roll over and die

By kiki and kinta. Released in Japan as “Omae Gotoki ga Maou ni Kateru to Omou na to Gachizei ni Yuusha Party wo Tsuihou Sareta node, Outo de Kimama ni Kurashitai” by GC Novels. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jason Muell. Adapted by Brock Wassman.

So I am putting a content warning before this review, something I rarely do. This review will be talking about the plot of the 4th Roll Over and Die novel, and will be describing scenes of graphic horror involving children and infants. If this will upset you, I definitely recommend skipping the review, and the book.

You know, I’m beginning to get the sense that the cute relationship between Flum and Milkit is not really a priority in the mind of the author. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s a few cute scenes here. The two emotionally stunted young women are clearly in love with each other but lack the vocabulary or experience to do anything about it. We get a kiss on the cheek. Milkit gets a bit jealous. But really, if you want cute yuri there are so many other books you could read that are not this one. This book is here for one thing and only one thing: detailed descriptions of graphic horror. If you know what an Italian giallo film is, or enjoy the works of Herschell Gordon Lewis, this gore-spattered action novel might be for you. For the rest of us, it is a very long slog through endless pages of mutilated corpses, body possession, and towards the climax of the book infants literally rain from the sky and have to be butchered. It’s a lot.

The majority of this book deals with the rest of Mother’s second-generation children. Ink, the first-generation, is happy with Eterna (and, let’s face it, despite the age difference their relationship is clearly swinging romantic as well). Nekt, the child from the previous book, is dealing with her heel-face turn, and trying to get the other children in her group to join her in becoming human. Unfortunately, they’re far too tied to Mother, and would much rather perform this world’s version of “suicide by cop”, i.e. killing as many innocent people as they can before getting killed. Also unfortunately, the person who might be able to help them turn human also seems to be secretly evil. Honestly, everyone’s a little secretly evil in this book, except our main cast. Can Flum manage to save anyone? Or will the children have to be put out of their misery?

This book is not without its merits. As always, the author can write an excellent fight scene, and is very good at painting a picture of exactly what’s happening, for good and ill. The Hero’s Party (minus Jean, still deliberately left out of the plot except for one scene) are reunited, and falling over themselves to apologize to Flum, who is far more gracious about it than they perhaps deserve. There is an interesting revelation in this volume that suggests that, far from being a generic fantasy world, this world is closer to home than expected. Unfortunately,. I couldn’t enjoy any of this because I was drowning in blood and gore. Men die, women die, children die, babies die. Babies especially die, as Mother’s final battle tactic is to create babies that attack and try to possess our heroes, and have to be killed. They are butchered, hurled against walls, and blown up by magic. And by the end of the book I found it hard to really care about anyone.

There may be more in this series to come – this is the last book in Japan, and it came out 18 months ago, but there’s still lots of content from the webnovel left to go. But I think I’m done here. I prefer my yuri to not be drenched in so much blood that I can’t see the romance.

By kiki and kinta. Released in Japan as “Omae Gotoki ga Maou ni Kateru to Omou na to Gachizei ni Yuusha Party wo Tsuihou Sareta node, Outo de Kimama ni Kurashitai” by GC Novels. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jason Muell. Adapted by Brock Wassman.

If anyone had “zombie apocalypse” on your Roll Over and Die bingo card, well, congratulations. I can’t really be surprised, as not only is this series far more comfortable with being a horror book than a yuri book, but it’s several different types of horror book as well. That said, the undercurrent of the entire series is “we need to fix all this so we can live a peaceful happy life”, and, especially here, we are told that getting a peaceful and happy life does not mean sticking your head in the sand. Milkit has a quote that sums it up: “This world has no shortage of people willing to drag others down to make themselves feel superior and in control,” said Milkit. “The moment you accept that you can’t get away, you let them win.” This book is about not letting them win. Not that it’s a total victory, though…

Pictured on the cover are Gadhio, formerly of the Hero’s party, and his wife Tia. If he seems a bit less than happy, it’s because Tia’s been dead for the last six years. After Milkit gets kidnapped AGAIN, Flum discovers that the culprit is Milkit’s old master, the one who damaged her face and is in general one of the worst people in this book (and that’s saying something). Unfortunately, after Flum gets her brutal revenge and takes Milkit back, they discover that the dead are returning to life. Not just Milkit’s old master, either, but Gadhio’s wife and even Eterna’s adopted family have returned from the dead. They seem real… mostly? They’re being very friendly? But how much can this be trusted, especially since it seems to be part of a plot by the Church?

As with previous books in the series, this volume features a lot of body horror, brutal killings, and bad things happening to both good and bad people. There’s graphic descriptions of torture, and while there are fewer main characters dead than I had expected when I started, in the end surviving is about all our heroes really achieved. At the same time, of course, there are a few really sugary sweet yuri scenes sprinkled throughout (primarily Flum and Milkit, though there’s also some suggestive stuff between Ink and Eterna which I am far less comfortable with.) Milkit here decides that what she’s feeling for Flum is definitely love. Flum likely feels the same, but both of them are too shy, and possibly a bit too broken, to have it be much more than “we just want to be at each other’s side”. That said, I am appreciative of these scenes, as without them this book would be too dark to even read at all.

The Hero’s Party was also in this book, and things appear to be going very badly for them, as two are evil and two are likely going to be forced into evil. The next book in the series has Cyril on the cover, so I suspect we may see even more of them next time. Till then, this is still well-written and compelling, but save it for when you have a strong stomach.

By kiki and kinta. Released in Japan as “Omae Gotoki ga Maou ni Kateru to Omou na” to Gachizei ni Yuusha Party wo Tsuihou Sareta node, Outo de Kimama ni Kurashitai” by GC Novels. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jason Muell. Adapted by Brock Wassman.

When I was younger I wrote stories, and a whole lot of them were what these days is referred to as “grimdark”. I killed off beloved supporting characters. I brought in cameos from other universes just to kill THEM off. I had the main couple become multiple murderers. But now I am older, and I gotta admit… I prefer happy endings, y’know? Grimdark can be exciting, and when you first create it you do feel sort of edgy and cool, but you run into the problem of how to top yourself, and before long, well, you’ve become an editor at DC Comics. (Zing!) All of this is a roundabout waty to say that, like the first volume, the second volume of Roll Over and Die has a Grimdark Problem. If you’re here for the lesbians, there’s about 10-15 pages for you. The book, however, is 299 pages.

As the second volume begins, our heroines are enjoying a relatively peaceful life while also trying to deal with the somewhat aggressive attacks from Dein, the “leader” of the section of town they’re in. Unfortunately, said peace is shattered when they come across a young girl with both eyes sewn shut, named Ink, who claims to have amnesia. She doesn’t, as they soon find out, and her origin is what drives this second volume, which ends up, once again, putting Flum through the ringer. She has more friends – both in the royal military and allies from the hero’s party who have now left it – but a lot of this book sees her suffering on her own, trying to avoid getting killed and finally being forced to go on a spree of killing just to defend herself. Can she uncover what the Church is up to while not sacrificing the lives of her friends?

Don’t get me wrong, the grimdark is compelling at times. This is a well-written book for walking up to the “too much horror” line, perhaps treading on top of it, but never quite going over it. (That said, there is a general eye and body horror warning for the whole book.) As noted above, Flum has a lot of allies this time around, but not only do they tend to get cut off from her just when she needs them most, but she is also reluctant to call for help in the first place. Having spent most of her life being treated as useless, it’s very hard for Flum to ask for any help at all, even now that she has her fantastic cursed sword and tendency to not die. The third quarter of the book reminded me very much of Sexiled, in that it’s a young woman beating the absolute crap out of a shitty man who won’t stop calling her insults, slurs and threats even up till his end. Still, it can be exhausting.

The author says in the afterword that the “slow life” part of the series is over, and honestly it didn’t last very long. I assume that we’re going to be focusing more on the Hero’s Party as we go along, which looks to be either falling apart of filled with evildoers. Till then, I will definitely be reading more, and I even enjoyed this for some factor of “enjoyed”, but man, Flum, hug a puppy or something.

By kiki and kinta. Released in Japan as “Omae Gotoki ga Maou ni Kateru to Omou na” to Gachizei ni Yuusha Party wo Tsuihou Sareta node, Outo de Kimama ni Kurashitai” by GC Novels. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jason Muell.

Given the title, you’re probably expecting one of those slow life titles. Young woman is told she can’t be in the hero’s party, so she ends up living her life in the city as an H&R Block Accountant and getting into everyday troubles. Well, half of that is true. Unfortunately for Flum, this first volume definitely is not a “slow life” book, but a “gore-filled horror” book. There is yuri as well, of course, and that seems to be the main selling point for the book both in Japan and here, but for the most part the reader is here to read about graphic, somewhat appalling battles that our heroine is forced to fight in order to save her own life and that of Milkit, a fellow slave that she met while being tortured to death. Yeah, that’s right, it’s one of those slavery books as well.

As noted, Flum is part of the hero’s party to defeat the demons, mostly due to a prophecy. Unfortunately, Flum’s stats are all zero – and can’t be raised. This seemingly makes the entire party hate and turn against her, though most of this hatred springs from Jean, who decides to do something about it by selling her into slavery and abandoning her. Given that her stats are zero, she’s not a great slave either, so the slave owner decides to kill her (this is where she meets Milkit). Fortunately, the “cursed sword” part of the title comes into play here, and Flum discovers how her powers are really supposed to work. Unfortunately, after escaping, things are still not very slow life. She has to work as an adventurer to live, and ends up pissing off the local adventurer goons. Milkit has been so beaten down by slavery that she’s unable to think for herself. And, while trying to get a rare and illegal herb, she discovers that her name is far more important than she expected.

First things first, if you dislike death, blood and violence, drop this book like a hot potato. I was not kidding when I said this was a horror novel, particularly in the back half, where we meet up with a nigh unkillable scientific experiment. That said, the book ended up being quite readable. Flum is likeable and grows fast once she realizes that she CAN grow. I’m less happy with Milkit, especially her need to dress up as a maid call Flum her Master, but I will assume that her character arc is not yet finished and but it aside for now. (Their yuri scenes are all packed together at the end of the book, and are sickeningly cute). There’s also the start of the book, where we see Flum’s POV of the rest of the party, and she comes to the conclusion that they all find her a useless burden. The reader accepts this too, and when it later turns out not to be true, it feels a bit out of the blue.

All this and an adorable ten-year-old battle nun. (More nuns should use maces instead of rulers.) This is definitely not Adachi and Shimamura, but if you like your yuri filled with swordplay, magic and a whole lot of blood and guts, it could be right up your alley.