[mumble] Meh, looks like the junkie gets his fix before I could properly make fun of him :(

Cooking with Wild Game and more FUNA. Good week.

Happy Mar10 day everyone.

Lucia and the Loom: Weaving Her Way to Happiness Volume 3 - I didn’t like this volume. The first two volumes were filled with heartwarming stories that came across even if you didn’t know anything about fashion. I didn’t know 80% of the verbiage but the heart of the stories came through anyway. In this volume it feels like there’s something that changed in that regard and I don’t “get it” anymore. I went from “oh, nice dress made that widow happy again sniff” to “I think that “winged collar” means that he is now less strict… maybe?”. On top of that, this time the stories themselves aren’t just that good. Apart from one outlier, I wasn’t able to connect with any of them on an emotional level.

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for my Retirement 7 - Usual FUNA “Cute Girls Doing Overpowered Things”. Fun and entertaining.

It’s a fantasy world. If I can accept the concept of magic I can also accept the concept of an entirely evil race. I really don’t see the need to overthink it.

(Also, I guess im cringe then. I can live with that.)

Did I miss something here? The way I understood it was that the demons were inherently evil and antagonistic towards humanity. They were good at playing the humans in that one town but ultimately Frieren did unmask them and the party did stop their plot. Sounds to me like reading some woke BS into a simple “monsters = bad = kill” story.

What’s the genocide problem?

You’ve probably seen this coming from a mile away, but I wanted to somehow force the word crimson into my posts, but now I’m feeling like a bully. I solemnly vow that I will not succumb to my base instincts and now say it. Maybe that moves my basic humanity level a nanometer from the average scale.

I think the website and key visual are new.

So you’re saying that you’re jonesing so hard for vol 19 that you get the hibee jebees every time you hear the word “crimson”? I think I’ll try to have some fun with that. ;)

Is that an Average Abilities reference?

Finally, the next volume of Zilbagias. I’m interested to see how his internal struggles play out. As far as the new ones go, Imperial Reincarnation sounds interesting. Reminds me a bit of the basic premise of Realist Hero (before the harems popped off and fucking Fuuga).

Mercedes and the Waning Moon: The Dungeoneering Feats of a Discarded Vampire Aristocrat Volume 1 - I like it. It’s very formulaic but changes some bits and bobs of the formula here and there, making it an interesting read. It’s like a cover version of an overused song. You recognize the tune but never heard a screamo version of it. The most noteworthy thing about it though is that there is a scene where MC (a little girl) fights and her armor gets shredded until she is fighting in her underwear. No illustration. I know, right? Mind. Blown.

The Tanaka Family Reincarnates: Volume 1 - This one is confusing to me since there is an entire 5-head family worth of names to remember all at once with all of them having their pre-isekai names, their post-isekai names and their nicknames they use with each other. Add in all the names of the side characters and I’m mostly paging back to remember who the fuck “Peyta” was. Then there is the lolicon brother (acknowledged as such in-universe. I.e. the sister calling him outright “pedo scum” and he’s proudly declaring himself a lolicon) that is trying to hook up with 6 year olds. Similar to Mushoku Tensei, this is played off more like a joke for comedic effect. This is simply not a “ha ha #justLoliconThings how funny” situation. While it’s not a main plot point and is maybe only 1-2% of the novel, it still isn’t sitting well with me. There were things that I liked, for example, a chapter from the view of one of the family pets, but those lolicon 1-2% are really pulling the good parts down. I’m not sure yet if I give the second volume a chance.

The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects: Volume 7 - A sweet and heartwarming vacation volume. Nothing much really happens plot wise but the strangest thing happened. Or happened again to be precise. There was another girl’s bathing scene and there wasn’t any fan service or illustration of it. It’s starting to get really unnerving for me. It’s like there is something really bad just around the corner waiting for me to lower my guard. I can literally taste it.

Sounds good. The synopsis sounds like one of the “amazon-but-not-amazon” skills like Campfire Cooking or the one in the currently running anime.

In the middle of Part 5 of Bookworm Rozemyne calls the Prince a “Bookless scrub”. It’s short, to the point and equally devastating as Varre calling us Maidenless in Elden Ring.

Since I’m sick and spending most of my time in bed I had a while now to think about this and I’m sitting at the moment on the conclusion that there are two answers to this. One one hand there is obvious stuff like Bookworm or Wild Game that spent just an huge amount off time in a very localized environment. It’s obvious that it would be very details if a series spends 20-30 volumes on just a single city. So, yes, Bookworm and Wild Game are extremely fleshed out after all this time (I even made fun of this in the Worldbuilding slide a while back).

The other way to think about it is by looking at the “believable” part of the question. I think here is Re:Zero one of the standout titles. I think talked about it before about how Re:Zero does this thing where there are in-universe stories and legends that are in-universe proverbs are build upon. It’s very obvious with the dialogue of the Garfield character. He is constantly using proverbs that sound like utter nonsense to us readers but create the illusion that the world exists outside the viewers gaze.

There is no better world build than a real one.

It’s world-building not world-appropriating, silly.

Got any recs?

Have a look through the weekly “What have you read” threads in this community. Maybe there’s something in there that piques your interest. Generally I enjoy the comfy stuff a lot more, but since you like Re:Zero you could maybe put Torture Princess on your plan to read list. I dropped it for almost eh same reasons as Re:Zero and a lot of people recommend it.

Is this the greatest masterpiece of the 21st century? What do you think?

1.) I think you shan’t make the Myne angry lest you suffer her wrath.

2.) My Rem figurine collection might make you think I’m a fan of the series but personally I grew tired of the series during volume 16 and dropped it. It’s just too much constant suffering for my taste and at least at that point it did look like it was going nowhere except to repeat that cycle of suffering for as long as the series could be milked. It’s Wheel of Time Syndrome. Oh, you defeated a big boss villain? Great, here is another even more psychotic reincarnation of him or whatever because we can’t have you move the story forward for as long as people are buying the books.

(where does anime end?)

Around the end of Volume 2 (that’s volume 1 of the current re translation after SOL snuffed it. So get Vol2. of the Kodansha run.)

I was waiting for your review on this one.