Infinite Dendrogram: Volume 3: Volume 3 (Infinite Dendrogram (light novel))

by Sakon Kaidou

Taiki (Illustrator) and Andrew Hodgson (Translator)

Who will survive the Clash of the Superiors?
The day after Ray and Hugo faced off against the vile Gouz-Maise Gang, the city of Gideon was far livelier than usual, brimming with excitement and anticipation for a certain event. As one would expect from a metropolis bearing the title of "city of duels," the event was a match between two highly notable duelists: Figaro — the local hero — and Xunyu — one of the most powerful individuals from the far-east empire of Huang He. Both were Masters wielding the powers of Superior Embryos, and both would give their all to fight, make merry and emerge victorious. But a malicious plan unfurls itself in the shadows, who is it that seeks to strike the Kingdom of Altar at its most vulnerable?

• ISBN10: 1718355025
• ISBN13: 9781718355026
• Publish Date: 19 December 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: J-Novel Club
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 250
• Language: English

Reviews

[sa090]

Easily the weakest volume of the series, but its to be expected when the volume ends at about 3 quarters of the book.

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It’s rare for me to read a light novel where it’s basically a build up book for later events, but it finally happened, it’s eerily similar to the “second book syndrome” in Trilogies. That aside however, the book is not exactly bad, it just didn’t have many things happening compared to the previous books. Hence the build up part of it, I do get that it will most likely have a very exciting follow up volumes, but on its own it feels lacking compared to the prequels.

That aside however, this book focused more on the characters than not. For example, we get even more dropped hints about the King of Beasts, yet we don’t really know why he’s hiding his identity. And more importantly, Marie gets a close up as well. She’s an interesting character, and this volume shows that she’s got things to hide and is most likely not as innocent as she would’ve liked us to think.

We also got to see a badass fight between superiors and know even more mechanisms when it comes to how the battles can go in this world. I really liked the Arena concept and how it’s not just for Superiors or masters, Tians or what you would call NPCs in any game are also allowed to participate against each other or against masters. I would really like to see more applications of the arena later on, it’s badass and I really hope the anime does it justice.

The story or rather the plot of this volume ends right after the battle ends, with a twist that was heavily eluded to from the very beginning of this volume and in volume 2. I definitely look forward to see how this plays out and it’s primarily because of the effect masters have in this world. It’s a game, that’s a given, but I have yet to see another example where the players can affect in-game politics with their actions and be as involved in the makings of the world like this game. So fascinating and this volume just teasing me with the concept made me a little salty to be very honest.

The volume is thankfully still romance and sexual fan service free so I take that as a good sign that the author has something hopefully awesome in store for me. Until then, I’ll be waiting :)

Final rating: 2.5/5