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Old 2016-06-28, 23:38   Link #72
Shinja
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Join Date: Nov 2008
A basic for a work of fiction to be of a good quality is it's verisimilitude. A story needs to be somehow easily believable. Of course, we can't ask that much from amateur writers, we all know we are not reading George RR Martin works on syosetu but it is expected from this novel to be an exception as it claim to show a realist State reform story.

Unfortunately, it fail completely in doing that, as there is a massive number of small and less small plot holes.

I can explain some of those i still remember and that shocked me quite a bit:

He made schools for either slaves or slaves and commoners, what is so shocking ?

Well, the schools are not shocking by themselves, the schools uniforms are ! Before the industrial revolution, clothes were very expensive ! Most of people used to wear many-times mended clothes made by housewives and other women of their household, and buying clothes is a proof of wealth. Therefore, for a pre-industrial revolution country which had food shortages until one year ago to provide uniforms for students is a ridiculously extravagant expenditure !

I imagine that it was an obvious matter for a modern Japanese guy who seemly never left his own country to associate "student" with "uniform" but the story is suddenly much less believable

It is also obvious that the author know nothing about an actual order of battle:

Amidonian army possess a thousand wyverns but was surprised by the MC's army as they didn't send any scout, and no, their lord being hurried is not an acceptable explanation as a thirty thousand men army possess many lords in it's ranks if it is a feudal army, many officers if it is not a feudal army. In both cases, those people will do their job routinely without waiting for orders as two people are not enough to ensure the whole army's operation. Moreover, as the wyverns unit was left untouched until the final battle, they were expected to carry out the scouting without waiting for command. Think about it this way: They are 10 times faster than their main army (they fly) yet they spent 3 whole days not doing anything. Moreover, even if their lord was very worried about what happening in his own capital, he didn't send them to keep track of the situation !

Now MC's army: they are fifty thousand strong and no actual rearguard, once some cavalry went to stop the enemy cavalry from breaking through, there were no men left to protect the king against a single horsemen ! That's ridiculous ! The royal tent of a fifty thousand strong army posses tens of officers and hundreds of men at any time: Ranks of pikemen, archers (and magicians for a fantasy). Adding to them a flying unit to avoid losing the king in a stupid way by an enemy wyvern sneaking in and bombing him.

It's a medieval country, therefore warfare tactics are not that advanced ? A stupid explanation ! They might be under-developed, but it has never been said that they are stupid and basic (and less basic) warfare tactics are as old as war itself.

This bring us to the weaponry: It has been said that artillery is underdeveloped because it's way inferior to magic. Then what about the anti wyverns weapons with high rate of fire actually being used? Why aren't they also used against regular soldiers ? No one has thought about such an obvious thing ? Again, nonsense.

Well, the number of such plot-hole and misconceptions is massive (Several each episode): The author is adding things only relevant to an industrialized society and the common sense of the characters is often out of the modern Japanese culture or otaku sub-culture.
It would have been fine if only with elements which are relevant in an unindustrialised society but is is not the case.

Last edited by Shinja; 2016-06-29 at 01:48.
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