Label: Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko
Release Date: 1 January 2019
English Release: Yen-Press is currently releasing this series in English as Banished from the Hero’s’Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside. Please check it out if you’re interested.
Winter has come to town as Rit and Red continue to grow closer and they finally reunite with Rutee, as well as her friend, Tiese. I’ve read too many light novels to not be immediately suspicious of little sister characters and their feelings towards towards their brothers but, thankfully, this series seems to not be going down the unrequited incest route so far and I am grateful for that. Rutee is jealous of Rit but that’s more due to the fact that Rit has freedom that the hero is never allowed to have which is far more interesting than incest would have been so good job, Zappon. I haven’t spoken about Tiese much but I like her about as much as I like every other major character in this series. She’s awkward and funny and some of her scenes are delight to read but I’m still getting a handle on her so I can’t talk much about her.
While I do consider this the best volume of the series so far, mostly due to Rutee being the most interesting character in the series so far, I still can’t bring myself to rate this volume higher than a 3 because the series has these really awkward scene transitions that have been there since volume 1. Often, the transitions will change POV characters, location, and time but we’re never given much notice when it happens and it really takes me out of the story because I get confused about who is telling it and where they are telling it. The series is fine but it really needs to make those transitions more reader-friendly because I just can’t get invested in the story when I’m too confused to pay attention.
I probably won’t be reading the 4th volume because I’m just not invested in the story or the characters but I am definitely looking forward to the anime. I think I’ll like this series more in a visual medium and maybe it’ll motivate me to read more.
