Infinite Dendrogram: Volume 2 - So here I was, happy to find a new series with a lot of volumes, only to get immediately turned off again in the prologue of volume 2. I really, really hate media where children are killed or even tortured and this seems to be the big plot thing in this volume. They went too heavy on the kill and torture little kids just to drive the point home that the antagonists are evil. I think one or two kids would have done the job just well, but putting their victims in the hundreds makes this lackluster response by the world around it feel unrealistic. I also found out why I had pegged the series as SciFi. Apparently there are mechs in this setting. - 2/10
D-Genesis: Three Years after the Dungeons Appeared Volume 6 - Ah yes, the series with the obscure references thrown in every 2 sentences as if it were by divine decree. Like talking about the design of condom boxes for 2 pages in a situation that warrants the US bringing a nuke into Japan. You know just normal everyday discussions and banter. The rest is nothing happening at all. It’s like the current season of Tensura with just people talking, plotting, and theory-crafting non-stop. The unrelated tangents in this series really fray my nerves. For example they capture a monster and want to cut it in half. Side character brings out an knife to do so. Normally that would have been it. Here there is a 272-word tangent (yep I ran it trough a word count) about how different regions use different knives for eel and how that dates back to samurai. Just 272 words down the drain for nothing at all relating to the task at hand or the plot in general. And that’s the entire book. Tangents about weapons, tangents about pest control companies, tangents about condoms, tangents about chemistry, tangents about tangents… LOLOL I just looked up my impression about the last volume and I really forgot all about the tangents. Too funny.
Babel, Vol. 1: A Girl Embarks on a Journey of Words - Good premise. MC is actually shocked to find herself in an isekai world and her reactions are understandable. I like that she is actively trying to get back instead of just going all “yeehaa adventure!!”. The laissez-faire attitude of most MCs to getting Isekaid is one of my long-time gripes. So, I want to like her, but I just can’t get past her internal reasoning and naivete. She is either willfully ignorant or obnoxiously oblivious depending on how you want to look at it. It’s not all bad, there is a arc in the middle that I really liked, but looking at the whole volume it was rather middling. - 5/10 edit: After having slept over it, I deduct another 2 points. MC is just a damles in distress who needs to be saved and carried by male side characters at every turn and what power she has she conveniently forgets whenever she would need it. Her familiar also seems to forget that it exists and could save her at any time. It’s a uninterrupted string of plot holes for the sake of artificial drama. There are story beats that have no conclusion at all.
spoiler
There is a near death experience where some spirit or what tells her that the solution to the problem is already inside her. You would think that she gets an epiphany and knows how to defeat the big bad in the nick of time, but that gets never mentioned again and the solution is that some third party that got mentioned maybe once or twice in the story in bylines solved everything off-screen (off page?) while MC was away. Her whole involvement was like the Rose arc in Star Wars. Just filler with no involvement in the outcome of the story.
Infinite Dendrogram: Volume 2 - So here I was, happy to find a new series with a lot of volumes, only to get immediately turned off again in the prologue of volume 2. I really, really hate media where children are killed or even tortured and this seems to be the big plot thing in this volume. They went too heavy on the kill and torture little kids just to drive the point home that the antagonists are evil. I think one or two kids would have done the job just well, but putting their victims in the hundreds makes this lackluster response by the world around it feel unrealistic. I also found out why I had pegged the series as SciFi. Apparently there are mechs in this setting. - 2/10
D-Genesis: Three Years after the Dungeons Appeared Volume 6 - Ah yes, the series with the obscure references thrown in every 2 sentences as if it were by divine decree. Like talking about the design of condom boxes for 2 pages in a situation that warrants the US bringing a nuke into Japan. You know just normal everyday discussions and banter. The rest is nothing happening at all. It’s like the current season of Tensura with just people talking, plotting, and theory-crafting non-stop. The unrelated tangents in this series really fray my nerves. For example they capture a monster and want to cut it in half. Side character brings out an knife to do so. Normally that would have been it. Here there is a 272-word tangent (yep I ran it trough a word count) about how different regions use different knives for eel and how that dates back to samurai. Just 272 words down the drain for nothing at all relating to the task at hand or the plot in general. And that’s the entire book. Tangents about weapons, tangents about pest control companies, tangents about condoms, tangents about chemistry, tangents about tangents… LOLOL I just looked up my impression about the last volume and I really forgot all about the tangents. Too funny.
Babel, Vol. 1: A Girl Embarks on a Journey of Words - Good premise. MC is actually shocked to find herself in an isekai world and her reactions are understandable. I like that she is actively trying to get back instead of just going all “yeehaa adventure!!”. The laissez-faire attitude of most MCs to getting Isekaid is one of my long-time gripes. So, I want to like her, but I just can’t get past her internal reasoning and naivete. She is either willfully ignorant or obnoxiously oblivious depending on how you want to look at it. It’s not all bad, there is a arc in the middle that I really liked, but looking at the whole volume it was rather middling. - 5/10 edit: After having slept over it, I deduct another 2 points. MC is just a damles in distress who needs to be saved and carried by male side characters at every turn and what power she has she conveniently forgets whenever she would need it. Her familiar also seems to forget that it exists and could save her at any time. It’s a uninterrupted string of plot holes for the sake of artificial drama. There are story beats that have no conclusion at all.
spoiler
There is a near death experience where some spirit or what tells her that the solution to the problem is already inside her. You would think that she gets an epiphany and knows how to defeat the big bad in the nick of time, but that gets never mentioned again and the solution is that some third party that got mentioned maybe once or twice in the story in bylines solved everything off-screen (off page?) while MC was away. Her whole involvement was like the Rose arc in Star Wars. Just filler with no involvement in the outcome of the story.
So my final score is 3/10.