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The Dirty Way to Destroy the Goddess's Heroes #1

The Dirty Way to Destroy the Goddess's Heroes, Vol. 1 (light novel): Damn You, Heroes! Why Won't You Die?

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Fed up with cocky heroes always looking to save the day when all he wants is to find delicious treats for his cute daughter, the blue demon king of the underworld calls upon a young boy--Sotoyama Shinichi--for assistance. Once the two make a deal, the king resumes his visit to the human world until he realizes he may have chosen the wrong person for the job...

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 30, 2017

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Sakuma Sasaki

7 books13 followers

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5 stars
141 (43%)
4 stars
111 (34%)
3 stars
55 (16%)
2 stars
14 (4%)
1 star
3 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
Profile Image for Tarl.
Author 25 books81 followers
January 26, 2020
This book surprised me. It started out as your standard isekai novel, protagonist gets teleported to a world where he is to serve the demon king who is being constantly attacked by resurrecting heroes. As the authors states in his author statement at the back of the book: Think about those video games where you keep dying and keep coming back to keep harassing the antagonist. It's like that, only the demons aren't that bad of a people.

The protagonist is a hard one to relate to. He lacks a certain amount of empathy towards his fellow people, and because of that almost seems overtly cold at times. This can be humorous, like how he takes out the first hero team, but then gets into a darker place when it comes to the female hero that comes to stop him as he basically plays with her emotions and vulnerabilities. It felt like something you wouldn't see in the world's current cultural climate, which is why it caught me by surprise. It also made me not like the protagonist all that much and took away a lot of the relationship that had been slowly building as the novel went on.

And yet, there was something in that where there was a sort of possibility to something happening in the future, though I don't know why she would ever trust him again, or even why she trusts the protagonist at all. Sorry, being vague so as to not give too much away.
I will say there are some good karmic paybacks to the antagonists in this novel, probably some of the best ones I have ever read in a light novel. You get a real sense of joy when the antagonists finally fall, and you do get to sympathize with the side characters and their situations. If the protagonist was a bit more relatable then perhaps I would have given this novel five stars...

Overall the writing is handled fairly well, at no point did I ever get taken out of the story because of something being poorly written. I also actually laughed out loud a few times while reading this as some of the humour is spot on and I quite enjoyed. And the isekai cheat the protagonist uses to get more powerful? I actually was impressed by it. It was still work for him, despite being a cheat, and he did suffer to get more powerful. Sure, it didn't last too long, but inserting myself into his position I actually wondered if I could do it.

In the end, I rather enjoyed this book. It as a good story with some good characters and it made me laugh. The art was pretty good and the translator did a fantastic job bringing it over to English readers. All in all, I recommend this to anyone who wants a bit of an isekai read and wants to see someone thrust into a fairly unique role in such a story.
Profile Image for kurogane shiroikaze.
137 reviews18 followers
August 2, 2019
A surprisingly good subversion of the isekai genre, where our protagonist is summoned BY the Demon Lord to defeat the Heroes, instead of the other way around as usual. That said, the author balances the parodies of the tropes rather well with the serious execution of the main plot.

The thing that immediately stands out for me is the decisiveness and inventiveness of the protagonist Shinichi, who is quite genre-savvy and does not hesitate to pull out the stops in bringing down the "Heroes". This is counter-balanced with a pretty interesting moral compass that he has, resulting in him being a more likeable character than not.

While the first volume is quite decent enough, I do wonder how will the author expand on this gimmick in the future as this volume's conclusion kind of makes our hero supposingly triumphing over his major adversaries already. Let's just hope this series doesn't end up as a one-volume pony.
Profile Image for Hidekisohma.
436 reviews10 followers
September 9, 2023
This was a strange one. i picked it up randomly at a half price books without a bit of knowledge of its existence. but, it looked interesting so i figured, eh, what the hell.

So this story is about a teenager who gets isekaied, but this time it's actually by the demon king and not the heroes. he was summoned because the good guys have this ability to resurrect themselves when they die, so even though the demon king is super powerful, he can't make them stay dead. so he needs a summoned guy to help him think of a plan.

THIS is actually a pretty original idea. it's refreshing to see a fantasy world where death resurrection isn't seen as crazy talk or a necromantic boogey-man. it's like what? fireballs and dragon magic is fine, but bringing someone back from the dead is a no-go? seems a little arbitrary to me and you're just not a good enough author to balance that. This author at least gave it a shot. so you know what? points for originality.

The main character really ISN'T the strongest part of the story (shocker i know) i mean, he's acceptable don't get me wrong. he's not infuriatingly bland and gary stu like rein from Beast Tamer or an annoying idiot like Kazuma from Konosuba. He's kind of just.. a normal guy? i guess is what i'd say. the only thing somewhat unique about him is that he's not immediately trying to do good. which is nice.

The demon lord villainy sadly isnt' really VILLAINY. it's more like.. they just want to be left alone but the humans are being confrontational. so even when he's the villain he's kind of not.

The female characters are all right in this. very stock, nothing to write home about. small girl, busty irritable elf woman, and altruistic hero are the three in this one and......meh? they're fine.

Overall, i did enjoy the first volume for what it was and am curious enough to see where it's going. I have an idea, but who knows? i could be wrong. Not THRILLED with the story but it's different ENOUGH that i had a good time and nothing really pissed me off about the light novel. so that's a plus.

Total score 3.5 out of 5 rounded down to a 3.
265 reviews5 followers
February 12, 2020
A twisted hero.

This a common story for this genre but with a twist. The MC instead of being overpowered is evil as the Demon Lord, and maybe more. The characters are fun, well described and the dialogues are hilarious. The author manages to keep you reading delivering fun moments, one of my favorite lines from the book “Adorably calling upon her powers, she chanted, “Pain, pain, go away, come again another day! Pain Block!”
Profile Image for Kerrie W.
8 reviews
December 17, 2020
Wicked light novel

It’s satisfying to finally read a light novel from the “evil” point of view. This light novel is great at showing the unthoughtful and unaccepting side of the “good” point of view. Even if the “evil” side has to pull underhanded tactics to counter the “good” underhanded tactics.
2 reviews
August 3, 2024
I'm on 6th book. I would describe it as kinda overlord, but wholesome? :)
The story is interesting, characters are cool, sometimes it makes me laugh. The main character is not strong, but he has ingenious ideas how to deal with problems.

This series has erotic jokes, but never takes things too far to make it disgusting.
MC has some evil thoughts, but his actions are good/neutral in the end.
1 review
May 6, 2020
Really enjoyed reading thru the 1st three books so I can't wait for the 4th to get here. I'm loving all the characters introduced so far(Celes is definitely my fav).
The art in these books are drawn soooo well too! I highly recommend this series!
Thumbs up!
120 reviews
August 31, 2020
Ridiculous book, worth the read

The plot of the light novel is shallow but unique and the characters are presented in such a way that the story never gets boring or overly cliche. I highly recommend it if you're a fan of the isekai genre.
11 reviews
July 31, 2019
Everything great about the genre

You should know what you are buying a dash of kono suba and overlord light western authors are stuck and Japan keeps delivering.
10 reviews
August 9, 2020
Loved it

Love this book MC is awesome and . . . . . . . . . . (.)(.) . .
Profile Image for Raven Amos.
13 reviews5 followers
June 5, 2021
切入角度算是有新意,但是在劇情、場景與人物刻劃上面還是顯得青澀。比較有趣的大概是女僕對主角的吐湊。
Profile Image for Brad.
151 reviews2 followers
November 22, 2022
A different way of defeating heroes from someone elses point of view.
Profile Image for Jesus A..
40 reviews
March 19, 2025
The first volume I enjoyed so much. I was laughing, and then when I could, too, the good part I laughed even more.
Profile Image for Anthony Peters.
83 reviews2 followers
May 3, 2025
It is decent and a unique twist on the genre. A few parts were just a bit awkward, but that is most likely due to translation.
Profile Image for Pablo García.
856 reviews22 followers
July 16, 2022
This is a rather atypical isekai (teleported to another world) light novel series. The Blue Demon Lord, Ludabite Krolow Semah, in this story, traveled to this world Obum, because his daughter Rino, loved human food. It seems the food in the Demon World is not tasty. But the Demon Lord needed a way to get rid of the "Heroes" of this alternate reality world, Obum, so he first summoned a person from another world, that was so scared of the Black Demon Lord that he died from fright. Reincarnated by the Blue Demon Lord, then just sent back to his original world. In the Demon Lord's second try, he summoned to this other world, Sinichi Sotoyama. Sinichi is not very strong, does not know magic or possess special skills, so his out of the box thinking must be used to get rid of the pesky "Heroes".
Rino has pleaded with her Demon Lord Dad not to kill the local "Heroes". So getting rid of them is just a little bit harder. With Sinichi's out of the box thinking he might be able to succeed. By either scaring away the "Heroes" or by "cooking" tasty human food for Rino and the other Demons in the Demon Lord's retinue.
This is where Volume one of this new light novel series, first published in 2017 takes place. With over 200+ pages and 7 chapters, illustrations, blank pages, cover pages and information.
Profile Image for Alec Rebert.
236 reviews
November 29, 2020
3.7

I always seem to enjoy these isekai stories that are just fun to read and don't make me think too hard haha

3.7
Profile Image for Karsun B.
99 reviews1 follower
April 30, 2025
Definitely give this a read, it is a short series but pacing is just right and the characters are hilarious and loveable.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews

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