Michael
This volume is basically filler, and it wasn't written that well. It exists just to setup the next volume.
- Surprise! The Church is actually corrupt, and the Head Paladin is an evil rapist. Said Paladin has a habit of going around seducing virgins, and apparently getting a few pregnant, but no one seems to notice or care.
- The drill instructor nun attaches herself to the MC for no discernible reason, other than her just wanting to be a teacher? And it has the makings of an awkwardly forced love triangle with Ari. She has no personality besides “jealous clingy teacher.” She just comes off as pushy and annoying, seemingly there to be a love conflict for no reason.
- The Demon King in disguise is just hanging around in a rural adventurer's guild for no reason. He said that his goal is to destroy the world, but he can't kill anyone himself, so he has to find someone to do it for him. So why go to bumfuck nowhere? He didn't know that Inori existed when he was summoned, so he apparently thought that this rural town was the perfect place to find the instrument of his revenge.
- Middle of the volume is filler that you can skip and not miss anything.
- Volume ends on a weak cliffhanger. Random Summoner chick wants revenge and to kill the church. Inori is going to use her to kill the church. Because... why? Why does Inori care about the church?
Volume 3 better knock it out of the park, or I'm dropping this. Which is a shame, because volume 1 was great.
I ended up dropping it a few chapters in. The constant POV switch between the real-world MC and Kuroi gave me tonal whiplash and made it hard to get into. This story would have been much better if it focused entirely on Kuroi, and instead just implied that she's being controlled by a higher power (even keeping it as a guy playing a videogame in another world). The potential for that would be greater I think, because the concept of a character becoming a devout Apostle while she's a character in a game would be really interesting. My eyes glazed over every time it swapped back to the MC explaining game mechanics and hamming it up for his livestream audience, because it would come right after Kuroi killed a bunch of monsters or whatever.
Finally, another factor that led to me dropping it is that the writer has a very slow release schedule. Volume 2 came out all the way back in 2020, and he has kids and it's not even clear if he's still writing at a regular pace. I'm not gonna wait years for another volume of a series I'm only vaguely interested in.
The art is top notch, though.
A dull volume, basically a filler episode. 80% of it is exposition explaining some background info on Leadale's game system and the mystery of how they ended up in a game world, but it's sort of whatever and kept intentionally vague. Probably because the author realized how ridiculous it sounded. One of those “the mystery doesn't need to be explained” situations.
Picture the most stereotypical ecchi harem story from an eroge/manga/anime you can think of. That's this story. It's exactly as you expect it. The jokes play out as you expect them. The archetypes play out as you expect them. “But of course they do, he's in an eroge game!” you say, but it's still garbage. Not worth reading at all. I must have been bored when I decided to read this.
A really funny read, but it depends on your tolerance for manzai comedy. The MC is borderline insane, makes for an entertaining read but it can be frustrating or annoying if you're not into that kind of thing. However, the first half of volume 1 is an absolute slog to get through because it's your typical isekai stat grinding crap. Once he finally reunites with his classmates, it picks up.
This is easily one of the worst things I have ever read, and I've read a lot of garbage. It's not even consistent as a power fantasy wank, because by the end of the volume he almost gets his ass kicked anyway despite him supposedly training for a billion years or whatever. An embarrassing effort by the author, who has no sense of scale when it comes to time (he should've trained for 500, maybe 1,000 years instead). Yen Press must have gotten this for dirt cheap, because otherwise they got ripped off.
This is a classic case of the premise and setting being much more interesting than the final product. These two books total about 1, 000 pages, and there is absolutely zero plot development until like the last couple hundred pages when the Big Bad is shoved into the story.
You know how in other standard fantasy settings, with the Adventurer's Guild, a Labyrinth, etc., there'll be a few chapters where the protagonist and his party go dungeon diving, kill some bad guys, be recognized as the cool upstart heroic figure, etc.? This series is nothing but that meandering for the first 700 pages. Some whatever bad guys get killed, yadda yadda. It feels like the author didn't have a clear direction of where he wanted to take the plot and just wrote whatever came to mind. There's potential here, but the writer didn't capitalize on it and instead just wastes your time up until about halfway through the second volume. On the plus side, you get to like the characters during those chapters. There are a few cool moments, which just makes it even more bitter as you realize what could have been. What place is there for a Hero after the Demon King has been defeated? Interesting themes like that are here but barely touched upon. Overall this is an amateur product that could've used some extensive reworkings.
If you're being charitable, you could call it a slow-burning slice of life of an amnesiac Hero who wanders into town, and hijinks ensue.
Fan translation (HoboTL) : A rough read. I don't think English is his native language, because he made a lot of weird grammar mistakes that no native speaker would make. Typos, incomplete sentences, awkward grammar, overall a rough read. Look for the SpicyEPUBs release if you want a more readable version of his release.
A fun read. Word of warning though, the first chapter is absolutely mediocre and is nothing but your standard “I killed X and got these skills” for an entire damn chapter. I recommend reading the beginning of the chapter right up until he kills the goblins and starts talking about his skills in autistic detail, and then skip straight to the end when he encounters the slave carriage. You will miss absolutely nothing by doing so and can get to the enjoyable parts.
