Ishura

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This is Game of Thrones as written by a hyperactive fourteen-year-old on crack cocaine. The cast grows to 50+ characters over the course of the first three volumes (despite several being killed off for good), and half of them are cunning politicians all backstabbing each other in more and more convoluted schemes while the other half consist of figures like "Alus the autistic three-armed wyvern gunslinger who fights dragons with his lightsaber" and other such over-the-top nonsense. Reading it requires a degree of patience and comprehension (being able to follow back-and-forth dialogue helps), and a certain taste for both the intrigue and the crazy action. ... Follow along, however, and it rewards you: each of the five light novel volumes so far has improved upon the last, and I'm greatly looking forward to the next.

"After the death of the Great Demon King, the world of Ishura faces lots of threats and separations between the races who were once united by the same emotion: fear. Furthermore, the Shura, great individuals capable of destroying countries by their own means, are inciting chaos everywhere they step. To unite the kingdoms once again and protect the powerless from such monsters, the kingdom of Aureatia proposes a deadly tournament where all the Shuras will fight each other until the new True Hero is born."

I don't usually write reviews, but the only one here doesn't make it justice. There're lots of criticisms you can have, ... but seriously, not understanding the dialogue? That's on you for not paying attention.

Anyways, without spoiling anything, it's important to understand what the first volume is about. The first half of the story is an introduction to the world, the context and the massive cast of characters (at least 15 I can think of rn). There's a political conflict involving 2 kingdoms after the death of the Great Demon King and they need to solve that before the promised tournament. So, the second half of the volume is the war.

If you like stories like those of Ryohgo Narita (Baccano, Durarara, Fate/strange Fake and more) you'll immediatly like the style used to follow all these characters. This cast includes lots of overpowered monsters like a swordsman who can cut through anything, a wyvern commanding a loyal flock, a skeleton who can break the sound barrier and more. Their powers are surprisingly well balanced and their fights are written with such levels off details that it makes you wonder how much money will the production of the anime need to faithfully adapt all these conflicts. Also, the author has no problem killing some of them so be careful with spoilers.

It is not an easy book to follow. The first chapters are a bit confusing since the author first throws you into this world without many info dumps. You gotta have patience and connect some dots to understand the character's relations and motivations. It took me like 2 weeks to get through the first half, but once the war starts it's a neverending compilation of incredible fights and well written conclusions to the characters who die. The slow pace at the start is a price worth paying for such a climax that leaves you satisfied with the conflicts and their resolutions.

Well, at least, that's what I can say about the first volume. Can't wait to start the second rn.

Listen, the story for this is fine enough. From the little I did I read I can admit, it was relatively interesting. However this book is written in such an annoying way it I feel genuine pain trying to understand the words. What is the problem you ask? The book does not EVER say who is saying what line at any point. Just straight up dialogue in quotations without a hint of who is actually speaking. Now I know you don’t need to say who is saying what for every single piece of dialogue when people are just going back and forth, but literally NONE ... of the dialogue ever says who is talking. So you have to just try and figure it out based on context to understand who is talking, quite the struggle when you barely know anything about the characters yet. It is incredibly frustrating not from a direct storytelling perspective, but instead from the writer clearly not knowing how to write. Please do not read this book, and if you for some reason feel like you need to, look up a sample of the first couple of pages so you can understand how painful this book is.