The MC is a human mecha mercenary who gets hired to work for a country of cat people on the losing side of a war to another country of cat people. The cat people are several times as strong and durable as humans, so the only place the MC can match them is in the c*ckpit. The MC has a personal belief of only crippling his enemy's ships and mecha instead of killing them (most other characters do kill people and MC doesn’t complain). Also the cat people have a 10:1 ratio of females to males or something crazy like that. They also outnumber most races in the galaxy by, like, 10, 000:1 so it’s mostly cat people running around. That's the kind of story this is. If you haven’t been turned away yet and can overlook the MC's no kill rule for himself then this is probably the kind of story you’ll enjoy.

The characters are both nothing to write home about and yet a lot of fun at the same time. The heroines are all charming in their own ways and very distinct. I don’t think a single one of them is unlikeable. In terms of varied personalities the roster definitely rates highly. The main character has a bit more of a voice than your usual JP harem MC in a story like this, but he’s still, well, the best way to describe him is that he’s one of the better slices of pie available; yet at the end of the day you’re still eating pie. But he has a personality at least, as well as plenty of funny and interesting interactions with different characters so I don’t want to rag on him too much. The main complaint I have about the characters is that I feel like I needed more from pretty much all of them; as the cast grows the author does his best to make sure they all get decent screen time, but it left me with the feeling that we lost out on some depth as a result. Still, the heroines are top notch in this story.

Also the way one of the villains is handled is about as good as you will ever see from a work like this that tries to tackle such a situation. I was very pleasantly surprised.

The bonding scenes in this story are solid. My only complaint is that there aren’t more and I will touch more on that later. The story touches on themes like the differences between human and cat-wolf person culture. The main character and vuld characters occasionally struggle to understand each other sometimes because of this. It’s not a major theme, but when the story does touch on the topic it is always interesting to read about and watch the characters grow past the issues alongside each other.

Overall the different kinds of bonding scenes (both romantic and friendly) are some of the story’s biggest strengths. A character like Prince Ao will be introduced and within two chapters of talking to the MC I’m hoping that he’ll never leave.

Not as many as you would expect despite the ecchi tag. However the ones that are present are wonderful. There are some funny ones but all the serious ones are too short. The lead-up into the ecchi scenes are usually well done and some of them are even pretty romantic. The follow ups are often lackluster, though. There are a wide and fun variety of characters as well so by the end you’ll find that one of them hits your tastes.

Contrary to what you've read in other reviews, this guy does indeed have s*x. At least twice. The actual s*x is skipped though; there's only leadup and aftermath. But the aftermath is sweet.

Fun, varied setpieces and action sequences. Varied setpieces is one of the most important and difficult factors when you’re writing about space battles of any kind (but especially mecha) and I was surprised to see this novel stick the landing on this point.

The battle sequences take a large variety of factors into account. Technological disparity, cultural differences, morale, class, political affiliation, etc. When something happens in a battle in this story you don’t have to handwave anything. The tactical and strategic decisions made are all wonderful and not forced. Aside from the MC’s personal aversion to killing, the actual battles seem incredibly plausible.

The only negative about the battles is the lack of tension: the “strongest hero” tag and premise that the MC was hired specifically to turn the war around on his own should tell you about how often it seems like he’s actually in danger. Furthermore while the battles themselves are great the MC has no huge personal stake in the war so there isn’t really a source of emotional tension for him in battle either. The lack of tension is a real mood killer. Some of the battles are very kinesthetic but then are brought down heavily by failing to get people invested in them.

The story was clearly written by a cultured mecha fan. There is a lot of care given to the smaller details for how mecha work and fight in space. It’s clear the author is a huge mecha fan. Everything from mentioning view cameras, the differences between human and vuld mecha design, limited weapon ammunition, disposable fuel boosters for long distance traversal, how often the author pays attention to weapon penetration, etc, all of it shows that the author is a fan of both real robot and super robot.

Similar to the battles, the actual setting of the story is usually interesting. The planets and places the story takes place are varied. Empty space, burnt out ships, dense asteroid fields, underground tunnels, forests of trees dozens of meters tall, trade planets, and more. The differences between Nored and the Calencian Empire aren’t a focus but when they’re brought up they are always interesting. The differences between vuldish and human culture are great. They’re always present and consistent in the background but it’s only as the main character gets to know the people around him more that you truly understand how different vuld are from humans despite looking so similar. I only give it a 7.5/10 because there are several times where I felt like exploring some of these ideas even deeper was given a backseat to more battles.

The ending is a little rushed, I think. The last 70 or so chapters are one large battle with a few chapters of downtime at best. The battle itself isn’t so bad; it’s chock full of solid character moments, good humor, and wonderful, varied setpieces which any mecha fan will know is important and tricky to get right. The individual mecha engagements are great as well. But despite all of this and the fact that the battle is EIGHTY chapters long there’s the sense that the author is either burning out or just rushing to the end of the story.

Despite the battles being great, one of the biggest things people want to see are fun interactions with the different side characters. The last third of the story is fairly lacking with this, in spite of plenty of care being given to this beforehand. A little more downtime would have been well worth its welcome. Second, there are a few things that get forgotten about and it’s the first time the author sets something up and forgets about it during the entire story. The Hounds, for example. You’ll know it if you read. Finally, there should have been a little more downtime at the very end of the story as well, to give the characters involved a good send-off. Another four or five chapters at least would have been great. To finish things so quickly after the final battle was really strange and probably resulted in me dropping the ending by two whole points.