Sasaki to Pii-chan
Sasaki and Peeps

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A great isekai story, although it has some problems in the beginning. The first is that vol.1 is full of rather extreme situations, which does not help to relate to it. Second is the number of independent storylines. Two of them are almost completely parallel (isekai/Japan) and one about MC's neighbor rarely intersects with the Japan story. It is vexing to read and follow the relationships of two different sets of characters at the same time. Third, by the end of the 2nd volume we are introduced to at least 4 different magic system concepts, which is mind boggling.

First two volumes are not that good ... (I would say about a 7). From the very beginning, this isekai has the main focus on how to launder money from cross-world illegal trade. Unfortunately, the author did not do much research on money laundering or smuggling. He also has a rather poor representation of the government's secret agency. From the first encounter and the first mission, it is riddled with gross incompetence and inability to provide backup for agents. Later this is explained a bit (vol.4), but it does not help with the first bad impression.

Chapters of neighbor girl POV. You can see them as a super slow, semi-independent 3rd storyline, which intersects with the MC's Japan one and there are almost no named characters in her story plus it spans across all volumes. It is rather extreme on child neglect, not that it could not happen, but a mother who neglects her child like this is sure must be rare in our time, I hope. Not willing to feed your own kid and still have her to live with you, while actively making her life miserable, is bizarre af. And she has a father(and extended family) who also does not show up at all. Sad chapters, bread one especially. This story become with progress kinda weird, but ok.

I would also note two more things:
Immense amount of apologizing (It is kinda a japanese thing, I guess, but it feels rather boring to see the amount of it).
Story has some gore battle descriptions and some weird sexual innuendo stuff (Which is generally a good sign that the author is not afraid or constrained to write as he sees).

All in all, starting with vol.3, the author seems to level up his game and actually does some research on the topics he touches on. Reading all the books in one go is very enjoyable, but if you take a break for a month or more, I can see problems with picking up all the different ongoing plots in independent storylines. There is a lot going on compared to average isekai.

Comparing LN to anime. LN have better pacing. It feels to me that anime goes too fast, condense story too aggressively, and internal monologue is just poorly adapted. 1/1.5 volume in 1 season would be more adequate, than 2 in 1 as it is.

1-2 vol. - 7
3-7 vol. - 9

This will be a review of the first volume.
Unfortunately while this story has interesting elements and a refreshing perspective, it suffers from being overly dry and over reliant on an abundance of traits better realised in other series.
I don’t like to be overly critical unnecessarily so I’ll start with the character of Sasaki, who provides a unique perspective in that he isn’t entirely interesting. It’s not a negative in this case as I enjoyed for the most part his middle aged mindset and pragmatic approach to what was happening to him. He never gets too high or low and his desire for a ... comfortable and stress free life is quite relatable. It is however his interactions with others that drag this story down.
My first major criticism is about the developments in the normal world. I will not spoil it but at about the halfway point in the novel, things become more fantastical and feel out of left field. I’m sure it will get further development in later volumes but I don’t find myself very much interested and don’t think it fits into the story well. It isn’t so much the fantasy element in itself that bothered me but the way it is introduced and how it is not very well explained. If this ties into the magic of the other world then I’ll take back this criticism but for now I see no evidence that it wasn’t just some random plot development that didn’t do much for the character of Sasaki or the story.
The other part of this novel is the isekai part and even there it lacks in too many areas. The world building is bare bones and the characters so far don’t provide much in the way of character to keep me invested. Their interactions with Sasaki all follow a similar level of deference and it is largely devoid of any happenings that challenge Sasaki. It isn’t till the end where a possible thread of conflict is hinted at but even then it seems to resolve itself rather quickly.
One final point that I see brought up is that female characters are only represented in this story as underaged girls whose features or cuteness are their primary feature. None offer anything much to the first volume and I see their role following similar trajectories seen in other light novels.
I realise this is only the first novel and is probably structured to set the stage for events to come but in spite of the meaty size of this volume, its flavour is rather bland. The meatier parts that I enjoyed were surrounded by too much fat that I felt too hard to chew on. What had potential to serve Kobe beef instead served up chuck steak.