Tag: double

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Volume 2 and Infinite Dendrogram Volume 12 Reviews

by macksamson, posted in Infinite Dendrogram, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, Light Novels

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Volume 2

Last time on Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, a girl named Yuna logs into her favorite MMO, World Fantasy Online, during a new update. She is given some game-breaking bear-themed equipment as a gift for playing for a long time, and is sent to an unfamiliar part of the game world in said bear equipment, with her level reset to 1. She saves a girl named Fina from wolves, and the two of them head to the nearest town with the mob loot. They sell it at the guild, and Yuna spends her hard-earned cash at the inn. The next day, Yuna- guess what- registers at the guild, but only after- guess what- beats some red-shirted upstarts. She then buys a ton of throwing knives, along with a sword and butchering knife, as well as some normal-people clothes. She also acquires bear-themed magic, which she practices on some wolves. She beats enough of them for it to instantly promote her to E-Rank at the guild. Some of the friends of that guy who she beat up start slandering her, and as a result, she is forced to undertake a goblin-slaying quest with them. The required amount is fifty, and she offers to fight them all herself and give them the credit so they stay off her back. She goes with the female adventurer, Rulina, defeats them all herself (double the required amount and a boss), and earns respect among the other group. Over time, Yuna defeats so many monsters that she becomes D-Rank with no effort, and hires Fina to butcher the spoils. They go on a quest to fight tigerwolves, which go down easily. Lastly, Yuna spends a heap of cash on an empty plot of land, and constructs a bear house to live in.

The bear-themed antics are just as bear-themed and… un-antic-y (professional term) as last time. Honestly, I struggled to write anything of substance in this post, and that’s why I’m pairing it with a review of Infinite Dendrogram Volume 12. The second volume of Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is almost exactly the same as the previous one.

At the current rate, it seems that it’s going to commit to being an episodic CGDCT isekai, which for some (many) people, is enough (especially with the bear onesie). Yuna visits some noble guy, which- I’ll admit- her apprehensiveness to the request was actually kind of funny. But afterwards, Fina’s mom is sick, and Yuna- being the OP protagonist she is- restores her to perfect health almost instantly. Everything happens so unceremoniously that it bores me to tears. Furthermore, the “let’s tell you the same chain of events you just saw but from Fina’s perspective” thing does not die down in this volume.

The issue really is the bland and basic writing style. While there comes a point where TOO much finesse can make you sound like a pretentious hack, not enough will make your work seem lifeless. I couldn’t be immersed in any fashion, and I could barely visualize anything besides Yuna.

You know what, Yuna really is the only thing that matters, isn’t she? She doesn’t just look adorable, but she also helps people for no reason. WHAT AN AMAZING AND NOT-AT-ALL IDEALIZED PERSON. I feel like the author expects people to love her because of how good she is. Well, us critics got a name for girls like her: Mary Sue.

~~~~~

Verdict: 6/10

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is so superficial. It’s cute, it’s relaxing, but it relies entirely on Yuna’s cuteness. If she didn’t have a bear onesie this thing would not sell. All of her powers are typical stuff, but they just have the word “bear” tacked on to them; they aren’t even puns! Compare it to Invincible Shovel, which actually uses shovel-like properties, such as “digging” through people’s memories, or “burying” entire castles. My chances of reading more Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear are next to nil. I’m going to be so salty when the anime airs because I KNOW that people are gonna be all over Yuna’s bear suit and her good will, WHILE SOMETHING LEGITIMATELY GOOD AND ORIGINAL LIKE TO YOUR ETERNITY WILL GET SHAFTED BECAUSE FUUUUUUUUU-! Anyway, if you like CGDCT and isekai, then Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear will do just fine.

Infinite Dendrogram Volume 12

Last time on Infinite Dendrogram (volume 10), Ray goes to college while also having a new accessory made for him that would help him resist poison. That’s it for him. In Caldina, Hugh Lesseps gets involved with some crazy woman named AR-I-CA on a quest to find a bunch of sealed boss monsters that were stolen from Huang He. A powerful mafia called Mirage goes after them, but they become a non-issue real fast when Dancing Princess Hiuli defeats them all by herself. Gerbera, in the Gaol, also gets stronger as she trains with her new friends in Illegal Frontier, led by the King of Crimes, who is incidentally involved in what is going on at Hugh’s end. Things are looking intense, AND WE FINALLY GET TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

Er, well… not quite? The stuff that happened last time felt like setup, and this volume feels like… more setup. The developments last volume end up being ignored in favor of some new ones. First off, Figaro’s yandere girlfriend, Hannya, is released from the Gaol. She hates couples… which is why it’s so perfect that she was released during the time of a lovey-dovey festival in Gideon.

There’s also some new political developments, mainly this arranged marriage with Princess Elizabeth and one of Huang He’s princes. In order to butter them up, they hang out during the aforementioned festival. They also hint at a potential alliance with Caldina in the future, but nothing seems to come of it yet. 

The volume starts with some more insight on Kashimiya, this iai-fighting dude that we only got to see a blip of once upon a time. But after that, the bulk of it is the lovey-dovey festival. And yeah, it kind of feels like a filler volume, even moreso than the Gloria prequel fight. The interactions between the characters are genuinely cute, but this is the first time I’ve seen the overarching story get backseated this violently in Dendro. 

Things do ramp up toward the end; Dendro always has to have a crazy fight scene or two. But as far as character development goes, it’s really only Figaro and Hannya who get it. We do get introduced to some new Dendro A.I. but we’re still kept in the dark; in fact, the prequel volume told us more than this one did! And as usual, we still don’t get to see any of Legendaria nor Ray’s sister. 

~~~~~

Verdict: 7.5/10

I don’t know what it is, but this is probably my least favorite Dendro volume so far. It’s a cute little mini-arc that set some stuff up, but it’s been a long time since something intense happened. Something big needs to happen, and fast, or this great series could REALLY become the next SAO (and I mean that in a bad way).

Buck Naked in Another World and Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Volume 1 Reviews

by macksamson, posted in Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, Light Novels, Other

Normally, light novels get manga adaptations at some point after publication. However, the inverse is true for Buck Naked in Another World, adapted from a web manga (at least according to MyAnimeList). Seven Seas has had a great track record of publishing… divisive content (to the point where they have their own imprint for it), and this might (key word) be their most controversial release yet.

The premise is as simple as it gets. A thirty-two year-old part-timer named Shuta Yoshida is mysteriously reincarnated in another world. He’s in his full adult form, with all of his memories. However… he’s naked! As such, he has to do hard labor for scraps… while having his wee-wee barely blocked from view by a loincloth.

So… I got something to say. I always talk about how certain gimmicks don’t really bring any sort of interest to the table, such as the upside-down mechanic in Patema Inverted. And astonishingly, the naked gimmick is next to meaningless here in Buck Naked. Despite this, there still is a bit of controversy, laid bare for us to see. For example, Shuta is quickly forced to marry a girl who’s only in her teens that he’s just met minutes before. Other than a few unfunny jokes regarding “Shuta Jr.”, his nakedness doesn’t play into the plot whatsoever.

Buck Naked is yet another slow-paced, tensionless, slice-of-life isekai with not much of interest. There is a whole thing where the villagers have some arbitrary prejudice towards hunters (which Shuta ultimately becomes), but I see it becoming a non-issue in the future. The first half of this volume is basically hunting stuff. Seriously, if I wanted that, I would’ve read Cooking With Wild Game instead! (P.S. is Cooking With Wild Game any good? I’d love to hear some comments.)

Admittedly, it picks up a bit in the second half, but not by much. They end up going to the big city, where a number of more controversial things, such as slavery, and Shuta bathing with a girl that isn’t his wife, happen. However, that stuff’s also synonymous with almost every isekai on the market, which once again renders the naked aspect inconsequential.

Also synonymous with almost every isekai on the market, the characters aren’t so great. Shuta is basically Rudeus from Mushoku Tensei; sometimes has funny, snide remarks, but is overall a cardboard box. Most of the other characters are basically just there, especially the women. The only remotely entertaining character is this girl named Nishka, but that’s just because she’s the busty, drunk type.

The art is as painfully average as the story. While the cover art looks nice, the illustrations inside have a lot of simple gradients and not much linework. But hey, it’s still better looking than anything I could whip up.

~~~~~

Verdict: 5/10

I expected Buck Naked in Another World to be one of the most controversial new isekai, but it’s not even that; it’s just a typical, boring isekai with next-to-no substance. At least Mushoku Tensei managed to be consistently offensive in each volume! Well, my chances of continuing this thing are next to nil, so let’s hope Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is better!

So, Buck Naked in Another World failed to capitalize on its gimmick so hard that I couldn’t even be minutely offended by it. Let’s see if slapping bear motifs onto everything is enough to change the isekai formula in Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, also published in English by Seven Seas.

In Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear (protip to fellow bloggers: DO NOT abbreviate the title of this series if you want your American audience to like you), a young lass named Yuna has mastered the stock market, earning her enough money to live as a NEET and to bribe her parents to eff off. This enables her to play her favorite VRMMO, World Fantasy Online. In a new update, she receives some overpowered bear-themed equipment, and is sent to another world in said equipment. 

The million dollar question is, once again, does this gimmick make it any different from your typical isekai? The answer is still a surprising “NO!”. Although Yuna starts at level 1, her bear suit is insanely OP, and gives her basically everything she could need and then some. She has no problem beating overleveled enemies in seconds, and as a result, she grows rather quickly. It bothers me because, as someone who looks at things from a marketing standpoint, having a cute loli in an animal onesie is somewhere in the book How to Make Tons of Money with no Effort.

But what Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear has that Buck Naked lacks is much more competent writing. The pacing is much tighter, and there is some decent humor, which makes it enjoyable for sheer entertainment value. It’s a lot more fun, and doesn’t beat around the bush, except in certain chapters that just retell what just happened from another person’s POV. 

This is about the umpteenth time I’m saying this: the cast is lackluster! While Yuna is kind of funny at times, everyone else might as well be made of cardboard. Fortunately, the fast pacing makes it so that you don’t have to BEAR with them for too long.

The art is kind of average, but it suits the theme. Yuna looks very “cute” in her bear suit. But otherwise, it’s pretty typical stuff tbh.

~~~~~

Verdict: 7/10

While substantially better than Buck Naked, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is merely a decent-at-best isekai. Geez, laweez, I can’t seem to catch a break with the Seven Seas light novels AT ALL… why is that? Anyways, I’d recommend Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear if you’re willing to sell your soul to the nearest onesie-wearing loli on your block. Otherwise, there’s plenty of other, better isekai out there.

Children of the Whales (1-6) and Kaiju Girl Caramelise (1-3) First Impressions

by macksamson, posted in First Impressions, Manga

Shoujo is by far my least favorite manga genre. It’s basically the manga equivalent of cringey YA romance, which I have very much established as not liking. But one shoujo manga (at least according to MyAnimeList), Children of the Whales (published in English by Viz), actually looks legitimately good! Let’s see if it is…

In Children of the Whales, we follow a group of people who live on a boat, called the Mud Whale, adrift on an endless sea of sand (potential Xenoblade Chronicles 3 idea?). Our main protagonist, Chakuro, who has some serious OCD that makes him document everything in ridiculous detail, participates on a mission to investigate a second, derelict ship that is spotted in the sand. There, he finds a mysterious girl he names Lykos, the first human from outside of his own Mud Whale that has ever been witnessed, and naturally, she single-handedly turns Chakuro’s life on its head.

While it does get a bit exposition-y at the beginning, Children of the Whales wastes no time getting into that good ol’ intrigue. There’s a lot of weird stuff regarding the reason why the Mud Whale is even where it is, and of course, where Lykos came from and what her beef is. Overall, the manga has a very whimsical atmosphere, and regardless of how straightforward the plot is, it always feels like there’s secrets waiting to be revealed.

Unfortunately, it does fall into some typical modern fantasy traps, the worst of all being the Thymia system. Thymia is basically magic, and it cuts people’s life spans short (but since our characters are teens, it’s no problem for them). The only thing explained about it (not counting the blips of lore that come in between chapters) is that it’s powered by raw emotion. This means that the author can go hog wild and we just have to deal with it.

But hey, at least it has interesting worldbuilding to offset that. The in-between chapter blurbs show how much thought the author put into the Mud Whale’s design, and the thing itself does have a memorable look. It’s also really good at building curiosity and anticipation to what the rest of the world is like. 

It’s just too bad that the characters aren’t so great. Chakuro is your basic weak, generic boy who ends up existing just to absorb plot information. Among the people who actually have to do the legwork are Lykos and Ouni. Lykos is your typical “sad girl who needs wuv”, and Ouni is just the super-powerful angsty teen. There are a lot of other characters, but they’re just as unmemorable. This is definitely a story-driven manga, that’s for sure.

Normally, I find shoujo manga to be visually appalling. However, Children of the Whales actually looks beautiful. It definitely embraces some shoujo tropes, such as sparkly eyes, but the author didn’t gouge out the characters’ actual eyes and put diamonds in the sockets. There is also, thankfully, a lack of the knife-chins that most shoujo characters have. The background art is the most appealing aspect of the manga, along with some great abstract imagery. The Thymia also gives characters magical tattoos, and if there’s anything I find sexy, it’s magical tattoos!

~~~~~

Current Verdict: 7.5/10

Children of the Whales is starting out pretty well, but it looks like it’s going to be one of those slow burns. Fortunately, it does seem to ramp up by around volume 5, so I am curious as to how much better it could get. It’s extremely sparse on romance, so I don’t know why it’s supposedly considered a shoujo manga. As such, I can’t exactly recommend it to shoujo fans. But if you want an ambient, whimsical story, Children of the Whales has got you covered.

Romance is a tough genre to do well (at least for cold-hearted introverts like me). I’ve seen a lot with great potential fall flat on their faces. Let’s see if Kaiju Girl Caramelise, published in English by Yen Press, bites off more than it can chew.

In Kaiju Girl Caramelise, an emotionally unstable girl named Kuroe Akaishi ends up meeting the hot guy in her school, Arata Minami, and hits it off with him. The problem with Kuroe is that she has a rare disease where she grows monster parts whenever her mental state is under duress. And when her emotions rise to a fever pitch, she straight-up turns into Godzilla.

While her inevitable love for Arata seems to come out of nowhere, the manga starts with a flashback of her as a kid getting rejected by an unknown male character. I immediately assumed that this was in fact a young Arata, which explains her initial fervor for him at the beginning. But regardless… her love for him really does appear abruptly. All he does is go out of his way to talk to her and she suddenly has sparkly eyes.

Sadly, the kaiju aspect doesn’t really change the romance aspect at all. To me, it seems very blatantly symbolic of girls when they’re going through their period, since their bodies change due to circumstances outside of their control. The fact that it occurs whenever Arata comes to mind is further symbolism of this. I suppose if you care about stuff like that, then this manga would be fascinating to no end for you.

Anyways, as far as characters are concerned, they’re kind of meh. Arata is a typical Gary Sue, and Kuroe is a typical “imperfect girl who’s special for some reason”. The only saviors of this manga are Kuroe’s hot mom’s dog, Jumbo King, and this girl named Manatsu. The latter is super rich and has a crazy kaiju obsession that I find genuinely enjoyable. 

As for the art, it’s typical shoujo fare. Sparkly eyes, check. Long chins, check. Simple textures, check. It’s not the most nauseating thing to look at compared to, say, Anonymous Noise, but it’s still not my style.

~~~~~

Current Verdict: 7/10

Kaiju Girl Caramelise is starting off as a… tolerable romance. It’s not pretentious like a number of YA romances I’ve read, so it’s got an advantage there. I’d recommend it if you want to see the underdog get the sexy significant other in the end.

Otherside Picnic Volume 3 and Cautious Hero Volume 3 Reviews

by macksamson, posted in Cautious Hero, Light Novels, Otherside Picnic

Last time on Otherside Picnic, Sorawo and Toriko decide to rescue the U.S. soldiers trapped at Kisaragi Station. They lead the entire battalion of men through a forest and fight a giant snake lady, and the men are able to return to base in Okinawa. The girls take the opportunity to chillax at the beach, but end up on a beach in the Otherisde. After barely avoiding an assault from green babies and grey lumpy crabs, they escape by using the Hasshaku-sama hat from the previous volume to form a portal, whereas Sorawo sees the silhouette of Satsuki on the beach just as the portal closes up. Sorawo then encounters a weird girl named Akari Seto, who’s had ninja cats pursuing her. The two of them, and Toriko, end up fighting said ninja cats in the space between our world and the Otherside (similar to when the Time-space Man showed up), and escape when Sorawo uses her power to spot a strange doll inside Akari, which Toriko pulls out of her. After returning to the real world, they ask where she got it from. It turns out that she was another student of Satsuki’s, and this breaks Toriko’s heart. Later on, they get invited to the organization that Kozakura works for, the DS research lab, where Satsuki used to work. When they investigate her old room, Sorawo uses her right eye to decipher the strange glyphs in Satsuki’s journal, which causes Satsuki herself to appear and drop a cursed box on the floor, which erupts into red birds that attack Toriko. Sorawo barely manages to save her, but we still have no idea what the deal is with Satsuki, assuming that we’ve been seeing the real thing. Also, Sorawo not telling Toriko about any of these sightings is sure going to put a dent in their relationship later.

This volume starts with the title drop: an Otherside picnic! In this part, we learn more stuff about the girls than before, such as the fact that Toriko apparently had lesbians for parents. But yeah, this light novel is getting more yuri every volume. I just hope it doesn’t get so wrapped up in yuri stuff that it dangles the whole Satsuki thing like a carrot for a cringe-tastically long time. That would be very sitcom-like.

Fortunately, that has yet to occur. Otherside Picnic still maintains a sense of overall intrigue when it comes to story progression. This volume brings up a mysterious figure named Lunaurumi, who may or may not be Satsuki. But she is one thing, and that’s some Internet troll who’s been spreading the Otherside’s influence to innocent people. 

Unfortunately, I don’t care about Akari any more than I did last time, even with the character development she gets in this volume. We see her relationship with her friend, Natsumi Ichikawa, but it’s kind of just there for the sake of the genre. I might have said this before, but Sorawo and Toriko’s chemistry is the only thing making the yuri aspect of this series anything above baseless girl-on-girl sex.

Based on what I’ve read up to this point, the first halves of each Otherside Picnic volume are very slow and very inconsequential. The first chapter in each book can be pretty boring, and seems to serve no purpose but to reacquaint us with the characters. But  the ball always gets rolling real fast in the second half, and the fact that one chapter takes up the entire latter half of this volume shows that sh** goes DOWN. The climax is a massive turning point that I’m glad happened now instead of later, that’s for sure.

~~~~~

Verdict: 9.25/10

While I have some concerns, Otherside Picnic is still one of the best isekai- and perhaps one of the best yuri- on the market. I need volume four yesterday, because after what happens here, I honestly have no clue what direction it could go in.

Last time on Cautious Hero… hoo boy! Seiya defeats a big fly-like Demon with the new attacks he learns from the pervy archery goddess, Mitis, and the yandere war goddess, Adenela, and saves Rosalie Roseguard, the whiny and reckless daughter of the emperor. He is then instructed to go to a village to obtain some sacred armor, but that village has been destroyed by another Demon General, who summons an indestructible monster named Death Thanatos to kill Seiya and his friends. They run back to the spirit world and lure it to the goddess of destruction, Valkyrie, who uses an awesome absolute-surefire-kill move called Gate of Valhalla to destroy it, but at the cost of almost all of her HP. Seiya asks her to train him on all of her moves except for that one, but it’s cut short when Rista walks in on them… doing it?! After that… incident… they’re called to the capital city of Orphee, where the last Demon General is attacking. However, the emperor, Wohlks Roseguard, defeats it himself (despite being senile and reverting to the personality of a baby every so often). Double-however, the emperor, who was seduced by the Demon Lord’s words and his own envy of Seiya, tries to kill Seiya using the God Eater Sword, forged with the power of the Demon Lord’s Chain of Destruction that permanently kills a soul with no chance of reincarnation. Seiya barely manages to defeat the guy, so his team rests up for the final battle. Or DO they? Seiya breaks out of character and goes off to fight the Demon Lord himself with the Gate of Valhalla technique (which, incidentally, him and Valkyrie’s doing it was her giving him the ability in the first place). When Rista rushes over to Ishtar to ask what the hell’s wrong with him, she tells her that Seiya was previously summoned to save a different world. Triple-however, he was the exact opposite of cautious, and thus he failed (also, Rista is the reincarnation of his lover during that time. Now Seiya is officially a waifu guy. Great). Rista breaks the rules and teleports straight into the Demon Lord’s castle right in the midst of the final battle and restores Seiya’s life with her divine healing powers to offset the Gate of Valhalla’s punishment. QUADRUPLE-however, the Demon Lord is able to attempt a last-minute screen-nuke, forcing Seiya to summon a second Gate to consume him and the first gate, finishing him off for good. This breaks him (literally) beyond repair, and Rista returns to her world awaiting punishment. Her punishment… is to save the world that Seiya could not save, now an SS-ranked Dark Souls-ian world. And who better to accompany her… than the reincarnated (through some Deus Ex Machina BS) Seiya himself? 

“Well that’s all well and good,” you say. “But this is just an excuse for the author to pad the series out long after it should’ve ended. Things in this arc are going to be EXACTLY the same as the previous one!” I shared your concern. But things change VERY radically right at the start of this volume.

Seiya trains for the new challenge when a werewolf appears and attacks him. It only gets one hit in, but it’s enough to give him amnesia and make him VERY reckless. Doing this effectively turns him into the same Gary Sue protagonist that tends to make isekai absolute cringe, but this version of Seiya is good cringe. By robbing us of what defines him as a character, the story expects you to yearn for him to be cautious again. Conversely, if you hated him up to this point, this version of him will probably irritate you even more.

This also puts the shoe on the other foot. With Seiya making rash moves, Rista now starts acting cautious around him. This causes a new set of reactions between them that wasn’t at all possible in the past, and is by far the best aspect of this new predicament.

Unfortunately, the amnesia ends up being resolved very early and very unceremoniously, which also increases the rift between him and Rista. This makes the whole situation seem like shock value. But there’s a silver lining! In order to face his new enemies, Seiya goes for a class change. This allows him to continue to bamboozle us (and his enemies) with even more utility than before. 

~~~~~

Verdict: 9.3/10

This new arc shows that the author of Cautious Hero has yet to run out of steam. With Seiya’s ever-expanding arsenal, only the final boss could have a ghost of a chance of stopping him. Oh, and speaking of the final boss, I’m hoping that it ends up being just as cautious as Seiya. A battle between cautious hero and cautious demon would be a perfect way to end this series (or this arc?). But Seiya will have to GET to the final boss in order for us to know for sure.

No Game No Life Volume 9 and Cautious Hero Volume 2 Reviews

by macksamson, posted in Cautious Hero, Light Novels, No Game No Life
Cover of each book

Last time on No Game No Life, Sora and Shiro- through a series of events so complicated that even the author had trouble describing it well- manage to bring their impossible game against Jibril to a draw, and defeat the Old Deus. The Old Deus is christened by Sora as Holou, and she joins his harem. However, the volume ends with some very robot-y dialogue… Hm, I wonder who that could be? *cough* Ex Machina *cough*

This volume starts with Sora struggling to exploi- I mean- turn Holou into a pop idol that’ll make the people love them. Holou’s medieval dialogue combined with her third-person perspective and philosophical-speak make her a fun and adorable new character. She’s no Izuna or Jibril, but I still love her.

However, she doesn’t get the spotlight in this volume. As previously foreshadowed, a surviving unit of Ex Machina show up, and Sora is pushed to his limits as he must defend his most prized possession: HIS VIRGINITY. That’s right. These robots show up to straight up have sex with Sora. He doesn’t want that, so he must fight for his own sexual rights! (Thank goodness he isn’t female, or else this would make a lot of people absolutely LIVID)

This group of Ex Machina is technically one person, but two of the twelve are given individual names: a homosexual butler robot named Einzig, and a cute maid robot named Emir-Eins. Both are hilarious and make this volume just as fun as the previous ones.

But of course, as per usual, the game they play is absurdly convoluted and the multi-layered mind games once again go beyond suspension of disbelief. In Layman’s Terms: The events in this volume’s battle make no sense. While not as grandiose, or as long, as Holou’s fight, it’s still absurd. I love absurd, but the message boards of Dr. Stone and basically any battle shounen series show that absurd is not for everyone.

~~~~~

Verdict: 9.3/10

This volume is perfectly good, however I am concerned with the future of this series. Wikipedia only lists one volume after this, published last year, while MAL lists the series as still ongoing. I know that series getting delayed isn’t uncommon, but I haven’t really heard any news about NGNL in particular. This is currently my favorite LN series of all time, but if I can’t actually finish it, that title will go to something else. Also, the mean cliffhanger ending of this volume, which seems to explicitly imply an endgame development, might never get resolved. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it!

Last time on Cautious Hero, a goddess named Rista, is tasked with saving the S-Ranked world, Gaeabrande, from a Demon Lord McGee. She summons Seiya Ryuuguuin from the real world. He’s got great stats, but he’s too damn cautious. He immediately causes problems as he uses top-tier attacks on slimes (causing collateral damage in the process), crafting equipment out of Rista’s hair (without her permission), and pouring holy water on everyone (in case they’re undead enemies). And after every accomplishment, he goes back to the gods’ realm to train (and push other gods to the brink of exhaustion). But hey, he’s already defeated TWO of the Final Boss’ direct subordinates. Afterwards, two dragon kids, named Mash and Elulu, join his party. Naturally, they’re useless. But when the dragon people try to sacrifice Elulu to form some Super-Holy-Dragon-Sword, Seiya puts a stop to it, not because he wants Elulu as a waifu, but because he needs her to carry his massive inventory of stuff that he might need. However, doing this supposedly costs him the ability to defeat the Final Boss, but I got a feeling that he’ll get by as is.

This volume introduces a number of new faces, including Rosalie, the daughter of an allegedly-super-powerful warrior who is also the emperor. She is the exact opposite of Seiya, i.e. a dumb, reckless brat. This creates some interesting interactions between her and Seiya.

Speaking of Seiya, he gets even more training in this volume, this time from the archery goddess, Mitis. While that goes in… a direction, Mash and Elulu end up training, and obtain more abilities that might actually allow them to contribute to battle. However, I still find their personalities to be pretty boring. Valkyrie also gets some screentime, and further cements herself as the Best Girl of the series, but alas, her time spent is pretty short despite her presence on the volume’s cover. Cerceus and Adenela, the gods Seiya trained under last time, have changed a LOT in this volume; with the former being reduced to making cakes for a living and the latter becoming a crazy yandere.

But man oh man… that climax. We get to see Seiya’s backstory here, and I honestly feel kind of mixed about it. It makes him very reminiscent of generic isekai protagonists… but like I said in my previous review, Cautious Hero isn’t about subverting isekai tropes, but following them exrtra-stupid-hardcore. Although the volume ends on a good note, establishing the premise of the second arc, this development will greatly affect your outlook on the entire series as a whole.

~~~~~

Verdict: 9.25/10

Although I didn’t enjoy this volume of Cautious Hero as much as the previous one due to the more serious tone, the series is still proving to be a helluva lot better than most isekai on the market. But seriously, if you didn’t like Seiya in the first volume, then just give up, because he only gets more paranoid from here.