When I started reading this, I fully expected it to include harem antics. It is so common in light novels that it is always a solid guess. But this went way beyond my expectations. With every new volume, the number of fiancées is going up and the number of political opponents is going down. One after another, all the domestic and foreign powers are becoming his best friends and never pose a threat afterwards. And the harem doesn't feature much rivalry either. Every member of the harem is perfectly fine with every new addition into the harem. Add in long rants about idol shows, anime songs, cooking, children's superhero tv shows, etc., and there was barely any time left for meaningful politics or any other interesting content, really.

As mentioned above, the harem doesn't have much rivalry or conflict going on, which makes it mindnumbingly dull. The whole point of romantic comedy and drama is that people are fighting for the attention and feelings of their love interests against their rivals or at least overcoming some problems in their relationships. Here there is apparently no rivalry or competition worth mentioning. I will say this again for good measure: every member of the harem is perfectly fine with every new addition into the harem. They are great friends with each other, practically flawless. For the most part, they can patiently wait for their turn to receive affection. They don't even seem to have any relationship issues with Souma. Everything goes smoothly. There is zero tension here, nothing yet to be resolved, nothing to look forward to.

So... where is the romantic (or even "romantic") drama or comedy? There is none. They all love him and will be happy ever after. Which may be great for Souma, but how am I supposed to find this entertaining? The only funny part is that his harem is actually mildly relevant politically. Getting new fiancées sometimes results in obtaining more territory, etc., though this is not always the case. Some side characters are also getting married or even building smaller harems, but there are never any serious problems in their relationships either. Well, maybe there is one pairing that has potential because they are among the slightly more interesting characters and their relationship is slowly teased, but that is the exception and they barely do anything with it anyway.

The same is true of his inner circle of friends, advisors and other acquaintances. Everyone loves Souma or at least gets very well along with him. They praise him all the time. Some of the praise is deserved and some of it isn't, but either way it results in a total lack of opposition. I suppose Hakuya is a bit of an exception in the sense that he doesn't praise Souma too much, but his policy goals are usually neatly aligned with Souma's, so he supports him all the same. Souma doesn't have to worry about any of these people. This guy wouldn't get backstabbed in a million years. If he did, it would be pretty hilarious though.

This is a side note, but apparently workplace bullying is alright if you call it "buwwying." I'm dying over here.

...So yeah. Judging by the title and synopsis, I was also expecting political conflict. If the title of the novel is "How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom," it is only fair. Even with all the harem antics and other exposition, there must be some room for it, right? Well, there is some politics, but don't get your hopes up. The local populace immediately loves Souma. In some ways, this is justified because some of his policies seem effective, but you'd expect an old-fashioned feudal society to be a bit more resistant to a sudden cultural shock. Souma never has to deal with any riots in the street or anything like that. At worst, a few corrupt noblemen are causing trouble.

With every new volume, there is less political conflict left. There are fewer domestic malcontents, fewer hostile countries. As a particularly ridiculous example, Souma had a bitter political rival with personal reasons to hate him. Even though his power was limited after his fall and he didn't pose a huge threat, the fact is that he had reasons to hate Souma. However, he later patched things up with Souma because he had apparently reformed himself offscreen and learned the errors of his ways. Seems legit. There is allegedly some demon lord, maybe, but who knows? Even after so many volumes, we haven't met him. The best we've seen are a few demons who are probably organized in some vague manner. And there is some stuff about ancient ruins, but that isn't a political conflict to begin with. It is more of a run-of-the-mill RPG plot device.

Another fun fact: the local "republic" isn't a modern democratic republic or anything, more like a bunch of local chiefs voting for a head of state from amongst themselves. Well, they never properly try the "Kingdom vs Republic" argument anyway, so it's pretty irrelevant either way.

In terms of more policy-related stuff, the narration sometimes features a lot of technical detail. For instance, forestry and waste management are allotted page after page of explaining every small detail. Cooking receives a lot of attention as well, including both local and Japanese dishes, all the way to spelling out their recipes. Now, I don't mind infodumping if it is relevant for the plot or themes of the novel, but it shouldn't overtake the main topic. A political drama is better off focusing on scheming and political philosophy than reprinting civil engineering textbooks. I suppose the author was trying because he inserted walls of quotes from Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, Souma's favorite authors. I would call them overrated, but what do I know? Maybe Machiavelli truly is the best source for political philosophy and Sun Tzu for the pro strats. Sometimes they are poorly timed too. Right when there was a dramatic moment, Souma went off on a tangent on Machiavelli's writings for several pages. It could have waited for at least a short while. Also, in later volumes the number of their quotes drops pretty dramatically. Maybe the author ran out.

Speaking of tangents, they are a broader problem. Souma and other characters can go on tangents for half a dozen pages before returning to the matter at hand. Now, this wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea, but the tangents may be incredibly dull. Like, some report about trivial things that have been taking place offscreen or more engineering stuff. Sometimes, tangents are interrupted by second-tier tangents, concluded by something like "And now back to what I was saying" to return to the original tangent.

Still, this novel isn't actually about engineering or Machiavelli. No, the true point of the novel is having endless rants about idol shows and the like. Souma explains in excruciating detail what is appealing about them, to him at least. This includes lists of anime songs he likes. You know, in the "I changed a few letters" kind of way. Or at least that's what I think; I have never actually heard of any of them. Maybe I am a filthy casual or something. Of course, this is what the kingdom starts producing for entertainment: idol shows. Later on they also air a children's superhero tv show that takes up forty pages. If you think this is hyperbole, think again. It literally takes up forty pages. Who asked for this? Of course, they throw in silly-looking fanservice for good measure because that's what kids' shows are about. Hey, apparently it was a hit among the adult demographic.


When writing a political drama, you should actually remember to include the "drama" bit. It can't always be smooth sailing for the protagonist, or there is no point.

The same for the romantic drama and comedy. Where is the drama? Where is the comedy? All I can see is that "everything is perfect." The size of the harem keeps increasing, but it doesn't fundamentally matter whether he has four or five fiancées if they never bring about any interesting drama or comedy. The harem is growing without any problems whatsoever, which is great for Souma but not so great for the audience that has to sit through this exercise in "romantic" tedium.