Just binge read the whole series on catchup.
I'll admit it, it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. And Lud made me mad in multiple occasions, midway through the series he was among my least favorite characters. If volumes were longer, I would've likely dropped it. Still, I decided to stick until I reached the conclusion, and the ending almost made me cry. I'm of the opinion that a bad ending can ruin an entire work, at least for me that's the case. For this series, this last volume saved it.

@Libri-Liberorum said in The Legendary Witch Vol. 1 Discussion!:

@topgnu said in The Legendary Witch Vol. 1 Discussion!:

I'm not sure where the music comes from. Maybe they perform acapella (not so Bollywood.) Maybe the music just comes from nowhere. Maybe a significant fraction of the population carry musical instruments to be ready to provide psychically guided orchestration when needed.

Maybe the music comes from spirits, like how in other series an intercession or otherwise connection with the spirits is what produces magic.

Perhaps the more powerful your connection is the greater and more elaborate the orchestration is

I'm sorry... This novel is just too uninteresting. I mean come, can't we have a novel that's not full of common tropes? Or at least a well written common trope. But I think I'm just getting too old for reading novels like this.

@HarmlessDave Even I, for as much as I have frequent issues with the plot, will admit that the main cast, and the relationships between them, are actually good.

(I still don't like Sara herself, but approve of everyone around her.)

The strength of the cast is actually the reason why I never dropped this series, no matter how annoying Volume 2 got.

@xdrfiredogx said in Elf Bride Vol. 18 Discussion!:

love power

I have no idea at all why my mind is suddenly hearing The B-52s singing about Love Power!

@Geezer-Weasalopes They did come up with a believable reason why the King only received half of the magic stone. I wonder who cooked it up.

And Dias will more than likely piss off another princess by turning down her proposal, this one for marriage.

@HarmlessDave I hope it leans in to more of the "Overpowered Protagonist deals with sometimes humorous slice-of-life situations."

We have a zany cast. Several of them seem to have some sort of awkward feelings for him. We also just got his two previous teammates in town. Are they going to join the guard, too? Is the knight vice-captain going to get blow-back from her boss?

That knight captain is destined to be trouble down the line.

Anyone that can be defeated in a straight-forward fight is easy, but plenty of things can't just be punched or blocked. Between the knight captain's distaste for the guards and the knight vice-captain's feelings for Seig, there's definitely material for another novel -- and without drawing out a monster-of-the-week type of situation.

I mean, the Capital is regularly attacked. We're likely to see more attacks. But that could easily be used as a tool to play for timing and importance with the other stuff going on.

Even if the Capital weren't attacked anymore, that would also be disruptive to the Capital as it would be a change from the status quo. It would mean it is safer and more folks would engage in trade there. This would bring a steady new stream of potential problems.

I'm assuming we won't see the sister before a time skip, so the age problem would be solved. The incest part remains, author might try to play with it by saying that Caim isn't the same person as before, but I guess in the end it all depends if he wants to cater to that fetish or not.

I officially ship Kid and the princess.
Anyway, a nice volume. I'll never get tired of seeing Ernie and the Ikaruga going wild.

Ayame could technically have a chance, if Light tells Khaos that a political marriage is useful to him. Of course, he's not going to give such and order to one of his retainers.
Anyway, it was a nice volume, I'm looking forward to the next one.

@Geezer-Weasalopes I've grown up in the happy unsafe days when there were tall swings with a plank for seat and chains holding it. Tall enough for someone to stand on the plank and swing strong enough to do a full circle. It was crazy luck that I survived after all I did as a kid, but my parents really had it rough.

But a swing doing a 270 degree turn? And then I guess stopping somehow? Now that is a certain death.

@Ingraman the seventh volume just released about a month ago

Ok, still on my catch up and was going to wait to comment tell I finished the volume but I just found out about granny Rina looking, essentially, the same. She is nuts. It is pretty hilarious. And I'm guessing I know who her husband is.

Pretty funny that young Rina's reaction to finding out her future fate is a resigned "Yeah. That sure sounds like something I would do".

I'm in the process of catching up but I have to say that Bel's story was lovely. I legitimately teared up. It would have honestly been a good place to end the series. This series has done its various arcs really well. I'm guessing Bel will be back for awhile, but I do wonder when she will leave for the future for good.

Time sure is flying. Seems like Mia should already start looking like her 17 year old self by now, right?

@diablo8x There can be multiple reasons why a series's translation is paused: licensing later volumes needs to be ironed out, the translator needs to be replaced, the translator's currently got a large enough workload that they can't handle anything more being added...

The only other thing I can add is that JNC has only ever dropped one series, and that was because it was cancelled and removed from sale in Japan and the JP publisher told them to axe the series.

@Makine I took it as an etymology pun, fwiw

I started reading this volume expecting a very slow romance with the protagonists changing from rivals to lovers over the span of many volumes. It turned out instead they are head over heels from each other from the start. Well, I'm not complaining.
It seems like this will be a very fun series to read.

@Vick_detri said in My Quiet Blacksmith Life Vol. 9 Discussion!:

I don't understand what happened to the northern delegation.

They have no idea where the protagonist has come from, they went to a foreign country that they have no real ability to threaten or force the hand of.
Even when they know he is already a protégé of powerful people they demand to take him back? Were they planning to hold their breath until the nobles gave in?

If there's a leak of vital national information, you either kidnap or kill him.

yea, might be a cultural difference thing- odd sort of diplomacy:

Nordic Delegation: "we'd like our asset back, since he is your retainer and not your subject (citizen) there is no problem, right?" local powers that be reply : " he is neither our subject nor our retainer - he lives outside of our sphere of influence, and is an independent contractor- we won't compel him to do anything" Nordic delegation doesn't want a diplomatic incident, nor to lose face. They compromise by planting a spy/asset of their own in the capital (Karen/last chapter) believing that she might gain the skills that the asset has (?)

I don't believe the Nordic folks think Eizo represents a leak of national secrets, instead they realize that he is a heretofore unknown national treasure (and may have knowledge of 'ancient forgotten arts') ....Imagine if some hermit (in present day) knew the recipe for greek fire, or is making violins like Stradivarius, or just so happened to know the proof to Fermat's last theorem...and Harvard wanted to recruit him

Bonus story!

Miranda has fought Cere’zhula (and/or multiple dark elf ladies) multiple times over the years, and it all comes down to boobs for her? Wow…

A brief history of (ladies’) underwear was unexpected. Punnishness not intended. Gelf tries to educate Alia, but it doesn’t seem like it’ll ever stick.

@MFDelta No. No. No. He got her pregnant in less than three months.