The first two audiobooks for How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom make for a decent listening experience and a positive presentation of the core material, even if I have my qualms with the underlying conceits of the narrative.

First, the good. If you're familiar with How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom from the anime (like I am), these two volumes correspond to roughly the first season or so of the anime. I've not read the original light novels, so that was my first exposure to the material. The advantage of an unabridged audiobook compared to an anime is that you get the complete thoughts of the characters, scenes aren't cut for time, etc. There's simply more time to spend with the cast as they go about roughly the same plot points. The anime often felt like it was moving at a breakneck pace from scene to scene, so I appreciated the audiobook (and, I guess by extension, light novels since these are just rereads of them) spending more time letting scenes breathe and exploring the characters more.

The audiobook narrator, B.J. Harrison, also does a good job bringing the text to life. You certainly can buy him as a narrator, particularly for the variety of elder statesmen in the text. His voice has a lot of gravitas and evokes a grounded wisdom appropriate for Souma's approach to most situations. Souma is our primary POV character, and his general thought process is careful and considered, and Harrison nails that quite well. He struggles to come up with the wide range of voices that the text requires of him, but that's not a mark against Harrison as a narrator. It's a typical problem with fictional works where audiobooks have only one narrator. There are only so many voices one can muster, especially when you're every voice in the scene. I can say that even when Harrison is a bit strained in delivering a certain voice, it never comes across as comical; it's a strong performance all the way through.

As an actual work, I still feel roughly the same regarding How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom as I did when I watched the anime. I am very appreciative of the approach that the work is taking. The basic conceit is that Souma is trying to improve his capacity as a leader to better the lives of the people in this fantasy realm. He does not take his role as ruler lightly, and he seriously attempts to use what knowledge and powers he has at his disposal to right the ship, so to speak. There is a genuine concern for the safety and well-being of the people, which is commendable, and there are several attempts to apply common-sense principles to improve their quality of life.

My issues with the work also remain the same, sadly.

Perhaps the most glaring problem is how, well, smooth everything is for Souma. Nearly every challenge he faces is done away with instantly by simply having the correct answer to the problem. Most scenes involve some variation on the following:

Person A: My lord, there is an issue.

Souma: Ah, I see. Well, simply do [this thing].

Person B: Astounding, he solved the problem!

Person A: My lord, you are so wise. Why did we never think of that?

No matter the situation or context, Souma always has the answer that's implemented perfectly. Again, since he aims to improve people's lives, I don't necessarily have a problem with him having the answers all the time. But I find the entire setup is just too smooth to buy at face value.

For a work that has “realist” in the title, there are almost no considerations for the realism of running an organization, let alone a nation of hundreds of thousands (or millions?). I'm not sure if anyone reading this has ever had to lead a group before, but I can assure you that trying to get a group of people to do something correctly is a huge challenge. Even when people eagerly cooperate, are aligned in their mission, and genuinely try to succeed, there are communication errors, logistical hurdles, and unexpected obstacles when trying to achieve your objective. Souma never faces any of these issues. Every challenge is a quick time event where he selects the appropriate choice and gets immediate critical success.

It just robs the work of any tension and ultimately leaves me checked out.

And that's before getting into the weird nitpicks I have about the particulars of all this. For example, the Dark Elves are people who live in the forests and have for as long as they can remember, but they have to rely on Souma for how to manage their lands. The nation is struggling with a food crisis because they can't figure out they need to stop raising cash crops, but they can maintain a standing army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

These are the kinds of gripes that keep me from being fully invested in the series. Nevertheless, if they don't bother you as much (or if you think I'm wrong and these are perfectly realistic scenarios and I don't know what I'm talking about, which is more likely), then I think you'll have a good time with these audiobooks. I certainly enjoy this framework for an isekai story more than the typical power fantasy that is so common these days, and the audiobook presentation preserves the full text pleasingly.