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Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, Vol. 14

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By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by Lorin Christie.

No series has quite managed to make me eat my words quite as much as Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, a group of books that is about an overpowered shut-in who wanders the land defeating powerful monsters and acquiring a string of little girls to follow her around and hero worship her. The start of the series balanced out the “cute girl doing OP things” vibe with some truly dark and weird plot points, with young girls being abducted, raped and killed, or Yuna having to repatriate a group of women whose families were murdered and who were *also* raped. To no one’s surprise, as this series got an anime, almost all of this was thrown out the window in favor of “let’s watch Yuna finance a bakery” and similar things. But it still occasionally dips its toe in darkness. Last time I was grumpy about Yuna’s pathological avoidance of praise being treated like a quirk of her personality rather than a genuine problem. In this new volume, it’s clear the author knows that, and is sending us to dark places again.

It doesn’t really seem that way at first. The majority of the book is Yuna coming back home after her trip to the land of giant scorpions. She presents a “Mission Accomplished” to the King, then relaxes in her bear house, only just remembering to tell Fina and the others that she’s back. She then prepares for the massive vacation to Mileela, which by the time it starts has about fifty people going (mostly the orphanage who are Yuna’s main child labor force… let’s not go there right now) and requires Yuna to create not only a big bear bus but two bear minibuses, powered through her mana. This requires her, on the journey there, to switch from her normal black bear outfit to the reversed white bear outfit, as she’s going to be using mana like a sieve. This leads to people not recognizing her at first, which merely irritates her… for now.

So yeah, once they get to the ocean and the beach, Yuna has to give in and remove the bear costume. She’s done this before at a palace function, but that was mostly filled with people who had no idea who she was anyway, so it was mostly her own personal safety that worried her. Same with the school festival. Here she has a bigger existential crisis: when she walks around as Yuna, dressed in a swimsuit and without her bear things, almost no one recognizes her. Literally, they stand next to her and ask Fina where she is. Fina, bless her, seems to be the exception to this rule. (Note that everyone, once they DO see it’s Yuna, immediately praise her pretty and petite body, but Yuna being Yuna, she doesn’t take this as praise at all.) At first Yuna is merely annoyed, but as it goes on and on, and as she attempts to do normal things (like teaching girls to swim) and failing as she has NO STAMINA without the bear suit, she gets more and more depressed. As she states to herself, no one is friends with Yuna, they’re all friends with “the bear”. The bear is the one that does everything. The bear is their savior. The bear is their friend. Yuna? Yuna is just an out-of-shape shut in.

Frustratingly, the book goes from Yuna’s spiral of depression to the usual end of book side stories, so we’ll need to wait till next time. Fortunately, as this book ran a bit late, next time is next month. Join me then to see if we get to see Yuna on the verge of a nervous breakdown, or if she simply shrugs everything off. Again.

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!: Fantastic Days

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By Hirukama, Natsume Akatsuki and Kurone Mishima. Released in Japan as “Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

Spinoffs can be hard. Spinoffs written by someone other than the original author are harder. And when you get a spinoff written by someone who’s not the original author based on a mobile game that likely was also not written by the original author, well, you’re really starting to get into trouble. Hirukama is best known over here for the Reborn as a Vending Machine light novel that’s currently getting an anime. He also writes the longest running KonoSuba spinoff, Ano Orokamono ni mo Kyakkou wo!, which focuses on Dust, the loser guy who seems to linger around the edges of the main series. We’re unlikely to get that, if only as it doesn’t star Kazuma, Aqua, Megumin and Darkness. This book we are getting does feature three new girls who have the plot built around them, but it has healthy doses of our main cast as well, so fans will not feel cheated. Is it good? Eh.

For those wondering where in the main story this fits in, it’s left deliberately vague, but I’d say around Volume 8, mostly as Megumin and Darkness show no signs that they’re in love with Kazuma at all. While trying to stop a disaster, Megumin blows up a wagon containing a) a monetary tribute to nobility, causing him to go deeply in the red, and b) the supplies to a dance troup/adventuring party. The troup consists of Lia, the theoretically sensible one with the mysterious past; Cielo, a noble whose upbringing caused her to develop an extreme fear of men; and Erika, a girl who tries her hardest to be cute, and is also searching for her birth parents. Kazuma, on seeing them, is reminded of Japanese idol groups, and decides to make them stars!… mostly as making them stars will help pay off his debt. Unfortunately, these idols have fanboys, and they’re also trolls. No, not internet trolls, real trolls.

The three new girls, of course, are deliberately meant to contrast with the three regular stars. Cielo and Darkness are both blonde nobles trying to get away from all that by adventuring. Erika focuses on cute as much as Megumin does on cool. As for Lia… well, OK, she’s not that much like Aqua, except perhaps for her pathological messiness. She is, however, the character whose plot matters the most, as her amnesia turns out to be an important key to defeating Daniel, the troll lord who has decided to stan her. Everyone gets to do their bits. Megumin fires off explosions, Darkness is masochistic, Aqua screws up everything, etc. Unfortunately, it really does feel likely someone trying to write an “original flavor” fanfic with their own OCs, to be honest. By necessity, this cannot grow or develop any character except the new girls… and actually, it ends up just being Lia. That means this rides on how funny it is, and the answer is: not as funny as the main books.

If you really love KonoSuba, you can certainly enjoy this. As a spinoff, though, I’d rather read the Megumin books.

Sabikui Bisco, Vol. 5

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By Shinji Cobkubo and K Akagishi. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jake Humphrey.

Sabikui Bisco tends to coast along on three elements. The first is what I would call “high concept”, coming up with fantastical ideas, people or places that make the jaw drop when they’re described. The second is the wall-to-wall action sequences that make up the bulk of the book. And the third is Bisco and Milo getting closer and closer to just making out, even as each book seems to add a new girl to fall in love with Bisco and sigh as she watches he and Milo declare themselves to be soulmates. The good news is that this fifth volume has all of those things in abundance. The bad news is that it does tend to lean a bit too much on the action scenes this time around. Bisco is not really someone who ever slows down or stops to smell the roses, but reading this book is like watching an action movie that’s all the last 15 minutes. It can be utterly exhausting.

After the events of the last book, Shishi is now apparently evil, and Bisco is very definitely a 10-year-old. As he and Milo try to catch up with her so that he can do something about that, they end up on Hokkaido… which it turns out is basically a giant floating space whale. That was not in any of the guidebooks! Unfortunately, Shishi got there first, and is trying to take over the island with camellia flowers… which have already taken over the prison wardens from the previous book. Fortunately, they have allies in the native peoples of Hokkaido, which include (yes, try to contain your surprise) another teenage girl who thinks Milo is pretty hot. She’s not into Bisco, though, as he’s just a kid. Will they be able to stop the island being used for a mass terrorist event? And just how evil *is* Shishi anyway?

The book makes an effort to try to keep it ambiguous about Shishi’s motivations, saying that it wasn’t just her being possessed by an evil flower but her own desires that led to her murdering her dad. But given that this motivational speech is coming FROM the evil flower, it’s a bit hard to take this as anything more than “sorry, bro, I was possessed”. Indeed, it’s not the only possession of the book, as the climax of the volume shows that there is no character the series will not bring back to make another appearance. Speaking of which, Pawoo is kept far away from her husband, but Tirol is around to be the absolute worst again, and Amli also shows up to try to save her god/crush delete where applicable. This is a series that thrives on barely controlled chaos, so it works, but eventually the “controlled” part is going to be lost, I suspect.

Still, overall I was less grumpy about this book, despite it basically just being Bisco and Milo screaming for 260 pages. I’ll keep going.

Manga the Week of 7/26/23

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SEAN: As July sinks slowly in the West, we are faced with its hotter cousin: August.

ASH: How has it already come to this?

SEAN: Airship has a bunch of print light novels. We get Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! 16, Modern Villainess: It’s Not Easy Building a Corporate Empire Before the Crash 3, She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man 8, and Sword of the Demon Hunter: Kijin Gentōshō 2.

ASH: A good reminder that I’ve been meaning to give the first volume of Sword of the Demon Hunter a try.

SEAN: And there’s early digital for There’s No Freaking Way I’ll be Your Lover! Unless… 2 and The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash 4.

Denpa Books has the 2nd volume of Baby Bear’s Bakery.

Not Ghost Ship, but probably should be, we get Asumi-chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! 3. Ayakashi Triangle 4 and SUPER HXEROS 11 definitely ARE Ghost Ship.

ASH: I would not have been surprised to find Asumi-chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! in the Ghost Ship catalog.

SEAN: One digital light novel debut from J-Novel Club: You Like Me, Not My Daughter?! (Musume Janakute, Watashi ga Suki Nano!?) is from the creator of When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace. A young single mother raising the child of her late sister finds that, now that he’s in college, her daughter’s childhood friend has feelings. Wait, for HER?! For lovers of age-gap romance in a comedic vein.

And there’s Ascendance of a Bookworm 26, I Surrendered My Sword for a New Life as a Mage 3, The Invincible Little Lady 3, The Mythical Hero’s Otherworld Chronicles 4, Only the Villainous Lord Wields the Power to Level Up 2, Reincarnated Mage with Inferior Eyes: Breezing through the Future as an Oppressed Ex-Hero 3, and the 9th manga volume of Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles.

ASH: Obligatory cry of “Bookworm!”

SEAN: Kodansha Books has the 3rd volume of Am I Actually the Strongest?, whose anime is currently delighting hard-core isekai fans.

Kodansha Manga debuts Seraph of the End: Guren Ichinose: Catastrophe at Sixteen (Owari no Seraph: Ichinose Guren, 16-sai no Catastrophe), an adaptation from Weekly Shonen Magazine of the light novel that was put out by Vertical, which is a prequel to the original manga, which runs in Jump Square. This manga’s past is kudzu. It’s also an omnibus of the first two volumes.

Also in print: Am I Actually the Strongest? 4, Fire Force Omnibus 5, In the Clear Moonlit Dusk 5, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime 22, and What Did You Eat Yesterday? 20.

MICHELLE: I’m always here for more What Did You Eat Yesterday?.

ASH: Same!

SEAN: For digital releases, we get Am I Actually the Strongest? 8, And Yet, You Are So Sweet 8, As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I’ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World 6, Boss Bride Days 7, A Couple of Cuckoos 12, DAYS 36, Elegant Yokai Apartment Life 26, Gamaran: Shura 10, The Heroic Legend of Arslan 18, The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World 6, My Home Hero 6, ONIMAI: I’m Now Your Sister! 7, and Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence 11.

ASH: I had momentarily forgotten about The Heroic Legend of Arslan despite enjoying earlier volumes.

SEAN: One Peace Books has the third volume of Captain Corinth.

Seven Seas debuts a new danmei novel, Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang. Steampunk BL! A young man living in an impoverished village finds his whole life has been a lie! This is from the creator of Guardian, also due out soon.

MICHELLE: Definitely into this but Guardian more so, admittedly.

ASH: Adding them both to my TBR list!

SEAN: Also from Seven Seas: Drugstore in Another World: The Slow Life of a Cheat Pharmacist 7, The Duke of Death and His Maid 7, I’m a Wolf, but My Boss is a Sheep! 3, LES MISÉRABLES Omnibus 3, and Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General 9.

From Square Enix we see Beauty and the Feast 9, Soul Eater: The Perfect Edition 11, and Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town 9.

Tokyopop has Formerly, the Fallen Daughter of the Duke 4, The Fox & Little Tanuki 6 and the 2nd and final volume of My Dear Agent.

From Viz: Chainsaw Man: Buddy Stories is a prose short story collection based on the popular manga.

Soichi: Junji Ito Story Collection (Souichi no Katte na Noroi) is another series of horror stories that ran in Nemuki about 20 years ago.

ASH: I recently mentioned that I was glad we were getting more horror manga beyond Ito’s oeuvre, but I’m not going to say no to more Ito, either.

SEAN: The Way of the Househusband: The Gangster’s Guide to Housekeeping is a guidebook that gives you recipes, helpful hints, etc. Seems to be by Western writers with the blessing of the manga artist.

ASH: Oh, that’s interesting.

SEAN: And Viz also has How Do We Relationship? 9.

ASH: I really need to get caught up with this series.

SEAN: And some stragglers from Yen to close us out. Yen On has Banished from the Hero’s Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside 9 and Secrets of the Silent Witch 4.

And from Yen Press, the 13th and final volume of High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World!.

Definitely less manga than the week before last! What are you getting?

The Genius Prince’s Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt (Hey, How About Treason?), Vol. 10

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By Toru Taba and Falmaro. Released in Japan as “Tensai Ouji no Akaji Kokka Saisei Jutsu ~Sou da, Baikoku Shiyou~” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jessica Lange.

As the series hits double digits, it’s pretty clear that it’s at least sauntering towards a conclusion. Wein is closer than ever to becoming the King, but (see premise of the series) he really does not want this, and would much rather leave things to the little sister who’s been growing by leaps and bounds over the course of the book and just run off somewhere with Ninym to do all the things he could not do with Ninym when he was heir to the throne. Of course, what’s stopping him is the rest of the plot. For one thing, he’s made such a name for himself that people are not yet taking Falanya seriously, though I expect that will change in a big way after this book. For another, there are too many people whose ongoing plans really need Wein to be around and also as clever as he normally is. Lowellmina is the obvious one, but the Church has an eye on him too… or rather, on Ninym, by his side.

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After events in the last book, Wein’s country, or more accurately the vassals in his country, really want him to stay home. Unfortunately, Delunio is holding a big event to celebrate their alliance with Soljest and Natra, and have asked Wein to attend. He’s not going to, but he can send Falanya… despite the fact that the disgraced prime minister of Delunio is now Falanya’s adviser. Of course, this does not mean that Wein gets to sit around either, as there’s a more serious crisis in the Empire. Lowellmina has too much power now, so her brothers have come up with a clever scheme: fight each other, let the casualties pile up, and then tarnish Lowellmina’s name because she, the peace loving princess, did not intervene. She wants Wein’s help. And as if this weren’t enough, in Soljest… Gruyere has been overthrown?!

The fun of this series is the fact that not just the main characters, but EVERY character seems to have one main scheme and seven backup schemes all going at the same time. The best scene in the book features a most unlikely pairing, Gruyere and Nanaki, but of course the main thing to talk about here is Falanya. She’s finally gotten to the point where Wein does not have to worry about her when she’s trapped in a dangerous political hothouse, and while she does need his help near the end, 80% of the victory in this book is down to her own clever scheming. There’s a reason that Sirgis has decided to make it his goal to have her become ruler rather than Wein, though I’m not sure I buy his “he doesn’t care about the people of the country” – if that were the case, Wein could have schemed himself out of this a while ago. But it definitely feels like we’re headed for a sibling throne war, which is good, as Natra has experience with that.

So very glad to have this back, and I am pleased that it won’t take as long for the 11th book to come out here. Recommended for political intrigue fans.

Bookshelf Briefs 7/19/23

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Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 12 | By Ryoko Kui| Yen Press – And here we are at the apocalypse. Marcille is being sweet-talked by the lion/book into essentially becoming God, and the dungeon is now everything above ground as well, which is a bit of a problem for non-dungeon crawlers. The solution—kill Marcille—is one that is obvious to everyone but the main characters, who spend most of the book trying to talk Marcille down and figure out a way to walk this back, which is ludicrously impossible right now. This is not the sort of series that will have an unhappy ending, you can tell, but it will be very interesting to see HOW they can manage to work everything out here and not have the protagonists in jail for the rest of their lives. Very highly recommended. – Sean Gaffney

Gabriel Dropout, Vol. 12 | By Ukami | Yen Press – I’ve joked before about the yuri fandom of this series, but this volume brings it to the fore more than any other. There’s a chapter devoted to the internet art meme of “put two characters in a room and they can’t escape unless they kiss.” (It’s not “kiss,” but this is a family manga, so we get the PG version.) Raphiel is, of course, 100% down for this, and unfortunately is hit with a massive attack of nerves when it comes to following through, which is funny in and of itself. The other problem is that Satanya not only seems uninterested, but may actually be ace, which is bad news for yuri fans but good news for comedy fans. The rest of the volume is also fun, but we know why I’m here. – Sean Gaffney

Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 25 | By Tomohito Oda | Viz Media – I get the basic idea the author had here, which is that Komi has, in her second year, been surrounded by friends she made who know her well, and is living her best life. So it makes sense to put her (deliberately, as it turns out) into a class where no one knows her and she has to start all over again. Fortunately, Tadano is there as well. Unfortunately, so is Najimi, who is no Yamai but I still don’t like them. And then we get the rest of the new cast, who explode at us in a flurry of names and eccentricities, and who mean nearly nothing to me. The bulk of the book is a battle royale using nerf guns, to promote class unity or what have you, but again: this cast has gotten way too big. – Sean Gaffney

Murcielago, Vol. 21 | By Yoshimurakana | Yen Press – Last time I mentioned that Kuroko was spending far more time solving murders and far less time going down on hot women with her long tongue of doom. Good news! We’ve hit the end of the arc, so Kuroko gets to hit one of the surviving women in the arc, and by hit I mean “have sex with.” As for the arc itself, it involves a lot of misdirection, family trauma, and very bad things happening to the series’ punching bag who very bad things always seem to happen to—though this time around the trauma is physical rather than mental. Kuroko and Hinako are both very eccentric women who do not care about a single thing, and if that bothers you steer well clear of this. But for its genre (lesbian splattercore), it’s terrific. – Sean Gaffney

An Observation Log of My Fiancée Who Calls Herself a Villainess, Vol. 1 | By Shiki and Natsume Hasumi | AlphaPolis (digital only) – This may be the first villainess title where the male love interest actually interests me more. It’s not just because the series is from his POV. It’s that the villainess herself, Bertia, is very difficult to take seriously, even in comparison to Katarina and other goofy villainesses. Cecil, meanwhile, is a budding shoujo boyfriend, which is to say he’s an asshole who spends his life mostly being bored because he’s good at everything, and finds his fiancée/”toy” interesting. I will also note that AlphaPolis basically just sticks chapters together and calls it a volume, so expect no extras you’d normally find in a volume. For villainess fans. – Sean Gaffney

Snow White with the Red Hair, Vol. 25 | By Sorata Akiduki | Viz Media – I get my wish, as we are indeed starting a new arc. We also wrap up this last arc, getting answers and discovering that most everyone involved was either evil or being blackmailed by someone to be evil. Well, there’s also the “this evil was happening in my dominion, so it’s my responsibility” thing as well. In the meantime, we get to see Obi be cool, Shirayuki be cool, and Ryu is cool and also not dead. A lot of this arc was devoted to Ryu’s growth (which we’re also starting to see physically), and it did a good job, even if I felt that this went on a bit too long. That said, anyone expecting Zen and Shirayuki’s reunion to be anything but fleeting is fooling themselves. – Sean Gaffney

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement, Vol. 2

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By FUNA and Touzai. Released in Japan as “Rōgo ni Sonaete Isekai de 8-Man-Mai no Kinka o Tamemasu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Kodansha Books. Translated by Luke Hutton.

Sigh. There was no good way to do this. Kodansha Books re-released the first two volumes of this light novel series as an omnibus, which is good! It meant folks didn’t have to re-buy two books that they already had from the late, unlamented Sol Press and we could get to new content faster! But it also means that this second volume is the third in Japan. And that will be the case going forward. That’s why this is another review of the 2nd volume – it’s really a review of Volume 3. Got it? Good. That said, the first volume of this series originally came out here in 2019, the second 19 months after that, and here’s the third, about 30 months after that one. You might be forgiven for completely forgetting what’s been going on. Fortunately, there was an anime! It covered Books 1 and 2, so go watch it, then come back here. Because this is more of the same, and it’s fun and mind-boggling and a little disturbing. See: this author.

Things are getting busier for Mitsuha – so busy that she seriously considers, near the end of the book, stopping the “go back and forth between here and Japan” thing and permanently settling. She has a new territory to run. She’s being asked to attend all sorts of society balls. She’s trying to get board games to be a thing in this country, specifically shogi and reversi. She’s trying to create popcorn, with the help of some adorable… if somewhat mercenary… orphans. And of course she’s looking to make that money so that she can retire, though several times in this book she admits to herself that she needs to stop inventing new things and let this world relax and catch up a bit. That said, the biggest problem may be when three huge ships show up in her domain. Maybe they’re friendly!… OK, probably not.

Fans of FUNA will be happy to know there is quite a bit of what I call “the heroine goes completely batshit” in this book, the biggest being how she deals with the invading foreign army. As with I Shall Survive Making Potions!, the heroine’s morality is firmly in the grey area, and her solutions do sometimes involve “there’s no way I can do this without killing a few people, sorry”. Much of the “fun” in this series is seeing her do something along these lines, then act surprised that everyone is staring in disbelief at her. She actually has another crying breakdown here, after the Count who has become her surrogate father has to remind her that people actually love and care about her here, and she should not treat her life as disposable. Which, let’s be honest, she is. Almost all her decisions in this volume have a form of “what if I die, how will they deal with this then?” Which is great in a worldbuilding way, but not so good in a psychological one.

If you hated Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average and I Shall Survive Using Potions!, you’ll hate this too. If you loved them, you’ll love this too. It’s as simple as that. See you next time for the third (fourth) book.

Young Lady Albert Is Courting Disaster, Vol. 2

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By Saki and Haduki Futaba. Released in Japan as “Albert-ke no Reijō wa Botsuraku o Goshomō Desu” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Ray Krycki.

Most of the time, when you hear about a light novel protagonist who is described as “no one has any idea what they’re thinking”, there’s a fairly obvious reason for it. usually it’s because they were reincarnated from Japan, or (as in Mary Albert, theoretically) a villainess in an otome game. But we, the reader usually know why they’re thinking what they’re thinking. it’s just the poor supporting cast who have it rough. That’s not the case in this series, and I have to hand it to the author: there are many times in this volume when I *really* have no idea what Mary Albert is thinking. It’s not even a case of “trying to sabotage my future” like the first book in the series – she did that (well, OK, the opposite, but you know what I mean) and has moved on. But in the case of Mary Albert and her feelings for Adi, even she has no idea what she’s thinking. Until WELL after you might expect.

Everything’s coming up roses for Mary Albert at the start of this book. Despite attempting to be a villainess, she actually managed to work things out in a different way, so the ending of the otome game is not going to happen. She’s going off to a foreign land to study management skills. Hell, even her trademark drills, previously unable to be tamed, are now gone thanks to the power of the game being over. But there is a second game, the sequel to Heart High, that takes place at the school in that foreign country. One with a “heroine” and a ‘villainess”. That said, Mary’s not in that game at all, so she can simply sit back, watch the enfolding disaster, make good friends with a wet blanket of a noble, and also get married to Adi. Wait, what? What was that last part?

I admit that I *was* expecting the events of this book to some degree, but the author really threw me off by the order in which they happened. Mary is not yet finished dealing with/watching for villainess pointers at her new school when she’s called back to her country to get married, something that she does unconsciously and without think9ing about it, to the amazement of everyone. It’s only after she and Adi are already married that she’s forced to confront the fact that it happened, and why she was so blase about it. Mary Albert is a rare “villainess” who’s retained very little of her Japanese self, and simply associated marriage with “political move”. Marrying for love never was a thing she expected. As such, when she realizes it happened, her freakout is possibly the best part of the book. As for the second game and its resolution, it’s yet another example of why “harem” endings are good in a funny way when you’re a gamer, but terrible if you try to consider them seriously – see also Endo and Kobayashi Live.

And so, we’ve reached the end of the series. Um. There are HOW many books left? Let me guess, short story volume? (checks) Yup. We’ll be back next time for the obligatory short story volume! Till then, this is much more fun than I expected, with a great heroine.

Pick of the Week: Pore Hikaru Is Daid

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SEAN: I fear that the sheer amount of stuff out this week is making my eyes glaze over. That said, there are two “based on a light novel I enjoy” series out this week, so my co-pick goes to the debuts of I Want to Be a Receptionist in This Magical World and Secrets of the Silent Witch.

MICHELLE: I think The Summer Hikaru Died gets my vote here, and not only because my reply to Sean’s “The Night Chicago Died” joke just made me laugh again with how dumb it is.

KATE: I agree with Michelle: my vote goes to The Summer Hikaru Died, if only to encourage publishers to license horror titles by authors who are not Junji Ito.

ASH: As much as I like Junji Ito’s work, I do like seeing a wider variety of horror manga being released, too. And a BL-adjacent horror manga? I can’t pass up The Summer Hikaru Died.

Earl and Fairy: Beware the Enticing Trap

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By Mizue Tani and Asako Takaboshi. Released in Japan as “Hakushaku to Yōsei” by Shueisha Cobalt Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Alexandra Owen-Burns.

I was very excited when Earl and Fairy debuted from J-Novel Heart, but I will admit that I underestimated the backlash that the series got from some areas of the community. This is an old-school shoujo series, and it stars an old-school shoujo love interest. If you don’t know what that means, look up “Black Bird” or “Hot Gimmick”. Though Earl and Fairy does not go nearly as far as those two series, it is definitely in the school of romance that is “he starts off as the worst, but gradually gets better due to the influence of our heroine”. And given this is a long-running series, it’s going to be very gradual. Edgar is not going to suddenly soften up and tell Lydia his deepest secrets. Moreover, given that he thinks Lydia would be perfectly happy to walk off and never see him again, don’t expect him to stop giving affectionate overtures that may be unwelcome. That’s how these series roll. Tender romance will be along in a bit.

Lydia has been hired by Edgar as his Fairy Doctor, meaning that she’s now living in London. Of course, this being a supernatural mystery series as well as a romance, trouble is following her around. Or, more accurately, following her employer around. A young woman has disappeared, and was last seen in a carriage with none other than Edgar. There’s a bogey-beast in the vicinity, and it’s not clear who its master is. Rosalie, cousin to the missing girl, is very much attracted to Edgar, and thus very annoyed that he only seems to have eyes for Lydia. The fog, always terrible in London of vaguely Victorian times, is even worse because of the threat of the Fogman. And possibly worst of all, Lydia is finding herself wanting to get closer to Edgar, and she has absolutely no idea why.

Lydia, I will admit, does suffer from some of the worst traits of a shoujo heroine. When she blithely walks into an abandoned warehouse with a girl that she already knows is antagonistic towards her, you will want to smack your forehead. She’s no shrinking violet, but sometimes that gets her into trouble as well – her desire to take quick and decisive action is what gets her soul trapped near the climax of the book. As for her relationship with Edgar, she’s not close enough for him to open his heart to, but that also means that she’ll never take any affectionate overtures he makes seriously. Nico, Lydia’s walking, talking, sarcastic cat (just throwing that out there for those who are still on the fence about this series) tells Edgar if he wants to win Lydia over he needs to stop lying to her. Unfortunately, Edgar has been hurt so much by so many people – and had nearly everyone who trusted him die – that this may not even be possible.

To sum up” great shoujo potboiler. Lydia is naive but awesome. Have patience with Edgar. Give Nico some tea and fish.