Orc Eroica, Vol. 1 (light novel): Conjecture Chronicles (Orc Eroica (light novel), 1)

After a long stint of super serious adult fantasy novels, this is a really good pallette cleanser. No base building, no skill grinding, no alliance and betrayals. Just light humor and adventure without complications.So many books now adays feature a main character thats weaker than a budlight with more angst than common sense.Bash is anything but that. He's ridiculously powerful but humble, dedicated to his cause (the orc nation, and finding a wife) without coming off as a tryhard preachy douch.While the man might lack common sense, its only in the manner that he doesn't understand races and customs not orc. He's not ignorant to that difference and tries to learn and adapt to them, which is super refreshing to all the other dumb MC's who try to impose their foreign ideology on other different worlds/cultures. The man knows his right from wrong, when to step in without making am ass of himself, and when to step away without a fuss.And while his advances may be clumsy and ultimately refused, he knows no means no, and was able to walk away no questions asked.To be honest, I'm just a fan of Bash as a whole, and while I sometimes facepalm at the shenanigans he and his fairy get into, its ultimately harmless fun.This series as a whole feels like that. No lie, it does cover some dark topics such as war death and rape, but it doesnt linger on those topics at nauseum. Yes non-consensual sex is bad, but the book doesn't beat you over the head with it, and Bash doesnt fly into a fit of righteous fury when it almost happens to someone he was interested in. He dealt with it like a adult, stopping it before it happens and calmly killed the bastards who tried. No fuss, and no sermons on morality (which I'm sick and tired of getting from other novels. Stop harping on it and move on)From what I've read on the web novel Bash has a long journey ahead of him, so don't expect him to be getting laid for SEVERAL books to come. I honestly dont expect it to happen til after the *SPOILER* succubus is encountered.So yeah, here we have a fairly light hearted adventure with an orc trying to lose his virginity, chuck full of humorous misunderstandings and hijinks. Get it. You probably wont be disappointed....unless your looking for some 18+. Then yeah. Its not here.

I struggled to even think of a good headline for this review, I'm a huge Rifujin fan but this story.... I'm not sure about I've read several doujinshi that felt more fulfilling than this novel, Bash is a pretty boring overpowered protagonist war hero that just so happens to be a virgin....oh and he's an Orc obviously who is on a quest to lose his virginity, if you're a fan of fantasy and have read more adult oriented series then you know how a virgin Orc should be pretty much impossible thing to happen (which is the main premise of this series) Bash isn't very smart but he's insanely strong and is skilled in strategic combat, the main twist in this fantasy story is that due to peace treaties in the war that happened Orcs can no longer abduct females from other species to reproduce so now they need to have consent from their female partners to reproduce which is pretty much a slow way of killing off this particular race of Orcs. He's got a fairy friend and he wields a huge blade(this is an obvious allusion to the amazing hero Guts from Berserk, the parallels between the two characters are pretty obvious, main difference is this is more of a comedic series than a serious one, that being said people DO die here so keep that in mind), other than that there's not much else to Bash as a character and Rifujin sensei confirms as much in the afterword of the novel, I'm not sure what to expect in the next volume but considering how the next girl is called wife candidate #2 I'm not looking forward to the coming novel but I'm trusting Rifujin sensei's writing style and sticking with the story even though It feels so bland.Tl;Dr Not that good if a story but the author is great so maybe wait for a few more novels to come out and read those reviews and make your decision to read the series based on how well the story sounds from those reviews.If you forced me to honestly rate this story just based on this novel I'd give it a two but because of the Respect I hold for the author I'm giving it a three.

Honestly... Not a bad story, and some of the messages it conveys are something that need to be said and expressed. I even liked how the author made sure that the first female character our orc hero met didn't fall head over heels with him and for good reason. If you can ignore the thing that irks me most about this book, then it is something you should read.Now what irks me: The writing style. I don't know if it's just the translation or if it's specifically this kind of novel. I've noticed other asian translated novels have the same style. A tell-don't-show kind of style that just feels demeaning to be told how I'm supposed to feel about a situation or character or like it's supposed to be self gratifying - like you're supposed to put yourself in the characters shoes and just soak in being called cool or beautiful. I love manga and manhua, but any time I've tried to read the novels behind them, this writing style just puts me off. It adds unnecessary words and time to the reading (and I imagine the time writing) and adds nothing to the story.If I could get this same story rewritten in a show-don't-tell style, I would probably gush all over it, but as it stands, it feels like the audience it's written to appeal to won't see the messages it can convey and the bigger audience it could reach won't get past the first few pages.

I thought this would be nonsense, like many light novels are. I didn't read the author's name, had I known it was Mushoku Tensei's author I would have expected more at the onset.But, I really enjoyed it. It is well written and well illustrated and I'm looking forward to the next one.

Considering the author and the Illustrator past works I thought this story would be quite heavy, even more with the warning of explicit content but... I found the story pretty tame compared to other LN's/manga I've read before.The story itself is pretty cliché in my opinion, but the background story was pretty interesting and I hope it gets more developed in the future volumes.I give it 4 stars because is not really the best LN I've read but it was still enjoyable. It felt too short though.

This could have been cringy, shocking, or even deserving of a publishing interdiction. Well it is not. Of course the subject is a very serious one but the author gives it the perspective it needs.Rape is included in a cultural mindset. This gives the story overall a lighter feel and lets in other subjects. This is much more about cultural differences than it is about rape.But foremost, the main character doesn't abide by that cultural way of doing things. Even though he is not doing it just because it has become illegal, some hints let you understand how deep rooted a cultural belief hammered in since infancy can be. And even though this is just the first volume, he seems to be understanding how awful rape is little by little.What makes it definitively the best way you can spin a story around this delicate subject is that even though all that allows the author to brush off the cringiness of the subject, rape is brought back very voluntarily into the story. Not too directly to make it disgusting or a roundabout way to show it anyway but sufficiently to remind the reader of its horrendousness.Well that should cover it for those who fear that rape makes this book a no-go.As for why I enjoyed it, well the way cultural differences (not just about rape) are written about gave me something to think about, which gives depth to the story and the world it's set in. Other than that it's just a story about a warrior in a fantasy setting who sets off to find love and travels the world. And that was nice.