Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles: Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles Volume 1

In general the book was actually pretty well written and should have rated higher, but unfortunately I found the MC to be weak and inconsistent. It's another one of those deals where no matter what the bad guys do, the hero refuses to compromise his ideals by killing them.... And so he ends up fighting the same guys/situations over and over. Not fun reading. I kept waiting for the MC to get pushed "too far" and blow up on his enemies... Sadly he remained a weak willed little worm all the way. Bad guys won!

The writing and flow of the story is fine, but the writing itself leaves much to be desired. The characters of the world are boring and cookie cutter. The protagonist receives the tiniest amount of character development throughout the whole book, and is barely fleshed out beyond the initial premise of a Japanese person's memories awakening in a slumdweller boy. The central conflict of the book is his experience being a commoner in a noble academy. Unfortunately, little happens once he reaches that point. One instance is when he first arrived, his status of being a commoner subjects him to ridicule by the antagonist, to which the main character responds with humbling, borderline obsequious comments with a hint of sarcasm under his tone. And then it's the exact same five years later, with the sole change being that the protagonist has students falling for him while he simultaneously maintains the image of a worthless commoner through the eyes of the nobility. Cookie cutter characters.

it's a pretty nice story, 5/7 would recommend getting, especially if on sale! My only real notable complaint is that they put some colored promo pictures in the beginning which can cause some spoilers, so I with they would have them moved to the back of the books, but that's a publisher thing.