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Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook With My Fluffy Friends: The Figurehead Queen Is Strongest At Her Own Pace, Vol. 3

By Yu Sakurai and Kasumi Nagi. Released in Japan as “Tenseisaki de Suterareta no de, Mofumofu-tachi to Oryouri Shimasu: Okazari Ouhi wa My Pace ni Saikyou desu” by M Novels F. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Emma Schumacker. Generally with any slow life series you have to find the right about of balance between “nothing is happening because this is meant to be a slow life series” and “there are things happening because this is a narrative people will want to actually read”. It can be tricky, as many authors find. A lot of slow life books tend to lean towards the second of those two, where life is not really all that slow at all. This one doesn’t do that, but it needs to…

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Manga the Week of 12/8/21

SEAN: Busy busy busy! Almost forgot to type this up this week! What do we see? ASH: Oh, do I know the feeling! SEAN: Yen On has the 3rd volume of The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten as well as Reign of the Seven Spellblades 4. Yen Press debuts an artbook: AidaIro Illustrations: Toilet-bound Hanako-kun. This does exactly what it says on the tin. ASH: I quite like the art in Toilet-bound Hanako-kun, so I’m looking forward to this collection. Also out from Yen’s manga imprint: Bofuri: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense 2, The Eminence in Shadow 2, Final Fantasy: Lost Stranger 6, For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams 7, and The Saga of Tanya the Evil 15. MICHELLE: As…

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The Girl I Saved on the Train Turned Out to Be My Childhood Friend, Vol. 1

By Kennoji and Fly. Released in Japan as “Chikan Saresou ni Natteiru S-kyuu Bishoujo wo Tasuketara Tonari no Seki no Osananajimi datta” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Sergio Avila. I have not read the two other series that this author has out in English. Hazure Skill and Drugstore in Another World are both in genres that I’m gradually trying to read less of. But ‘syrupy sweet high school romance’ is still a relatively new genre in English-translated light novels. Honestly, the marketplace changes a lot these days, and yesterday’s down and outs are today’s up and comers. Remember 15 years ago when we all said sports manga was impossible to license? Even just five years ago I was saying that you couldn’t get…

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Villainess: Reloaded! Blowing Away Bad Ends with Modern Weapons, Vol. 3

By 616th Special Information Battalion and Wuhuo. Released in Japan as “Doushitemo Hametsushitakunai Akuyaku Reijou ga Gendai Heiki wo Te ni Shita Kekka ga Kore desu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Shaun Cook. This is, as of my writing of this review, the latest volume in the series, and it’s been about a year and a half since it came out in Japan. I know that fans here in the English-speaking world tend to dislike those sorts of books, wondering why publishers would license it when it grinds to an unfinished halt. (The answer is almost always “because it was still ongoing when they licensed it”, in case you were wondering.) But yes, nothing is really resolved in this volume either –…

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Bookshelf Briefs 11/30/21

Gabriel Dropout, Vol. 10 | By Ukami | Yen Press – Possibly the best chapters in this volume of Gabriel Dropout are the ones dealing with hypnosis, as (to no one’s surprise) Satanya is very vulnerable to it. That said, what happens is more like the Looney Tune where Elmer is hypnotized by Bugs Bunny—all of a sudden it’s Raphael who has to be the boke in order to get her back to normal, and the results are hilarious mostly as it’s so rare to see her as the victim in all of this. In fact, Raphael has a bad volume in general, as we also meet her butler back in heaven, who is, well, a bit of a perverted stalker. hat said, Satanya does not escape being the buttmonkey…

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The Saint’s Magic Power Is Omnipotent, Vol. 5

By Yuka Tachibana and Yasuyuki Syuri. Released in Japan as “Seijo no Maryoku wa Bannou desu” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Julie Goniwich. The Saint’s Magic Power Is Omnipotent may be an atypical light novel in some ways, but it is still an isekai when you get right down to it, and that means that the isekai cliches are still there to be walked into. Our heroine has ended up in the fantasy equivalent of medieval Europe, as is typical for these sorts of books. She really misses the taste of home, with good old fashioned rice and miso, as is also typical. Generally these sorts of books fall into two types: either our isekai’d Japanese person tries to make rice and miso…

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My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer, Vol. 2

By MOJIKAKIYA and toi8. Released in Japan as “Boukensha ni Naritai to Miyako ni Deteitta Musume ga S-Rank ni Natteta” by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Roy Nukia. After a first volume that seemed to take 200 pages to finally get to its point, we finally have a bit of meat to its sequel. There’s a lot going on here, both in terms of more action, more ongoing backstory and plot development, and more of a daughter who loves her father perhaps a bit too much. Note, as I said last volume, that isn’t the way you think it is. Unlike seemingly every other daddy-adopted daughter series out there the past few years, there are no romantic or sexual feelings here at…

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Slayers: Delusion in Crimson

By Hajime Kanzaka and Rui Araizumi. Released in Japan by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis. It can be somewhat annoying to come at the Slayers novels from someone who grew up with the anime and realize how a huge chunk of them are Lina, Gourry, and one-off characters. Zelgadis and Amelia stuck around for a bit, as did Xellos, but they’re gone now. We’ve had Luke and Mileena come in with an attempt to add a new supporting duo to the cast, but they’re more of the ‘we keep running into each other’ sort than actual party members. They’re also not in this particular book either. We do get a villain from two books ago… but she doesn’t appear, she’s just…

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Manga the Week of 12/1/21

SEAN: If there’s turkey hog dogs and turkey burgers, is there turkey manga? ASH: I have no doubt. SEAN: Airship, in print, has Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash 16. And for early digital we get Drugstore in Another World: The Slow Life of a Cheat Pharmacist 4 and My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s 3. Cross Infinite World has Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook With My Fluffy Friends: The Figurehead Queen Is Strongest At Her Own Pace 3. ASH: That is quite the title. SEAN: This is already out and I missed it (it’s hard when the publisher only does a manga every few months), but Drawn and Quarterly has Red Flowers, from the legendary Yoshiharu Tsuge. Some of this was translated way…

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