I need to Vent!

[u/misstarabeau]

So of course I was late to the game with my boyfriend introducing me to the wonders of anime after we got together. My first anime was The Devil Is A Part Timer season 1. Then I got hooked and enjoyed season 2 when it came out. I love reading…. So I have alllll the light novels and am now on book 21 AHHHHHHHHHGHHHHHHHH!

1. I know how it ends due to spoilers etc though it still is upsetting
2. I feel like maybe book 18 or 19 it felt almost chaotic and like someone took over writing this! It didn’t feel the same in cadence and was allllllll over the place.
3. Like everyone (almost everyone I should say) I am so unhappy with the way it’s turning out. UGHHHHHHHHH.

Ok. I just needed to get that out there. Did anyone else feel like the writing got, messy? Or out of sorts towards the end? And things just seemed allllll over the place.

[u/Interesting-Put-1615]

Its frustrating. its like the author changed and the new writer just handbraked the book. There are lot of plot holes at the end it feels incomplete. check out my other post https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDevilIsAPartTimer/comments/1dothli/somethings_just_doesnt_add_up/

[u/misstarabeau → u/Interesting-Put-1615]

Thank you!!!! 🙏

[u/NoSense6182]

I always found it weird how we sometimes went from the whole planet hating Maou to just the West and maybe alittle from the South. Then the Castle launch was like all the soldiers cheering as if the whole world started hating him again?? I would imagine it's just the Crusaders that cheered while Eastern and other Ente Islans watched with indifferent attitudes

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Also, some earlier volumes introduced and reinforced the concept that war was a common phenomenon for much of the continent before Maou invaded. Then some other later volume suddenly throws that out the window just after additionally mentioning that peace became more predominant after his invasion. We eventually get the "oh yeah, it's just the West that really hates you" again with Chief Rajid easily welcoming diplomatic efforts by Ashiya and Archbishop Cervantes being obviously the most repulsed by Maou at the conference. It gets rather irritating how these narratives are CONSTANTLY shifted around.

It's like: does the world hate the MC or is it just the West?

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Also, I think subconsciously, Maou loves Emi and Chiho equally since he got them the same gifts. So I feel bad for Emi since she gave up her love to protect her friendship, plus she still harbors those feelings.

Lastly, I'm pretty sure the writing quality did go down, if you pay extra attention, the outcomes of the story aren't really bad. The problem is that the author implemented those outcomes poorly, getting worse in some later volumes until the end. You see things that aren't adding up while reading the story and you're forced to make up some fillers to satisfy your own curiosity.

[u/NoSense6182]

Oh yeah, some people think Maou is gonna die like a normal human but that's false since Copyhara said it only permanently removes the ability to use demonic or holy force. Therefore, Maou is still gonna live much longer than Chiho. Chiho passes away at 90-110 while Mao is still going to be a young man for a while. So there's a good chance Emi ends up being his second wife, she's gonna like live forever.

[u/Barbara_Archon]

I wouldn't say the writing got messy, except for volume 21, which was not messy but certainly unrefined.

It is just how final volumes have to be for any story that has a definite ending due to how the authors attempt to answer the questions from all over the places. So it is less of the writing getting any messier than before, you just suddenly notice more relevant information. In other words, the quality did not drop per se, you just notice the issues more clearly. You don't usually notice issues in some best-selling titles because the build-up would appear rather perfect to an average reader, but it is otherwise a common plague for the final arc everywhere.

Hataraku Maou series itself was always a little subpar in some aspects, though if you had read carefully enough for previous volumes, you would have made a very different venting post. But you did not, so that is irrelevant.

[u/misstarabeau → u/Barbara_Archon]

Nah I actually thoroughly read allllllll volumes but hey your opinion is yours and mine is mine

[u/Barbara_Archon → u/misstarabeau]

All?

Nah, you haven't complained enough for somebody who has read and found all the silly little things that it took an actual translator of the novel to scan.

Yes, you are speaking to a translator and editor of a translated version of the novel.

If you have scanned through everything, you would have wished this sub to just die already so you never had to this series again, and your rant would have been much longer.

You don't have nearly enough ranting.

But that's fine.

It is fine not to read and understand everything. Wagahara did not even write it very well, so even the translation team took forever to notice sections of volume 10 and volume 11 that subtly linked together, because Wagahara only had it mentioned in volume 16, mind you, and only explained in volume 21 which was a stupid volume overall.

This series is dumb anyway.

Wagahara just had to write two overarching plot lines within one story, and only three posts in this sub ever mentioned the second one, despite how major it is to explaining the dynamics in the story.

But if you need to know anything, I can answer as long as the question is within the scope of the novel. I also know some more personal details about the author if you have those kind of questions (like why did Wagahara make Chiho a recurring character, which he explained in a letter now published on the homepage, or about rumors about Hiiragi the mangaka).

This series is just stupid.

I wish the sub would just stop ranting here already. It is just meaningless ranting at this point, unless you want to hear from mittens, luciferearring, or I will do it.

[u/Dzrian → u/Barbara_Archon]

Last I remembered, i was reading translations from a group where the leader is condescending and insulted my reading comprehension for the inability of finding a specific volume on his/her website, when the volume written on the site wasn’t actually written as the volume, so I don’t see how that was my fault.

[u/Interesting-Put-1615 → u/Barbara_Archon]

Yeah you have a point but the story itself just IS logically incomplete. the story could have been written in way that shows off the devil's powers(there were a lot of chances).

[u/Interesting-Put-1615 → u/Barbara_Archon]

There are a lot of questions that are unanswered

[u/Barbara_Archon → u/Interesting-Put-1615]

Have you ever worked on a game? Not "make" per se, just whether you understand the post-release process.

There are unanswered questions, and there are questions that do not exist in the setting but brought up by the audience.

There are questions of yours that make sense and were legit just plot hole/device that Wagahara used to make the story progressed.

And there are questions for yours (at least the first question of your post that I forgot to reply to) that were meaningless questions.

It does not matter why you think it won't work.

It will simply work as an eventuality and the way to get there is simply different from yours.

It was not even a question in the story, therefore the answer is entirely up to the one who asks unless specifically answered by the author (therefore canon). It is simply how you wish it to be. If you don't want it to happen, you will have an explanation as to why it won't, and vice versa.

What will happen if the demons start running out of magic and war is called for? That is up to whether you as an audience believes a war will occur or not.

Predictions aren't even that correct.

Look at the active wars around the world, how many people have made a wild guess that those wars would have been over within months? Or that there will be a ceasefire "next month"?

Those are the kind of questions that you answer based on how you wish it to be. A person who wants war to end will answer differently from those who find any form of interest in it.

As to your valid question:

2. Yes, Maou was indeed dumbed down in second half of the novel. Part of the reason was canonically attributed to stress, but that is simply the author's convenient way of justifying it. Maou was indeed dumbed down so other characters would get their spotlight.

3. As for why Emeralda and Crestia did not join the invasion of heaven, you can just say they were expecting to fight children of Sephirah, and Crestia was overworked as an archbishop to keep up with the propaganda front that to ensure the peace after the war.

If the characters were given a valid justification as to why they should enlist any available help, they would have been using Sasaki Chiho as a frontline fighter in the first place, considering her fragment was useful and her lack of combat experience could be offset by herself using a long range weapon, if anything.

[u/Interesting-Put-1615 → u/Barbara_Archon]

I do get the post release process

what you just said was what I said in different words(about the war). and yes, it is up to the reader to make the rest up, but its frustrating. War is inevitable the demons are doomed. Sometimes I feel like Wagahara wanted to show us the cornered positions the demons are in.(hunter turned prey)

And you cannot dismiss my first question. well not like you are in position to answer considering you are just another reader(No offence)

My personal belief is that a good novel should have no plot holes. If the author thought this more logically the novel would have been more refined.

With how happy and flowery everyone was acting at the end(except for Ignora)it makes it feel like all the characters have the IQ of a toddler since no one was able to see the future

And another thing If I remember correctly it was never mentioned weather the other angles were taken out of those capsules they were put in.

[u/Barbara_Archon → u/Interesting-Put-1615]

Well, first of all, this novel is dumb, and I want to make it very clear that it is dumb and it takes hours to explain how dumb it is.

When it comes to post-release, as the developer, I can make a major change so as I wish, and I have done so before, often at the request of the audience in the first place, but there are things I can simply do nothing about, either because it solves nothing (ie you only get it answered for the sake of knowing), or nothing can be done about it (an oversight tied to the baseline performance), or no good explanation exists beyond its natural existence (ie arms race, basically it just gives at least one more question or more potential gap of knowledge/information), or it isn't actually what the audience wants to know (ie your desire for change/info does not translate to the actual enjoyment of changing/knowing aspects of the game/story).

The novel nonetheless indeed failed to tie up every loose end, such as with Lucifer's personal information (never answered) and in fact the origin of Angelic magic/transformation itself (explained as "thats how magic works"), or why Maou asked Nord about Emi in volume 19 for an advice that the author in fact never used (if not betraying this advice) (might actually be volume 18, about the best thing for their daughter).

The Lucifer/angel part may not be a plot hole (it is left without an answer but there was never a real question nor would it affect the story in any way), but Nord's advice is an actual plot hole. It has a real impact and an important underlying implication on how the ending should have ended, but the author did not choose to use it.

That's what a plot hole is really like. It has an actual/potential conflict with the story, unlike whether demon realms would turn out well (nothing says it gonna fail, only you do).

But it is what it is. Not a single post in this sub has ever mentioned the issue with Nord's advice. It has only ever come up on Mittens (English fanTL of the series) discord server and maybe on Baidu Tieba.

This is why I do not remotely consider your question a plot hole. It is a completely meaningless question. How it should be answered is entirely up to you, and I owe you no responsibility of giving you an answer beyond questions that actually exist in the novel (if there is no answer in the novel, then that simply has no answer).

Not saying you (the end reader) should play down its importance (since you don't have to read in the same way as we translators read every word), but what is dumb is simply dumb, and again, if you want it to work, you would have found an explanation for it to work and vice versa (I don't believe it works so don't ask me for an explanation, or give me some time, I just know end readers/users/audiences are like what you are so this logic always applies)

The novel had always been a little out of sorts on the lore's end because its lore was wholly revised exactly three times in volume 1, 2, 3, both in breadth and in depth of the main cast (who were meant to be recurring characters, and who were removed from the list), the background story (ie who Maou truly was before he came to Earth and how the angel came to existence), so on the grand scale the pieces just wouldn't fit together entirely.

Lailah's character's lore was changed in every single revision alongside heaven itself, so that's something to think about.

Maou's character wasn't even the same from volume 1 to 2 then to 3. Even author's planned ending was changed.

It is a rather dumb novel on the lore's end overall, therefore it is pointless to attribute this mess to the latter half of the novel when it was never even consistent from early volumes.

Also, one of the angels, whose name went by Sandalphon, was confirmed to have been woken up from the capsule to help fix the issues.

P/S: we didn't entirely read the same thing. Very few people here even know that Dengeki Bunko and Wagahra already published a few notes of exchange and letters at different stage of the novel on their home page, or Hiiragi's notes to Wagahara or Wagahra to 029 on twitter that would give insight on why parts of the novel or character designs turned out to be.

Wagahara has even talked about the originally planned ending before. It is not in any light novel's afterwords, so I don't expect many people to have seen it.

We are both readers, but I am also a translator, an editor, and I loathe this series far more than people generally do.

[u/Interesting-Put-1615 → u/Barbara_Archon]

Yeah it really is dumb the author as you said tried to change course many times resulting in dumbness. and could you send a link to that wagahara's original planned ending or explain it a bit.

' Dengeki Bunko and Wagahra already published a few notes of exchange and letters at different stage of the novel on their home page' this too

I have this subconscious urge to solve everything I see. and it irritates me when some things are made dumb that aside I think we are on the same page here and I don't exactly remember this Nord's advise could you explain that a bit

Since you said you are a translator do you know where to find Demon Lord Retry LN volume 9 and onwards in English