I've lost all faith in Lazy Dungeon Master as a series. It never goes anywhere and it's tremendously stupid how Keima lacks the guts to get with Rokuko because maybe her older sister Haku might object. This is absolutely pathetic in a man, a lover, or anyone. First off, let's say Haku really would kill him for getting with Rokuko. What of it? Is he going to let an evil person deny Rokuko the love and marriage she deserves over something so petty? Just let Haku do what she wants and be damned. Claim what is yours by right even if the whole world turns against you for it. Stand for something and be a man.
But of course it would never come to that -- precisely because Haku doesn't want Rokuko to think poorly of her, which of course Rokuko would if Haku killed her husband. So the whole situation is absurd and stupid. Of course Haku would never harm Keima because all it would do is ruin her relationship with Rokuko to no purpose. Rokuko's 'innocence' was already lost long ago.
All I see is bad writing, dragging on the plot to no purpose, because the author for whatever reason doesn't want his two lovebirds to actually get together. He's been dangling the sweet fruit of their union to us, the readers, for centuries now and centuries hence it will still be dangling in front of us like a carrot on a stick, forever unattainable.
As much as I hate relationships that form instantly with no effort like in Xanth, I hate even more relationships that drag on and never get together even though it's obvious they should and there is no reasonable barrier left stopping it from happening.
I also think his treatment of Niku is absolutely bizarre. It started very sensibly, she was a sexy beastkin girl slave so he cuddled with her every night. Of course it's weird that it never escalated but at least like a man he made use of what was available to him. Then, for whatever reason, he lost interest in her and started crushing on Rokuko instead. Okay, fine, people have changes of heart, so why then does he continue to sleep with Niku? I could see if he was polygamous, but no, he's betrayed and shattered Niku's heart, but still uses her body the same as before. How cruel can you possibly be to a girl to abandon her mentally but still cuddle with her regularly?
Keima's behavior around girls continuously grows more bizarre, strained, and inexcusable. The excuses for why he does these bizarre things get more and more outlandish and ridiculous.
Then there's the fact that he's already strong enough to do whatever he wants (aside from beating brokenly powerful people who he'll never match no matter how much effort he puts into getting stronger), but he still pursues the path of ever greater power. What for? It's a waste of time. The same for money. He has all the money he could ever need but he still takes a lot of time chasing yet more business ventures. What for? Who cares? Everything he does is a waste of time that changes nothing. Every chapter is a waste of time.
Okay, with all that said, I didn't want characters from Lazy Dungeon Master in my fictional character hall of fame and I didn't want Lazy Dungeon Master in my good books hall of fame. Frankly I don't want to read it anymore, so I can hardly endorse it to others. The only good thing I can say about the series is that various artworks of Niku and Rokuko are really beautiful, but when I think about how Keima treats those beautiful girls all it does is make me that much angrier.
So I had to clean house. For the good books hall of fame it was simple, all I had to do was separate out the author of Gun Gale Online (Keiichi Sigsawa) from the author of Sword Art Online and voila, I have a new entrant for my good books hall of fame that can replace the author of Lazy Dungeon Master. Gun Gale Online is an actually good series I look forward to reading so it's a huge upgrade.
For my fictional character hall of fame it was a bit tougher, because as I've said before if I had any good prospects laying around I would have already used them. But I scraped together some reasonable recruits. First off, I'm rewatching Kami-tachi and noticing over and over how unbelievably cute Eliaria is with her blonde hair and big bright blue eyes. That white/blue beret and dress ensemble matches her hair and eyes perfectly. I like that she dotes on Ryoma but also can take care of herself and isn't overly demanding of his attention. So that's one slot filled.
If I'm going to rank The Eminence of Shadow eventually it needs a representative in my fictional character hall of fame eventually, so I may as well include one now. Cid, the protagonist, is a worthy replacement for the failure that is Keima. Sadly Cid is a name I already had (from Final Fantasy 7), but so was Keima so the total number of repeat names in the book remains the same.
The third choice has the weakest basis for inclusion -- Ken Tensei isn't a ranked series and probably never will be. The character isn't related to any of the original waifus. So where does Fran come from? The overwhelming cuteness of her black cat garb, her catgirl features, the quality of the manga artist who draws her which makes her stand out in an already crowded field of catgirls, and lastly her no-nonsense determined killer personality which is a breath of fresh air. Most stories are way too nice to villains and spare them over and over again, even Vikings had this issue when it was supposed to be about the most barbaric and vicious men in history. Even they would spare people too often. But Fran doesn't spare anyone. She kills anyone who gets in her way or gets on her bad side, period. She'll pick fights with anyone, no matter how strong they are, and refuses to back down.
If it were just about looks Rokuko or Niku could compete with Fran no problem, but Fran also has my respect as a dark heroine, whereas Rokuko and Niku put up with Keima's awful behavior which makes me contemptuous of them. Of the three I'd rather read about and look at Fran.
Since I was editing '100 Waifus' anyway I took advantage of the opportunity to edit and delete some other lines that were confusing or unnecessary. My 26th readthrough will profit from the tightening up process, as will anyone who starts reading the book henceforth.
Once I've played all these Nintendo Switch rpg's (Xenoblade Chronicles 1-2, Octopath Traveler and Bravely Default II), I might revisit my hall of fame and have some better entrants available. But that could take all year and for now I needed names right now, so these three stepped up and filled the void as best they could.
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