Berserk of Gluttony Vol. 5 - Dropped the volume a few chapters in a while back but thought I’d give it another try now that the anime is running. I suffered through the volume and at least finished it but it’s a hard drop for the series from now on. I don’t think that series has for my taste any redeeming qualities left. - 2/10 domains of S (“s” as in shit).
Modern Dungeon Capture Starting with Broken Skills Vol. 1 - God-awful writing. A while ago I posted about my pet peeves in light novels and I should have made another bullet point there for “rambling characters”. This book is a prime example of this. The MC is rambling around constantly and going on the most absurd tangents. Just as an early example: MC is running around his first dungeon and encountering an enemy for the first time and decides to go talk about his pen, how expensive it is, and how great German craftmanship is. And that is just one example. Every. single. page. is filled with irrelevant ramblings of MC. And don’t get me started on how dense MC is. I believe he is the most dense MC I’ve ever seen in any kind of media. There is also constant sexualization of minors. And you remember the rape scenes in Goblin Slayer? Imagine those but with the author enjoying them just a little too much, so it doesn’t feel like it’s “just for shock value” anymore. It doesn’t help that every instance is illustrated. - 1/10.
Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill: Volume 14 - I really wish MC would drop the scaredy cat act by now. How often can someone be thrown into combat situations while being completely immune to any form of harm and still piss his pants at every mention of combat? This was only slightly funny at the beginning of the series and by now this schitck is just annoying. It seriously has become so stale and formulaic that it’s virtually impossible to pick up a volume and page at random and find out where you are in the plot by reading a few paragraphs. Monsters are clamoring for food -> MC cooks something that all the monsters have always the exact same reaction to -> monsters want to go hunt and MC is scared but gets overruled -> monsters get hungry again -> repeat to infinity. Also, somewhere a few volumes back they stopped visually separating the cooking recipe sections which made it easy to skip them. I wish they would bring them back. - 4/10
Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for my Retirement 2 (3) - Turns out Kodansha has released the third volume of 80k Gold but decided to call it volume 2 instead (seems like they bundled 1+2 together for some unknown reason which fucks up the numbering going forward, but whatever…). Anyway, it’s typical FUNA. If you have read one you have read them all. It’s entertaining enough if you just want to turn your mind off and for that it’s great. - 7/10
Berserk of Gluttony Vol. 5 - Dropped the volume a few chapters in a while back but thought I’d give it another try now that the anime is running. I suffered through the volume and at least finished it but it’s a hard drop for the series from now on. I don’t think that series has for my taste any redeeming qualities left. - 2/10 domains of S (“s” as in shit).
Modern Dungeon Capture Starting with Broken Skills Vol. 1 - God-awful writing. A while ago I posted about my pet peeves in light novels and I should have made another bullet point there for “rambling characters”. This book is a prime example of this. The MC is rambling around constantly and going on the most absurd tangents. Just as an early example: MC is running around his first dungeon and encountering an enemy for the first time and decides to go talk about his pen, how expensive it is, and how great German craftmanship is. And that is just one example. Every. single. page. is filled with irrelevant ramblings of MC. And don’t get me started on how dense MC is. I believe he is the most dense MC I’ve ever seen in any kind of media. There is also constant sexualization of minors. And you remember the rape scenes in Goblin Slayer? Imagine those but with the author enjoying them just a little too much, so it doesn’t feel like it’s “just for shock value” anymore. It doesn’t help that every instance is illustrated. - 1/10.
Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill: Volume 14 - I really wish MC would drop the scaredy cat act by now. How often can someone be thrown into combat situations while being completely immune to any form of harm and still piss his pants at every mention of combat? This was only slightly funny at the beginning of the series and by now this schitck is just annoying. It seriously has become so stale and formulaic that it’s virtually impossible to pick up a volume and page at random and find out where you are in the plot by reading a few paragraphs. Monsters are clamoring for food -> MC cooks something that all the monsters have always the exact same reaction to -> monsters want to go hunt and MC is scared but gets overruled -> monsters get hungry again -> repeat to infinity. Also, somewhere a few volumes back they stopped visually separating the cooking recipe sections which made it easy to skip them. I wish they would bring them back. - 4/10
Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for my Retirement 2 (3) - Turns out Kodansha has released the third volume of 80k Gold but decided to call it volume 2 instead (seems like they bundled 1+2 together for some unknown reason which fucks up the numbering going forward, but whatever…). Anyway, it’s typical FUNA. If you have read one you have read them all. It’s entertaining enough if you just want to turn your mind off and for that it’s great. - 7/10