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Dungeon Samurai #1
Kamikaze
Yamada Yuuki is an ordinary college student with an extraordinary the classical martial art of Kukishin-ryu.Until one fateful day when a demon rips through the fabric of space-time, abducts everyone in his dojo, and transports them to another world.To return home, Yamada and his friends must join forces with other displaced humans to conquer the dungeon that runs through the heart of the world. Standing in their way are endless hordes of bloodthirsty monsters and countless traps. Armed only with steel, faith and guts, they must battle their way through the winding catacombs to confront the demon waiting at the bottom floor.Yamada was once a student. Now he must become a samurai.
- GenresFantasy
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 12, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 7, 2019
Dungeon Samurai is an isekai dungeon-crawler built on the principle that “amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics”.
Depending on where you are coming from, that might be a lot to unpack, so let’s go through it. Isekai is the Japanese name for the kind of story where the characters are transported to another world, often gaining miraculous or magical powers in the process. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is a notable example. This is an old kind of story even in Western adventure fiction, but it is realllly popular in Japan, which is probably why the Japanese name stuck.
A dungeon-crawler is any kind of story that focuses on the exploration of a monster-filled labyrinth. Role-playing games, whether tabletop or videogame, are the dominant form. You might think this would make Dungeon Samurai a LitRPG, but Cheah says he set out to make an anti-LitRPG, and I think he succeeded. We’ll get to that in a bit.
Finally, Dungeon Samurai ends up being a nice companion to another one of my recent obsessions, the blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, which looks at pop culture depictions of historical battles. A notable recent series looks at the siege of Gondor in both Peter Jackson’s movie and J. R. R. Tolkien’s book. As Devereaux notes, a big problem for any army is how to get your soldiers and their stuff to the place they need to be, at the right time, with enough food and water to get done whatever needs to get done. And hopefully get them out again.
Logistics are one of the things that makes Dungeon Samurai a compelling read for me. An expedition into the eponymous dungeon must be supplied with food, water, sources of light, and all manner of equipment. Soldiers must be trained to use their kit, and how to work with one another in the dark and cramped labyrinth. A whole society provides the many specialized functions you need to support such an effort.
Finally, I like the way Cheah approached his pretty clearly videogame inspired work. Games provided ideas, but not mechanics. No one has hit points or a GUI. People have abilities, but it feels more like a fantasy world where the rules are different, than picking a command from a menu. If you are going to find inspiration from videogames, and other books I have liked have done so, then this way seems better to me.
I was sorry this book was over so quickly. I am looking forward to seeing whether Yamada Yuuki can defeat the akuma and find a way back to his own world. If you can accept the premise, this is a pretty fun book, with a core of serious thought as to what this kind of a world would be like.
Depending on where you are coming from, that might be a lot to unpack, so let’s go through it. Isekai is the Japanese name for the kind of story where the characters are transported to another world, often gaining miraculous or magical powers in the process. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is a notable example. This is an old kind of story even in Western adventure fiction, but it is realllly popular in Japan, which is probably why the Japanese name stuck.
A dungeon-crawler is any kind of story that focuses on the exploration of a monster-filled labyrinth. Role-playing games, whether tabletop or videogame, are the dominant form. You might think this would make Dungeon Samurai a LitRPG, but Cheah says he set out to make an anti-LitRPG, and I think he succeeded. We’ll get to that in a bit.
Finally, Dungeon Samurai ends up being a nice companion to another one of my recent obsessions, the blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, which looks at pop culture depictions of historical battles. A notable recent series looks at the siege of Gondor in both Peter Jackson’s movie and J. R. R. Tolkien’s book. As Devereaux notes, a big problem for any army is how to get your soldiers and their stuff to the place they need to be, at the right time, with enough food and water to get done whatever needs to get done. And hopefully get them out again.
Logistics are one of the things that makes Dungeon Samurai a compelling read for me. An expedition into the eponymous dungeon must be supplied with food, water, sources of light, and all manner of equipment. Soldiers must be trained to use their kit, and how to work with one another in the dark and cramped labyrinth. A whole society provides the many specialized functions you need to support such an effort.
Finally, I like the way Cheah approached his pretty clearly videogame inspired work. Games provided ideas, but not mechanics. No one has hit points or a GUI. People have abilities, but it feels more like a fantasy world where the rules are different, than picking a command from a menu. If you are going to find inspiration from videogames, and other books I have liked have done so, then this way seems better to me.
I was sorry this book was over so quickly. I am looking forward to seeing whether Yamada Yuuki can defeat the akuma and find a way back to his own world. If you can accept the premise, this is a pretty fun book, with a core of serious thought as to what this kind of a world would be like.
September 12, 2019
Yamada is at the dojo, mediating with the sensei and others at the end of class. When abruptly they found themselves abducted into another world. With other people -- some in groups and some as individuals -- one of them, a black man in digital camouflage, asks what's going on, and Yamada realizes the man is speaking in English, and he's hearing him in Japanese.
A demon reveals that it's brought them here for his amusement. Other people greet them and explain that the demon brings them new people if they sacrifice goods for it -- and if they don't, they will die out -- and well, when the first people arrived here, they found an abandoned village.
They reveal the Skill Sphere, which grants everyone who touches a skill -- rather like a video game. (The resemblance to a game is commented on many times.) Yamada is the Kamikaze of the title, which will boost his fighting at the cost of his sense.
And the story goes on, heavy on the logic of what would really happen in such a world. Boot camp training -- Sensei wisely observes that they are taught to obey orders precisely under stress. The minimal level of subsistence the non-military people are able to bring them to. The limits of real world training in the dungeon where they must bring the fight (or the monsters come after them). The illogic of their ability to mine ores that would not be in such close proximity. The powers that various religious people acquire -- Shinto, Buddhist and Christian, with the theological implications brushed on little -- they are after all living so close to the edge that they can't stand infighting. And more.
A demon reveals that it's brought them here for his amusement. Other people greet them and explain that the demon brings them new people if they sacrifice goods for it -- and if they don't, they will die out -- and well, when the first people arrived here, they found an abandoned village.
They reveal the Skill Sphere, which grants everyone who touches a skill -- rather like a video game. (The resemblance to a game is commented on many times.) Yamada is the Kamikaze of the title, which will boost his fighting at the cost of his sense.
And the story goes on, heavy on the logic of what would really happen in such a world. Boot camp training -- Sensei wisely observes that they are taught to obey orders precisely under stress. The minimal level of subsistence the non-military people are able to bring them to. The limits of real world training in the dungeon where they must bring the fight (or the monsters come after them). The illogic of their ability to mine ores that would not be in such close proximity. The powers that various religious people acquire -- Shinto, Buddhist and Christian, with the theological implications brushed on little -- they are after all living so close to the edge that they can't stand infighting. And more.
April 22, 2020
Isekai pulp fantasy about a young Japanese guy transported to a magical alternate reality ruled by an evil entity known as Akuma, who has been summon humans from throughout history to be its play-things and its food. It is truly as strange realm that functions fairly explicitly like an old school dungeon crawler. The only features are a single island and a dungeon beneath it filled with monsters. Their only way back home is to brave the depths and defeat Akuma at the bottom.
What sets this story apart is the focus on logistics and tactics. The author spent a lot of time formulating a lot of details that make dungeon-crawling feel like a more grounded conflict (in a universe in which people are endowed with class skills from the gods). Parties carefully sweep for traps, monitor their resources, and formulate specific combat tactics. Dehydration and heat stroke are as much a threat as death from the monsters spawning in the dark.
What sets this story apart is the focus on logistics and tactics. The author spent a lot of time formulating a lot of details that make dungeon-crawling feel like a more grounded conflict (in a universe in which people are endowed with class skills from the gods). Parties carefully sweep for traps, monitor their resources, and formulate specific combat tactics. Dehydration and heat stroke are as much a threat as death from the monsters spawning in the dark.
November 13, 2020
Great Read
I was pleasantly surprised by how good this book is. Yuuki’s adventures are well worth the read and I can’t wait to read more of the samurai’s adventures.
I was pleasantly surprised by how good this book is. Yuuki’s adventures are well worth the read and I can’t wait to read more of the samurai’s adventures.
February 26, 2022
Series review. The core hypothetical here is: what if you went about dungeon crawling using an army of the hyper-sophisticated fighting machines that were the classical Japanese samurai, rather than an ad-hoc group of amateurs as in most gaming? OK, so I didn't read this for the deep philosophical musings or literary prose, but it was entertaining and more thoughtful than I expected. Cheah avoids the vapidity that puts me off most LitRPG by setting up a life-or-death situation and using a military-fantasy rather than a quest genre structure. He does then bring in people's different emotional responses to battle and death, and takes characters' faith seriously in that. (He has a high respect for both Christianity and the Shinto/Buddhist blend of his Japanese characters here, though I think his Christianity is heavily filtered through his Buddhism and/or its influence on D&D)
Cons: third book dragged and felt repetitive, esp after a key MC leaves the narrative. Character development was weak apart from our core protagonist, leaving the romantic angle very lightweight.
Cons: third book dragged and felt repetitive, esp after a key MC leaves the narrative. Character development was weak apart from our core protagonist, leaving the romantic angle very lightweight.
March 27, 2024
A fun isekai read for the isekai weary
I enjoy anime and manga quite a bit, particularly fantasy. Most of that content is isekai, which has so much potential to be imaginative and fun, allowing you to see a whole new world through the protagonists eyes as they grow and adapt to the challenges the new world offers.
But you don't get that in the majority of modern isekai. Mostly, you get power fantasy and harem nonsense that has to be dealt with or ignored to appreciate what good there is in the story.
However! You do get that here!
Yamada, our protagonist, is skilled but not the best. Not fully prepared for what the story sends his way, and he isn't blessed with some ridiculous cheat skill to make up for his inadequacy. He has to train, gain experience, and make mistakes.
Give this one a shot. It's a real breath of fresh air. I'm buying the rest of the series.
I enjoy anime and manga quite a bit, particularly fantasy. Most of that content is isekai, which has so much potential to be imaginative and fun, allowing you to see a whole new world through the protagonists eyes as they grow and adapt to the challenges the new world offers.
But you don't get that in the majority of modern isekai. Mostly, you get power fantasy and harem nonsense that has to be dealt with or ignored to appreciate what good there is in the story.
However! You do get that here!
Yamada, our protagonist, is skilled but not the best. Not fully prepared for what the story sends his way, and he isn't blessed with some ridiculous cheat skill to make up for his inadequacy. He has to train, gain experience, and make mistakes.
Give this one a shot. It's a real breath of fresh air. I'm buying the rest of the series.
July 25, 2022
Dungeon game told as story -- Excellent
The story starts with detailed preparation for battle, extremely well done. The author also mixed cultures in an entertaining and convincing way. His ma
in focus is on the Japanese/Buddhist side with a major sub focus on Western/Christian. I appreciated his approach. Overall the story delivery was excellent and very entertaining. I'm looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.
The story starts with detailed preparation for battle, extremely well done. The author also mixed cultures in an entertaining and convincing way. His ma
in focus is on the Japanese/Buddhist side with a major sub focus on Western/Christian. I appreciated his approach. Overall the story delivery was excellent and very entertaining. I'm looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.
December 6, 2022
It's OK. I finished it, though the ending was a bit abrupt. There is a lot going on that doesn't get developed enough. Specifically, I think the like a hame, but not a game aspect should have been fleshed out more. Or, discarded and just found an explanation for being sucked into a game.
As always, I've never written a book, and so kudos to the author for putting it out there. I just think it stills needs some work.
As always, I've never written a book, and so kudos to the author for putting it out there. I just think it stills needs some work.
November 13, 2023
This novel could work as manga, or as anime, but it does not work as written word. Overlong and the described action does not really work. The world building is weak and although some characters are relatable, in general I did not care what happened to them.
June 20, 2022
Excellent!
What a welcome change, very realistic LitRPG.
Very enjoyable, and a nice standout in the genre.
Lots of action, amazing world building, and great story!
What a welcome change, very realistic LitRPG.
Very enjoyable, and a nice standout in the genre.
Lots of action, amazing world building, and great story!
January 14, 2023
First time reading this type of book
This was the first time I had read a book of the type described by the subtitle. It was good enough that I will get the next in the series.
This was the first time I had read a book of the type described by the subtitle. It was good enough that I will get the next in the series.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews