Forum - View topicREVIEW: The Irregular at Magic High School Novels 1 & 2
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Merxamers
 Posts: 720 |
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You mentioned issues with the writing; how does it compare to Shield Hero in that aspect? One of my biggest complaints about that series, especially the first few volumes, is how amateurish and poor the writing style can be.
I haven't seen the Irregular anime; is this the one where the protagonist makes a girl pee herself? Or was that another one of these Magical Highschool light novels? My younger brother said he enjoyed the Irregular anime, so i'd hope it wasn't this one... |
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Parsifal24
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I read and enjoyed the first novel and I have pre-ordered the second novel but have yet to receive it. I never really found the Technobabble that off putting it at least grounded the narrative in some kind of fictional reality instead of using suspension of disbelief as a narrative crutch.
I also feel that Satō is at least trying to say something wich I can respect it's just he's not that terribly incisive yet this far in the series. |
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bassgs435
 Posts: 394 |
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The one you're thinking about isn't this. It's Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero (Hagure Yuusha no Aesthetica). |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 2675 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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No, no, the peeing-herself one is Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero. I think that is also based on light novels, but they haven't been released here. In terms of the writing, I'd say this is stronger than Shield Hero in terms of storytelling - it reads much less like a stereotypical LN than that one, and the fact that it's in the third person keeps it from falling into too many trope traps. It's more that the author isn't quite sure how to balance his action and description, often using way too many words where he only needs one and not quite integrating his (impressive) world building into the story. |
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CaRoss
 Posts: 457 |
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Overwriting is most definitely Satou's biggest issue as a writer. That said, I'm so glad that these novels are available in English now.
The anime, despite looking gorgeous (as expected of a Madhouse effort), was a disservice to the characters and the story of the novels - especially since Tatsuya's so introspective and his actual personality got lost in the shuffle. In fact, I find it something that a lot of sci-fi struggles to handle well in adaptations, but that's a different topic. Anyway, I really enjoyed these first two volumes and definitely appreciate that they're bringing these over. Due to the "onii-sama" stigma against the series, I sadly don't see it doing as well as something like Re:Zero, Sword Art Online, or Overlord when it comes to sales, but I would love more people, whether they liked the anime or not, to check this out and give the source material a real chance. There's definitely a lot to like, although it doesn't always hit home as solidly as one would like. |
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Double Mangekyo
 Posts: 180 |
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As I recall, the first novel ranked pretty high on the NY times list. So I wouldn't worry about it not doing well for now. Found it: animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-04-29/new-york-times-manga-best-seller-list-april-17-23/.101632 |
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CaRoss
Posts: 457 |
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That's good to read. I didn't realize it had actually done well there. Hopefully that means some, possibly, good things for its reputation in the future 
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rahzel rose
 Subscriber Posts: 839 |
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I'm glad to be able to own these legally in English and I thought the first book wasn't too bad. I definitely skimmed the technobabble bits, though. I tried reading through them and just couldn't do it.
The only thing that really bothers me about the translation is the decision to have Miyuki call Tatsuya "Tatsuya" as opposed to something like "Brother" because she never ever calls him by his name. It just seems so informal considering how highly she respects and thinks of him, and it's also just unnecessary. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
Posts: 2675 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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I thought about this particular issue a lot and hadn't quite solidified my thoughts when I wrote the review, which is why I didn't mention it. I think that the change was made to make it appeal to English-speaking audiences - if she called him "oniichan" or even "big brother" it would bring up that forbidden romance/incest thing that is distasteful to a lot of (western) readers, so having her call him by name and letting her actions indicate their closeness and her respect - which did come through - was an easy fix.
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Amuris
Posts: 69 |
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hmm, everyone has their own wants and expectations going into a story so, even though I like Shield hero, I'm not going to really try and defend it. However, I want to know for reference, what was it that you found poor about the writing style? Was it the general and major aspects of the story or was it specific things like transitions between events? Can you give an example? |
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SquadmemberRitsu
 Posts: 1391 |
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So basically, Irregular's Light Novel adaptation deciding to forgo including Tatsuya's internal monologue basically rids him of what little personality he has? Wow, that is some seriously bad writing.
Anyway, watching the anime for this was already boring and soul crushing enough so I doubt I'll be reading the Light Novels. Considering Light Novel adaptations usually cut out a metric ton of unnecessary crap I don't even want to know how elongated the discussions about meaningless technobabble are compared to the anime. |
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Merxamers
Posts: 720 |
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The writing in Shield Hero is very amateurish and awkward, and reminiscent of someone's first self-published e-novel (which may be what it was, at first). Especially in the first couple volumes, there are countless instances of the narrator breaking the immersion to give us a "By the way, <expository>", instead of letting the reader find out the information naturally. There are also many, MANY instances of aggravating dialogue along the lines of "Let's go do <thing> now" "Ok". Also, another problem that other light novels seem to share, is that it can be difficult to tell which characters are speaking when a group is talking, especially when the 4 heroes are involved. Those are the specific examples i can recall from the top of my head, but the first two volumes especially are frustratingly amateurish, especially when we the readers can see that there are good ideas and story elements present, but the author's writing skills aren't quite good enough to fully explore them. The translation probably isn't helping matters either, as the officially released DanMachi and Overlord novels read very well in comparison. To be fair, I found volume 5 of Shield Hero to be a promising improvement in both story content and writing competence. |
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1055 |
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The series feels like a summary of somebody's RPG campaign, with many characters being treated like minor NPCs who don't have any name beyond their job title ("Weapons shop owner," etc.). |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2926 |
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that' spretty fair, and in a way it's a generic/boiler plate problem for most webnovel and webnovel based media (taht adn power trips/harems). |
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2442 |
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That's in part because Naofumi rarely cares about anyone's name given his trust issues. |
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