Despite heavy misgivings, as I have a mixed history regarding young adult novels (and LNs are simply the Japanese equivalent of such), I decided to pick this series up at the point the related Anime ended.
To my great surprise the transition from episode 24 over there to book 6 over here ended up nearly seamless. The only notable inconsistency is that the protagonist has more parallel minds, a minor issue which ends up resolved anyway by the time the 7th book starts. That 7th book however is a problem. While on paper it sort of works, if it were to be animated it would provoke reactions similar to ones War of the Underworld‘s ending got.
For the most part this isn’t an issue because nothing important to the main plotline occurs for like 90% of the novel… but that last 10% covers the protagonist getting her human body. An event that can’t really happen without all the otherwise unrelated lead-up. So a hypothetical Anime continuation would have to shoot itself in the foot animating it faithfully, or come up with an Anime-original method for her evolution. It’s a no-win situation.
The next three books return to the style of the 6th and are solidly entertaining. The 11th however….
This book is another problem child, but notably more-so than the 7th: 95% of its content is focused on Julius. You remember Julius right? Shun’s idolized older brother who died. That’s right, nearly an entire book given to a character that lost all relevance something like six books back. What was the purpose of this? The only thing that comes to mind is that it’s meant to foreshadow some sort of development with the Hero’s Sword… but that was just one scene. You didn’t need to devote the whole damn thing to a dead character.
The remaining content is some brief Sophia interludes in which she sounds exactly like the protagonist (who sounds exactly like the author). Being generous this curious personality shift could be attributed to the Envy skill… but considering the book is focused on Julius of all people I suspect the actual reason is that the author simply got lazy/lost sight of her character.
Regardless, while there were some hiccups, overall I’d have to call this experiment a success. I’m definitely looking forward to the 12th book (the translated version of which will be released later this month) and in the meantime may check out some other Anime-related series that are unlikely to get an animated continuation any time soon.
