By Yu Okano and TAPIOCA. Released in Japan as “Tsuihō Kizoku wa Saikyō Skill “Seiō” de Henkyō kara Nariagaru: Haikyōsha ni Nintei Sareta Ore da kedo Cheat Skill de Mofumofu mo Seijo mo Nakama ni Shichaimashita” by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Alex Honton.

Ugh.

…fine, I guess I have to go into more detail. Last time I was unimpressed with the writing and hero but there were enough interesting ideas that I would read a second volume. It became rapidly apparent as I got about 30 pages into this new volume that this was a mistake, as the book writes out its most interesting character and replaces her with another, less interesting blonde who gets to be there in order to give our hero whatever he wants. I decided to drop the book, but flicked to the afterword out of curiosity. There I saw that this was the final volume, something I had not realized. This made me more reluctant to just drop it, since it was almost over anyway, so I soldiered on. This would prove to be my second mistake. Never let it be said I’m not a sucker.

We pick up where we left off, with Aht leaving Noah to go back to the Holy Church and convince them she killed him, then return a year later. In the meantime, he rescues a noblewoman from a group of bandits, and as as reward he and his familiars are taken to their city, which is much better than the one Noah came from. The implication is supposed to be that the noblewoman is into him, but this series has so little interest in romance it just reads as a convenient plot device. He then learns about this city, in great detail, and registers as an adventurer, meaning we get all the stuff with guild cards and stats. Again, in great detail. In the second half of the book, he rids an abandoned town of skeleton warriors, and finds out the skeleton warriors are a plot by an evil cult religion. Then… everything ends so fast you’d think this was a Weekly Shonen Jump action manga.

For the most part this was incredibly boring and irritating. Noah remains a monumentally dull hero, and his tendency to worldbuild in his narration is intensely aggravating. The kobolds, decently developed in the first book, get nothing to do here. The overall plot is wrapped up ludicrously quickly, and the author’s “I meant it to be like that” afterword reads incredibly false given they also say “but the webnovel is ongoing, go read that”. The revelation about Noah’s status of Holy King, and what it really means, is literally “I will now tell you all about this oops I’m dead”. There was one bit that was so bad I actually started to laugh, where Aht (this book’s closest thing to a heroine) arrives back at the church, and the religious leader asks what became of the army of paladins that attacked her, and she says that she killed all of them “as a fun diversion”. The fact that Aht is still pretty sociopathic but now has a new master is absolutely not examined at all, just like the rest of this failure of a series.

Ugh.

By Yu Okano and TAPIOCA. Released in Japan as “Tsuihō Kizoku wa Saikyō Skill “Seiō” de Henkyō kara Nariagaru: Haikyōsha ni Nintei Sareta Ore da kedo Cheat Skill de Mofumofu mo Seijo mo Nakama ni Shichaimashita” by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Alex Honton.

Every once in a while I dip my toe back into the giant pool that is “light novels that don’t really sound interesting to me”, just in case I end up passing on a real winner. Sometimes I find myself completely, 100% wrong and it’s garbage. But far more often, it’s just frustrating, as the writer clearly has some ideas that might be good, or at least lead to interesting character development, but either they or the editor and publisher can never let go of “this has to be the same as every other title just like it”. I simply do not get why all these fantasy books star the same guy. He looks the same, he acts the same, he’s a “nice guy”, etc. It’s not like there aren’t great examples of light novels that succeed with far more interesting protagonists. Look at Kazuma. Or Subaru. You don’t need to have everyone be Player One.

The very first words of the book are our main character’s name, Noah Oliphage. The next words are him being exiled, just as the title says. Sounds pretty villainess-ey, yes. Noah has been found to have the Root Skill “Holy King”, and the Church – and the supposed actual Holy King – are frowning heavily on this. Noah, not wanting the church to wipe out his family, accepts exile with only a minor fuss… but ends up in the middle of the Purgatory Forest, filled with dangerous monsters. Fortunately, Noah… does NOT have awesome sword skills or powerful magic. Not good. He can form contracts with those who want his protection and who he wants to protect, though, and does so, first with a small kitten monster (that it is hinted will grow tiger sized), and then a small group of kobolds. Unfortunately, the Church wants to make sure Noah is dead, so send their biggest zealot to find and kill him.

Again, every good idea here is undercut by the need to make this book like so many other books of its kind. I was intrigued by the idea of someone getting a skill that’s basically “Jesus” but the start of the book drowns us, as usual, in stats, stats, stats. Japanese RPGs have so much to answer for. Noah is about as interesting as a sheet of white paper – actually, grey paper. The most interesting character is Aht, the aforementioned zealot. There’s a fantastic scene where we see everything about her previous few years be overwritten just by SEEING Noah and knowing he really is the messiah – it’s actually understated too, which I appreciated – but an interesting discussion about how mind-controlled she is by Noah’s contract (and, for that matter, how mind controlled she was by the Church before this) gets quietly brushed aside by her with a “I promise you it’s OK”, and she leaves at the end of the book – I suspect Book 2 will feature a different woman in the lead, this feels like that kind of series.

I may look at the 2nd volume, to see if it does anything with the concepts it’s got at the back of everything. But man, this is frontloaded with “potato-kun” fantasy stuff. He may not be isekai’d, but he might as well be. Recommended if you enjoy religious conversion or cute dogs and cats fighting monsters.