I Became a Childhood Friend of the Middle Boss

rob z says:

Short review on this one, unless folks are interested in something longer.

Generic, transported to a game world in an academy setting novel where MC becomes a hunter (i.e., hunting monsters). Not poison, but not thrilling either. Normally when I get into a novel, I binge read – this one took me a week to get through the current chapters.

MC is very anti “follow the plot,” which is a good thing. But as you get later into the story, his denseness really comes out (although at least there is no deaf MC trope where FMC confesses, the wind blows, and MC goes “What did you say”?). And while not a Gary Stu, after overcoming one hurdle, he pretty easily achieves great success (it helps that he is born into one of the ten most powerful families in this world).

The FMC (rabbit girl who is the mid boss in the original game) is a light yandere who, as the plot develops, clearly becomes interested in the MC (although she is on the innocent side and it takes a while for her to realize her feelings), but MC doesn’t really get it – he is too focused on the overall plot / winning the game (shades of d!ckless eunuch MC trope). As a result, when he is friendly with other female characters and she gets jealous, there is a lot of “Duh, duh, what’s wrong?”

The author does try to develop the side characters, but they are a bit one dimensional – you don’t really get invested in any of them.

Regarding the plot, there really isn’t much too it. The game is the type where there are are only neutral or bad endings. However, the causes of the numerous bad endings seem different, so there really isn’t an overarching plot or big baddie so far – just a sense the MC has to get strong, build a party, and prevent all the bad ends (which basically means making sure none of the MCs from the game die).

There is a bit of tension being set up between the original game protagonist and the novel MC – it seems like they will be fighting for the attention of the various potential party members, most of whom are women, and competing to be be the strongest. However, the game protagonist hasn’t shown up all that much yet, so that part of the plot is still early.

Finally, the author likes to do annoying sh!t but juuust avoid getting to the point where I would quit the novel. For example, there is a gag where the MC basically wants to turn himself into a golden sun type character )die hair blonde, get a fake tan, wear open shirts with gold chains, that sort of thing) because he thinks it would be “cool” and “manly”, but of course the female characters hate the idea. It was stupid the first time, but as it keeps coming up, it becomes even more annoying.

In short, a “Meh” out of 10. The only thing that is borderline poisonous is the dense MC thing, but it hasn’t gotten over the top yet.