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High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World!, Vol. 2

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By Riku Misora and Sacraneco. Released in Japan as “Choujin Koukousei-tachi wa Isekai demo Yoyuu de Ikinuku you desu!” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nathaniel Thrasher.

I really have to hand it to the writer of this series, they know how to keep a reader’s attention distracted. There’s romantic subplots (none of which are going to go anywhere given the nature of Tsukasa, but hey), there’s political intrigue, there’s starting a revolution by starting a religious movement, there’s a big-ass fight (literally in some cases) near the end of the book, and there are even moments of pure horror in a “welcome to our totally average town, weary travelers!” sort of way. And then you get to the end of the book, and you realize that the entire thing was incredibly dumb and full of holes, with one plot getting dropped so fast that I’m concerned my digital book was missing a chapter. Last time I said that this series is popcorn, which is very true. You eat it and enjoy it, but if you want an actual meal, look elsewhere.

Unlike the manga, the light novel covers are allowed to have more than Lyrule on the cover. Here we see Ringo, who doesn’t really do much here besides build power plants and get really jealous of Tsukasa and Lyrule’s relationship. Life is tough when you’re the unlucky childhood friend. The book deals with the aftermath of the coup that has happened. There’s a lot still to achieve. They need to figure out a way to unite the people regardless of class. They need to figure out ways to keep up their modernizations. And they need to worry about the neighboring Duke, who is made entirely of fury and condescension, and also has a magic firebomb that can take out a city. Even Shinobu, who is traveling towards the capital to try to get the lay of the land, runs into trouble when she gets to a village that is glad to eat her — I mean, meet her.

I will say one thing, which is that the book’s message of “the rich hate everyone else and will happily watch them die purely for entertainment” is a very 2020 mood, even if the book was written five years earlier. It tries to distinguish between “normal” nobles who are just rude assholes and “evil” nobles who are doing things like raping and murdering, but it doesn’t quite get it. Shinobu’s subplot is good and also quite dark… but then gets resolved so fast, and dropped so hard, that, again, I worried a section was missing. And then there’s Aoi, who in the grand finale volunteers to help a guided missile reach its target (a magic spear of fire) by running along side it… then hitting it with her “honed glutes” to get it to change course… then smashing her “sizable breasts” against the missile’s air vents to get it to change course AGAIN. The scene is so dumb your jaw drops, and sexist as hell, but you have to admire the bravado of writing it at all. I imagine this must have been something to see animated.

So yeah, this book is dumb but highly readable, provided you are not troubled by plot, or characterization, or thematic unity, or overt fanservice.

Manga the Week of 11/18/20

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SEAN: The weekend of Anime NYC, and I am… not in a hotel room in New York City. Boo. Still, there will be virtual con, I’m sure.

No debuts for J-Novel Club, but we do see The Combat Baker and Automaton Waitress 9, Holmes of Kyoto 2, Mapping 2, The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar 13, Seirei Gensouki 12, and Sorcerous Stabber Orphen 9.

Kaiten Books has a 3rd volume of Loner Life in Another World.

Kodansha also has no print debuts, but we do have a fair amount of print, assuming no last-minute delays. There’s Cardcaptor Sakura Collector’s Edition 6 and also Clear Card 8. We also get Granblue Fantasy 7, Living-Room Matsunaga-san 5, Saiyuki 3, and The Seven Deadly Sins 40.

MICHELLE: I need to catch up on Living-Room Matsunaga-san.

ASH: I still need to start reading Living-Room Matsunaga-san!

SEAN: Digitally there is a debut. Dr. Ramune -Mysterious Disease Specialist- (Kai Byoui Ramune) is about a sort of modern-day, more casual Black Jack and his bizarre supernatural-tinged patients. It sounds like a gag manga, but is apparently deeper than it looks. It runs in Shonen Sirius.

ASH: I’m curious about this one, though I don’t read much digitally.

SEAN: Also digitally: Dolly Kill Kill 8, GE: Good Ending 11, Heroine for Hire 3, Hop Step Sing! 2, Kakushigoto 9, Shaman King: Red Crimson 3, The Writer and His Housekeeper 2, and Yozakura Quartet 26.

Seven Seas has an early digital light novel debut: Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs. This time it’s a male office worker who dies and gets reincarnated in an otome game… as a schlub NPC. But he does recall the game’s events. Can he make his life better?

In print, there are two debuts. The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter has a manga, and this is the first volume of that. It’s pleasantly dumb.

What the Font?! – A Manga Guide to Western Typeface has, aside from a terrific title, an “educational” feel to it. Expect anthropomorphic personifications.

ASH: I’m actually really excited for this one.

ANNA: Oh, me too!

SEAN: Also from Seven Seas: Cosmo Familia 3 (the final volume), Mushoku Tensei: Roxy Gets Serious 4, New Game! 10, Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General 5, Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho 11, and Sarazanmai 2.

ASH: Whoops, still need to get around to Sarazanmai 1!

Square Enix has, not a manga or novel, but Final Fantasy VII Poster Collection. It’s Tifa-tastic and Aerith-riffic.

Vertical gives us the 8th and final volume of Arakawa Under the Bridge. There’s also Blood on the Tracks 3 and Go with the Clouds, North-by-Northwest 4.

MICHELLE: The first volume of Blood on the Tracks was enjoyably ominous.That’s another one I need to catch up on.

SEAN: It’s a very Rumiko Takahashi week at Viz. Not only do we get Urusei Yatsura’s 8th omnibus (introducing Ryuunosuke, the precursor to Ranma Saotome), but also debut Mermaid Saga in omnibus form! This is decidedly NOT a comedy, and shows off how good Takahashi was at horror and suspense.

MICHELLE: I have the single volumes of this, but have never read it!

ASH: I love Mermaid Saga so much that I’m double-dipping for the new edition.

ANNA: I think I read a tiny bit of it back in the day but I’m excited for the new edition too.

MJ: I probably need to finally read this.

SEAN: There’s also Beastars 9, Hell’s Paradise Jigokuraku 5, and Tokyo Ghoul:re Illustrations: zakki, an artbook.

MICHELLE: I’m so far behind on Beastars and Hell’s Paradise already!

ASH: I’m a few volumes behind myself, but have been liking both series so far.

SEAN: And then there’s Yen, and they have a lot, even with the normal “date shifts”. First we get the novels.

There are three debuts, though one doesn’t count. A Certain Magical Index SS 1 is hardly unknown to readers, but it is nice to see, especially as I whined at Yen when it did not come out (as it did in Japan) between Books 13 and 14. It’s a short-story collection, and introduces the reader to Hamazura… assuming they haven’t read Index 15-22 already.

The Place Promised in Our Early Days is another Makoto Shinkai adaptation… in fact, it’s of his first major film.

MJ: I usually like these adaptations, though I haven’t watched this movie in a long while. Might be nice to revisit.

SEAN: The big debut is Unnamed Memory, an extremely popular light novel series. A Crown Prince with a curse has to visit the strongest witch in the world to break it. Destiny ensues.

ASH: It does look as though it may have some potential.

SEAN: Yen On also has a LOT of ongoing series. 86 ~Eighty-Six~ 6, The Dirty Way to Destroy the Goddess’s Heroes 5, Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks? 7, The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious 5, I’m a Behemoth, an S-Ranked Monster, but Mistaken for a Cat, I Live as an Elf Girl’s Pet 2, Last Round Arthurs 3, Magical Girl Raising Project 10, Rascal Does Not Dream 3, So I’m a Spider, So What? 10, and World’s Strongest Rearguard: Labyrinth Country’s Novice Seeker 4.

And that’s just novels. For manga, there are five debuts. Mieruko-chan is a comedy from Monthly Comic Alive about a girl who can see terrifying ghosts and monsters… and does her level best to ignore them.

Sadako at the End of the World (Shuumatsu no Sadako-san) is a one-shot manga from Comic Gene about the girl from Ring ending up in a post-apocalyptic world where her presence is far more welcome.

ASH: Okay, both of these sound like something I should check out.

MJ: Same here.

SEAN: Star Wars: Rebels is the manga adaptation of the popular series, and comes from LINE Corporation.

The White Cat’s Revenge as Plotted from the Dragon King’s Lap is the manga adaptation of a light novel we’ve seen from J-Novel Heart. A girl with the worst luck ends up reincarnated in another world… sadly, the source of that bad luck is here as well. Can she escape and live freely? This runs in Kadokawa’s FLOS Comic.

Lastly, A Witch’s Love at the End of the World (Sekai no Owari to Majo no Koi) (no relation to Sadako’s title) is a yuri series from ASCII Mediaworks’ Comic IT. It… honestly reads sort of like a Japanese version of The Owl House. Which I’m fine with.

There’s also Eclair Orange, the latest in that yuri anthology, IM: Great Priest Imhotep 5, Keito Koume Illustrations Spice & Wolf (an artbook), Shibuya Goldfish 8, and Yoshi no Zuikara 2.

MICHELLE: I had no idea there was yet another Eclair on the way!

SEAN: I’m exhausted, how about you?

There’s No Way a Side Character Like Me Could Be Popular, Right?, Vol. 2

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By Sekaiichi and Tomari. Released in Japan as “Yujinchara no Ore ga Motemakuru Wakenaidaro?” by Overlap. Released in North America by Tentai Books. Translated by Alejandro de Vicente Suárez.

Once again I am tempted to just copy and paste my review of the first volume here, as it has most of the same strengths and weaknesses. It starts slow and builds to a big finish, does a great job of having our lead character be oblivious to love for a reason other than “because he is a potato” like most harem manga, and is very, very bad at justifying why everyone screams in terror when this tall, dark and handsome man comes anywhere near them. As you might imagine, this second volume focuses on Kana, who spent most of the last book clearly in love with Yuuji but having it come off as fear and hatred to him. But fear not, Touka also has a big role to play as well. And of course, possibly the best reason to read it; it’s a normal teenage romcom with no supernatural powers and a decided lack of deep cynicism. Pre-isekai, this was the big thing.

The plot of this second volume involves Kana’s feeling for Yuuji. She knows he’s dating Touka, so is conflicted. (We know, of course, that he’s in a “fake relationship” with Touka, one she wants to be real but can’t work up the courage to tell him that.) She also has a past friendship with Touka that broke off, so the two aren’t on good terms anymore. And she’s also feeling guilty about something else from her past, something that might explain why she’s fallen for Yuuji so hard, and perhaps how he got the scar that makes his face so “scary”. (Please note scary is used the same way “side character” should be, i.e. in air quotes.) It all comes to a head at a tennis tournament that she invites Yuuji, Touka and Ike (remember Ike?) to. Will she work up the nerve to tell Yuuji that he’s manages to get EVERYTHING wrong about their past and present?

As I noted, I enjoy the interactions between the main cast here. Though I will admit that I am not all that fond of the teacher who has an obvious crush on Yuuji, which does not bode well for a theoretical third volume. Kana and Touka’s fractured friendship makes a lot of sense given both of their characters, and I enjoy how no one is “fixed” but that they’re all still working through their own issues. This includes Yuuji, who has a pathological inability to see anyone having romantic feelings for him at all – indeed, even friendship strikes him as unlikely. I will admit that I’d like to get more inside the head of Ike, who for a supposed “main character” is rather bland and unassuming. Of course, that’s part of the gag – Yuuji continuing to see himself as a side character and not the lead in his own life is why he cannot imagine himself in a relationship, despite, by the end of this book, two girls blatantly throwing themselves at him.

The third book came out in Japan this August, and as predicted, it looks to feature the teacher, so I’m wary. That said, this is a very decent romcom that should appeal to anyone who is a fan of that genre.

King of Eden, Vol. 1

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Is it too soon to enjoy a pandemic-themed manga? That question was foremost in my mind as I read King of Eden, a new thriller that pits a group of globe-trotting scientists against an assortment of terrorist organizations that have weaponized a lethal virus. I’m happy to report that King of Eden didn’t remind me of the COVID crisis, but it did something arguably worse: it bored me.

The dullness of the story is all the more surprising for a series written by Takashi Nagasaki, Naoki Urasawa’s collaborator on such entertaining pot-boilers as Monster, Master Keaton, and 20th Century Boys. All of Nagasaki’s worst tendencies are on display in King of Eden: there are pointless flashbacks to the main characters’ childhoods, solemn monologues about the Old Testament, long-winded conversations about global terrorism, and an interminable lecture on the ancient Scythians that name-checks Herodotus because… why not? Though the first volume introduces a dizzying number of characters, Nagasaki barely fleshes them out. Even leads Rua Itsuki and Teze Yoo feel more like skill sets than actual people, as evidenced by an on-the-nose exchange in which a bureaucrat recites Dr. Itsuki’s resume and reminds her that she “hold[s] a black belt in Tae Kwon Do” and is “proficient in the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga” as if she didn’t know these things about herself.

None of this would matter, of course, if King of Eden were entertaining, but Nagasaki is so intent on world-building that he overwhelms the reader with information, all delivered in such earnest, exhaustive detail it saps the narrative momentum. Itsuki and Yoo cross paths with MI-6 agents, WHO officials, IRA terrorists, crazy archaeologists, Interpol officers, and zombies—ZOMBIES, for Pete’s sake!—yet none of these encounters are memorable. Had Nagasaki placed more trust in artist SangCheol Lee (a.k.a. Ignito), King of Eden might have been a brisker, more imaginative entry in the zombie canon.

The first chapter offers a tantalizing glimpse of that potential partnership. Gone are the long-winded speeches; instead, Lee drops the reader into the action alongside two police officers who stumble across a baffling, gruesome scene. After the officers arrest a potential suspect, Lee skillfully cross-cuts between two spaces at the local precinct—an interrogation room and the morgue—allowing us to glimpse what’s unfolding in each room, and to feel the policemen’s growing unease. Lee’s crack pacing keeps the reader invested in the characters’ fate, building to a satisfying reveal of the carnage’s true source: a hideous, lantern-jawed creature that’s part werewolf, part zombie.

Alas, that cinematic flair disappears as soon as the characters begin talking; the next two chapters consist of information dumps punctuated by the occasional fist fight or car chase. By the time Nagasaki and Lee introduce a vampire arms dealer near the end of volume one, it barely registers as a major development. And that, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with King of Eden: the story is so overstuffed with characters and events that I couldn’t muster the energy for another 15 or 100 chapters of talking heads explaining zombie behavior or Scythian culture just to figure out who this vampire is, and why he matters.

Yen Press provided a review copy of volume one.

KING OF EDEN, VOL. 1 • STORY BY TAKASHI NAGASAKI • ART BY IGNITO • TRANSLATED BY CALEB COOK • LETTERING BY ABIGAIL BLACKMAN • RATED OLDER TEEN (16+) • 384 pp.

I’ll Never Set Foot in That House Again!, Vol. 1

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By Milli-gram and Yuki Kana. Released in Japan as “Nidoto ie ni wa Kaerimasen!” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Emily Hemphill.

I’m going to be honest, this book is all over the place. Featuring a relatively nuanced portrayal of a heroine who’s recovering from horrible abuse, it has especially un-nuanced portrayals of the abusers. There’s a terrific surprise involving the hero, but it’s also contrasted with the fact that (per the afterword) the author aged him up after seeing the artwork but didn’t bother to age up the heroine, making for a very uncomfortable romance. And of course the heroine’s powers are especially overpowered even for this sort of book, with the question of “what can she create?” becoming a bar that gets raised higher and higher till the answer is “pretty much anything”. That said, I get the feeling none of this matters. This book gives you a girl you desperately want to hug, and then spends 160 pages hugging her. It’s the very definition of “D’aww”, and if that means putting up with some flaws, it’s OK because look, she’s eating sweets!

Chelsea is the daughter of a baron, but you’d never know it from her everyday life. She’s forced to do the housework, belittled and verbally abused by her mother and twin sister, and whipped when she does things wrong. She has to live off of scraps left after everyone else eats! What’s more, it’s totally unclear why this is the case. Then one day an “appraiser” shows up to see what the other daughter’s magic talents are, and they also know of Chelsea and appraise her. Turns out that Chelsea has a new skill, “Seed Creation”, that has never been seen before! Now she’s whisked off to the royal residence to see what her new skill can do (spoiler: a lot) and to be pampered and cared for as she never was before. As Chelsea slowly gets better and grows in self-confidence, and despite her fears that once they’ve appraised her, she’ll be sent back, she gradually realizes (say it with me) she’ll never set foot in that house again.

I noted on Twitter that this book had the subtlety of an icepick to the forehead, and I stand by that. That said, its portrayal of Chelsea is definitely the highlight. She’s beaten and shattered by the abuse she’s suffered, and it takes the entire book for her to even begin to stand up for herself and make her own decisions. This is, admittedly, helped by this being a world of magic, but even then, while they can heal her scars and stop her “emaciated” status effect, she still can’t really eat much at first. The hero, Glen, is more typical of these sorts of books, and has two big secrets, one of which is not really that much of a surprise, but the other one is, and it’s handled quite well, which is to say it’s barely mentioned. Sadly, as I noted before, making him older means the romantic feelings he starts to have for 12-year-old Chelsea come off as far skeevier than I would like – fortunately nothing is going on as of yet.

This also shares another fault with many shoujo light novels we’ve seen recently: it feels like it’s a one-shot, but there’s a second volume out. I’m not sure where the book is going to go, especially with a title that will likely seem out of place given, well, problem solved. That said, if it has hugs, cute dresses, and yummy sweets, I’ll probably be reading more.

Invaders of the Rokujouma!?, Vol. 33

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By Takehaya and Poco. Released in Japan as “Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Warnis.

The most annoying thing about this volume, of course, is what ISN’T here. We had been expecting that each girl would get their own “what if?” arc detailing their lives if Koutarou fell for them, with Harumi being the first. Now here we are with the next one, Clan… only we find that Maki already had hers, as an exclusive 75-minute CD bonus track. I gotta hope this is part of the Kickstarter in some way, because if that’s how it’s going down in the future, I suspect half of English-speaking fans are going to be left without satisfaction. Maki’s looks cute, seems to involve rescuing some stray cats (who continue to hang around her), and… well, sorry. As for the book itself, it’s fine. As with previous “short story” volumes, it contains three stories written previously for the “Hercules” website, and Clan’s “what if”, which is empty of surprises but is as sweet and cute as you’d expect. And you learn far more about vacuum tubes than you ever thought you would.

The first short story has Koutarou getting a cold while skiing (blame Yurika, who ends up going down the hill like a cartoon, as a rolling snowball) and getting nursed back to health by Elfaria and Kiriha. They both want to get closer to Koutarou, but are also nice and mature, so they end up having a “gambling match”, loser has to take care of him, and then both trying to throw the match, sort of. It shows off how Elfaria may not be quite as far out of the harem as she thinks, despite not being one of the “core girls”. Next we see just how Yurika got to be a magical girl, and her early days with Nana. If nothing else, this tells us that Yurika was indeed born on Earth and not in Magical Girl World. Other than that it’s slight, emphasizing how she’s still basically Usagi Tsukino in a Yurika skin. The third short has Kiriha and Maki, on separate outings with their friends, meeting at an amusement park and talking. It’s sweet, but again, two of the sensible characters having a conversation makes things a bit dull.

As with Harumi’s “what if”, Clan’s stems from one slight issue going worse than canon; while in the past searching for the Blue Knight, she gets a bad cold, and has to be taken care of by Koutarou. This allows the two of them to be far closer and less guarded than they are in canon, and that extends to when they return to the present day. Clan is not Harumi, so as you’d expect there’s a lot more tsundere action going on in this story, but the beats are the same – Koutarou’s defenses are brought down, he ends up hanging out with Clan more than the others, and they gradually fall in love, though being who they are said love is mostly exchanged via unspoken handholding and hugs. There’s also a nice examinatio9n of Clan’s tendency to think of herself as a “villain”, and the regrets she has from her past. She’s always going to be snarky, but Clan has soft4ened up a lot.

So overall, not an essential volume unless Clan is your best girl, but it’s readable. Next time we should get back to the main storyline… in fact, I think we get two books of main storyline in a row, so no what-ifs for a bit.

A Wild Last Boss Appeared!, Vol. 2

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By Firehead and YahaKo. Released in Japan by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Kevin Chen.

I am a big fan of the old classic cartoons of Tex Avery, be they the early Warner Bros. years or the classic MGM masterpieces. One gag he first used with Porky Pig, in The Blow Out (1936), and then again with Droopy at MGM with Dumb Hounded (1943) and Northwest Hounded Police (1947) was that of “the pursuer is always there”. Our bad guy tries to flee the seemingly slow and ineffectual hero, but everywhere he goes, no matter what he does, there’s the hero, right there, waiting for him. It works as comedy because the hero is Porky or Droopy, and the villains are bad guys who deserve what they get. That said, if you flip it so that instead of a hero you have what is essentially a monster straight out of a horror movie… well, you get something altogether more terrifying. Despite said monster being a robot maid. Easily the best scene in the book, I sense the author was familiar with those old Tex Avery cartoons.

As for the book itself, the first chunk involves Lufas going to retrieve said killer robot maid, who is currently at the top of a huge tomb that is supposed to be Lufas’s final resting place. Needless to say, her group has very little trouble with said tomb, despite everyone else in the world getting killed off due to the many killer traps and golems within. Once that’s done, she and her crew go off to meet another one of the Heroes, who is currently king of a land that is literally divided into black and white sides. Lufas wants to just quietly investigate and maybe talk with the King. Unfortunately, almost everyone else around her, including most of her party, have other ideas. Can she stop a war between the light-winged and colored-winged residents? Can she get the king to stop hating himself? And what’s up with Dina, anyway?

Other than Libra’s Droopy impression, the highlight of the book is Dina and her attempts to be a double reverse quadruple agent, backstabbing absolutely everyone. We saw hints of this at the end of the last book, but it’s in full flower now, and the explanation as to who she really is works quite well. (Actually, the series handles the idea of “is this trapped in a game or not?” in a very interesting way, with differences between types of canon becoming extremely important to the world in general.) As for Lufas, it manages to be more intriguing than annoying that her mind constantly slides away from Dina when she tries to think about her, and it’s not particularly surprising that, when it comes to a real battle, Lufas wipes the floor with her. I’m pleased Dina is not killed off – and I’m assuming she’ll continue to be a lovable traitor in future books.

So yes, overall a definite improvement on the first book, and I’m enjoying its somewhat laid-back pace, despite the need to defeat the enemy somewhere down the line. Recommended for those who like cool overpowered beauties, backstabbing, and Droopy cartoons.

Daytime Shooting Star Vol. 9

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Daytime Shooting Star Volume 9 by Mika Yamamori

At last! I could tell by the cover that this was going to be a Mamura-focused volume and I wasn’t disappointed. I tend to always root for the second lead guy in Korean dramas, and if Daytime Shooting Star was a K-Drama, Mamura would likely be the second lead, but in many ways he’s so much better than Suzume’s alternate romantic option of dating her teacher Shishio. While Suzume’s been rejected (good!) by Shishio, she’s attempting to move on with her life, however she becomes distracted due to the fact that in their second year of high school, Mamura is being targeted by throngs of first-year girls. With Mamura’s innate allergy to female contact, this creates a very awkward situation.

Daytime Shooting Star 9

Yuyuka decides to take matters into her own hands in order to defend Mamura’s honor and proposes a plan where Suzume will pose as Mamura’s girlfriend. He rejects the idea, but Suzume becomes more and more irritated about the girls that are following him around, prompting Yuyuka to propose the idea of Suzume posing as Mamura’s girlfriend in order to get rid of the throngs of girls following him around. Mamura turns down the idea. When Suzume sees Shishio for the first time in weeks though, Mamura happens upon the scene and declares that they’re dating! when he sees Suzume being distressed when she runs into Shishio for the first time since he rejected her, he declares that they’re dating!

I was pretty delighted by this turn of events, with this faux relationship that might turn real. Mamura is clearly devoted to Suzume, and he does call her out when she’s dwelling too much on the past. I’m hoping that things move forward and she can actually experience a more normal high school romantic relationship? But I’m not holding my breath because the second lead guy rarely gets the girl. I enjoy Yamamori’s stylish illustrations in each volume, and the prospect of non-Shishio romance for Suzume makes me feel less of a general sense of creeping dread about the ending. In any case, Daytime Shooting Star continues to be an extremely engaging high school soap opera.

Fushi no Kami: Rebuilding Civilization Starts with a Village, Vol. 1

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By Mizuumi Amakawa and Mai Okuma. Released in Japan as “Fushi no Kami: Henkyou kara Hajimeru Bunmei Saiseiki” by Overlap. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Maurice Alesch.

I always enjoy it when I’m pleasantly surprised by a new license. The description of this did not seem promising – it read like “what about Ascendance of a Bookworm, only with a young boy?”. It also gets off to a bit of a slow start, though I will admit I was immediately taken in with the discussion of ancient writing types. As it goes along and picks up speed, though, this becomes excellent, with a young protagonist who has knowledge from a past life, manages to do wonderful things and save his village, and yet never feels overpowered at all. It helps that this lacks all the usual tropes of the genre – there are no dungeons, or guilds, and Ash has no magical powers or swords. Heck, even his knowledge from a former life isn’t all that helpful much of the time, as he’s not a botanist or chemist. But for this backwards village filled with exhausted farmers, he’s a breath of fresh air.

Ash has been reincarnated into this world, and retains his memories, but for the most part he’s spent the previous eight years pretending to be happy and content while being anything but. When we first meet him, he’s just had a major revelation, and bolts to the local church to beg to be able to read books – and also to be taught to read. It won’t be easy. The priest has been exiled and mostly given up. The village chief’s daughter dislikes those fake smiles of his. They’re all dirt poor. And there are mentions of demons out of the forest, though we never see one in this first volume. Fortunately, once he gets going, Ash proves absolutely impossible to stop, be it discovering aloe, learning about hunting and gathering, accidentally romancing the aforementioned chief’s daughter, and even fighting off a giant bear. But most of all: making life in the village better.

This book is not really slow enough to be a “slow life” title, but it has a bit of the same vibe. Ash may have memories of a previous life, but we never really hear all that much about it apart from a mention of nanotechnology in medical use… which is obviously not happening here. More to the point, with the exception of his romantic impulses, Ash feels like a kid more than a reincarnated adult (I’m looking at you, By the Grace of the Gods). The book is about 2/3 his POV, and the other third various people in his life, particularly Maika, who goes from the aloof chief’s daughter to being head over heels in love. (Ash sees her as a child, I think, which explains why he does not get the very obvious signs she is throwing at him.) All of the things Ash does improve life… somewhat. Things are a bit better. The highlight is the lack of deaths over the winter, a first for this remote village. It’s the sort of book that makes you smile.

It’s also not staying in the village – the ending indicates that Ash and Maika are going to the nearest city for the next volume, and I assume things will move onward and upward from there. In the meantime, this is recommended for fans of isekai who hate the usual RPG tropes that usually go with them.

Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight, Vol. 9

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By Hyougetsu and Nishi(E)da. Released in Japan by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen.

While we’ve had a lot of fun watching Veight do a lot of really cool things while claiming to be just a humble vice-commander (and we get that here as well, to the point where he uses it as a tag line, Bruce Willis style), there has been a certain “harem manga” element to the title since it began. There were already a couple of his werewolf subordinates in love with him, we know that Eleora also fell for him, etc. That said, there’s really been no doubt since the series began that if Veight was going to finally clue in to romance, it would be Airia that is the choice. The main problem is that, due to her job and Veight having to save the nation so much, she’s gotten very little to do in the books. As a result, this book not only had to sell the romance finally starting but also remove the power imbalance between the two. In succeeds quite well, provided you don’t mind ridiculously overpowered hero and heroines. Which, hi, light novels?

As you can see by the cover, the book is not exactly concealing what it’s about this time. One of the fleeing senators from the north hid in a mine and then died with a hideously powerful magical artifact in his hands. Now Veight and the Southern Continent have to deal with a massive attack of undead skeletons. Unfortunately, the artifact is sentient, looking for its next occupant, and decides that Airia fits the bill. Can Veight figure out that she’s no longer who she seems to be in time to stop its plan? Does he actually want to stop the artifact’s plan? And will all of this finally manage to get it through his thick skull that he loves Airia and she loves him? (The last, trust me, will be the most difficult. Everyone breathes a huge sign of relief when Veight finally confesses.)

As you can guess from my synopsis, the romance here is not really a big surprise to anyone. There’s a ‘mindscape’ scene, a mutual confession, and a wedding. (We don’t see the wedding night – this series is as pure as its leads – but there is discussion on whether a werewolf can get a human pregnant.) The bigger surprise is the way that the artifact’s plot to bring a hero into this world forcibly is taken care of. Veight’s solution makes sense, but is also something only he could come up with. (Veight’s past does come up here, and he actually admits to Airia he’s a reincarnation from another world, but we still know next to nothing about it – by design, the author admits). It also allows Airia to take a much stronger role in the series… though I admit I’m doubtful that actually happens. I suspect we’ll still mostly be seeing Veight traveling.

So overall an excellent volume, with lots of awesome, lots of heartwarming, and a bit of fanservice (Airia’s large breasts feature heavily in much of the art). Fans who enjoy this series should find much to love. Now, the question is where it goes from here.

Slayers: The Sorcerers of Atlas

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By Hajime Kanzaka and Rui Araizumi. Released in Japan by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis.

These books came out in the early 1990s, but they got a recent re-release to prepare Japan for new volumes after a long break. As a result, the afterwords from the author that we see here are new. In this one, the author talks about the struggle to make Slayers into a series… as he points out, when you defeat the demon lord in book one, where do you go from there? The answer is that awkward second book, very similar to that awkward second album. Last time I pointed out the anime skipped it, but I’d forgotten that they did circle back round to its events in Slayers Next, a full season later. It’s not hard to see why they skipped it – there’s no regulars other than Lina and Gourry, there’s less humor and more horror than you’d expect from a series like Slayers, and the pacing also feels very odd, ambling along for 2/3 of the book before realizing that it actually has to come to a conclusion.

Lina and Gourry, on vacation in the city of Atlas, are doing the usual (Lina inciting bar fights by punching out creepers, Gourry snarking at her) when they’re hired by one of the local sorcerers to be his bodyguard. The head of the sorcerer’s guild has vanished, so there’s a bit of a power vacuum going on at the moment, and protection from the other side is needed. Lina is, frankly, not all that interested, but she gets more so when they’re attacked by two demons with masks. Fighting ensues… then, when Lina and Gourry go to investigate the competition, they find, buried at the bottom of an underground lake in a crystal prison, the missing head of the sorcerer’s guild. What follows is amazing to Lina and Gourry but not to the reader, who probably guessed what was going on about Page 40. The main surprise is when one of the characters involved DOESN’T die.

It has to be said, the most annoying aspect of this book is how it handles Lina. Gourry is supposed to be the big dumb muscle, though the anime exaggerates that to the poi not of parody. Lina, though, is supposed to be the one who gets what’s really going on. Unfortunately, here she’s got to be unable to make sense of the actual power struggle among the sorcerers in order for the plot to function, and you sort of slap your head a bit when she lets the cheerful obvious bad guy out of his prison and then walks away. She’s clueless. There’s also a lot more grotesque horror than I’d expect in a Slayers book here, with graphic descriptions of body mutations and diabolical experiments. And even then, the obvious payoff – the evil sorcerer is killed in a murder-suicide by his creation – doesn’t actually happen. (The anime fixed this.)

So yeah, overall a disappointment, although Lina’s narrative voice is still a lot of fun. That said, I know the series picks up again soon, and am definitely looking forward to more.

Manga the Week of 11/11/20

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SEAN: Need a distraction from the real world? There’s manga.

Ghost Ship gives us Parallel Paradise 3 and World’s End Fantasia 3.

J-Novel Club starts us off with a debut light novel, I’ll Never Set Foot in That House Again! (Nidoto ie ni wa Kaerimasen!). A J-Novel Heart title, this is about an abused young noble daughter who one day is found to have a rare Skill. Now she’s taken off to the research labs and treated like a princess. But will her family stand for that? This is a rare shoujo title where the heroine is more “cute and moe” than the typical “energetic and spunky”.

J-Novel Club also debuts the manga version of the Marielle Clarac series, The Engagement of Marielle Clarac. Fans of the books will want to pick this up, it’s a lot of fun.

Also out from J-NC: Black Summoner 2, In Another World with My Smartphone 21, The Magic in This Other World Is Too Far Behind!! 6 (manga version), Monster Tamer 2, Outbreak Company 15, and Slayers 3.

Kodansha, in print: Drifting Dragons 6, Hitorijime My Hero 8, Knight of the Ice 4, and Saint Young Men 4.

MICHELLE: I’ll be checking out Hitorijime My Hero and <i.Knight of the Ice for sure.

ANNA: I find <i.Knight of the Ice delightful.

ASH: Oooh! It’s a good Kodansha print week for me! I’m actively reading three of these four series.

SEAN: The digital debut is Peach Boy Riverside, one of the endless titles that are written by Coolkyousinnjya of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid fame. It’s about a princess who meets the equivalent of Momotaro (hence the title) and chases after him. It runs in Shonen Magazine R.

Also digital: Ace of the Diamond 29, Cells at Work and Friends! 4 (the final volume), Giant Killing 23, My Roomie Is a Dino 4, Practice Makes Perfect 2, Shaman King: Flowers 4, Tokyo Revengers 18, and We Must Never Fall in Love 3.

MICHELLE: Yay for new volumes of two of my favorite sports manga!

SEAN: One Peace has an 18th volume of The Rising of the Shield Hero.

Seven Seas has a number of debuts. Blue Giant is a series that is coming out here in double-volume omnibuses, and ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic. It’s essentially a sports manga, if the sport was jazz saxophone. It’s won multiple awards. I cannot wait.

MICHELLE: Sounds intriguing!

ANNA: Wow, I wasn’t aware of this before but it does sound amazing.

ASH: I am really looking forward to this one!

SEAN: I’m in Love with the Villainess! came out digitally already, but it was so good that you should get the print version as well. Volume 1 is out next week.

ASH: I’ve heard so many good things about this series; I’m excited to finally have the chance to read it!

SEAN: Rainbow and Black (Niji to Kuro) is a weird slice-of-life manga about a young woman and her… bird-puff… thing. It’s from Ichijinsha’s Comic Rex.

ASH: I do like weird, so count me as curious.

SEAN: And then there’s Unicorns Aren’t Horny (Ikkakujuu ha Tsuranukanai!), from GOT Corporation’s Comic MeDu, a webcomic about a woman who is still a virgin – by choice – and her unicorn roomate, who… really loves her. This is intriguing but could also be creepy? Not sure?

ASH: It sounds bizarre enough that I’m willing to give it a try to find out.

SEAN: Also out from Seven Seas: Arpeggio of Blue Steel 16, The Conditions of Paradise: Our First Time (essentially a Vol. 2), Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash 14, How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom 8, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear 3 (manga version), Magic User: Reborn in Another World as a Max Level Wizard novel 3, Primitive Boyfriend 3 (the final volume), and Sorry for My Familiar 7.

MICHELLE: I’ll be checking in to see how Primitive Boyfriend ends.

SEAN: Square Enix debuts the manga version of By the Grace of the Gods, which has a light novel (from J-Novel Club) and an anime this fall as well. It’s a slow life reincarnation isekai with cute kids and slimes.

SuBLime debuts Birds of Shangri-La (Shangri La no Tori), a BL series that, erm… is hard to describe in a work-safe way. If you know what a fluffer is, you’ll know what this is about. It runs in Canna magazine, and is from the author of Coyote and Liquor and Cigarettes.

They also have a 4th volume of Given.

MICHELLE: Woot!

ANNA: Yay!!

ASH: I’ll admit that I’ll be picking both of these up.

SEAN: Viz gives us Fly Me to the Moon 2, Fullmetal Alchemist: Fullmetal Edition 11, Requiem of the Rose King 13, Rin-Ne 36, Splatoon: Squid Kids Comedy Show 2, and A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow 5.

MICHELLE: I need to catch back up on Requiem of the Rose King.

ANNA: Me too!

ASH: I’m really looking forward to more.

SEAN: Yen On has The Eminence in Shadow 2 and Wandering Witch 3.

Lastly, Yen has a one-shot title, My Broken Mariko, which ran in Comic Bridge. a josei title about a woman who finds her best friend just killed herself and the search as for why that happened. This deals with themes of abuse and suicide, but is also supposed to be fantastically written.

MICHELLE: I’m very much looking forward to this.

ANNA: I’m always going to check out some josei.

ASH: I’ve heard some very good things about this manga and plan on giving it read when I can.

SEAN: Did you vote? If you did, please read some manga to cool down.

I Refuse to Be Your Enemy!, Vol. 3

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By Kanata Satsuki and Mitsuya Fuji. Released in Japan as “Watashi wa Teki ni Narimasen!” by PASH! Books. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Tara Quinn.

For the most part, while reading this series, it’s fairly easy to simply ignore that it’s meant to be a “villainess otome” book at all. Yes, Kiara’s memories of the game do sometimes come in very handy, but they don’t always match, as she’s altered the world too much for them to be the same. That said, there is one big subplot that is very dependent on Kiara’s original role being the villainess who gets killed off. Kiara is no longer filling that role and so it has to be filled by SOMEONE. And so we see a lot more of Ada, the spellcaster who uses fire we briefly saw in the second book. After Kiara ran away, she was next in line to be married off to the frog-faced noble and turned into a weapon, and boy is she angry about it. It’s an interesting reminder that this fantasy military action-adventure still runs on otome game rules, which means you still need a villainess no matter who it is.

As for our original villainess, now turned heroine, she’s doing pretty well here. While still not wanting to directly kill anyone, one battle sequence shows that she’s come to terms with indirectly doing it, in a chilling reminder of how deadly Earth Magic can be when used cleverly. Reggie’s army is slowly moving towards the capital, though it needs to make a few detours (farmers have a limited amount of time to cultivate, and they would like to have their land back). Things are mostly quiet on the romance front with Reggie, but that’s just because this is Cain’s book – he’s her bodyguard and has a crush, and starts to come on strong before being told that Kiara really is not ready to think about this sort of thing (she never dealt with love in her previous life, either). And there’s another surprise… Reggie can use magic?

Fortunately at least one of the pair of doomed lovers has decided to be less doomed – Kiara is taking more care of herself here – well, a bit more, but it’s visible – and no longer seems quite as willing to throw her life away for Reggie. The same cannot be said of him, unfortunately. Hearing about the fate of his game self seems to have given him a big case of “I’m living on borrowed time anyway”, and trying to hide the aftereffects of the wound he got last book is not really helping anyone in the long run. In particular, he’s clearly jealous of Cain and his closeness to Kiara, but almost seems to be giving up rather than fighting back. His fatalism had better change in the next book. Giving Kiara an evil counterpart who’s obsessed with him might help – all the setup for that is in this volume.

I never really have as much to say about these books. They’re so straightforward and serious – I believe I counted two jokes, which were admittedly quite funny – and they don’t give much to overanalyze. They’re just a good yarn. And this is the halfway point of the series, so I expect things to move even faster next time.

Restaurant to Another World, Vol. 5

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By Junpei Inuzuka and Katsumi Enami. Released in Japan as “Isekai Shokudou” by Shufunotomosha. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Elliot Ryouga. Adapted by Nino Cipri.

Last time I said that the book jumped around several time periods, and that goes double for this book, which shows us a few of the ongoing characters and their development but is also happy to show us how the fantasy world is coming from a period where there were battles to the death between humans and demons, between Empires and Kingdoms, and between vampires and “liliputians”. Indeed, it’s not really clear how time connects the world to the restaurant – there’s one story here which feels like it reads as a vampire from way in the past ends up at the restaurant of the “present”. That said, I honestly think that I’d need to go back and read the pr3evious books if I wanted to keep track of it all. This is a series about fantasy characters eating food, and while it’s doing its best to provide plot and characterization to go along with that, anything else is secondary. Which, as I’ve said before, makes it hard to review.

The “big” development at the start of the book is that the owner puts a sign on the fantasy world-side of the door that translates the restaurant’s name and purpose for the denizens of that world. Until now, the clientele it had attracted – at least in regards to first-timers – always tended to be either people in dire straits or people who naturally say “oh hey, what’s this door in the middle of nowhere?”. Now that it can say what it is, it’s attracting more newcomers who might have been wary were it just a door with Japanese written on it. Of course, even if they’re aloof elves that literally live in the clouds, they still end up enchanted by the clouds. I also liked that the customers are interacting with each other in ways other than talking about the food – one bard with a broken leg who found the door in the middle of nowhere gets healed by a priestess, meaning the restaurant is literally a life-saver.

The “main” cast still don’t do much but serve food. I had wondered if the series might be going for some sort of romance between the owner and Aletta, but there’s absolutely no sign of that here – I think it’s got nothing else on its mind but food. Aletta is still working on recovering from the abuse she received in the fantasy world – when she comes down with a bad cold (and gets some egg porridge), she fears that she’ll end up being fired for being unable to work. Kuro has a more difficult problem – she’s hideously overpowered, doesn’t speak (she communicates with customers telepathically, and none of them notice this at all), and is at heart a stoic sort of character. She seems to care for Aletta and the owner, but it’s hard to get a grasp on her. I’m not sure we ever will.

All this and food, food, food. There’s roast beef, Chinese congee, mille crepe cake, etc. The series continues to be a peaceful meal of a book.

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!: The Knight’s Lullaby

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

Ever since the revelation of her nobility, I’ve talked about how the author of the KonoSuba series has had a little bit of trouble with Darkness. The Lalatina side has come to the fore in recent books, and you see it here as well, as she helps come up with a scheme to force the adventurers to pay their taxes. But it has made her less hilariously appalling, which you could always count on Darkness being in earlier books. That said, KonoSuba has character development, slow though it may be. We’ve seen it with Megumin, and with Kazuma. And now it’s Darkness’s turn, as this book manages to combine her general nobility and need to do good things with her masochistic fantasies and leave her a more well-rounded character. The catalyst of this, as it was with Megumin, is her confession to Kazuma. Unfortunately for Darkness, and as Kazuma explicitly notes, this is not one of those light novels with polygamy.

The book starts where the last one left off, with Darkness begging everyone to not think that she had a love child. It’s her cousin, of course, but fortunately for the narrative, which literally just did “little kid causes chaos in Axel” last time with Komekko, she’s a minor character. Instead the first half of the book, barring the tax collecting subplot, is about Kazuma having to choose between Megumin, who already confessed to him but is not yet ready to go to bed with him, and Darkness, who confesses to him in this book, and certainly tries to go to bed with him, though her actual willingness to do this is in question. Which Kazuma does have a bit of “I have two girls wanting me, I am the man” to his behavior, he actually does think things through sensibly, and decides… he wants to be with Megumin, as “more than friends but less than lovers”. (Her age also seems to still make him uncomfortable, justifiably so.) While there are many funny parts involved, I appreciate the book handled this seriously.

The other half of the book has Darkness’ cousin having a virus that infects the local kids (what is it with 2020 light novels and pandemics?), causing Kazuma and Darkness to have to travel to get a “demon’s fingernail” as an ingredient for the cure. (Vanir, the obvious choice, can’t provide one as he turns to sand if they do it.) This is much more in the ‘goofball Konosuba’ style, especially once they add Chris to their group, who has decided to help them out, a decision she will quickly come to regret. There’s bathroom humor, girls getting stripped humor, tentacle rape humor… it’s not the classiest series in the world, but it never QUITE crosses a line, and for the most part is amusing, though I will admit I preferred the first half of the book.

So yeah, somewhere along the line this parody grew up. Well, except for Aqua. And the author hints that her development will be the climax of the series. Till then, this book is recommended for all KonoSuba fans, though if you ship Kazuma with Darkness, you might end up being a little sad.