Final volume alert!
I've been reading the series for a while now, I'm a big fan and have been enjoying it quite a bit. There was such a large time gap though between volumes five and six and I was starting to question whether or not we would get a volume six. That said, I still feel like we didn't really get a volume six.
The first third of the book was entirely fluff. A consisted almost exclusively of reintroducing the cast of characters in a very shallow non-indepth way. Most of the interactions between the characters being reintroduced had no impact on the story being told in this book. In addition to that, an entirely new character was introduced that was almost entirely unnecessary and there were some side plots that took up way too much time. It felt like the author had a bunch of different ideas they wanted to explore and just didn't have the energy or time to make multiple books exploring these ideas. As a result, none of the ideas really got developed much.
There were a number of details related directly to the reincarnation plot reveal that I feel like we're force-fed to you. It felt like you could have had a whole book building the slow reveal of that point, instead you got this very randomized half-hearted pile of "just because." It felt rather unsatisfying to be the concluding book. I want to try and break down some of the finer points in more detail but I should warn you that it is mostly spoilers at that point.
Spoilers ahead!
As I already said before, the first third of the book is pretty much the main character walking around interacting with every character and she is met from the previous books. Mostly just getting together to eat, nothing productive or particularly interesting is going on during this part. You keep hoping that something going on will lead to something else but it doesn't really.
There are two characters that are introduced during this opening section. One is an angelic creature that is from a completely new tribe and has a completely complex backstory but is a completely flat and boring character. The other is the fourth consort prospect. Both of these characters exist to be a little more than tools to drive the final plot reveal forward. You could actually remove them from the story entirely and still end up with the same story and be no better or worse for that.
There's some minor trouble going on with some foreign princess that feels very forced and weekly put together that results in the king having to choose a wife a year earlier than expected. This is the first clue that the author probably wanted to write more books, it reminds me a bit of a TV series that knows it's getting canceled early so they try to wrap up all loose ends that they had planned as fast as possible. Rather than put together an alternative conclusion to the story, the author shoehorns and brute forces all their little pseudo plans into one very awkward under developed story.
So apparently the evil emperor who's taking over the world is actually a chronic reincarnator who curses people sort of into having the same sort of experience and other stuff. He's obsessed with the protagonist because her soul is the soul of his long lost beloved and he is determined to force her to be his partner again through all sorts of shenanigans and evil schemes. Classic narcissist selfishness. As a result, he has made her soul unstable and is the source of all the isakai stuff. This isn't enough by itself, even though it really only gets a partial chapter to explore as it is so low stakes and secondary that it almost doesn't impact this book at all, but they also have to shoehorn in the creation origin of the eight kingdom's Divine beast system. And how that's revealed is so incredibly sloppy that I almost feel embarrassed explaining it.
Protagonist finds out that King wants to keep her as his queen forever. She decides that before even confessing that she loves him back she is going to tell him her secret past life info reveal. This is kind of forced because of him misconnecting her longing for her past life pet as a longing for her current life lover. When she comes out and says I remember my past life, out of absolutely nowhere King is possessed by his past life that happens to be a God and happens to be instantly determining that she needs to die. There's some weird drama where past life and present life have to fight for control as for some reason her having a past life means she has to die. To resolve this struggle, mind you this is the same page you're reading, random new character Angel dude shows up and plucks past life of God consciousness out of King temporarily as a sword. (I'm not making this up, this is seriously the climax.) And proceeds to get possessed by someone else in his tribe that can conveniently possess him through their shared consciousness so that he can communicate properly as he explains the big WTF.
So, God personality has no more appearances in the book. Literally there only as a tool to force the revelation of the settings backstory... Buy attempting murder of his beloved.
Not that any of that really matters because it immediately causes you whiplash by jerking you back to some random tea party where people pass out and suddenly Queen is being accused of attempted murder by the emperor who is coming up with any excuse possible to kidnap her so that he can force her to be his kept woman. (Again, not making this up.)
Oh and did I mention that randomly throughout all of this chaos there are little snippets where the story completely loses traction because of some side plot that the gardener cats are up to. Also, almost everything that happened in the first third of the book was just to reintroduce you to characters from the previous books that will be off screen helping solve some of the problems that are being haphazardly thrown together on screen. It's almost as if the whole time the author has zero faith that you have read the previous five books.
So, protagonist and King have to thwart evil emperor by out thinking him and convincing him that even though his 600+ years of obsession over protagonist's soul isn't worth continuing to fight for through one small conversation, they conveniently are able to ask him to explain the curse that he cast on protagonist, (let's not even spend a second more on the fact that he also just got done cursing every noble in one of the largest countries in their world into a coma sleep that they may never wake up from again... Let alone have any resolution whatsoever for those people. I mean, they're all corrupt so who cares right?) So he's like sorry? Can't fix you. Oh but any super stressful things could potentially cause you to self-destruct and fall into a coma and have your soul go nuts and stuff like that. You don't need identity and ego right?
So evil emperor goes away promising not to bother them for 5 years. Protagonist is obviously stunned and in her carriage ride back to the castle starts to ruminate on the ramifications of her soul's predicament. And then, just the stress of thinking about it is enough to make her fall into coma.
Are you having any whiplash yet? Well, if you're having any whiplash it's because the story is buck wild in its random plot delivery.
So out of nowhere, you get the big reveal that her youngest older brother has been aware of her past life problems this whole time. The reason he's become a dysfunctional alcoholic obsessed with researching ancient textbooks is because he's secretly trying to figure out a way to save his sister from soul ego death explosion something. Of course when he finds out she's in a coma he loses all hope and cries. King is like, why are you giving up?! And brother is like, because I failed....
King manages to convince brother that he shouldn't give up and since he clearly has the knowledge of the skills needed to send him somehow to wherever it is between worlds that protagonist's soul is he needs to teach him so that he can go and get her. Oh and it's okay because apparently his soul is godly? So obviously godly soul can do this without breaking... Oh and random Gardner cat shows up and is like, you're going to save her? Here have a strawberry, you totally need the strawberry because it will somehow help bring her back...
Then strawberry saves the day. The power of food obsession and magical love for strawberries is all it takes to pull her soul from the brink of disappearing or something? Wake up and let's have a wedding.
Oh and this whole time the drama with the gardener cats it was as predictable as can be. You'll be kittens, so many kittens, yay... You get one page of kitten resolution and you don't even get to enjoy said kittens... I feel deeply let down.
At this point I glance at the progression meter on my Kindle and realized that there's 10% of the book left. Mind you, this is where the bonus chapters and whatever closing ads and stuff are going to take up. If I myself at this point thinking wow, over 40% of this book is fluff. And the other 60% of this book is like three other books worth of content stripped to the barest necessities and glued together haphazardly like a scrapbook. Information overload crammed down your throat and it isn't even that interesting.
The more I discuss what I've read the more I want to drop the number of stars I gave this volume. Originally I was thinking three stars, now I'm thinking one star... So I think I'll split the difference and go to two stars now. At the end of the day, I hate to say I've read worse but I have. I did enjoy parts of this volume, but I don't feel like this was a satisfactory way to conclude a story series that I was really fond of. It's just so slapped together and sloppy and nonsensical. It felt like the author was unwilling to let go of epic ideas but also unwilling to take the time to develop them out into a true story. The results was this less than mediocre book concluding a truly great series.
The amount of disappointment I feel is making me struggle to go back and read the final 10%. I was just so overwhelmed with disappointment and disgust that I had to stop and write this review before I even finished the last 10% of the book.
If you are a big fan of this series, I almost want to tell you not to read this volume. It's such a train wreck, and you don't really get much for the effort. I can save you all that effort by simply telling you to read my spoilers and focus all of your mental energy on imagining the gardener cat kittens running around going mew! It's probably a much better use of your time.