Oh hell yeah. I loved S1 so much I ended up reading ALL of the Manga. Just binged the crap out of it. It's just so good!

#2 Cooking With Wild Game

That's a really funny way to spell "Reincarnated as a Sword"

Kidding, kidding.

Spend the holidays with family and wanted to focus on them.

And I read a LOT hanging out with the fam

🤔

Lol, rereading that I realize how funny that sounds. I mean, it's much easier to hold a kindle and spend time with the family than to go and watch anime. I'm the only one who likes anime but I can read while they watch family feud or whatever.

That was a category that got scrapped since nobody suggested something there but maybe next year.

Ah yeah, it would definitely be difficult without spoilers. Unless we all read the same things I can't imagine how that would work out.

Another volume with a totally unrelated side story just wedged in between 2 directly connected normal chapters.

It's even creeping up in anime too! Some character will show up for the intro of an episode or something and then you'll won't see them again for like 5 episodes.

the the main story and side stories seem to converge

Oh, I like it when stuff like that happens. I read one Sci-Fi book a while back that used this as a super cool misdirection. The story opens focused on one space battleship. There's a war and it's basically hunting another space battleship. You get to know the Captain and a bunch of the crew. Then the perspective switches to their enemy, the other space battleship. And you get to know their Captain and their crew... and they aren't evil or anything. Both parties are only fighting because there's a war going on. So you start to empathize with both sides. BUUUUT I started noticing that one ship started having more named crewmembers than the other one so I was able to figure out which ship was going to win before the end. Still, I was like, "why the hell are we switching perspectives so much" when I was first reading.

basically skips over everything that could be interesting and rather spends around 70% of the volume on the same joke

"They get ready and then this MASSIVE and AMAZING battle happens! But enough about that! After the battle ended, Curly gives Moe a wedgie. FUNNY RIGHT?!"

Haha, I also loved the movie and when I saw it was based on a book I thought about diving in. BUUUT then I saw they were YA books and decided against it.

IIRC from the trivia I read, the Thunderbolt the Falcon isn't in the book either.

I'M BACK, FELLOW BOOKWORMS!

Sorry for being away. Spend the holidays with family and wanted to focus on them. It was good times. Since I've been away for a while I'm going to list all the books I've read since we last spoke, with a focus on new stuff. And I read a LOT hanging out with the fam. My anime consumption suffered tremendously, but my bookworm is mad full.

So last we spoke I was making my way though Trapped in a Dating Sim Book 12 and Book 13's release was right around the corner. I finished 12, had to wait like an ENTIRE TWO DAYS, and then started plowing through 13.

Book 12 was a lot of setup but it felt pretty good and reasonable. Lots of character development. And, spoiler alert:

CAUTION: Minor Spoiler Ahead

PEOPLE ACTUALLY TELLING PEOPLE THEY'RE REINCARNATIONS! And surprise, people believe them and nothing bad happens. Who would've figured? Certainly not me for 12 whole volumes.

It felt like Book 12 was really setting up the big bad for the climatic ending, which made me want to dive into 13 ASAP. Oh, and before I forget, Book 12 confirmed Season 2 of Trapped in a Dating Sim!

Next came Book 13. Let me just say, if Book 13 had come out before the awards, I would've have some input on best passage. There's a really strong moment between some characters and I was crying real tears. Yeah, imagine that, a wacky book like Dating Sim contains more drama and emotion than a Disney movie.

Book 13 is the end of the series. I know there are some spin-off series around that aren't in English (Marie's Story) so if those ever get printed in English I might check them out. I will also say that Book 13 ends without tying up every loose end but it does so in a very refreshing way. It's actually a pretty good ending. I was worried for a bit as the novel was coming to a close that the author was like, "quick, I need to come up with new ideas because I can't let this cash cow end!" but thankfully that was not the case. It's actually hard to describe. It's a happy ending, but not a happily ever after ending. It alludes to more story but doesn't feel like a teaser and is definitely not a cliffhanger. Like, despite knowing there's a bunch more in store for the MC you can fill in the blanks yourself. If I had to liken it to something, it would be the ending to the Starship Troopers movie. The war is still ongoing but you get the summary of "they'll keep fighting and they'll win" so you know there's more to the story but you also know how it's going to go for the most part.

WHEW! Okay, that was a lot. Book 13 just blew me away. So much stuff came together so well! Anyway, my emotions were shot at this point so I needed some comfort reading after all that. I KNOW I promised I was going to read Ascendance of a Bookworm but I needed something I could mindlessly read while my brain tank was empty. So I reread the first twelve books of Reincarnated as a Sword again.

I know, I know. It's probably like the 6th time I've gone through those books but I can't help it, okay?! They're my absolute favorite! I WAS reminded about how many typos there are in the translation though, especially after reading stuff like Dating Sim which had very few of those. I even found one typo where they called "Fran" as "Gran". And there were a lot of typos where the translator was fiddling with the wording and extra words are left in or missing. Not so bad that you can't figure out what's going on but still a bit distracting.

AAAANNNYWAY... after my Sword binge I'll be diving into Bookworm next. It was a promise, after all.

Nice. Season 1 was a very pleasant surprise.

I hate that I know exactly what this is from...

Suzu and Kaede will always be together.

I hate the boys and girls can’t be friends trope that pops up in media.

Same. I think if the title was just "Can Friendship Between Men and Women Exist?" it would be fine since it's leaving it open, but the "(No, it doesn't!)" answer spoils it.

Also, I feel like the characters look just like characters from another anime. Or it could just be that they're so generic as to be indistinguishable from other blue-hair anime girls/black hair anime boy.

Giving me Ossan Newbie Adventurer vibes. Or my Daughter Left the Nest and returned an S rank adventurer. Will have to check it out.

Oh nice. I like this silly and wholesome slice-of-life meets fantasy anime. And it doesn't even have a stupid name like, "That One Time I Got Sold to a Demon by my Wicked Parents but the Demon is actually now my Loving Grandfather... As Long As I Don't Let Anyone Know I'm Actually A Human As They'll Kill Me For Sure!"

It's funny because you can tell when an anime is from a Japanese light novel or not based on the length of the title.

Solo-Leveling: Korean Light Novel

True Beauty: Korean Webtoon

Blue Lock: Japanese Manga

A Sign of Affection: Japanese Manga

Oshi No Ko: Japanese Manga

Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon: My Trusted Companions Tried to Kill Me, But Thanks to the Gift of an Unlimited Gacha I Got LVL 9999 Friends: Japanese Light Novel

Banished from the Hero's Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside: Japanese Light Novel

My Instant Death Ability Is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me!: Japanese Light Novel

IIRC it's because the dominant Japanese light novel website doesn't do descriptions well so the authors make the title the description.

A few tried to have a normal title AND a description in the title.

Failure Frame: I Became the Strongest and Annihilated Everything With Low-Level Spells: Japanese Light Novel

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest: Japanese Light Novel