The Spring 2023 Light Novel Guide

Let This Grieving Soul Retire!

What's It About? 

Krai makes an oath with his friends to become the strongest hero in the world...but his hopes are quickly dashed when he realizes that his talents lie elsewhere. Despite the reality check, the expectations from the people around him seem to rise exponentially every day. Now Krai must deal with this huge misunderstanding as well as the outrageous consequences.

Let This Grieving Soul Retire! has a story by Tsukikage, and art by Chyko. The English translation is by Adam Seacord. J-Novel Club released the first volume digitally for $7.99.

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Tsukikage has made quite the niche for themselves in light novels that take the prevailing plots and just twist them ever so gently. Let This Grieving Soul Retire!, which follows its manga adaptation into English translation, is a mild riff on the basic D&D fantasy. There are levels, the usual familiar classes, and dungeons full of treasure to be explored. When protagonist Krai was younger, he and his friends started their adventuring party until it became clear (to Krai) that he was far less talented than anyone else. He tried to back out of the whole deal, but his friends maintained that he was just as skilled as they were. When the story starts, the unassuming and world-weary Krai has ended up stuck as the leader of the world's premier adventuring group. As far as he's concerned, he's the accountant on a football team.

The joy of this story lies in watching Krai struggle internally to figure out why his friends are so dedicated to him remaining on the team. While it may look like "pity" or even "loyalty" to him, as readers, we can see that it's more than that — it's because he's very good at organization that they want him to stick around. Krai doesn't see that as a valuable skill, but it is. However, since most games don't have “logistician” or “list-maker” as classes, Krai can't quite fathom it. It's an interesting and fun statement on how these stories typically work. Not that it's necessarily out to make a statement; this is lighthearted at its core, which is a good thing. (Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash has the darker element of the genre covered, after all.) I also found the original work superior to the manga adaptation, largely because the female characters were far less annoying, and the artistic cheesecake was less in-your-face (present, but not distracting). It's a breezy read.