Glad you enjoyed it. And it's nice to meet a fellow Rogue-fan.a707 wrote:A great volume this time. I didn't realize it until after I finished butThanks as always, renuac, and Sithkazar too.Spoiler! :
I feel you about having trouble signing into the forum.Krozam wrote:I just marathoned the whole series (the first three volumes I'd read once or twice before, but the rest was all new to me) up until the latest, 9th volume. It's been a long time since I was able to post here, since no matter what I did, the forum wouldn't let me log in, but it seems to be fixed now. Anyway, just wanted to thank the translators for their work and say that I've enjoyed the ride a lot: this is still my favourite Japanese novel series (light or otherwise).
I'm not sure what to think of the mysterious sorcerers and elders and Barbaroi, their part of the plot seems to run its own course, only occasionally intersecting with the main plot... Normally I'm big fan of this sort of mystery, but I dislike the feeling that everyone, including Orba, are dancing on the palm of some character(s) we haven't even been properly introduced yet. I'm not sure it's a good idea to have the plot being controlled by forces that the main character himself has no clue about. But, well, it's a minor issue. Overall, this is some damn high quality fantasy.
Honestly, I agree with pretty much everything you say about the sorcerers, and for the same reasons: having this mysterious cabal manipulating everything from the shadows is annoying given that most of the characters have no possible way of learning about them. Sure, they wouldn't be much good as puppet masters if they were easy to detect, but even so, for a long time, I felt that their presence kind of trivialised the other characters actions. On the other hand, while they are running on parallel lines, they're so integral to the plot that they really can't be done away with.
I don't want to spoil too much, but I will say that they aren't anywhere near as in control as they portray themselves as being, and the last volume was pretty satisfactory in demonstrating that.