The Death Mage follows Hiroto Amamiya, an unfortunate soul who finds himself reincarnated into his second and third lives with nothing but misfortune awaiting him.
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The Death Mage Volume 1 Review
- Thread starter Demelza
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As a fan of the series (Finished the webnovel, I own the 9 Japanese volumes, and I am the one who made all those observations with the translation problems, kinda surprised to see them here), I agree that this is a story with a slow start, and due to the sheer length of each chapter, the 1st Volume of the Light Novel actually stops midway past the 1st Arc of the Webnovel, so to say, it feels "incomplete", because it is, the end of the 1st arc actually ends in the 2nd volume of the Light Novel.
Before I started reading the series, every time I searched for a webnovel to read, and I would sometimes end up with Death Mage as recommendation, I would read the summary and think "Crap, this is edgy revenge, I'm not really into that", and never started, it reached a point that I always remembered to ignore that "Death Mage" novel.
One day I was searching for certain rarer tropes on Reddit, and Death Mage was suggested there, so I decided to give it a try, since I was not expecting that from a story that felt so generic... And after I started reading, I couldn't stop anymore, it's the first novel that, once I finished the translated chapters, I couldn't wait and started reading the source even with my bad japanese.
I was also quite angry every time I read the summary, because sure, it wasn't wrong, but how much did it misled me. I blame the author.
I'm not really into the Revenge trope, it usually gets executed too blindly, like the character doesn't try to grow, he is set into the revenge with little care given on the events that led to the betrayal, or worst, the story is written in a way that clearly defines who is bad and who is good, thus making characters easy to like or easy to hate, like a story written for children.
However, this is a story that likes to break tropes, and when you come to think about it more rationally, the people from Origin who killed him never really "betrayed" him. Betrayed expectations maybe, but they did not know, and if they did, the ending would have been completely different. So at worst, this would be considered an unfortunate accident. Similar things can be said about the "youngsters" who captured his mother, leading to her death, as they did it under an order of sorts, but we see their leader already regretting and feeling guilt over it.
This means that this is a complex story with characters with good intentions but ended up making mistakes for things beyond their knowledge or experience, same for characters that may have done bad things for being unable to get better to do well due to pressure or other outside factors. So do you hate those characters? Do you like those characters? This story likes to treat that gray area, and it's one of its great appeals.
Point being, fortunately, this is not one of those stories where the author tries to get revenge in sadistic ways, and I consider it rather more of a story of family, friendship and (over)protection (ok, and some fanservice, sure, but warning, there is no romance).
But it's a slow story nonetheless, things do stabilize more in the end of the 2nd Arc, or Volume 4 of the Light Novel, where the main antagonists of the series are introduced, which leads to the events of the 3rd Arc/Volume 5, but it will take some time for One Peace Books to reach that.
Before I started reading the series, every time I searched for a webnovel to read, and I would sometimes end up with Death Mage as recommendation, I would read the summary and think "Crap, this is edgy revenge, I'm not really into that", and never started, it reached a point that I always remembered to ignore that "Death Mage" novel.
One day I was searching for certain rarer tropes on Reddit, and Death Mage was suggested there, so I decided to give it a try, since I was not expecting that from a story that felt so generic... And after I started reading, I couldn't stop anymore, it's the first novel that, once I finished the translated chapters, I couldn't wait and started reading the source even with my bad japanese.
I was also quite angry every time I read the summary, because sure, it wasn't wrong, but how much did it misled me. I blame the author.
I'm not really into the Revenge trope, it usually gets executed too blindly, like the character doesn't try to grow, he is set into the revenge with little care given on the events that led to the betrayal, or worst, the story is written in a way that clearly defines who is bad and who is good, thus making characters easy to like or easy to hate, like a story written for children.
However, this is a story that likes to break tropes, and when you come to think about it more rationally, the people from Origin who killed him never really "betrayed" him. Betrayed expectations maybe, but they did not know, and if they did, the ending would have been completely different. So at worst, this would be considered an unfortunate accident. Similar things can be said about the "youngsters" who captured his mother, leading to her death, as they did it under an order of sorts, but we see their leader already regretting and feeling guilt over it.
This means that this is a complex story with characters with good intentions but ended up making mistakes for things beyond their knowledge or experience, same for characters that may have done bad things for being unable to get better to do well due to pressure or other outside factors. So do you hate those characters? Do you like those characters? This story likes to treat that gray area, and it's one of its great appeals.
Point being, fortunately, this is not one of those stories where the author tries to get revenge in sadistic ways, and I consider it rather more of a story of family, friendship and (over)protection (ok, and some fanservice, sure, but warning, there is no romance).
But it's a slow story nonetheless, things do stabilize more in the end of the 2nd Arc, or Volume 4 of the Light Novel, where the main antagonists of the series are introduced, which leads to the events of the 3rd Arc/Volume 5, but it will take some time for One Peace Books to reach that.
Yo, welcome to the site! Your comparisons were really interesting and helpful to read through, so I'm glad you went to the effort of doing 'em. I'm not surprised to learn that this is midway through the first arc, it certainly felt like it was from the overall structure of it.
I'm happy to hear some more positive thoughts about it too it sounds like it improves a lot later on compared to where I am here with Volume 1. I probably still won't read more given how the One Peace release is shaping up and I don't trust them to not just drop it if it doesn't sell well (that has happened with other series of theirs). Probably one to come back to if/when it gets an anime adaptation, I imagine the tone of that would work a little better early on than here in the books.
Hi, I have not read LN, but I am fan of WN. WN have fantastic translations, but I know that LN translations can be worse than WN.
Plot in LN can change from WN, but at last in WN this novel don't really have anything to do with revenge. But even in WN some think it is revenge novel because of chapter where MC say to God that he will kill other reincarnated people, but they ignore later chapters where MC decides that others killed him because they did not new it was him (and also he already was dead, or more undead). He decides to not go on revenge, but God sends other reincarnated individuals to kill MC and MC kills them in defense.
Not even once MC moved for revenge. All time he only try to protect himself and other important people to him.
But MC have different view about good and evil. This is best part about this novel. Novel also try to show same thing from different view points where from one view same thing is evil, but from other view point is good.
This novel is more philosophical, lets you think from others perspective.
Plot in LN can change from WN, but at last in WN this novel don't really have anything to do with revenge. But even in WN some think it is revenge novel because of chapter where MC say to God that he will kill other reincarnated people, but they ignore later chapters where MC decides that others killed him because they did not new it was him (and also he already was dead, or more undead). He decides to not go on revenge, but God sends other reincarnated individuals to kill MC and MC kills them in defense.
Not even once MC moved for revenge. All time he only try to protect himself and other important people to him.
But MC have different view about good and evil. This is best part about this novel. Novel also try to show same thing from different view points where from one view same thing is evil, but from other view point is good.
This novel is more philosophical, lets you think from others perspective.
Except Rod did have a choice, but since Rod is beyond incompetent and extremely lazy (as demonstrated by the 1st reincarnation event) he just went with the 1st option that came to mind. There were so many other ways Rod could have handled the situation, but they would have required effort as opposed to the curse he has prepared in advance.
and did not work because other gods got involved without Rod knowing resulting in the curse being weakened (allowing Van to find the loopholes he uses)
I mean once you get into WHY Rod wants to develop the world (or why is is not developing), it becomes clear his plans have a 0% chance of success, because it does nothing to address the actual cause of the worlds medieval stasis. but Rod is incompetent and does not think that far in advance.
Except that this is not a revenge story. I get the feeling you missed this but there is a major difference between emotions in the heat of the moment (which rod's 2nd interaction with Van is for him) and lasting intentions. Just because he is angry once does not mean it is a revenge story, which would be clear if Rod had acted with any empathy and tried to calm Van down first. Van has no revenge intentions.
Revenge is not a part of the marketing for this story, it is a survival in extreme circumstances story, that leads into kingdom building. Van's priority is survival. Other then the people who killed Darcia (and his father), who he will simply kill if he has a chance or they come after him
he basically tells one of them towards the end that if they run and hide he will not bother as Van has many higher priorities
eventually a global superpower level benevolent empire
Overpowered requires in relation to the rest of the world, and well Van is actually still weak compared to threats of his world, and stays so for a while. (the class system the humans use is VERY broken) Up until the events of volume 2 he does not actually face any actual competent (for the world) threats but just weak bottom feeders.
At the end of Vol2, early Vol 3, he basically has to run or die. Overpowered characters rarely run for their very life, or spend most of the series hiding their abilities and acting in secret because they are not sure they can win.
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Hey new posters, please remember to keep the tone civil or your posts will end up being removed.
Our reviews are fundamentally based on opinions, and while your opinions may differ - and those differences can be freely expressed - I draw the line at personal jabs at our reviewers. You're not doing the series or its fandom any favours by charging in and insulting people you don't know. May I suggest contributing more constructively by writing your own thoughts on the volume in the comments instead of attacking the thoughts of others?
R
Our reviews are fundamentally based on opinions, and while your opinions may differ - and those differences can be freely expressed - I draw the line at personal jabs at our reviewers. You're not doing the series or its fandom any favours by charging in and insulting people you don't know. May I suggest contributing more constructively by writing your own thoughts on the volume in the comments instead of attacking the thoughts of others?
R
I would also like to emphasize that my feelings on this are based on only Volume 1 and only the One Peace Books release which as mentioned in the review does have some problems when it comes to conveying the feelings of the cast, particularly when it comes to the god. I have not read the web novel either, so again this is all I have to base my opinions on.
A lot of the points being made in this thread so far in defense of it are based on later content, which I appreciate knowing but it doesn't change my opinion of this book. I'm reviewing the book in front of me and right now I think the criticisms toward Rod and the revenge element are warranted at this point in the story. Though again I am glad to hear it gets over the revenge element of it.
Like I said toward the end of the review we were already starting to see it shift away from the revenge drive, but that doesn't make up for the fact you're spending 80% of this volume with the main character bringing it up frequently so to me it's a reasonable criticism to raise. To not mention these issues is misselling it to readers who may want to avoid this kind of content, regardless of whether it changes later on y'know.
Even if the series has reinvented itself later on, I can't review Volume 1 based on that fact alone - it has to be analyzed based on the material in Volume 1. And as stated I don't think the translation really helped with my issues with it, but it's all we have officially speaking so it's going to be what shapes my opinion.
A lot of the points being made in this thread so far in defense of it are based on later content, which I appreciate knowing but it doesn't change my opinion of this book. I'm reviewing the book in front of me and right now I think the criticisms toward Rod and the revenge element are warranted at this point in the story. Though again I am glad to hear it gets over the revenge element of it.
Like I said toward the end of the review we were already starting to see it shift away from the revenge drive, but that doesn't make up for the fact you're spending 80% of this volume with the main character bringing it up frequently so to me it's a reasonable criticism to raise. To not mention these issues is misselling it to readers who may want to avoid this kind of content, regardless of whether it changes later on y'know.
Even if the series has reinvented itself later on, I can't review Volume 1 based on that fact alone - it has to be analyzed based on the material in Volume 1. And as stated I don't think the translation really helped with my issues with it, but it's all we have officially speaking so it's going to be what shapes my opinion.
Yeah, I can understand that. My intention with my post was just to add that, although I'm sure the start of the story does feel uninteresting, things do get better later on, and as I pointed out, some of suggestions the summary gives (such as revenge) do get toned down by a lot, or at least, that the revenge bit is a bit more complex than the typical "evil for the sake of evil".
Basically, I just wanted to alert you that the novel could get more into your interests later on, although as I suggested, it's going to be around Volume 4 or 5 for things to stabilize, so it's going to take some time. Amazon already has Vol 3 for August, so it may be interesting to revisit it at the start of the next year if still interested.
Ironically, in my experience in this community, there are a lot of people who complain the exact opposite, they get annoyed that MC becomes OP, or that he doesn't go into an edgy revenge tour and so on.
So it's certainly not a novel for everyone, thus there is no reason to try to convince other people into it.
As I said before, I blame the author for the summary, it's too much edgy revenge, it ends up baiting a public that may not be satisfied with its content. It doesn't help that the marketing too is going with that.
To add more from other forums. Many people have pointed out, that this novel first part is not very well written, only later it becomes much better. Second, this novel is really slow. Or at last this is how they feel about it, because fighting is not a focus in this novel.
One more point I have seen from comments in other forums is, people take first sentence as absolute truth. But in truth it is just perspective from some people or gods. After many chapters here are view about same thing from different perspective or may be even from third perspective. Depending on how many perspectives author can think of. But this other perspectives most of time is written after many chapters and because of this many people miss them or don't connect them to each other. This also may give illusion of "slow".
Because author try to show same point from multiple perspectives, development is slow because author don't focus on just fighting, but also on food creation (like most Japanese novels) or other things, it is impossible to write review about whole novel from few volumes. You can only write about volume you read, but because of this it will be very inaccurate. Because of this you only write about one perspective.
MC personality develops over multiple volumes. Here are little change in one volume. Because of this it is very easy to come to wrong conclusion about novel.
One more point I have seen from comments in other forums is, people take first sentence as absolute truth. But in truth it is just perspective from some people or gods. After many chapters here are view about same thing from different perspective or may be even from third perspective. Depending on how many perspectives author can think of. But this other perspectives most of time is written after many chapters and because of this many people miss them or don't connect them to each other. This also may give illusion of "slow".
Because author try to show same point from multiple perspectives, development is slow because author don't focus on just fighting, but also on food creation (like most Japanese novels) or other things, it is impossible to write review about whole novel from few volumes. You can only write about volume you read, but because of this it will be very inaccurate. Because of this you only write about one perspective.
MC personality develops over multiple volumes. Here are little change in one volume. Because of this it is very easy to come to wrong conclusion about novel.
I would say this novel has little to do with revenge. It is more like this situation:
Someone do something harmful to you. You find it out and because of anger you swear to find him and beat him black and blue. After some time your anger subsides and you don't go searching for him to beat him. You can forgive or you can stay angry at him/them, but don't actively search for them for revenge.
Vandal was angry at other reincarnated individuals at the moment of his death in Origin, but after he had reincarnated in Ramda his anger subsided and vanished and he did not cared about them if Rodcorte did not send them to kill him. But he new Rodcorte will send reincarnated people to kill him, so he started to try to grow his strength to protect himself and to him important people.
After Vandal mother was killed all he did was to steal city from people involved, but did not killed anyone. He transformed city into golems and made them run from people. In normal revenge novel MC would use golems to kill all people, but Vandal did not killed anyone.
Vandal killed hunters who sold his mother because they come to hunt him too. So, it was more because of self defense and not revenge.
He will not forgive people who directly was involved in his mother death, but will not go to hunt them. And this is very different from revenge novels.
That's not actually accurate to what's here in Volume 1. Vandal lets the hunters go because he's too weak to fight them at this point in time, but he prays for them not to die because he himself wants to be the one to kill them. Which does give you the impression of it being a revenge story because he is going to kill them for what they did eventually and that coupled with his anger toward the other reincarnated gives you completely the wrong impression compared to where it sounds like it eventually goes.
I think we talk about two different groups. Here are hunters who sold information about Vandal mother and here are adventurers who caught his mother. Hunter are local group of normal animal hunters who hunts in forest. Adventures was hired from other place to catch his mother, because they fight monsters. I have read link in review and I found translator messed up with right names of groups and even mixed them randomly. Because of this novel become confusing.
Hunters found dark elf and sold information to local lord or church. And after Darcia was killed they tried to hunt Vandal too and did not informed church about location where dark elf lived with kid. After they come to hunt Vandal they have been caught and used as food. Vandal could not let them go, because they would sell his location. They come to hunt him. They sold information about Darcia. For all this they have dead.
It was long time I have read start of novel, so I don't remember when adventurer left city, but I think they did it before Vandal started revenge against city. Because leader of adventure group started to get doubts about this mission after Darcia was killed and stopped his activity in city.
Vandal promised to get revenge on adventure group and not forgive them. But this is all. In revenge novel main point of novel is revenge. MC gets stronger for revenge and objective of novel is revenge. But in this novel main point is to live happy life, not revenge. MC try to get stronger to protect himself and not for revenge.
In revenge novel, revenge is objective and everything else is on the side. In this novel happy life is objective and revenge on the side. It may be hard to see, especially from short one volume. Difference are really delicate, but I have read many novels about revenge and this one is very different from all revenge novels I have read. In revenge novel MC would killed all people in city who had cursed his mother, in this novel MC did not did it.
I have not read the novel in question, but when I'm reading a book and it's largely about revenge I would personally describe it as having a theme of revenge even if other people have decided that there is a specific list of criteria for them to classify a book as being of the arbitrary 'revenge' genre. There are lots of LNs where the put-upon main character is driven by revenge, initially or otherwise, yet there's more going on than the revenge itself. It's still worth mentioning, though, because it's such a popular theme that some people want to see stories about it while others want to avoid those stories entirely.
Some of the greatest works of fiction ever written have started out as revenge stories. Yet they don't necessarily follow the strict genre conventions that have been invented in the last few years as 'revenge' LNs have exploded in popularity to cater to the fantasy of fighting back against an unfair world. It's good to hear that this one ends up moving in a more positive direction later on but it sounds as though the combination of a weak start, an attempt by the author to jump on a bandwagon and a weak adaptation haven't done it many favours; perhaps a future anime adaptation might redress the balance.
R
Some of the greatest works of fiction ever written have started out as revenge stories. Yet they don't necessarily follow the strict genre conventions that have been invented in the last few years as 'revenge' LNs have exploded in popularity to cater to the fantasy of fighting back against an unfair world. It's good to hear that this one ends up moving in a more positive direction later on but it sounds as though the combination of a weak start, an attempt by the author to jump on a bandwagon and a weak adaptation haven't done it many favours; perhaps a future anime adaptation might redress the balance.
R
it's important for those who read the webnovel to remember to avoid spoilers, and that the review is about the 1st Volume of the Light Novel, and under the limitations of this review, the criticism is fine an correct, after all, this first volume is the one where most of the bad stuff happens, like the ****** life in Origin, the curses, the death of his mother, and his own weaknesses.
It's expected that, normally, after all these circumstances, and how the character behave, there will be some strong revenge, and it's not wrong.
My only intention was to point out that things change later without giving spoilers, and explain the whole context of the limitations of this 1st volume. The whole conflict with Gyahn for example doesn't exist in the Webnovel because essentially, they needed to create a "climax" for this part of the story that is originally just an uneventful middle of an arc. One could say it's a filler, but at least it did explain one relevant context to the next volume, with Gyahn being the subject about it, better than the WN did...
I also tried to point out some different ways to view certain parts of the same scene, such as the killing of the Undead who clearly wasn't taken down with no reason, considering how it was a monster killing a bunch of people, and was thought to have gone berserk, besides being an undead, it could obviously be perceived as dangerous, although the omniscient reader knows much more than the characters. Also pointing out the adventurer's regret after Van's mother was killed.
These are all things that are there in the volume, but are easy to miss, or worse, they may be intentionally ignored because the reader doesn't want to think that those people can also be good.
But the author intentionally made them look bad, maybe to give a sense of conflict, or maybe to check if the reader can see things through, I have reasons to believe both can be true too.
This is also one of the reasons I pointed out many times in the translation errors (and Demelza's review also pointed it out) how Rodocolte was portrayed as a big asshole when originally he is neutral and mostly uninterested in the events.
A correct portrayal of the characters will obviously make the story more joyful to read, instead of making antagonists evil for the sake of it, but if the translator(s) who is/are not credited are understanding things wrong, the product will also get wrong. The fantranslation also had the same problem, and I had to point out many times each chapter for it to be corrected, and fortunately, by it's own nature of a product made by fans for fans, I was heard and the translations were mostly fixed.
I would be very glad if One Peace Books could take those notes of mine into consideration to make a better product, I'm also hoping that increasing the number of fans could raise the chances of it getting an anime (and with it, merchandise!). But only time will tell shrugs
Still I'm not trying to convince anyone that Death Mage is a super great novel that everyone should read. I'm not really into that, and if people think it's not for them, them sure enough, it's not. I just noticed Demelza's complaints were similar to mine in the past, and so I'm suggesting to still give it a chance in the later volumes, that she may find herself surprised.
It's expected that, normally, after all these circumstances, and how the character behave, there will be some strong revenge, and it's not wrong.
My only intention was to point out that things change later without giving spoilers, and explain the whole context of the limitations of this 1st volume. The whole conflict with Gyahn for example doesn't exist in the Webnovel because essentially, they needed to create a "climax" for this part of the story that is originally just an uneventful middle of an arc. One could say it's a filler, but at least it did explain one relevant context to the next volume, with Gyahn being the subject about it, better than the WN did...
I also tried to point out some different ways to view certain parts of the same scene, such as the killing of the Undead who clearly wasn't taken down with no reason, considering how it was a monster killing a bunch of people, and was thought to have gone berserk, besides being an undead, it could obviously be perceived as dangerous, although the omniscient reader knows much more than the characters. Also pointing out the adventurer's regret after Van's mother was killed.
These are all things that are there in the volume, but are easy to miss, or worse, they may be intentionally ignored because the reader doesn't want to think that those people can also be good.
But the author intentionally made them look bad, maybe to give a sense of conflict, or maybe to check if the reader can see things through, I have reasons to believe both can be true too.
This is also one of the reasons I pointed out many times in the translation errors (and Demelza's review also pointed it out) how Rodocolte was portrayed as a big asshole when originally he is neutral and mostly uninterested in the events.
A correct portrayal of the characters will obviously make the story more joyful to read, instead of making antagonists evil for the sake of it, but if the translator(s) who is/are not credited are understanding things wrong, the product will also get wrong. The fantranslation also had the same problem, and I had to point out many times each chapter for it to be corrected, and fortunately, by it's own nature of a product made by fans for fans, I was heard and the translations were mostly fixed.
I would be very glad if One Peace Books could take those notes of mine into consideration to make a better product, I'm also hoping that increasing the number of fans could raise the chances of it getting an anime (and with it, merchandise!). But only time will tell shrugs
Still I'm not trying to convince anyone that Death Mage is a super great novel that everyone should read. I'm not really into that, and if people think it's not for them, them sure enough, it's not. I just noticed Demelza's complaints were similar to mine in the past, and so I'm suggesting to still give it a chance in the later volumes, that she may find herself surprised.