Sakuma Sasaki

Mediocre. The protagonist is, the narrator and Celes insist, "sick and twisted to the very bottom of [his] soul", but if it weren't for the constant reminders, there'd be little to indicate this. The gimmick is that rather than jumping into a hot-blooded training montage and defeating the heroes with fisticuffs, Shinichi instead captures them and blackmails them into giving up. Maybe he's not a shining, golden hero, but his 'twisted' personality has been oversold.

This kind of story is like a mystery. It lives and dies on the protagonist doing something interesting and clever and believable, but without the reader being able to guess what in advance. Does it live or die? I could come down on either side.

On the plus side, tempting the hero over to the demon's side is an interesting enough plot, if not really original. On the minus side... well, it's all the usual suspects. I don't find Celes constantly berating Shinichi and accusing him of being a pervert to be either funny or titillating, whichever the author was going for. In general, the jokes don't land very well--Shinichi playing the tsukkomi doesn't amuse me.

If the sequels have more interesting plots, they could rescue this series, but I'm not in a hurry to find out.… (lisätietoja)

A bland read. It's basically a heavy-handed, preachy "killing is wrong. If you kill him, you'll be just like him!" story. The character are one-dimensional, and the titular Undead King doesn't really have a character arc besides "I just, like, want everyone to live in peace, maaaan." The conclusion is not satisfying, and the bad guy basically gets away with everything but is now a bit more inconvenienced.

Despite the Goodreads title saying "Vol 1", this is a one-volume read (it came out in 2020, so it's either that or the next volume hasn't come out for whatever reason, but I doubt the story will continue with how it ended).… (lisätietoja)