颁茅蝉补谤's Updates

"Pros:

Incredibly great story line.
Character development at its best.
Very deep and a little dark.
Fantasy RPG based world (goblins, mages, warriors, etc.)
Artwork is nice.
Very funny
Good length book and EVENLY paced. (never a dull moment)
Emphasis on character downfalls, economics of living, and philosophy than glory, action, and bling.

Cons:

Can be a little derogatory sexually against woman (can be a turn off for female readers)
Translation can be a little funky (but not too distracting).
Everyone seems to be too beautiful apparently
A typo.

Review:

A group of young people awake and enter a fantasy world with no memory of their pasts whatsoever. They then become soldiers of various types such as warriors, priests, and thieves in order to survive.

After watching the anime, I just had to read the light novel and I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the anime. What makes this a great light novel is the detail and chemistry between each characters and the situations they are put in. You know those last few kids who would get picked last in dodge ball? That's who are protagonists are. People you would have never thought would become a group of friends learn to work together in order to survive kind of story. It's also a rags to riches kind of story where even the smallest necessity such as underwear or a simple leather bag is costly to these group of soldiers trying to work for a living. We also get a rich amount of thought dialogue from our main character as he critically thinks about each and every character, every situation, and even his own strengths and weaknesses. The artwork is nice and there is a lot of comedy. But the story can also be quite touching and sad at many times as well.

What I didn't really enjoy was the derogatory dialogue attitude towards females provided by both characters and narration. This could possible be a cultural thing in Japan, but it was a little tasteless for my taste. An example would be one of the male protagonists (I'm looking at you Ranta!) would keep making fun of one of the female protagonists about her small sized breasts while always complimenting the other female protagonist about her larger ones. This happens a bit too much and can get awkward. I mean seriously, who in their right mind does that? But thinking who this character is, it really is no surprise and can be a little awkward to read.

Translation is a little weird. Sometimes some dialogues just doesn't make sense or worded very strangely. I think Yume (one of the female main protagonists) is the best example of terrible dialogue. Her structure in sentences as well as her weird personality just makes it a little harder to understand when she talks especially since she talks third person about herself. I guess this is again a Japanese cultural thing of what is looked as cute when speaking in third person. There's also what I believe a typo but I can't find it anymore.

Apparently almost all the girls in this story is sooooo beautiful or cute. It gets a little annoying when you have to read a small bit of detail of why each one of these characters are just so amazingly pretty (long straight SILVER hair!, nice body figure, BIG BOOBS, shows LOTS of SKIN, etc. etc. etc.). Luckily that's all there is for most of these characters and the author is able to kick in their personality and you realize they are just another human being.

Conclusion:
It's only about $8 on Amazon. Buy it if you are into fantasy RPG like stories. Despite the cons on the blatant attitudes towards women which can be a turn off for female readers and the funky translation, this story is quite deep and delves between the relationships between each character and their unique personalities. I also love the bits of details on economics of living as well as it shows the difficulties of starting from square 0 from living in the slums, to hoping to earn enough just to eat. I already purchased the second light novel and will be reading that shortly.

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