Various Thoughts

My earlier misgivings turned out to be unfounded as very little focus is granted to the blonde girl in these four novels. Honestly… very little of anything gets any focus since not much of note occurs in them.

The northern princess is still in concubine limbo, his wife remains dead-set on making him take more concubines (the blonde girl still waiting in the wings), and there aren’t any developments to speak of besides some rather strong indications that the series wants to develop into a war drama of all things. The thirteenth book ~might~ finally result in the princess becoming an official concubine, but with the way things have gone recently I don’t trust the author not to drag it out further with church-related shenanigans.

Starting off as an isekai romance, Risou no Himo Seikatsu eventually becomes more focused on introducing modern conveniences to a fantasy world (this is the first time I’ve seen someone bring a hydroelectric power generator with them across worlds) and political pseudo-drama.

The romance becomes more of a background thing which only comes to the forefront when the topic of concubines is broached. In a manner similar to Arifureta, the protagonist here is staunchly monogamous despite those around him trying to force a harem… only to slowly give in to the outside pressure as time goes on.

The first four books are solely focused on his wife, while the next four introduce and effectively lock in the girl who’ll become his second. Presumably books nine through twelve will continue the theme with the new covergirl but… well, my first impression of her is far from a good one and I’m honestly not looking forward to any amount of focus devoted there.

So I think I’ll wait for that twelfth novel to be released before considering whether to continue any further.