Hell Mode: Volume 7 - I find myself skipping entire pages whenever the book goes on and on about skill/summon composition of the cast. It has become feeling stale even though the story itself is progressing steadily. I also cannot really connect with any of the characters. In one of the last chapters, there is a side story from the POV of a side character and in those few pages, I already care more about that character than the 8 from the main cast. - 4/10

Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World: Volume 8 - There are portions of beautiful prose and great world-building whenever the author isn’t beating the TTRPG schtick to death. I hope the series will develop like Overlord where the gimmick gets used less and less as the story takes more center stage. Also Margit. Extra points for Margit. The two new party members could be annoying since they are trope-y but the book and MC acknowledge that they are literal walking tropes and that makes all the difference. - Great volume 8/10

Thanks. I have put Kunon the Sorcerer Can See and The Princess of Convenient Plot Devices on my plan to read list. I have skipped both since the official synopsis read too cliche.

Glad you enjoy the series, but this community is for Japanese Light Novels only. (the term “Light Novel” comes from the type of Japanese books and isn’t meant in the sense of “light reading”).

I have to look up my cliffs notes about Death’s Daughter I posted here (btw. posting here weekly what I’ve read is great when I have to remember what I thought about a series - I highly recommend doing this wink wink) but I think I remember that I felt that the main character was very flip-floppy with her personality. If the author wanted to push in a certain direction the MC was dumb like a piece of bread and the next moment she was super attentive. Very inconsistent. Apothecary Diaries is great though, so I recommend starting with that.

The Retired Demon of the Maxed-Out Village: Volume 2 - Managed to finish this volume. I liked the first one well enough but this time it was a drag to read through. The series seems to follow an approach where it revolves around the story of a different visitor to the village in each volume. The visitor in this volume didn’t do it for me at all. I really couldn’t care less about whether she lived or died and that made it so sluggish to read. The people I wanted to read about were just set dressing with very little screen time (word time? page time?). I’m not sure if I continue this series. - 3/10

Only Kuma Kuma Bear and Isekai Peddler for ongoing series but the RV, Exiled Noble and Merciless Maiden first volumes sound interesting enough to give them a try. My move is mostly done but I’m still not finished with Like a Dragon 8 and Persona3Reload is also on deck. Who knows when I find the time to give them a read.

The community mascot says “You’re welcome” ;)

First time in a while that I haven’t finished anything for a week. I started “The Retired Demon of the Maxed-Out Village: Volume 2” but it has been a drag and then I spent the entire weekend with Kiryu and Ichiban in Hawaii so I couldn’t finish it.

Min Maxing and Hell Mode for me. And maybe I pick up Fluffy Paradise. I find the anime airing this season (mildly) entertaining enough. And I wanted to give the first volume of Jam in the Woods a try as well.

A Late-Start Tamer’s Laid-Back Life: Volume 8 - This time with penguins. I still feel a bit fatigued from the last copy and paste 4 times arc, but it looks like it’s getting better. - 6/10

Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 5 Avatar of a Goddess Volume 8 - Each and every volume is better than the last. I gave that incredible P5V7 an 11/10 and in all fairness, this one has to get a 12/10 now. I’m ready for a 13/10 volume next. Btw. is anyone else hyped to see Lessy animated by Studio WIT?

edit : The Diary of a Middle-Aged Sage’s Carefree Life in Another World: Volume 1 - Found the worst LN I’ve ever started to read. I’m only 2 chapters in but I can already tell that this really has no redeeming qualities. I can’t imagine how a LN could even be any worse. Maybe if it bricked your tablet. Wow, this one is really terrible on so many levels that I can’t even begin to list all the faults in the first two chapters. And right after reading Bookworm P5V8. Talk about whiplash.

Thank you. There are no problems with the move itself since I hired a firm to do this for me. So I can look forward to the new place without the stress that usually comes with a move. It’s just that until my provider deems to grace me with a new fiber line at the new address I have to go without an internet connection which turns out to be more than just a bit inconvenient when everything is somewhere in the cloud.

I’m moving beginning tomorrow and will not have internet access until it’s been set up at my new place, so I post the thread early. Feel free to ignore it until Monday.

That sounds interesting, but this is a sub for Japanese light novels only.

Lemmy.ml rolled back a day so here’s the post again.

The Magician Who Rose From Failure: Volume 6 - The series has an interesting magic system which was always a standout, but in this volume, the author appears to have lost every creativity because it this volume is the most generic and trope-filled magic academy arc I’ve read in a long time. Complete with haughty-ringlets-student-council-noble-girl looking down on MC and forcing a duel with expulsion on the line. - 5/10

Tearmoon Empire: Volume 11 - I used to love this series. It was my second favorite LN only after Bookworm, but since the translator change it lost most of its charm and wit. And in this volume, it even uses anachronisms like “meme” in a fantasy setting. And not even in narration but in dialogue. I’ll give it two more volumes until Mia becomes Picklemia sticking out her gyatt for the Pepefrog. Another example would be “… Mia and her crew …”. Before it would have been something like “… Mia and her retinue …” or something more fitting to the setting. But now it’s “crew”. Another character said “nope”. There are a lot more examples. The entire prose changed into something you would rather expect in Twitter thread. It could have been one of the all-time greats but thanks to the translator change it became mid at best. It’s really so saddening to see something you love get turned into shit. - 5/10

I liked the depiction of the Elf-King. Seems to be a SoIaF type of villain that I love to hate.

What makes this especially bitter is that the previous translation was easily the best LN translation available. Usually a translation is something you don’t really think about when reading a book, but Tearmoon 1-9 had such a great translation that I was often thinking about how much wit and wordplay it had. I was comparing the prose to Prattchett when recommending the series to someone. The difference between the two is so extreme going from one of the best to one of the worst. I don’t know how all this internet slang made it past the editor.

The Magician Who Rose From Failure: Volume 6 - The series has an interesting magic system which was always a standout, but in this volume, the author appears to have lost every creativity because it this volume is the most generic and trope-filled magic academy arc I’ve read in a long time. Complete with haughty-ringlets-student-council-noble-girl looking down on MC and forcing a duel with expulsion on the line. And you can already bet that she’s now developing a fixation on MC - 5/10

Tearmoon Empire: Volume 11 - I used to love this series. It was my second favorite LN only after Bookworm, but since the translator switch it lost most of its charm and wit. And in this volume, it even uses anachronisms like “meme” in a fantasy setting. And not even in narration but in dialogue. I’ll give it two more volumes until Mia becomes Pickle-Mia sticking out her gyatt for the Pepefrog. Another example would be “… Mia and her crew …”. Before it would have been something like “… Mia and her retinue …” or something more fitting to the setting. But now it’s “crew”. Another character said “nope”. There are a lot more examples. The entire prose changed into something you would rather expect in reddit post than a fantasy novel. It could have been one of the all-time greats but thanks to the translator change it became mid at best. It’s really so saddening to see something you love get turned into shit. - 5/10

New Tearmoon for me.

The Deer King, Vol. 1: Survivors - Interesting world building and the prose reads more like a “regular” fantasy novel in the way it is written in a way that needs more attention to follow along than your typical LN. The pro of this is that it’s missing all the usual LN tropes. The series is divided by two separate protagonists and switching their POVs every chapter. And quite frankly, I was completely uninterested by one of the protagonists and towards the end I just started to only skim his chapters. So for me there was only part of the book worth reading and that part was even a lot smaller than the second POV. - 2/10.

Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools Volume 8 - What the series does really well in the latest few volumes (and Lucia) is telling a emotional story about side characters. Dahlia and Volf take a step back and become story vehicles for the people around them. In this volume it’s an elderly veteran captain of the Beast Hunter Order that gets a magical prosthetic made by Dahlia and how this changes his life. The author is very good at making one care for a side character in a short time. This veteran for example wasn’t introduced until this volume but by the end I felt tear up (in a good way) by his story. I like this step back from the main couple approach the series has shifted to. It will probably be a hard balancing act going forward to not forget to advance Dahlia’s relationship as well, but I’m happy with how it turned out so far. - 8/10