Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? [Light Novel] Volume 1

This story at its core is amazing. It starts slower and uses a lot of typical troupes and the power system is not exactly new. However, the world is clearly defined and is built on a unique premise. Personally I find its theme exploring the true roots of a hero inspiring. It takes an atypical approach to a hero tale, Belle aims to be a hero not because of glory or power, only to fulfill a dream he shared with his grandfather. While the unnecessary sexual exploitation does distract from its story it is minimal. While it uses a pretty simple plot, the characters keep you cheering on Belle to keep working hard. The social challenges faced with being in a world occupied by gods presents itself with an interesting way to deal with power show more imbalances within the world as well. The artwork in between chapters and the character profiles are well crafted and help immerse and build familiarity with the characters. I would avoid giving this book to a show less

Trashy, shallow, silly, and ridiculous. This is not great literature, but it is fun and funny. I wouldn't recommend it for any impressionable young people, or anyone with high-minded tastes. Honestly I'm not sure who'd I recommend it to.

This is the only Japanese Light Novel I've ever picked up, and the first LitRPG. If you're not familiar with the term, a LitRPG is a novel that includes the conventions of tabletop role-playing games (like Dungeons & Dragons) or videogames. The characters have codified classes and skills that advance in an unnatural way according to the mechanics of the game.

It doesn't have any swearing or explicit sexual content, just a pervasive immature attitude towards sexuality (female characters are definitely show more described in a titillating way, characters often respond to someone else's lust by running away or becoming debilitatingly embarrassed, the protagonist is a 15 year old boy who has literally a dozen women and a handful of men pursuing him while he is actively clueless than he might be attractive to anyone). show less

A rather meta fantasy story, built around JRPG mechanics as just how the world works. Pretty standard young noble hero stuff, battling monsters while befriending or otherwise attracting attention from various women. It's quite fun and I'm interested in where it's going; although fairly simple, the characters and their interactions still had me pretty hooked. I'm not all that sophisticated...

I do have to gripe slightly about the translation. I don't know what the original's like, but the English doesn't exactly sing. It feels competent, and there's nothing unnatural, but it reads quite blandly and I didn't get any sense of an author's voice coming through.

Took me quite a while to read this - there's a lot of old-fashioned terminology, fantasy terms and other oddities to make it more challenging. I think it's better than the translation, or at least, I didn't notice the same odd blandness that I found in the English (but then I'm not a native Japanese speaker).

I couldn't finish this, the translation of the edition I have is painful to read, it feels like the translator just translated the text word for word, instead of trying to express the Japanese text's meaning in English. 1 Star for the translation, can't really rate the book because it wouldn't be fair to the author.