Let's start with the ugly first. The title that's currently being used is actually incorrect.
The "the simple life" part is translated correctly but the "killing demons" part isn't. The Chinese title is "弑魔者的简单生活". "简单生活" is simple life. "的" can be interpreted as "of" or "Blank's". And lastly, "弑魔者" is not "killing demons."
The problem lied with machine translations, like google translate, where they totally ignored "者", which roughly means "he who" or "those who". It's usually used after a verb, adjective or noun to turn the whole term to "a type of person". In this case, it'll be "those who kills demon", "those who kill demons", or "demon killer".
In short, "弑魔者" translate to "demon killer", "demon murderer", or "demon slayer". I personally prefer "demon slayer", so the actual title would translate to something like...
"The Simple Life of a Demon Slayer"
"Demon Slayer's Simple Life"
In Volume 1, the author wrote a blur about the mechanics of the novel's world. One of the mechanics the author mentioned was the ranks in killing demons. It's divided into five ranks, or titles. I dropped the third character as they essentially refer to the same thing and replaced it with the same meaning of "者" or "those who"
- 抗魔師 - "those who resists demons" -> Demon Resistant
- 驅魔師 - "those who exorcises demons" -> Demon Exorcist
- 獵魔者 - "those who hunts demons" -> Demon Hunter
- 滅魔人 - "those who exterminate demons" -> Demon Exterminator
- 弑魔者 - "those who slays demons" -> Demon Slayer
Next I'll go with the good. The girls are really loveable and cute. The author basically rips off Japanese manga, anime and novel and their style/culture and incorporated in a Chinese novel. So you literally have every different personality you'll ever want in the girls.
As of Volume 6, the male lead have 3 female spirits/sprites (one's like a kid/loli, one's mature and caring, one's a princess-like), 4 female classmates (one's the childhood friend who is a bit of a clutz, one's the class representative's smart, attention to details, and like with the brains, one's the team leader and she's really formal, and lastly, one's the scared of everything type of girl) and lastly one loli dragon girl, who's pretty emotionless.
And their quarrels/jealousy between each other is also very funny and amusing.
If you also like a dense male lead, then you might enjoy it as well. But I find a dense male lead gets old really fast. He needs to grow up, which leads to the bad. So far, I'm totally over with the dense relationship male lead. It's pretty retarded now. And the plot implied that the male lead is only dense in relationships but in the audience's point of view, the male lead is just dense overall. And it's not my style of protagonist.
So, first off, the protagonist wants to take the 3 spirits/sprites to school. He thinks that he can just brings them to school and be over with. What about school registration? Okay, maybe he's just a kid. Fine. How about telling the spirits/sprites to not call you "master" so the whole effin world wouldn't know that they are spirits/sprites? Yeah, he doesn't bother with any precautions and just plain stupid.
The last fight in Volume 6 is also plain stupid/retarded. Without spoiling too much, the premise is that the male lead is fighting against two humans where one is possessed by a water/ice-based Incubus while trying to protect two girls and their father (one girl and the father knows how to fight). The male lead was "supposedly" really "angry" because the Incubus mind controlled one of the girls and tried to get the other girl and do stuff to them. You think he'll be "angry"? Well, not enough. One of the girls were hostage to one of the human, you think he'll be super "angry"? Nope.
Why do I say so? Because he had four main abilities/skills: Dragon's Roar, Wind Speed Mode, Fire Dragon's Roar, and Flame Transformation. The abilities are as their names imply. And the fire-based counterparts are much stronger. But male lead decides to f around and pretend to be angry and fails to save the girl. And he ended up being frozen and then finally going Super Saiyan when he should've went Super Saiyan like 4 times already. The Incubus is water/ice-based, so fire will melt the crap out of him. But he decides to f around and get himself frozen with others protecting his frozen ass and getting injured. And guess what? He instantly KO'd the Incubus after he used his Flame Transformation.
Heck, he demonstrated that without going into Flame Transformation and using his fire-based attacks would be much stronger than normally. But he didn't do squat but his normal abilities (super human physique (dragon-like body), Wind Speed Mode and a few failed attempts of Dragon's Roar).
Other than being dense, the male lead's personality is also pretty lame. He's waaaaaay too passive for a protagonist/hero. Not sure if it's real, but one of the translators of "The New Gate" said that the protagonist is very passive, which made the story not appealing to him/her. Not sure if he meant what I am feeling about this male lead, but he seems way too passive, pushy and stupid.
At the end of the day, I feel that the saving grace of this novel is the harem, or the girls.
If 1 is "I hate this piece of crap", and 10 is "I would so reread this again and again", and 5 is "I guess I can read this to pass the time", then I can only give this a 4.5 because yes, I can read this to pass the time and somewhat enjoy it but I can also drop it at any time without really missing much about it. As much as I love the harem and those adorable girls' personalities, at the end of the day, they are supporting cast and if the main cast/protagonist sucks, it's only sucking less.
(-27)
