The party have been split up in Parano, the other world, where dream monsters and mages run wild. Without their trusty comrades, they can only rely on themselves.
"But how far can I believe that 'I' am me?"
The goals are to find his comrades and to escape. The king holds the keys. Sharing their hearts and strength with Alice C and Io's party who also wandered into Parano, will Haruhiro and company be able to make it back to Grimgar?! This is the concluding chapter to the story of the other world colored by different illusions, Parano.
Then, the tale of adventure born from the ashes will reach a major turning point!
While the book felt like it dragged on a bit, it's still the harrowing survival-adventure story that Grimgar is famous for.
The book feels very different from previous volumes due to the dreamlike, mind-bends-reality nature of Parano. The narrative can be downright weird sometimes when a character is losing their mind in first-person. I preferred their earlier adventures due to the ... bizarre world that can be hard to comprehend.
The ending was a little disappointing due to the lack of definite clues as to the nature of the Grimgar universe. As always, Haruhiro and Co can't seem to catch a break.
Overall the pacing and handling of secondary characters could be better, but I still enjoyed it for the survival fantasy that it is.
This volume was really weird as was the last one. I think the reader was supposed to feel as sick and topsy-turvy as the characters, and have as much a desire to get out of Parano as they did. In fact, we spend about 1/3 of the plot watching random character backstories whom you have to piece together which character they belong to, so even the author didn't stay in Parano the whole time getting us out of there on occasion.
Haru is a bit more of a leader this volume. He was kind of sickening in the last volume and early in this one with how quickly he almost tried to give up (he needed an Alice to keep him alive).
Still dunno what they're doing with Merry. She's a different person, but is that just the effect of Parano? I know many hold out hope Merry will still be Merry later... But I'm still unsure. If Merry isn't Merry, can Haru still love the being that she is now? I have no clue what they're going to do with that.
Shihoru has the most development in the chapter, as we learn her innermost feelings and a bit of her backstory (which explains the whole "I'm fat" self-depricating issue that's been dating back to the beginning of the series).
There's a few new characters, and some of them live and some, well, don't journey to the end of this one with our heroes, whether leaving the party behind or dying. I'm really curious how the new cast will fit in if they do come back to Grimgar. Or if they get to go back to the Earth they came from.
The battle scenes are decent, but most of Parano is basically characters trying to come to terms with their surroundings or defending, not a lot of attacking. The creatures in Parano are weird, but not really that interesting.
The ending seems to hint at convenient amnesia, which is kind of annoying. If none of the characters from Parano make it to Grimgar, these two episodes will feel like a total waste. It seems like the abilities they learned in that world don't transfer over either, which could have been very cool (though broken). I hope they do something with this adventure later.
I liked some of the philosophy stuff, but again, lots of that was connected to backstories for characters that I wasn't totally sure whom the author intended them to be about. There was a backstory about a singer couple; I assume it's either Io and her partner, or Ahiru and his partner (bird caged girl). The backstory of the boy that decided that life was meaningless, that the greatest thing to fear was death, and crashed on a bus ride trip, well, that was probably
I hope we get back on track next volume with getting back to the Daybreakers or meeting back up with Ranta or Yume. The Daybreakers got name-dropped in this one, so I'm hopeful. Ranta's group and that whole thing was brought up briefly too.
This volume concludes the Parano arc and our gang gets out of Leslie camp with a surprise at the end.
We also see how Merry actually is, at least her inside self which she hides ever since her revival (this gets spoiled by the colour illustrations at the start of the book).
Overall a good volume, we spend more time exploring the background of every new character we meet in Parano including the Doll Master, Ahiru and the King. But how do I say, every arc in this series feel rushed to me and even this arc ended in just 2 volumes. I personally feel an arc should at least extend to 3 or 4 volumes followed by a filler volume that lets you bond better with the characters and their feelings. But I'm pretty sure that Grimgar won't be following that at all.
Edit: I'm still kind of disappointed with how they didn't give us a drawing of Io sama and her goonies.
And now that I started Vol 15, this whole Parano arc feels like a filler arc (kind of similar to Fullbringers arc from Bleach, I liked it but ultimately think it's useless)
Probably one of my least favorite volumes in the series only because this new Parano realm is crazy and dragged on for too long.
Alice seemed cool, would be neat if she became part of the gang.
Merry seems to be possessed by someone who is ancient; it seems whenever a situation becomes difficult, a personality that is well-equipped for the task takes over Merry? I do recall it being a “collective” of consciousnesses that transferred into the dead Merry, to resurrect her. So, it’s a mystery with her.
Basically, this whole volume was about the gang escaping the Parano realm that was being controlled by “The King” who was just an intelligent, psychopath 10-year-old who ruled like a tyrant and made everyone’s lives even more miserable than they had to be in that realm.
I wonder there the heck the door-portal from Parano took them? It could be somewhere forbidden and hence their memories were wiped and they might’ve been transported elsewhere.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Grimgar tập 14 tiếp tục duy trì phong cách chậm rãi, nội tâm đặc trưng của cả series, nhưng chính điều đó cũng khiến nhiều độc giả cảm thấy hụt hẫng. Mạch truyện trong tập này khá lê thê, thiếu cao trào rõ ràng. Nhóm nhân vật chính dường như không có bước tiến vượt bậc, thay vào đó là những phân đoạn hồi tưởng và cảm xúc kéo dài khiến người đọc có cảm giác nhàm chán. Điểm cộng là phần mô tả thế giới vẫn chi tiết, thơ mộng và mang màu sắc trầm buồn rất riêng, phù hợp với fan lâu năm. Tuy nhiên, sự thiếu đột phá và hành động trong tập này khiến nó không để lại ấn tượng mạnh như các tập trước. Với người mới, đây không phải là điểm khởi đầu tốt. Một tập ổn nhưng chưa đủ thuyết phục.
While this arc has a bad reputation, I ended up liking this final volume quite a lot. The world of Parano,where your ego manifests as a power, is quite cool. There are some intermission chapters to cover the backstory of the main characters that have been living in Parano for a long time now. And as you might have guessed, there’s something really wrong with them! I wish we got to know more about Alice, but maybe we will in the future. The final chapter ties in with volume 1! So that’s what happened 😃
Well the adventures in Parano continue and while the book was generally good, the ending felt abrupt and a bit disapointing. I'm curious about how it's going to pick up, but now it just feels like the whole adventure was pointless. Also the translator should really get used to singular "they" already, because repeating Alice over and over, sometimes 2-3 times in the same sentence, was just wierd.
This was going to be 2 stars because it is just not great and really tedious to get through. HOWEVER, Haruhiro’s Resonance made this 3 stars. The moments of his growth and exploration made the last bit of the book worth an extra star.
I loved the anime and I really wanted to love the books, but this volume finally broke me. And I'm going to start checking reviews for all the volumes before I read another light novel series.