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Making Jam in the Woods: My Relaxing Life Starts in Another World, Vol. 1

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By Kosuzu Kobato and Yuichi Murakami. Released in Japan as “Mori no Hotori de Jam wo Niru: Isekai de Hajimeru Slow Life” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Jade Willis.

If this author sounds familiar, there’s a good reason. We’ve already seen The Apothecary Witch Turned Divorce Agent, as well as I’d Rather Have a Cat Than a Harem, and True Love Fades Away When the Contract Ends will be out next year. So it makes sense to circle round and pick up one of the author’s earlier works. This one is definitely on the “slow life” end of the scale, as the author freely admits in the afterword. Not a heck of a lot happens here. Hell, we don’t even get to see all that much jam making. But this book basically fulfills everything you want from a a slow life title: pleasant, likeable protagonist, friends around her who help and care for her, and the daily reward of basic tasks. Our heroine is living in the woods, and her host prefers to live fairly low-tech, so it’s all just very… relaxing. That’s the vibe here. Dull? A bit. But not much.

Our heroine (who doesn’t even get a Japanese name) works at a department store, and has come in on one of her few days off, despite exhaustion from overwork, to help out in an emergency… which makes it unfortunately when a runaway truck in a parking garage kills her. Yes, that’s right, we get both “death by working too hard” *and* “truck sends me to another world”. She’s found on the side of a riverbank by a dog, but sadly being sent to another world did not heal any of her injuries. Fortunately, there’s a doctor nearby, and this world has healing magic. As she recovers at the home of the dog’s owner, a former Countess, she’s informed that she’s a Spirit Caller, meaning she can interact with fairies. Unfortunately, this also means she can’t do any magic. And also, for some mysterious reason, she can’t speak. Still, she makes do.

Our heroine being mute is an interesting idea, though I honestly feel that the conversation flows a little too well despite this, even before she gets her magical writing pad. But essentially, this falls into the standard isekai plot for women readers. For male readers, it’s all about accumulating cool powers and multiple wives, while for women it tends more towards “now I can finally relax and not be working myself to death”. Like Sei from The Saint’s Magic Power Is Omnipotent, Margaret is said to look a lot younger after she’s recovered, and the running gag in the book is everyone giving her headpats, as she thinks they’re treating her like a child. As for her love interest, well, he’s a sullen young man with a tough upbringing who has become stoic and taciturn, but warms up to Margaret and falls in love with her pretty quickly. These are still romances.

This is apparently three volumes total, and I imagine the next one will have her actually visit the royal capital and finding out more about what Spirit Calling entails. Till then, let’s watch her make jam and get headpatted.

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, Vol. 16

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By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by Lorin Christie.

Every few volumes, the series needs to have Yuna go somewhere she’s never been before, partly because otherwise the series would get even more boring than it already tends to be (sorry, Yuna, I really don’t care about you making omelettes from giant eggs), but also so that the audience can remember that a girl walking around in a bear onesie is not normal and does, in fact, make people think Yuna is either a child or deeply weird. They’re not wrong on the second part, but the bear suit is, of course, absolutely essential for Yuna – and she can’t actually explain why. Some folks have seen obliquely that when Yuna is not in the suit (such as the beach scenes two books ago) she’s super weak, but I don’t think they’ve connected it to “the bear stuff gives her all her power”. Honestly, if this series ever ends, that may be the final boss. Someone who steals her bear suit/gear and forces her to rely on others.

After a few introductory chapters like “let’s make pressed flowers” or “let’s make ice cream”, Yuna decides to do something she’d been meaning to do for a while: go visit the dwarves’ village. She takes Fina, because shed get lonely otherwise, and ends up picking up Luimin from the elves’ village as well. (Elves and dwarves get along fine here, confusing Yuna, who is used to fantasy cliches.) While there, they also meet Jade’s party, who are there because Toya is finally going to get his mithril sword… or at least, he would be if the blacksmith didn’t reject him for not being good enough. As for Yuna, she’s busy buying pots and pans for everyone she knows, as well as talking with the mentor of the dwarf blacksmiths she knows, who is currently refusing to make swords.

It is interesting sometimes to imagine the audience for this series. It’s filled with cute girls, so you’d think that “guys who like to see cute girls” would be the #1. That said, the book really does like to hammer home how useless the guys in it are. Yuna sometimes forgets that Fina also has a stepdad in addition to her mom. Toya is basically a punching bag for everyone else in the cast until right at the end of the volume, and his story is still going to have to wait for the next book to get resolved. Is the book for yuri fans? The author is definitely writing in more yuri tease, with both Shia and Fina indicating they’d be very happy being Yuna’s bride. Unfortunately, like a lot of yuri tease series, Yuna is always there to say things like “but I don’t like girls that way” or “that’s not happening”. Is the book fans fans of grumpy 15-year-old girls in a bear suit who constantly worry about her flat chest? That seems most likely.

This book ends in the middle of the dwarf plot, so I’d expect the next book to resolve it. Till then, this sure was a volume of Kuma Bear.

Third Loop: The Nameless Princess and the Cruel Emperor, Vol. 1

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By Iota AIUE and Misa Sazanami. Released in Japan as “Nanashi no Ōjo to Reikoku Kōtei: Shītagerareta Yōjo, Konse de wa Ryū to Mofumofu ni Dekiai Sarete Imasu” by M Novels f. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by JCT.

So there is a trend in fiction in general… honestly it’s always been a trend… to mine the tragic backstory of the protagonist for emotional trauma in the reader. We are shown how utterly, utterly TERRIBLE their life has been to date. Usually this ends up becoming “but then this happened and suddenly all my karma reversed at once”, be it meeting the prince of your dreams or just buying a Super Cub. Third Loop, of course, is one of those books. Honestly, the reason I was so looking forward to it was the sheer over the top ludicrousness of the backstory in question. Our heroine does not have a name. She’s just called “That”. That said, this particular book, while it does not minimize all of the abuse she’s gotten, is more of a Cinderella story than anything else, and most of the abuse stems from a very real place: grief.

Not only is Princess That despised by her father (who says if he ever sees her he will have her executed) and servants (her head maid is trying actively to destroy her life), but this isn’t even her first life: this is now the fourth time she’s been through this. In previous lives she’d never really experienced enough love from anyone to realize the extent of her abuse, but now, having lived in one life long enough to escape the royal estate and be taken in by a commoner family, she knows what actual love is. As such, she now decides to fight back, be it using her past memories to appear to be a genius or “messenger of heaven” or just looking really sad and crying in front of sympathetic maids and knights. And, as it turns out, she’s really quite powerful, and in this fourth life, things finally start to go her way.

For the most part I really enjoyed this. The Emperor, Feilong, was deeply in love with his wife, to the point where it actively caused political issues. (Honestly, the backstory of the previous generation sounds more interesting than the main one being told here.) Unfortunately, she died giving birth to her daughter, and in his crushing despair, he decided that his daughter killed her. That said… it does not really take much to change his mind. Honestly, everyone in this book, with the exception of the head of the inner palace, Mion (who is aiming to be the Emperor’s new wife), is relatively easily won over by the princess, because it turns out that she is not, in fact, a monster but is plucky, smart and cute. The one drawback in the book is that once her father and brother are won over, they start to have “jealous of other men who are close to her” rage, which is used comedically but made me sigh, especially since in this life, the princess is three years old for the majority of the book.

This is another one of those books that feels complete in one volume, but there’s apparently at least two more. Fortunately, the nameless princess gets a name before the end of this book. I bet they don’t change the title, though. A rewarding read if you can get past the traumatic backstory of everyone.

Manga the Week of 11/15/23

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SEAN: The leaves are dropping like flies, and so is the manga.

ASH: Ah, my favorite time of year.

SEAN: We start with Airship, which has two print books: Adachi and Shimamura 11 and Reincarnated As a Sword 13.

Early digital titles are Free Life Fantasy Online: Immortal Princess 5 and I Swear I Won’t Bother You Again! 4.

Denpa Books… sure, let’s go with this week, though I may be wrong… has Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack: Beltorchika’s Children (Kidou Senshi Gundam Gyakushuu no Char – Beltorchika Children). This is an alternate telling of the famous movie story that ran in Gundam Ace about a decade ago.

ASH: Denpa books come out whenever Denpa books come out.

SEAN: Ghost Ship has a 6th volume of Ayakashi Triangle.

And in “not quite Ghost Ship, but it’s Mature so let’s put it here”, there’s The Dangerous Convenience Store, a manwha webtoon about a part-time convenience store worker and the gangster who protects him.

ASH: Even if it’s mature, it looks pretty cute; I love the color palette on the cover.

ANNA: I mean, it does sound cute but Mature can mean many different things.

SEAN: J-Novel Club has some print editions next week, as we see An Archdemon’s Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride 15, Ascendance of a Bookworm 21, and I Shall Survive Using Potions! 8.

ASH: Bookworm, you say? (I am so far behind, but still excited to see it coming out in print.)

SEAN: The digital debut for J-Novel Heart is Jeanette the Genius: Defying My Evil Stepmother by Starting a Business with My Ride-or-Die Fiancé! (Kakure Saijo wa Zenzen Megenai: Gibo to Gimai ni Ie wo Oidasareta no de Konyaku Haki Shite Moraou to Omottara, Shinshi datta Konyakusha ga Hageshiku Dekiai Shitekuru Yо̄ ni Narimashita!). The title is the plot.

We also see Ascendance of a Bookworm 28, Housekeeping Mage from Another World: Making Your Adventures Feel Like Home! 7, I’m Giving the Disgraced Noble Lady I Rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness: I’ll Spoil Her with Delicacies and Style to Make Her the Happiest Woman in the World! 2, the 6th Isekai Tensei: Recruited to Another World manga volume, and To Another World… with Land Mines! 8.

No new titles for Kodansha Manga, but we get Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card 14, Hitorijime My Hero 14, SHAMAN KING: FLOWERS 5, and A Sign of Affection 7 in print.

ASH: I really need to give A Sign of Affection a try.

ANNA: It is so good!

SEAN: And digitally we have Ace of the Diamond 46, Cells at Work! Lady 3, The Fable 20, Gang King 11, The Great Cleric 11, and That Time the Manga Editor Started a New Life in the Countryside 2.

One Peace Books has the 5th volume of Captain Corinth.

Before we get into actual Seven Seas debuts, it’s time for Christmas Present buying, so we get a lot of box sets next week. The Ancient Magus’ Bride – Season 1 Box Set (Vol. 1-9), Dai Dark – Vol. 1-4 Box Set, and Made in Abyss – Season 1 Box Set (Vol. 1-5). They’ve also got a 2nd full color edition of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid.

ASH: Oooh, The Ancient Magus’ Bride and Dai Dark sets come with posters.

SEAN: Actual debuts. 365 Days to the Wedding (Kekkon Surutte, Hontou Desu ka? – 365 Days to the Wedding) is a Big Comic Spirits title from the creator of one of the great unlicensed Shonen Sunday titles, The World God Only Knows. Two employees of a travel agency are horrified to find they may be transferred to Russia. To avoid this, they’ll have to get fake married!

MICHELLE: Hm.

ASH: People have gotten married for worse reasons.

ANNA: Alright!

SEAN: Cat on the Hero’s Lap (Yuusha no Hiza ni wa Neko ga Iru) is an Ura Sunday title that’s another cat manga. A hero needs to defeat the demon lord… or would if he could get up. But he’s petting a kitty!

MICHELLE: Additional hm.

ASH: Cat gravity manga!

SEAN: Sheep Princess in Wolf’s Clothing (Ookami no Kawa o Kabutta Hitsujihime) is a yuri title from Manga Life Storia. A wolf-eared butler saves the life of a sheep-eared princess, and becomes her tutor. Can love bloom?

ASH: Signs point to yes.

SEAN: We also see The Duke of Death and His Maid 9, Lazy Dungeon Master 6, The Tale of the Outcasts 8 (the final volume), Time Stop Hero 8, and The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash 4.

From Square Enix we see Mr. Villain’s Day Off 2, The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest 15, and Tokyo Aliens 5.

SuBLime debuts Love Nest 2nd, which is, well, a sequel to Love Nest. It ran in Dear+.

They also have the 4th and final volume of Megumi & Tsugumi.

The debut from Tokyopop is Lullaby of the Dawn (Yoake no Uta), a BL title that runs in the magazine from RED. Cursed young man doomed to be corrupted and die meets pure young lad.

Tokyopop also has Dead Company 2 and Ossan Idol! 7.

Viz debuts a new shoujo title, Sakura, Saku, the latest work of Io Sakisaka, so naturally it runs in Betsuma. A girl is trying to thank a boy who helped her once, so tries to give a thank you note to his younger brother. This does not work. Described as a “bittersweet” love story.

MICHELLE: I’m all for bittersweet!

ASH: Passing along notes through a younger sibling never works.

ANNA: I am HYPE for this!!!!!

SEAN: We also see Blue Exorcist 28 (the first volume in 18 months), D.Gray-man 28 (the first volume in 28 months), Disney Twisted-Wonderland 2, Fly Me to the Moon 20, Helck 6, Mao 14, Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle 22, and Wolf Girl and Black Prince 4.

ASH: I should read more Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle; it’s a fun series.

ANNA: Me too!

SEAN: Lastly, Yen Press has an artbook, AidaIro Illustrations: Toilet-bound Hanako-kun 2.

ASH: Nice!

SEAN: Don’t worry, Yen Press will smash us in the face next time. In the meanwhile, what are you getting?

The Tatami Time Machine Blues

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By Tomihiko Morimi and Yusuke Nakamura, based on the play “Summer Time Machine Blues” by Makoto Ueda. Released in Japan as “Yojōhan Time Machine Blues” by Kadokawa. Released in North America by HarperVia. Translated by Emily Balistrieri.

I had mixed feelings about The Tatami Galaxy as a novel, as I appreciated the story, the writing, and the other characters, but the nameless protagonist drove me nuts. We honestly spent far too much time inside his head, to the detriment of my enjoyment. If only, I probably did not think at the time but should have, there could be a book with the same cast but where events happen so fast and require so much action that the protagonist does not have all that much time to be a pretentious ass? I was probably yearning for a book just like this one. Taking a pre-existing play written by frequent collaborator Makoto Ueda before The Tatami Galaxy was written (it has a famous live-action film of its own) and putting the Tatami Galaxy characters in it is a fantastic idea, mostly as it turns this into a comedic farce. And boy do these characters work well in that genre.

This is not a sequel to the original, but more an “alternate story”. The setup is the same. The narrator lives in a dilapidated apartment complex, he has his terrible best friend, his cool beauty crush, and the annoying guy who’s been a college student for at least ten years now. The plot starts when the remote for the complex’s one air conditioner, in the narrator’s room, is broken and it’s the hottest time of the year. This is a problem, as they’re busy doing things like making Akashi’s movie about a time traveler going to the Shinsengumi period and turning them all into slackers. Then a *real* time machine shows up, and they get the bright idea to go back in time and grab the air conditioner remote before it gets broken. But… doesn’t this create a time paradox?

The discussion of time paradoxes and closed time loops is interesting, but honestly it’s just an excuse for madcap antics and the narrator freaking out at said madcap antics. The narrator has the same problem he had in Tatami Galaxy – he wants to ask Akashi out but is too much of a coward – but aside from one section in the middle he is not allowed to dwell on this, and honestly his problem ends up being solved by the time loop and Akashi, who (as in the first book) has the patience of a saint. There’s also a time traveler from the future, whose identity is so obvious that even spoiling it here would feel lame, but who allows the plot to happen. And there’s Ozu being terrible, and Higuchi being annoying, and Hanuki being a free spirit, etc. This doesn’t have the grand feel of the last quarter of Tatami Galaxy, but it’s not aiming for that. And honestly, it may be the true canon. The narrator and Akashi come up with the plot for The Tatami Galaxy towards the end, and even name it. So perhaps that’s the fiction and this is the reality.

If you enjoyed the first book, or the anime, this is a must read, and go watch the anime too. Honestly, maybe Morimi should use pre-existing plots more often.

I Guess This Dragon Who Lost Her Egg to Disaster Is My Mom Now, Vol. 1

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By Suzume Kirisaki and Cosmic. Released in Japan as “Saigai de Tamago o Ushinatta Dragon ga Nazeka Ore o Sodate Hajimeta” by M Novels. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Jordan Taylor.

I wasn’t sure whether I’d enjoy this new series, which I mostly decided to read because, well, I was reading CIW’s other two debuts this month, so hey. It begins with the old chestnut of “adventuring party doesn’t see the value in strategy so gets rid of the weak guy who’s actually the pillar of their support”, though most of the time those people are merely thrown out, not butchered and left for dead. The “I’m being raised by a dragon but we can’t communicate well, can we become a real mother and daughter?” plot is arguably the main one, and it’s a lot better, reaching a few levels of heartwarming along the way. That said, the big reason I enjoyed this book as much as I did was the ghost story. Not a literal ghost, but the idea that everyone is haunted by the presence of this guy, but they can’t remember his name. That’s fantastic.

Our nameless protagonist is, as noted above, murdered by his party members. They’re on a very dangerous mountainside and decide to use his corpse as bait to get away from monsters. As he crawls towards his inevitable death, he is picked up by a dragon. Back in the dragon’s lair, she finds she’s now a 10-year-old girl, and has lost most of her memories of her past. The dragon is clearly trying to raise her as a daughter, but has no idea what humans need in terms of food, etc., so they both struggle for a bit. That said, the previously magic-less protagonist, now named Lushera, can now breathe fire and manipulate lightning and other dragon-ey things. Meanwhile, back in the town the adventuring party came from, they’re highly disturbed by his old guild badge, which has his name blocked out but has stats that are out of this world.

The other important thing about this book is that the author calls it a “transsexual fantasy”, as the male protagonist, on being nearly killed and then reborn as a dragon’s child, is now a different gender. This is handled pretty well, mostly through subtext, as we see Lushera’s discomfort when having to wear girl’s underwear for the first time, and her constant astonishment at the fact that her new body is “cute” and “pretty”. But yes, it was the “ghost story” that fascinated me. Lushera’s old life is erased by (presumably) dragon magic, but it was just her name, and everything she did – which was a lot more than the stupid party that killed her thought – is still heavily influential on those in the town. We also learn the tragic reason she and the party were there in the first place, which neatly ties in to the new relationship she has with her dragon mother, one where she struggles to admit that it’s love for a parent.

This is another one of those “there’s more to the story, but it also could easily end in this volume” sort of books. I’d definitely put it in the “better than expected” category.

Stuck in a Time Loop: When All Else Fails, Be a Villainess, Vol. 2

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By Sora Hinokage and Tsukasa Kiryu. Released in Japan as “Loop kara Nukedasenai Akuyaku Reijō wa, Akiramete Sukikatte Ikirukoto ni Kimemashita” by DRE Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Andria McKnight.

There is apparently a 3rd and final volume of this coming soon, which surprises me, as right until the end I thought that this book was the equivalent of that new Shonen Jump series that is told “you have 3 chapters to wrap up all your plotlines”. This volume hits the ground running and does not let up in terms of reveals, backstories, and monster fights. Thankfully, Selene is no longer stuck in a time loop, as at least in this book she manages to make it all the way through without resetting. Unfortunately, bad things keep trying to happen to her, leading to a change in her goal: escape this time loop’ is now secondary to ‘live freely and happily and screw everyone else’. Well, everyone else except Dier, of course. The romance in this series is so mild as to be almost nonexistent, but it is there, and deep down Selene is probably “quite fond” of Dier. Just don’t ask her to say it.

Unfortunately, Selene, Dier, and the king find that even taking all the other powers from the guardians is not enough to change the mystery stone tablet. Fortunately (?) for Selene, a solution presents itself fairly quickly: her little sister Soleil has finally gained the powers of the sun, and her mother is now telling Selene to step down. Selene says no, and so the two of them have to have a fight to determine who gets to be head of house. Which… makes little sense, given that Selene is a master of shadow and Soleil just came into her power last week. What’s stepmom’s real agenda here? Well, it’s a big one, and is tied deeply into their family, the past of this country, and Selene’s own late mother. Unfortunately, none of these revelations are particularly good news, and Selene spends most of the book in battle.

I was pleased to see that little sister was not evil as I’d theorized at the end of my first review. She just has an evil mom. That said, Soleil is not all that interesting, being the standard “yes, mother” daughter who must break free of her shackles, etc. Selene is the star of the show, and the reason we’re here. I’ve mentioned her emotional walls before, and they’re still very high, making the narrative sometimes feel as if she’s reading off a phone book when she’s actually facing off against monsters who have possessed her family. The best part of the book is probably Selene’s father, who I had written off as a minor part of the series, returning and showing that, like his daughter, he does actually feel things but has tremendous difficulty expressing them. This forces Selene to have her one and only major emotional moment in the book. That said, it’s only about halfway through the book, so she doesn’t “change for the better” or anything.

The cover to the third volume, due out in Japan next month, has the characters walking into the twilight but looking back at the reader with a smile, and you know what that means. I’ll be back, and continue to hope Selene has a love epiphany or something.

A Misanthrope Teaches a Class for Demi-Humans, Vol. 1

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By Kurusu Natsume and Sai Izumi. Released in Japan as “Jingai Kyōshitsu no Ningen-girai Kyōshi: Hitoma-sensei, Watashi-tachi ni Ningen o Oshiete Kuremasu ka……?” by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Linda Liu.

Look, I appreciate a surprise as much as the next person. I love it when a book I thought was going to be one thing turns out to be something totally different. But sometimes there is also joy in picking something up because you know what it’s going to be, and have it be exactly that. This is one of those books. The plot description made it sound exactly like the Japanese sub-genre of “new teacher enters the lives of their students and changes them for the better”. Now, Hitoma is never going to come close to Onizuka, or even Kumiko Yamaguchi. But that’s OK, because these series live and die on the strength of their student cast, and these students are fun, and they do have one or two big surprises. It helps that we don’t have to deal with a huge cast herd. This is a school for demi-humans, and there’s only four in their “senior year”.

Hitoma is a man in his late twenties, and he’s been holed up in his family home ever since a traumatic experience when teaching led him to quit. But he spots an ad for a teacher at an all-girls school in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, with great pay and benefits. He arrives for the interview, and discovers the catch: this is a school for non-humans trying their best to become human. He’ll be in charge of the advanced class, which has upbeat mermaid girl Minazuki, teasing bird girl Haneda, sullen rabbit girl Usami, and shy wolf-girl Ohgami. Each have a wish that can only happen if they learn how to be human and graduate, and Hitoma is here to help them. That said, the graduation rate is very low…

As you might guess, there are individual chapters dedicated to each girl and her circumstances. Minazuki is descended from Poseidon, and really should be mermaid nobility, but wants to be a dancer. Ohgami has a different personality every full moon, one that is her polar opposite, and also is a reverse werewolf. Both sides have suicidal tendencies and a desire to sacrifice. As for Usami and Haneda, the spoiler is the point there, so I won’t go into detail. They’re all fun. As for Hitoma, “misanthrope” is not really all that accurate, “depressed” fits better. This does not stop him for earnestly helping all the girls – he’s a good teacher. (They tease him about teacher-student relationships, but he never rises to the bait – he IS a good teacher). Given the cover of the 2nd book has three different girls, I wondered if the entire cast would leave the series at the end of this volume. That’s not true, but it shows just how much everyone has grown that it’s totally plausible.

So yeah, Book 2 is the latest out in Japan, and as noted, there are different girls on the cover. I’ll be here for it, though. This is heartwarming and life-affirming, and I greatly enjoyed it.

Re: ZERO ~Starting Life in Another World~, Vol. 23

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By Tappei Nagatsuki and Shinichirou Otsuka. Released in Japan as “Re: Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Dale DeLucia.

Do you enjoy Re: Zero but feel that it’s gotten a bit too complacent? Are you upset that everyone now tends to get along and talk through their problems like reasonable adults? Do you miss the early volumes when flipping each page felt like crawling through broken glass? I have terrific news for you! Subaru’s lost his memories, and we’re starting all over from zero! , Now, to be fair to Subaru, he actually IS pretty good about things, at first. My worry was that he would immediately try to hide that he’ lost his memory and try to fake it, which absolutely would not work with this crowd. So he confesses right away. Sadly, he is unaware of Return by Death, but he very quickly finds out, and also very quickly leads to him realizing that someone keeps killing him. So he DOES then try to hide that he’s lost his memory. Which does not go well, because see above.

So yes, going back to the start of the book, Subaru has lost his entire memory of this world, thinking he just got here from Japan. He tells Emilia and Beatrice, who are clearly upset but are used to bullshit, so they cope as best they can. And Subaru is not the only one confessing secrets. “Anastasia” finally comes clean and decides to admit that she’s Echidna (no, not that Echidna, the other Echidna) and that she’s trying to save Anastasia before her life runs out. Unfortunately, as he wanders around trying to figure out what to do next, Subaru is pushed off a staircase to his death. At first thinking this was some sort of dream precognition, he makes another attempt to wobble through the same events… and suddenly finds half the cast also dead. As he realizes that this book just became a locked room mystery, Subaru reacts in a nostalgic way: by completely losing his shit and being 100% paranoid.

I admit, this book hurt to read and I wanted it to be over with as fast as possible. (It does help that it’s one of the shorter Re: Zero volumes to date.) I appreciate everyone’s character development, and seeing it removed it not ironic, it’s just mean. That said, this is very well done. Julius’s frustration, Rem’s furious disbelief, and Emilia’s unwavering love are all done incredibly well. The final scene with Emilia and Subaru is like a reward for the rest of the volume, and it will touch your heart. (Also, thank goodness that Re: Zero is one of those books that uses honorifics, because the moment Subaru says “Emilia-chan” when he’s trying to hide his memory loss you can see everyone go “WTF”.) And then there’s Meili, who spends half the book as a corpse but might get the most development of all, and whose backstory is both grotesque and a bit heartwarming, like most of the cast.

We end the volume with another death, but at least this time Subaru has decided, memories or no, to start fighting back. Which is good, as the culprit is clearly inside the house, and is also not any of the cast we see in this book. A great Re: Zero volume, despite the pain.

My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer, Vol. 10

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By MOJIKAKIYA and toi8. Released in Japan as “Boukensha ni Naritai to Miyako ni Deteitta Musume ga S-Rank ni Natteta” by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Roy Nukia.

As I write this, we’re a little under halfway through the anime version of this series, which is quite enjoyable provided you don’t mid that it has the animation budget of one peanut. It’s clearly an advertisement for the books, which just wrapped up in Japan. Unfortunately, despite my saying in my review of 9 that 10 is the last, it turns out that I am wrong, and there’s another book on the way. That said, this definitely has the feeling of an epilogue, and I think that’s fine. Yes, one of the bad guys got away, but honestly I’m OK with ignoring him for now and concentrating entirely on everyone going back to Bel’s hometown and settling into in their new huge mansion to match all the daughters that Bel has accumulated throughout this series. And, of course, his new wife. As for Ange, well, she’s had a lot of dad lately, and believe it or not does love being an adventurer more, so she’s headed back to Orphen, with one extra team member.

We’re back in Turnera! There are lots of kids to play around with and train to hunt and fish. There’s Belgrieve and Satie, who are now married but honestly seem far too comfortable and passionless for others in their group, so a secret second wedding is decided on so we get a real love confession. And then there’s Mit. His mana is still an issue, and the best way to deal with it is to build a dungeon that uses the excess mana to spawn fiends that can then be killed by adventurers. Of course, the question is where to put a freshly built dungeon? Should it be Orphen, which has the guild and is used to this sort of thing? Or Bordeaux, which has been growing rapidly but could use a dungeon to become a city unto its own. Or… should it be Turnera? Can we really turn Bel’s sleepy village into a dungeon tourism industry?

There were some moments in this I really liked. I appreciated that it took Helvetica’s crush on Belgrieve seriously, and also that it was not something that she could just give up on when seeing Bel and Satie being all mild and sedate at each other. (Satie spends a lot of this book acting like a standard housewife, but given the last twenty years of her life before this, I’d say she’s due.) They needed to overtly love each other to make it easier for her to back off. I also liked Angelica telling Maria about her own demonic heritage. She’s not only come to terms with it, but is OK with being used as a guinea pig if it will mean helping to solve the problem. Though Maria doesn’t really believe her. There’s also a great short story at the end showing us how Angeline, Anessa and Miriam first teamed up, and how incredibly awkwardly things started off. It was sweet.

This series runs on good vibes, and if we get more of those in the finale, I’m find with it.

Sasaki and Peeps: Betrayals, Conspiracies, and Coups d’État! The Gripping Conclusion to the Otherworld Succession Battle ~Meanwhile, You Asked for It! It’s Time for a Slice-of-Life Episode in Modern Japan, but We Appear to Be on Hard Mode~

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By Buncololi and Kantoku. Released in Japan as “Sasaki to Pi-chan” by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Alice Prowse.

The joy of this series is the genre mashup, of course, but that can also make it very hard to take at times. When the author does a genre, they go all in. This means the fantasy world is filled with throne wars, elves, dragons, and last minute plot twists. The “psychic” part of the story involves people using powers to control others and create chaos all around them. It also veers into a sentai show here, and it’s very deliberate. The Neighbor Girl’s supernatural part is very much standard “death game”, even though she and her demonic partner don’t get to wipe out anyone this book. But Neighbor Girl (who we get a last name for at last – Kurosu) also brings another sub-genre to the plate, which is hideous abuse. That’s the “slice of life” in this volume’s subtitle, and it absolutely goes off the rails when she, Sasaki and Futarishizuka attend the wake from hell. This is getting an anime soon, and I imagine making this all cohere seamlessly will be a nightmare.

Sasaki has a lot on his plate. He’s attending the aforementioned wake, where we learn that apparently Neighbor Girl’s family has money, but also that literally everyone in the family despises her; he’s dealing with the aftermath of the sea monster from the last book, as he and Hoshizaki are almost lured to America with the promise of a ton of money, stopped only by their complete lack of English skills. An unknown enemy decided to mind control people into causing a riot near Hoshizaki’s apartment, presumably to do to it what they did with Sasaki’s old place; and there is, of course, the fantasy world, where it appears that the first prince has betrayed the nation and is collaborating with the enemy. Can he even find time to settle down and get some actual sleep? He can in the fantasy world, but certainly not in Japan.

I tend to go on about Neighbor Girl too much in these reviews, and her story vanishes after the first third of the book, so I will just note that that slap made me scream out loud, and also that she is a ticking time bomb that Sasaki is ignoring but Futarishizuka certainly isn’t. We do get to learn a lot more about Hoshizaki in this book, though I suspect she would not be happy with that fact. Unsurprisingly, at school she seems to have no friends and looks the stereotypical bookish nerd – her overly made up face on the job is the attempt to look “grown up”. Her younger sister straight up thinks her part-time job is sex work, and Sasaki has to reassure her while also giving nothing away about what the job actually is. She’s also clearly got a crush on Sasaki, but is sadly running a very distant third, behind Futarishizuka (easily the front runner) and Neighbor Girl.

This is a good book, and has an excellent plot twist near the end I did not expect. It’s also a book that rewards close character analysis, which I like. If you can put up with the occasional lolicon joke, it’s a definite winner. And it appears next book we’re adding aliens.

Manga the Week of 11/8/23

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SEAN: November is here, and all the manga that comes with it. This and December are always the big ones.

We start with Viz Media, who don’t have any debuts. But they do have Black Clover 33, Blue Box 7, The Elusive Samurai 9, Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible 10, Like a Butterfly 3, My Hero Academia: Team-Up Missions 4, My Special One 4, One Piece 104, and Queen’s Quality 18.

ASH: I had somehow forgotten that One Piece had broken triple digits.

SEAN: Steamship debuts Revenge: Mrs. Wrong (Revenge – Kaedama Kon), which ran in Cheese!. A woman sends her sister out to substitute for her on dates when she can’t be bothered, but that’s going to change soon when the sister decides to get some of her own back.

Seven Seas has two debuts. Black Night Parade (Black Night Parade) is from the creator of Saint Young Men and Arakawa Under the Bridge. A man is kidnapped by a Santa who is in charge of all the naughty children, and now the man must work at his workshop. This runs in Ultra Jump.

ASH: Oh! I had missed that we were getting another Hikaru Nakamura manga! It sounds suitably ridiculous.

SEAN: My Pancreas Broke, But My Life Got Better (Suizou ga Kowaretara, Sukoshi Ikiyasuku Narimashita) is the latest autobiographical title from Nagata Kabi, detailing her attempts to give up alcohol entirely during COVID lockdown.

ASH: Heavy for sure, but likely worth checking out.

SEAN: Seven Seas is also releasing My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness: Special Edition, a deluxe hardcover with new cover art and a bonus chapter.

ASH: Wow!

SEAN: Also from Seven Seas: Classroom of the Elite 8, Let’s Buy the Land and Cultivate It in a Different World 5, Made in Abyss Official Anthology 5, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: Fafnir the Recluse 3, My Girlfriend’s Child 3, No Longer Allowed In Another World 4, This Is Screwed Up, but I Was Reincarnated as a GIRL in Another World! 9, and Who Made Me a Princess 3.

One Peace Books has the 3rd manga volume of The Death Mage.

Kodansha has been listening to my whining a bit, and has fixed their calendar to be more obvious about print/digital releases. The print debut is Virgin Love (Shojo Koi. – Shojo no Shouko-san), a josei series about a 26-year-old virgin woman who moves into an experimental “singles” house to try to do something about that. This runs in the nearly unknown magazine Ar.

ANNA: Alright for josei!

ASH: Yes, indeed!

SEAN: Also in print: Am I Actually the Strongest? 5, The Darwin Incident 2, EDENS ZERO 25, I’m Standing on a Million Lives 16, L♥DK 23-24 (it got bumped), Lovely Muco! 3, The Moon on a Rainy Night 2, Noragami Omnibus 8, Peach Boy Riverside 13, The Seven Deadly Sins: Four Knights of the Apocalypse 10, Shangri-La Frontier 8, and Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun 4.

MICHELLE: I’m already so far behind on Iruma-kun!

SEAN: Digitally the debut is He’s Expecting (Hiyama Kentarou no Ninshin), a josei series from Be Love imagining a future where men can also give birth. Needless to say, the prejudices and stereotypes have not magically vanished.

ANNA: Even more josei!

ASH: Nice.

SEAN: Also digital: Blue Lock 22, Hitorijime My Hero 14, How to Grill Our Love 5, Life 9, Matcha Made in Heaven 7, My Unique Skill Makes Me OP even at Level 1 11, My Wife is a Little Intimidating 5, Piano Duo for the Left Hand 8, and Undead Girl Murder Farce 4.

Sorry, Kaiten Books, missed you last week: they have a digital release of The Bottom-Tier Baron’s Accidental Rise to the Top 3.

J-Novel Club has one digital debut, from the Heart imprint: Marriage, Divorce, and Beyond: The White Mage and Black Knight’s Romance Reignited (Saishō Hosa to Kurokishi no Keiyaku Kekkon to Rikon to Sonogo: Henkyō no Chi de Futari wa Fūfu o Yarinaosu). The Black Knight is the heroine, who has to get married to pass on her awesome Black Knight powers. There is a perfect match for her… but she does NOT want to marry a noble!

And we also see Back to the Battlefield: The Veteran Heroes Return to the Fray! 2, Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon: My Trusted Companions Tried to Kill Me, But Thanks to the Gift of an Unlimited Gacha I Got LVL 9999 Friends and Am Out For Revenge on My Former Party Members and the World 5, the 4th manga volume of Fushi no Kami: Rebuilding Civilization Starts With a Village, The Greatest Magician’s Ultimate Quest: I Woke from a 300 Year Slumber to a World of Disappointment 2, Karate Master Isekai 3, Magic Stone Gourmet: Eating Magical Power Made Me The Strongest 3, The Misfit of Demon King Academy 5, Peddler in Another World: I Can Go Back to My World Whenever I Want! 5, and A Royal Rebound: Forget My Ex-Fiancé, I’m Being Pampered by the Prince! 3 (the final volume).

ASH: Titles have so many words these days, it’s actually hard to tell how long that list actually is (or isn’t).

SEAN: Ghost Ship has an 8th volume of 2.5 Dimensional Seduction.

Dark Horse is bringing back a classic manga: Hellsing! This is a new edition with a different translation and a new design, but still 1-volume paperbacks.

ASH: Interesting.

SEAN: Airship has some print for you. Loner Life in Another World 7 and Reborn as a Space Mercenary: I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship! 7.

And in early digital we get Disciple of the Lich: Or How I Was Cursed by the Gods and Dropped Into the Abyss! 6 and The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior 5.

Is that enough? There’s more coming soon.

Days with My Stepsister, Vol. 1

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By Ghost Mikawa and Hiten. Released in Japan as “Gimai Seikatsu” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Eriko Sugita.

I’ve read two previous light novel series written by Ghost Mikawa, and I’ve enjoyed both of them. The author sort of has a type for his main character. Someone who’s a bit overly intellectual, very logical, tries to understand things and put them in boxes. The fun of My Friend’s Little Sister Has It In For Me is seeing this character try to deal with a love triangle that cannot simply be resolved by a game of addition and subtraction. With Looks Are All You Need, it was seeing the main character and his sister immersed in a ‘academy for the performing arts’ environment, and how to navigate an industry that requires emotional heft. This new series also has a very logical, matter of fact protagonist who tends to consult self-help books to understand people, and he now has to deal with his new stepsister, who is – seemingly – exactly the same. This shows a bit of promise, especially as we see the two are not as matter of fact as all that. Sadly, it’s not done well.

Yuuta lives alone with his father, as his parents got divorced after his mother was having an affair. He is thus rather startled that his father has decided to get married again. Even more surprising, he’ll be getting a stepsister in the deal, who judging by the photo the mom sent is a cute little kid. Of course, when they actually meet we find that the stepsister is in fact his age, and simply hates having her photo taken – that’s the one photo the mom had. Saki, though, turns out to want from this new relationship exactly what Yuuta wants – nothing. No requirements, no expectations. There will be no “big brother” names here. And honestly, this works out fine at first. But as the awkward, introverted Yuuta learns more about his new stepsibling, he ends up trying to help her anyway.

The big issue with this book is that the two leads tend to talk to each other like they’re reading out of an encyclopedia. There’s a scene where he walks by her room and sees her underwear drying (it’s raining that day), and gets embarrassed. The way the two resolve this feels like they’re not looking at each other, but reading out of a textbook. It’s meant to show us that both of them have been deeply wounded by the breakup of their parent’s first marriages, and how they have difficulty trusting others or getting close to people. In reality, it just makes me grind my teeth. Yuuta’s co-worker at the bookstore he part-times at, a college woman, is sadly exactly the same, so that doesn’t help. I was so happy when a happy, genki girl from their school came over to play video games with them, as it was a relief to hear someone with real human emotions out of control.

Still a fan of this author’s other series, but I have no desire to continue this one. Consider this review the essay I’m handing in to the author as to why I’m terminating our reading agreement for the foreseeable future, in a way that benefits both parties.

Combatants Will Be Dispatched!, Vol. 7

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By Natsume Akimoto and Kakao Lanthanum. Released in Japan as “Sentouin, Hakenshimasu!” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Noboru Akimoto.

It’s been over two years since the last volume of this series came out in English, but honestly this one doesn’t take too long to get back into the swing of things. There’s rarely a lot you have to remember with Combatants Will Be Dispatched! except for the one maxim “everyone is horrible”. If you remember that, you’re good. So we have Six saying that he needs to sexually harass a woman just in case doesn’t know what sexual harassment is when bad men do it, Alice and Six gleefully sending their “colleagues” all around the world and not bothering to bring them back, and a new nation where a new princess competes to see if she can have as black a heart as Tillis seems to. Oh yes, and as the cover might tell you, we also have Belial, one of Six’s three bosses, whose idea of how to solve a problem is “punch it”, but whose backstory comes as a big surprise to both Alice and the reader.

After the events of the last book, Six and company are enjoying a bit of downtime while they work on building their new city. This downtime is occasionally interrupted by Little Bashin, who is a native tribe girl who can’t speak the language… supposedly (we may have another chuuni here) and a large dragon which is too much for everyone to handle, except maybe Belial, who is asked to to come over to help out Six. She then proceeds to make her way across all the nations, cowing them into submission with sheer firepower and blackmail, and unites most everyone under the Kisaragi banner. Which… makes you wonder about the competency of Six and Alice. Was brute force the answer all along? That said, they have one problem that can’t quite be solved by punching it: Tiger Man has kidnapped a nation’s princess. Who is a little girl. And it’s Tiger Man. Uh oh.

So yes, the usual word of warning for this series, pedophilia is used as a joke for “hilarious” laughs, though the little princess is not in any danger herself and in fact asked to be kidnapped. That said, everyone being a terrible person is the vibe here, and if you enjoy that there’s a lot to like. Six is a terrible person, but he’s smarter than Kazuma, and Alice is smarter than both of them. The Belial focus is appreciated, as is her backstory, where it reveals she was a yamato nadesico sort who Lilith’s enhancements “accidentally” brainwashed/mindwiped, though it’s fairly clear by the end of the book that she remembers who she was but is not particularly inclined to return to that. The main question is what happens now, as Belial has pretty much finished 95% of their “to do” list.

Expect another long wait before we find out, as the eighth book is not out in Japan yet. If you like KonoSuba but wish everyone was scuzzier, this is still your go-to series.

Formerly, the Fallen Daughter of the Duke, Vol. 4

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

Last time I said that this series remained OK, and that I hoped the fourth book was the final one. And it certainly FEELS like a final book. All the plotlines are wrapped up. The bad guys are taken care of. Our heroine is ready to marry her love once they are of age. And yet in the afterword we’re told that the author hopes to write more adventures of Claire and Vik after the wedding. So, I will admit, I do appreciate the fact that a romance book does not have to end with a marriage or end just because the characters may have aged past the series’ market. That said, I admit my reaction to seeing this news was “oh hell no”. There’s nothing hideously wrong with this book aside from an odd disconnect I’ll get to. But there are too many fallen duke’s daughters out there for me to care about this one, who is pleasant but oh so dull.

Things are going well for Claire, aside from a few hiccups. Charlotte is still missing after the events of the last book, and seems to have completely vanished from the entire country. Moreover, the magical tornado that forced her to time loop is still on its way, and she wants to make sure her magic is strong enough that she won’t exhaust it and trigger the same thing happening. She’s even, with Vik’s help, able to get her old dream job back of being Isabella’s governess. Unfortunately, she gets an invitation from Prince Gilbert, who is prince of a neighboring country, to come visit. Just her. Not her fiance. Suspicious. She goes, with Lui at her side as her bodyguard/attendant, and finds that Prince Gilbert is nothing whatsoever like what everyone thought of him. She also finds something even more annoying – Charlotte.

Getting the really obvious spoiler out of the way (I feel no shame, the author doesn’t try to hide it), Gilbert ALSO is a Japanese isekai. He’s not a gamer, but his sister was, and drilled into him her favorite route. Unfortunately, her favorite route is Claire’s. Even more unfortunately, all the other routes seem to lead to everyone in his kingdom being killed. This actually DID catch my interest, and could have led to some interesting things going on. Unfortunately, Chaire’s somewhat… unique relationship with the source (her memories of Japan are muddled and mostly come in dreams) and her desire to not tell her dear friends they’re fictional mean that resolving this by just saying “stop treating me like an NPC” isn’t happening. Meaning we get a lot of tedious “comedy” as Gilbert tries to woo Claire by hitting game flags only to fail over and over.

I did like the epilogue showing us Charlotte’s final fate. Assuming it is her final fate. Certainly, I’m perfectly happy leaving the Formerly Fallen Daughter here, even if there are later adventures.