What have you been reading this week? - July 23, 2023

So for the past week (and be advised since sometimes I rant a little bit, I try not to spoil anything important just in case someone is looking into this as recommendations, there are short introductions of what each manga is in case you are interested):

I kind of tried reading but dropped a few chapters in; She Gets Girls Everyday. (it just wasnt my kind of yuri, nor particularly funny) and also The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You.

As for the completed series:

• Read Isekai Walking up to chapter 32. This is another story of someone being transported into another world but has a useless skill and gets kicked out of the Hero party but then it turns out the skill was really OP, here the skill being that he gains xp for every single step he takes. It was mid, there were some interesting ideas i did like, like the parallel thinking ability being used to sleep like a dolphin or ingredients like a butterfly that was actually a honey plant, but it felt generic and it didn't manage to shake out that feeling.

• Read Villager A Wants to Save the Villainess No Matter What!, read up to chapter 17. Its a villainess story where someone gets transported into another world, the twist here is that the protagonist is reincarnated as a commoner but he has to save the heroine else the political turmoil will end his and his mothers life. There were a few things to highlight, for example how much time the protagonist spends preparing before the events of the game he was transported into come. I also liked the surrounding cast, especially the adventurers that are all a likeable bunch. But this manga constantly made me irritated, it is a typical villainess story where the protagonist gets sent into a game where he needs to save the "villainess" so that the country doesnt enter a civil war, but here lies the whole problem I have with this series. The game it is supposedly based on is barely a game at all and would be incredibly shitty and boring if it existed, its supposed to be a romance but the main path gets innocent people killed for the whims of the protagonist, you get the villainess killed by "bandits" when she didnt really harass you and also she has 0 support by anyone before she dies, starts a civil war due to you as a commoner dating a prince, which gets another country to take advantage of that and invade... and that is supposed to be the desirable ending??? I like the villainess genre specifically because it is usually intelligent in its usage of tropes and a lot of the time manages to turn situations that seemed justified into seriously messed up just by shining a different perspective into the story, but that is not the case here since the story that is behind all this, im referring to the game of course, is bad for badness sake, just so that the protagonist can complain. Its like a cheap imitation of what makes villainess great since instead of taking actual common situations and flipping them here it just creates artificial obvious problems that a 4 year old could understand are wrong so that the protagonist can complain about them and be justified in attacking the princes later... Its a shame because I was hyped for this one.

Im currrently reading:

• My Isekai Life: I Gained a Second Character Class and Became the Strongest Sage in the World!, currently up to 19 of 59 current chapters. Its about this corporate drone who dies and gets transported to another world, he has the class of a tamer which is considered pretty useless but makes friend of some slimes and upon reaching a cabin in the woods encounters a lot of books that give him a lot of power, making him into a sage. He is unaware of how powerful he has become and the story kind of starts from then (this is like half of the first chapter) For now its another ultra OP isekai chapter, although his dispassionate attitude towards this new world has annoyed me a lot. But the Slime personality are cute and likeable and there are a lot of things going on in the background. Here and there it has showed a few interesting ideas so I will probably try to finish it by tomorrow.

• I’m Really Not the Devil’s Lackey, currently up to 41 of 93 released chapters. Its a misunderstandings based comedy where a guy makes a wish to a demon to own all the books in the world, he gets transported to another world with London-esque post industrial revolution aesthetics where there are mutants and some crazy magical entities. He is oblivious to all of this and sees the visitors as normal people, to whom he always tries to help by recommending books to them. The setting was incredible although the story itself has made me a bit disappointed in terms of the comedy aspect of it all, and I also feel it really doesn explain anything well about the world.