As a quick summary: should you read this? Will you feel like it was a good and enjoyable use of your time with no regrets? Yes.

Will there be certain things about the story that bug or frustrate you? Probably.

Overall, this is one of the best stories on the site with great characteristics and tons of potential. The fact that so much of that potential lies untapped is the biggest drawback.

Although no specific spoilers exist in the upcoming review, if you want every aspect to remain a complete mystery to you, it may be best to not read the review and just take my word for it when I say: you should go ahead and read the story.

Story-

It's an amazing concept. As portrayed in the story summary, a side character in a high school harem comedy story "awakens," as it were, to the possible fictional nature of their universe. He sees things that don't quite add up: automaton-like background characters, things that seem newer and cleaner than they should reasonably be, etc. He sets out to solve the mystery of just what the heck is going on. It's eerie, it's mysterious, is has hints of eldritch weirdness, and it's intriguing to read about.

But have you ever read a story where the author starts off writing one thing, but then seems to just give up on it and go in an entirely different direction? That's what happens here.

The protagonist starts off as an outsider character looking in to someone else's story. He's Leo, the "goofy best friend" character in a harem comedy. But about halfway through the first volume, instead of being an observer to the harem story, secretly investigating while hiding the truth of his nature, he just straight-up takes over. Now he's the new harem protagonist of a magical action story. He has the cool super powers. He steals the girls. He steps in as a Fixer Sue to take care of all the traditional harem story conflicts before they start and basically tells everyone what to do. It's frustrating.

Meanwhile, all I could think about is all of the interesting mystery bits that were never adequately examined, like "Where do the background people go at night?" or "Did those people even exist before they became necessary to the narrative? I bet they didn't," or "What's the deal with those side characters there? What makes them special? Hmmm..." That's what I wanted to read about, not fighting magical monsters and stuff.

It's still a decent story, but it's not the story I was sold.

Character-

Some of the story's strongest points, and also the weakest. The focal girls are well-developed and extremely likable. One or more will probably become your favorite character in the story. The less-focal ones are...okay? But considering they get comparatively little attention, they don't make a very strong impression yet. Everyone seems well-written and consistent at any rate.

The big problems come in with the male characters.

The "in-universe" harem protagonist doesn't seem the least bit protagonist-ey. Even considering that harem protagonists usually are boring, milquetoast, unremarkable, average-Joe types with weak personalities, they still usually do protagonist things. They get into crazy shenanigans, or at least minor, every-day shenanigans. Basically, even if they're not particularly interesting, at least interesting stuff happens to them. But here, the interesting stuff is actively prevented as part of the narrative, and as a result he's essentially relegated to a non-character. The contrast between what we're told he is versus how he's portrayed in the actual story creates a definite sense of discord, and not in a good way. This fact becomes especially glaring when you consider the most important part of the whole book:

Leo. He's basically Poochie.

I'm not even exaggerating. At one point, we learn that Harem Protagonist and one of the girls were off on a date-like-excursion, but they just spent the whole time going "Hey, where's Poochie, I mean, Leo?"

In the beginning, he seems like a great character. A fish-out-of-water who's struggling to deal with a very bizarre situation as best he can. His story is fresh and interesting. But as things progress, especially when it kinda switches from an eerie mystery to a magical action tale, Leo becomes the focus of the story, and not just to readers, but in-universe. Leo knows all and sees all. Leo tells everyone what to do and they just cheerfully go along with it. He says he wants to avoid "romance drama" but then becomes a harem protagonist himself. He was portrayed as a character that had escaped the confines of narrative tropes but then actively engages in every single one of them. He seems like a huge hypocrite and a douchebag, basically. Quick tip, if you want everyone to instantly hate a character, just make them give paper thin justifications for why they refuse to adequately return the heartfelt affections of a much more likable character.

Does Leo ruin the story? No, not really. But is he the worst part of it? Absolutely. Can he be fixed? Also absolutely. A fish-out-of-water who's in over his head, trying to solve an eerie mystery is a good character. A smug douchebag who exerts his authority over the rest of the universe to bend the plot to his whims is a bad character. If he were a lot less of the second and a lot more of the first, we'd have a top-5 book here.

Style-

It gets the job done. It's descriptive where it needs to be and keeps the pace. It is primarily a first-person story, though. This has the very unfortunate effect of exacerbating the issues with the protagonist. Nothing makes you think "pushy and obnoxious" like listening to someone talk about themselves constantly.

Grammar-

It seems well done. No glaring mistakes. But there is one thing here that I noticed and absolutely couldn't ignore.

For some reason, the characters don't seem to use contractions where they should. They'll say "do not" or "cannot" in the middle of a quickly spoken, casual sentence where you'd expect "don't" or "can't." It's small but remarkably jarring.

In conclusion-

You should read this story. You'll enjoy it. But I can't rightly give it full marks considering the weaknesses that I just couldn't overlook. This review covers Volume 1. Here's hoping Volume 2 will change things up a bit.