Tag Archives: Light Novels

Reading Log: March 2019

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The third times the charm or something like that! We’re now into April and I’m still sat here writing this log, so things are going well. As always the rules I set for myself can be found here. Now let’s see how I’ve done this month.

Manga:

    • Mushishi volumes 7-10
    • We Never Learn volume 2 – review
    • Record of Grancrest War volume 2 – review
    • Lofty Flower, Fall for Me!! volume 5 – 6
    • Black Torch volume 3
    • Demon Slayer volume 5
    • After Hours volumes 1-3
    • Love in Focus volume 1 – review
    • Anonymous Noise volume 13
    • Haikyu!! volume 31
    • To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts volume 7
    • The Ancient Magus’ Bride volume 10
    • Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction volume 4
    • Voice of a Distant Star
    • Flying Witch volume 5
    • A Very Fairy Apartment volume 1
    • The Magic in This Other World is Too Far Behind volume 1
    • Bloom Into You volume 3
    • Silver Spoon 7
    • Bungo Stray Dogs volume 10
    • So I’m a Spider, So What? volume 5
    • That Time I got Reincarnated into a Slime volume 5 – 6
    • How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom volume 1
    • Tomo-chan is a Girl volume 3
    • Spirit Chronicles volume 1
    • Hiro Mashima’s Playground

Light Novels:

  • The Devil is a Part Timer! volume 9
  • Death Note Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases – article
  • 5 Centimeters Per Second – One More Side – review
  • Seirei Gensouki Spirit Chronicles volume 4
  • Cooking with Wild Game volume 2
  • Outbreak Company volume 8
  • Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Sword Oratoria volume 8
  • Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? volume 13 – article
  • I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse volume 13
  • Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks volume 2

So this month I’ve read 33 volumes of manga and 10 light novels. Down a bit in terms of manga from Feb, but I did have my birthday this month so I’m still reading a lot more manga than I usually would. Anyways here’s what’s in the pile of shame:

Re:Zero volume 7 (currently reading)
Durarara!! volume 12
Tokyo Ghoul:re volume 7
The Devil is a Part-Timer! volume 10
Vampire Knight: Fleeting Dreams
Re:Zero EX volume 1
Log Horizon volume 3
Strike the Blood volume 3
Re:Zero volume 8
Log Horizon volume 4
Re:Zero EX volume 2
Strike the Blood volume 4
The Devil is a Part Timer! volume 11

The pile has been slightly rearranged due to new purchases and wanting to break it up to prevent me reading the same series in a row. Tokyo Ghoul is the only manga in the pile, the rest are light novels…

Infinite Dendrogram’s Ray Starling is a Hero Among Heroes

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For the people who are know me it will come as no surprise that I’m writing a piece on a VRMMO light novel. A fan of the fantasy genre and the Isekai and VRMMO stories that fill it (especially here in the west), I spend a lot of time reading stories about heroes and other worlds.

One of the series I’m fond of is Infinite Dendrogram, a light novel series being published in English by J-Novel Club. They’ve just started releasing the 9th volume (the latest in Japan) and the opening battle got me thinking about how great main character Ray Starling is.

If you’ve not read the series before then I highly encourage you to and you can find out more at J-Novel Club’s page here. I’m not reviewing the series so I don’t really want to stray from the meat of the article by getting into what the story is about right now.

Now over the course of nine books we’ve seen Ray tackle a number of awful and testing situations. He’s defeated powerful bosses and brought down plots to do harm to the kingdom he belongs to, but he’s never felt like a true hero in the way he does in this volume. Always the main character but never quite breaking out of that mould, I’ve been fond of Ray but now he’s won my respect. As an orphanage is about to be burnt to the ground, by an enemy who I won’t name, Ray bursts onto the scene dressed like a demon but with a heroic shine in his eyes. When they say looks can be deceiving they certainly had Ray in mind, that’s for sure…

The thing is, generally speaking characters do good things because they’re in the right place at the right time. Either that or they’re just OP enough where there is no real risk to their lives and thus are always willing to take up a challenge. In Ray’s case none of these are true – well, except that his life isn’t really at risk because Infinite Dendrogram is not a death game. Anyway, Ray races onto the scene with no real guarantee that he’ll make it through the fight alive. If he dies he’ll be given a death penalty and unable to log back in for a set amount of time, at which point there is no one to save the orphans. Knowing this he runs into danger to put everything on the line to accomplish his goal. It’s life or death but Ray will do his best and put up a fantastic fight for his beliefs. This all comes with a heroic speech about how standing still is the worst thing you can do, naturally.

Honestly reading this back makes Ray sound kind of insufferable, but he’s actually not. In fact I’d go so far as to say he’s one of the protagonists I like best in this particular genre and certainly from among the books J-Novel Club publish from it. He’s down to earth and modest while also being a little dense. Honestly author Sakon Kaido has done a great job crafting him into a really likeable hero, someone who isn’t OP or too unrealistic. Credit is also due to translator Andrew Hodgson, who does a great job at giving Ray a distinct and fitting ‘voice’. That goes double for this volume, which is shaping up to be one of the best yet.

In a genre filled to the brim with unlikable and or likeable but cookie-cutter protagonist, it’s just nice to have someone a bit different. Ray certainly shares similar traits to these other protagonists, but he’s also better than them. A hero to send shivers down your spine and truly make you believe in the concept. I never thought that I’d be this excited about a volume of Infinite Dendrogram, but there is something special about the way its written and how things are progressing. I’m not sure Ray is going to be overcome all the tests ahead of him, and frankly the series isn’t shy about meddling with some dark concepts so it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s made to suffer – but that’s again. A true hero will raise again and so Ray will too.

Ultimately I just wanted to gush about how much I’m enjoying this book already, but I’ve never really talked about Infinite Dendrogram before either, so this seemed like a good opportunity, I really hope that the forthcoming anime adaption of Infinite Dendrogram does the series justice so you can all join in with my love for it!

Reading Log: February 2019

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It’s time for the second instalment of my reading log! I’ve managed to commit myself for more than a month, so things are looking good. The rules I laid out for myself in the first month can be found here. With that said, let’s found out how I’ve done this month!

Manga:

  • Dreamin’ Sun volume 8
  • Behind the Scenes volumes 4-5
  • Cells at Work volume 1-4
  • Heaven’s Design Team volumes 1-2
  • Tokyo Ghoul:re volume 4-6
  • Kino’s Journey: The Beautiful World volume 1 – review
  • Anonymous Noise volume 12
  • Tokyo Tarareba Girls volume 4-5
  • I Want to Eat Your Pancreas volumes 1-2 – review
  • Record of Grancrest War volume 1 – review
  • Fire Punch volumes 1-2
  • I’m standing on a Million Lives volumes 1-4
  • Infinite Dendrogram volume 1
  • Lofty Flower, Fall for me!! volume 4
  • That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime volumes 2-4
  • Land of the Lustrous volume 1
  • Mushishi volumes 1-6
  • Animeta! volume 1
  • Shortcake cake volume 3
  • Ao Haru Ride volume 3
  • Fullmetal Alchemist Fullmetal Edition volume 4
  • My Solo Exchange Diary volume 2

Light Novels:

  • Welcome to Japan, Ms Elf volume 1
  • Kokoro Connect volume 4
  • Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight volume 3
  • I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level volume 3
  • Re:Zero volume 6
  • In Another World with My Smartphone volume 13 (no I don’t know how I’ve survived 13 volumes either…)
  • Koimonogatari – review
  • Woof Woof Story: I Told You To Turn Me into a Pampered Pooch, Not Fenrir volume 1 – review

This month my reading has grown for manga, with having read 41 volumes compared to 24 last month. With less J-Novel Club titles rolling over, my count for light novels has fallen with only 8 read this month compared to 19 last month. At this point I’ve gotten through the backlog of manga I was given for Christmas with only light novels left, but I did buy the Kodansha humble bundle which gave me a lot of books to read! My birthday is also coming up next week so my to-read pile will probably ballon…

Currently reading: The Devil is a Part Timer! volume 9 (LN)

In the pile of shame (all light novels atm):

Death Note: Another Note
The Devil is a Part-Timer! volume 10
Re:Zero volumes 7-8
Re:Zero EX volumes 1-2
Vampire Knight: Fleeting Dreams

Sword Art Online: Progressive Volume 1 – Light Novel Review

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It’s not hard to stumble across Sword Art Online when talking about recent anime hits. Based on a series of successful light novels, the anime told the story of thousands of people trapped within a video game. What the anime didn’t do however is tell this tale from the first floor of Aincrad up, although the original light novels didn’t either so it can hardly be faulted. That said, one of the more interesting aspects of Sword Art Online has always been the world of Aincrad and thus the Progressive series of novels are here to answer a lot of our questions and tell a brand new tale.

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Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Volume 1 – Light Novel Review

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Is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon, volume 1

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? is an interestingly named light novel that Yen Press have just started releasing under their Yen ON imprint. It would be fair to say that going into the series I really wasn’t expecting a great deal, more than anything I wanted to give the series a chance before the anime is aired later this year. However what I found from reading the novel left me pleasantly surprised and now somehow I’m eagerly awaiting more of this story.

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Yen Press to publish Log Horizon, The Devil Is A Part-Timer, and No Game, No Life light novels

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yenpress

One of our favourite manga and light novel publishers, Yen Press, has today announced that they will be publishing the original light novels for Log Horizon, The Devil Is a Part-Timer and No Game, No Life in 2015.

All three series have become big names in and outside of Japan. All have received anime adaptations with Log Horizon being given a second season in October.

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