As of volume 4, it's gonna be a NO from me.

I bought and read the first 2 volumes of this novel. Read it, liked it, decided to also buy volumes 3 & 4. Big mistake, could have save a whole 14 bucks. Mind you that I live in the Caribbean and 14USD is a lot for an unemployed student such as myself, but I digress.

The story itself is good but it suffers from the problem that there is way too much monologue done by the MC and an excess of... more>> tedious exposition, most of which would be unnecessary if not for the fact that the author puts way more focus on the happenings inside the game and around the environment of the mc's party than on the MC himself. When reading from the mc's perspective, rather than actual game-play, 80% of the read is the MC having discussions with veteran players about the construct of the player society within the game and their lives and interactions with the npc society. Other than that, all we get is the occasional off-screen grinding and the mc's inner monologue where he goes into tedious detail about unimportant topics that are uninteresting and usually completely unrelated to the plot.

What irritates me most about this novel is that rather than the MC working hard to git gud, the author puts a lot more focus on characters who are already veteran players in the game. Most action scenes usually involve a display of skill done by end game player characters that only serve to emphasize how much of a noob the MC is. As of volume 4 the MC still hasn't even reach level 50 of his first job.

The last straw for me though was the fact that halfway through volume 3, the author completely cut away from the main story and spent the remaining half of the volume introducing the life story of the side characters of the mc's party. Worse yet, this continued into volume 4 where the entire first 80% of the volume was focused on the same uninteresting background characters life stories and experiences. From that point I realized that this story was gonna turn into a friendship is magic slice of life and that's just not my cup of tea.

Maybe in the future I might pick this novel back up to see where it goes but for now I'm just not feelin' it. <<less

After reading the first arc, the prologue, I found it pretty interesting. The story is in a VRMMO world that has lots of possibilities.

Any player in that game gets assigned a specific embryo that they cannot choose, like a helper or soul weapon or something. Interesting to see how this goes, since it means that characters are not really set on generic classes and there can be a lot of deviation.

There are politics between NPCs and players, there is a goth-loli that follows the MC, and there is humor as... more>> well, mainly through the MC's brother so far. I had a pleasant time reading this, especially since the translations were well done, and I anticipate more chapters in the future. <<less

I'm still waiting for more translated chapters...

Slight spoilers ahead

... more>>

Spoiler

As far as translated chapters shows, the world is pretty fleshed out. In-game politics has clear effect both from NPCs and players. The unique eggs give lots of possible interactions (the kid with a succubus is awesome!) much like how HxH had cool nen powers.

The MC is a typical knight, but may turn to a darker power while still being kind (total assumption from the cover) so he's pretty played out as a character but still interesting. His OP brother (it's not that hard to guess his OP-ness) is going for a kinda cool kinda cuddly style which sorta works by giving his character a starting layout without wasting too much words.

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Anyway the story has great possibilities so I'm giving it a 5 for now <<less

7 months and we are only right here? I mean, for such a good novel, multiple translators are losing it with the chapter speed.

This VRMMO has a lot of possibilities due to the random assignment. This isn't like an OMG OP AF M/C like Shura's Wrath. There's a partner system and while a lot of people are very strong, there isn't a godlike player lol.

If we can get a translator that can actually pump out 2-3 chapters a week, I'd change it to a 5 rating, but the horrible translation... more>> speed brings it down to 4. <<less

Pretty solid story so far, we have a vrmmo that has a partner system in which that partner forms based on their experiences and personality. What is nice is that while you have the MC going down the OP route, they have already built that sort of thing happening to others so it does not look like a game breaking MC like Shuras Wrath. The translators/editors did a great job so far, and it is by no means hard to read, with decent grammar. So if you are interested in... more>> this sort of genre it is worth giving it a shot. <<less

Well I enjoyed this novel a lot. Although it only has 4 volumes thus far I think I enjoy it more than I did Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance on my first read, an that was my first light novel so it has nostalgia bonus. Also for newer readers just search on the Google "Infinite Dendrogram Volume 1 pdf" to find the website with all volumes both epub and pdf.

Now review time! On a side note I'm just a casual child so forgive me for a bad review.

Let's see NPCs... more>> are real people too. Players or Masters are abnormals who don't fit in. The main character dies at least once, yay enhanced realism. The main character is op but currently others, The Superiors, are a lot more so than him. Bro bear and cat in afterwords are funny. Also their characters in the story are similarly funny.

~ Akumu, The Semi-Immortal Cat <<less

The story is so good. The illustration is exceptional especially the color.

Its like 'A Certain Middle-Aged Man’s VRMMO Activity Log' LN, but there is a goal and the character building is good.

I recommend to read it before other MMORPG genre.

Btw there is a manga although the LN has more chapter

(This is my first review so it may be biased or lacked any necessary points) I enjoyed this novel as the concept is quite original and the pacing of the story can be considered around normal or a bit fast which I enjoyed. As previously mentioned in other reviews, the editors/translators have done a great job in translating this work. So far, I have no difficulty in reading their works. I will be looking forward on how the story will be progressing due to how deep the story plot... more>> is and character interactions. <<less

Infinite Dendrogram is a novel that presents itself as a VRMMO-RPG novel. And while technically it is, it spends alot less effort exploring it as a "game", and mainly focuses on exploring it as "another world with game mechanics", and it develops the game world as such. Because of that, I feel like you shouldn't expect the familiar MMO experience going in to avoid disappointment.

It is quite unlike the majority of japanese webnovels. The author plans ahead. The author sets-up interesting (though sometimes obvious) solutions beforehand to the seemingly insurmountable... more>> challenges the MC faces. The MC is not overly-powered compared to majority of the characters around him, though he is noticeably very favored by "luck" alot of times due to obvious plotting by the author. He is also presented with rewards left and right (some he gets for no effort at all on his part), which he uses to compensate for his lack of power. So while he is not over-powered, he is not really weak either like the author would want you to believe.

The story revolves around the plausible and believable geopolitical situation within the game world, which in itself has an interesting but a tad generic history behind it. NPCs move and act like actual real-life people. True to the game motto "Infinite Possibilities", there are a ton of interesting characters, all with unique abilities and personalities. This though also lends itself to the "game" seeming very unbalanced.

My only real gripe about this series is the constant jumping around by the author. He likes to go into the background story of alot of things, and he does it in the middle of the story. While I think that is commendable and shows that he has thought alot about this work, it does feel jarring to me as a reader. It messes up the rhythm of the story and the momentum of thrilling moments. Though that may just be from the composition of the official english light novel translations, which is what I read.

All in all though it's a well written work with obvious dedication put into writing it. Honestly, having read alot of the same genre over the years, this may be the best written I've read so far. <<less

tldr; I like it, I'm reading vol6 right now!! But it feels like the author is controlling the MC rather than writing about the said MC. Inconsistencies with the MCs thinking and overemphasis on his character that would other wise be known already, it just makes it a bit stale. We know what should have been already known. You don't need to put words on the mouth of the MC.

It's a good novel but..

The main characters thoughts are too long. I wouldn't mind if it enforces an idea or fact,... more>> or if it adds depth to the story and helps with empathizing and imagining things but it doesn't. He goes into and explain every detail that readers should have gotten by now. He goes into a full circle and a half before concluding things and it gets frustrating because of this.

Also, because of the overwhelming attention to unneeded detail, it misses up on otherwise important ones. This also makes things inconsistent as the reader would conclude the MCs actions based on this, but will leave disappointment in the end as his actions go about otherwise.

The exaggeration and overemphasis on some detail drowns out the overall impact of the story. It makes me feel like I can't think for myself. I can't use my imagination because trying to conclude with the overemphasized information and detail would give me a different outcome. The MC is supposed to be this and that but fail to be one. What is he really? <<less

Quite enjoyable!

The main character is strong, but doesn't have things too easy. I like the bond he is developing with his partner and I wish that there were more translated chapters, but this was a fun premise and it goes into detail explaining the mechanics of the world. It may not be a very realistic game, but hey, it's fun to imagine.

Not too shabby for a vrmmo web novel, but overall average as a novel in general. I wouldn't read this unless you like super fluffy novels, or are really starving for a mmo fantasy novel. There's some cool things happening in this novel, but don't expect anything serious from this. Could use a bit more RPGness to it as you hardly ever see stat screens, notifications, or anything game like. The story itself is a bit too predictable, probably due to authors writing talent - or lack of, considering the... more>> author seems to fill his word count with a ton of unnecessary dialogue for whatever reason. It's incredibly easy to tell what happens 4-5 chapters in advance which ruins any suspense. The embryo forms also seem a bit.. Uhh.. Useless? For example MC's second halberd form removes debuffs, yet he can't use the abilities from his first form. I have no clue why the author didn't make his abilities stack. MC is also incredibly dense and never uses his abilities to their fullest extent. He has a piece of armor that lets him spray poison. His halberd heals him from poison damage. Does he heal himself using poison while in halberd form? NOPE.

I'm not a huge fan of the way the author chose to set up plot events using foreshadowing during the prologue, and as the reader it's incredibly annoying to know what happens beforehand because everything in between feels like pointless filler. I'd much rather the MC falls into these events unprecedented which would fit him a lot better as his main character trait seems to center around indomitable will. As it is now, there's a huge lack of pressure during these events and they would be a lot more believable if they were unprecedented and the MC actually had to struggle to get himself out a situation.

The MC himself honestly feels like a bad choice to center the story around. You know there's a huge imbalance in the story when the side characters are far more interesting than the MC. Like Figaro. Figaro is COOL. As for the MC I found myself getting annoyed at his character traits, notably the selflessness. I literally had to skip an entire chapter because he couldn't stand the fact that he felt that he got too much from the boss mob he single handedly killed and was whining that he had couldn't share with his party members that did absolutely nothing during the fight. Just shut up and take the money. Greedy characters are a whole lot better than goody two shoes which do absolutely nothing but make me loathe the MC.

Speaking of which, the whole "friendship is magic" theme a lot of these recent mmo web novels are centered around just plain suck. Honestly I don't give a rats ass about the friends MC tags along with, and would rather have him split off and go solo for awhile to develop his character a bit. As it is, there is WAY too much focus on supporting characters. The supporting characters MC meets somehow end up coincidentally being just as strong as him and defeating people 4x their level. It feels so forced. Supporting characters are usually great, and support the MC, but not in this novel due them being bogged down to the excessive amounts of character dialogue, focus shifts, and development needed. Which in turn causes these characters to become a hindrance and item sinks. During the first unique boss MC solos, his friend sits back the whole round then swoops in and uses charm magic on the bosses familiar to capture what could have potentially been a nice drop for the MC. Dude literally got cucked out of having a phoenix for a pet. Leaves a bad taste.

Now for my biggest gripes and inconsistencies of this novel. This novel has a lot of them. Especially with the supporting characters like rook and his embryo. As a non combat class he just happens to pull all these random abilities out his heiny that make zero sense plot-wise. He can cancel magic spells, cut apart any metal with his clothing, and turn into a dragon at will. Did I mention he's not a combat class? This novel is absolutely literred with plot holes like this. The novel from volume 3 on focuses WAY too much on other superior's abilities, and really fleshing them out. Meanwhile our MC hasn't leveled up for the past 2 volumes and is still a complete noob with a total of 2 skills. According to the author, the "type maiden" embryos are extremely rare, yet half the cast has them. People who have them are usually head and shoulders above others their level. Example being hugo and cocytus when they fought gouz. So why is the MC so weak? Plus the fact that his embryo has awful abilities compared to others. MC is also unfathomably s*upid. In volume 2 he defeats the necromancer maise who was one of the evilest and strongest bandits in the entire kingdom. He then proceeds to leave the bosses inventory on the ground for someone to find. Which proceeds to erupt into a huge event. Nobody. Nobody is that s*upid.

There's even more generally s*upid things MC does, like being hellbent the first 3 volumes of the series focusing on min maxing his account to beat the pk character that killed him in the beginning of the first volume. A character I literally cannot even remember at all. He's also such a white knight that he goes so far as to reject monetary rewards for enemies he beats, because he thinks of it as blood money. Then he complains about never having enough money. Ugh. I get the author wants to write an extremely passionate, naive, justice loving character, but he ends up making them extremely annoying instead. Reading about someone shooting themselves in the foot because the author decided to design the character that way is just downright painful.

It's not a bad novel, but it's not great. If you can deal with an annoying MC and like general fantasy it's worth a read. 3/5 An average, fluffy, feel-good, friendship is magic novel without much substance. <<less

Great character development, incredibly interesting world that you explore along with MC, noticable character growth, and amazing story.

This is not isekai, this is a novel about a guy who decided to start playing a full dive MMORPG (thing of sao), but ended up realizing that it is as real as the real world.

Everything about this novel is amazing, and if you love fantasy novels with elements of MMORPGs, this game is 100% for you.

I mean, sheesh... This novel is just kinda boring.

As with so many VRMMO novels it fails to portray a world that would make any sense as a game; already at the very beginning it starts off ridiculous: ... more>>

Spoiler

We have our MC who, at level 0 hatches his embryo which grants him the ability to fully negate two attacks, and return twice of all the damage he took, absorbed (for example from his resistance stats), or negated from that enemy while ignoring all resistances they have.

There is virtually no punishment for PK.

AIs supposedly have human intelligence but there is nothing to prevent players from committing crimes except for what the world itself has set up, so in combination with the next point ->

Players get to respawn a day after dying. -> Any game of this sort would have so many people going on terrorist sprees every 24 hours.

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I wanna mention this spoiler is only about what happens in the first few pages, nothing specific about later volumes coz that would just be too much.

Character development = 0; and for the MC it's negative.

MC's embryo becomes a

Spoiler

high-and-mighty maid girl

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because why be creative when you can be Japanese...

Plot progression is forsaken for comedy skits and side/back stories, and so many encounters are the cliché supposedly impossible to beat but still weaker than plot armor. <<less

First off the world is pretty cool, I like that they try to flesh it out, it introduces some I teresting political environments to spice things up.... And thens goes nowhere with it. The world is locked in an interesting political struggle that doesn't matter because the people from Dryfe are always the bad guys. Even though the story would be so much more I interesting if Caldina showed up to wrecks tuff, nope just another Dryfean plot. And no the ruler of Dryfe being a Yuri yandere doesn't somehow... more>> justify her frequent terrorism, annexation campaigns, wholesame slaughter of innocents all to kidnap another country's princess to make her their s*ave. And the 'good guys' of Altar just sit there and take it, no matter how much terrorism is performed on their soil, no matter how many innocents die, they never counterattack because retaliation is something only bad guys do... A common theme in many JP LNs but an unwelcome one to be sure. Doesn't help the the main character has the personality of cardboard with the word Righteous Knight sharpied on it, who can apparently fight level 1000s at level 150-200 but never gets the equivalent xp for it, because that would speed things up and make it hard to milk. And don't get me started on this weirdass MMO system where top performers regularly have 100, 000s in basic stats but can be fought by a dude with 100 in every stat. And don't even get me started on how 2-3 volumes are just sidestories, with another as a prequel where the events, results and rewards were already known beforehand. And even when the main plot IS progressing expect a ton of faffing about shortly followed by impossible odds that are promptly fixed by 11th hour asspull new powers or someone popping in to save the day. The world might be good, but the author clearly never planned an overarching plot or consistencies to this world. Power levels matter until they don't. Grinding and hard work matters until it doesn't. The story is serious until it's time to faff about halfway through every arc. Plot threads are brought up with illustrations and all and never addressed ever again. The political situation is complex and inter- oh wait we never see the rest it's just Dryfe again. Oh aristocracy problems and multiple feuding houses I wonder- nope Dryfe did it. Main character might actually lose? Just kidding new power/form. 2/5 only because the world is cool and the art is unique, but in my heart it's a 1/5.

Edit: Oh mustve fat fingered the stars on my phone, guess it's a 1/5 after all... <<less

Yeah, I gave this 4. I'll explain why, but listen first.

Tbh, there's a lot of logic missing just from reading the first volume.

1. 1. They said the "Infinite Dendrogram" game is having only hundred thousands of people rn, like how are you, as a dev, supposed to survive with players only that much? Like I get it that VRMMO is such a luxury, but also because that it's a VRMMO that it costs a lot. And it's online, holy shit.
   2. And also, how in the hell did you maintain the game? How did you gain profit? The game in the novel basically has no micro-transaction whatsoever. There is no explanation on how the devs are gaining profit from.
   3. Having the AI/Tians being completely human-like in terms of intelligence etc is also so damn suspicious. You may as well call them human as they can think, act, feel the same way as we do. That's some pretty damn extreme level war crime there. Sweet buttery of god, you're breaking the Geneva Convention in every single aspects, in the worst way possible.

There are a lot other illogical things that maybe I haven't mentioned, but this is enough.

With just those three abovementioned points, I can already say that this novel just doesn't f*cking make sense. In fact, I almost dropped the entire thing in the first volume. Though those arguments could only be valid only if the "Infinite Dendrogram" is a real game developed by a certain party. Turns out it's something something isekai under the guise of VRMMO, turns out that certain characters or group in the novel is managing the "Infinite Dendrogram" game's universe to be accessible for the humans of the real world, and presenting it in a game's way.

Well that kind of excuse still doesn't make up for the fact that it's still suspicious af. If we're going for our world logic, any guys or gals with decent brain should have known that how the whole "Infinite Dendrogram" works just doesn't make sense.

The whole this novel world should be headlining these issues. And yet, only people like Mr. Franklin understand the fact. I mean it's just so obvious.

Another issue for the writing, how did you kill someone that's way beyond your level very easily? I get it that Ray's (a.k.a. MC) got Counter Absorption, and that the whole Embryo thing holds infinite possibilities blahblah, but you can't consistently killing high ranked and even top players just like that. In the first place, how did you tanked the damage received from those top players when your level was so low? There's those moments when you don't got brooch or dragonscale ward no more. How in the hell does your stats work?

And if Embryos holds infinite possibilities, the whole damn game universe should have so many unbalanced as sh*t players like you as well. Like, is this your benefit as main character? Rook too, holy shit. You're solo-ing Hugo what the hell. Hugo's possibly level 500, also with the Superior Job. H-how did he lose from the Sherlock Holmes wannabe's descendant chump who's not even level 200 at the time?

There's also those moments like, where Ray basically got a new job, a unique jobs that completely out of META, lost jobs or just jobs nobody really cares about, he picked them and in the next 7 or so chapters, those jobs completely saved his ass. What a way to employ plot armor.

But well ignoring all those things you could say this novel is fun. There are those moments that makes you go 'woah' or get you hyped in the way that, most fantasy novels don't.

And I mean, if JP/KR/CN novels like Otome Game Mob or To be Power in the Shadows or Second Coming of Gluttony that is wish fulfillment filled with hypocrisy, misunderstanding, fetish blabla is what you call good, as in what I might say terrible but I'd gave 3 or 2 because that's just basically just how most webnovels or light novels play out, then it's pretty fair that this is the average quality for me. Which is 4 or good for most people.

It's not like it's quality read, but it's readable.

Go waste your time with this instead of doing that with some obscene "morality questioning" inducing novel.

I can' believe I got to this point, I mean the Ln was pretty bad in my opinion that he pretty much ruined the whole story tbh. The world is fine, I like Vrmmo (thats why I bothered to give an extra star). The Mc's downfall is his riduculous sense of selflessness and his overbearing sense of justice. I mean he just seemingly beats opponents alteast 5-10 times his level through the power of 'will' 'believing and friendship'. BUUUULLLLSSSHHHIIITTTT!!. I mean he never gets defeated/die (only the time when... more>> he gets assasinated by the Superior Killer. He's a goody two shoes that doesn't take what he is supposed to take just like the time when he and his pals meet an UBM and he solo'ed it entirely, his party members too busy dealing with somethinh else, and he gives them 1/3 of the Reward! Bullshit. To be honest his brother, ans Figaro are better characters. I love the arc where they fight to defeat the Tri-Zenith Gloria, it was really fun and realistic and much more interesting than some blond MC, Figaro X Hannya is the best. <<less

The MC waited till he graduated college to buy the first real full dive vr device as he was afraid of it interfering with his studies / exams. This made him wait 1 and half years real time, and about 4 or 5 years in game time. This made everyone else more op than him, including his brother who bought it during the first day. His brother however always wears a costume to hide his face as he didnt adjust his appearance from what he looks like in real life.... more>> This was okay, but he keeps putting cringe animal jokes everytime he speaks which was very very annoying. Author prob thought it was funny, but most definitely not. In 2nd chap MC meets probable FL in a cringe cliche type of way which also helped ruin the story for me. I dropped after the 6th chap as it was a little below average writing, which Im not really surprised from a Japanese novel. There are better vrmmorpg novels out there, and the translation has also been dropped for a few years so I wouldnt give this a try. <<less

Story is interesting, characters are great, setting and plot are quite enjoyable. My main issue is that it starts off quite nicely and then there's just a never ending barrage of important battles. You want to see more of the world from the eyes of the main character and you want to see him progress in this world. Instead you just get a bunch of battles that have high stakes that overtime drain your interest. You become numb to the high stakes and tension and instead find yourself annoyed and... more>> skipping entire volumes by speed reading because its so boring. <<less

Good world especially if this is full isekai but This is just kinda weird cause its just an online game, im cringing so hard in the villain dialogue and action especially the scientist, like who tf do something like that in a game? You'll be fvcked up IRL after doing that in an online game if someone knew your identity or someone dox you lmao that's one of the main reason I cant continue reading this, cringe meter is too high to handle and I cant take them seriously because... more>> its a game where nothing is at staked <<less