Banished from the Hero's Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside

This is one of those manga that you go into thinking you know where it's going to go, but instead it blindsides you with both a beautiful if a bit rushed romance, a slow burn story about community that rapidly develops into something larger, and constant (some might say a bit too much) philosophising on what it means to be a hero and the responsibility that position puts on people who don't want it. This world has Blessing, and they're seemingly very random. Who gets what blessing isn't determined by anything, and so you get some people who get blessings that go against their desires, personalityor nature. That alone is a fascinating concept to explore, and explore this series does in among all the normal slow life stuff, and it does a great job of that. However not everything is great about this. Some plot points are a bit rushed, and you end up wishing they'd devote another chapter to exploring this to a proper resolution. Other plot points are repeated, especially when it comes to one of the antagonists who has a massive explanation of his backstory during the penultimate act, that absolutely could have been handled better. The main antagonist feels rushed beyond belief, and brings up interesting ideas that just never get explored due to the desire for the ending to be characters going back to their slow life. The last handful of volumes feels this way, racing towards a conclusion that feels at odds with the slow life promise. And while I'm all for even slow life and slice of life series needing drama and stakes to keep interest, this feels like it could have had some more time in the oven. With all that being said however, the characters even when rushed feel well thought out and interesting. Each person acts in accordance with who they are as individuals, and the one time I really got the sense of "this person is just doing something for the plot to move forward" you're given enough clues to work out what's really going on. While it definitely needed more time to develop certain areas, and they could have done a couple more volumes of proper slow life stuff to really contrast with the somewhat more actiony ending acts, this is still a great little series with many amazing characters and small moments to fall in love with them.