(OLD) Technomancer: How I Became the Hapless Sidekick of the World’s Greatest Magical Girl [Volume 1]

Information

Status

Hiatus

Year

2025

Author

PizzaPizza

• Volume 1 Edit Complete
  May 26, 2025

Reviews

Community Reviews(10)

• theanimemailRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  I feel the following review expresses most my thoughts on the series. This review was originally posted by Jack0fheart on the non-rewrite page and I thought most of the points still stand as reasons I really enjoy this series. P.s., this book deserves way more reviews, so I'll just hope this helps the ball get rolling a little faster.
  'Origin: How I Became A Magical Girl's Hapless Sidekick In A Craptastic World' is a novel set in a world where magical girls fight against Aberrations, monsters that emerged from a rift in reality and brought destruction to Earth. The story follows Ikki, a First Year drifter who never cared much for the battles fought by the magical warriors until he finds himself in the middle of a disaster fighting for his life.
  Overall score 5/5: This book is a unique and intriguing story that takes readers on a wild ride through a fantastical world full of magic and danger.
  Style score 5/5: The writing is engaging and immersive, with vivid descriptions that bring the world and its characters to life. I love the author's use of humor and wit which lessens the dark tone to the story.
  Story score 5/5: The story is a rollercoaster ride of action, and magic that will keep readers on the edge of their seat from beginning to end. The author has created a unique and fantastical world that is full of surprises.
  Grammar score 5/5: The grammar is well-written, with clear and concise writing that flows smoothly without any obvious errors.
  Character score 5/5: The characters are well-developed and multi-dimensional, each with their own unique personalities and quirks. Ikki, the protagonist, is relatable and likable. The supporting cast of characters is also well-crafted, each adding their own flair to the story.
  All in all, Origin: How I Became A Magical Girl's Hapless Sidekick In A Craptastic World is a fantastic read with a unique storyline and well-crafted characters. I highly recommend anyone looking for an entertaining twist on Magical Girl stories! ♥
• Snowy DepthsRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Style
  Style is quite solid. The author has a unique style that I can't quite put my finger on, but one that's not often found on RR. The story features quite a few descriptive scenes, which I really appreciate as I suck at imagining things from limited information. The way the story is worded makes it feel a bit tense at times, and if there is anything that I would suggest to the author, it's to relay Ikki's interior monologue a bit more sincerely — in the sense that he should think about more random topics and ideas at times, to lighten the mood at times. Not too much, but maybe one or two lines about it here and there could work. This does seem to be a darker magical girl type story (NOT relative to your usual, dark MG stories, as those are a lot more heavy on dark themes than this), so the atmosphere being heavier makes sense. Still, a bit of a brighter tone at times wouldn't be bad.
  Vocabulary is diverse and better than 90% of stories on RR.
  Story
  So far, so good! I like the plot, which feels like a bit of fresh air in the world of RR, and especially in the genre of MG stories as whole. We're still very early in the story, but things seem to be going quite well.
  I've seen the pacing being referred to as "too fast" for this story in particular, but quite frankly this doesn't seem to be the case for me. We're at what, 21 chapters? Obviously shit is going to go down and obviously some parts of the story will be more tense. I do not see an issue.
  Too early in the story to say much more here, which is why I am limiting it to a 4 star review on the story. Plot seems interesting, the narrative thread seems to flow smoothly and I do not see any inconsistencies.
  Character
  I'll make this clear right off the bat — my problem isn't with the way the characters themselves are built (the character building is very solid, if I'm to comment on it), but rather the way they express themselves. They're too honest (I've seen someome mention this before, and I agree) and too well-art
• Teryn180Royal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  I have really been enjoying this story, seeing a character who is effectively underpowered compared to those around him get a real chance to shine. The characters all have their distinct features that make them stand out, and no one is perfect, even if some put on a strong mask when fighting the bad guys.
  I'm definitely going to go read the connected Harmonia Lux stories as well!
• awildtechnoRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  I love the magical girl slice of life side of this story. It's super cool and refreshing and the combat is great so far too. Really looking forward to what where this goes.
  The main magical girl.is not too much of a twist and the villains having an interesting chance of an increased level of power higher than the heros team keeps the tension high
• drake_azathothRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  This is a great story that blends together a lot of popular tropes - magical girls, AI assistants, conspiracy, a fish-out-of-water experience for a kid moving to a new culture, friction between haves and have nots, and family bonds. By and large this story does a fantastic job of balancing things so far with good pacing and an MC who is likable but who still makes mistakes from time to time and who has enough power to make a difference but not enough to always win.
  Overall, I think it's a great read. If you like stories with odd takes on magical girls or stories with alternate universes colliding with semi-realistic results - this is definitely worth looking into.
• IndicusRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  This story expertly balances the slice of life and world building with bursts of intense action while giving a nice helping of mystery. The fact it takes longer to ramp up then the previous run of the story dose the story a big favor letting us know Ikki, his background and his family by seeing it all for ourselves.
  To round this praise out I have to say I love the role Ikki is taking in the story he is not the tank he is the combat engineer that makes sure the tank can keep going. Keep that in mind as you read.
• Parkor94303Royal Road

  ★★★★ 4.0

  I am a bit conflicted about this story, there is so much that I really like but also a good bit I find frustrating. Starting out with the good, I love the setting. The parallel earths and seeing how they have diverged is one of my favorite parts of the story, and the through line of the technology does a great job of illustrating the difference between them in a way that connects with the main character. Overall the characters, especially the main character and his family are likable as well.
  On the frustrating side, my main issue issue is the pacing. On the macro level, this review is being written at the end of book one (~1,200 pages in) and it in some ways feels like the end of the prologue. I don’t feel like any of the mysteries have been resolved, and any answers that have been given feel like they just lead to more questions. I get that it is a slow burn, and I can appreciate that, but the story is subtitled “How I Became the Hapless Sidekick of the World’s Greatest Magical Girl” and 1,200 pages in and that seems like it is only just being set up. So overall, slower than I would like, but if you are fine with a quite slow burn, not a huge issue. My other pacing issue has been the interludes/cuts to other characters in the finale of book one. Cutting away during the action-packed finale has proven so much more frustrating than doing so in the more slice-of-life sections, and kills the momentum that was already dragging a bit due to the length of the finale.
  Overall though, I am interested enough in the setting, mysteries, and the main character that I will definitely be sticking around, especially now that it seems like some actual sidekicking is on the table.
• BombertreborRoyal Road

  ★★★★ 3.5

  So i line the story and the premises and the way it is written is good but the two "mysteries" at the start are way to easy to figure out if it is not on pourpose witch would be no problem if the main character was not described as smart or witty and had no AI Assistent i recommend for example to make
  that the sister is a magical girl less obvious by at least getting rid of the line where she says that she has caught him doing way worse stuff that is like throwing the answer in you're face before the reveal were you have her transform from her perspective (props on that by the way) i also recomend going into more detail with the magical girl and his sister so the differences become clearer like a darker tint vastly different eyecolor other hair color and then you either let ikki have suspensions when writing about it and he investigates it or he is so caught up in other things that he doesn't notice at all that would make him less frustrating
  So all in all i do like the premise and general idea of the auther and storry i also like the writing stile and characters as they are at the current place in the book (chapter 21) but i think the beginning needs some rework and there are some places were you forgot words or miswrote bue despite all that i do like the characters so far and hope for more character development and the story to continue i have to say despite my critique i do like it and would advise more people to read it (this is parcialy this long to play by the rules with this article)
• NaltharialRoyal Road

  ★★★ 3.0

  One of the common entries on many lists warning amateur authors what not to do is stilted dialogue. You know you're running into that problem when you read a dialogue and think to yourself "Nobody in the world talks like this." It happens a lot with authors who derive their influence from anime and video games, because those media are heavily biased towards engagement and spectacle. That's why you don't get calm scenes of dialogue (except in very good works) but, instead, bombastic shouts and wild exclamations of personal conviction. Every interaction is an opportunity for a dramatic declaration of some sort. Again - nobody in the world actually talks like this.
  Combine that with the tendency to overwrite and overexplain things, excessive metaphors just for the sake of using metaphors and you get a whole lot of purple prose that seems to ultimately just be there to hit word count targets.
  Beyond just style, the characters themselves are what you get if you spend too much time in the anime sections of TVTropes. As mentioned with dialogue, there's maybe a handful of characters in the entire novel (MC's sister and her "girlfriend", maybe, some minor characters) who react to events with anything approaching believability.
  The MC himself couldn't be more of a Marty Stu anime protagonist if you tried. It gets progressively worse in the later chapters when we've dispensed with the pretense of having to fit in a post-apocalyptic world and we can just have people scream the edgiest nonsense at each other and throwing spells around like it's a Dragon Ball GT fight. Again, that doesn't work in a novel.
  It's hard to conclusively rate this, because if you dig through the prose and keep your eyes from rolling all the way out of your sockets, there's honestly a decent story in here somewhere. But unless you're a real purple prose fan, it's hard to dig down to it.
• R3ader1Royal Road

  ★★★ 2.5

  I made it to chapter 15 before giving in to frustration.
  Two big critics: the main cast of characters all seem to have the same maturity level (which is too high for their actual ages) and the line editing is atrocious.
  The story is written as though the author has edited the script multiple times to constantly add new sentences, but without ever removed anything. This creates a ton of repeated phrases and descriptions. A ton. Sometimes in back-to-back sentences, and frequently in repeated descriptions of character traits or location features over the course of a chapter. The amount of redundancy is painful to read when hoping for the plot to move forward.
  This redundancy worsens the characterization problems in the story. When the MC's sister gets in-line descriptions over ten times just halfway though a chapter (chapter 15), it gets hard not to point out the flaws in logic that these "tell-don't-show" descriptions create. First it's said that she's a tough scrapper, but then that's called a front. The next description immediately goes back to calling her tough. These issues pop up in the repeated 'warm-fuzzy family' descriptors as well.
  Of course, these are problems that are annoying, but not show stopping. The show stopper for me was the slow plot progression. A story about magical girls should probably have inspiring scenes of heroics or in the very least scenes of people being saved... However, the couple of times the girls appear early, the scenes were more focused on humanizing these masked vigilantes than invoking the usual genre-defining emotions.
  The world building was interesting at least!