Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 23 (light novel)

First is the part that’s niggling in the back of my mind : has there been a change in translator? Somehow there are minor inconsistencies that gets jarring. The one still fresh is Satou’s telekinesis-type spell, quite consistently Magic Hand, and then suddenly he uses Psychic Hand instead, never mentioned elsewhere and not some new spell he learned either. Then earlier, somehow Mia’s home forest changes name.

This volume incorporates into the main story a story arc from the webnovel that was originally something post-credit, so to speak. Thanks to the adjustments to the story in the earlier volumes, it flows well, but it does seem like some more major upheaval of the plot is in the works. Regardless, I’m appreciating the growth of the author’s bag of tricks, namely in answering the question of “how does one challenge an MC who have basically all the tricks?” OP protags are all well and good, but part of the fun is seeing them struggle with figuring out the application of their own powers.

Having kept up with the entire series in all its forms, including the original web novel, something has changed with the translation staff and the overall quality of the translation has dropped. There’s problems with consistency in terminology and character backgrounds throughout this novel and the tone doesn’t shift at all when switching between the perspective of different characters. If the translator now has tighter deadlines, has been replaced by someone new, or if this was done by AI tools, it would not surprise me.

The translation of this book is a terrible mess. I didn’t read this volume so much as try to decipher it. The rest of the series has had occasional translation glitches, but this one is barely comprehensible. It deserves better. Boo!