The Nevermore / Enigma Files is the light novel inspired police procedural drama set in the futuristic science fantasy setting. Unlike the light novels which it takes the inspiration from, in form and structure, the Nevermore novel is competently written as an English-language original novel, and not a translation. Awkward wording and strange translations are not a problem here.

This novel is also fully illustrated. No AI art here. All hand drawn, original art - the professional artist with years of experience not only wrote and fully illustrated the Nevermore / Enygma novel, something practically unseen among the western web novels.

There is, however, a downside to all of this.

There aren’t any central characters to this story.

The titular Nevermore group is the (sort of) police organisation investigating the supernatural cases all around the world, and this novel is their story, however there is a little caveat to this: the story spans years, some cases even returning to the time before the organisation has been founded, each case with their own mysteries to solve and different investigators doing the job. There is a protagonist, but he, and his team, don’t even appear in all cases, and after a handful of episodes we have to get used to the entirely distinct set of characters than the previous one.

This is not necessarily an issue, however, one has to keep in mind that the story is rather an exploration of the unique science fantasy setting and its supernatural phenomena, and the world they created. Instead of the streamlined plot of the single novel, you would see rather a collection of the short-stories sharing the same universe, and most of its characters.

If this isn’t a problem for you and are interested in the world-building rather than the singular story, this novel is for you.

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In the far dark future, there are elves with big boobs. (Damn knife ears took the future from catgirls!)

The Nevermore Enigma Files is a science-fantasy light novel set in the far future where elves (fey, in-universe) live alongside humans, while Earth is plagued with the constant stream of localize "reality break" catastrophes called Dark Events and the Nevermore group (basically their Men In Black) are sent to resolve the issue. 

We have anomalies, monsters, s*xy female agents in tight jumpsuits, even the cat girl I expected shows up, and everything you would expect from the anime. A typical anime plot, typical anime fantasy kitchen sink setting mixing random influences which the author thought were cool, except for one leaning towards science fiction (but with magic). 

The story is divided into arcs, based on the missions (or cases) the titular group of "Men In Black" (or rather elves in black) are investigating. There is an unusual absence of the central (often unsecure) protagonist. There is technically a protagonist (and he is not a weak one either), but the story forgets about him, and he is often missing for several chapters and new characters need to be introduced to solve the issue. 

On paper, this is a logical setup. Each time there is a case, a crisis, a local office is tasked to solve the issue rather than flying the one team all across the globe. On the one hand, this is practical (in-universe), on the other it's rather impractical in storytelling, as each time there is a new group of people to introduce and forget soon after.

I was soon forgetting who was who.

However, the world-building is solid, the setup makes logical sense, and the artwork is professional (like it is in light novels). The writing is professional too, even if unfocused, and the usual issues with the bad translation the Light Novels are nowhere to be seen. (After all, this isn't translated, this is original in English, despite ticking all the anime boxes it could)

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