To be fair the way she spoke give the impression that she has more things that she doesn't agree but decided to not go into the topic at that moment. As for "being in peril" that is the most glaring problem of Vidal empire and there is simply no way of talking about its development without touching this topic as how things are it all depends on Van. The thing that is worth noting though, Vidal Empire depending on Van is only a problem while they are at war againt Alda, because it's basically impossible for Van to die due natural causes, not only he can control sickness he can even refreshen his lifespan or even turn himself into a undead if things get dicey.
As I see it, biggest problem for Vidal empire is undead and I only see two options to solve it. 1) Create reincarnation system for undead to enter and get reincarnated. or 2) Reverse death and make undead alive.
Hard to say. Vandalieu is playing with living gold and silver. He revived his mother Darcia. Also here are Legion, it is considered as lifeform. So, author for a long time already try to make undead into living. Only question is how author will make it, will dead take they previous form like Darcia or will they take new form like Legion (but more normal form). I think even both can be implemented. Vandalieu only needs to upgrade Vida reincarnation system.
Nah I mean didn't he revive the really recently dead back when Iris got attacked by Erwin and inferiority complex sword guy? Rickert or something? Not all of her allies were still alive. And also we know souls can be moved into soulless bodies (Eisen, Pauvina), so if someone makes a Live Dead of someone he should be able to put their soul back into it. Hell, with Corpse Restoration, he should be able to even repair a badly damaged corpse into pristine condition and THEN have it revived. Even if THAT isn't possible, they have the resurrection device and the only reason it was sealed in the first place is because the newly revived people didn't understand what was happening and were traumatized by dying. Something that should not be an issue here. The only reason resurrecting Darcia was so hard was because he wanted it done in a very particular way and because he was lacking a lot of things like, well, most of her body. I'm curious as to whether he could have used Corpse Restoration on that tiny bone sliver, honestly.
Van said that the recently dead were still fine because their souls were still basically in their bodies and they had just died, so healing them and giving them a figurative kick was enough to bring them back to life. As for reviving other undead in Vidal, it’s come up before, but none of the undead want to come back to life. They prefer their current state and Van isn’t enough of an asshole to force it on them.
Not exactly. From what I remember the way it works is this. Van CANNOT directly resurrect the dead to their origional lives. Once you are fully dead then you are dead. This is because Van can control the power of death but not life, so he can't directly restore life that has already been lost. What van can do is turn people into undead and then use Life Gold and Soul Silver to restore almost all living functions including the ability to have children. But this is still not resurrection as they are still TECHNICALLY undead and are filled with death instead of life. Van can also perform psuedo-reincarnation to grant people new life but depending on how he goes about doing this the subject's memories may be partially or fully lost in the process. Like the half minotaur girl seems to mostly remember her past life at this point but the tree woman seems to have entirely forgotten her previous life. The reason reviving his mother was so hard was he wanted to restore her life as his mother, not make her a ghost or give her an entirely new body and life. That's why he needed Vida and the root of life Zakart made to actually bring her back to life.
Just found this review of the first volume of the novel : https://animeuknews.net/2023/03/the-death-mage-volume-1-review/ Am I the only one who thinks it is by someone who did not even bother trying to read or research the series?
Seems they started it thinking it was just a revenge novel, and thought the emotionless Van parts were a localization issue.
In many ways, The Death Mage is another one of those light novels with protagonists hellbent on revenge, although being so young Vandal is having to side-line his plans for now until he gets stronger. Still, right now readers should be prepared for the fact the series will remain darker in tone. love that paragraph alone for its ability to miss the point completely
I haven't read the LN so I can't really tell if the reviewer is truly all that far off, but the review itself seems fine to me. That kind of review shouldn't require any significant research, it's just a matter of the review sharing their thoughts after reading through volume 1. Honestly, even going by the WN I don't think that volume 1 is super great, I don't even go back that far when I reread aside from maybe the very beginning. If the TL was poorly localized on top of that, then I can see how the reviewer might feel the way they do.
It is by someone who read English LN and not WN. LN may be different from WM and I have not read LN, so I don't know. I also seen LN official translations of other novels who are worse than WN translation. Or at last I like WN translation more, than LN. Also, reviewer only read first volume of LN and other commentator said first volume is just half of first arc. If we look from WN, review are bad, because review many times said it is revenge novel, but it is not really revenge novel. MC don't go to finish his revenge. Most of time he just defends himself and others important to him.
One of the other issues is that Death Mage is not a fast-paced series; quite the opposite, in fact. It takes until about Volume 3 or Volume 4 before all the main plot-lines have been established. Consequently, a single-volume review is never going to be fair or accurate, particularly a review of Volume 1 where even the author hadn't finished deciding where the story was going, or how it was going to get there.
While that may be true for a review of the series as a whole, a single volume review can still be completely fair and accurate for the volume in question. This is just a matter of Death Mage not being particularly strong in the beginning, but picking up later.
Which is the issue with the review. A few parts of it read like someone who's decided on the direction of the plot based on one volume even though it's clear the plot is a slow burn from the first volume. No one with any sense would judge the plot from volume 1 alone and ... honestly some of their statements like expecting it to be a pure dark revenge fantasy is pretty wrong even by the end of volume 1. I don't entirely remember where volume 1 ended but I remember Van pretty clearly stating his main goal was to live happily and revenge was a sub goal at best. Although it's true that statement doens't fully make it clear how prevent revenge is ... it felt like the review was treating this like one of those cheap revenge fantasies that has no substance and mistakes nihilism and brutality for complexity and depth. A review of a first volume should be written without making assumptions and deciding on the future plot. In fact a single first volume is rarely able to judge any series, so really the only thing on review should be pure first impressions.
To review the first volume of something without making any judgements based on where the you think the plot is going would make for a pretty poor review, at least in my opinion. A first volume is supposed to set the tone for the later volumes and give the reader something to come back for, so any review that doesn't account for that part of the experience is incomplete and uninformative. It should also be noted that the first volume of the LN apparently only covers about the first half of the WN's volume 1. Based on the chapter titles, it seems like half the book is pretty much focused on Van's early suffering, and his first revenge, with the later half being him leaving that first town (while leveling) and the introduction of most the major ghouls. Given that's what she had to work with, I don't blame the reviewer for judging things the way she did, especially since she admitted that it seems like things are shifting with the introduction of new characters (even if it wasn't enough to totally convince her).
Yeah most of the review is okay, you can make all kinds of assumptions based on the first volume, the only part I disagree with is the assumption that the manga is badly translated because Van isn't angry as he should be in a pure revenge story.
It's not reviewing the manga, it's reviewing the LN. It's entirely possible that the localization of the LN doesn't properly capture how Van's feeling, making it hard to care about him. I can't be too sure since I haven't read the LN, I've only read the WN.
With how large and arguably twisted van's soul has become do you think it is worth more than a typical soul if a god was insane enough to offer a barter?