Now I'm all caught up with everything that came out during my Fire Emblem playtime. Unfortunately, this book sucked. Instead of the romance/merchant adventure genre, it's purely and only a mystery novel this time. I don't like mystery stories, all they do is deliberately withhold the pertinent facts until the end and then, finally, tell you in a few sentences the answer to all the questions which they could have told you at any point. It's a complete waste of your time. Everything in the middle where people wander around with supposition while not having enough vital facts to work with is a waste of the reader's time. I hate puzzles, riddles and mysteries. Just tell me the punchline and be done with it.
So here's the punchline of this mystery novel upfront -- Col is tasked to investigate a nobleman for heresy. It turns out he smuggles pyrite and human bones not for witchcraft but as fertilizer for his fields and a source of acid to melt the bones into fertilizer. Case closed. This entire book could have been condensed into a paragraph and saved the readers all the bother.
Many good series run out of their original ideas and turn into mysteries. SAO, half the time, is a mystery series and I hate it when Reki does that too. The answer isn't to start writing mysteries in your sci fi/fantasy setting to keep the franchise going, the answer is to end your franchise. If you can't think of anything genuinely useful to write about, don't write anything at all.
The afterword of this book says that when the author sent his first draft to the editors they told him the book sucked and to rewrite it from scratch. Well the editors should have said his second draft sucked too but clearly they had given up hope and just slapped on the 'Parchment & Wolf' stamp and figured people would buy whatever drivel that came out so long as it was accompanied by this stamp of earned credibility. But how many bad volumes can you write in a row before that title no longer carries any weight? It's like Star Wars all over again.
Meanwhile, I'm rewatching Basilisk (what a great series, I love the aesthetic of older anime), and it came to my attention that the ending themes are sung by Nana Mizuki. She also serves as the voice actor for Oboro, the best character in the series. So I downloaded them and now the second ending, Hime Murasaki, is on track to reach my music hall of fame. First I have to listen to it 100 times alongside my new Fire Emblem songs. Nana Mizuki currently has Covid-19 but Japanese are thin and healthy so I'm not worried.
It looks like the Wano arc of One Piece is finally coming to an end, thank God. I thought Luffy's Gear 5th was an idiotic plot twist, but whatever, the author clearly did intend for this to happen since a long time ago and did do various foreshadowing events to explain it. I just want Kaido and Big Mom out of the way so that the real story about Luffy vs. the Marines and the mystery of the void century can be solved. The sooner that happens the better.
The new SAO volume is slated to come out May 3rd. That's still a long time from now, so I guess the run of unending fun is at an end. It was nice while it lasted.
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