounds interesting, but this is a sub for Japanese light novels only.

Lemmy.ml rolled back a day so here’s the post again.

The Magician Who Rose From Failure: Volume 6 - The series has an interesting magic system which was always a standout, but in this volume, the author appears to have lost every creativity because it this volume is the most generic and trope-filled magic academy arc I’ve read in a long time. Complete with haughty-ringlets-student-council-noble-girl looking down on MC and forcing a duel with expulsion on the line. - 5/10

Tearmoon Empire: Volume 11 - I used to love this series. It was my second favorite LN only after Bookworm, but since the translator change it lost most of its charm and wit. And in this volume, it even uses anachronisms like “meme” in a fantasy setting. And not even in narration but in dialogue. I’ll give it two more volumes until Mia becomes Picklemia sticking out her gyatt for the Pepefrog. Another example would be “… Mia and her crew …”. Before it would have been something like “… Mia and her retinue …” or something more fitting to the setting. But now it’s “crew”. Another character said “nope”. There are a lot more examples. The entire prose changed into something you would rather expect in Twitter thread. It could have been one of the all-time greats but thanks to the translator change it became mid at best. It’s really so saddening to see something you love get turned into shit. - 5/10

I liked the depiction of the Elf-King. Seems to be a SoIaF type of villain that I love to hate.

What makes this especially bitter is that the previous translation was easily the best LN translation available. Usually a translation is something you don’t really think about when reading a book, but Tearmoon 1-9 had such a great translation that I was often thinking about how much wit and wordplay it had. I was comparing the prose to Prattchett when recommending the series to someone. The difference between the two is so extreme going from one of the best to one of the worst. I don’t know how all this internet slang made it past the editor.

The Magician Who Rose From Failure: Volume 6 - The series has an interesting magic system which was always a standout, but in this volume, the author appears to have lost every creativity because it this volume is the most generic and trope-filled magic academy arc I’ve read in a long time. Complete with haughty-ringlets-student-council-noble-girl looking down on MC and forcing a duel with expulsion on the line. And you can already bet that she’s now developing a fixation on MC - 5/10

Tearmoon Empire: Volume 11 - I used to love this series. It was my second favorite LN only after Bookworm, but since the translator switch it lost most of its charm and wit. And in this volume, it even uses anachronisms like “meme” in a fantasy setting. And not even in narration but in dialogue. I’ll give it two more volumes until Mia becomes Pickle-Mia sticking out her gyatt for the Pepefrog. Another example would be “… Mia and her crew …”. Before it would have been something like “… Mia and her retinue …” or something more fitting to the setting. But now it’s “crew”. Another character said “nope”. There are a lot more examples. The entire prose changed into something you would rather expect in reddit post than a fantasy novel. It could have been one of the all-time greats but thanks to the translator change it became mid at best. It’s really so saddening to see something you love get turned into shit. - 5/10

New Tearmoon for me.

The Deer King, Vol. 1: Survivors - Interesting world building and the prose reads more like a “regular” fantasy novel in the way it is written in a way that needs more attention to follow along than your typical LN. The pro of this is that it’s missing all the usual LN tropes. The series is divided by two separate protagonists and switching their POVs every chapter. And quite frankly, I was completely uninterested by one of the protagonists and towards the end I just started to only skim his chapters. So for me there was only part of the book worth reading and that part was even a lot smaller than the second POV. - 2/10.

Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools Volume 8 - What the series does really well in the latest few volumes (and Lucia) is telling a emotional story about side characters. Dahlia and Volf take a step back and become story vehicles for the people around them. In this volume it’s an elderly veteran captain of the Beast Hunter Order that gets a magical prosthetic made by Dahlia and how this changes his life. The author is very good at making one care for a side character in a short time. This veteran for example wasn’t introduced until this volume but by the end I felt tear up (in a good way) by his story. I like this step back from the main couple approach the series has shifted to. It will probably be a hard balancing act going forward to not forget to advance Dahlia’s relationship as well, but I’m happy with how it turned out so far. - 8/10

Making Magic: The Sweet Life of a Witch Who Knows an Infinite MP Loophole Volume 5 - This volume the Witch gets a new apprentice. The series stays pretty constant and comfy. - 6.5/10

The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash Vol. 5 - It’s not bad but its starting to get really boring, even though I usually like slow-paced stories. But here there really isn’t anything happening at all. - 5/10

My Quiet Blacksmith Life in Another World: Volume 8 - Enjoyable but feels like only half a volume. - 7/10

No worries. The term “light novel” usually refers to a type of “popular literature novel native to Japan” to steal the definition from Wikipedia. I highly recommend giving them a try if you interested in light reading material. They are mostly very entertaining even if my weekly reviews here sound as if I’m only picking on them ;)

Yes, absolutely. That’s why I especially pointed out that MC isn’t dumb like many other MCs - just a bit simple. It’s just that for my taste I would prefer MC a bit less simple. He doesn’t need to be a genius, but :

Well, that’s just an example. Like I said, I like the first volume, but I hope MC wises up somewhat going forward.