Peddler in Another World: I Can Go Back to My World Whenever I Want! Volume 4

Peddler in Another World (Light Novel) #4

by Hiiro Shimotsuki, Takashi Iwasaki (Illustrator), Bérénice Vourdon (Translator)

After a successful trip to Mazela where his products quickly became the talk of the town, Shiro returns to Ninoritch with the intention of slipping back into his usual routine at the store. Cue his two younger sisters turning up on his doorstep to throw his life into disarray by announcing they plan to stay at his house for a while. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t take the twins long to find the portal to another world in the closet. Keen on exploring, they set out into the forest on the other side with Shiro, who tags along to make sure his fearless sisters don’t meet an untimely demise. All’s fine and well—until one of the girls finds a mysterious giant egg and insists on taking it with her. Just what kind of egg is it? And how will the siblings deal with whatever hatches out of it? More to the point, will Shiro be able to cope with his two high school-aged sisters running around and causing mayhem in his adopted second home?

Genres: Light Novel, Fantasy

281 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 7, 2023

Reviews

[Yev · Rating 2 out of 5]

With this volume I've now gone past what's been shown in the manga and it's only a third of the way through what's been released of the light novel in English. There still isn't any sort of overarching story or goal even really, and I don't expect there to be. There being a plot could even be for the worse.

In comparison to the manga, I don't believe there's any real advantage to reading the light novel aside from there's more of it sooner because it's the source material. This doesn't seem to be an exception to my belief that light novels are raw material for an adaptation to improve upon. That's not always true, but most of the time it seems to be for me. However, that also means that reading the light novel first can obviate reading the manga, since it may not be worth the time, money, or effort to go through something that's not particularly worthwhile. This has happened for me with anime adaptations of manga quite a few times.

The differences in pacing between stories really can be astounding. There are those that are extremely dense with exposition and so much is happening so quickly. Then there are those that are primarily dialogue, or even internal monologue that go nowhere for a very long while. Some chronicle extraordinary events and momentous moments in a few other pages. Others simply introduce a few new characters. Volume 4 is similar to Vol 2 that in way, only there's several new characters introduced and integrated into the stuff. The sisters seem inspired by Bakemonogatari and are fine. The other ones are really testing my tolerance for how silly they are.

The only business this time is the sisters' new shop which is focused on clothes and cosmetics. I wonder if it's going to alternate between business and adding new characters. I'd prefer it not to take an entire volume to add a few characters by basically doing quests to get them to join. That's a common videogame trope, but I don't appreciate it here.

Unfortunately, the problems I have with this series only become worse with each volume. The author does a lot worse when he's trying to do typical fantasy stuff. It only takes a couple hours to read through a volume since it's so relatively short with so much dialogue and white space, but even so, it still adds up. If the next volume isn't much better, then I'll be dropping the series.

[Pieter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The volume has me a bit split. The story is much like previous volumes: light hearted with entertaining characters focussing more on talking than fighting in a fairly typical fantasy world. This time the MC enters the new world with his twin sisters, find an odd egg laying next to the forest path and with it trouble follows. The biggest issue is those twin sisters though, they are depicted as brats most of the time. I think the author wants to depict it as harmless teasing, but that is not how it comes across to me. To me it comes across as bullying, nagging and at times really weird behaviour giving the circumstances. The worse offences are at the start of the book, but it made me almost drop the series. Still, in the end an entertaining straight forward light novel story of a style and type I do like to read on ocassion.

[Sammie · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this volume, the author took a step back from peddling and focused on the introduction of a few new and sort-of-new characters. We learn a lot more about Shiro's sisters after they regularly start visiting the other world with their brother. We meet entirely new races, one of which becomes an adorable addition to their family. There's more action and conflict in this volume with their additions, with war right on the horizon for them.

The author has really improved his writing style with this volume. The conflict here was also the most exciting so far and humorously and cleverly enough still paved the way for Shiro's peddling to expand for future volumes. It was very nicely done and makes me look forward to what comes next.

[angelbratv · Rating 5 out of 5]

good book

good book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . thank you for this good book

[Mary Lawrencee · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

[Stacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gets better after awhile.

I like this series. It's a nice, easy escape read. All the others of this series have been enjoyable. I had a problem with this one, though, because of the twin sisters. They were so annoying at the beginning that I kept stopping reading because I would become so frustrated with those two. I almost decided to stop reading and give up on the series, but I pushed through it. The sisters became less annoying and the story progressed better the further along in the book.