#Review “Management of a Novice Alchemist”
Light Novel by Mizuho Itsuki
English Publication J-Novel Club
Sarasa, a novice alchemist, sets out to live her life and build an alchemist practice in the rural countryside. She is a good-hearted woman who makes many friends and helps them, and the village where she settles, to solve their problems and some of them are dozes, like an attack of a herd of frenzied Flame Grizzlies.
MoaNA is a light-hearted slice of life/CGDCT (cute girls doing cute things) series set in a fantasy world. Generally, I am not fond of books with over-powered characters, but since the plot revolves around the characters and their life, not their fantasy escalated, it works out just fine. There are several f/f relationships and you can read whatever sub-text you want into them.
It’s a delightful read for troubled times and contains a satisfying sub-theme of good people overcoming greedy aristocrats and conniving merchants.
The writing and translation are good, and if you like CGDCT it’s worth reading. The anime of the same name only scratches the surface of the story. On my personal 9 pt. scale, I rate it a 7, which puts it in the closely followed category.
#Review “Management of a Novice Alchemist” vol. 3 (PrePub version)
Light Novel by Mizuho Itsuki
English Publication J-Novel Club / Digital release 24/11/26.
This is the most recent release ofMoaNA. My review is based on the pre-publication version available to J-Novel Club members.
A greedy merchant and corrupt noble set out to trap Iris into a political marriage. Sarasa won’t stand for that, provided she earns a profit. (A worker is worth their wages.) I think this brings us up to where the anime ended, but as I said in my general review, there is much more to the story than shows up in the anime.
After reading several mediocre to poor series recently, the quality of this one stands out. I look forward to the next volume, which starts prepub streaming later this month.
Free streaming for members ends 24/12/16 so you have plenty of time to read the prior volumes and read this one for free.