@SalmonJones For those people who only read this series and don't know what SalmonJones means about the mean-spiritedness of the other series, I remind you of this bit in Volume 2:
@kuali said in Management of a Novice Alchemist Vol. 2 Discussion!:
I was initially quite confused why Lorea suddenly turned into such a blunt, snarky bitch when reunited with her less composed childhood friend - given that he'd apparently done nothing particularly wrong, hadn't hurt Lorea in any way, was being entirely reasonable during his appearance, etc...
Then I remembered this series has the same author as To Another World With Landmines, and the dynamic between Lorea and Gretz was suspiciously similar to the one between Haruka and Touya.
Except over in Land Mines, 'Lorea' has (at least) two accomplices, Gretz is one of the main characters, and its been growing more egregious over time in a series that just translated its 10th volume. On the master list of things you will not commonly catch me doing, defending the girls' treatment of Touya ranks pretty highly.
@SalmonJones said in Management of a Novice Alchemist Vol. 3 Discussion!:
I guess I'm saying land mines is weirdly chaste because I made it eight issues in and everyone is acting like romance is an icky thing that's worth belittling people for being interested in and in this series I'm 3 issues in and it's just a background thing that isn't super relevant to anything.
Honestly, they're more acting like romance involving Touya is an icky thing that's worth belittling Touya for being interested in. There are so many characters interested in romance with Nao that I ended up writing the Harem Guy Song about it...
Novice Alchemist is definitely the more fun (and funny) of the two series, no argument there. But at the start, Land Mines felt like it had some tension and some stakes to it every time the party went into the wilderness (something Alchemist has pretty much only managed once - during the fight against the Hellflame Grizzlies at the end of the first book). Very different tones, and its perfectly valid to prefer one over the other.
Then Land Mines began the slide to Op Harem Comedy, and while it doesn't get significantly funnier, it does lose the stakes and the tension... and grow significantly more annoying...
...I know those aren't really positives, but then, late series Land Mines doesn't have many of those for me to pick from...