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Manga the Week of 9/7/22

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SEAN: It’s September, and Manga Bookshelf doesn’t even have an AOL account. What are we going to do?

ASH: LOL

SEAN: Airship has early digital releases for the third volume of Classroom of the Elite: Year 2 and The Most Notorious “Talker” Runs the World’s Greatest Clan 3.

From J-Novel Club we get some print titles. Ascendance of a Bookworm 14, Marginal Operation 11, My Next Life As a Villainess 11, and The Unwanted Undead Adventurer 7 (manga version).

ASH: Obligatory, “Yay, Bookworm!”

SEAN: Digitally there’s Cooking with Wild Game 18, Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower 7, a third volume of Demon Lord, Retry! R, and Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles 20.

Kodansha Manga has new titles. In print, there’s a debut of Shangri-La Frontier, which we saw the e-book of already. VR game stuff.

We also see The Hero Life of a (Self-Proclaimed) “Mediocre” Demon! 6, The Heroic Legend of Arslan 16, When Will Ayumu Make His Move? 7, and The Witch and the Beast 9.

Kodansha’s new digital title is The God-Tier Guardian and the Love of Six Princesses (Rokuhime wa Kami Goei ni Koi wo Suru), a shonen title from Suiyōbi no Sirius. A knight reincarnated to support his liege in her future life. Sadly… her soul is in six different people!

There’s also Abe-kun’s Got Me Now! 9, Changes of Heart 5, Desert Eagle 3, Drifting Dragons 12, Kounodori: Dr. Stork 27, My Idol Sits the Next Desk Over! 5, Our Love Doesn’t Need a Happy Ending 2, and Vampire Dormitory 9.

KUMA has The Song of Yoru & Asa Encore, a sequel to, well, The Song of Yoru & Asa. It’s complete in one volume, and ran in Takeshobo’s Qpa.

ASH: I still need to read the original volume, but I plan on picking this one up.

SEAN: Seven Seas had some date reshuffles recently, so we get one book. But it’s a debut! Correspondence from the End of the Universe (Hate no Shoutsuushin) is about a young Russian man who’s abducted from his life and his fiancee by aliens, who give him a 10-year mission! Nothing he can do but get down to it. This josei title ran in Comic PASH!.

MICHELLE: Huh. Well, it’s certainly a unique concept.

ASH: That, and josei!

ANNA: Sounds a little wacky, that might be a good thing.

SEAN: Square Enix manga has the 5th volume of By the Grace of the Gods.

Viz has several new volumes. We see Black Clover 30, The Elusive Samurai 2, Ghost Reaper Girl 2, Ima Koi: Now I’m in Love 3, Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible 3, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes 13, Prince Freya 7, and Queen’s Quality 15.

MICHELLE: Several shoujo series here I still need to check out.

ASH: I’m a bit behind, but I’ve been enjoying Queen’s Quality.

ANNA: Me too, I need to get caught up.

SEAN: And we end with Yen. Yen On has Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? 17, Ishura 2, and Reign of the Seven Spellblades 6.

And Yen Press gives the people what they want: another PMMM spinoff. Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Another Story focuses on Mami Tomoe and gives her stuff to do which the main series could not do because she became a meme instead. This runs in Comic Fuz.

There’s also The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady 2, Overlord 15, and Sword Art Online: Girls’ Ops 8 (the final volume).

Huh. That’s almost as tiny a week as this week. Did everyone spend money on textbooks rather than manga?

ASH: Could be!

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, Vol. 11.5

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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 M.B. Hare.

As Kuma Bear has gone on, and gotten more attention, and particularly when it got the anime, the author has been slowly but subtly erasing its past a bit. I had remarked in my reviews of the first few books that one of the more interesting things about the series was the way that it would balance “cute girls doing bear things” plotlines with some very dark storylines. This short story volume features stories that were bonuses with in-store purchases and also some new stories, and also summarizes the events of Books 1-9. The dark storylines are not even mentioned in the summaries, and have zero stories featuring them. The author realizes that this world being terrible and needing Yuna to save it is not really why people want to read this series, and honestly that decision may be for the best. The undercurrent of “and that evil guy has also been raping those women” was always uncomfortable, and as for Yuna’s parents, well, I don’t think we’ll ever return to Japan, so we don’t need to care. In the meantime, there is bear.

As noted, these are stories that were originally either exclusives you got when you bought the books at a specific store, online short stories, or short stories from the original webnovel. There’s also ten or so new stories exclusive to this volume. One or two of them have Yuna’s POV, but for the most part they’re exactly what the short stories at the end of the main volumes are: a chance to see the same events from the perspective of different characters. There’s Fina’s stress about meeting nobles and royalty, Cliff’s stress about the fact that everything Yuna does changes the world, everyone’s stress at not being able to get the ever-so-popular bear books or bear plushies. There are no real revelations in this book except the most obvious one, which is that Yuna is less of a teen in a bear suit and more of an Act of God.

It really gets hammered home in this book how strange and inexplicable Yuna is to everyone who encounters her. Her desire to not attract attention to herself, discussed in previous books, is laughable here – any time she appears, she immediately does something that makes sure no one will ever forget about her. She’s not even an adventurer here: she’s a savior, changing everyone’s lives for the better (except perhaps the aggrieved Cliff, who ends up having to clean up after her when she nonchalantly does things like digging a tunnel through the mountain). We also get a bit more depth to minor characters like the guild masters, etc, though again, it’s only a tiny bit more. The problem with short stories that are exclusives and not part of the main work is that they can’t actually impact the main work – they have to be entirely optional.

So yes, you can probably skip this, but at the same time, if you’re already enjoying Kuma Bear, you’re probably the sort of person who’d enjoy this anyway. Also, it’s pretty long – there’s 50 short stories here, and the book itself is almost 400 pages. Inoffensive fun.

Sabikui Bisco, Vol. 3

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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, as I noted on Twitter while reading this volume, bases itself around two aesthetics: “cool” and “gay”. Both of these aesthetics are present and correct in this third volume, which wraps up the story arc the author had in mind on creation, though it’s clear there are more volumes coming. Now, it may come as a surprise that I am saying that this volume of Sabikui Bisco is really gay, given that, over the course of the book, Bisco marries a woman and the book ends with the two of them going off on their honeymoon. And yes, that does happen. But it’s irrelevant. Bisco and Milo is still THE pairing in this book, and even the flashbacks to the memories of the villain falling in love with another woman have Bisco and Milo laid over the two of them. It’s ridiculous, but that’s part of this series’ charm. It runs on ridiculousness. Ah, I suppose that’s a third aesthetic.

We open with our heroes celebrating, complete with quasi-religious ceremonies. Unfortunately, we then get the arrival of this book’s Big Bad, Apollo. He’s determined to return Japan to the way it was in 2028, and to do so he has particles that will convert anything – building, animals, people – into cities. Now some folks are belching out tiny buildings, telephone poles and power lines. To make matters worse… or possibly better… Tirol ends up being possessed by an an aspect of the villain who is on our heroes’ side, and tries to explain what’s going on. What follows is a series of extended battles against the encroaching citification of everything. But in order to get to that point, as I said above, Bisco and Pawoo are going to have to get married. Because the villain runs on etiquette, and it would be rude to interrupt a wedding procession, even if it’s heading off to defeat you.

Again, this book runs on cool as much as gay, and the cool in this book is very cool. The sheer imagery of the cities popping out all over people is stunning, and it will be amazing if it’s ever animated. That said, there are a few issues I had with this book. About 2/3 of the way through, most of the major characters except for Milo and Bisco get killed off one by one, and I’ve read enough shonen manga to know that there was inevitably going to be a resurrection at some point. Not to spoil, but yep. Sabikui Bisco is a shonen manga in light novel form, and that sometimes means it has the bad aspects of shonen manga as well. And the fact that this book runs almost entirely on aesthetic means that there’s not an awful lot of depth to it. We are never really going to see a different, more shaded side to Bisco or Milo. They’re who they are. And while I was asking for more Tirol in future books, “possessed the entire time” was not what I meant.

Still, this book doesn’t really need to be good in the way other light novels need to be, it needs to be good in the way that One Piece or Fairy Tail are good. In that respect it passes with flying colors.

Bookshelf Briefs 8/30/22

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Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Vol. 5 | By Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe| Viz Media – This is a series that is prepared to get pretty dark—some of the examinees in this volume are killed off—but not too dark—none of the characters we’re actually introduced to are among the dead people. I also enjoyed seeing some other powerful mages, such as the girl who’s weak as heck through most of the competition because there’s a protective dome over the area, but when the dome is shattered (by Frieren, natch) and rain comes down, her power shines. We’re also getting some more of Frieren’s backstory, and showing off why her kind of magic was not what others were looking for back in the day. This is a fascinating fantasy series. – Sean Gaffney

In/Spectre, Vol. 16 | By Kyo Shirodaira and Chashiba Katase | Kodansha Comics – All the cards are laid out on the table here, after we spend 3/4 of the volume resolving the ghost giraffe case. Rikka has what turn out to be very good reasons for why she’s constantly trying to break Kotoko, and they’re related to her own powers and those of her cousin. This actually causes Kotoko to have possibly the biggest emotional breakdown we’ve seen in this manga to date, though it’s fairly mild by the standards of anyone else. It’s not something Kotoko can easily refute. As a result, they have to team up for a bit longer. As for what Kuro thinks of all this, alas, we have to wait till the next volume because sometimes the arcs don’t end the way you want for a collected book. – Sean Gaffney

Kemono Jihen, Vol. 1 | By Sho Aimoto | Seven Seas – Kohachi Inugami is a detective specializing in the occult. He’s summoned to a remote village to investigate some mysterious animal deaths and ends up befriending an ostracized boy who’s being called Dorotabo by the villagers. Long story short, Dorotabo’s real name is Kabane and he’s not entirely human. Good thing Inugami isn’t either! He brings Kabane back to Tokyo with him where he meets a couple of other wayward boys the detective has taken in. I liked how Inugami insists that Kabane wasn’t abandoned by his parents and loved that he shows Kabane that he can use his unnerving abilities to help people. The overall vibe of the story is really neat and I and very much look forward to continuing! – Michelle Smith

Knight of the Ice, Vol. 11 | By Yayoi Ogawa | Kodansha Comics – I’d fallen quite behind on Knight of the Ice, and so spent a very enjoyable ten days or so catching up to the eleventh and final volume. I could nitpick a few things—some obstacles to Kokoro and Chitose’s relationship are resolved rather abruptly, for instance—but overall the series strikes a great balance between sports manga and josei romance. In this final volume, Kokoro has made it to the Olympics and gives an amazing performance. For the first time since he was a kid, he actually has fun. That part made me a bit sniffly, but the rest of it does kind of go by in a flash, and I’m left with some unanswered questions about Kokoro’s career that bug me a little bit. Ultimately, though, this series is a lot of fun and is one I could see myself rereading someday. – Michelle Smith

Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, Vol. 2 | By Nene Yukimori | Viz Media – Love can sometimes be inexplicable, and this makes it difficult when your friends look at the guy you’re crushing hard on, a guy who is so nondescript that people literally have trouble seeing him, and wonder why YOU see him like that. And, to be fair to the friends, so far this series is pretty one-sided in its love. Shiraishi is not a friendly, normal guy like Tadano in Komi Can’t Communicate, or a strong personality like Nishikata in Teasing Master Takagi-san. The joy of the series is seeing just how much Kubo is crushing on him, and how hard she’s trying to get him to ask her out. The problem is that we need to be able to care about HIM as well, and I’m not quite there yet. – Sean Gaffney

Minami Nanami Wants to Shine, Vol. 2 | By Bana Yoshida and Yuki Yaku | Yen Press – This series has a goal, and it’s to put Minami’s quiet but intense self-deprecation under the microscope. We see it throughout this volume, where she disparages herself for not being as fashion-conscious or as social-media-savvy as her friends (read: Aoi). She enjoys modeling, but when she tries to say so it always comes out ambivalently or as a question—she’s not sure she’s ALLOWED to enjoy modeling. Is that really OK for someone like her? Meeting a real model and being blown away by how cool they are doesn’t help. Fortunately, as in the novels she has Tomozaki to help, even if it’s not for an election. Will she possibly get to be a romantic lead in this spin-off? I want to know. – Sean Gaffney

Skip and Loafer, Vol. 5 | By Misaki Takamatsu | Seven Seas – Teenage love rarely runs as smoothly as shoujo manga would have you believe, and, given that our lead couple is still only just beginning to realize that they’re in love with each other, that means that it’s up to someone else to try their best but not quite succeed. Makoto has a crush on her sempai in the literature club. With the help of Yuzu (who, having experienced past problems with being “the popular girl,” is perfectly content to live vicariously through others) getting her all dolled up. Sadly, a lack of courage and a lack of understanding on the guy’s part are the result of this date. There’s also some terrific backstory on Nao, explaining why she doesn’t want to go home and why that may change soon. Great. – Sean Gaffney

Tearmoon Empire, Vol. 1 | By Mizu Morino and Nozomu Mochitsuki | J-Novel Club – One of the biggest draws that the Tearmoon Empire light novel has is its snarky, unforgiving narrator, who constantly explains that Princess Mia’s “selfless actions” are anything but. The manga version has that as well, but simply can’t use it to its fullest extent in this medium. As such, we’re left with more of Mia’s thoughts, deeds, and hilarious facial expressions. This has the added value of making Mia seem far more sympathetic in this first volume, more like the Mia of later in the LN series, and shows off the times that she really is acting selflessly (such as everything to do with Anne, the one servant who was kind to her in prison in her past life). If you enjoyed the LN, you’ll enjoy this too. – Sean Gaffney

Durarara!!SH, Vol. 4

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By Ryohgo Narita and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

Apologies to those wanting to know what this specific volume is like, but I need to briefly get a little meta. Ryohgo Narita, a ludicrously prolific writer from 2003-about 2015, has been dealing with a chronic illness. It’s made writing on a regular basis very difficult for him. What’s more, when he is well enough to write he has other projects that take precedence, because they’re owned by people other than him. The Bleach light novels. The as yet unlicensed Fate/Strange Fake novels. What does all this mean? It means that this volume of Durarara!!SH came out in 2016, and there has not been another one since. I will be writing the same thing about Baccano! in a few months time. As with Hunter x Hunter’s long hiatuses, it feels wrong to blame Narita for this extended absence. It does mean, though, that this volume was one where I hoped there might be, if not a definitive ending, at least a good stopping place. Alas, no. This is just another day in the life of these violent idiots.

Despite the presence of Anri on the cover of this volume, she’s mostly a supporting role in the book, and Mikado is mentioned but does not appear. Instead, once again, the lead role pretty much goes to Celty, who is grasping for a new purpose in life and wants to try going back to her old courier job, minus the complications that always hounded that job back when Izaya was around. Sadly for her, Izaya may be gone but complications remain. The drug that was going around two books ago is still around, despite the folks behind it having moved on. She’s being asked to locate the eldest son of a rich family, who is, as a lot of eldest sons do, getting involved with a bad crowd. And even though she’s a supporting player in this book, everything seems to revolve around Anri’s antique shop.

I admit that I was very amused about the subplot with the guy who was upset at Ikebukuro in general for treating him like a nameless character, not even someone important enough to be called a weak loser. I was amused because I had trouble remembering who he was as well. Honestly, in addition to the various references to Narita’s other series that litter this volume (Firo and Ennis, though unnamed, get a mention, and there’s a Vamp! subplot in here too), I feel as if I’m missing something in regards to the Natsugawaras, and would not be surprised if the backstory we hear about happened in an unlicensed side story. Other than that, this volume is a lot of fun. Narita calls it lighter than the others, and I agree. It also features the return of Kujiragi, who gets my favorite line in the whole book.

So yeah, good volume, and for now… that’s the end of Durarara!!. Unless Yen licenses the Izaya side novels. Which I highly doubt. Let’s hope that we eventually get some more and perhaps some closure.

Pick of the Week: Spriggan Into Action

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SEAN: It’s a super quiet week for stuff, and I’m not attracted to the debuts this week, so I’ll pick the 2nd volume of Modern Villainess: It’s Not Easy Building a Corporate Empire Before the Crash, whose first novel I enjoyed far more than I expected to.

KATE: I sincerely hope Spriggan is as deliriously silly as its Wikipedia entry, because it sounds like it’s totally up my alley.

MICHELLE: I’m not especially excited for the debuts either, but there’s a pair of second volumes I’ve been eagerly anticipating! Blue Lock is very good, but Lost Lad London is excellent, making that my official pick for this week.

ASH: I’ll be joining Kate this week in picking Spriggan. I do like seeing these older, previously unfinished-in-English manga series having their licenses rescued. (And it does seem like a series I might enjoy.)

ANNA: I’ll make Lovesick Ellie 5 my pick for the week, it is consistently hilarious.

Secrets of the Silent Witch, Vol. 1

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By Matsuri Isora and Nanna Fujimi. Released in Japan as “Silent Witch” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Alice Prowse.

A book can get away with a lot if it has a really strong main character. With that already in the bag, you can feel free to set a book at a university filled with arrogant nobles and petty bullying without worrying about the audience going “oh no, AGAIN?”. You can afford to make your love interest a sort of generic nice Prince dude who only gets vaguely interesting in the final page of the volume. You can even afford to make your book, a mystery, have an incredibly obvious villain, making the denouement a bit flat. You can do this because your main character is why everyone is going to be reading more of this. And Silent Witch (Yen On added the Secrets part, possibly to avoid a copyrighted title) is one of those series. Monica is terribly shy, terrible powerful, and most importantly terribly easy to love as a protagonist. We want to see her succeed, we want to see her very, very slowly get better at simple communication, and we want to see her kick eight kinds of ass.

Monica Everett is one of the Seven Sages, mages so powerful that they can take out a black dragon capable of destroying cities all by themselves. Unfortunately, she brings new meaning to the word “introverted”, so she normally holes up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with only her familiar Nero for company. Then one day another of the Sages arrives and blackmails… sorry, asks Monica to help him with a task. She’s to go to Serendia Academy to be a bodyguard/minder for Prince Felix, who is currently part of a faction war regarding who will inherit the throne. The idea of going back to school (she already went to magic academy) and having to deal with people every day fills Monica with horror. But it’s probably a good thing that she’s there, as the problems at school don’t just involve magic, they involve math. Which is Monica’s other specialty.

Monica is wonderful. Prince Felix compares her multiple times to a squirrel, and you can see why. She tends to be a wreck around people, and essentially is the Silent Witch because speaking incantations out loud would be too difficult for her. But put her in front of anything to do with math or magical circles and she flips on a dime, becoming laser focused and determined to the point where you could hit her in the face with a fan and she would barely react. (Admittedly, part of that is that she doesn’t want to deal with whoever would be hitting her in the face with a fan.) I also loved Isabella, part of Monica’s cover story, who gets to play the villainous ojou-sama who bullies Monica at school and is SO HYPED, having read a ton of villainess books to bone up on this. The rest of the cast are also fun, and I look forward to Monica slowly winning them over in future books.

I think everything in this series will depend on how long Monica can keep her true identity as the Silent Witch a secret. Because I think if that gets out, several big things will happen at once. But till then, I am delighted to watch this math squirrel run through the academy of arrogant noble jerks in search of cookies and places with no other people.

The Holy Grail of Eris, Vol. 2

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By Kujira Tokiwa and Yu-nagi. Released in Japan as “Eris no Seihai” by GA Novels. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Winifred Bird.

The most frustrating thing about this volume is pretty much the same issue I had with the first one: the author is not telling the story I want to read most. Don’t get me wrong, I’m greatly enjoying seeing Connie sort of fumble around and slowly work out what happened ten years ago and why there’s a big chance it’s going to happen again. But frankly, I want the teenage years of Abigail O’Brian. I want a pirate adventure story, I want to see how she ended up at the center of everything and also a madam, I want to see how she inspires absolutely everyone around her. But I suspect all I will get will be the crumbs of backstory I get here, because the author does not want to tell an adventure story, they want to write a mystery. And this volume gives us a lot of answers in the main mystery, though the resolution is still a long ways away. And depends, most likely, on Connie, not Abigail.

Connie is getting closer to the truth, and that’s making a lot of people angry. They try to kidnap and kill her best friend to get her to stop. They murder several witnesses who would have undone all their careful planning. And they have a pesky reporter girl who, sadly, is very much an antagonist in this series. Fortunately, Connie does have a few allies. She has Scarlett, of course, who can still occasionally possess Connie when it’s for the greater good, and whose complicated backstory we learn here. She also has Randolph, her love interest, though both of them being the sort of person that love just bounces off of means that the romance part of the book is more frustrating than anything else. That said, the real selling point is what we find out here: exactly why Scarlett was executed.

I will, of course, not reveal that here – I like spoilers but am trying to get better at not saying them. Nevertheless, it turns out to be a far larger plot than Connie, Randolph, or indeed the reader had planned. It can sometimes be a bit of a stretch to realize that everyone we meet seems to be connected to everyone either in the present, the past, or both, but that’s mystery novels for you. And we also get a few detours that are tense, mostly as while the author is unlikely to kill off Connie or Randolph, they’ve shown they’re perfectly happy to kill off other characters. There actually may be a bit TOO much going on here, as there’s also the subplot of a powerful hallucinogenic drug once again becoming available among the nobility. Everything points to somebody trying to undermine the country. And the biggest bombshell is what some people are prepared to do to save the country. But again… spoilers.

The series has 4+ volumes out in Japan, but I have a suspicion that this arc, at least, will end with the next book. I definitely look forward to seeing what happens – just because the mysteries are solved doesn’t mean the problems have gone away.

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, Vol. 2

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By Piero Karasu and Yuri Kisaragi. Released in Japan as “Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Haydn Trowell.

This is one of those books that starts slow but picks up speed as things go along. It’s essentially the second half of the first “arc” in this series, and we see Anisphia and Euphyllia dealing with the two remaining dangling plot threads: the man who kickstarted everything by publicly denouncing Euphie, and the young woman who was theoretically the cause of that. And any fan of villainess books will know that both of those plotlines are things that we’ve seen before. That said, this book does have an interesting twist that I don’t think we’ve really come across in regards to the “heroine” role. As for Anis’ brother, that’s a lot more serious plotline, and both he and Anis are forced to face up to the fact that the actions they take have far broader consequences than either of them would have liked. Although I think Algard already knew that, since… well, he has an agenda.

The book starts with Anis being forced to do a lot of things she doesn’t want to do. This includes having a conversation with her mother, who is determined enough to break past Anis’ eccentric behavior, as well as the Ministry of the Arcane, who know that Anis took down a dragon recently and want the dragon’s remains for their own use and not hers. In addition, Anis is trying to clear Euphie’s name, which means figuring out why otherwise sensible young nobles were so willing to go along with this public shaming, and what sort of hold Lainie, the former commoner who everyone has an opinion on, has over them. This will involve consulting one of Anis’ “bad friends”, Tilty, a noble who is essentially just as eccentric as Anis, if not worse.

The book’s first really good scene is at Tilty’s place, where we work out what’s up with Lainie and why she inspires the people around her to do emotionally unstable things when she’s around. It’s the sort of plot twist I’d have been incredibly impressed with if the color pages at the start of the book had not 100% spoiled it. Lainie herself is more sympathetic than I was expecting, especially once she comes to terms with the sort of person she is now. As for Anis and her brother, that’s the other really strong part of the book. Algard’s behavior is nightmarish, but it all stems from Anis’ hands-off, “I don’t want anything to do with royalty I just want to study magic” attitude, and even as she points out that he can’t act the way he is because he’s the prince, she understands that she essentially did the same thing. The question of succession is very much up in the air at the end of this book, and I hope it somehow gets resolved in a way that does not remove the yuri from this title, even if so far that’s pretty slight.

So yes, solid second volume, and it suggests that Anis is going to have to get more involved in the lives of those around her, even if it means less magical research. That said, I do hope we get a bit more “magic nerd” stuff between Anis and Euphie in the 3rd book.

The Bride of Demise, Vol. 1

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By Keishi Ayasato and murakaruki. Released in Japan as “Shūen no Hanayome” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jordan Taylor.

Sometimes an author, regardless of the material, simply reaches out, grabs you by the throat, and starts to throttle you with evocative prose. Keishi Ayasato is one of those authors. Torture Princess, their previous series, contains just about every type of thing that I normally avoid in fiction, and yet it’s one of my favorite LN series. Likewise, when I first saw the solicit for The Bride of Demise, my first thought was “ooooh, not my thing”. But then I saw the author and knew I would have to buy it. And I was right. As with Torture Princess, this series has a certain loving fascination with grand guignol horror in its writing, but this one is, and I can’t believe that I’m even typing this, a magical academy series. That almost cheapens it, and I would hate to see it compared with things like the various “Demon King Went to School and Was Super Badass” books. This is the story of a young man and his fated meeting with a living weapon.

Kou, an orphan whose parents were killed when he was young, is a Magical Research student at the academy. He and his fellow researchers learn about the Kihei, monstrous creatures who were essentially the reason this is a somewhat post-apocalyptic world. Then one day, while he ad his team are exploring a supposedly safe area to harvest kihei corpses for material, they’re attacked by some very strong kihei. Kou decides to sacrifice himself to save the others, and falls trough a glass ceiling into a garden… which is convenient, as this is very much like the dream that he keeps having during his waking hours. In that dream, he meets someone who promises she will be at his side for all eternity. Now it’s come true. She’s White Princess, she is his “bride”, and it feels like he’s known her for years.

This review will very much be talking about the first half of the novel, because the second half is a nest of spoilers that I do not want to be responsible for you learning. All the “holy shit!” moments are there, and they are fantastic. That said, the rest of the book is a lot of fun. Kou is now part of a special team of elite students, all with their own “bride”, and taught by a classic badass teacher with a dark side to him. Kou manages to befriend most of the group pretty quickly, partly because it turns out that he’s a lot better at combat against the kihei than anyone really expected. But really it’s Kou’s relationship with his bride that is the emotional core of this book. Their love for each other is very quick to develop and very strong, and also, again trying not to spoil, the cause of the entire second half of the book.

I rarely have to say “trust me” in my reviews, as everyone knows I spoil like a mad fiend. But trust me on this one. Unless you can’t abide blood and gore (you should steer clear in that case), The Bride of Demise is a fantastic debut. Indeed, my one complaint is that it feels finished in one volume. Where else does this series go? Vol. 2 is coming soon to tell us.