Mahou Sekai no Uketsukejou ni Naritai desu
The Sorcerer's Receptionist

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I can't really do this novel justice in my review. I simply do not have the organizational capacity or vocabulary to review why I love this series so much.

As a Fantasty Romance light novel, the potential audience for this work is massive. But the target audience is Josei, i.e. Adult Women. Typically, women do not enjoy the high action or ecchi harems that fantasy novels contain. But as the author targets josei, these two things are almost completely lacking. If you're looking for these, or if you're relatively young, I wouldn't recommend this novel for you.

Instead, this novel gives you a journey through the life ... of young gentry woman as she undergoes marvel after marvel in a fantastic world until she finally gets with The Guy.™ While a relatively standard from-rags-to-being-with-The-Guy™ story, the path it takes is fantastical, and the world the author builds is worth exploring.

The plot revolves around her going to a magical academy, where the author gives us a bunch of "a-ha!" moments for the reader to reflect on during the revelations of the last two books. A lot of "Oh, so that's why that happened." is given, which makes the book fun to read on a second read.

After the magical academy, she joins the titular and over-worked Sorcerer's Guild, where she is privy to international secrets on account of her strength and her job. You want a strong female protagonist? Nanalie is, without a doubt, a strong female protagonist. I'm not going to lie to you: The Main Character, Nanalie, is just a receptionist at an Adventurer's Guild with extra steps. Adventurer's Guilds don't exist in her world, but you can imagine it as the same.

As she does her job, she learns more and more things and has to deal with the government more and more, and thus deals with The Guy™ more and more. He takes up more and more of her thoughts even as she has to worry about her increasingly more important and serious job.

Even so, Nanalie practically denies giving any attention to The Guy™ all throughout the story. Yet, The Guy™ doesn't waver at all from this. This fact alone should be incredibly creepy, but The Guy™ isn't creepy enough to be creepy. Instead, he's just very annoying to Nanalie, nothing more.

Because she is strong, independent, and all those other feminist buzz-words that the West likes to throw around, The Guy™ isn't really an issue for her. Even if he was, Nanalie would have to be careful because The Guy™ is an important noble. Yet, the East still regards women as women, so the author lets her think through her issues in a womanly way. Notably for us men, small things interest her in ways that guys just aren't allowed to be interested in, and emotions can flow freely. Seeing a fantasy world from a female perspective is incredibly refreshing, and this novel is worth the read for that reason alone. [I'm not sure where to say this, but the author herself is a woman. It's not really relevant, but some readers may care, so there you go. Since I've diverting anyways, I also enjoy seeing the womanly thought process in regards to keeping up with her friends after high school and small things like her communicating with her mom about her father's growing pot belly. These small details add nothing to the plot, yet are just feminine and wonderful.]

There's not too much more to say about the plot without spoiling it. There is minor amounts of intrigue in the plot, including betrayal, primordial stories, the origins of magic, Nanalie's heritage, and so on, but a lot of the main focus of the world is taken a backseat to Nanalie's perspective. So while The Guy™ is out there fighting against the Big Bad Evil Guy,™ Nanalie is just chilling and doing her job. The victories that The Guy™ earns are more surprises to her that she muses over for a moment and then moves on with her life.

Again, this perspective of not being the main character for the major happenings in a fantasy world is refreshing. For this reason, the novel is also worth reading.

And so, what's the conclusion?
This series is worth reading for its:
- World-Building
- Nanalie and The Guy™'s character and budding relationship
- A female perspective on the world
- A backseat perspective on a "save the world" plot

This series is not worth reading for its:
- Action
- Ecchi


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Now that the main review is over, I just want to talk about the relationship between Nanalie and The Guy™, because I think it's really well done.

Basically, The Guy™ just annoys Nanalie, but she realizes that she has a special relationship with him and both she and him can act like themselves around each other, which isn't necessarily the case with anyone else.

But the constant teasing and annoyance really resonants with my heart in a way that few other relationships do, but I just lack the capabilities on explaining why. It's really such a shame.

If you like to read cute scenes from the perspective of a flustered girl though, you should also read this novel.

I won't lie, that's precisely why I've reread this novel 3 times since September of 2021.