Infinite Dendrogram: Volume 2: Volume 2 (Infinite Dendrogram (manga)) (Infinite Dendrogram (light novel))

by Sakon Kaidou

Taiki (Illustrator) and Andrew Hodgson (Translator)

Like anything that stands tall and proud, the City of Duels cast a great, dark shadow.
After an unexpectedly challenging journey, Ray and his party finally arrive at Gideon, The City of Duels. The mere sight of the towering arenas and thriving fantasy townscapes is enough to instantly awe and enchant him. However — like anything that stands tall and proud — the city cast a great, dark shadow. The name of this shadow is the Gouz-Maise gang — a loathsome band of cutthroats who turn their profit kidnapping children and demanding ransom. Ray, wide-eyed and innocent, was blissfully unaware of just how cruel the hyper-realistic world of Infinite Dendrogram would become.

• ISBN13: 9781718355019
• Publish Date: 17 October 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: J-Novel Club
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 250
• Language: English

Reviews

[sa090]

By this second volume I can hope that the adapted anime will make this the best VRMMO series to date.

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The story picks up immediately after the first volume, and like the first volume Ray and Nemesis are not done exploring this world. They do visit new locations in this one and deal with new missions, which I was surprised at. I was under the impression that only masters and those working as knights and such would have abilities, but I was corrected in this volume. I did like the addition of it a lot more than I expected, it could make the upcoming events a lot more fun and somewhat unpredictable as well. Unlike the mission of the first volume, this one was much darker and it’s kind of making it really feel like a game, some missions are easy and mundane, others are dark and dangerous.

It’s refreshing that the “darkness” applied here isn’t rape, had enough of light novels or manga that think it’s the only way to make a story dark. That being said, considering how close of a process and proceedings of this quest compared to the first novel, it doesn’t provide that much variety just yet. It does give another outlook to the “infinity” aspect of the game, but a total limit to what exactly is the limit is nowhere to be seen just yet.

At this point, it’s honestly difficult to think that there is a limit. Ray ends up meeting new characters who are way similar to him than not, we get to see a little bit more about the AIs working around this game, more about the tians which was also a lot more surprising than I expected, embryos, other countries and more hints about the hidden darkness of the game. There IS something here, I’m sure of it and I can’t wait to know what it is!

Development wise, Ray or Nemesis aren’t so different from the previous novel but then again we hardly spent that much time with them to begin with. I mean yes we went on a couple of adventures with them now, we’ve seen how some situations were handled and went through a journey with them but it was all briefly done. Ray and Nemesis seem to deal with the biggest threat at the very end of the novels, so if there is in fact a development I wouldn’t be able to see for sure until I read volume 3. Which is most likely going to be soon because I’m hooked to this, even if they’re taking it slow for the majority of it, there’s something very entertaining about the way it’s proceeding.

I hope for more variety in the quests in the upcoming novels, but if I don’t get that then I hope for more interesting reveals about this series. So far, it didn’t disappoint in that regard but I surely hope for me.

Final rating: 3.5/5