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Review

by Theron Martin,

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

Novel 2

Synopsis:
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Novel 2
With the Hestia Knife (sometimes also called the Divine Knife) in hand, Bell's skills rocket upward, and he finds himself soloing as low as the Dungeon's seventh floor, much to Eina's dismay. She urges him to buy upgraded equipment, and even goes out on a shopping excursion with him, where they learn that Hestia is working at one of the shops for Hephaistos's familia. (She has not yet let Bell know that it's to pay off the debt for the Hestia Knife, however.) Eina also urges him to employ a supporter, a person who accompanies adventurers and is specifically tasked with collecting and carrying magic stones and drops. Bell finds one in Lily, a diminutive Chienthope (i.e., a dog girl) who carries a huge pack and enlightens Bell on the commonly-accepted (and rather discriminatory) adventurer/supporter relationship. Though Bell soon takes a liking to Lily and how the support she offers makes his adventuring vastly more efficient, the conniving girl may have other motives and is from a potentially problematic familia. Meanwhile, Freya has secretly become obsessed with Bell and arranges an indirect way for him to learn his first magic skill and Aiz Wallenstein, the beauty who is the land's strongest adventurer, laments that Bell keeps running away from her when they have close encounters.
Review:

The first novel of Fujino Ōmori's series offered Western readers an unprecedented opportunity to actually read an official English release of the source content for an anime series before it even made it on air. The second novel offers the unprecedented opportunity to read an official English release of source material while the show is airing; in fact, in an incredible (and perhaps carefully-planned?) bit of timing, the second novel hit the streets the same week that the first episode it fully corresponded to aired. Hence it allows fans to track, as it happens, exactly how close the anime does or does not stick to its source material.

Evaluated on its own, the novel expands the setting by introducing the concept of supporters. Since torchbearers are not needed in the Dungeon, supporters serve as the porters/packbearers that are common features of many tabletop fantasy RPGs while also doubling as experts in treasure/drop recovery. Parodies of tabletop RPGs, such as Knights of the Dinner Table, have long made them the butt of jokes and the source of much dumping-upon by unethical adventurers, and that is exactly how they are portrayed here: as expendable and abusable, since they certainly are not the equals of those who actually do the fighting. Hence they are essentially an underclass of the adventuring community. That is crucial to understanding who new character Lily really is, what she is doing, and why, although the nature of her guild, the Soma Familia, also plays into it. She makes a strong addition to the cast as a foil for more the more naïve Bell. No other new characters of major consequence are introduced, although minor additions include Narza, the only member of the Familia of the god Miach (who appeared briefly in the first novel and whom Bell sometimes buys potions from), and the goddess Demeter. The roles of some existing characters are also expanded significantly, including Miach (also revealed here to be Hestia's drinking buddy), Riveria (the elf sorceress who accompanies Aiz), and to a lesser extent Ryu (the elf waitress at The Benevolent Mistress). Also introduced is much more detail on how magic works in this setting and how grimoires fit into it; the notion that the magic a person develops is particular to their natures is an interesting one.

The second novel also further developed the harem-like feel suggested by the first one, as the attraction of certain characters to Bell is reinforced and additional characters more clearly indicate their interest. (And that's without counting Lily, who presumably will come around at some point, too.) He even gets swarmed by a passel of bored goddesses – “fun-starved hyenas” as Hestia so eloquently puts it – when they find out that Bell is her “date” for one outing. Applying a harem label may not be entirely correct, however; Bell might be more accurately classified at this point as an up-and-coming adventuring idol being surrounded by fangirls. (He is being portrayed as physically handsome, distinct-looking, and positively adorable, after all.) However you look at it, Bell is certainly coming across as an unconscious charmer.

The content of the novel exactly corresponds to episodes 4-6 of the anime version, though one brief early scene in it did appear as an epilogue for episode 3. The anime adaptation has certainly done the novel justice, as it readily accomplishes the two most important tasks of an adaptation: it remains sufficiently faithful to the source material and it actually improves upon it. The timing of a couple of scenes gets reordered and some details are condensed or skipped over, but nothing critical is missing, in many places the dialogue is word-for-word the same, and when the specifics of scenes are changed (such as the circumstances surrounding Loki getting connected to the Soma wine), the changes are inconsequential to the overall storyline.

More importantly, the anime version is consistently better-written than the novel version; think of the novel as a first draft and the anime as a refined copy. While the anime may trim some details out, the novel's biggest flaw is that it gets carried away with them, to the point that it is info-dumping at times, and not gracefully, either. (This was also a flaw with the first novel.) It also has a bad tendency to start dialog exchanges and then summarize the rest of the conversation, which would be fine if only occasionally done but here it happens much too frequently. Omori clearly has an intricate vision of the world in mind but is not the most adept writer when it comes to smoothly conveying and timing the revelations of those details.

That being said, the extra details are also the main reason for reading the novel if you have already seen the anime version. The novel, for instance, goes into a lot more detail about the situation with the Soma Familia and its peculiar patron deity. Freya's motivations are also explored in much more detail, although a fair amount of that can be inferred from the way the anime handles the one brief scene focused on her. While none of that is crucial to the story, it does help flesh out more the differing natures of the motivations between different gods and goddesses. The novel also elaborates more on the adventurer-supporter relationship and the “Mind Down” condition that Bell experiences, including a scene where Bell gets a way to compensate for that, and explains exactly how deep Aiz and Riveria were when the former faced the boss monster (and why the two of them alone were facing it). Want more details about the Babel Tower and how some gods live there? The book provides that, too. Perhaps most importantly – and this is the one place where the anime should have pushed a bit more – the novel makes it clearer that, for all of Aiz Wallenstein's indomitable power and skill, there's something a bit off about her. Many of her actions and attitudes have an almost childish simple-mindedness to them which suggest that she might not be as mentally robust as she is combatively capable or physically mature. Is this just objectifying her, or is there a story to it? (Note: This review is written before episode 7 of the anime, which looks like it may focus on Aiz, airs.)

Yen Press's release of the novel was free of noticeable errors. Included at the end are two pages profiling Lily and her equipment and a two page Afterword, where Omori explains that working an experience point system into the setting, without it feeling too much like straight-up game play, was his greatest challenge. He did not succeed at that, as this is still pretty transparently a world built on game-like rules, and if you cannot get past that then this series will be a difficult one to enjoy. Artwork is competent but nothing special, including a pair of rough-sketched quad-fold pictures at the beginning featuring Lily with Hestia and Aiz with off-color eyes and hair.

Despite the unimpressive writing style, anyone drawn in by the first novel is unlikely to be disappointed by the second. It still retains (and depends heavily on) its core of world-building and likable characters while also telling a pretty decent story. And as with the first novel, it ends on a somewhat cryptic statement.

Grade:
Overall : B-
Story : B-
Art : C+

+ World-building, likable characters, Lily is a strong new addition.
Sometimes gets bogged down in its world-building, peculiar mix of dialog and exposition.

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Production Info:
Story: Fujino Ōmori
Licensed by: Yen Press

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