Tags: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Comedy, Romance, Harem, Isekai
Sub-Tags: Banishment, Business, Strong Lead, Strategy
Synopsis:
GOING BALLISTIC!
Van is hard at work using his past-life knowledge and production magic to enhance his little hamlet in exile. This time around, he’s built some beefy ballistae and blasted a forest dragon! Soon the king himself is swinging by for an impromptu royal visit, and a newly discovered dungeon has adventurers flooding in. With all this hustle and bustle revitalizing the village, there’s no way things could take a turn for the worse…right?! (Source: Seven Seas Entertainment)
A Revitalised Village Goes on the Attack!
Easygoing Territory Defense’s second volume is the very definition of wasted potential.
Coming off the back of a strong opening installment, the series’ sequel continues Van’s lordly adventures as his nameless village comes under the attention of new potential allies and foes. The sequel’s story centres around two new major events for Van and the village. The first introduces Van to a new possible ally, the king, while the second expands the series’ view of the continent as a neighbouring nation prepares to invade.
As a plot for a generic light novel fantasy sequel, the story is fine, if a little reductive. It hits all the notes you’d expect from a kingdom-building series, right down to the king’s abnormal exuberance over potential growth. Unfortunately for this series, my read of it has come at a time when I’ve finally discovered the difference between a good generic series and a bad one: potential.
Don’t get me wrong, potential isn’t all a series needs to be good; far from it, but it does go a long way towards keeping me invested.
With the potential that Easygoing Territory Defense creates in its first volume, it squanders in its second. Instead of exploring Arte’s stigmatised puppeteer powers, expanding Apkallu culture, or even introducing a new species to the village, the story instead decides to take a well-trodden path filled with one-dimensional characters and events created to highlight the protagonist’s brilliance. There’s nothing about the King’s plot line or the plot line involving an invading force that hasn’t been done before, and if you’d have given me this volume to read without the front cover, it would’ve taken me several attempts before I would’ve named this one.
It’s frustrating because there’s so much good in this series that it could stand out from the crowd in a genre mired in mediocrity. It needs direction. It needs an endgame. Otherwise, I can foresee the series swimming around in circles until it ends abruptly on a hiatus.
I was planning on writing more on this volume, but I think I’ve said everything that needs to be said. The volume’s story is fine, but I can’t help but think of what this series could’ve become. All the elements are there, ready for an entertaining kingdom-building series; I just think that the second volume took the series in the wrong direction. Thankfully, the synopsis for the third volume is out, and it looks like it’s finally dealing with Arte’s powers.
Easygoing Territory Defense Vol. 2
My Rating: 6/10
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You can read the second volume of this series digitally and physically through the distributors listed on the Seven Seas website.
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