Various Thoughts

Picked up this series based on Amazon’s recommendation system (something I haven’t done in ages) and it, perhaps unsurprisingly, turned out to be rather similar to Shin no Nakama in general atmosphere.

This switches between laid-back everyday content and more dramatic action-focused fare as that does (though the ratio here is weighted far more heavily toward the everyday), although many of the other key traits are different. There’s no central love interest here for instance, nor really any romance-related content at all beyond occasional superficial teasing… which is quite impressive considering the steadily expanding cast of ‘family members’.

It also gets much more technical with the actual blacksmith-related activities than that work does with its herbalism. If the thought of reading pages upon pages about spreading straw ash about, hammering out imperfections in the metal, assembling furniture, or proper katana-crafting techniques fills you with dread this may not be the series for you. If you happen to read light novels for their penchant of having food-related subthemes however, then this will not disappoint.

Overall the books ended up a fun diversion that I plan to keep following since there don’t look to be any particularly damning red flags on the horizon. Character personalities are entertaining and fairly varied, no cringy fanservice (beside the general inexplicable harem setup), and it seems unlikely to abandon the smithing angle. Could do with a few less self-references to his ‘cheat’ abilities though.