I had to take a small break from reviewing, because my sinuses began to act up. I blame my cats, they've been giving me doses of their fur by sleeping on my face at night. But I am back in the game now, so it's all good.

The Legend of Benkei: Untold. Wordcount is 40,067 words long, divided into a prologue and six chapters and is ongoing. Another that was last updated two bloody years ago, at that! If there's ONE OTHER THING that's been driving me up the wall and down the ceiling as of late, it's this. Either mark it as hiatus, or update it sometime this year for the love of Godcat! Read the prologue and two chapters following it.

Let's move onto the genres before I burst a blood vessel or two. Let's see… Teen-rated Sex and Gore, Romance, Human, Sad… and Adventure… okay, now I am wary. Experience has told me Romance and Adventure rarely go well together, especially with a Sad and Human tag thrown into the mix. The Sex and Gore's only further putting me off.

Grammar: 10/10, poifect. Interestingly, it uses Japanese; both translated into English characters to be read, and one instance of Japanese ones (whether Romaji or Kanji, I can't tell.)

Characterization: Before I start with this one, I'll have to say I'll need to lump Benkei in here, as he's not an OC but an actual historical figure. Thus, he'll get his own sub-category here. He's confused, respectable, yet defiant and fierce if need be. That said, his thoughts are written in English, though I'll set that aside as it gives some insight to his character. 7/10 here.

Fluttershy and Angel, who appear mostly in the second chapter, are very in character here, though amusingly Angel gets his ass handed to him by a girl rabbit. 7.5/10 here. 14.5/20 overall.

Use of show canon: Not used a whole lot, but we get the standard human-starts-in-Everfree cliche, albeit one that utilized a cockatrice instead of the usual timberwolf. Also, magic is mentioned, and this gets expanded on in that Angel teaches another rabbit to communicate telepathically without auras or something like that, all the while handwaving that it's the same innate magic that lets ponies grasp things with their hooves. I'm on the fence with this one. 5/10.

Plot consistency: … didn't really kick off until 'round the end of chapter two, and that managed to get derailed a bit. It didn't establish what it wanted from the get-go. Why, I'll explain shortly. 3.5/10.

Coherence: 10/10, smooth sailing apart from the Japanese bits, which I am pretty sure can be Google'd anyway.

Extra things depending on genre: And now, onto the dreaded tags. Here we go. Human nets a solid 7/10, if only because the prologue started with the realm of humans (no, not the Equestria Girls one) before Benkei got lumped into Equestria. Romance, while present, gets a measly 3/10 here because it's part of a subplot involving Angel of all things falling head over heels for a girl rabbit that kicks his ass. A SUBPLOT, I must stress. That's derailing if I've ever seen it!

Adventure gets… 2/10, there's hints of it, but nothing terribly stands out. Sad nets a 0/10, as I caught not one hint of feels at all.

Touchy topics: Gore: -1 /5, there's a bit of blood, but not a whole lot. There's also a mention of seppuku, but it's just that—a mention. Sex isn't used, so it won't be graded.

Now, the verdict. For all it has going for it, I'll give this story a rather lenient 61/100, or 61%. While it does fail, it has managed to hook me with how well it executed things up to the subplot with Angel. I won't read any further than that, partly due to derailing and partly due to it not having been updated in a while. I dare say this is another guilty pleasure, but alas, one that flops a little. And it does have its Japanese and its culture researched down to scratch, so that's a bonus.