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The Sidekick Never Gets the Girl, Let Alone the Protag's Sister!




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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5939
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Sun Jul 25, 2021 10:55 am Reply with quote
The Sidekick Never Gets the Girl, Let Alone the Protag's Sister!

Forget the blurb on the back or the blurb on Amazon. Forget the cute cover. This light novel is like your first time with cigarettes. At first you will cough and hack and wonder why anyone would every smoke cigarettes, then if you continue you get kinda inured to it, and still wonder why you are still reading it.

The blurb makes it out that this is a reverse isekai story. It is not. This is a isekai returnee story. The isekai part is a particularly nasty story, but not much time is spent on it, in volume one. Because of this, Kunugi Kou to the reader is really unlikeable.

Kunugi Kou is a walking trope machine. Not that he is a trope, but that his internal thoughts and sometimes external voice go on about the world as if he is in a anime/manga rom-com trope. Despite his internal monologue, he is not in a rom-com world. This is really off putting and makes you wonder how someone could really get like this.

It is late into the novel that you get indications as to why Kunugi Kou is the way he is. But it is depressing story, when you get partial insight into his story.

Despite all the window dressing, this series is Not a Rom-Com, though Kunugi Kou may wish it was. In the beginning I found Kunugi Kou unlikeable, but as we found out more about him and saw what he was doing, he became more likeable. But near the end of the novel he made a decision, that I think was wrong, that wasn't his right, and removed a girl's agency and other stuff. Going forward Kunugi Kou is a damaged and tragic protagonist, but also a problematic one. But I am now invested in the character and the story.

Just like "My Favorite Uncle (sic)", it appears Kunugi Kou hasn't lost his abilities and powers from the other world. Also, as seen is the last side story in the novel, that cat seems to be a bit of foreshadowing.

If this is not enough to get you interested in reading the novel, then read below.

spoiler[Kunugi Kou and his parents were summoned from Japan to another world to fight a demon lord. Kunugi Kou was around 7 or 8 years old and he was the actual summoned hero. Torture, medical experimentation, and barbaric training was his daily course of life. His parents were imprisoned, and their lives were held accountable to him performing his heroic duties properly. Seems the threats to humanity were pretty insidious too. His parents never made it back with him and seem to be dead. There is a lot to unpack, and really a lot we don't know.]
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