Grimgar has always been a hit and miss series. Some books are really good, others are worthless. The plot jerks around crazily and wanders all over the place. Obviously the author doesn't much like Shihoru because yet again she's been separated from the party and not given any role to play except as a hostage. So all book long Haruhiro and co. are doing this evil dude's bidding because he has a hostage. At the end of the book they try to defeat him in battle and he curbstomps them instead. Now they're all effectively his hostage because he can personally, at any time, kill them all, that's just how imbalanced the situation is.
This doesn't give the heroes much decision-making to work with. They can't run, because Shihoru would be punished even if they somehow got away. They can't fight because they're too weak. If they faithfully serve, like they did all book, they still won't ever get Shihoru back. And eventually their luck will run out and they'll die on some dumb dangerous mission this malevolent lord sent them on. All they can really do is hope for rescue. There are powerful people who might help them somewhere out there. It sure would be nice if they ever got involved, because honestly that's all I can think of for this ridiculous situation.
I would have preferred a completely different story where our heroes reunited and helped fight the evil orcs and undead up north. But this author never does what you would expect. The plot is never sensible. In the end I like this story for its characters, not its plot, and at least the characters are still as charming as ever.
Will anything change next volume? I kinda doubt it. I'm pretty sure the author plans to make things even worse before they get any better. If they ever get better. . . I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but I do need to know what happens next so I'm stuck all the same.
I finished rewatching SAO. It's as I remember it -- I don't like the sudden power escalation of Kirito, PoH and Gabriel at all. It doesn't make any sense that they'd all gain such extreme incarnation abilities with so little training compared to Integrity Knights who have been doing this for hundreds of years. And the form of their incarnation is even more cringeworthy, it's ghost x, ghost y, ghost z, no one stays dead for even five seconds. It just cheapens the meaning of life and death for all these ghosts to be flitting around. There was even a ghost dragging Gabriel to hell in the real world. So is that official now? There are ghosts and souls and an afterlife in the real world too? No pretense of realism left? The final half of War of Underworld is really terrible, there's no way around it. But there's hope that the fighting in Unital Ring will be more fair and rules-based. Underworld was an exception where the rules were thrown out intentionally. Maybe the writing will become good again if the next world is more logical.
I can't say Kirito's decision to dive back into Underworld after he finally escaped it after 200 years is commendable either. Can he ever stop gaming for five seconds so that he can put his own life in order, you know, in the real world? Oh well. Maybe Unital Ring solves this character flaw too. I shouldn't complain until I get to see the true ending.
The only thing that really came off well was how loving and wonderful Kirito's bond was with Suguha and Asuna. At least the romantic half of the story is going strong.
I guess next up is Uma Musume's rewatch. I need to prove my new ranking of it was serious, and the only way to do that is to rewatch it like I have all my other ranked series.
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