i shall survive using potions!

By FUNA and Sukima. Released in Japan as “Potion-danomi de Ikinobimasu!” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hiroya Watanabe.

Been a while, hasn’t it? There was about an 18-month gap between books 7 and 8 in Japan, and that’s about what we got here as well. The reason for that, of course, is that the author does about eight different things at once. There are still new volumes of Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average coming out every 3-4 months, and Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement has also reached its 8th book. Plus there’s been the saving 80K Gold anime, which is currently running and seems to have offended fans of the books far less than the MMAA anime did. In fact, the one thing that we haven’t seen yet is a big crossover between the three series. We are, sadly, unlikely to see it either, as Mile and friends are Square Enix people, while Mitsuha and Kaoru are Kodansha. Still, there’s a way around this. If you can’t have the three series cross over directly, just have the Potion cast cosplay as the other two series!

Now that all three of the KKR team are reincarnated and together again, it’s time to advance Kaoru’s very vague plan, which mostly involves expanding her business while also having the three of them makes names for themselves (in disguise). Reiko will go to an adventurer’s guild and show off her amazing coin cutting skills (or at least cheat her way through), which may sound very similar to Mavis in Make My Abilities Average!. Kyoko will go to a nearby city and start her own business, selling useful items and having everyone think she’s a noble’s daughter in a way that is clearly nothing like the protagonist of Saving 80K Gold at all. As for Kaoru, she’s trying to get her alter ego to be thought of as a saint, which mostly involves going around healing people and being very humble about it. That said, she’s trying to do a better job about this than she did the first time around.

This book can get very meta – Kaoru explicitly calls the first six volumes (before she was “killed”) Season One here, though I’d argue that Potion Girl 7-8 are more a soft reboot than anything else. The joke throughout the book is that each of the three girls sees themselves as the sensible one trying to hold back the impetuous madness of the others, but they’re all exactly the same deep down. This shows itself best with Kaoru, who, after setting Kyoko up with a nice quiet business and telling her NOT to go on a rampage, goes on her own rampage when she discovers that one business she was working with is using a family power struggle to replace everyone and take over Kaoru’s business. Naturally, this calls for revenge. But not the sort of revenge that the other girls would do. Different, more genteel revenge. (That said, having seen Kaoru go off in previous books, this is very mild by her standards.)

The ninth volume is due out in Japan this month, so we should not have as long a wait till the next book. Till then, enjoy the most hardcore FUNA series, where anything can happen.

By FUNA and Sukima. Released in Japan as “Potion-danomi de Ikinobimasu!” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hiroya Watanabe.

After essentially rebooting the series last volume, possibly the biggest surprise here is how little Kaoru has to survive using potions. They come up a few times, notably when some of the cast need to be healed ASAP, but they aren’t the running gag of “make me an ‘x’ that’s really a potion bottle’ that they used to be. Mostly her abilities have become similar to Mile’s Storage, which is to say she can whip out transport or food when needs must. This is not to say that she’s just sitting around and doing nothing however; she and Reiko are getting a business off the ground, using their two new ex-orphans as employees, and there’s also the occasional muttering about finding a husband, though even Kaoru seems to have realized it won’t happen as long as she looks that young. Indeed, most of the first quarter of the book is about starting the business… and Kaoru finding loopholes to avoid paying taxes. Then they go looking for more employees…

Kaoru, of course, always seems to think that she can disguise her absolutely ludicrous abilities and just be an average, everyday businesswoman, and Reiko seems to be going along with this. Both of them seem to have forgotten what happened 70-odd years ago, and how Kaoru was literally enshrined into myth and legend. The running gag for this book, which is quite amusing, is how all of the young kids working for her know who she is but try not to say anything because she’s clearly avoiding the subject… even as she once again does something that only the legendary Kaoru could do. Speaking of the kids, this is a fantasy world isekai, so I will warn there is a lot of child labor here. That said, they’re paid well, and it’s an improvement on the virtual slavery they were stuck with before. As with Kuma Bear, you’re supposed to regard it as heartwarming.

The other subplots in the book feature Leia, another goddess who has essentially come down to Kaoru’s country so she can see why Celes is so fascinated with it. For the most part, she acts like a somewhat naive ojou, but there’s a very nice scene at the end of the book where she starts to realize what living actually means, and it’s well-handled. The other big event, right at the end of the book, is Kyoko’s arrival, the third of the “KKR” trio from Japan. As far as I can tell, the rule of thumb of their lives in Japan was that, while Kaoru threatened her way out of trouble, and Reiko blackmailed her way out of trouble, Kyoko seems to have simply gotten into trouble – she’s presented so far as a bit of a fluffhead. She shows up in a UFO, as her ability is to be able to create literally any ship – sadly, she can’t create crew for these ships, so she’s reduced to crafts that can be used by one person. She promises to add even more chaos.

For those who miss the old supporting cast, there is a brief after story showing what Francette and Roland are up to… and the answer is “raising kids so powerful that no one can defeat them, along with a Red Sonja-esque desire to marry only someone who can defeat them”. Still, while this wasn’t as world-shattering as the last book, it was a good solid volume.

By FUNA and Sukima. Released in Japan as “Potion-danomi de Ikinobimasu!” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hiroya Watanabe.

Word of warning first, it is impossible to review this volume without spoiling the biggest parts of it, as the plot IS the spoiler. So reader beware!

Nothing makes my jaw drop quite like a volume of I Shall Survive Using Potions!, and this one made me do it even more than usual. I mean, it starts out normally. There’s a civil war going on in the kingdom next door, and the first prince (the one who’s stalking… erm, crushing on Kaoru) has had to go into hiding, while the arrogant and dimwitted second prince is now in power, held up by the evil bishops who have managed to escape from their religious dictatorship and insinuate themselves here. Kaoru is not particularly interested in helping the stalker prince, nor does she feel any need to protect Roland and Francette’s kingdom. Instead, she feels that this is her war and she’s the one who’s going to put an end to all of it. This goes quite well at first… until she’s killed off brutally.

The cover deliberately has a feel of “this is the final volume, please enjoy the author’s next work”, let’s face it. Now, this is NOT the final volume – the 7th book came out recently in Japan – but certainly it’s a big ol’ sea change, with most of the supporting cast thrown out the window. Kaoru is able to escape her deathtrap, but it takes a long time and the help of a long lost friend… and when she gets out, it’s 70 years later. In fact, I was pretty convinced (as was Kaoru) that all of her friends would be dead. That turns out not to be true, thanks mostly to Kaoru’s ludicrous potions, but she also makes a clear decision, now that she’s been essentially killed off and made into a legend, to not go back to her old life, and to seek out a new country to live in far away. It’s a very Kaoru thing to do, and fits her well.

As for the rest of the cast, well, they’re mostly not in it, as you’d expect, though Francette gets a big chance to step up and be the hero, saving the world from the wrath of a furious goddess who has just lost her friend. (I also loved said goddess yelling at Francette for offering up her own life as sacrifice, as if Kaoru would want that either.) The main addition here is Reiko, one of Kaoru’s two friends from Japan. Time apparently passes the same in Japan as it does here, and since it’s 70 years later, the two friends can now reunite (the third is still alive, but presumably will show up soon). Reiko and Kaoru are very similar types, but they also play off each other well, and Reiko is (slightly) more sensible. As for where the story goes from here, well, we’re already adding a whole new cast of waifs nd strays for Kaoru to take in next time.

So yes, time skip, new cast, everything you would NOT expect from FUNA, whose Make My Abilities Average is noted for the stasis of its lead girls. FUNA: Hard Mode continues to reward fans of the author, while possibly appalling those unused to such things.

By FUNA and Sukima. Released in Japan as “Potion-danomi de Ikinobimasu!” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hiroya Watanabe.

The series that makes me eat my words on a regular basis is back, and it continues to be the most FUNA series out there. Make My Abilities Average! may be more popular and have the anime, but this is straight no chaser stuff, with Kaoru, perhaps hearing me say last time that she was getting more normal, breaking out the personality traits that caused the 2nd volume to scare me so much. As with other works by the author, the attitude extends to every other woman she’s met (men are immune, with Emile being an exception), as Francette is eager to use her sword to remove limbs at the slightest excuse, Emile and Belle are perfectly trained freedom fighters, and even Mariel, the victim in the last book whose family were all killed off by an evil guy, we now find has the combination of being the head of the family, a friend of the Goddess, and the ability to talk to animals still being around has making her terrifying. Kaoru is not alone.

Theoretically Kaoru is still looking for a husband, though again the fact that she perpetually looks like a twelve-year-old is pretty much a nail in the coffin that she chooses to ignore. In reality, she’s settled in at this coastal city, happily selling her knick-knacks. Sadly, the world has caught up to her, as folks from her previous countries are investigating her shop to see if she is the Angel o the Goddess after all, and disguises and denial can only confuse them for so long. Then Layette decides, and not without cause, that she’s become too spoiled, and wants to go out without Kaoru sometimes. While this starts out as an amusing story showing off the overprotectiveness of everyone around her, it goes south fast when more goons arrive to kidnap Layette, and they’re not above nearly killing her orphan friends to do so. Honestly, after this, helping Mariel avoid getting married is a relaxing jaunt by comparison.

As with the second book, the 5th book revolves around a scene that makes you rear back a bit, layette’s attempted kidnapping. She had befriended several orphan kids earlier when exerting her independence (which I suspect is now gone, sadly) unleashes the fury of both Francette and Kaoru, Francette in particular as she was briefly away from guard duty using the necessary when this happened and curses her bodily functions. Kaoru is perfectly happy to torture bandits and hired goons to get the answers she needs, to the point where Francette cuts their arms off and Kaoru says she can reattach them… if they cough up info. It’s seriously terrifying, and reminds you what a loose cannon she is compared to Mile or Mitsuha. The latter half of the book ties all these plots together, as Kaoru discovers that those behind the kidnapping are the priests from the religious country she helped destroy. So she and her gang are headed back to the place where she began, this time hopefully with fewer cure-all medicines.

Make no mistake about it, this is still primarily funny. Indeed, it’s the humor that makes the rage and fury all the more jarring. It’s also hinted that Mariel, who regards Kaoru more as a god than as an angel, is perfectly happy to solve Kaoru’s relationship issues in yuri ways, though I doubt the book is going that way – FUNA tends to avoid romance in general. If you can stomach a lot of torture of bad guys, Potion Girl is still your go to source for the darker side of the overpowered little girl story.

By FUNA and Sukima. Released in Japan as “Potion-danomi de Ikinobimasu!” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hiroya Watanabe.

To a degree this volume of Potion Girl is not as interesting as the other three, mostly because the author has settled down and found Kaoru’s voice. There’s absolutely no danger of her going to the extremes we’ve seen before, starting from the beginning of the book when she goes to a new town and starts up a perfectly ordinary convenience store. Of course, there’s still the one-two problem that most isekai people have: she’s not well-versed in the products of this world, and she’d ludicrously overpowered. As a result, suddenly it comes out that she has access to incredibly rare medicine (that she created out of thin air) and is once again saving the lives of mobility (who are starting to learn not to talk when a girl with scary eyes comes by). It’s a lot of fun, and Kaoru’s combination of practicality and exasperation is mined for good humor. It’s just a bit more predictable.

The other characters, as if to contrast Kaoru getting more normal, are getting a bit more eccentric. Belle’s desire to sacrifice her life for Kaoru turns out to have been driven by Francette (the two give me a Pearl-and-Connie sort of vibe), and Francette herself seems to be far less interested in taking advantage of her regained youth to be with Roland and far more “obsessed with Kaoru to a terrifying degree”, though thankfully it’s not the sexual kind of obsession. Indeed, poor Roland is starting to realize that his fiancee is very likely to abandon him and run off with their benefactor, much to his dismay. (As with most FUNA books, the woman are awesome and the men tend to be schmucks, and if this bothers you you’d do well to read a different author.)

Two other major events are in this book: first, Kaoru uses her ability to talk to animals to help to solve the murder of a noble family and the punishment of the man who did it. This is probably the strongest chapter in the book, with lots of funny revenge stuff (as with many light novels, the villain is just a horrible man you don’t sympathize with him even a little bit) and Kaoru being goofy (she even fixes her eyes to be droopy so no one recognizes her). We then get her party going to a hot spring, where they are tricked into helping a far-off village defend itself against an attack by bandits. This helps to show off Kaoru’s brutal practicality, which is another way that she distinguishes herself from the more amiable Mile. Kaoru is not here to save your village for you. You’re going to have to save yourself.

The artist has a lot of tiny interstitial art here, which helps to add to the illustration count. The illustrations are also getting more and more ‘cartooney’ by the volume, delighting in evil grimaces and the like. This isn’t going to amaze anyone with plot twists of shocking character swerves anymore, but it gives us a healthy dose of what FUNA does best: super powerful young women having fun.

By FUNA and Sukima. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hiroya Watanabe.

I’m at a loss for words to an extent. It can’t be that the author read my reviews – they’re in Japan, and this volume was out before the series started here. I double checked, and it didn’t change companies or anything like that. Perhaps someone told the author that an anime might be a possibility? But yes, it’s very clear that between the second and third book – actually, more like “after the timeskip” now that I think about it – the author acceded to the requests to dial Kaoru back a lot. She’s still very snarky, and won’t hesitate to mock and belittle obviously arrogant noble guys, but she’s (mostly) found an emotional center and is actually doing what I thought she would do when the book began – running a small potion store in a large city. I guess the answer to “how to solve a problem like Kaoru” is “keep her away from war”. Not that this has suddenly turned into a Slow Life title or anything. Trouble continues to follow Kaoru around. But she’s now a standard OP FUNA heroine, and not “will she turn evil?”.

As noted, Kaoru and her newly adopted daughter are starting a potion shop. But no overpowered healing potions this time around, just normal minor illness stuff like “soldier’s disease” (athlete’s foot). She makes the potions good enough to be palliative, but not curative forever, so they have to come back to buy new ones. But things aren’t easy. Soldier’s Disease is far more of an issue in this military town than she suspected. She’s being asked to join an association and give up her secrets. There’s a deadly disease killing people in a village a few days away. The “distortion” that the goddess had warned her about actually appears. No one will buy her shampoo/makeup products. No one prefers her “standard” box lunches. And worst of all, she’s still not attracting husband material. Can she put down roots in this town, or is it time to move on?

Now, don’t panic. Kaoru is still easily the meanest of the FUNA heroines. But she’s not getting revenge that may literally get people executed this time around. She’s also doing great things for the military, finding lost treasures for poor nobles, giving money to orphans and street urchins, and of course, preventing the world from being ravaged by disease. She’s become a heroine, rather than an anti-heroine. It’s fun to see, but it does make this a bit less of a must read as there’s no longer any sense that she’s going to completely lose it the way there was during the war last volume. The rest of the running gags are present and correct, including the rest of her group being so devoted to her safety that they all fall over each other to protect her from enemies, and don’t go on dates because that would take away from protecting Kaoru time. And of course there is Kaoru’s lack of self-awareness, as she, like Mile, occasionally talks about being a normal girl, to everyone’s amusement.

In the end, dialing Kaoru back is good for the future of the series. And it’s still a light, breezy read. But I miss my jaw dropping, I will admit.

By FUNA and Sukima. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Garrison Denim.

There are currently three different series by FUNA coming out here, and having read some of each of them, I’m inclined to categorize them as Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced. Beginning is Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World, which even has an easy mode for its protagonist, who can still interact with the past world. She’s having fun, but there isn’t really all THAT much monstrous ridiculousness (though I admit this is the series I’ve read the least of). Intermediate would be Make My Abilities Average!, where Mile is absolutely stupidly overpowered and shows it, and helps her friend to get that way as well, but those seriously hurt of killed by her and her friends tend to be evil bandits, kidnappers and the like. The tone is very much happy, jolly adventures. Finally, there is I Shall Survive Using Potions!, the Advanced Course. You really, really need to not care about overpowered heroes at ALL, or you will hate this. What’s more, Kaoru is A LOT, and sometimes her emotions get the best of her in ways that veer beyond ridiculous and into horrifying.

Roughly the first half of this book takes place right after the previous one. Kaoru’s hitting this world like a tac nuke has had repercussions, and the kingdom she’s currently staying in is now under attack by two different nations. Fortunately, she has the knight that she was able to de-age in the last book at her side, the brother of the king, and her cadre of Baker Street Irregulars at her side, as well as her usual item boxes/potions/literally anything. Unfortunately, this is a war, which means things turn serious fast, and Kaoru quickly finds she really hates it when people are injured or killed in front of her. It’s pretty horrifying being reminded that when she loses it emotionally, she could decimate anyone around her. The second half of the book takes place after a time skip, and shows Kaoru and her hangers on heading to a new kingdom so that she can try to find herself a man to marry and have kids with. This is as much of a flaming disaster as you can imagine, because of Kaoru’s basic personality, but is far more amusing.

Moral ambiguities aside, and I’m not entirely certain how much of this is intentional, this is still a lot of fun. There are in-jokes that are based on the publisher (a cameo from a certain goddess whose adventures also ran in a Kodansha magazine), and some where you wonder if it was the original or the J-Novel Club adaptation (the use of a certain popular anime meme). Kaoru’s personality is so straightforward that it tends towards snark, and she IS ridiculously overpowered, but there are a number of moments here where she’s allowed to slip up – indeed, the gag right at the end of the main story may be the best in the book. She’s still doing whatever the hell she wants, even if that means adopting a daughter (she’s an orphan), creating vibroblades for her knight (see, it’s really a potion that happens to look AND act like a vibroblade), etc. Disbelief is hung by the neck until it’s dead here. What’s more, Kaoru’s two friends from her original world have lived their full lives and died, and now they’re in this world as well… and also apparently have ridiculous powers.

Like most of FUNA’s series, I want to read more of this. Unlike the other two, though, I do wonder if Kaoru will actually turn down a darker path one day. I mean, she’s already pretty morally grey. Definitely worth picking up, though. Also, don’t insult the goddess or you’ll get a wooden washtub to the head.

By FUNA and Sukima. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Garrison Denim.

This was honestly not at all what I expected. I expected this series to be a very ‘slow life’ sort. The heroine would be reincarnated in another world, start a potion shop, get a couple of assistants, etc. Kind of like Killing Slimes for 300 Years, that sort of thing. This is 100% not that sort of series. Kaoru is not interested in a quiet life, just a life with freedom. Like Katarina from My Next Life as a Villainess, she has “evil eyes”, i.e. the sort that slant up, and wherever she goes she changes the lives of people around her. But Katarina is a sweetie pie, whereas Kaoru is more of a tactical nuclear missile. As the book moves from place to place, and Kaoru and her potions affect more and more people, the reader’s jaw begins to drop as to what will happen next. And woe betide the evil baron or sketchy gate guard who gets in the way of a really good plan. Kaoru is here for one reason alone: Kaoru.

A brief summary: Kaoru is a 20-something OL who’s on her way home on the train when she literally EXPLODES and dies. This is the fault of higher beings who were trying to do something else and she got caught up in it. They offer to reincarnate her in a medieval-style world, and she proceeds to ask/blackmail them into giving her a LOT of things. Language skills, a box of infinite holding, etc. And the ability to create any potion she can think of, along with containers for same. The kicker here is that she thinks she’s going to be in a standard light novel fantasy world. But no, there’s no magic here beyond dragons, and it’s more ‘hunting’ than ‘adventuring’. As such, when Kaoru uses her potions to heal a gravely wounded hunter, the general reaction is “WHAAAAAAAAAT?”. Now Kaoru finds herself moving from kingdom to kingdom, getting involved, healing people with potions, and trying to live a free life.

There are so many light novels out there that are male power fantasies, where the hero gets a harem of slave girls, awesome adventurer powers, etc. that it’s weird to read a female power fantasy like this. Most of the other series we’ve seen over here with female protagonists (including Make My Abilities Average!, by the same author as this) tend to have them as nice girls who are “plucky”. Kaoru is not that sort of heroine, and is almost anti-plucky. Occasionally she is in mild danger, such as when she’s captured by the evil nobles who want to get her potion abilities, but she’s got a plan, which involves knocking out the maid, dressing up as her, stealing the entire room, and walking out. (The poor maid eventually gets her dress back, and we’re reassured is not beaten or anything.) That said, most of the people whose lives Kaoru makes miserable are men, and sometimes you get the feeling she’s going out of her way to be awful to them. That said, she really does help a number of people suffering from grievous injuries, rich or poor. As well as, um, de-aging a female knight who’s too old to get married so she can try again.

By the end of this book I was enjoying it quite a bit. I will warn that it may make some readers uncomfortable. Kaoru is a lot to take, and can tease men or destroy their lives at a whim. But then, that’s what it means to live the free life, rather than the slow life.