Black Summoner: Volume 1 Audiobook By Doufu Mayoi, Taishi - translator cover art

Black Summoner: Volume 1

Black Summoner, Volume 1

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Black Summoner: Volume 1

By: Doufu Mayoi, Taishi - translator
Narrated by: Kyle Tait
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Waking up in a strange new place with no memory of his past life, Kelvin learns that he's bartered away those very memories in exchange for powerful new abilities during his recent transmigration. Heading out into a whole new world as a Summoner—with his first Follower being the very goddess who brought him over!—Kelvin begins his new life as an adventurer, and it isn't long before he discovers his hidden disposition as a battle junkie. From the Black Knight of the Ancient Castle of Evil Spirits to the demon within the Hidden Cave of the Sage, he revels in the fight against one formidable foe after another. Join this OP adventurer in an exhilarating and epic saga as he and his allies carve their way into the annals of history!

©2016 Doufu Mayoi; English translation copyright 2020 by J-Novel Club LLC; Original Japanese edition published in 2016 by OVERLAP, Inc.; Cover illustration by Kurogin (DIGS) (P)2023 Tantor Fantasy Fiction
Engaging Plot • Enjoyable Adventure • Faithful Adaptation • Beloved Characters • Interesting Story • Fun Protagonist

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narrator is a bit slow but that's an easy price to pay. binging all of these.

love it

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Black Summoner as an anime is a middle of the pack isekai struggling for room in a very saturated market. The light novel would probably be better to read, you might think. Well, sure, if you can put the voices in your mind and imagine that, great.

This audible is NOT anything like that. Don't get me wrong. This narrator would be GREAT if he were verbalizing a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a medical textbook, or anything technical. Unfortunately, this is a genre that really requires depth of voice and the ability to emote.

Peeves:
#1) Female characters are difficult to separate from the male ones as the narrator only heightens his voice a fraction of a percent. The only way you can tell they are female is when they say stereotypical things like, "Honey," etc..

#2) Narration of sounds should be loud if they are meant to be loud, not equal in tone and speed to everything else. "He folded clothes bored," and "He smashed his fist into the monster's face! BLAMMM" should not be read in the same monotone.
Battles that are supposed to be high-paced action have the feel of a meeting at the library.

#3) Attitude of this narrative altogether feels like, yeah, I've got to read this... bleh,,, light novel... Whatever... Not excited, not concerned, not intrigued, not enrapt in wonder. Think, watching paint dry and having to narrate it, what THAT might sound like, applied to this unfortunate book.

#4) The story starts off very trope-heavy. When there is a LOT of trope, one should avoid highlighting it with a tongue-in-cheek meta-commentary on how trope-heavy isekai stories are... It's laborious. Don't let that deter you from reading the kindle version, though. It gets better.

#5) The way isekai cheat "heroes" can act like their word is law and their perspective is right because someone handed them cheat powers is annoying. You can't claim the character earned anything if they are given massive advantages right from the start that no other character in the book can ever hope to attain. That can get preachy and self-serving, like the author writing wish-fulfillment.

Such a bad performance...

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I loved the narrator and the story though it could have gone without all the honorifics like Sama, kun and Chan. Lol

Loved it

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Without giving spoilers I figured I’d give a heads up to people before they buy this series, so here goes:
1) This isn’t a format you can read (listen to) just some of the books, look ahead to see if you’ll like the story because once you start you’re in for the long haul; also, depending on how good your memory is you may have to listen again because these books take time to be made into audiobooks.
2) This isn’t a great narrator, he’s not horrible at giving the characters some basic tells so you know whose talking at any given time, but he is a little robotic and slow, fortunately you can speed up the recording, I found that going at 1.15 was enough to compensate for the lackluster pace.
3) Given what I just said, I’d recommend either waiting until this series is all out or wait for a really good sale, I got them all for less than $3 a piece, so I’m happy with my purchase, but if I’d used credits I wouldn’t have been happy.
4) About the format some more, there are currently 20 books that make up this series and not all of them are even in English yet.
5) There is an anime, maybe try watching it to see if you like the setting/characters, this will put some spoilers into your reading (listening), but it worked for me. (For example, I tried getting into the Shield Hero because the idea appealed to me, but I just couldn’t get past the way the main character acted, and that’s a hugely popular series.). Side note on this one, there is an anime, but like most anime they only get as many seasons as the fans watching it demand, so you will get more from the light novels, and that brings up another series I am currently listening to, Mushoku Tensei, where I actually didn’t like the main character in the anime, but find him acceptable in the light novel, so maybe give a listen to the samples too. In that series the first five minutes of book 1 gives you a heads up on just what kind of guy the protagonist is.
6) This series is an isekai/harem, so if wish fulfillment bothers you or you want your main character to suffer the high highs and low lows western stories tell authors they must have for a successful story then this is not the series for you. Seriously, be prepared for plot armor and over powered characters who are rarely challenged, this might eventually change, but 8 stories in and the thing to remember is this is about having fun.

If you can keep these things in mind, and it doesn’t put you off, give the series a chance, you might just find that, like me, you want to see Kelvin’s adventures play out and experience the simple joys of a battle junky getting his fix over and over.

Last note: This is a harem with a group of very attractive women, but it’s not an adult book or a steamy romance, so he has sex, but it happens off page.

It’s a good series, but…

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Kinda lost me early in. First bit of the story was all about how powerful the analyze skill was but, while the protagonist has this super rare class he doesn't want anyone to know about, this protagonist had already introduced himself to the guards, walked into the guild hall to register and then went out to level before unlocking the concealment skill. Apparently the guards dont have any way to appraise a person who has no identification on them as well as the guild employees hiring new adventurers. The protagonist automatically analyzes the first troublemaker he meets to find a criminal record on his status. They had been gone for the week where the protagonist showed up and could now analyze him.

Incompetent guards with no analyze skill

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