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Pick of the Week: Catching Up

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MICHELLE: There aren’t any debuts that wildly excite me this week, so instead I’ll pick a series that I have fallen behind on but still read a great deal of, which is Natsume’s Book of Friends. Its release schedule is pretty slow, but now I’ve amassed enough unread volumes to have a proper marathon, which is appealing!

SEAN: Same here, so I’ll pick Colette Decides to Die again, because it’s one of my favorite recent shoujo licenses.

ASH: Similarly, none of this week’s debuts are a priority for me, but I must say that Don’t Hold Back, Lord Hades has one of the prettiest Hades I’ve seen in a very long time.

MJ: Can I admit to being hopelessly in love with The Apothecary Diaries? I’ve been following the anime and the manga adaptation more closely than the light novels, which I know is backwards in terms of source material, but we’ve been picking up the light novel volumes over here anyway. So that’s probably my pick!

The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects: The Blue-Horned Maiden

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By Fuurou and Kinta. Released in Japan as “Ryoumin 0-nin Start no Henkyou Ryoushu-sama” by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hengtee Lim.

I had reached a brief period in my giant pile of reviews where I had a gap in my schedule, so asked folks what books they might want me to try that I had skipped before. This one came up first, so I gave it a try. It’s not bad. I have a few issues with one or two of the subplots (see below), but overall this fits in nicely in the “I arrive in a new place and slowly accumulate people who adore me” slow life genre. If there’s one big objection that I have to the books, it’s that the chapter titles are all locations. The Next Day, By the River. A Week Later, At the Yurt. If you’re that desperate, there’s always the option of just leaving it at numbers, you know? That said, the chapter titles don’t give much away as a result. Except that there’s a yurt. Which makes sense, given that this setting feels very much like fantasy Mongolia.

Dias, an orphan who strives to live up to his parents’ last words to him, is the hero of the most recent war, and is very much in need of a reward. The nobility decide to grant him a domain. They take him out to the middle of nothing but grassy plains, leave him with no food or water, and say “everything you can see is yours”. Then they leave. You can tell they are SWELL GUYS. He finds water, then decides to just sleep where he is. He then wakes up to find a teenage girl with a blue horn on her head (hence the subtitle) angrily asking him who he is. It turns out this land is actually part of her oni clan’s, and they’ve been at war with the city he came from for some time. That said, her horn is also a lie detector of a sort, and she can see he has nothing but good intentions. Which confuses her. See, Dias wants to be a good frontier lord. Even if he’s not sure how to do this.

Dias is one of those big dumb guys who’s good at fighting provided he doesn’t have to think (he uses a giant axe), but as it turns out he’s not all that dumb, he just tends to take time to think things through. I was fairly sure that Alna would be the tsundere sort who would slowly warm up to him over the course of the series, but I could not have been more wrong. Their tribe prizes strength over everything, and when this guy not only takes out a huge number of fantasy bison but also a dragon (or, as he insists, a giant turtle), she falls in love almost immediately, and they’re engaged (he refuses to let them be married till she’s of age) by the middle of the book. My one grump is that not once, but twice, we get situations where we think there will be slaves sold, only to be told “no, there is a lot of slavery, but these people are not slaves because _____”. As a result, Dias ends up adopting twin daughters, and a nearby sympathetic lord has a harem of adoring women. Both subplots could honestly have happened without slavery. You can just… not write the background slavery.

So overall, this was pretty good. I’m not sure I have a huge desire to read more, but if you like the genre it’s definitely worth a shot.

Taking My Reincarnation One Step at a Time: No One Told Me There Would Be Monsters!, Vol. 8

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By KAYA and Naru. Released in Japan as “Tensei Shōjo wa Mazu Ippo kara Hajimetai: Mamono ga Iru toka Kiitenai!” by MF Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Amy Osteraas.

Of all the series I was expecting to parallel the main plot in this one, Though I Am an Inept Villainess is perhaps not the most obvious choice. But it does make sense. Sara has had a life in Japan where she spent most of it ill and not being a real kid, and then she ended up in this world and spent almost all of it also not being a normal kid. Even when she met up with Allen, who is himself nothing like real children in this world, they both act relatively mature, and they’re both surrounded by adults most of the time. And now they’re 17, which is to say they’re adults in this world, but have not quite mastered the emotional heft needed to survive as an adult. As a result, when a traumatic event happens to both of them, they have their first big fight. And everyone around them suffers. Because these are GOOD KIDS.

Now that Nelly and Chris are married, they have the perfect choice for a honeymoon: go explore a dungeon, of course. And they take Allen and Sara along with them. Unfortunately, the deep floor of the dungeon turns out to be filled with gargoyles, which badly injure Chris and Nelly and give Allen near fatal injuries, which Sara has to treat by giving him a potion that either works pretty well or hastens death. Allen survives, but as it turns out he has to “take it easy” for a month or else he’ll never get back his old strength. Unfortunately, medical research is still mostly in its infancy in this world, so no one knows what “take it easy” really entails. Meanwhile, Sara, who has her barriers, was perfectly safe throughout this. Allen is realizing that “strong enough to protect her” is going to need a big re-definition.

I do appreciate that the book does not make this ENTIRELY Allen’s fault. Just mostly his fault. It’s about an 80-20 split. The main issue is that the only ones who still see Allen and Sara as kids are Allen and Sara themselves. Everyone around them assumes they’re going to be married in a few months, but the two of them still can’t quite make that jump, and when Sara goes to the capital alone, without Allen, it’s a game changer for her, and everyone comments on it and realizes exactly what’s happened. It must be depressing when everyone around you knows you better than you know yourself. In any case, Sara is a full-fledged apothecary with little more to be taught, Allen is learning how to fight properly as opposed to the hand-wavey bullshit way Nelly fights, and they are developing careers. Settling down will soon need to be a thing.

Unfortunately, the next book seems to start a new, non-romantic arc. Well, I suppose that’s fine. This is a great series. And it had a good amount of wolves this time, too!

The Hired Heroine Wants the Villainess to Gloat

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By Hanami Nishine and . Released in Japan as “Yatoware Heroine wa Akuyaku Reijou ni Zamaa Saretai” on the Shousetsuka ni Narou website. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Jordan Taylor.

I was somewhat baffled at this single-volume series after reading it. On researching the title further, I am slightly less baffled. It came out in 2019, which is not in the first wave of Villainess titles, but right after, which is why it tries to play with the form a little. It’s also one of the CIW titles that they licensed directly from the author, and only seems to have appeared on the Narou website. A lot of webnovels are written on the fly. They’re week to week. They’re messy. And when they get picked up by a publisher, they tend to get heavily rewritten. This is still in the “messy” stage. It starts off almost as a broad comedy, and gradually starts to get a bit tragic as we begin to understand our hired heroine, who just wants to live happily with her mom but sometimes life doesn’t let you get what you want. Her messiness makes this interesting.

Nina Scaglione has been reincarnated in this world form Japan, but her memories are vague (she *thinks* she may have lived in the country as the daughter of a rice farmer) and she’s not remotely noble. She lives as a commoner with her mother, who is dying and in pain. Her father is also dead. Then suddenly a talking cat shows up, and tries to make a deal with her. She can’t cure her mom, but she can get medicine that will ease her mom’s pain for as long as she has. In return, she has to play out this other girl’s “otome game villainess” fantasies and be the “heroine”, who is there to be a commoner, seduce the prince, and then get publicly shunned at graduation like all the best villainess books. There are a few problems here. The first is that the prince is uninterested in her, and she in him. The second is that this villainess is really, really dim.

At first I was certain this book was a comedy. This villainess, Clarissa, is a master class at “did not think this through”, and can’t even pour a bucket of water over the heroine without screwing it up. Nina’s attempts at being the heroine are helped along by this world’s “heroine powers”, which means everyone who has not co-signed a contract with God thinks that everything she does is wonderful and perfect, and this can also get very amusing. That said, as the book goes on, Nina’s life starts to get worse and worse. Things are not helped by Nina herself, who is very much in the “I am so plain and no one would be attracted to me” school of light novel protagonists. There are some real tear-jerking scenes later on, even as the book gradually manages to barrel along its narrative. That said, the book does end happily ever after, kinda sorta if everyone works art it. Even for the villainess, who is rather flummoxed by all this.

So yes, I don’t regret reading this, and enjoyed Nina’s struggles. But it’s a mess.

Long Story Short, I’m Living in the Mountains, Vol. 2

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By Asagi and Shino. Released in Japan as “Zenryaku, Yama Kurashi wo Hajimemashita” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by N. Marquetti.

So I am here to tell you that the “slow life” part of this series is back in this volume and bigger than ever. You will see lots and lots of food preparation. You will see shopping. You will see vaccinating your animals and the importance thereof. The big dramatic plot point in the middle of the book is a village-wide effort to pick up the litter on the mountain. It’s Slow Life with a capital Slow. The good news is that the other half of the series is also present and correct, and it’s also bigger than ever. Fortunately, Katsuragi’s past catching up with her seems to be dealt with by the end of this book, though it may not stop all her problems. But Aikawa’s fear of women remains, even if he tries to push past it when it’s an emergency. As for Sano… honestly, he is still dealing with not only depression but some serious anger issues. Fortunately, he has his emotional support chickens.

Sano continues to live on his mountains with his beloved chickens, who honestly seem to be monitoring him as much as he is raising them. They’re also getting bigger. Sometimes he goes to visit the villagers he’s gotten to know. He also goes to visit his platonic friend Aikawa, who have a very strong bromance. But he’s not gay. So he says. He gets the village to organize a litter-picking-up event over the course of three non-consecutive days, because these mountains are a tourist trap in the worst sense. And he attends a festival, which everyone tries to get him to attend with Katsuragi, even though he has no interest in her. Speaking of Katsuragi, there’s a mystery man who’s driving around the area looking for her, and he may be related to her abusive ex.

The best part of this book remains the interpersonal drama, which manages to interest me enough that I can put up with the slow life, which is frankly boring. The anti-romance between Sano and Katsuragi is possibly the funniest part of the series. Everyone is trying to ship them, she seems up for it, even as she’s clearly not emotionally ready. But he’s DEFINITELY not emotionally ready, as it’s been six months and even thinking of his ex-fiancee sends him into such a rage he loses track of time. Frankly, he’s more romantically involved with one of the chickens. (I’m kidding, this is not that kind of book.) I also really liked the end of the book. Katsuragi has been tormented not only by her ex, but by her ex’s friend, who it turns out is also in love with her. In the middle of the book she’s basically hiding in her house. Which the village and Sano are definitely justified in getting rid of this loser, she musters her courage, goes out, and confronts him (it helps to have a massive lizard at her side). Hopefully she can be the first of these mountain owners to heal. (But don’t hook up with Sano.)

So yeah, good trauma recovery series, less good “let’s watch everyone make egg dishes” series. But it’s both of those at once.

Manga the Week of 8/6/25

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SEAN: Still hot. Still humid. Apologies to readers in Nunavut, who must feel left out. But what about manga?

MICHELLE: Florida is a literal and figurative hellscape at present.

ASH: It’s been pretty bad where I am, too.

SEAN: Yen Press have one debut, Guillotine Bride: I’m Just a Dragon Girl Who’ll Destroy the World (Dantoudai no Hanayome – Sekai wo Horobosu Futsutsuka na Tatsuki desu ga) is a manga based on the light novel that Yen put out last year. It’s a harem action series, and the LN was bad. This runs in Dra-Dra-Flat b.

Yen also has April Showers Bring May Flowers 3.

Viz Media debut Astro Royale, a series from the creator of Tokyo Revengers. As a gang battles to decide who their new leader is, a meteor hits, and suddenly everyone has superpowers! I think this was announced for print by Viz right before Weekly Shonen Jump cancelled it.

ASH: Ope!

SEAN: We also get The Bugle Call: Song of War 2, Colette Decides to Die 4, Dandadan 14, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu Academy 6 (the final volume), The Elusive Samurai 16, In the Name of the Mermaid Princess 7 (the final volume), Kagurabachi 4, Kill Blue 2, Marriage Toxin 8, Natsume’s Book of Friends 31, Queen’s Quality 23, RuriDragon 2, Sakamoto Days 18, Spy x Family 14, and You and I Are Polar Opposites 6.

MICHELLE: I really need to check out Colette Decides to Die and catch up on Natsume!

ANNA: Me too!!!!

ASH: Yup.

SEAN: Tokyopop has The Margrave’s Daughter & the Enemy Prince 4 and The Person I Loved Asked Me to Die in My Sister’s Stead 4.

Titan Manga has a 10th volume of Kamen Rider Kuuga.

Steamship debuts Don’t Hold Back, Lord Hades (Gaman shinaide, Hades-sama. ~Reikoku na Meiou no Jun’ai wa Michishirenai hodo Fukakude, Omoi~), a josei title from Otomitsu Mangosteen that asks “what if the tale of Hades and Persephone had more sex?”.

ANNA: There are a lot of romance novels that investigate this line of inquiry.

ASH: I’ve read a comic or two, as well. I might have to read this one, too.

SEAN: And they also have Outbride: Beauty and the Beasts 8.

Square Enix Books has the 6th volume of The Apothecary Diaries light novel in print.

ASH: Which reminds me that I need to start reading the prose version.

SEAN: Square Enix Manga has YoRHa: Pearl Harbor Descent Record – A NieR:Automata Story 4 (the final volume).

Seven Seas has a new danmei title, Joyful Reunion. An abused, neglected child one day has a man show up and say he’s the boy’s father. Now the boy is taken away to a web of political intrigue.

MICHELLE: Hm. I do like political intrigue.

ASH: Same.

SEAN: No God in Eden (Kamisama Nanka Shinjinai Bokura no Eden) is an omegaverse manga that runs in Magazine Be x Boy. Two high schoolers, supposedly total opposites, one day find that they’re alpha and omega. In fact… they’re the world’s FIRST alpha and omega.

Werewolves Going Crazy Over Me is a manwha whose premise sounds exactly like an omegaverse title, but replace omega with “mate” and you’ll get the gist. Young single mom whose child is fighting illness meets a CEO who has a secret. You can guess the secret.

ANNA: I know! Is he…..a vampire??????????

ASH: That must be it!

SEAN: Also from Seven Seas: Cat Companions Maruru and Hachi 4, The Dangers in My Heart 11, Gene Bride 2, How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord 22, Hunting in Another World With My Elf Wife 6, Life with an Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated into a Total Fantasy Knockout 7, Mii-chan Wants to Be Kept 2, My Deer Friend Nokotan 6, Pet Shop of Horrors: Collector’s Edition 3, and Soara and the House of Monsters 5.

ASH: I recently read the first volume of Soara and the House of Monsters; I should probably read more.

SEAN: One Peace Books has a 4th volume of Hero Without a Class.

No debuts at all or Kodansha. In print, we get A-DO 8, Blade Girl 2, FAIRY TAIL: 100 Years Quest 18, The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity 8, Kaina of the Great Snow Sea 4 (the final volume), Love, That’s an Understatement 2, Sheltering Eaves 4, Teppu 2, WIND BREAKER 13, and Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun 15.

MICHELLE: I really liked what I read of Sheltering Eaves.

SEAN: The only digital volume is the 31st and final volume of Those Snow White Notes.

J-Novel Club has one debut, a light novel. No Wife, No Problem: A Mage’s Life with His Beloved Daughter (Kekkon wo Akirameta Majutsushi, Dekiaisuru Manamusume ga Dekita node Issho ni Shiawase ni Narimasu) stars a powerful mage who is now in his forties and lonely. He asks the gods for a daughter, and they give him one from his own blood – and this daughter is even more OP than her dad. This seems to be in the “no incest, just heartwarming” dad/daughter genre.

ASH: Oh, good!

SEAN: Other JNC novels: Ascendance of a Bookworm: Fanbook 6, Cooking with Wild Game 29, My Quiet Blacksmith Life in Another World 11, and The White Cat’s Revenge as Plotted from the Dragon King’s Lap 8.

For manga, they have 8th Loop for the Win! 5, The 100th Time’s the Charm 4, The Conqueror from a Dying Kingdom 5, Did I Seriously Just Get Reincarnated as My Gag Character?! 6, Hell Mode 7, and Rebuild World 12.

Ghost Ship has a 15th volume of World’s End Harem: Fantasia.

In print, Airship has The Too-Perfect Saint 3.

And for early digital, we get Reincarnated Into a Game as the Hero’s Friend 5 and Too Many Losing Heroines! 5.

What manga will you get to cool you off (unless you’re in Nunavut)?

Notorious No More: The Villainess Enjoys Feigning Incompetence, Vol. 1

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By Hanako Arashi and Wan Hachipisu. Released in Japan as “Kitai no Akujo, Sandome no Jinsei de “Musai Munou” wo Tanoshimu” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Jeremy Browning.

This volume is plotted out in a very odd way, though I did end up quite enjoying it. The backstory of our villainess is quickly tossed off in about a page or two, as if it’s totally irrelevant – though it’s not, and I really want to find out what actually happened in the past. The feigning incompetence part is also given short shrift, as is the “everyone at school bullies her” part. That’s all just setup for the bulk of the book, which is a test that rapidly turns into a “death game” sort of environment. But this too is a sequel to something we only see in a side story at the end, as our heroine and her fellow low-ranking students all share a close bond of trust and are a fantastic team. What, you may ask, is this book interested in, then? This book is interested in taking shallow, arrogant nobles and destroying them.

Beljeanne was, so it is said, a cruel and heartless villainess who tried to kill her rival by summoning a demon. She was killed, and reincarnated as a Japanese girl. There, she went through school, work, getting married, having children, and dying happily at the age of 86. Whereupon she is reincarnated back in her original world, two generations later. as the granddaughter of the rival she supposedly tried to have killed. With ALL her memories, of course. What’s more, her mother enjoys hitting her, her father is indifferent, her brother is priggish, and her adopted sister is the “otome game heroine who’s evil because this is a villainess book” sort of girl. Clearly there is one thing that she can do in order to get the life she wants. Yes, it’s time for sandbagging.

Given that this book has a long sequence where Laviange ends up wreaking her revenge against all the nobles who have wronged her in this life, you may be wondering how I felt about it, given that Livid Lady had a similar plot and I hated it. But Notorious No More is very careful to only go after the specific people who deserve it. The noble who is killed off in this book because of Laviange’s actions tried to use mind control magic to brainwash her while they were in a dangerous area surrounded by powerful monsters. She’s very good at being nice to those who deserve it – the one good member of that team is not only spared by Laviagne but also used as fodder for the romance novels she writes as a side job – but those who have sinned against her are (with one exception) not offered second chances. We see the second prince, who has not only bullied her but is also being seduced by her stepsister – gradually realize that he’s been a complete piece of shit and trying to fix it. He fails. Fortunately, he’s only the second prince.

How much you like this book likely depends on how much you like protagonists taking down anyone they don’t like, but the people she doesn’t like are terrible, so I’m down with it. Hopefully in the next book we might find out what really happened in her first life. For smug villainess fans.

Bookshelf Briefs 7/29/25

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Kageki Shojo!!, Vol. 14 | By Kumiko Saiki | Seven Seas – The bulk of this volume shows us Sarasa’s parents, why they abandoned her with her grandparents to go off and have careers, and why they don’t really regret it. Sarasa does take after her mom in some ways, but the sympathy pretty much lies entirely with her, and I was happy to see that she seems to take it pretty well. She’s moving forward so much that she breaks up with Akiya—as a text!—because she feels she needs to stand on her own now, and regards their relationship as being her relying on him. That said, maybe she should have talked with Akiya about that, as he seems happy to try to ask her out again once she’s settled in. Fortunately, the last chapter in the book gets us back to the acting, and I assume that will take up most of volume fifteen. Love it. – Sean Gaffney

Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 34 | By Tomohito Oda | Viz Media – The series ends with the 37th book, and as such there are a large number of students introduced here with two pages, learn what weird eccentricity they have, move on. I suspect the author is sort of wishing they had made it fifty friends, but that would not fit the folklore. Fortunately, there’s also a solid story in this volume as well, seeing Komi taking charge of the culture festival, where the class decides to run a ramen stand, and succeeds despite arguments and the rules of culture festival cooking regulations. Komi really shows off how far she’s come here, and is rewarded with a walk round the festival with Tadano… who is in women’s clothing, because of course he is. Never stop a running gag just because you’re near the end. Komi only has a few more friends to go, and also college worries. Fortunately, her romance seems to be on easy mode. – Sean Gaffney

Rainbows After Storms, Vol. 3 | By Luka Kobachi | Viz Media – Nanoha and Chidori… are keeping it a secret from everyone. But… they’re dating. I appreciated that they reversed the usual tagline! I also appreciated that it appeared a lot less. This mostly revolves around two big events. In the first, the friend group all goes to the beach, and Chidori wears a nice bikini and regrets it almost immediately, as all of her friends who are not Nanoha are leering at her. (Nanoha finds her super sexy, but is cognizant that Chidori does not like her large chest.) In the second half, there’s a school festival where Chidori’s old sempai shows up, who was her first crush and confession… but got a “we’re both girls” rejection. That said, after seeing Nanoha’s forthright “yes, we’re dating, what about it?”, the sempai is regretting things. Cute. – Sean Gaffney

Short Game: Mitsuru Adachi’s High School Baseball Collection | By Mitsuru Adachi | Denpa Books – If you’re buying a chicken sandwich, you want it to taste like chicken. As such, if you’re buying a collection of baseball short stories by the great Adachi, you know what you’re getting. Baseball triumphs, baseball failures, what happens after baseball. Lots of people who communicate strong emotions through seemingly blank expressions and relying on the other person to figure things out (the girls). The other person usually needing heavy-handed hints to figure anything out (the guys). There’s also a gag manga version of the manga Touch, which would be awesome if Adachi were popular enough to get more of his 40-year-old manga out over here. Since he’s not, I’m very happy with this excellent collection. – Sean Gaffney

A Star Brighter Than the Sun, Vol. 2 | By Kazune Kawahara | Viz Media – This one is a bit more disappointing than the first book, but that’s not the fault of the writing and characterization, which is fine. It’s just that this author is now famous enough to write long series, and therefore we simply can’t have these two talk things out, realize they’re each other’s crush, and get together this early. As such, fans of communicating with others may find this deeply annoying—though, to be fair, Sae does talk to all her other friends about this. It’s just she’s so certain that he loves someone else and not her that no one can see past her own denial. I do enjoy seeing, in a genre where timid heroines also tend to be shy wallflowers who don’t do much, that Sae takes change in class and is generally awesome. For genre fans and fans of the author. – Sean Gaffney

This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Vol. 4 | By Sai Naekawa | Yen Press – This remains very compelling but also very creepy, since it’s just drenched in Hinako’s suicide ideation. The idea seems to be, as of the fourth volume, that Shiori wants to help Hinako get what she wants to do, whereas Miko wants to help Hinako live, but that may not be what Hinako wants. This is also tied in with romantic feelings, of course. The back half of this book is the best, where Shiori bluntly says “the two of us will never be friends” to Hinako, but I think means it in a reassuring way. And we meet another monster, this one someone who normally doesn’t eat humans, but Hinako is once again said to be “just SO tasty.” Now, I can’t see this series ending with Hinako’s wish to die being granted, so I do wonder what’s going to change. Great stuff. – Sean Gaffney

A Witch’s Life in Mongol, Vol. 1 | By Tomato Soup | Yen Press – This one I knew was critically acclaimed, and it’s also very striking, with the artwork and the story combining well. A young girl is sold as a slave to a rich wife in Iran, and gradually begins to learn how to read and do science (and also falls for the young son of the household, who goes off to get more knowledge). Unfortunately, it’s the early 1200s, and here comes the Mongol Empire to ruin everything. They kill nearly everyone in the household, and they take the book of Euclid’s Geometry which everyone knows is incredibly important. Seeing Sitara, the girl who stars in this, go from sullen slave to intellectual sponge to broken captive to rage-filled young woman is quite a trip, and I absolutely want to read more of this. – Sean Gaffney

The Devil Princess, Vol. 1

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By Harunohi Biyori and Geso Umiu. Released in Japan as “Akuma Koujo” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Julie Goniwich. Adapted by Emlyn Dornemann.

Well, that sure went places. I mean, the basic premise suggested that it would. The author did too, as this author is also responsible for The Otome Heroine’s Fight for Survival, which is definitely a series that Goes Places. But I admit, I was kind of taken in by the narrator, as is often meant to happen. The reason unreliable narrators are a popular literary device with authors is that we are meant to trust them. it’s what narrators are FOR. First-person narrators are there to be the POV character, the one you root for, mostly. Sometimes they’re bad people, but they still are fun to read. And our heroine Yulucia is fun to read. She starts off the book as a classic “dying in the hospital from weakness” Japanese girl, then ends up as a little demon slime, who rapidly, without knowing it, becomes a far more powerful demon. She becomes the crush of the most powerful demon there is. And then she decides she wants to be human. And this is where the story really starts.

So yeah, as noted above, our little demon suddenly finds that she is a human baby. She’s also spoiled rotten… and kept from doing anything at all… so it’s hard to figure out what’s actually going on with her family. Eventually, as she grows older, she learns that she tends to terrify people who are not her immediate family and staff, likely due to her demon past. She also has tremendously powerful holy magic, and also summoning magic, which she thinks is also due to being a former demon, but the local religious folks think may make her a Saint. Eventually they can’t put it off any more, and she is allowed to go out and socialize, and make friends with other… noble children? Wait, is he the prince? Just how important is her family? And then, of course, she’s kidnapped. And THIS is where the story REALLY starts.

So the main reason I found this so fascinating is trying to figure out along with Yulucia exactly what kind of world she is now living in. It’s pretty apparent from the start that she’s rich and probably nobility, but her dad is rarely around, she’s not allowed to leave the house, and her mother also never leaves the house. She also has a head maid with powerful healing magic, which is rare for adults. And, oh yes, she’s so inhumanly gorgeous that she looks like a perfect doll rather than a human, and everyone around her is either immediately taken with her or repulsed. The other good thing about the book is Yulucia’s determination to be human, as she worries that she’s still a demon underneath, due to being scary and inhumanly beautiful and being unable to taste most food. I don’t want to spoil the last quarter of the book, but let’s just say that her issues get resolved in a big way, and your jaw will drop. I suspect things will escalate as this series goes on.

This is 5 volumes so far in Japan, so there’s certainly a lot more “and this is where the story really starts” we can get. Please keep surprising me, Devil Princess.

Pick of the Week: Another Chance to Pick Planetes

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SEAN: Look, I get that Ichi the Killer is a big deal, but it’s just not my genre at all. So yeah, I’m picking Planetes. Again. You can never pick it enough.

MICHELLE: I hope this doesn’t diminish my manga cred, but I never managed to finish Planetes! I read the first three volumes back in 2010 and then life intervened, I guess. All of which is to say, I am going to buy these fancy hardcovers and read them, dangit!

KATE: Will no one think of the poor animals on this list? I’m going to throw my weight behind Cat + Crazy (Nekottake!), as everyone can use a little cuteness in their life right now. (But yes, Planetes is worth a look if you missed it.)

ANNA: I do cherish my old Tokyopop editions of Planetes, and am always happy to celebrate this series!!!!

ASH: I adore Planetes, so I’ll take this opportunity to make the fancy hardcover my official pick. (I’ll probably need to get around to reading Ichi the Killer at some point, though…)