I don't normally have an issue with stories where the protagonist is highly overpowered, but this story tended to bore me. I couldn't make it through the first volume. Normally, if the story has an overpowered main character, it has to have something else to balance out the story such as a highly overpowered villain, an object that weakens the protagonist (like kryptonite for Superman), or the focus of the story should not be on the main character's strength, but on his and other characters' development.
I've read plenty of stories with OP main characters, but this is the first one I could not feel any connection with. The main character seemed to be void of emotional empathy and detached from all humanity. Perhaps this will be a major part of the plot development with him getting closer to others, but I just couldn't stand the way he treated the other characters and the manipulative way he behaved. He seemed less like a hero and more like a villain. I wouldn't even call him an anti-hero or a reluctant hero.
I would recommend reading Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, In Another World with My Smartphone, and That Time I God Reincarnated as a Slime. All three of these stories have OP main characters, but the other story elements make them a far superior read to this junk.
Alus (Al) is the number one in the military for powerful magic. Since he has more monster kills than anyone else, the military doesn't want to let him retire. A child protege, thrown on the front line, he basically knows only battle, training and the milatary. After 10 years the law says he can retire. However, the top brass are very reluctant to lose their most effective soldier. A compromise is reached where he will enroll at the magic Institute to continue his research, yet be on call for missions. As he is only 16, this sets up a situation where he gains social and emotional skills missing from his childhood military training. His attitudes and emotions change as he is pushed into dealing with other students. Especially a group of strong girls. I like the action, humor, stifled romance, and the "fish-out-of-water" circumstance he finds himself in. I look forward to the next book.
For starters, three things wrong with the author's mindset: 1) Describes all the women/girls in this Fantasy Light Novel series by the curves of their boobs (whether they are teachers, principal, or underage minors). 2) Has the absurd premise that the main character Alus, actually started his career as the "greatest magic-master" at age 6. Without any explanations, without any special genes, special abilities or skills given by the "Gods", without even "winning the lottery"... Can someone be the greatest at something without ever studying or training constantly to become and stay the best??? I do not think so. It's Fantasy fiction, but everything written has to be rational, logical and have common sense. While 6 years old everywhere tend to start school, this main character, Alus, was already enlisted and fighting a "magical war against the demons"... Does the author explain Mana/Aether/magical capacity or energy?? No. Does the author create a system of magic that has rules, spells, abilities and skills that have to be learned, the process, the constant practice to level-up?? No. 3) The main character, Alus, after becoming a 10 year veteran fighting and winning the war (with his enormous magical prowess and "bravery, insight, experience") retires and is put on the reserves to quell any emergencies that come up. Because Alus is already at the top, the author, sends him to the most basic "magic-academy"... What would be the point of the main character, Alus, that already knows how to do it all, to be a "regular student" at the magic academy?? This lacks both I.Q. (regular intelligence) and lacks emotional intelligence as well. At Colleges and Universities around the world, they have "Honoris Causa" diplomas and degrees for people that have surpassed what those educational institutions could teach... But the author seems to be unaware that superb students, veterans of the magic war, should not have to study anymore at the basic magic school. It's EITHER or it's OR but it can't be both. Either the main character is the "greatest MagicMaster", or he is a "regular and mediocre student at the magic-academy", he can't be both and be both a veteran and a student. To make things worse, the principal orders Alus, the main character, to start teaching some of the girls "magic". Like if Alus has the ability to teach, or it's something that anyone can do. One thing is to be able to do magic, another completely different is to be able to teach it to other people. Especially if those people are not gifted, not open to criticism, do not have open minds...to learn from a kid, that is their age, and already a Master at magic, but has never taught anything, nor had any subordinates ever... Where I'm going with this is that, this Light Novel series lacks substance, lacks purpose, lacks theme and lacks everything else. It does not have a map of this other world, does not have character summaries, with their abilities, skills, levels and descriptions. The author does not describe the characters well. The illustrator has a page where he lists the characters and their relationship to each other, but nothing about their magical abilities, levels or skills. I do not know why a Western Publisher edits/translates a Light Novel series like this one, it is so lacking of everything and everything that it does have, is just bad/wrong and sub-par. I do not recommend this Light novel series.
Not an isekai, for starters, seems to be this book's greatest strength. Unfortunately that is not much of a praise, because otherwise, this book tends to fall in a lot of the usual trappings that are associated with those works.
For starters, yes, this is yet another Overpowered Protagonist™ work where the titular character is sick and bored of his daily work as the World's Strongest and wants to retire from the army. Unfortunately a man of his rare talents does not easily slip away and he's instead assigned to study at a school for fledgling soldiers for a couple of years.
This is actually a pretty decent setup, however the execution is rather bland in the end. For starters, the MC, due to actually rather logical backstories, tends to be really boring and veers strongly to being a Gary Stu.
Further compounded by the cookie cutter heroines, who range from the headstrong to the gentle-and-sweet type and lastly, a cool type as well. Of course, there's no way you could have a Japanese fantasy light novel with so little heroines, so there's still a few others standing by in the wings, with pretty obvious hints.
The interaction between the characters are shallow, basically resulting in the feeling the author seems to be just following a basic template. Some characters also tend to suddenly go on a random tangential flashback to the past, or suddenly start to ruminate on in-universe logic, which makes the writing pretty hard to follow.
And speaking of the writing, while I am not 100% sure if this is due to the original work's structure or otherwise, the translation quality here doesn't flow very smoothly. It's actually rather janky overall and makes me feel like it's more of amateur's work more often than not. Some pretty jarring examples include repetition of words within the same line or paragraph and quite a few hanging sentences. While JNC generally has pretty good translation quality, Magicmaster doesn't really seem to live up to their regular standards. Perhaps a better editor might help.
Not much to say on this one other than that it was an average, predictable yet comfortable read. Nothing you haven't seen or read somewhere else. It's a combination of Irregular at Magic High School where the MC has a military background & stoic exterior, with The Magic in this World is Too Far Behind where the MC is OP yet keeps his magic skills/level a secret, and Sky Wizards Academy where the MC teaches a couple students to be stronger magicmasters. This series got a lot a flack on the J-Novel Club forums, but I didn't mind it. I'll continue reading it for now.
This fantasy Light Novel starts of ok, has many of the usual tropes and plot devices of its genre - but has some intriguing characters.
The first half of the book reads quite well and hints at a lot of promise, but the second half of the book really started to feel clunky and made a lot of use of the "By the way..." or "and another thing..." lazy exposition insertion by a narrator to fill in any holes or explain unlikely character behaviour or characteristics.
The book is ok, but ai probably won't be picking up any other volumes of this series.
The prologue was horrible, I almost put the book down and walked away a few times, but the writing of the actual story was fine. As for the story, while I could tell what the author was trying to do, he was really bad at it. Then all of a sudden at the end of the book he tries to fix it claiming Alus was always planning to train the two girls so that he wouldn't be needed. The ranking system also seems a little messed up to me. Finally, imo, the only redeemable character is the silver haired girl on the cover. Debating whether or not to continue the series.
Bit of an underwhelming book. The protagonist get's pushed around way too much for someone that's supposed to be the strongest. He has the right of it, but let's some person convince him he has to do something he doesn't have to do anyway. I was annoyed a lot by him being way to accepting of stuff around him; it did not fit his character's idea at all.
A well written lite novel, featuring a well overpowered protagonist with a lot of attitude. Actually it was fun to read, the characters have nice personalities, nothing new in this genre but quite good actually. Some scenes are quite fun, although the story rush in some places is well delivered with good descriptions.
I like Loki, but not so much the other characters as I found them more trope-based, even Alus... If I wanted to retire like this guy, I would not be as amiable as he is towards annoying people like Fia; Alice is barely passable due to intent and Loki due to as sense of a comradery.
I do plan to read the never volume in hoping for more plot, but we'll see.
It is a fairly standard concept, boy is very powerful and surrounded by beautiful women. But that being said I enjoyed this, to the point I stayed up a little late to read it. Have already preordered the next volume.
A little rough at the start and an incredible amount of detailed world building, throughout but overall a fun and enjoyable story, I can't wait for the second volume.