At the point of writing this review, this novel is ranked among the worst rated novels on MAL. I have already read a decent amount of bad light novels, some of which were even quite favourably rated, so seeing the general reception through the score I braced myself for the worst, a terrifyingly painful experience. So imagine my surprise when Little Apocalypse turned out to be… decent? This have could been helped by my fondness of fictions that work with concepts. Because what Little Apocalypse does is it takes the trope/cliché of a harem protagonist just so constantly running into girls that happened to be inneed of saving and thus adding them to the harem. And that is exactly what the “superpower” of our protagonist is – to keep getting dragged into stories of various heroines. The strength of Little Apocalypse lies in this being a literal condition. This turns it from being cliché into being meta. This way, the storyline can also get more ridiculous and what would otherwise be considered overboard, as it makes sense within the laid out logic of the world.

Thanks to this setting, the scenery frequently varies and the novel doesn’t stick to two or three boring sets. Already the first volume shows clever use of such, as when switching between different plotlines/heroines the protagonist is involved with, the protagonist uses the difference in these settings to solve problems by borrowing from one to use in another in a fun fusion of genres.

It’s not all great of course (otherwise my score would be considerably higher). As is the trend with longer novels, the middle part is considerably weaker as the stories get more formulaic and less impactful, and not always is there time to properly develop the newly introduced characters. Still, once in a while there is an interestingly written paragraph of two, which is already more than I can say about the middle section of some other LN series.

I also appreciate that Little Apocalypse doesn’t go the cliché route of protagonist’s parents being absent either figuratively or literally. Instead, they too are actual characters in the story, and even though they don’t appear that often, they are directly involved in the overall plot and hold some extent of influence on it. This too helps Little Apocalypse to be a bit more than just another completely mediocre harem. Time travel elements are introduced and while not ideal, the story is aware enough to include reasoning why time travel can’t just instantly solve all the problems in the series and offers explanation why it’s only the actions of protagonist that could influence the fate. Explanation that ties to the initial concept of the protagonist’s power, so that’s nice.

The final arc of the story too is sparingly fine, as it actually ties up the major plot elements and draws from what the previous volumes set up. It’s actually kinda funny that in the afterword the author mentions that he originally intended to have “our adventure is only beginning” kind of ending, but thankfully rethought that as such kind of ending is usually insulting towards readers time spent with the series. So you do actually get a satisfying finale to the story.

Overall, there are plenty of much better books to read. Plenty among novels too. But if you don’t depend on quality that much and just want something “light” to read through, this is not so bad of a choice.