After-School Dungeon Diver: Level Grinding in Another World Volume 1 - Oh boy, where to start with this one. MC is an extremely overpowered mage who is extremely scared of everything (think MC from Campfire Cooking if MC had the power of the Fenrir). He’s also an EXP grind fanatic but he only grinds away on the save levels of the dungeon. His entire inner monologue switches only between how scared or how horny he is. Which brings me to my main gripe: the series could tone it down by a metric ton with the strange and off-putting fan service. The saving a “damsel in distress” every couple of chapters (who are all super strong btw but become pathetic for just the 2 minutes MC needs to save them) is one thing. But when they are covered in jizz from a boar monster (not kidding) that’s in an entirely different ballpark. I mean, why? I’m also not a fan of the “witty banter” in this one. Feels stilted and forced. There is one interesting thing though. It’s an isekai story but completely ignores how MC is able to jump between worlds. It completely skips the whole setup other isekai stories have and you know what? It works. It didn’t hurt the story one iota and made me think how many poor Truck-kuns could have been spared the trauma of crushing MCs if more authors would just go with this “it is what it is, deal with it” approach. The actual reason given towards the end of the book was pretty stupid though so my point stands that it was better when it was treated as just given. I give a bonus point though for the illustrations. I love that derpy art style. - 3/10
By the Grace of the Gods: Volume 14 - Yeah, 7 months between releases is just too much. I remember jack-shit of what was happening, and going by how the volume starts right in the middle of an encounter it’s even more jarring. The volume came out over a year ago in JP. And then it barely breaks 200 pages with a totally messed up pacing. The first half of the volume feels like it should have been part of volume 13 and the second half feels like aimless unorganized filler without any particular purpose other than filling pages. Together with the slow translation it feels like too little too late. It also doesn’t help that the quality of the translation is very bad. What is wrong with J-Novel club lately where the editors are so incapable? Who let things like “Are you a Sever stan?” slide in a fantasy novel? The whole translation reads like a terminally online teenager translated it and the editor didn’t do more than run a quick typo correction over it. It’s such a shame to see yet another favorite of mine go down the drain just because of the translation getting bad. 5/10
Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 21 - The antagonist had a good way to deal with power creep but returned in te end to just the usual level vs. level brawl. Could have been clever but I guess you can’t have everything. The end was a stretch though and I think I’m going back to Otherworld Hero next just to cleanse my palate of those “too good to hurt even the villains” characters (at least that gave me the idea for the next Midweek Discussion, so huzzah!). Anyway, it’s as entertaining as usual, but I’d like to see some “back to the roots” of the more comfy adventuring in the next volumes. - 7/10.
Maybe I should try the second volume via the pre-pubs. they hint at a reverse-isekai at the end of the volume, so I’m at least partially interested and I have that j-Novel.club subscription that goes mostly unused. But whenever I tried one of the pre-pubs I wasn’t a fan of the rough draft style and missing formatting.
After-School Dungeon Diver: Level Grinding in Another World Volume 1 - Oh boy, where to start with this one. MC is an extremely overpowered mage who is extremely scared of everything (think MC from Campfire Cooking if MC had the power of the Fenrir). He’s also an EXP grind fanatic but he only grinds away on the save levels of the dungeon. His entire inner monologue switches only between how scared or how horny he is. Which brings me to my main gripe: the series could tone it down by a metric ton with the strange and off-putting fan service. The saving a “damsel in distress” every couple of chapters (who are all super strong btw but become pathetic for just the 2 minutes MC needs to save them) is one thing. But when they are covered in jizz from a boar monster (not kidding) that’s in an entirely different ballpark. I mean, why? I’m also not a fan of the “witty banter” in this one. Feels stilted and forced. There is one interesting thing though. It’s an isekai story but completely ignores how MC is able to jump between worlds. It completely skips the whole setup other isekai stories have and you know what? It works. It didn’t hurt the story one iota and made me think how many poor Truck-kuns could have been spared the trauma of crushing MCs if more authors would just go with this “it is what it is, deal with it” approach. The actual reason given towards the end of the book was pretty stupid though so my point stands that it was better when it was treated as just given. I give a bonus point though for the illustrations. I love that derpy art style. - 3/10
By the Grace of the Gods: Volume 14 - Yeah, 7 months between releases is just too much. I remember jack-shit of what was happening, and going by how the volume starts right in the middle of an encounter it’s even more jarring. The volume came out over a year ago in JP. And then it barely breaks 200 pages with a totally messed up pacing. The first half of the volume feels like it should have been part of volume 13 and the second half feels like aimless unorganized filler without any particular purpose other than filling pages. Together with the slow translation it feels like too little too late. It also doesn’t help that the quality of the translation is very bad. What is wrong with J-Novel club lately where the editors are so incapable? Who let things like “Are you a Sever stan?” slide in a fantasy novel? The whole translation reads like a terminally online teenager translated it and the editor didn’t do more than run a quick typo correction over it. It’s such a shame to see yet another favorite of mine go down the drain just because of the translation getting bad. 5/10
Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 21 - The antagonist had a good way to deal with power creep but returned in te end to just the usual level vs. level brawl. Could have been clever but I guess you can’t have everything. The end was a stretch though and I think I’m going back to Otherworld Hero next just to cleanse my palate of those “too good to hurt even the villains” characters (at least that gave me the idea for the next Midweek Discussion, so huzzah!). Anyway, it’s as entertaining as usual, but I’d like to see some “back to the roots” of the more comfy adventuring in the next volumes. - 7/10.
In retrospect, yeah true. When I was reading it weekly it didn’t feel that bad.
Maybe I should try the second volume via the pre-pubs. they hint at a reverse-isekai at the end of the volume, so I’m at least partially interested and I have that j-Novel.club subscription that goes mostly unused. But whenever I tried one of the pre-pubs I wasn’t a fan of the rough draft style and missing formatting.