Paul M. Brown

Great Fun, but should have been placed after vol 3 or 4

Revisado: 04-27-25

Performance was fantastic as always. Fun to hear these new characters who were briefly talked about in the previous volume.

The stories are fun too. This first one leaves you hanging a little at the end, but it was still sweet. The problem is the placement. much of this story relies on keeping up with the current dynamic of the main pair, and knowing *why* the dynamic is such. Volume 6 seems to be a lead in to the "Town of Strife" arc, and volume 5 is the context *for* that lead in. The break in pace and rewinding of context makes it difficult to remember where exactly you left off. I recommend listening to this immediately after the Nora/Shepardess/Gold smuggling arc, even if it may somewhat spoil some of Holo's mysterious inner workings at that point in the story.

it's difficult to say as I haven't listened to all of the volumes yet, nor are they out right now. Perhaps wait until you reach a good narrative pause, say, after a particularly satisfying conclusion to any arc, before listening to these. Like I said, I love it(!) but the side colors volumes should perhaps be treated more as a dessert, or as an appetizer while waiting for the most current volume once you catch up to the most current publication :)

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Fun, but w/ somewhat bothersome pacing

Revisado: 04-07-25

voice acting is great and fun, as always.

story is engaging and immersive. However much I enjoy the author's prose and descriptive taste, for how long these volumes are, very little actually occurs. This hits home more when you notice the pattern of getting the reader invested in someone that just gets immediately killed off.

Now, if the author's whole point is to make us think of the man who became Ainz and spineless and weak willed loser, it is of course, effective.

I still enjoy all of Ainz's scenes. I'm invested. But, his passive approach, communication issues, wildly unbalanced value of his "friends" can be irritating. Once again, if that's the point, it's great writing. But if I am supposed to empathize with him, I can only do so for interpersonal reasons. Bla. he's just irritating me. Still fun. really want more world building :)

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It's all here

Revisado: 04-04-25

I'll start with the bad since there is almost none:
1. These are so good, story and acting both. However, so far we are only seeing a release of approximately two volumes per year, so be prepared to wait a LOT to see what happens next. I would definitely be willing to pay money to whomever necessary to increase the publishing rate from two to 6 per year, but would be happy to compromise at 4 :p

The rest is fantastic. The story itself is extremely immersive. The world building and character writing is all cohesive and any one facet plays into the others. Much like Spice & Wolf in that way, but due to the nature of the story taking place in one area so far, it gets more time to be fully fleshed out.

The narration and voice acting is superb, of course, as we still have the english voice actress for Myne. She differentiates character voices well and pulls off a warm tone that gives the while experience a cozy story time feel, albeit a high end one. The only real improvement I could imagine would be getting the voice actor for Ferdinand to reprise his role and perhaps perform several of the other Male characters who will he introduced too. This isn't really necessary because Buhr is doing such a good job, but it would be a nice cherry on top :)

oh! also, there is a short story at the end about the guild master which is great and confirmed my suspicion about him. look forward to it

Thanks for the great work, everyone!

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Format change

Revisado: 04-01-25

First off, Caitlin Kelly is perfect for this and did a great job, as per usual.

With that out of the way, the story is a bit frustrating in this one. The TL;DR is that we skipped a decade ahead and are not focusing on any character, which makes this feel more like a bonus side story volume instead of a mainline volume.

It's Not because it isn't fun or interesting, but because it seems the author wants to wrap the story up, and had to massively pick up the pace in order to do so. This is true with the previous volume, but because that volume followed one character primarily, it seemed to make sense to skip a bunch of stuff from other characters perspectives. But in this volume, which takes place almost a decade after the events of the last Komoko/White focused volume, it feels like we've lost touch with her. However, with the way this volume ends, it sort of feels like we wasted 1.5 volumes focusing on a character who just unceremoniously dies. I'd honestly have preferred if this volume was White or Ariel focused, catching us up on the last 10 years, with just a coupe chapters summarizing all the battles. Are we supposed to feel a growing distance between ourselves and the main cast so we can sympathize with merosophis or what?

I'll re-listen to all of the volumes again in the future because I love this series so much and the Voice work is so good, but there are only a few chapters in this entire volume that actually feel relevant to the future story. Will probably end up mostly skipping this one, save for the chapters featuring our actual main cast, i.e. merosophis, white, etc

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Scatter Fun

Revisado: 03-28-25

as always, the voice actors do an amazing job. This one in particular has a LOT of characters involved and they differentiate them quite well. Fun delivery ad well.

Story wise, it's a scattershot. almost feels like a farming around for fun volume after the more focused story in the previous volume. The author actually acknowledged this in his afterwords, so it wasn't just me. Anywho, still Fun, but a bit less cohesive of a feeling this volume. Just think of it as a series of mini-stories that are linked events before and during a festival.

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Well NOW what am I supposed to do?

Revisado: 11-03-24

story: great end to a personal tale, great introduction to the world tale. Hope we get part two before I'm 74.

production: As good as it ever has been for the series. Cliff Kurt finishes it off well. One probable mistake in direction happened during the last ornsecpnd to last MG talk. 99% sure it wasn't Rudy saying "I'm doomed." two or three lines got probably got mis-attributed due to long ongoing dialogue without x said, y stated, etc. But it is a trivial matter. BWAHAHAHAHAA

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story and performance

Revisado: 10-29-24

story --> good, it's all coming together

production --> better than ever! Cliff performs the rolls with more energy and range than before and it came out great. He's working hard and it shows :)

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Narrator was already good, but really improved

Revisado: 10-20-24

Story: this is a set up volume for the set up to the conclusion of the series. A good amount happens, but there's no real climax. Best enjoyed in tandem with the subsequent volume.

Production: Cliff, the narrator, has really got his voices for characters down by now. It's great! No odd hiccups or digital noise that I recall. Only 4 stars so I can reserve 5 for stellar ensemble casts that require a lot of editing and organizational work. an example of this would probably be the bakemonogatari audio books. anyways, don't let the 4 star scare you away. narration was, as I mentioned, GREAT!

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Beautiful Story/Acting, extremely slow publishing

Revisado: 09-11-24

I left a more detailed review for volumes 1 and 3 expressing my love for both, but wish to use my forgotten chance to review this volume to express that I want more faster and am willing to pay for it.

Right now these are being published at a rate of two volumes per year. There appears to be 30 more volumes left in the story according to the listing, meaning that if you wished to enjoy this fantastic story told beautifully by Reba Buhr, you won't see a conclusion to this story until the year 2040. Although I greatly love these volumes, that wait will be quite difficult. Plus, a lot can happen in 15 years. I may not even be alive then. Sudden illness, an accident, property rights changing hands with certain properties being forgotten about, etc. I just hope these audiobooks become popular enough to incentivize all parties involved to increase their publication rate so that we may hear the story, told to this level of quality, in its entirety within our lifetimes. Ideally, something closer to 6 volumes per year to decrease that 15 year wait into a 5 year wait. Even 7.5 years (4 per year) would certainly be better than 15 (2/y)

thanks again for making these :)

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Big things

Revisado: 09-02-24

Production side:
Erin Rieman has really got the characters down and her voice work from her first volume of narration has improved a lot. I take back any previous criticism on that front. Nice work!

Story:
The previous volumes' build up pays off when many things suddenly happen at once. The direction of the war, plan B, the diplomatic talks--they all pay off here. That does however open many new doors and avenues for theorizing how Tanya will navigate it and whether or not she'll finally land the peaceful office job of her *evil* dreams.

Generally:
Unfortunately, Mr. Zen seems to release only about one book per year. sometimes a bit more, sometimes far less. They're great books, mind you, but in about 6 months or so, us english audiobook listeners are going to have massive waits on our hands. Likewise Unfortunately, this also means the likelihood of volume 14 (and subsequent volumes, probably concluding in vol 20, according to web novel comparison threads) will either have their audiobook Production suspended indefinitely, or each new volume we get, which will be rare occurrences, will have a new or different narrator, which will be jarring for future listeners. Anywho, that's my *ONLY* negative comment.

Definitely recommend this series

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