Update from v5 to v9: lowering the rating from 3.5 to 3

Rating: 3, Translation: 5

[Rating/Translation scale: 5 = almost all readers may enjoy / infrequent minor errors. 4 = large majority of readers may enjoy / frequent minor errors or infrequent major errors, no difficulty to read. 3 = 50% of readers may enjoy / frequent major errors, unable to understand some sentences or a paragraph in a chapter. 2 = niche audience may enjoy / unable to understand moderate portion of a chapter. 1 = portion of niche audience... more>> may enjoy / unable to understand most of a chapter.]

A 14-y.o. Orphan farm-boy in a fantasy world goes to the dungeon city to become an adventurer. In this world, adventurers receive game-like levels, stats, and abilities through tattoos given by patron gods who have descended from another dimension. The MC starts off with no experience, being the sole member of a new goddess's guild, with the goal of becoming a hero with a harem.

Positives: Feels like a full-fledged novel series: full scenes and full storyline. Interesting mechanics on how adventuring works. MC starts off at zero, and has to overcome challenges each time he wants to advance to the next level. There seems to be a surprise in the backstory to the MC, but the author takes a very long time to reveal occasional hints.

Major Negatives: Some readers may dislike the MC. He has a cheat ability to level up dozens of times faster than anyone else. Almost every girl falls for him (usually for no reason), while he is totally oblivious and awkward around girls. He is extremely naive or impulsive. He is always stammering with exaggerated body language. His personality does not change, he does not get any less naive or oblivious even after 9 volumes.

The story's setting is bizarre and very depressing. The story seems to target teens, but the setting is more about personal violence, rather than typical adventuring/fantasy violence. The dungeon city is lawless. People murder, assault, kidnap/rape each other, sometimes on orders of their gods, often with no consequence. Adventurers are like slaves to their gods; they can only leave their guild with permission or run away. Many of the story arcs surround these types of violence, yet the MC never gets any more street smart. Although MC gains levels/income/harem, the world never improves and stays depressing/lawless.

There are s*x slaves and implied rape, but for some reason the author keeps calling the victims prostitutes. I don't know if this is some kind of cultural thing, like the Japan WWII "comfort women" issue.

Minor negatives: The story's scope is small. The setting is limited to the dungeon city, and the dungeon below the city. There's no romance, just scenes of MC being embarrassed, and the girls being shy or jealous of each other. Fighting scenes have annoying yelling or animal sounds in every page, or these overused sentences that are just exclamation marks. There are long explanations that I start skimming over.

Overall: Fair fantasy story about adventurers/dungeon diving. There are some major and minor issues, but they become more and more obvious when reading past volume 5 (which is where the anime stops). Personally, I eventually got tired of the MC and the story, but I think at least half of fantasy readers would disagree with me.

Other info: The anime goes through volumes 1 through 5. There are currently 11 volumes. Yen Press has translated 9 volumes, and you may need to read those as the fan translations are legally not available. <<less

A true masterpiece of a novel. If you haven't read Danmachi yet, you are truly missing out. If by the time you finish reading this review you still haven't decided to read the novel, watch the anime and come back!

Here are some core points:

The protagonist is not OP from the get go, but he grows at an incredible pace and does his best to overcome the obstacles on his path. I can almost guarantee that even if you solely read novels with OP protagonists, you will love this one. On... more>> the other hand, even if you hate OP protagonists, you will probably still love it.

All side characters are well developed and interesting. There are no filler characters, and all of them play their roles properly.

The world itself is very simple, and yet, very captivating. This is a dungeon-crawler novel, but this does not mean that all the events take place in a dungeon. You will see plenty of world development, however it is on a much smaller scale than in other novels (In Danmachi, this is a very good thing tho.).

The story progresses at an amazing pace. I never got bored while reading this novel.

The development of the protagonist is apparent. In most novels, the protagonist pretty much remains the same person from beginning to end. This is not the case in Danmachi. You will see clear differences between Bell in vol 1 and Bell in vol 11, and the growth itself is not spontaneous but well-paced.

The action scenes are some of the best out there. And by best, I don't mean tons of explosions and flashy spells, I mean that you actually experience the battle as if you were the protagonist. You experience all the emotions behind Bell's decisions and actions, as well as all the pain he goes through.

Danmachi has a decent sense of humor (if you like silly humor that is). At times it actually made me laugh, and it is worth mentioning that it is incredibly hard to make me laugh.

Lastly, from the start, the protagonist is by no means a genius. He is kinda average, with an inclination towards being a bit too simple, due to how innocent he is. But this is also part of said character development, as he noticeably grows as the story progresses.

All in all, if you don't like fantasy and character growth, then Danmachi is probably not for you. However, I believe that there are very few people that would not enjoy danmachi. <<less