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Feb 17, 2024
For the sake of expressing the thoughts in my head, which are still warm, before they disappear, I will only write about the things that ruined this season for me, instead of giving a general review.
First of all, this show's first season is the most enjoyable for me. The reason why is very simple; it was still about a silly gamer who had to conquer different real life girls with his VN skills. However, the more you watch, the more it starts taking itself seriously, turning into this weird mix of a comedy-romance show and a mission to prevent the world from ending. Specifically, after
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S3 EP08/09, its as if the plot of the underworld is suddenly extremely important and pretty much fully takes most of the anime's attention, completely throwing away the simple plot that made it so entertaining. I am no storywriter, but if you wanted to incorporate such a lore-heavy ending into this kind of show, it's probably better to do so straight from the beginning, instead of giving very small mentions of it and then rushing it into the story at the end of the show. It felt as if the author unnecessarily expanded on that aspect of the show, because they needed to justify the "reason" for which Katsuragi has been conquering women all this time. But why? Nobody would have cared if they had a simplified explanation/conclusion to that so-needed "reason". It would have made the story more consistent and easy to digest, instead of putting all this random bullshit that made me realize I fully stopped caring about the show.
The second reason is because, being a fictional show as it may be, the personality of both Chihiro and Ayumi in the last episodes felt so stupidly unrealistic that it managed to go beyond fiction. "You rejected me in the face a couple days ago, made me cry after realizing I genuinely cared about you, but its fine because you need me for plot reasons, so I'll forgive you", is pretty much what Chihiro became. Then there is Ayumi, who had the last goddess inside of her. Katsuragi mispredicted which girl he needed to conquer, which meant he had to magically recover from the unstable condition that the relationship between Ayumi and him was in. How did he do that? Bro just spammed "I love you" until it seemed genuine and it worked. EVEN after Ayumi realized that Katsuragi was only doing it because of the goddess inside her, it still worked. If that isn't enough to prove how utterly inhumane the development of her character is, I don't know what else to tell you. There is no conceivable universe in which something like that will remotely convince the viewers into thinking "yeah, that seems fine to me".
(The next 2 paragraphs contain "what-if"s, so feel free to disagree in whether you think it's relevant for criticizing a show or not.)
And lastly, the biggest reason why it disappointed me so much: Imagine you are Katsuragi. You are forced into conquering random girls that you don't know, for the sake of your own neck. You use your (surprisingly effective) VN skills in the real world to conquer such girls, trying to be as efficient and successful as possible with each one, but at the end of the day, they fully forget about you, so you won't have to deal with the problem of many women loving you at the same time. Naturally, this is the rule that gets broken in S3, making some of your previous conquests suddenly remember you. But in the middle of all this chaos, trying to figure out how you're going to get those girls to fall for you again, saving the world and dealing with demons who can easily kill you, you find one girl who falls for you again, WITHOUT remembering who you are. Someone who develops real feelings of love towards you, who isn't possessed by any goddesses and doesn't really need any saving. What do you do? Well, she is irrelevant for the plot, so just throw her in the trash and keep going with the others.
Yes, I am talking about Chihiro.
This felt like the biggest wasted potential of the show for me. The irony of constantly conquering girls for the sake of "saving the world", yet finding one who you can genuinely have a relationship with, independent of plot reasons, was probably one of the bests choices of development the story had. Not only that, but almost every girl in this show had a personality trait which Katsuragi could "take advantage of", for the sake of the conquest. But in Chihiro's case, he had nothing. She was a completely unimpressive, average girl, who couldn't have impressed Katsuragi in any way, even if he didn't have to conquer her because of the loose soul. The fact that, for the first time, Katsuragi actually felt bad after rejecting her, a non-2D woman, was incredible character development to me, dumb as it may sound. It is precisely because she didn't stand out in any way, that she could have been the perfect candidate to take him out of his "I only like 2D women" mentality. A more story-fitting outcome, if you ask me. Unfortunately, what we got was a story development which focused more on the unnecessary underworld plot and less on Katsuragi himself as a character, which made him feel like a tool instead. Someone who is there for the sole purpose of conquering women and saving the world, rather than having his own personality.
Overall one of the worst progression decisions I've ever seen. I didn't watch the very last episode of this season, but even if it does manage to redeem itself somewhat, the damage is already done. It would, at best, only rank my score up by one point.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 4, 2024
This is the first light novel I ever read. The anime was quite underwhelming in many aspects, but it at least succeeded at being a marketing scheme for the light novel because of that. Not only does it give each character more deserved depth, but it also goes over lots of content that the anime shamelessly skipped. Most of it is minor stuff, but then some of it is whole ass characters, whole ass backstories or even relevant plot points. But anime comparison aside, what does the light novel do so well?
Story: 8/10
There are 2 different storylines that this novel follows, them being Ayanokouji's progress
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in the Advanced Nurturing Highschool and the meddling of outside influences in his school life, such as connections from his past. Separated at first, these two storylines intertwine with each other the more you read. Seeing Class D adapt to the special exams while specific students have their own fights with each other is really entertaining. Naturally, these in-fights focus mostly on Ayanokouji, but side characters get a good amount of dialogue. The fictional school that Syougo Kinugasa created has very well explained and detailed rules, which helps the reader have a very clear understanding of the school system, although the information is quite exaggerated in some special exams. Reading how students exploit the rules to win, organize their own matches in secret and interact with each other while hiding their true intentions from the public is very well written and thought out.
Something else it does well is its unpredictability. Yes, the main character is overpowered, but that is not the only playing factor in the universe. Not only that, but at the very beginning of both the LN and the anime we learn that he is holding back for an unknown reason. Although I will avoid mentioning this reason, it is a very significant condition* that completely changes how he plays around with his environment. The LN does occasionally give you hints as to what he is doing behind the scenes, but its never revealing enough to where you just know what is going to happen. Theorizing on what he is going to do before its explained is its own fun, though.
Unpredictability aside, this condition* is also the most entertaining story factor for me. Naturally, it is sometimes annoying seeing him hold back knowing what he is capable of, but I slowly grew past that annoyance and starting focusing more on "how much can he get done while keeping his abilities as hidden as possible from the others?". Once one gets on that mindset instead, the strategies that he comes up with, the interactions he makes, the traps he sets, his mindset, everything becomes more amusing.
One extra thing that I love about stories like these is the feeling of "something bigger going on in the background, that slowly incorporates itself into the main story". In this case it is Ayanokouji's past, or rather, some connections. After a certain point in the story, that hidden part starts playing a more significant role in his school life, which reminds the reader of the massive contrast between this school he is visiting and who he truly is. It is this occasional and growing mention of this hidden past that hypes the reader more and more to see it incorporated in the story. Truly one of the most interesting plot points.
However, whether one can truly enjoy the story depends heavily on the characters.
Characters: 9/10
At the beginning, I didn't really care much about other characters aside from Ayanokouji. But as one progresses through the story, the "big players" slowly get revealed. Ryuuen, Sakayanagi, Ichinose and some other spoiler characters, each represent different problems and philosophies that the author presents. He manages to connect these ideologies with the characters in a very natural way, although that applies mainly to the big players. The more background-y characters tend to have really simple personalities and goals, but this is done so the story can focus more on the big players, which are the highlight of the series as a whole. Despite having these ideologies attached to them, however, characters do grow and develop throughout the volumes. Some have a complete change of mindset, some fight their way through and remain the same. Even if one can't find a character that he/she relates with, it is constantly engaging seeing how these characters apply their methods and ideologies to their life situations in the school.
Normally I would have given the characters a 7.5/10, but it is solely Ayanokouji that increases this score by a whole point and a half.
His passive yet influential methods, his less passive and more direct methods, his twisted ideology of using everyone around him, the complexity of his thought process, the development of his feelings throughout the volumes... These factors are what pull the average anime viewer to learn more about him and his story, to see how he handles the upcoming situations. I find his most entertaining character trait to be his control of the surroundings. As mentioned before, the school he is attending has very detailed and strict rules. Not only that, but some characters around him have great observation skills, high intellect, are unpredictable and show tenacity to do anything to win. Their goals might change. Some know about Ayanokouji's abilities. Some aren't even students. But despite all of these complex probabilities being in play, he still manages to have this imperceptible, semi-absolute control of his surroundings. This is, of course, something incredibly difficult to calculate and achieve. Which is why every time you read a new volume you wonder; how will he play his cards this time? Will he be able to predict other peoples' moves? Who will he interact with?
Something else to be mentioned is that when he arrives at the school, his personality and feelings are essentially a "blank slate". The school and its students are the ones who slowly build his personality into a more human person, rather than the machine that his past has taught him to be. These changes inside him don't particularly influence his abilities nor methods, which I find to be preferable, since that side of him is my biggest attraction to the novel. But he still shows development. He still slightly changes the way he interacts with others. It is a significant enough change to make it feel like his character truly progresses by the end. One of the most complex and enjoyable main characters I've ever experienced.
Writing: 7/10
This being my first light novel, I don't have much other writing to compare it to. People tend to praise this novel's writing, but for me it was just alright. There are many points in the story where it felt like the author could have compressed the text a bit. That doesn't change the fact that he managed to convey each character's intentions and ideologies through words very well, though. Occasionally there are pretty funny and entertaining interactions that spice up the constant serious tone of some special exams, which helps the balance. There are some references to real-life experiments in some volumes, which I found pretty interesting. The pace feels quite slow during some exams, unfortunately. Aside from that I have little experience with rating writing.
Art: 8.5/10
There are a few cursed illustrations in this novel. Those are mostly present at the beginning volumes, where Tomose Shunsaku was still relatively new to drawing these characters. As the volumes progress, the illustrations grow in quality noticeably. The girls are drawn especially attractive to the eye. The art style of this novel is very appealing to me. However, it is worth mentioning that sometimes the illustrations feel out of place or generic. That only appeals to the black and white ones though; the coloured illustrations at the beginning of each volume are incredible. It does seem like the illustrator has an exponential increase in skill during the Year 2 volumes, which I am very much looking forward to.
Conclusion
This LN's highlight really is the characters. The LN itself is aware of it, which is why it usually spends less time explaining plot points and focuses more on interactions and in-fights. If one likes the characters, then reading this is hardly regrettable. Every other aspect I mentioned complements the characters well and helps implant their interesting ideologies in your head in a way that might make you reconsider your own. Seeing them compete with each other, establish partnerships, betray each other and - most of all - interact with Ayanokouji and his actions, is what motivated me the most to read 14 volumes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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