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Pick of the Week: Old Favorites and New Delights

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ASH: There are some great manga being released this week and, while I can’t bring myself to choose only one as my official pick, I did somehow manage to narrow it down to two. Debut-wise, I’m particularly curious about The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today, which looks like it should be delightful. But I also want to highlight the final volume of BL Metamorphosis, which has been a truly wonderful and special series.

SEAN: Those are both fantastic choices, and I’m also very interested in J-Novel Club’s new shoujo light novels. But I have to pick Yotsuba&! 15, because it’s been so long, and it’s so heartwarming.

MICHELLE: There is so much good stuff coming out this week! I am really looking forward to The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today, but since we can extoll the virtues of volume two in November, I’ll join Sean in choosing Yotsuba&! this week, since I might not get another chance until 2024.

KATE: I’m always down for a new installment of Yotsuba&!, but I won’t lie: I need a Masterful Cat in my life right now, since I’m just getting the hang of commuting and working with other people in person again.

ANNA: There are quite a few intriguing titles coming out this week, but the one that is going to rocket to the top of my to-read list is Witch Hat Atelier.

MJ: There’s a lot for me to choose from this week, for once! And I truly am torn, even though many of the series I’m most interested in are those I haven’t yet (but plan to!) begin. So I guess, like Michelle, I’ll take this opportunity to appreciate a long-awaited new volume of Yotsuba&!.

Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower, Vol. 3

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By Miri Mikawa and Kasumi Nagi. Released in Japan as “Ikka Kōkyū Ryōrichō” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by afm.

If there’s one thing that’s really going to separate Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower from Apothecary diaries it’s the romance. There *is* romance in Apothecary Diaries, but Maomao’s complete avoidance/disinterest helps to keep it about the 5th or 6th most important thing. That’s not the case here, as a good chunk of this book is taken up with both Rimi and Shusei being in love with each other, but knowing that they can’t actually do anything about it. This is not particularly helped by the fact that the Emperor is also deeply in love with her. Indeed, while I would not quite call Rimi a manic pixie dream girl, her presence and way of thinking seem to have gone a good ways towards making the Emperor mature, as for once we get a “I am going to force myself on you” shoujo romance trope where the guy takes the right message from it. This is one big ol’ love triangle, but one side of it can’t really happen. Or… can it?

Most of this volume is dedicated to trying to negotiate a trade agreement with Saisakoku, a nation further to the West known for its herbs and spices. Unfortunately, Saisakoku does not particularly seem all that interested in negotiating, and the envoy they send doesn’t really care if the emperor is annoyed at this. Fortunately, they also have Rimi, who is interesting enough to attract the attention of the Envoy, who apparently likes to gather strays to his side to serve him (which makes him very similar to many otome game villainesses). Rimi really wants to find out about the Saisakokuan style of cooking, particularly as she alone is now serving the Emperor’s meals – Shusei has been delegated to essentially calm the Emperor down while the delegation is here. Can Rimi do something to break the deadlock?

I’ve talked about the romance, which is important, but that doesn’t mean that this story has forgotten about its roots – or its title. Food is very much a major character, as we continue to see shusei find things that are very good for the Emperor but taste awful, and Rimi continues to try to find ways to make it palatable. The sheer joy she shows over learning new ways of cooking wins over not only the head chef at the palace, but also the Saisakokuan chef who is there to serve the delegate spicy food, as he finds Konkokuan cuisine boring. The solution to this issue turns out to also be the solution to the trade talks, though things are also helped by the Emperor really leveling up and learning when it’s OK to ask for help. I also enjoyed seeing the four consorts now getting along swimmingly, even if I sometimes have trouble telling them apart.

There’s a cliffhanger that promises that the political intrigue that’s also a part of the series is only going to get worse, and I suspect that Rimi and Shusei will have a long and hard road ahead – this is only Book 3 of 11. Still, if you like shoujo romance, food, or happy go lucky heroines, this remains an excellent choice.

The Apothecary Diaries, Vol. 3

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By Natsu Hyuuga and Touko Shino. Released in Japan as “Kusuriya no Hitorigoto” by Hero Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

One of the enjoyable things about the Apothecary Diaries is that, while it will always be about the relationship between Maomao and Jinshi to a degree, if you’re completely uninterested in that sort of thing there’s still a whole lot to get out of every volume. There are the mysteries, of course, as everyone and their brother wants Maomao to apply her cunning and figure out Who’s Killin’ Who. There is Maomao herself, who has an idea of what social niceties and graces are and has decided to tell them “no thank you”. And there’s an increasingly fun cast, including the amusingly carefree Xiaolan, who spends most of the novel learning to read – and unlike what most books of this sort would do, she proves to be pretty good at it once given proper education. And then there’s Shisui, who is my new Best Girl, and is basically to bugs what Maomao is to poisons. It’s tough to be so eccentric that Maomao is mistaken for you, but this girl can pull it off.

When Maomao is not busy snarking at Jinshi or “the quack doctor”, she is helping Jinshi to try to educate the people in the rear palace, discovers a cat that is quickly named after her (sort of), deals with a caravan that is selling all the ladies fragrant perfumes… some of which are potentially dangerous; trying to solve a recent disappearance that turns into a not-so-recent murder; figures out how a sheltered young woman snuck past her guards and got pregnant; discovers that the issues surrounding Consort Lihua, which is what started this series off, have not vanished; and ends up going on a hunting trip with a disguised Jinshi, which ends up turning far more dangerous than either of them had anticipated.

As I said last time, the series rewards close reading, and having prior volumes on hand. There are several pregnancies in this book, and several chapters dealing with people who are trying their hardest to make sure that those pregnancies are unsuccessful… or are they? It *could* just all be a coincidence. On the lighter side, for those who ARE reading the book for the relationship between Maomao and Jinshi, the last quarter of the book is pure gold. Something we had long suspected is finally straight up admitted, and you will never be able to see the words “decently sized amphibian” again without laughing. Maomao herself seems more determined than ever to avoid going anywhere near this – she’s very aware of how Jinshi feels, what it would mean for her future, and how she really does NOT want to deal with it. Even if she does go gaga when he gives her the right present.

So yes, this remains essential reading provided you don’t mind that it’s got the Emperor and his many consorts, or that the heroine (not one of the consorts) can kill a man with her sharp tongue at 500 yards.)

Magistellus Bad Trip, Vol. 1

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By Kazuma Kamachi and Mahaya. Released in Japan by DENGEKI no Shin Bungei. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jake Humphrey.

This is another one of those books that starts off slow and kind of boring and only really pays off in the back half. Honestly, when I started it I kind of felt like Kamachi had gotten bored with writing A Certain Magical Index’s 245th volume and decided to transcribe his Let’s Play video and send it to Dengeki. (Honestly, given how “well” the Index books did here, it’s surprising we got this at all, though it helps that it’s finished at three volumes rather than running to an infinite number.) Taking place in a game world where anything goes as long as you make money, and starring a cool guy and his badass succubus familiar, the book oozes testosterone from every pore, and I was almost ready to give up till the interesting stuff kicked in. Fortunately, the interesting stuff IS interesting, and helps explain a lot of the plot holes that the attentive reader might have raised an eyebrow at. It makes me want to read more of the book, especially given it’s a finished series in Japan.

Kaname Suou is a player in a game called Money (Game) Master, a game with no rules or restrictions except “make money”. He is assisted by Tselika, an NPC assistant character who takes the form of a buxom succubus. When we meet then they’re pulling off a big caper that will get them a huge amount of ‘snow’, this game’s currency, which allows them access to an exclusive group trying to get a hold of a forbidden Legacy weapon, left behind by a former player who was able to make ludicrously powerful weapons. If you’re looking at this description and thinking “there’s going to be double-crossing”, you’re right, but that’s not exactly a spoiler. That said, things get more interesting when we meet Midori, the younger sister of the weapon builder, who is trying to destroy the Legacies. Oh, yes, and it turns out that this game has HUGE consequences for the real world as well – in fact, in most ways that count this game is now the economy of the real world.

So, not wanting to reveal the interesting twists too much, I will merely note that I did find them interesting, even if a few of them were a bit unsurprising. It’s not too hard to guess the identity of certain people if you know how to think like an author. Still, overall it’s a book filled with a great deal of action, which Kamachi is good at, a few stabs at humor, which he’s far less good at but at least they’re better than his attempts in Index, and a lot of thrilling intrigue, as the last part of the book involves a race against time, a big chase, and literally everyone in the world turning against our hero. Kaname is a bit generic, possibly to avoid too many people comparing him to Touma, but also because he’s playing a game character, he isn’t trapped in a game as his real self or anything. Everyone is deliberately making themselves cool and attractive in this.

So yeah, this is not New Testament, but it’s a good action thriller, and it should please fans who don’t mind a lot of cars, guns, things exploding, and questions about the nature of reality.

Prince Freya Vol. 1

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Like a well-listened to lullaby, I find myself in front of the keyboard with a manga volume beside me. And so, the song starts again. Fitting that I chose a story set in a fairy-tale world to return with.

Prince Freya is neither a Western style fable nor a Japanese high-fantasy adventure. Rather, it has elements of traditional fairy-tale stories in the Germanic-Franco style. I bet you didn’t know that in the original version, Cinderella’s sisters were beautiful but wretched and doves sent by Cinderella’s dead mother pecked their eyes out? Yeah, brutal. Well, the same kind of logic applies in Prince Freya. Freya, a young girl living with her ailing mother in a village in the Kingdom of Tyr. Nearby Sigurd is threatening to gobble up Tyr. So, secretly, her childhood adoptive brothers come back to the village to make sure a plan in Tyr’s capital doesn’t come to fruition. See, Tyr’s plan is to use Freya to sub in for Prince Edward, the ruler of Tyr. Edward is dying from poison and needs someone to pretend to be him to save the kingdom. So we’ve got elements of Prince and the Pauper, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and a few that I’ve forgotten the name of.

Freya herself is a big crybaby, borne from her constant, unstated, fear that the people she loves will be taken from her. So when Aaron and Alek, her brothers, have to go back to the castle empty handed, she overhears a plot by Sigurd’s officers to kill Aaron as payment for Tyr’s resistance. She volunteers to Edward to take his place, in one hell of a Faustian pact: she becomes the prince, even with her crippling emotional state, but even in saving those she cares for, some of her happiness is destroyed. I found the bulk of the first volume to deal with the unseen threats that she did not foresee: palace intrigue, people who follow the prince’s every orders being thrown off by “his” abrupt change of behaviour, and being a person she could never be in her old life. But underneath, she remains the person back in her home village. When she (literally) leaps into the role of the prince in front of the castle, her sense of justice is now augmented by her new-found power as the regent. So the same girl who reached out for hurt people as a child now wields incredible public power. Some people who distrust her now can be smoothed over, others must be left for another day. Give and take, political pragmatism, and discretion being the better part of valour. All these things she has to learn in hours. All the while, Ishihara keeps the darker side of the fairy tale in play because at every turn, inside and outside the castle, death lies in wait.

The two major male leads in the first volume, Alek and Aaron, are where the volume’s emotional gravity comes from. Aaron’s the older one, the one who had the Prince’s Black Knight bodyguard role, and he comes from the perspective of the practical soldier: yes, childhood was an adventure but there are evils out there, waiting to devour the unwary. He carries himself with the weight of a young man who knows the cost of friendship, family, and love. He’s prepared to pay it but can’t save those around him from heartache. Alek, on the other hand, is the prototypical foot soldier; hard-working but not made in the eyes of the court. Alek could die tomorrow and nobody in the castle will grieve. His cross to bear is that he has to rise to the challenges within and without or everyone he loves will be stolen from him. In many ways, he is his older brother but not a complete clone. Aaron seems to be certain that Freya needs to find her own way, however heart-breaking it is, whereas Alek thinks the same but yet as he sees it, who will protect Freya if they throw their lives away at the first sign of danger? Freya is not so much torn between them as she is trying to make sure they both get different levels of support from her while she battles her fear and terror at her role in this dangerous political play. Her upset is from them risking all for save her when she feels that she should do all she can to balance the scales.

The manga plays with all this and keeps the background machinations going as elements within the castle shift their weight as some know that Freya isn’t Edward and others don’t. These elements will end up colliding with Freya and the boys while she wrestles with her choices and decisions. The story hits hard in several scenes and reminded me that not all fairy tales end with the heroes making it out of every book. I liked how Freya loses more and more of who she and the boys were back in the village as they take on each terrifying moment. Ishihara has made a typical fantasy setting and made it more on what happens to Freya’s state of mind than what the world around her does. As the older stories tell us, there are worst things than death in a high fantasy.

Now, I put down this volume and reach for another. The lullaby goes on, the setting changes. See you next time, readers!

Manga the Week of 9/29/21

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SEAN: The end of September brings some nice books, but also a long-awaited new volume of a beloved series, so let’s start with that.

Yen Press has Yotsuba&! 15! Do you know when the last Yotsuba&! came out? 2018, that’s when. Rejoice!

ASH: Ah! A great series to start us off with!

ANNA: Wow!

MICHELLE: When last we left off, Yotsuba and her dad were acquiring a car, so I look forward to some fresh new adventures.

MJ: Oh!!

SEAN: Yen Press also has A Certain Magical Index 24, Combatants Will Be Dispatched! 5, In Another World with My Smartphone 3, Love and Heart 3, Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story 3, and Star Wars: Rebels 2.

Apologies to Udon, who I forgot about last week. They have already out Steins;Gate 0 Volume 1, an alternate universe manga set after a Bad End from the original game. This is an omnibus of the first two volumes.

Square Enix has By the Grace of the Gods 3.

Seven Seas has been awfully quiet all month… TILL NOW. Get ready to be buried.

ASH: I am prepared.

SEAN: We start with the Bloom Into You Anthology, a collection of manga by various artists revolving around the cast of this yuri manga.

ASH: I like seeing these anthology volumes released. Once upon a time, seeing them licensed was somewhat rare.

SEAN: Hello World, the manga, is a complete in one omnibus retelling of the light novel. It ran in Ultra Jump.

Karate Survivor in Another World (Yajin Tensei) is a Dengeki Daioh title for those who wish that more isekai titles were like old-school Shonen Champion “teens fight” manga.

ASH: I am interested in portrayals of karate in manga, but am significantly less interested in isekai these days.

SEAN: The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today (Dekiru Neko wa Kyou mo Yuuutsu) is from Kodansha’s Suiyoubi no Sirius, and is about a young woman who takes in a giant cat… who’s really good at nearly everything. Better than her, at any rate. Cats and comedy, love it.

ASH: Indeed! Love a good cat manga.

ANNA: Sounds promising.

MICHELLE: Ooh.

MJ: This sounds fantastic!

SEAN: The NPCs in this Village Sim Game Must Be Real! (Murazukuri Game no NPC ga Namami no Ningen to Shika Omoenai) runs in Young Ace Up, and is based on the novel. I enjoyed the novel much more than expected, so the manga should also be fun.

Reincarnated as a Dragon Hatchling (Tensei Shitara Dragon no Tamago Datta – Saikyou Igai Mezasa Nee) runs in Comic Earth Star, and is ALSO based on the novel. I didn’t read that one, but I assume it is cute and has dragons.

That is SIX debuts. Wow. We also get BL Metamorphosis 5 (the final volume), How to Build a Dungeon: Book of the Demon King 7, Mushoku Tensei: Roxy Gets Serious 6, Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn 14, She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man 2, and We Swore to Meet in the Next Life and That’s When Things Got Weird! 3 (the final volume).

ASH: BL Metamorphosis is wonderful; I’m so glad that it was translated.

MJ: I never managed to start it, but now is the time!

SEAN: One Peace has the 16th manga volume for The Rising of the Shield Hero.

Kodansha gives us the first volume of the updated Eternal Edition re-release of Codename: Sailor V.

Also in print: Eden’s Zero 12, Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest 8, Fire Force 24, Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie 6, To Your Eternity 15, UQ Holder 23, and Witch Hat Atelier 8, the most important of those titles. (Please buy Witch Hat Atelier.)

ASH: Yes, please do! I’m a little behind in my reading, but To Your Eternity is a favorite of mine, too.

ANNA: Witch Hat Atelier is one of the few series I’m not behind on!

MICHELLE: I totally am!

MJ: I’m… I can’t even bear to speak of it.

SEAN: Digitally, our debut is The Girl, the Shovel, and the Evil Eye (Youjo to Scoop to Magan Ou), a Shonen Sirius title whose content is not as cute as it sounds. A man dies and is reincarnated as a worker in a mining camp, without any powers, even! But when he tries to help a bullied girl, will he have powers after all?

Also out digitally: Am I Actually the Strongest? 5, Back When You Called Us Devils 5, Chihiro-kun Only Has Eyes for Me 2, Fate/Grand Order -Epic of Remnant- Pseudo-Singularity III: The Stage of Carnage, Shimousa – Seven Duels of Swordmasters 3, The Great Cleric 7, Harem Marriage 9, Mr. Bride 2, Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence 4, That’s My Atypical Girl 2, and What I Love About You 7. Half that list is just the title of the Fate book.

J-Novel Club has 4 debuts, three light novels and one manga. Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools (Madougushi Dahliya wa Utsumukanai) is a J-Novel Heart series about a woman who was isekai’d after overworking herself to death. She’s not a villainess… but she’s still dumped by her fiancee. She’s been trying to be quiet and get on with life… well, screw that. Now she resolves to make a career for herself.

Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World (TRPG Player ga Isekai de Saikyou Build wo Mezasu) is a series that features, well, an isekai’d guy using game mechanics in another world, but apparently the audience for this is more 45-year-old D&D players than teen MMO gamers.

The Reincarnated Princess Spends Another Day Skipping Story Routes (Tensei Oujo wa Kyou mo Hata o Tatakioru) is a villainess otome game series from J-Novel Heart. In this game, most fans agreed that the support guys were better than the love interest. Our villainess is going after one… but the heroine is determined to stop her. We shall see.

Also out as a light novel: Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill 10.

On the manga front, we get the debut of My Instant Death Ability Is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me! —AΩ—. Based on the light novel, it runs in Comic Earth Star.

We also get the 4th Record of Wortenia War.

Ghost Ship debuts Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star (AV Dan’yuu Hajimemashita), a Shinchosha title from Kurage Bunch about a young man who moves to Tokyo to enter the world of Adult Videos. It’s… harder than it looks. No pun intended.

ASH: I’ll admit to being curious.

MJ: Same.

SEAN: Cross Infinite World gives us Return from Death: I Kicked the Bucket and Now I’m Back at Square One With a Boyfriend Who Doesn’t Remember Me. As you might guess, it’s a Peggy-Sue story a la Tearmoon Empire, and the title is also the plot.

Lastly, we have Airship. In print, they debut She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man, and we also get Classroom of the Elite 9 and The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter 5.

And we get an early digital release of Berserk of Gluttony 4.

Ooof. The Suez is unstuck, folks, and the September of Quiet is over. What are you getting?

Bond and Book: The Devotion of “The Surgery Room”

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By Mizuki Nomura and Miho Takeoka. Released in Japan as “Musubu to Hon: “Gekashitsu” no Ichizu” by Famitsu Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nicole Wilder.

It’s good to be reading Mizuki Nomura again. Book Girl came out before the light novel boom, and as such I don’t think it ever got the attention that it deserved. This new series is not quite a sequel, and does not require having read Book Girl to enjoy it, but fans of that series will figure out fairly quickly that it’s set at the same school a generation later, and that some of the main characters are related to some of the people from Book Girl. This should not particularly be a surprise given that the premise is that a teenage boy names Musubu can “hear” the voices of books, which is not very far away from eating books. That said, while this does have serious moments, Bond and Book is a lighter series, an anthology-style tale where we see Musubu interact with someone and learn about their relationship with a book. Because trust me, books are the lovers here.

As we go through Musubu’s everyday school live, he a) tries to unite a battered copy of Pippi Longstocking with its former owner; b) helps a light novel author whose books are, um, not very good find a wider audience; c) tries to figure out which book has possessed an orchestra club member and caused him to lash out at others; d) goes with his friends to a deserted island to mimic the story of Fifteen Boys by Jules Verne (known everywhere outside Japan as Two Years’ Vacation); and e) try to help a college boy confess his love to the older librarian he adores… before she gets married and he regrets it forever. As he does this, we also hear from the books in question, who are very much characters of their own, particularly Musubu’s girlfriend, the petulant, prickly, and jealous Princess Yonoga.

This was a fun read, though I will admit that I liked some stories better than others. The light novel chapter, while an amusing look at the cliches that come from the genre these days, was not all that great; and the twist of the Fifteen Boys chapter also left a bad taste in my mouth, as it revolved around idols being despised and hated whenever they’re no longer ‘pure’. The fact that these are the two funny stories did not escape my notice – I think that Nomura is simply better at writing drama. The Pippi Longstocking chapter was an excellent look at what happens to books when you grow up or your world changes so much you can’t read what you love anymore. The story with “The Surgery Room” short story (by Kyōka Izumi, from 1895) revolves around a relationship that I suspect is not going to work out, but the whole point of the story is about passion winning out over sense, so hey.

So overall I am pretty pleased, and I would definitely recommend this to Book Girl lovers and book lovers.

If the RPG World Had Social Media…

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By Yusuke Nitta. LOL, and Yukinatsu Amekaze. Released in Japan as “Moshi Role Playing Game no Sekai ni SNS ga Attara” by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Daniel Luke Hutton.

I imagine many of you had the same reaction I did when Yen Press first announced this license. “Oh Jesus Christ, really?!?!” And yeah, I have to admit, this title had a lot of things stacked against it from the start. Aside from the premise, the format itself demands the “text bubble” style social media commenting throughout, with little icons to show who’s speaking, meaning that this light novel reads as a particularly wordy manga much of the time. The author is also not afraid to use every cliche at their disposal in the course of telling this story, mining standard RPG plots as well as anime and manga tropes galore. But somehow, along the way, this actually became quite a fun story, helped along by a hero and demon lord who are both very similar to each other: they have trouble communicating in anything but texts. A bad story would mock this mercilessly, but this one accepts it as a simple communication disorder.

Our “hero” has a few issues. He’s a shut-in, and as I noted above, can’t really communicate except via texting. Even to his mom. He’s also super, super weak, and can’t seem to get any stronger even when he does put in effort. Possibly because he lives in Beginnerland, where the king’s castle is called LMOA Castle. Unfortunately, the Demon Lord has kidnapped the princess! He has to rescue her!… if he could leave the castle without immediately getting killed. And if the princess weren’t far more interested in seducing the demon lord than being rescued. Fortunately, the Demon Lord is an understanding sort, and sends her minions to help him slowly (very slowly) make his way to her land to save the princess. This is all made much easier because everyone can text each other… including the Hero and the Demon Lord, who are rapidly falling in love.

As I said, there’s a lot of silly cliches here. The four Demon Generals are a catgirl, Darkness from KonoSuba (OK, a vampire masochist, but come on, it’s Darkness with the serial number removed), a tsundere fallen angel, and a strong and straightforward oni. Towards the end of the book, we also revive the Six Great Sages, who are famous in legend for fighting the demons but actually all turns out to be terrible, terrible people. The book knows its RPGs. That said, it treats everyone with respect. The Demon Lord is a shy but incredibly sweet young girl, who even trained for 8 years to lower her power level to the point where she did not kill everyone by just walking near them. Her Demon Lord Generals are all firmly in her corner. As for the hero, underneath that ‘wuss’ starter background is a young man who is willing to work hard if he has a clear goal in mind, and who can also see the goodness in the Demon Lord.

Some listings say this is a Volume 1, but I’m pretty sure the novel series ends here, even if it leaves most of its “plot” in the air. The Hero and Demon Lord don’t even meet in person. The Hero is still cursed, etc. That said, the actual plot of the book is “found families are awesome” and “texting is a valid way of communication, don’t make fun of it”, so we don’t really need to see everything after this play out. This isn’t a must-read, but it is a book that makes the best use of its gimmick premise and treats everyone with care. I enjoyed it.

Pick of the Week: A Wide Variety

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SEAN: This week I am torn between debuts and final volumes. I really should be picking When Will Ayumu Make His Move?, as I love the author’s other stuff, and it looks cute and fun. But I’m sorry, it’s the final volume of Ran the Peerless Beauty, Kodansha’s answer to Kimi ni Todoke, and that has to be my pick, because it’s been regularly terrific.

KATE: I’m on Team VIZ; anytime there are new volumes of Maison Ikkoku and The Way of the Househusband is a good week in my book.

MICHELLE: I am sincerely looking forward to the finale of Ran the Peerless Beauty, but I just can’t pass up the chance to pick something that looks as sweet as Would You Like to be a Family?. I’m still wary of TOKYOPOP, but I must admit they’ve really been putting out some great BL oneshots lately!

ANNA: I could really use a comedic pick-me-up, and The Way of the Househusband always delivers.

ASH: I feel like I’m behind the times because, well, I am, but the release that I’m most interested in checking out this week is Tearmoon Empire. I’ve heard really good things about this series; now that it’ll be available in print, I’ll be able to see for myself!

MJ: Okay, nothing is strongly calling out to me this week, though I am always ready to cheer on Maison Ikkoku. But perhaps I’ll through a hesitant vote towards When Will Ayumu Make His Move? which sounds fun and revolves around a strategy game, so worst case scenario, I can pretend I’m reading Hikaru no Go.

The Sidekick Never Gets the Girl, Let Alone the Protag’s Sister!, Vol. 2

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By Toshizo and U35. Released in Japan as “Shinyuu Mob no Ore ni Shujinkou no Imouto ga Horeru Wake ga Nai” by PASH! Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Tristan K. Hill.

This book continues to be very good at not really doing what I would like it to do. I had expected, after the climax of the first book, that we’d be seeing a lot of fallout, or at least evidence that memory-erasing magic does not really work all that well in modern-day Japan. But no, we don’t even SEE the little sister again till the second half of the book, and while her fate is a big part of the plot, it’s somewhat secondary to the romcom antics. This is especially annoying as we get an excellent start to the book where we see, in the fantasy world Kou was sent to, exactly how he managed to get traumatized and have complete disaster befall him. It’s a bit rushed, but heartbreaking. Unfortunately, the author likes using it as flavor text for their real ambition: a standard high school harem comedy. And I have bad news for them, other authors are better at that.

After using magic that really should not be used in this world to wipe Hikari’s memories of him, Kou ends up sick as a dog, and also flashing back to the girl he fell in love with in the fantasy world, Rei… as well as her brutal murder, complete with dying in his arms. That said, he really can’t reflect too hard on that when both Kiryu AND Renge show up to care for him. This is especially bad in Renge’s case, as she’s a terrible cook! Oh no! This amazingly cliched scene is broken up by, of all things, the naked sexual assault guy from the start of Book 1, who shows up (clothed) and smashes a durian all over Kou and Kou’s room, I know, stay with me. After a chase, which ends up roping in Kazuki, his athletic kohai, he finds that this world and the fantasy world are more connected than he thought. But there’s no time to dwell on THAT – finals are coming up! Study group!

As you can see, the book is trying to hit every single groan-worthy high school romantic comedy cliche there is. They don’t do a bad job of having the characters go through the motions, but they don’t add anything interesting to the genre either. Kazuki has a mom. She’s hot, and teasing. Kou is bad at studying and on the verge of failure. Et cetera. I wouldn’t be complaining nearly as much if it weren’t taking away from the actual interesting parts of the book. Kou’s avoidance tactics and trauma are fascinating! The way that the weird pervert from the start of Book 1 ties into the fantasy world is something I really want to hear about… till it is thrown away because they can’t discuss it in front of “civilians”. It *is* made clear that Hikari is (no big spoiler here, it’s obvious) the reincarnation of his fantasy love… but then the book ends. Sigh.

I’m sure you’re reading this and wondering why I’m so annoyed, rather than just mildly disappointed. m Well, it’s mostly because the novel series ends here. The webnovel apparently went to a decent conclusion, but PASH! Books has shown no signs of publishing any more in print form, which probably means Japanese readers were as frustrated as I was. There’s an interesting story here that’s struggling to get past the author shoehorning in their favorite scenes from 2006 comedy anime. But… grr.