Another week for me with very little reading done due to D4 and the release of FFXVI last Thursday.

• Fake Saint of the Year: You Wanted the Perfect Saint? Too Bad!: Easily one of the worst new series I read in a long while. It’s not very thought out, with both the author and the character going on long tangents and rambling all over the place. It’s one of those stories where events are told again from different POVs but this only ever works if the prose is good and the new POv is interesting. In this it is neither. There are also some moronic and glaring plot holes. For example, the Saint and the Witch are invulnerable and can only be attacked by each other, but they have an entire academy just to produce knights to protect the Saint. And during a tournament, the Saint asks to sit closer to the ring to see better. She then gets this gem said to her: “I apologize, Lady Ellize. As you know, your security is the most important thing. We cannot run the risk of you getting hurt if a student performs a spell badly or throws a sword in the wrong direction. Please watch the competition from a safe distance.” Again: The Pro- and Antagonist are completely invulnerable to everything than each other. And that is just one example. The entire thing is full of that kind of inconsistencies, plot holes, and personalities flip-flopping to whatever suits a scene at a moment.

1/10 editors sleeping on the job

• Isekai Tensei: Recruited to Another World Volume 4: I like the series. I wouldn’t say it’s particularly good, but I see it as an inoffensive series to while away some time. In vol. 4 we get some reunions that were nice to read.

5/10 guilty pleasures

• By the Grace of the Gods: Volume 12: While I generally I like the SoL type of novels and the comfy aspects of this series are what are drawing me to it in the first place, I didn’t mind that there was a bit more “action” happening in this volume. What I did mind though is the lackluster way that action was being handled. I wish the author would have gone into a bit more detail about how some of the emergencies have been handled instead of just glossing over it after the fact. An example of what I mean is something like when a fire breaks out there is suddenly a fire brigade complete with fire-resistant gear and breathing apparatuses and MC just goes “Ah, BTW I founded the fire brigade last week and created the gear from some slimes, haha…”. I find this type of writing really weak where there is a problem popping up and then immediately getting the solution retroactively added.

7/10 usually more comfortable cute slimes