The story is pretty entertaining, I love a good split point of view book, but it fell a bit flat in terms of conclusions. A lot of big concepts were introduced throughout the book (patriotism, propaganda, tradition vs modernization, sexism, etc) but none of them were really ever addressed more deeply. For example, while I do believe that Takeru’s change of heart and redemption arc was plausible I found it disingenuous that he would immediately drop all his misogynistic tendencies. The background of his mother fit but again, shallow. That happened with every big concern pretty much. Patriotism and propaganda? Well can’t do much about that gotta protect our own, move on. Giant attack? Well, they’re testing something out, it is what it is. Tradition vs modernization? Both have value and some characters appreciate their traditions more by the end, cool beans.

I found, as many listeners and readers did, the random fake words substituted for seconds, minutes, hours, and for the different kinds of sorcerers incredibly jarring and unpleasant. Every single culture in this book is based on existing cultures on earth down to the languages and names, but you’ve got these random unnecessary words changed? For what purpose? Look, I’m an NK Jemisin fan, I’ve read Dune, I am very familiar with unknown new words being dropped on you from the get go, but they serve a purpose beyond “oh hey this is a fantasy world, just wanted to make sure you didn’t forget.” Oscillating between that and pure Japanese settings was… weird.

Finally, the narrator absolutely ruined this audiobook for me. There were a lot of Japanese words in this book, not difficult ones (I am not getting on his case for the full sentences butchered in the last chapter), and good lord the only one he could get right was okonomiyaki of all things. Every single time someone referred to their father as “too sama” instead of toh sama, when he counted ichi NYE San, when he pronounced nii san and neh san both as KNEE….. it was like nails on chalkboard. These are single syllable words in a current living language that came up a lot! A quick google would have provided the correct pronunciation. It might seem like a small thing, but a huge part of fantasy books is immersion. Picture someone pronounce “papa” as pehpeh for an entire book, it takes you out of the moment and you continuously have a split second of “who the hell is Pepe I don’t remember that character OHHHHH he means papa.” It’s sloppy, it’s lazy, and it could have been so easily avoided. I will say the narrator did a decent job giving each character a relatively distinct voice which does take skill, but yeah, that really drove me nuts.