I wanted to go blind into a story so I randomly picked a volume of a side-story of a spin-off of a light novel series. Now admittedly I didn’t go totally blind into it since I have watched the Konosuba anime.
The reason this post is titled “Library Light Novels” is because I borrowed this volume from my local Scottish library. Now, unfortunately Scottish libraries are not known to have a wide selection of light novels, and indeed when they do have light novels (or manga) it’s often just a random volume that they got from somewhere rather than the first volume of a series.
Nonetheless I thought it would be interesting to see what random light novels they had, and fortunately unlike manga volumes, light novel volumes tend to be a bit more self-contained story-wise.
Basic facts on the novel:
- 180 pages long.
- An unusually large number of high quality illustrations (for a light novel).
- One self-contained story (i.e. not a a short story collection).
- The novel is a spin off to Konosuba featuring Megumin ( of Explosion! spell girl fame) as main character.
Without further ado, what were my thoughts on the novel?
Kazuma is the selling point for Konosuba so that was my biggest worry going in, given that he’s not the main character but the author still managed to get a few chuckles out of me as I read this sitting outside in a park overlooking a tiny lake. The humour is sometimes on the level of girls getting into fights over the sizes of their chests, but at least a couple of times the author knows how to build up on a dirty joke to the point where it’s so absurd you can’t help but laugh.
Now it would be a lie to say there weren’t certain things which I did not get because I was reading in the middle of the story but this novel is the equivalent of an OVA of an early 2000s anime set in high-school. In fact it might be said that those high school anime had higher stakes because high school graduation was always on the horizon whereas here defeating the demon lord is a side quest and in any case Kazuma can’t actually die, the worst that happens to him is to die in embarrassing ways. Basically, it’s a fantasy sit-com/rom-com with a slowly unfolding plot… The world doesn’t feel in danger because of the demon lord.
As to the plot of this particular novel, it is centred around Megumin deciding to create a ” a pure, just, and respectable thief gang who steals for the sake of the world and its people.” In actuality, what this Chuunibyou means is that she gets to hangout in her secret base which everyone knows about along with her girl friends who she manages to rope into it, even though their motives vary from hers. I am not going to spoil who all the members are since most of the volume is Megumin picking up companions. Needless to say they are a bunch of weirdos just like Megumin, and so Megumin feels some respect for Kazuma being able to lead his own group of weirdos (which she is part of) even if obviously she doesn’t have the self-reflection to realise that she’s also strange (but that’s basically the joke).
There is nothing deep about stories like this but I feel like they do a good job of portraying ordinary friendship without major melodrama and with a few dumb jokes mixed in, which in my experience reflects more accurately to how most friendships are. I also think it is a pretty bold choice to have chosen for the adventurers to remain in the starting town for so many volumes. However I feel like now I am no longer talking about this novel in particular so I will stop.
