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Making Magic: The Sweet Life of a Witch Who Knows an Infinite MP Loophole, Vol. 1

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By Aloha Zachou and Tetubuta. Released in Japan as “Maryoku Cheat na Majo ni Narimashita: Sōzō Mahō de Kimamana Isekai Seikatsu” by GC Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Emily Hemphill.

A lot of new writers these days tend to start off writing fanfiction of their favorite series, or of the popular series of the time. The good authors know how to skillfully take the original world and add their own take and characterization to it. The less good authors simply rewrite the original as prose, adding the occasional difference but largely having events go the same way. I am starting to feel that way about a lot of these “reincarnated into a fantasy world with OP stats” books. They may have different villages, or dungeons, and this one at least lacks a harem of slave girls (instead having a golem daughter-figure… I’ll go with daughter as the alternative skeeves me), but for the most part if you’ve read Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, you’ve pretty much read the same sort of things that happen here. It’s not a good sign when even the chapter titles are pleasant but boring.

We start off with our main character dying and meeting God. We don’t hear a single thing about their past life, though they appear to have been a woman named Chise. In any case, God reincarnates her into a different world, and she chooses ‘Creation Magic’ as her one cheat skill that gods inevitably give dead people in this genre. Ending up in the middle of absolutely nowhere, Chise slowly begins to figure out how this world works and how her powers work. Very, very slowly. Eventually she creates a golem, and then by feeding the golem magic stones the golem evolves into Teto, a very strong and naive young woman who is deeply devoted to Chise. Together, the two of them rescue adventurers, gather herbs, fight ogres, and help a village to acquire basic survival skills.

This is from Micro Magazine’s GC Novels imprint, and I’ve talked before about how this imprint seems to have a very high miss ratio for me. I’m afraid this is another one. It improves in the second half with the village, and when it tries to focus on the fact that as a consequence of Chise raising her magic powers so high she’s also accidentally making herself immortal. Unfortunately, the first half is an absolute slog, especially for non-gamers who do not care how Chise tries various ways to kill things, or create things, or raise her magic. Also, and I blame the editors more than the translator here, one thing Chise creates to help her level up is named, repeatedly, a “strange fruit”. Even if that was its name in the Japanese romanji, or if it turns out it’s a familiar RPG thing, it should have been changed to ‘weird fruit’ or ‘bizarre fruit’ or something similar. Please google the words, or search on Spotify, if you don’t already know why.

If you’re a fan of overpowered characters who look like 12-year-olds walking around being incredibly powerful… there are STILL better books to read than this one.

Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter, Vol. 7

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By Reia and Haduki Futaba. Released in Japan as “Koushaku Reijou no Tashinami” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Andria Cheng.

If the first book in the “Accomplishments of the Duchess” prequel was about discovering the hellion that Merellis once was, this volume is about showing us how she came to be the woman we know from the main series. In essence, this is also a book about her training for battle, it’s just the battles she’s going to face are in society rather than in the military, and the enemy is anyone who dares to look down on her. And, frankly, she takes to this just as well as she took to being a swordswoman. Frankly, as I’ve said before, Accomplishment of the Duke’s Daughter is not a series to read if you want to see protagonists struggling valiantly against impossible odds. For the most part, it’s about seeing women kick ass, in a variety of settings. In that regard, this volume works perfectly fine. And, in case you were worried we’d lose the awesome swordplay and butchering of enemies, no worries, we get a bit of that as well.

There is an ominous beginning, where Merellis’ father forbids her from taking up the sword and announces she’s going to be engaged to be married to the son of Duke Armelia, a political marriage. She suffers greatly over this for about five pages, but the reader is in on the joke, so we know everything will be fine once she figures out who the duke’s son is. After that it’s just a matter of shifting gears. If she can protect the most people around her through politics rather than the blade, then politics it is. As such, Louis’ mother gives Merellis a crash course in nobility, something she has assiduously been avoiding for the past several years. Just in time too, as it’s time for her to make her debut and attend the academy. Let’s hope it goes smoother for her than it did for her daughter…

I enjoyed seeing how Merellis’ training in military and the sword can be of use to her in society, particularly in how she watches the way people move and stand. Twins who are indebted to her father for saving their lives arrive at the estate, and Merellis can tell very rapidly that a) they have some basic fighting skills, and b) they’re OK to trust. These skills will serve her well. The book’s pacing is sometimes a problem, and sometimes the plots it drops can be more ominous than intended – Merellis’ old maid injures herself and is forced to return home, and there is a suggestion that she will die… which she may indeed have done, as we never hear from her for the rest of the book. It’s at times like these that the series shows off its seat-of-the-pants webnovel roots.

Fans of the main series may still be a bit put off that Iris is only in the wraparound at the start and end of this, but for those who found her mother to be a cool character, good news, here’s more of her.

Death’s Daughter and the Ebony Blade, Vol. 2

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By Maito Ayamine and Cierra. Released in Japan as “Shinigami ni Sodaterareta Shoujo wa Shikkoku no Tsurugi wo Mune ni Idaku” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sylvia Gallagher.

It’s probably time to bring up Michael Moorcock and the series Elric of Melnibone, a series that I’m 100% sure that Maito Ayamine has read over and over again. This particular light novel series happens to feature a silver-haired protagonist who wields a sword that supposedly takes the souls of those it kills and gives them to their patron. Which, well, is exactly what happens in Elric as well. That said, Death’s Daughter and the Ebony Blade does not remotely have a sense of tragedy or pathos in it, running instead on “gosh, that murderous military scamp, isn’t she adorable?”. In the Elric series, you can be reasonably certain that everyone around Elric, particularly his love interests or close friends, will die. Olivia has Ashton has her not-quite-love interest, and Claudia as her “in my heart, this is an OTP” best friend/morality chain, but I have little worry that they’ll be killed off anytime soon. The same can’t be said for anyone else on the side of the Empire.

After the events of the first book, Olivia has gotten a bit of a reputation. In fact, she’s being called a monster, something she is not happy with. (Later she gets upgraded to “God of Death”, which pleases her much more). The book rapidly becomes a series of battles where the moral of the story is “if Olivia is here, or able to get here in the nick of time, we will win. Otherwise, bad things will happen.” The Empire tries sending some of its strongest warriors to fight her, and then a few of its generals. The outcome is the same. It helps that she has Ashton’s tactics, of course, which are also rapidly being appreciated more and more, by her allies if not by the Empire. Can someone come along that causes Olivia to reflect on what she has become? Or is it just “I want to eat delicious cake and butcher enemies, and this town has no cake?”.

In case it was not crystal clear, you should only be reading this series if you have no trouble with a moral void of a main character. In any other series, Olivia would be the terrifying villain. Indeed, I was sort of expecting Claudia to turn to Ashton at some point, possibly after Olivia had decided on the blood and skulls-themed family name as the one she’ll take going forward, and say “Are we the baddies?”. No, you’re not, but that’s really only because there are no goodies in this book, really. Everything can be abandoned in the name of military victory. There is some lip service paid to what it means to be a good lord of a city, in terms of protecting the people who live in that city from harm, but even there the lesson is taught by the execution of the errant lord.

Essentially, this is a very dark series, but it’s not written in a dark manner. It’s written as if this is Haruhi Suzumiya with a sword. That sort of dissonance is probably what makes it interesting.

Formerly, the Fallen Daughter of the Duke, Vol. 2

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By Ichibu Saki, Nemusuke, and Ushio Shirotori. Released in Japan as “Moto, Ochikobore Koushaku Reijou desu” by Mag Garden Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Andrew Schubauer.

The author admits in the afterword that a lot of the fans of this work were very thrown off by the twist at the end of Book One, and even more by the start of the events in the second book. I can’t really blame them. Book one read like a nice, pleasant villainess story with a happy ending. A bit boring, but not actually so much so that you walk away. And now we’re back to the start, and we have to do things all over again. The trouble here is that our heroine does not quite have the self-esteem needed to try to regain her fiancee, so we get nearly an entire book of “it’s OK if he doesn’t love me this time around, I’m fine with being friends”. The other issue, of course, is Charlotte, who remains The Absolute Worst. It’s never quite made clear if she also has memories from Japan, but there’s certainly a lot of “I’m the heroine, why is everything not going my way?” to her.

After the events at the end of the last book, Claire finds herself back where she started, in her old country and about to get her old baptism. She manages to make a few quiet changes (like taking her mother’s note to her so it can’t be used by Charlotte), but for the most part everything goes as it did last time. Except… her family seems a lot nicer and more considerate? In fact, she’s being sent off to school in the country that she fled to in the last book, and can reunite with her old friends and old fiance. But there’s a hitch. Claire is not the only one that went back in time for a redo. And the forces of evil are using the power of capitalism to try to destroy any chance Claire has at getting the powerful magic she needs to achieve her happy ending.

The book keeps its feet firmly in the fantasy in this volume, with almost no mention of the “Japanese game” part of the series. For the most part, as I noted, the most interesting part of the book is Claire reacting to her family being nice to her. Claire never explicitly states this, but being treated like garbage in the previous world hurt her a lot, and it means that when her ex-fiance or brother are kind and caring towards her (indeed, the fiance is trying to fix the ‘ex’ part) it just throws her off. There is an iffy part of the book, though, which involves brainwashing someone. First of all, the setup to this is ham-handed and obvious, and I rolled my eyes. Second, even though the person being brainwashed is an antagonist, and Claire freaks out and tries to undo it, it really seems like an easy “get out of bad plots free” card. Fortunately there’s still Charlotte around to make everything worse, but still.

This book does NOT end with another loop, much to my relief, and there is a third volume in the series. I’d put this in the middle tier of villainess books.

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!, Vol. 2

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By Touko Amekawa and Wan*Hachipisu. Released in Japan as “Loop 7-kaime no Akuyaku Reijou wa, Moto Tekikoku de Jiyuukimama na Hanayome (Hitojichi) Seikatsu wo Mankitsusuru” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Amy Osteraas. Adapted by Aysha U. Farah.

I’ve frequently made fun of the fact that many villainesses in these books, with Katarina Claes being the best example, keep constantly trying to “solve” all the problems facing them without realizing that the problems have solved themselves simply due to being empathic and kind. Because Katarina, and Rishe in this series, know the real truth: even if you are as sweet as pie, never assume that the narrative has gone away. Rishe knows that her recurring deaths, and the war that leads to them, are not something that can be solved by simply marrying the man behind it all and showing him how to be happy. There’s a lot more to it than that. This is especially true of this second volume, which brings back a number of characters from her life as an apothecary. Including one who is, for all intents and purposes, a terrorist.

Rishe remains dedicated to her efforts to live a happy, carefree life by overworking herself to death in order to get it. She takes sword training from Arnold, and when she realizes that she absolutely lacks the stamina she had in her knight life, not to mention the elite training Arnold’s knights have, she secretly disguises herself as a boy and enrolls in the knight course. As this is happening, a delegation from Coyolle, a country which has relied on its mining to help it not be taken over and destroyed by other countries, has arrived, including Prince Kyle, who Rishe knew in her apothecary life, and Michel, an alchemist who enjoys inventing things, and if they’re weapons of mass destruction, well, they need to be used. You can’t just NOT use poison once you’ve made it.

Michel was probably the best character in this volume. He’s given a tragic backstory, of course, but for the most part he is the genial mad scientist, willing to blow up the world as long as it shows that his theories are correct. He and Rishe get along surprisingly well. Then again, getting along with everyone is Rishe’s thing. And this includes Prince Kyle, who briefly makes Arnold jealous as in his country all women are meant to be venerated, meaning his attention to Rishe is, shall we say, too much for our grumpy Crown Prince. That said… war does appear to be the the first response for him, and Rishe has to work her ass off to show that diplomacy is the better answer in this case. The answer to “why do I keep dying?” is still not an easily solvable one, but at the very least Arnold finds her fascinating, and is unlikely to brutally murder her this time, unless some horrible misunderstanding happens. Which is unlikely, I mean, this is a light novel…

Fans of the genre, or just fans of shoujo romance, should find plenty to dig into here.

Pick of the Week: Kaiju, Foxes, and Apocalypses

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MICHELLE: There are a lot of appealing BL or BL-adjacent works out this week. I need to get caught up on I Think Our Son Is Gay and Sasaki and Miyano (so that I can read the spinoff), and The (Pet) Detective Agency looks pretty cute too, but quirky and retro-looking BL will always win out with me in the end, and thus my pick this week is The Gay Who Turned Kaiju.

ASH: The Gay Who Turned Kaiju is certainly one of the highlights for me this week, and I will happily be reading the others Michelle mentioned, too. That being said, I really enjoy Tomihiko Morimi’s work and have been reading a fair number of short stories these days, so I’m actually going to make Fox Tales my official pick.

SEAN: My pick this week is the yuri-ish Touring After the Apocalypse, which really, really REALLY sounds like Girls’ Last Tour.

KATE: Touring After the Apocalypse. I don’t know that I have a particularly thoughtful or well-informed reason for choosing it, but I like the cover’s juxtaposition of two totally normal, cheerful people going about their business in a hellscape. That feels like a pretty accurate reflection of what 2022 has been like for most of us!

MJ: I suppose I am also choosing Touring After the Apocalypse as my pick this week. Even with so many titles coming out, my feelings echo Kate’s this this week!

High School DxD: Pandemonium on the School Trip

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By Ichiei Ishibumi and Miyama-Zero. Released in Japan by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Haydn Trowell.

This may be the least horny DxD volume to date. Which, trust me, means it’s still ridiculously horny, and filled with consensual groping and non-consensual destruction of clothing. But the title is actually High School DxD, and this volume wants to remind you of the first part, as Issei and his class are going to Kyoto. And they actually do make an effort to put in the “look, I did the research” work. There are, of course, supernatural bad things going on on their trip. And they naturally seem to center around Issei. But his teachers say to leave it to them, and to try to have a normal fun school trip. Which makes sense. Most of our protagonists are either demons, fallen angels, or angels, and “high school romcom” is theoretically not high on the list of things they have to do. Unless you’re High School DxD, of course, where Issei cannot walk two steps without having another gorgeous young woman fall in love with him. This volume’s candidate is very young indeed.

As noted, everyone’s off to Kyoto!… well, almost everyone. Rias and Akeno are, of course, one grade higher than Issei, so aren’t going, much to their annoyance. That said, everything is official and they even have special thingummies that will allow them to visit the very religious temples without, y’know, bursting into flames or the like. Things are going well… despite a growing rash of breast gropers among the populace. And the elementary-school aged fox girl who demands that Issei give back her mother, who has been kidnapped. That said, if you recall the events of the seventh volume and wonder “if this perhaps the work of the guys trying to reverse engineer balance breakers so humanity can fight angels and demons?”, you would be absolutely correct.

I will admit that the human side does have a point here, in that if you happen to know about angels and demons and dragons and the like, and they’re all fighting each other, you start to feel like a pointless statistic in comparison. That said, if you want humanity to triumph, I’m pretty sure “terrorist acts” is not the way to go. As for Issei, he’s getting better not only at fighting but also at leading, which is good because without Rias the group seems to lack anyone to give them strategy beyond “hit things very hard”. (Or heal things very hard, in Asia’s case.) I was also amused to see that Issei’s power is very similar to Izuku’s in My Hero Academia (which came out well after this book), complete with prior users who give him cryptic advice. And are also a fan of his signature breast moves. Which is a real sentence that I just typed out, and I still can’t really believe that.

So we’ve had the sports festival, and the class trip, so I think I know what’s coming next. Till then, enjoy a solid volume in this horny series.

I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss, Vol. 4

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By Sarasa Nagase and Mai Murasaki. Released in Japan as “Akuyaku Reijo Nanode Rasubosu o Katte Mimashita” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

A lot of light novels, particularly in the Villainess genre, have trouble sometimes coming up with what comes next. Looking in particular at My Next Life As a Villainess, which one can argue has sort of been spinning its wheels since the start of Book 3. Fortunately, some authors are much better at coming up with compelling storylines, even if the storyline is “oh, there was another game”. It helps that we have Aileen, who of all the Villainess protagonists is probably the best at being a “villain” personality, i.e. a confident and dynamic young woman who does not take shit from anyone. Well, except perhaps her husband. That said, she gets help here from the “heroine”, Lilia, who is not exactly on her side but is not the antagonist this time, and whose gleeful fourth-wall breaking and sneering bitchiness make this book even more entertaining than it already is. They’re taking on the third game, which has an Arabian feel to it, but still involves the same old otome game tropes.

Aileen and Lilia, along with attendants Rachel and Serena, are headed on a boat trip to Hausel. A dragon went wild while Claude had amnesia, and they need to attend an inquiry to explain it. Unfortunately, on the voyage, the boat’s women are all kidnapped! They’re now in the Kingdom of Ashmael, and are part of the royal harem. Unfortunately, Aileen and Lilia both recognize this scenario: it’s the third game! The “heroine” is Sahra, a holy daughter of God who can repair the Holy Sword. The “villainess” is Roxane, a stoic and reserved woman who is Baal’s main consort. That said… certain aspects of the game seem to have already happened before Aileen and company arrive. Is someone else pulling the strings? Can Aileen avoid being unfaithful to her husband? And why haven’t they consummated their marriage anyway?!

Every time Aileen and Lilia are in the same scene it is a delight. Lilia is absolutely terrible in a way that would be excruciating in real life but is wonderful on the printed page. The fact that the two of them are forced to team up here makes it even better. As for Roxane, like the other villainesses in this series she turns out to be far more than she seems, and I hope we see more of her. We’re definitely going to be seeing more of Sahra… at least I hope we are, as her arc was rushed and lacking, the one part of this I didn’t enjoy. The implication near the end is that Cedric is going to take her in as sort of a way to keep Lilia interested, which I’m sure won’t rebound horribly on him in any way. And, of course, Aileen and Claude are adorable together. It is amusing that everyone – everyone – who knows Aileen thinks she’s cutest when she’s crying. (We also get some brief backstory drop, and wow, her family is very much “you will be awesome or you will die, no other options.”)

This is the first volume that won’t be animated by the current adaptation, and if you’re an anime-only fan it’s a great one to dive into. This remains one of the top-tier titles in the Villainess genre.

Anime NYC 2022, Day Three

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The third and final day of Anime NYC, like the first, was quiet. The main issue was that half the subway lines weren’t working, which is not the con’s fault. I did note that masking was more optional than I’d hoped, but did see a lot of masked people, and they did require masks walking into the panels, which was good. The main panels I attended was Kodansha Manga, whose site may still be under maintenance, and whose Kodansha Books line was eerily silent, but they still had a lot to announce.

They started off with the November digital debuts, including Matcha Made in Heaven, which is already out. The other debut is The Food Diary of Miss Maid, a seinen title from Comic Days about an English maid who ends up living by herself in Japan, and decides to immerse herself in Japanese cuisine. They then moved into 2023 print titles, and there certainly were a lot of them.

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir is a manga based on the popular French cartoon, which runs in Shonen Sirius. It seems to loosely adapt the original, with some changes. I’m Giving the Disgraced Noble Lady a Crash Course in Naughtiness: I’ll Spoil Her with Delicacies and Style to Make Her the Happiest Woman in the World! wins the prize for the longest title announced at Anime NYC. This Comic Pash! manga features a wizard running across a disgraced noble who has collapsed near his place. After hearing her sad story, he decides to teach her naughty things… like cake eating! And late night ramen! In other words, sweeter than it sounds. The light novels it’s based on were written by the author of From Toxic Classmate to Girlfriend Goals.

Origin is a manga by Sun-Ken Rock and Dr. Stone artist Boichi. Running in Young Magazine, it features androids trying to destroy humanity, and sounds a lot darker than Dr. Stone – more for Sun-Ken Rock fans. Virgin Love is a josei title from Shufu to Seikatsusha’s magazine Ar (Kodansha Manga has been branching out beyond their own name), with six strangers with love troubles living together at the ‘Love house’. And two new titles in the Maiden’s Bookshelf series were announced: The Girl Who Became a Fish and Spring Comes Riding in a Carriage, both based on classic (and depressing) Japanese stories.

The Darwin Incident runs in Afternoon, and stars Charlie, a half-human half-chimpanzee hybrid who was rescued by terrorists from an experimental lab. 15 years later, he’s trying to live a high school life and get to know the misunderstood girl, but terrorism still lurks around him. The Moon on a Rainy Night is a yuri title from Comic Days, about a girl who (literally) runs into a classmate. Her classmate is deaf, but they can still bond through music. Ogami-san Can’t Keep It In is another Afternoon series, about a girl who simply can’t stop thinking about sex and a boy who forces people to say what they think when they touch him.

On the BL front, we get My Ultramarine Sky, a one-shot title from Gateau about two boys who realize their romantic feelings after being put in different classes. It’s by Nagisa Furuya, who also gets The Summer with You: The Sequel licensed, showing college life for the main couple from that series. It also ran in Gateau. Also in Gateau is Super Morning Star, a BL comedy about a boy who has to hide his identity and his relationship. Sentai is also involved.

My Lovesick Life As a 90s Otaku is a josei series from Kiss. A divorced woman with a daughter flashes back to the mid-90s, when she was a secret otaku, because it was a lot less accepted at that time. How I Met My Soulmate is the new shoujo series by the author of Waiting for Spring, and it runs in Dessert. College student who has misconceptions about love meets a bad boy. King in Limbo is a josei title from Itan, a thriller about a virus that kills people by feeding on their traumatic memories, and a soldier who has to help fight it off. Lastly, and getting the biggest reaction of the panel, Witch Hat Atelier Kitchen, the spinoff manga from Morning Two that focuses on Qifrey and Olruggio… but really it’s about food.

There’s also some re-releases and box sets coming. Vinland Saga is getting nice hardcover omnibuses. Cells at Work is getting 2 omnibuses. Blue Period is getting a box set. Magic Knight Rayearth is getting a paperback release, and I aged visibly as I watched Kodansha talk about how old the series was. And some digital-only series are getting print – though not, alas, Medalist, my current favorite, which I asked the company to shill during Q&A. Instead we’ll see print for Wind Breaker, Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister, Nina the Starry Bride, and She’s My Knight.

Anime NYC seemed to run far smoother than last year, and the Anime NYC crew were all friendly and helpful. (The Javits crew less so, but hey.) If you enjoy New York City and conventions, it’s always a great place to go.

Anime NYC 2022, Day Two

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The second day of Anime NYC is traditionally the busiest, and this year was no exception. The publishers were announcing PILES of titles, and pretty much when I was not at a panel I was eating or trying to avoid collapsing in fatigue.

We start off with Yen Press, who had so many announcements that they only did half of them at the panel – the other half were livetweeted afterwards. I’ll start with the panel announcements. But before that, they brought out the author TurtleMe, creator of The Beginning After the End, a webseries that was picked up by Yen about a King who dies realizing that power isn’t everything, so in his reincarnated life he tries to experience different things. The author was extremely happy to be published and available in bookstores, though he admits the name “TurtleMe” is a username that followed him around.

We then went to manga announcements. Appare-Ranman! is based on the light novel, and will be coming out as a 3-in-1 omnibus. Described by Yen as similar to the old show Wacky Races, it has an inventor and a samurai trying to win a cash prize with a steam powered car. It was in Young Ace. Manner of Death is based on a Thai novel, and is apparently a BL murder mystery. It looked pretty cool from the cover. It runs in Enterbrain’s B’s-LOVEY. Magical Girl Incident features a salaryman who finds one day he can transform into… a magical girl! Of course, only one person knows the secret. It’s also from Young Ace.

Elden Ring: The Road to the Erdtree is already being published by Bookwalker, and is based on the popular game. It can best be described as “What if Elden Ring were a comedy? The announcement is that it will be getting a physical release. It’s in Kadokawa’s Comic HU. Then very exciting news for me personally: Higurashi When They Cry Gou! I may have mixed feelings about the anime, but the manga is usually more solid in the Higurashi series. It’s 4 volumes, and ran in Young Ace Up. In addition, the original manga is coming back into print!

After a prize break, we moved to light novels. My Summoned Beast Is Dead looks quite amusing. A guy at a magical school where the most powerful students summon great magical beasts summons… a giant corpse. And now has to figure out how to succeed in school… with a corpse. Associate Professor Akira Takatsuki’s Conjecture is a series about a college kid who can tell when people are lying, which as you can imagine makes him unpopular. He meets up with the title character, a professor who has a love of anything weird, which includes our hero.

Yami-Hara is a creepy sounding novel about people who have darkness (yami) in their hearts, and how that darkness can influence other people. How to Win Her Heart on the Nth Try is a slow-burn romance about an office lady unlucky at love who runs into her childhood friend. He’s been in love with her forever, but she sees him only as a friend. How can he make his feelings known? Lastly, in the same vein as Spice and Wolf, we get A Certain Magical Index Old Testament. This will have all 24 books in the Index series in one massive, massive TOME, similar to the Spice & Wolf one.

(No, they did NOT announce New Testament, but the fact that they’re using “Old Testament” as a prefix tells me it’s probably only a matter of time.)

More manga! Scribbles, by Kaoru Mori. A sketchbook with annotations or her drawings and ideas, from the creator of Emma and A Bride’s Story. Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun will be getting a box set (that looks like a bathroom stall) of the first ten books. And they have a Korean webtoon, Bloody Sweet, about a weird daughter of a shaman who happens to come across a weird vampire in a haunted house, and they are weird together.

Lastly, we have Ize Press, who announed a new title from the creator of The Boxer. The Horizon is about a boy who loses his mother and decides to simply start running. They also have A Business Proposal, a Korean tapas series that also has a live-action version. A girl who agrees to go on a blind date by pretending to be her friend finds… her date is the CEO of her company! And now he wants to marry her! How can she convince him to forget her… because otherwise she’ll be fired!

While the panel was going on, Yen also announced MORE titles on Twitter, which still amazingly exists. Sword Art Online: Progressive – Scherzo of Deep Night is the new continuation manga for the Progressive series, and runs in Comic Walker. Yokohama Station SF came out from Yen as a novel, and now they have the manga, which is three volumes total and runs in (again) Young Ace Up. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Memoria Freese is a manga based on the DanMachi spinoff game, and runs in Manga UP! (no relation to Young Ace Up).

Handyman Saitō in Another World is a 7+-volume manga from Comic Walker, about a guy who discovers “handyman” is a lot more useful and valued in a fantasy world than it is in Japan. A Reincarnated Witch Spells Doom is from Flos Comic, and is 5+ volumes. A shut-in decides to try to go out in the real world and immediately meets Truck-kun. Now reborn, everyone thinks she’s a witch! I Want to Be a Receptionist in This Magical World is a manga version of the light novel The Sorcerer’s Receptionist, which came out here a couple of years ago. It’s also from Flos Comic.

What This World Is Made Of is a 3-volume manga from Dengeki Maoh. Two brothers desperate for money try a shady app and now end up monster hunters. Me and My Beast Boss is a josei title from B’s-LOG Cheek, about an OL who endures harassment just because she’s a human… till one day she’s made the private secretary of the beastman CEO! My Dear Curse-Casting Vampiress is a Shonen Gangan title from the creator of When a Magician’s Pupil Smiles, about a powerful vampire hired by humans to battle other vampires. The Essence of Being a Muse is a Comic Beam title, already good news. It’s about a woman rejected from Art School who decides to give in and do what her mother wants. It sounds soul-crushing, but I’m sure that’s merely at first.

Additional light novels announced: Even If These Tears Disappear Tonight is a sequel to Even If This Love Disappears Tonight, and is for those who like to read books and cry a lot. Maiden of the Needle seems to combine about four different popular genres, as we see a girl reincarnated in a fantasy world, who can speak to fairies, but who can’t do the RIGHT seamstress magic, so she’s disowned and taken in by another nobleman. And The Ephemeral Scenes of Setsuna’s Journey is a story of a man summoned as a hero… but he’s weak and sickly, so they give up on him. That said, guess what? He actually has the inheritance of the original hero!

Lastly, there’s a new omnibus of Puella Magi Suzune Magica, because how better to wrap up nearly 30 titles than with another Madoka Magica spinoff?

The second panel I went to was Dark Horse, which only had one new manga announcement, but it’s a doozy. Before that, Carl Horn discussed the history of the company, going back to the Godzilla manga they did in 1988, as well as Outlanders. (Remember Outlanders?) They also announced a new artbook, The Art of Octopath Traveler, which is a Square Enix video game series. The big news, though, was Innocent, the 9-volume series from Weekly Young Jump, which is the English debut of acclaimed author Shin’ichi Sakamoto. The story of a family of executioners in 18th Century France, it has won PILES of awards. It’s going to be coming out in 3-in-1 omnibuses.

They had other things to discuss, of course. Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Serviced is back, with Vol. 15 out as part of the 5th omnibus. They’re also finishing up Psycho-Pass after a long hiatus. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! 4 is the first one that has stuff not in the anime. (The series is also apparently an absolute bear to translate.) The Art of Star Wars Visions is self-explanatory, but it was interesting to hear about how the creators were able to play with the original Star Wars characters but chose not to, as well as how they were NOT influenced by Ghibli. The creator of Vampire Hunter D, meanwhile, is living the good life – he was at an Italian convention 3 weeks ago that was held in a cathedral!

The last panel I attended was J-Novel Club, and they had almost as much to announce as Yen, with several new partnerships. Karate Master Isekai is a new manga from Comic HU, and is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. They’ve licensed rescued Let This Grieving Soul Retire! from the Sol Press dungeon, and will be re-translating Vol. 1 and releasing past Vol. 1, just to spite the late unlamented original publisher. Grand Sumo Villainess: This Reincarnated Rikishi’s No Pushover! is a new Villainess light novel, asking “what if the villainess could solve everything through Sumo mastery?”.

Peddler in Another World, which J-NC already does the light novel for, is getting a manga license as well. The manga runs in Comic Fire. Enough with This Slow Life! I Was Reincarnated as a High Elf and Now I’m Bored is another one of those “the title is the plot” light novels, but is apparently more of a “I travel the road” wanderer series. I’m Capped at Level 1?! Thus Begins My Journey to Become the World’s Strongest Badass! is a new manga title that runs in Comic Walker, which sounds like a standard “weak to strong” series, but the ability to gain powers from the corpses who had those powers might be interesting.

The Disowned Queen’s Consulting Detective Agency is from the creator of I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss, and is in a similar vein, as the disowned noble lady decides to follow in her late grandmother’s footsteps and be a detective. I Parry Everything: What Do You Mean I’m the Strongest? I’m Not Even an Adventurer Yet! is a light novel series from Earth Star Entertainment (as indeed most of these license announcements were) about a guy who’s trained to be #1 at parrying. He just can’t do anything else. But who cares? PARRY! Their last “regular” announcement was a “gaiden” sequel to Outbreak Company, taking place after the end of the series. This will be one volume.

They then announced a pile of new audiobooks, thanks to two new partnerships with both RB Media and Podium. We’ll see audiobooks for By the Grace of the Gods, Reborn to Master the Blade, Black Summoner, How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, Faraway Paladin, Hell Mode, My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned As an S-Ranked Adventurer, Min-Maxing my TRPG Build In Another World, and, inevitably, In Another World with My Smartphone. And, of course, the Slayers audiobook is finally out, with narration by the original Lina Inverse, Lisa Ortiz!

J-Novel Club is also partnering with Yen Press to do some physical releases of popular digital light novel titles. Yen will release, in print, The Misfit of Demon King Academy, Hell Mode, and My Instant Death Ability is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me! (both the LN and the manga). J-Novel Club actually asked me at their booth if I would give Hell Mode, which I skipped when it first came out, another try, and so I might pick it up and see how it is.

The biggest partnership announcement was with Drecom, a company that just started a light novel line last month. They’re debuting – in Japanese and English the same day – a new series by the creators of Goblin Slayer (author) and Overlord (illustrator). Called Blade & Bastard – Warm Ash, Dusky Dungeon, it’s a novel based on the RPG game Wizardry. I’ll be honest, absolutely nothing about this series interested me until Sam casually said “Oh, yes, the nun also has a sword”, and that made me sit up and pay attention. That said, it’s definitely more for Goblin Slayer fans than for me.

They have a number of titles already out in Japan the last two months, and we will also be getting these sometime in 2023. Official titles are not available yet, so I won’t go over all of them, but there’s a time loop villainess story, a noble dumped by her fiancé gets a better deal story… actually, there are TWO titles for each of these genres… and, perhaps best of all, “I’m a Pharmacist Witch and a part-Time Divorce Attorney”, a title that sounds like it was written specifically for me personally. They’ve also got a new series from the author of Unnamed Memory, which I know will make some people sit up and take notice.

Drecom had some of their executives there at the panel, and they also talked about the various multimedia strategies they would be doing (which include NFTs, but this was not mentioned at the panel itself, probably with good reason – I think it would have been booed). Sam noted that the fact that they’re so closely partnered does mean we may see some series cancelled, but it was mentioned that English-language sales may help stave that off even if it’s doing badly in Japan.

This was a lot of stuff. If this sounds more like a list of things than previous years, it’s probably due to the fact that there were less panels that are more “fan-oriented” this year. However, there are a few of those on Sunday, along with Kodansha Manga. We’ll see you there.