light novel

By the Grace of the Gods, Vol. 1 – Book Review

September 5, 2022 by hpholo Leave a Comment

Sometimes you find a book that, against all odds, ends up being a surprise favorite. For me, By the Grace of the Gods, Volume 1 by Roy is one of those books.

The novel starts out as a standard isekai/reborn-in-another-world story, with the main character dying and appearing before the gods of a fantasy world, who determine where he’ll be placed in his afterlife. The thing that sets this character, Ryoma, apart from others, is that when he learns he’s died, he’s pretty chill about it. His response is essentially, “Welp, I’m a 40-year-old Japanese salaryman and even younger coworkers have died from the stress of our job, so honestly I’m just glad I made it this long.”

To which the gods say, “OMG That’s sad. We’re going to give you a good life.”

Ryoma is thus reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy who lives out in the woods away from all human contact and just spends his time chilling and researching slime monsters. When he finally does encounter people – by accident – they’re good people, and they take him to the city, where he finds that, by the standards of this world, his slime research is actually pretty revolutionary, such that he’s able to use it to save the city from a pandemic!

The storytelling is very relaxed; even the climax where he saves the city is hilariously chill. There’s no anime-style action here. Ryoma literally realizes the presence of a potential disease by noticing that the disease resistance of his cleaning slimes has risen – a consequence of exposure and adaptation – and saves the city from that illness by using his slimes to clean the public toilets where it’s thriving.

Yes, the whole climax of the book is “Main character cleans toilets.”

And yet, the utter chillness of his book is what makes it so appealing. This was my nighttime before-bed read, and the leisurely pace of the plot and charming positivity of the characters made it one of the most stress-relieving books I’ve ever read.

It’s also absolutely wholesome. General kindness of the entire cast aside, there’s not even a hint of a scantily clad character or sexy thought (in contrast to most other light novels), which makes it a safe recommendation for preteens and younger.

Finally, for those who enjoy LitRPG and stats, its stat system is simple and easy to keep up with, and Ryoma’s slime research is truly interesting to read about. (Different slimes serve different functions, and he uses them to interesting effect.)

All in all, By the Grace of the Gods, Volume 1 is a delightful surprise of a novel, and I recommend it highly to anyone looking for an easy, relaxing read.

Reborn as a Vending Machine, Now I Wander the Dungeon, Vol. 1 – Light Novel Review

May 9, 2021 by hpholo 1 Comment

We’ve established before that I’ll pick up books for the sheer WTFery of their titles alone.

That said, there was no way I was going to skip Hirukawa’s Reborn as a Vending Machine, Now I Wander the Dungeon, Volume 1 (illustrated by Ituwa Kato).

In Reborn as a Vending Machine, our nameless protagonist is a vending machine enthusiast (yes), who’s crushed to death when he tries to catch a falling vending machine (yes), and wakes up in a fantasy world with the brand new body of … a vending machine (but you guessed that already).

He can’t move on his own. He can only talk in canned vending machine phrases like “Insert coins” or “Get one free with a winner.” And though he can convert money into magical points to fuel himself, he’s in the middle of a forest and running out of power. Fortunately, along comes the adventurer Lammis. She’s a cute, sweet girl, and despite her size, her Blessing of Might allows her to pick him up like it’s nothing and take him to her home settlement – where she and her fellow villagers are fascinated by this new magical item.

And, well, being a vending machine enthusiast in a vending machine’s body, he decides to do the natural thing – and become the best darn vending machine he can possibly be.

I’ve had such hit and miss experiences with light novels that my only real hope for this book was “Please be readable, ” so it was a delight to discover that the novel was not only readable, but unexpectedly charming (and followed by Volumes 2 and 3).

I mean, you have to admit there’s something endearing and admirable about a character who wakes up as an inanimate object and goes “Welp, this is my life now. Might as well be good at it.” And as absurd as the setup is, in the context of its own world, it actually works quite well.

Like most isekai (“another world”) stories, this one features a character stat and magic system where characters can take special abilities (here called Blessings) and amass points to level up. This is how Boxxo, as he’s christened by Lammis and the others, gains his Force Field (ever useful when thieves and monsters try to break into him). He also uses his converted points not only to power himself, but to upgrade his vending machine body to become more durable, and to add new items for villagers to buy from him. He has access to any item he bought from a vending machine before he died, and they’re all novelties to the characters in this fantasy setting – not to mention useful. Soon he finds himself being taken on campaigns to feed adventuring parties in the field, being asked to provide unique items to help out in the settlement, and so on.

The story is a simple, almost slice-of-life one (the major problem at the climax is that Boxxo gets stolen and…well, he can’t move on his own) but Boxxo himself carries it with his upbeat characterization and resourcefulness. It’s fun to see how he solves problems by choosing what to offer his customers, and his past life as a vending machine enthusiast is evident in how he chooses the products. (Several sections go into minor detail about the manufacturers of certain products and why said products were designed the way they were.) The direr situations in which he finds himself also require him to think quickly, to determine how to best spend his limited magic points for defensive upgrades, often mid-danger.

The other characters are fun, too, but frankly they’re just anime archetypes, and in fact a lot of the episodic situations of the story follow similar familiar tropes. (There’s a bathhouse scene, naturally. And speaking of such content, some of the illustrations are pretty obviously aimed at readers who like boobs, but the novel itself never gets more scandalous than Boxxo being embarrassed about being in the presence of said boobs.)

All in all, for an isekai fan who’s looking for something light, fun, and just a little different, Reborn as a Vending Machine, Now I Wander the Dungeon, Volume 1 is worth a read. To my own surprise, I’ll be buying the next two volumes, because familiar as it may be, there’s something just that delightful about the story of little vending machine that could.

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Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Vol. 1 – Book Review

October 21, 2016 by hpholo Leave a Comment

After months of curiosity, I finally decided to dip my toe into the light novel waters with Fujino Omori’s Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Volume 1. In the end, it didn’t make a fan of me, but it still made for some fun before-sleep reading.
Much of my reaction was due to the quality of the writing (or perhaps the translation). It’s full of awkward exposition dumps, dialogue with minimal transitions, and even dialogue that consists solely of punctuation. It all gets the meaning across, so it’s not that it’s hard to understand, but the former English teacher in me wonders how an editor even let that slide into publication. Even the title is clunky, though I do admit it does a better job of drawing attention than any possible abbreviation could have.
Once you get used to its general clunkiness, tough, it’s a cute little read. In it, Bell Cranell is a new adventurer who, well, wants to pick up girls in a dungeon. In the meantime, he must also work to support himself and his patron goddess, Hestia. In the world of Orario, gods live among mortals, with a few mortal limitations, though they are able to grant boons to members of their Familia so these people can literally level up in various skills. (The world is not subtle with its RPG inspirations.)
Despite the epic potential of the setting, it’s not an epic story at all. Mostly it consists of Bell being awkward around girls and looking at jiggly boobs – but he’s far from am oogler or peeping tom, which is what keeps the story palatable. In fact, beneath all his awkwardness and hormones, Bell is quite likable – courageous, well-meaning, and not nearly as stupid as protagonists of these kinds of stories can be. And let’s face it, he’s only 14 years old; most 14-year-old boys are going to be at least marginally fascinated by boobs, and it was refreshing to read about one who’s at least subtle and shy about his love of the ladies. Given the nature of the series’ premise, we could have been stuck with someone much worse.
That doesn’t make it a feminist work by any means, though. xP Nearly all of the girls in the series are things for Bell to have crushes on, and all fill some anime girl stereotype – the distant, aloof tsundere; the cute moe girl; the girl who greets other girls by honking their boobs , etc. Sitting down to write this review, I literally can’t remember much more about each one than that, but Bell’s interactions with them are still endearingly sweet, and the way he uses his various crushes to motivate himself to level up and be a more capable person (as opposed to a chick magnet) is refreshing. Plus, the monster fights are fun.
It’s not a complicated read at all (I mean, it is a light novel), and I imagine the best audience for the book is young teen boys who like to imagine themselves in situations like Bell’s (so, not me). It did make me curious to try the anime, just for comparison – and because the story wants so hard to be an anime – but it didn’t leave me wanting more.