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Note: Dropped at the epilogue of Volume 1.

This series is the epitome of mediocre. The entire volume, pretty much nothing happens, and not the 'slice-of-life' type of nothing. The volume is full of lackluster plot threads that end unceremoniously, starts a bunch of others with boring premises which will presumably go on in later volumes, and the characters are all tired old tropes that hold tedious and repetitive conversations.

You would think that a series about 'overpowered magic' wielded by the protagonist would put more emphasis on developing its magic system. Instead, we get a vague description like "MC does magic and creates a magical item" ... and moves on. Which by the way, it appears MC is not so much overpowered as a completely unparalleled genius in their world. Indeed, she appears to have developed stuff like magic detectors that are everywhere in the cities, teleportation portals, dimensional inventories with databases (?), alarm systems, among many other things with little much effort than "doing magic" for a bit. Before the age of 13. And somehow she's a nobody.

As for the characters, we have the stupid and evil step-sister, the extremely handsome icy guy that falls in love at first sight with MC, the most competent supporters and allies, the ever-present background girls that give malicious stares whenever MC interacts with powerful handsome men (all of the guys MC interacts with), and the no-personality MC that is dense and nominally a genius, getting pushed around by other characters.

I can't help but take issue with isekais where the protagonist is reborn as a baby or small child and then immediately timeskips into adolescence. Growing into their world is an important aspect of isekai and glossing over it feels like the author just wanted to make it so the MC has ideas for inventions and an easy way to create a character that is 'not like the other girls', and you can't help but ask why bother making it isekai at all. Which by the way, the backstory of her character is equally stupid; as a small child, she has a 'magic discharge' of some sort (which is a common phenomenon) that is large enough to change her hair color. This makes her family think her a monster and send her away to the countryside for some inexplicable reason, perhaps to show you that the bad guys are also dumb and evil. And that's enough for backstory, straight to the academy arc.

Note: Dropped after ~4.1 volumes read

I really wanted to like this novel, and it honestly started great. The survival concept, wherein the protagonist has 'Minecraft'-style powers together with a subconscious keyboard-moveset is entertaining and felt original. The fact that the protagonist has sex regularly, even within the same day of meeting said person felt like a breath of fresh air from the thousands of isekai where it takes 15 volumes to hold hands, and unlike some other people think, is completely normal behaviour in the real world. The fact that the girl actually had real ulterior motives behind it even felt captivating. Everything after that ... really starts falling to pieces.

For starters, the 'mistress' premise from the title lasts about 1 chapter and has literally nothing else to do with the story. In fact, it doesn't even make sense in-world for the MC to become a slave; the premise is to protect him from the beastkin that would lynch humans on sight, ignoring the fact that a) The country they came from coexisted peacefully with humans beforehand, and b) Any humans on that side of the wasteland would likely belong to a country that also coexists with humans. But anyways, I guess the catchy title was worth the bad writing.

The MC becomes too OP too fast. There isn't really a sense of progression, in that he immediately becomes a walking calamity, and anything after that is basically superfluous. Since he immediately joins civilization and shortly after can create fortresses instantly, the 'survival' aspect of the story becomes pretty moot. He also isn't even involved in crafting the stuff. At some point, he can make workbenches and they work remotely, concurrently and automatically. His powers are so OP that he could literally complete every single objective the revolutionaries have single-handedly, but instead he is told to take it easy for reasons beyond comprehension, like preserving jobs for farmers (they were starving until recently) or blacksmiths (they had shit rusty weapons) in the middle of the war.

The worst aspect becomes his harem. Almost immediately, every woman he meets instantly falls in love with him. Which, fine, in-world there are barely no men among them, and he is obviously an extremely good provider, so it would make sense for women to flock to him. However, one has to really stop thinking to think that so many of those strong, powerful women would fall hopelessly in romantic love with him within days of meeting him. But anyways, while at first it felt resfreshing that MC actually has sex, it slowly becomes a curse. He has an extremely large harem, so he has sex daily with multiple women, and for some reason, the author feels compelled to mention it every single time. And you know what, maybe if he went into detail about it, one could appreciate that aspect. Instead, we get the literary equivalent of asking ChatGPT to write a story using a string of smirk-emojis as premise. And, it feels like ~10% of the written words in the book are of the form of '... And we went into bed and well, you know what happened' or girls fighting over whose turn it is.

In conclusion, a good premise, a misleading title, and a bad execution.

Note: Reviewed at 3 volumes read.

This is essentially some mediocre revenge porn, where the object of revenge isn't really very motivated, and the execution of the revenge is naively constructed. While I am usually pleased when the protagonist doesn't shy away from killing, especially in situations that call for it, most of the time it feels rather forced and overbearing. Similarly, the 'villains' also feel forced in how spiteful and evil they are.

We get a classic yet mediocre villainess start to the story, where out of nowhere, the prince and a few accomplices publicly call out the MC for bullying an upstart commoner girl they're ... in love with. The MC is of course the perfect princess and Mary Sue, so it is obviously false, while the prince is well-known to be supremely idiotic and easily manipulable, but everyone just goes with the flow. Regardless, his 'handlers' aka his dad and her dad were (and seemingly always are at opportune moments) busy in a different part of the world, so they can't stop him in time. Actually, his handlers know he's an idiot and she's carrying the country on her own in their stead, so they take the wise decision to treat her like shit.

All the bad guys are bumbling idiots, as well as being leaders of a self-destructing country full of bumbling idiots. So our perfect MC takes the opportunity to dip to the neighboring country, together with her retinue of extremely competent and loyal followers, and plans to exact her revenge on the ~6 named bumbling idiots by destroying their country, be there innocent civilian casualties or not. Of course, all her extremely competent and loyal followers (even those that remain in the country) agree with this.

The story then proceeds as follows. MC Mary Sue's her way into money, fame and power. As it turns out, she has a figurative control board with buttons such as 'construct a spy network in a foreign country' or 'destabilize country' or 'incite peasant rebellion' which she occasionally smashes (they are executed by her extremely competent and loyal followers out of sight) and everything just works because everyone that is not MC is a bumbling idiot. Her targets of revenge then basically eat shit. The end.

Note: Dropped after ~2.2 volumes.

The first arc of the story lasts 2 volumes, and it hinges on a misunderstanding. This already makes it pretty frustrating to read, but it is exarcebated by the fact that it is completely 'fabricated' and has to jump through hoops and loops to justify itself. In particular, both parties seemingly attempt to obfuscate and twist information in order to make it work, and worst of all, the resolution of the arc pretty much just the parties saying "oops, sorry". Imagine there's a group some distance away of 10 black guys and 1 white guy and you're told to point out ... the guy you're looking for, and you go "umm... it's the guy with brown eyes and dark hair". Then when they don't find the guy you're looking for, you're all like "well, there's nothing that could've been done, I don't think he wants people to know he's white". This is the level of storytelling you have to have in the back of your mind while you're reading it.

It is also quite frustrating how the main characters deal with the villains. They do particularly wicked things to the protagonists that more than justify an extreme hatred towards them, or at least some sort of revenge, but the most we get is an "oh boy, they're at it again, oh well". For instance, one such character stalks the 12-year old girl, then attempts to drug and kidnap her and put her in what essentially amounts to forced labor in his house, while at the same time trying to rob her and those around her of their livelihoods, to eliminate all venues of escape.... And everyone pretty much everyone just turns a blind eye or shakes their head, "those nobles~!" with barely any resentment.

Lastly, I feel like most characters are somewhat uncanny. People don't behave or talk in the way actual people do (or at least book-people). Kids talk like adults, adults talk like kids. People are apathetic one moment and compassionate the next. When something happens and there's a 'showdown', all side characters suddenly appear and say their lines as if it were normal, etc.

Note: Dropped after reading ~1.2 volumes.

In one word, this LN is exhasperating. The author is trying way too hard but without giving it any substance. The story tries to incorporate meta-elements, where for example, the characters discuss their possibilities as related to existing in-world Isekai LNs, without going anywhere with it. In fact, this gives more the impression that he doesn't dare move outside the box since every scenario that happens is in line with the Isekai LNs. And indeed, he almost immediately designates the stereotypical tropes to all characters, e.g. the dense hero/MC, bashful tsundere love interest, the hero's 'rivals' as personality trait, etc.

The ... format of the novel is something like:

> MC: *Does something completely unnecessary and knowingly over-the-top*
> Character A: "OMG how did you do that"
*2 pages of nonsense jargon narration 'wow I was simply using the basic Teichmüller-Mochizuki theory of Kabbalah spaces as discovered in the secret Sanskrit spheres of 14th century Indo-Europe' blah blah*
> Character B: "No... that's impossible"
*2 more pages of jargon interlaced with stories of his intergalactic Earth-Church battles*
> MC: "It is incredibly important to me (for some inexplicable reason) that no one learns about how OP I am, I will now wipe your memories"
*2 more pages of memory-wipe jargon and how it was impossible to not know he was being over the top*


Further, the MC does things that are inherently opposite to his intention, and also, jumps through hoops to explain his inexplicable actions. For instance, he doesn't want his Earth-friends nor the Isekai-people to learn that he can use magic. For some reason, however, it is beyond his grasp to pretend to learn together with them despite it being a completely normal possibility and instead his long-term plan seems to be to never show that he can use magic (???). The other 'normie' in the group already learned magic in a week so it doesn't make sense. Further, he doesn't want to stand out in the Isekai-world with his magic, so instead of just performing covert actions (which he is clearly capable of doing), he leads on and demonstrates his full powers whenever he can, then forms contracts or brainwashing to cover his tracks, only to then actually let people still know about it (???).

In short, this LN does nothing new, and reads like yet another chuunibyou fantasy.

Note: Dropped after ~1.7 volumes

This series is a mix of dumb-funny and extreme chuuni fantasy. At the same time, it's a bit hard to not feel exhasperated at the plot and writing, since it seems like everybody is just extremely dumb.

The absurdity of some scenes gives the series a relatively fresh type of humor. You need just read the circumstances of the MC's birth to get a feel for how a lot of the jokes go. It is completely stupid, but in such a deliberate and obscene way that you can't help but laugh out loud. The world absolutely doesn't take itself seriously and I'm ... all for it.

The main character is also refreshingly extremely arrogant, but I can't help but feel like at the same time, the author doesn't dare to go too far with him; he is also written to be entirely too nice, which doesn't fit his vibe, or purported vibe, at all.

The reason for my dropping is mostly that any and all his fights are just power-up after power-up, shouting out meaningless spells and words, different every time, like Arifureta on steroids. And we know MC is going to win every time, obviously, so fights just drag on for chapters and chapters with nothing to show for them.

Note: Dropped this after ~2.1 volumes read.

Don't be fooled by the book's title. Everything is perfectly understandable, both to the reader and the characters themselves. We all know what's going on, in fact, so much so that it's hard to understand where the title even derives from.

Viola, daughter of an earnest but down-on-their-luck Earl, recieves a betrothal proposal from the most important Duke of the kingdom. How is it possible? Viola can count on one hand the amount of noble events she has attended since her debut, is rather lacking in the beauty department, and her family is deep in debt. There is nothing desirable ... about her; what is going on??? Except that in the next scene, the Duke comes to her house and explains what's going on in clearly laid-out terms. He needs a noble show-wife so that he can stay with his lover of dubious pedigree, and he is willing to give her and her family an otherwise happy life.

And... that's it. Viola accepts the mutually beneficial contract, and the rest of the story revolves around the Duke falling in love with Viola in the most obvious and explicit way possible. For in fact, it turns out that Viola was actually a Mary Sue in disguise; an ugly duckling turned into a swan, a lady-of-the-house in perfect control of the largest manor in the kingdom, and with the capability to extract the best of her talented people. However, our dear protagonist, decides to interpret every explicit romantic move of his as an inexplicable action, and every compliment to be flattery, no matter who or how many say it.

The story goes nowhere. The only hinted-at end-game is that they eventually form a happy couple after volumes of misunderstandings and forced drama. The characters are flat, with barely any other personality other than lovey-dovey and extreme loyalty. The protagonist doesn't extend past 'homebody' and 'hates extravagance', and the love interest is essentially an extremely competent (work-only) manchild.

Something that threw me off quite a bit, which I can't explicitly confirm if it's a matter of translation, but I'd assume not given the frequency of the happenings, is the anachronism of the writing at times. We're supposedly in a medieval-like society, yet the narration keeps making modern references, such as 'helicopter parenting', 'war flashbacks', or 'man the battlestations'.

All things said, I'd say the first volume is readable, but the second does not inspire confidence that the story is going to improve by any measure, and the forced drama in its latter half (broken vase, cheating rumor) solidified my waning interest. I don't understand how this series has 9+ volumes.

Note: Dropped after ~1.7 novels read.

Consistency issues, forced drama and bad writing. It tries to be serious and deep without seriously developing the world or giving it any depth. It seems the author has an idea of how a certain character should be or how a certain scene should play out then writes the book around it. The worst part is that those elements are so overused and tropey that it makes one groan rather than appreciate the reference, especially when the book is purportedly trying to be serious.

The Duke's daughter is described to be the role model of a 'Perfect Queen'. That is, if ... a perfect queen is someone that is beautiful and kind, and nothing else. Purportedly she doesn't need to be cunning, smart or knowledgeable. Because the second she meets adversity, she inexplicably breaks down and becomes even more of a husk of a human. Her entire personality is sipping tea graciously.

Women in this world have the same 'fighting power' as men. In fact, the strongest fighter in the kingdom is a woman, the Queen. Despite this, its society operates as if women are to be protected anyway. I struggled to understand how the Queen (described as exhuding femininty and grace) proceeds to tell her daughter that fighting makes her a tomboy.

The whole kingdom goes on high-alert when a dragon pops out of nowhere. A beast no one has ever seen, let alone defeated, and said to be able to destroy a nation overnight. The prince (who is in house arrest and known for being an idiot) decides to redeem himself by going to slay it. He has no plan, no fighting prowess, no army. He just wants to kill it. When someone else inevitably kills the dragon, they're chastized for 'stealing' his kill... What?

I dropped the series when someone made it their life's work to overturn feudalism by 'destroying and rebuilding the kingdom' because 'some people are mean'. We're also meant to take it seriously.