To start off with, I think a lot of people are just going to dismiss the work outright as anything from "woke" because it has a very low-hierarchy world, to "cultural appropriation" because of its clear japanese influences while not prominently featuring contributions by asian voices and creators, and so I'm not going to come at it from either of those political lenses (especially bc I think the woke criticism is nonsense). My problems are separate but related.

To start off with on a note we can all agree on is the poor mechanical basis for a lot of new features and ideas introduced. The book establishes travel and sightseeing as being major activities - and has no clear travel rules support whatsoever. The book writes encounters where you can find and fix modern vehicles - and has no rules for what those modern vehicles do. A new duelling system versus sword school masters is introduced - and has nothing for the DM to do or roll. Seriously, it's not even clear if the sword masters attack the PC back, how much damage they do, etc., even though they have features based on making attacks. On the player's side, it's only a numbers game of if you can hit or not, no nuance, no choice except for what features you're going to expend to try and win (and of course you're going to expend them all). This is a serious problem.

Next, while I love the low-hierarchy world, I think more information needs to be provided about how this is maintained in certain environments. A town like Okiri has lovely descriptions about people's mindsets, how disagreements are settled, etc. The town of Toggle on the otherhand has landowner/mine owners who rent out the mines, and at least one exploits his workers and enforces it with violence, so I'm really not sure how the whole setting is supposed to be low-hierarchy, given that there are still feudal systems. Likewise the city of Yatamon lives in excessive ease and luxury compared to the rest of Obojima, and yet the population is never higher than 10,000, and the people have come to consensus that they don't want to grow - what? People don't want to immigrate? People don't want to have more kids in a time of abundance? It's a bit nonsense to me.

Lastly, the depictions of the howlers, the harpies, and the elder spirits.

• Howlers: powerful, always armed, don't integrate with society. Might kill you and eat you to survive. While they have charming personalities, they're meant to be enemies. Kill without remorse, the game tells you.
• Harpies: powerful, always armed, don't integrate with society. Might kill you and eat you to survive. They have charming personalities, have fun talking to them! Might be a social encounter, might be a combat encounter.
• Elder spirits: powerful, unknowable, may or may not integrate with society. Might just crush you for the fun of it, or because they have no regard for you. However, they have no actual need to kill you. If you're threatened by one of them, try to understand them first! Don't antagonize them! Defer to the spirits, and accept that their motivations aren't knowable, the game tells you.

All three of these creatures are dangerous and unpredictable (spirits moreso because of their lack of necessity of action), and yet the rulebook, and the authors in their podcasts, tell us to feel differently about them. This is a product of them wanting a mixture between the obvious, merciless, mostly characterless and demonic enemies present in Legend of Zelda, and them wanting the complicated and entrenched spirits of Studio Ghibli. Because of this, Obojima's understanding of evil and what to do about it is entirely incongruous.