Aug 03, 2025
oh God the fucking imouto-
anyway, I'll preface this by saying this isn't remotely my genre of choice (hence me not reading much this contest) so you can disregard this since idk, isekai is a different beast
I've seen comments praise the dynamics between characters, but I'm the opposite. These people talk like they've known each other for years while simultaneously never really having a conversation. Their personalities are extremely one note and tropey to a degree that I feel like I've yet to meet a single character, so I can't really enjoy their banter so far. I get isekai isn't exactly the place for high art character dramas, but it would at least be nice to have SOMETHING that isn't funny fat guy (TM), main character(TM) and angry girl(TM). I don't know. I read to this point expecting to get proven wrong or surprised at some point, but by now I'm pretty certain that no one's going to develop meaningfully, and by this I don't mean character development necessarily, just... SOMETHING beyond their 1-2 tropes that exist so they can make gay and sex jokes? I audibly groaned when Yayoi was introduced, but that might be the trauma of picking up several 2000s fantasy books in a row where the love interest had the exact same personality, down to the hate to love shtick that seems to be developing between her and Teri.
Setting wise the world is extremely basic and is clearly there so the main trio can do their shenanigans. Aside from the BDSM dolls and paper world thing, there's nothing that I remember. Everything is either as standard as it gets or gets no description at all. There's no magic system, bestiary or antagonist to look forward to, which isn't a bad thing, either, just means that the story hinges more on the main characters' interactions, which... well. You know how I feel about that.
Prose so far is unremarkable but works and is easy to understand. Unfortunately, the constant mix of past and present tense is highly distracting. I'm also not sure if this is supposed to be third person limited? It might be that Teri has the personality of all time, but it reads like omniscient despite the point of view being his. It's hard to explain.
But yeah. I feel like since the characters don't work for me, nothing does, but the opposite could be said for those who do enjoy your cast. I'm simply not the audience ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ best of luck though
