I often read the last chapter (or the last couple pages) of the previous book to remember what happened and look up my notes here when I’m unsure whether I liked a series or not. Tbh, most of the series I read are just mixing together into an incoherent isekai blend in my mind.

Conceptionally I’m all for it. There are even series that have LN, Manga and Anime, so we could do a 3 medium thingy in theory. It’s just becoming a huge tie investment at that stage, so maybe keeping the scope small for the first time would be a good idea. Like looking at just a specific high-profile scene from anime, manga and LN.

“The Death of the Skeleton Swordsman: Dominating as a Cursed Saint” - Did I miss the first volume of this?

EXP Is Golden: Volume 1 - Great first volume. It’s at the core a kingdom-building and game character progression story. MC more or less stumbles into the role of the final boss but decides to embrace it completely. No altruistic saints cosplaying as “Evil™” is to be found here.

Babel, Vol. 2 - I really can’t follow MC here. She takes actions that are completely unfathomable. For example, trying to kill herself to win an argument. I wish I could make this up. It’s also made up of a lot of conflicts that could completely be averted if characters wouldn’t treat information as if it were a secret. A simple “Oh hey Mr. Employer, I’ve overheard two suspicious people in the courtyard and it seems they want to use some sort of item on you. They sounded as if they didn’t like you but they really were a fan of someone called “insert name here”. I don’t know more but I thought you might want to know…”. I wonder if this is its own thing or if this belongs to the “oblivious MC” trope. I mean looking at how stupidly oblivious MC is in general I feel it would fit at least. That all being said, there are some genuinely interesting concepts in this series. If those concepts were handled better (and MC were different) it could really be one of the stand-out titles—so much wasted potential.

Yeah, I thought that maybe there just weren’t any twists in the genres I read, but plot twists doesn’t seem to be something done in light novels.

Is this true for English?

Nah, that’s just what I’m going with. Sounds plausible enough, doesn’t it? ;)

As far as I remember collective nouns are based on an old book (15th or 16th century) and there are some funny ones in there. I’ll look it up and report later.

Edit: “The Book of Hawking, Hunting and Blasing of Arms” by Julia Berners published in England in 1486. It includes 165 collective nouns for groups of people and animals. I suppose the good gal was bored out of her mind and everyone just ran with it to humor her. And today we have have masterpieces like a “conspiracy of lemurs”, “tower of giraffes”, and “destruction of wild cats” (all real I swear).

NineSwords says so too.

I do not, but I agree. (That bit never gets old). They had such a great chemistry with Satou and I would have loved to see a. more of them and b. have them interact more with the other characters. But the door is open now for frequent visits.

(What would the correct world be for a group of gods/goddesses?)

Probably a “Morsel” of Goddesses. The term comes from the sound the group makes most prominently.

I believe you asked for fantasy with aliens, and that was the only one that came to mind. I agree that it’s not good. I have a bad conscience now that you had to read that because I wasn’t clearer. Sorry for the confusion.

So many new series this week.

Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden Volume 4 - Full adventuring novel without any TV production. While not bad per se, it’s just that I have a lot of adventuring novels and 0 tv production novels…

Lucia and the Loom: Weaving Her Way to Happiness Volume 2 - Good heartwarming volume like the last one. I’m starting to enjoy the spinoff more than the main series.