Shinigami wo Tabeta Shoujo

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First things first, this is one of my favorite novels, and I've already read a lot of them, darker fantasy is definitely a theme worth to read, because of the more mature story-telling and well thought out realism.

"Shinigami wo Tabeta Shoujo" (The Girl Who Ate a Death God/Girl Who Ate Death) tells the story of a young, cheerful, but twisted girl seeking out revenge, one that clearly centers around a ruthless female lead. Little by little, as the journey progresses we come to know that Shera was only one more of those pitiful victims created by the corrupted parts of the war raging throughout the ... lands. In simple terms, a menace birthed out of man's own cruelty.

Tags: Dark, Fanaticism, Female Protagonist, Gluttony, Magic, Military, Politics, Protagonist Strong from the Start, Ruthless Female Lead, Strong Female Lead, War Records, Wars

Story: The main focus of the novel is the horrible elements around war, how people suffer through death, injury and starvation and the strife that comes after, as well as living on to the best of one's ability. It includes the nastiness of politics and how inept leadership becomes because of it, commanding thousands of people. As it goes on it does have many heroic moments and feats, but it also does well to include the other side. Well, what that means should be as clear as day, numerous tragic moments and much suffering especially near the end. Please understand when reading this, war is gruesome and bloody, but "Shinigami wo Tabeta Shoujo" portrays fascinating that the world is not just black and white, but comes in many shades of gray. One often finds oneself caught up in or entangled by a single question, who to sympathize with during the conflict?

The setting is rather modest, but by no means bad, you'll find yourself easily captivated. A kingdom under civil war, with a rebellion against a tyrannical government. There's even more to it, as not everything is as simple as it seems to be. The rebellion of the supposed to be good "Liberation Army" isn't as righteous as they make themselves out to be, warping information and committing acts of war crimes. The surrounding countries look at the inner dispute with greedy eyes and hands, waiting for their chance to rise.

Character: As I said before, our heroine is the byproduct of war. She, and her warped nature, came to existence because she was always starving and on the brink of being killed when her village was pillaged, what followed was pure hatred. That's why Shera joined the military for two simple reasons, consume tasty food and the lives of the rebels, which became her sole raison d'être.. literally endlessly hungering. Be that as it may, she eats with all her cheerfulness but her taste is directly affected with her emotions, to the point where it became symbolism - the food is a direct representation of the circumstances in which they were given.

Shera gets a lot of comrades fighting beside her, and makes many enemies. Some try to pull her to their political struggle, some wish for her to fall in combat, and yet others glorify the little girl as a living incarnation of death - worship that borders on fanatism. A death god, mowing down enemies left and right like the crops on a wheatfield. Still, Shera slightly opens up to her comrades-in-arms, whom become something along the lines of family for our beloved heroine. The character development is adequate and well thought out, you can't help but root for her, but read for yourself - the feelings are real!

Enjoyment: To cut a long story short, an absolute satisfying read from the beginning to the end, great fights and emotional roller coaster ride, magnificent story development and world building, including character progress, as well as their interactions with one another.

The novel is one of several works from the same author, named Nanasawa Matari. All of them share one universe, and they are very well-written. Give them a try!

I enjoyed this story, it is by far a lot closer to being a regular book, which means its written better than most light novels.

I didnt like that the main character didnt really seem to progress much during the story. She remained pretty much the exact same throughout and I think that is a big missed opportunity. The side characters do progress some.

You can track the affect the MC had on others in the story but the villains werent really fleshed out, well none of the characters were too much.

This mostly consists of running from basttle to battle with time skips, and there wasnt any ... tension since the book tells you how everything turns out like 2 chapters in.

Well, that was a disappointment. The concept isn’t bad. In fact, I’d say the concept is the best part of this novel. Unfortunately that means if you read the summary you’re already past the best part this novel has to offer.

The story takes place during a war. However, the story fails to provide the reader to cheer or even care about any of the sides. Beyond a very generic setting of “kingdom vs. rebels”, the reasons of the conflict isn’t given much thought. The sides lack characterization and in fact I frequently lost track of which character belongs to which side because of this. The ... action scenes are not engaging. Don't expect any grand strategies being employed. More importantly, they lack stakes. Why is that so? Because no matter what is the strength or numbers of the enemy, the protagonist eventually emerges victorious. Quite effortlessly even.

Yes, the protagonist, I’d say that is the main problem. She kind of… lacks character. She eats, she fights, she devours. The cycle repeats. There is zero character development of someone that has no real character in a first place, so that’s a bummer. In a way, she rarely even gets a prolonged screentime though, so no wonder. Most of side characters feel like they have more depth than Shera, the main character. The fun of reading about a psychopathic war criminal character protagonist is to observe their train of thoughts, but here the situation is closer to “no thoughts head empty”.

Finally, the “morale” of the story, a.k. the last chapter attempting to give the story any meaning. “War bad”, “both sides of war bad”, “history is bound to repeat”, “history I written by winners”… not really the most original conclusion of all time. Sure, those themes can be written in an interesting way, but here they are too straightforwardly and unsubtly mentioned it really feels like more of an afterthought than something that permeates the whole story.

Overall, just read Saga of Tanya the Evil instead.