Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life, Vol. 1 (Light Novel) by Usata Nonohara

1 review

lilsuccubus's review

2.5

Although I enjoy the story, I have some real issues with the writing. First I'll say that I prefer the manga so far because it leaves out the prostitution that is in the light novel. The beginning of the novel is heavily centered around prostitution. The main character regularly sells potions to a pimp as her main customer. I don't appreciate this being in stuff I read, especially when it's not needed for the story and even more so when it's presented as neutral or positive. Soft jargon is used to obscure what's happening: "bordello" instead of brothel, "women of the bordello" instead of prostitutes, and "caretaker of the bordello" instead of pimp. This is unacceptable to me. The story also makes it clear that sex slavery is going on, and yet it's never portrayed in a negative light. Similarly, slavery in general seems portrayed as positive in this novel, and the main character buys a slave and is his savior. And the issue of weird jargon continues throughout the book. I don't appreciate having to look up words in a fiction book, as an educated adult. The age rating is 13 and up, and I strongly disagree, both because of the difficult words and the content (slavery, prostitution). I don't know if it was better in Japanese, but it's pretty clear that the translator is not a native American English speaker. They said "tri-colored paprika" instead of bell peppers, for example. Many passages were very confusing to read. The entire premise of the book is chemistry, and despite being a chemist, I had a hard time following what was going on. Verb tense kept switching, and the random present tense sentences were very distracting. I do like the story overall, but it would have been so much better with a different translator and without the prostitution.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Slavery, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism