This series is hard for me to judge. I'm genuinely interested in what's going on and like the characters here. There's also some cool touches in this world, another one of which is revealed here - some more depth to how this "magical dungeon" thing actually works.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of substantial downsides. One is the very obviously gamey nature of the world; this is consciously based on JRPGs, and I feel like the implementation of that is a little clunky. I get the feeling it's not quite accepted JRPG tropes as the fundamental metaphysics of the world, but on the other hand, it uses them as overt and tangible parts of reality. I suppose I feel like it should be either a little more hardcore about converting those into "how the world works", or make them less overt and more narrative. But I couldn't put my finger on anything.

The other issue is that the writing continues to feel a bit awkward, not quite flowing as I'd like. I assume it's a matter of over-faithful translation, but I really should see if I can dig up a Japanese copy and see how they compare.

Fundamentally though, it's become an undemanding me-time read for me, and I'm okay with that. ( )