Happy New Year everyone! Looking back on 2024 what was your LN Year like? What stood out? How many novels did you read and which were your favorites?
Happy New Year everyone! Looking back on 2024 what was your LN Year like? What stood out? How many novels did you read and which were your favorites?
Wait…so is Death March Rhapsody a harem or not? It has the harem tag on AniList and the anime synopsis literally says “So begins his ‘heartwarming, occasionally serious, and harem’ adventure in another world.” Is it one of those cases where, just because there are a bunch of female characters it got the tag even though it isn’t really romantic?
At this point it’s something of a running gag for source readers since it gets the harem allegations thrown at it every time the series comes up.
At a glance it looks like every other harem show. But MC has absolutely ZERO interest in his party. There aren’t any “ups I just stumbled and happen to enter the girls bath” shenanigans and MC has a single target of his affection who isn’t in his party. He never tries anything with the girls in his party and as a LN reader we get the inner thoughts of the protagonist as well and know that he never even thinks about trying anything.
There are a few things that doesn’t help though. While it doesn’t exactly break the source canon, I believe that the anime adaptation was deliberately ambiguous about MCs thoughts regarding the party in order to make it more compelling to the horny otaku audience. That just might be my prejudice speaking but a anime only watcher never gets that definitive “not a harem” that a LN reader gets. I think that this decision hurts the source. Then there is one girl that likes to make lewd suggestions to MC that can be easily clipped out of context to further the harem narrative. The girl is a reincarnate herself and was in her past life an old granny. Her personality is basically a slightly more sane version of Dan Dan Dan’s Turbo Granny. She makes inappropriate jokes and comments all the time. The gap-moe is funny in context but out of context it can be used by someone who wants a gotcha moment.
I see, so, something kind of like Cid in Eminence in Shadow where he just doesn’t care about others romantic feelings.
Yeah, I’ve seen this happen plenty of times. Sometimes it is removing internal dialogue like this and other times it is changes to the character design/art. Even comparing the covers on the LN AniList page vs the anime AniList page shows a different emphasis.
I’m not sure honestly. I don’t get the feeling that the party has any romantic feelings for MC. At least as a whole. There are two characters where I could see them having a crush on MC but it’s certainly not something explicitly spelled out. I see it more like how a daughter would be possessive of their dad.
I remember one point where the other reincarnate pressures MC into marrying her when he doesn’t find someone in X years and MC goes “yeah, yeah whatever” and another girl gets involved in this as well without being against this. So I can see this being open to interpretation for those two. But given how obvious it is made for other characters outside the party when they have an romantic interest in MC and how you have to read between the lines for those inside his party, I’m fairly confident that they have familial love for each other rather than romantic. At least not more than a childish crush.
Was she an old granny? I thought she was young.
SPOILERS - Somewhere in the latest 5 Volumes (18-22)
When the other hero got sent back didn’t he have a letter to give to Arisas family and her mother didn’t believe him?
I might be wrong but I always thought she was younger in her old life.
At least I have an excuse to read it again to check!
Now you’re making me unsure. I am 100% sure that she was older than Satou on earth since he is often wondering about the anime/pop culture references she makes and that only older people would know/say those. There might be some timeline stuff going on though that could alter her previous age but if that’s the case it’s not a plot point and only mentioned in passing.
Good point, I might have the person who sent the message mixed up. It might have been Satous message due to the person they left the note with when the family rejected it.
To him they are his family like daughters.
The one is his type but nothing is happening between them.
He keeps saying that they are not old enough for him, instead he likes the eternal 1,000,000+ year old high elf. It feels like the author is edging the line, all the young girls like him but he only likes extremely old women.
I see, one of those situations. Thanks for clearing it up!