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Reviews

Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle, Vol. 4

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By Hiromu and raemz. Released in Japan as “Chitose-kun wa Ramune Bin no Naka” by Gagaga Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Evie Lund.

It was once said, a couple decades ago, that no one would ever license a sports manga because it wouldn’t sell. Nowadays, given the enormous number of people who obsess over series like Haikyu!, that seems a bit ridiculous, but it was true. I’m not entirely sure if there are a large number of unlicensed light novels that follow baseball or basketball teams the way that manga does, but I’m inclined to say probably not. And we certainly don’t have them licensed over here. You’re allowed to dungeon crawl, or try to break off your engagement so you don’t die, but please don’t mention the K word. And by K I mean Koshien. That said, Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle is notable for having a LOT of jocks in its cast, by the nature of its premise. And it’s this fourth volume that drills right down to the heart of the jock, showing us what it means to dream big, and also balancing the harem again with its shortest member.

We’ve known since the start of the series that Chitose used to play baseball but quit. Now the team is back, begging him to come back as their star is injured, and won’t be ready in time for the first knockout game. Chitose, needless to say, is rather pissed off about this, as he had reasons for leaving the team – which, you’ll be grateful to hear, we finally hear about. He’s also dealing with the girls’ basketball team, which has a new captain, Haru, who’s a taskmaster and is pushing the others past their limits – which they hate. It’s needed in order to make them a better team, but it also makes Haru a very convenient target. Will Chitose manage to help Haru to reconcile things with her basketball team, and can he do that by giving in and playing his last ever baseball game? Even if it means breaking himself to do it.

The series’ best feature remains its ability to convince you, in each new volume, that the girl being focused on is definitely the one who should “win” the Chitose romantic partner sweepstakes. Last volume I said that Asuka was written out in the third book as she was so far ahead of the others. (As it turns out, she’s still around, though Chitose is mooning over her less.) In this volume, it feels like he and Haru also really belong together – they’re birds of a feather, basically, and a reminder that “opposites attract” is not always true. The book is also very good at showing the frustrations of the high school athlete. Haru is a fantastic basketball player. But she’s 4’9″, and there’s simply no way to make up that difference in height in a sport like that. As for Chitose, well, he’s cool. The best scene may have been when he’s wavering back and forth on what to do, and when he tries to do an uncool option Haru chimes in “I don’t like this Chitose.” It was adorable.

So yes, the light novel for normies remains excellent. We’ll see what the next volume brings – Yuuko is on the cover, will she be the lead girl?

So I’m a Spider, So What?, Vol. 16

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By Okina Baba and Tsukasa Kiryu. Released in Japan as “Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

I had heard rumors that the Spider So What fanbase (yes, there is one, though perhaps not as much now) was unhappy with the webnovel ending and hoped it might be changed a bit for the light novel. Sad to say, I don’t think it is. Also sad to say, I get their point. Even if I haven’t liked her at times, or felt that she was being too much of an evil villain, the spider is the star of the show. White is the reason everyone is reading the book. I may enjoy following the adventures of the human cast more than the rest of the fans of this series, but that doesn’t mean that I want the book to star them instead. The book’s gimmick is its spider doing really cool things while chattering endlessly in her head. As such… why the author decided to have her appear only at the start and end of this book is beyond me.

We pick up right where we left off, with White battling Black for the future of this world. One side wants to kill half the population to save the goddess who’s being tortured to keep everything going, the other half wants to kill the goddess to save the population. There is a lot of angsting, hand-holding and self-doubt among the various cast members about this… at least until about halfway through the book, when everyone realizes what the reader pretty much knew: there are no sides, we are all in this against D, who simply wants to have bad things happen for the lulz. Everyone (except Black and White, still fighting) teleports to where D is, and some are shocked to discover that she’s the real Wakaba. They’re even more shocked to discover that she’ll give them what they want… if they defeat her.

This book ends up being a string of anticlimaxes. Chief among them I’ve already mentioned, which is White being absent from most of the book. Second among them would probably be White’s actual fate in the final pages, which I suppose is meant to be punishment for her hubris but reads like thumbing a nose at the reader. The rest of the book alternates viewpoints among the rest of this ludicrously large cast,. and the only ones who remotely get closure and a happy ending are the adventurer couple, who survive and live happily ever after mostly as she clonks him on the head and runs away from the final battle. The epilogue reads like the author lost the last hundred pages of the book so decided to submit bullet points instead. Shun’s romantic resolution is absolutely a “fuck you” to me personally. I could go on.

I made it through this whole series, and it started off great. But it began to flag a few volumes back, and the climax has been a painful experience. White deserved better than this.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story, Episodes 1-25

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Written by Yōsuke Kuroda, directed by Takayuki Inagaki for Bandai Namco Pictures. Released in North America on the Crunchyroll Streaming Service.

(This review talks about plot points for the entire show, so spoiler warnings apply.)

Unlike almost every other person who watched Birdie Wing when it first came out, I grew up enjoying golf, though I never played it myself. I bought golf magazines. I watched the first Skins Game, back when they mic’d the golfers. I followed the career of Ben Crenshaw, the master of putting. As such, I did not find the premise of the show as personally offensive as other people did, despite my knowledge, later in life, of the dark side of golf. But I still had no plans to watch Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story, which I had never heard of. But then I saw everyone on Anime News Network reviewing the first episode and saying “Oh my GOD”, so I was curious. I then went and looked at the creators, and saw the writer, Yōsuke Kuroda, had written what seemed like half of all anime since 1996. So I thought, why not? Reader, I had no idea that this anime would become my new obsession.

Not based on a light novel, manga, or game in any way, but an ORIGINAL STORY (gasp!), Birdie Wing tells us the story of Eve, a teenage girl who we first meet impersonating a pro golfer for money but whose main job actually seems to be “golf hustler”. She certainly has the skills, which we gradually see she got from a mentor figure (who looks like Char from Gundam – more on this later), but is far too cynical and jaded to see what she does as anything other than “hitting a ball with a stick to make money”. Then one day, on a golf course, she meets top amateur Aoi Amawashi, who is in the country of Nafrece for a tournament, and whose golf excites Eve. And the feeling is mutual. They resolve to play a match against each other to see who is best. The next 24 episodes are about the universe doing everything in its power to try to stop this happening.

Birdie Wing is a sports anime. I’m going to say that over and over again throughout this review, because I think it really has been forgotten among a number of other people who wanted this to be some other kind of anime. It manages to combine elements of both shonen and shoujo sports, with everyone shouting their golf swings like it’s an attack name. The nature of golf conveniently divides most groups into pairs, so, especially once we hit the second arc (there are three), we get a series of golf rivals who are there to briefly suggest that they could be the ones to finally make Eve and Aoi notice someone else, and then promptly get demolished, because there is no one else. Eve and Aoi only care about each other, and in the end what takes them down is not another stronger golfer, but the plot.

That said… no one started to watch this because it was a good sports anime. We watched it for the mafia golf. We watched it for Vipere, a two-bit golf villain who distracted her opponents by unzipping her top down to her crotch to let out her psychotropic “belly button perfume” (sure, Jan) and who later became the series’ version of Speedwagon from JoJo’s (she even withdraws coolly at one point). We watched it for the transforming golf course that looked like Eva-3. We watched it for the rocket launcher. We watched it for THAT scene at the end of Episode 7. We watched it for the music videos in the middle of the show (there were two). We watched it for the weatherwoman certification. We watched it for the possibility that incest would sink our ship, and rejoiced when it turned out to merely be a very fucked-up backstory. And we watched it for Aoi’s 48-incher.

But again, this was a sports anime. It was sponsored by a large number of Japanese golf associations and golf courses, as well as golf clothing manufacturer Jack Bunny (yes, that’s a real company name),. It got a ridiculous amount of hype given what it was. There was the line of golf clothing. There was the virtual museum. There was the video game that just came out last week. There’s a mobile game on the way. And then there’s the Gundam. This series was DRENCHED in Gundam references. Most obviously, Aoi’s coach (and more than that, as the series goes on to reveal) was “Reiya Amuro”, played by the Gundam actor himself. Eve’s mentor Leo not only looked like Char but was played by Char’s voice actor (the two are real-life golf buddies). Eve’s first sidekick, Lily, is obsessed with Gunpla. The tournaments are named after Gundam shows. The final boss golfer quotes After War Gundam X. It was a whole big thing.

And I didn’t even mention Madlax. Remember Madlax? It’s back. In golf form.

This is a sports anime, sponsored by golf people, so of course it’s going to want to sell golf to viewers, and it manages to do this despite being ridiculously cavalier about every single rule of golf. We meet top golfers who take one look at the way Eve swings and run away, convinced that watching her more will destroy their own golf. We meet golfers who can shut off all outside stimulation for better concentration, or who can run at the tee and take a big hack at it like Happy Gilmore. And yet, and YET, the most important episode in the entire series may be the 17th. To the delight of everyone watching, Eve is back in Nafrece, and back in the underground mafia golf complex playing golf for high stakes against a cheating underground golf opponent. And the show tells us that no, we are WRONG to want this. Eve has moved beyond this fake golf. She wants, real, passionate golf. Golf she can only get with Aoi. (Note that Aoi never intersects the mafia plotline once.)

The characterization is great. Eve’s arc, going from a young girl angry at the world but who can find no way to fight against it other than hustling, to a young woman playing in the British Open against her rival, showing genuine grief at someone’s pain for possibly the first time in her life, and only managing to not win it all because… well, did I mention the golf hustling? Aoi is the second protagonist, and for the first half of the series (which ran in Spring 2022) it looked like she was merely a supporting character. But that’s because her storyline had all the non-mafia soap opera drama packed into the second half, which the producers say they did in the style of Korean dramas (I was reminded of Spanish-language “telenovelas” myself). Aoi suffers more than Eve, and loses heart more than once, but this makes her eventual triumph all the sweeter – even if it might be lived vicariously.

And then there’s Ichina, who is the best caddie ever except in the final episode when she backs off because the story demands it. (I get that – most of how Birdie Wing works is that something makes no logical sense but works perfectly as a narrative.) There’s Amane, who is a golf indentured servant who also achieves her goal and dreams. There’s Rose Aleon, a character so powerful that even after her final appearance in the 8th episode, we kept hoping the show would find a way to bring her back. Aoi’s happy go lucky grandfather, who turns out to be abusive and, of all things, a golf eugenicist. Aoi’s mother, who is so controlling that she almost kills her daughter (her line “golf is killing them all” might be the 2nd biggest meme of the series). Eve’s parents, who get a Romeo and Juliet style backstory before ceremoniously killed off. There’s something for everyone.

I have not actually mentioned the relationship between Eve and Aoi, which is another big reason that this became a cult classic. (It never did get to be a big hit and even now anime fans will still say they hadn’t heard of it till it was pointed out to them.) The two of them are drawn to each other immediately, but both stay 100% in character about it. What this means is that Eve teases and draws back and never really commits herself until the very end, while Aoi is a lot more upfront about her feelings, pines away, gets upset, and spends most of the second arc trying to beat Eve so she can get a kiss. Towards the end of the show, when Aoi collapses again, Eve is devastated, showing real grief for the first time. And then they manage to find a way to golf together even when they can’t, and Eve’s final shot, the one that wins the day, combines their two attacks. As was noted on Twitter, it very much was their child.

Does this end with a kiss? No. Does it end with Eve and Aoi saying they love each other, as a couple, or married? No. Is it yuri? Fuck yes. These two spend the entire show only seeing each other. All the other rivals are unimportant – in fact, that’s mined for humor once or twice. The show spends its entire time driving the two of them apart, by mafia shenanigans, by Love Story golf disease, by family on both sides. But the final scene shows them, years from now, still only seeing each, other, still golfing together, and having to be reminded to do so by their caddies lest they just look in each other’s eyes some more. The word “yuribait” was bandied around after the show ended. This wasn’t yuribait. Yuribait would be if the show had ended by showing them married off to some guys. It was never going to do that, because the only major male figures in this show were related to the two of them in some way, shape or form. Honestly, given the way the final episode played out, I think a kiss would have felt out of place. This is enough. They’re together forever, playing golf, just as Aoi said would happen.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story was the definition of Must See TV. The yearlong wait we had between the first and second halves made the anticipation all the greater, and in the end it delivered. Yes, the final episode was rushed, and I wish it had been 26 episodes. Yes, the animation quality was merely “adequate”, though it never really got as janky as some other recent series I’ve seen fall to rushed production. It leaves an open ending in case they ever decide to do more (the producer, in an interview, suggested a next-gen sequel might be interesting), or in case fanfic writers want to make the implicit yuri more explicit. It’s the sort of show you immediately want to rewatch,, and I desperately hope it gets a physical release over here in North America. It was amazing. And Aoi’s ball had Pac-Man on it.

Also, it’s “Venus Line”. It’s very audible. I never got the people who misheard it. Sheesh.

Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki, Vol. 10

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By Yuki Yaku and Fly. Released in Japan as “Jaku Chara Tomozaki-kun” by Gagaga Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jennifer Ward.

We’ve spent most of this series trying to understand, and in some cases attempting to like, Aoi Hinami. She’s the second protagonist of the series. She’s the driver of most of the changes that Tomozaki makes. She’s also the driver of most of the mistakes that he makes as well. In the last volume we saw things between her and Tomozaki come to a head, and their “partnership” broken up. As I’ve mentioned before, Hinami has seemed scary a lot of the time (rivaled only by the other main girl in the series, Kikuchi) and as the books have gone on we haven’t had a lot of information as to why. We know from a book or so ago that whatever problems she has seem to stem from family issues. And now here, in a book that is dedicated almost entirely to cheering Hinami the hell up after Book 9’s fallout, we finally see what is likely driving her to be the way she is. It’s grief.

Tomozaki has been a bit depressed since he and Hinami “broke up” last volume, and is dwelling on it (in front of Kikuchi, no less, who I continue to feel a bit bad for). What’s more important, though, is that Hinami has also been depressed, to the point that everyone around her notices the cracks in her perfect mask. Given that her birthday is coming up, all her friends decide to throw a “surprise” party with an overnight trip to Super Nintendo World (or its copyright-safe version, at least) amusement park. They also divide into three competing groups, each one trying to get Hinami the present that will make her the happiest. Meanwhile, Tomozaki is determined to talk with Hinami to try to repair their fractured relationship… and Mizusawa wants to finally confess to her. But what will Aoi think about all this?

I’ll be honest, I spent a lot of this book waiting for the other shoe to drop, and was rather surprised when it didn’t (though we may be saving that for the next book). The back half of this book is wonderful, showing everyone going around, getting on rides they know they’ll hate, eating lots of cheese-filled foods, and trying to get Hinami to show her real face to them. And, hey, it works! It turns out that it’s hard to always do the logical, reasonable choice when you are, say, zooming backwards on a terrifying roller coaster. It leads to the emotional climax of the book, where Hinami finally talks to Tomozaki about her past, and reveals that her need to be so certain about everything is down to an event in her life that she can never be certain about – one where the answer to her desperate question is impossible to find out. It really does explain a LOT of what Hinami was doing. That said, the actual end of this book may have more of an impact… will Hinami finally be seen to break down in front of others?

The 11th volume, from what I hear, is the final one. Unfortunately, its release in Japan has been delayed, so I’m not sure when we’ll see it. Till then, this volume is filled with happy and sad moments, and should be satisfying for all fans of the series.

The Ephemeral Scenes of Setsuna’s Journey, Vol. 1

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By Rokusyou, Usuasagi and sime. Released in Japan as “Setsuna no Fūkei” by Dragon Novels. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andria McKnight.

Theoretically, every new light novel series is someone’s first light novel. You could have a reader who has never read an isekai, who knows nothing of Japanese RPGs, and who would easily get lost in the world unless it’s laid out before them. Theoretically. In reality, everyone has read about 800 of the things, and we all know how adventurer’s guilds work, at least in the broad strokes. And this particular series starts off very badly by abusing “tell, don’t show” for the first hundred pages or so, having various NPCs walk the player character through what he needs to do in order to play this game. Except the player character is our hero, and this is a book, not a game. As a result, it’s mind-numbingly tedious much of the time. Fortunately, the book improves greatly in its second half, and it does feature a very clever premise, so it has my attention more than other slow life isekai otherwise would.

Setsuna is a young man who’s had major health problems his entire life, and has mostly been confined to a hospital bed. But then, he’s transported to another world, to become a hero!… wait, he’s just transported, not reincarnated. Which means he’s still slowly dying. He’s shoved in a room and ignored for a year or so, with the implication being that once a new hero is summoned he will be quietly killed. Then he’s visited at his bedside by the 23rd hero, who is there to give him powers from two different heroes, which will a) heal him, and b) let him do whatever he wants. Setsuna, who has rarely left his hospital bed, decides that he wants to travel the world and see the wonders of it. So, after escaping, he joins an adventurer’s guild, which is a decent first step.

I feel this book is warring against the premise it wants to tell. It’s supposed to be about Setsuna and his apprentice wandering the world and experiencing it, and those few scenes we get are among the best in the book. Getting there takes forever, though, and the relaxed slow life jars heavily with the sheer awfulness of the kingdom that summoned him, who use hero summonings as basically “free slave!” and apparently killed everyone who took care of Setsuna after he “died”. It’s not helped that, in a side story, we meet the 5th princess of the kingdom, who seems mostly ignorant of what is going on and is living in a completely different light novel series. Honestly, I wonder if the writers had three ideas – summoned but not healed, guild adventures with an OP hero, and man and his adopted son wandering the world – and decided to try to combine them all into one book for extra content. It just feels sloppy all round.

As I said, the scenes between Setsuna and his adopted apprentice are the best of the book, and that appears to be what the series will actually be, so that’s good. Good luck getting there, though.

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online: 5th Squad Jam: Continue

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By Keiichi Sigsawa and Kouhaku Kuroboshi, based on the series created by Reki Kawahara. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

This review spoils the climax of this volume, but only after the cover image, so FYI.

I have had my complaints about this series, too numerous to mention, but the one thing that has always been apparent and appreciated is how much fun Keiichi Sigsawa is clearly having writing it. Leaving aside his annoying author avatar (who comes up with a light novel title parody for the ages in the afterword), all of the gun battles and backstabs and double backstabs in this book make you smile and imagine the author typing away, pausing only to pump his fist and go “Yes!”. It oozes a sort of testosterone, which is interesting given that most of the main cast are all women. It also does not have to deal with any of SAO’s issues. No one is trapped in the game. Death is fake. There are no NPCs, and you don’t need to worry about sentience. It’s a giant sandbox to play in. That’s why everyone is here.

As you’d expect given that this is the middle volume of a Squad Jam, there’s no plot here to deal with except “watch Llenn try not to get shot”. She manages to defuse Fuka and the two of them reveal just what they’re carrying as their alternate, swap out weapon, which is genius and also relies on the two of them being besties. Pitohui gets to simply sit in a tree, shoot the occasional passing enemy, and amuse herself imagining Llenn panicking. M teams up with one of the Russian girls, Anna, in what ends up being a very nasty game of Wacky Races. Shirley is in in her element, sniping in the snow. And Clarence also hooks up with a Russian girl, though mostly their plot is “hide behind a rock”. Eventually, almost everyone meets up, but there’s a new problem: the final climax will take place in a castle, and to make everyone go inside it the ground starts to vanish!

Since the start of this series, the author has delighted in having the character want to do something and then finding ways for it not to happen. The obvious example is Llenn wanting to fight SHINC, something that she’s certainly done a few times, but never in the “fair fight, no weird tricks or rules” way that she desperately wants. (She needs to not do this in a Squad Jam, frankly.) But she’s not the only one with constantly frustrated goals, as we’ve watched Shirley desperately trying to get to the point of “snipe and kill Pitohui” and forever being frustrated, to the point where they’re mostly allies these days. And that’s what makes the end of this volume stunning, as for once one of our characters gets what they want and is satisfied. Imagine! And then there’s the capper, as I was wondering what the next volume would do without Pitohui in it, but it seems that the author has a way around that, so it should be fine.

These volumes tend to wildly swing between “excellent” and “deepl frustrating”, and this one is the former, which pleases me. The next volume wraps up the arc, and also catches up with Japan, as it only came out there three months ago. Mindless fun, in the good way.

The World’s Strongest Rearguard: Labyrinth Country’s Novice Seeker, Vol. 8

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By Tôwa and Huuka Kazabana. Released in Japan as “Sekai Saikyou no Kouei: Meikyuukoku no Shinjin Tansakusha” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Alexandra McCullough-Garcia and John Neal.

This series, of course, follows the efforts of our hero, who is the bestest guy who ever lived, and so it can sometimes be hard to remember that for everyone else in this world not in Arihito’s party, this world is a parade of failures, lethal battles, and fates worse than death. The Simian Lord can make you a mind-controlled puppet, the monsters can kill you and never look back, and if you fail and survive, well, your reputation is so bad you may as well go right back to the beginning. It’s a vicious little world that would be extremely unpleasant to read about if this book were not a male power fantasy, so good news! It is still a male power fantasy, and instead of tragedies piled on each other we can read about triumph over said tragedy. As well as, y’know, more ways to use Arihito’s mysterious orgasm power. Which the girls still won’t tell him about.

Our heroes are still trying to find a way to defeat the Simian Lord and free Theresia from his curse. This involves finding Holy Stones, something that would normally be next to impossible but fortunately their party has a girl whose job it is to be lucky. They then have to battle a sand creature, which is defeated thanks to Theresia, but it turns out that defeating monsters in combat advances the curse, so she attacks Arihito. Things are desperate. Fortunately, Arihito’s reputation and general kindness means that he has quite a few allies this time around (though Elitia’s brother is not among them, and it’s implied that he’ll be the main antagonist in the next volume). Do they have enough to finally do what no one else has done and defeat the Simian Lord?

Theresia is particularly lucky that everyone loves Arihito, as after her attack she’s arrested and taken to a holding cell, and it’s only the intervention of three other people that saves her from what sounds like a very nasty fate. It’s actually been a while since we’ve looked at how people in this world treat demi-humans, and the answer has ranged from “slave” to “tool”, but this also means that when you’re p;ut under a curse that is not your fault and you attack your friend, the solution is “imprison you forever and oh yes, you’ll also probably get sexually assaulted”. I am therefore relieved that this long arc is finally over, and that, needless to say, our heroes win. Though I will admit I’d have liked a bit more of an epilogue, as we get very little after battle tears and instead get introduced to an amoral girl who seems to be in charge of things. Another teaser for next time.

If there is a next time. The last volume was a year and a half ago in Japan. The webnovel has been updated once in the last two years, and is also caught up with the light novels. And the author has a new series being published that seems to be taking up his time now. Given that, I’m even more happy this arc ended, and if fans want to write fanfic showing what happens next, hey, knock yourself out. recommended to fans of books that are both pure and deeply horny at the same time.

Safe & Sound in the Arms of an Elite Knight, Vol. 1

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By Fuyu Aoki and Minori Aritani. Released in Japan as “Doinaka no Hakugai Reijо̄ wa О̄to Elite Kishi ni Dekiai Sareru” by DRE Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Dawson Chen.

This one starts off rough, and I would not blame some people for noping out of the title when they read the first 30 pages or so. If you took Cinderella but made the abuse much, much worse, you’d have the start of this book. That said, AFTER the first thirty pages or so of the novel, you get to the reason it exists, which is basically “healing”, with a small side of romance. The romance is definitely there, don’t get me wrong, but our two leads are both too busy trying to get over past traumas and their own issues to really pledge their love to each other just yet. However, they *can* both be the best thing that ever happened to each other, and we se that here. Chloe allows Lloyd to see those around him and to feel warmth and softer emotions again. And Lloyd literally saves Chloe’s life, and also patiently waits for her to cope with some very real trauma. “Safe & Sound* is the important part.

Chloe was born deep in the mountains to a margrave’s family. Unfortunately, she was born with a large birthmark on her, during a famine, and her father and one of her siblings died shortly after this. As a result, she has the reputation of a “cursed child”, and is treated like a slave by her mother and sister. One day her mother snaps and tries to stab her, and Chloe flees the house and runs away to the capital… a mere three-week long journey through dangerous woods. On her arrival, she’s exhausted and confused, and is almost taken by some hooligans before being saved by a passing young man. The young man is Lloyd, the shining star of the Elite Knights in the capital. He takes Chloe back to his house, and after a lot of back and forth she agrees to be his housekeeper.

This book is definitely about overcoming trauma, but it’s not exactly the most subtle about it. Chloe’s mother and sister are cartoon villains, as are the ones who accost her on the street. Moreover, the moment I saw that she was having trouble cooking meals because knives gave her flashbacks to her mother’s attempted murder, I knew exactly how the book would end, and I was right. Still, the main reason to read this is the healing vibes, and it gets that perfectly. Chloe is just the right amount of “complete lack of self-esteem” that would naturally come from her background without being over the top, and I appreciated that Lloyd had his own childhood issues (also a bit ridiculous, to be honest) to cope with, rather than being the perfect boyfriend immediately. There are also several plot points left hanging for a Volume 2, including a possible confrontation with her abusive family and telling Lloyd about her “curse”. I suspect that one of those will go better than the other.

So yes, not revelatory or anything, and it paints in broad strokes, but this is a solid romance for fans of the genre.

Fake Saint of the Year: You Wanted the Perfect Saint? Too Bad!, Vol. 1

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By kabedondaikou and Yunohito. Released in Japan as “Risō no Seijo? Zannen, Nise Seijo Deshita! Kuso of the Year to Yobareta Akuyaku ni Tensei Shitanda ga” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Rymane Tsouria.

One of the struggles in reviewing a giant pile of light novels is that there is not a lot of binary to it. While it would be much easier if every series was either magical and something you need to read immediately, or else a terrible dumpster fire of a series that you never want to read another volume of, the sad fact is that most series are various types of OK. They do some things well, but they also do some things badly. And figuring out if the badly outweighs the well is something I have never really been that good at, as you can likely guess given how much I’m trying to read. Fake Saint of the Year is another book like that. There’s some interesting stuff going on here, with a twist I quite enjoyed. That said, there’s a lot of “let’s throw that cliche in as it’s popular”, and the lead character’s narrative voice… is awful.

A loser NEET guy enjoys playing visual novels, and then one day he wakes up to find he’s in the 5-year-old body of Ellize, who is… brace yourself… the villainess of the game he was playing! Supposedly the “saint” of this world ,she had a ton of power, but didn’t cultivate it, and was abusive and awful to everyone. As it turned out, she wasn’t the true saint, so ended up being shamed, exiled, and eventually ripped apart. You would think, now that he is trapped in this villainess body, our hero is going to change Ellize’s fate so that she lives, but, having spoilery knowledge of the way the game works, he has no intention of doing that. Instead, he’s going to manipulate things so that his OTP avoids the unhappy ending it got in canon!

Let’s start with the bad: Ellize’s narrative voice is that of a skeezy 20-ish young man, who enjoys leering at, and (on occasion) groping the women around him. It makes the book very hard to recommend. The reason that Ellize gets away with it is that this is also one of those “whatever the heroine does, everyone will misinterpret it in the best way possible” sort of books, a la Tearmoon Empire. This is not helped by Ellize herself (there is little to no gender dysphoria in this book, the author just wanted to write a girl with a horndog inner voice, so I’ll use her), who keeps trying to do things that will drive people away from her but ends up saying wonderful, heroic speeches and being utterly kind to people. I’m not even sure she’s aware of that. There’s also the big twist in the game, which is a twist that works very well in the book as well, and leads to some genuinely good drama.

Sadly, this is another one of those “this book does not end, it just stops” novels, so we’ll need to wait for Vol. 2 to find out what happens next. In the meantime, if you can overlook a heroine who enjoys ogling large-breasted woman and saying “no homo!” whenever it’s implied a guy might like her, there are things to enjoy here.

BLADE & BASTARD: Wireframe Dungeon & Dragon with Red Dead

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By Kumo Kagyu and so-bin. Released in Japan as “Blade & Bastard” by Dre Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sean McCann.

I will give Blade & Bastard some credit: the author is not afraid to state right up front that every woman in this book is the author’s barely disguised fetish. In the first volume we were introduced to the feral redhead who only communicates in barks and yaps, and here we see she’s also fond of stripping naked to clean herself in the middle of the street. There’s a nun who’s constantly trying to get people to be more religious, but she also really, really really REALLY loves violence. And in this second volume we mete a massive dojikko, and by massive I mean that she is six-foot-six. The book starts by describing her as “Tall, with big eyes. Big muscles, big boobs, and a big butt too.”. She also has the self-worth of a peanut. Really, you have to hand it to Kumo Kagyu. He knows that anyone who stays past that opening sentence is here for the long haul. And, to be fair, there is still a lot here to like as well.

The big everything girl is Berkanan, whose corpse our heroes find in the dungeon towards the start of the book. She’s been killed by a massive fire dragon that has taken residence in the dungeon, and is stopping adventurers from going through it, as the dragon is well-nigh unkillable. Upon revival, Berkanan begs Iarumas, Garbage and Raraja to help her go back into the dungeon and kill the dragon, out of a combination of anger that she was killed and a sort of desperate need to prove herself, probably as she’s a mage who’s trained for years but she only knows one low-level spell. Still, SOMEONE needs to kill the dragon, or this town that is surviving only because of this one dungeon is doomed. Why can’t it be her?

The author knows how to write atmosphere, and a good fight scene, which is still probably the main reason to get this. Despite being a walking stereotype, Berkanan is quite likeable, and you root for her to succeed. Garbage still only barks and yaps, but she’s also a bit less feral and more domesticated, and we get more evidence that she’s secret royalty – mostly as assassins keep trying to kill her. Iarumas, alas, remains a walking NPC, though it was nice to see him almost show an emotion during the fight with the dragon. On the down side, aside from Berkanan being a walking fetish (the artist also enjoys emphasizing this), there is a small little man named Bank who deals in money… I can’t call anti-semitic just yet, but I feel like the moment we get any description of him he will be anti-semitic. Though that may be down to the source material.

And perhaps the biggest drawback, the translation seems wedded to reminding us this is based on Wizardry. We here someone has the power to survive, and then we see (hit points) after the word survive, as though it’s translating from novel to game. Spells are also used, and it just types the acronym (I assume) for the spell, such as HALITO. I get this book is meant to sell to Wizardry fans rather than light novel fans, but it does not make life easy. That said… despite everything, I also really liked Berkanan, who is simply a very sympathetic character, and I hope that we get more of her gaining confidence. I also hope she does not end up in a romantic rivalry with Garbage over Raraja, but I’m far less optimistic about that.

Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower, Vol. 10

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

For a great deal of this series, we’ve been presented with a question: who will Rimi end up with? It seemed fairly obvious for the first half, as it was very much a romance between her and Shusei, bonding over food and dodging inner court intrigue. But then Shohi also fell in love with Rimi, and things got shaken up… to the point that Shusei is now starting a war in order to gain the throne so he can get what he wants. Ironically, if he’s only waited a little bit longer he might have gotten it anyway, as while it’s clear Shohi does love Rimi, and she loves him, their relationship is explicitly likened to a mother and son, and so when he’s told he needs to sire an heir NOW because of the upcoming war, he can’t see Rimi as a partner in that way. This WOULD be good news for Shusei… if it weren’t for the last three or four books, and honestly, I’m starting to wonder if the books might now just end with no romantic resolution at all.

Rushing back to the palace, Shohi and company find that a large number of the bureaucrats have switched sides, and are asking him to abdicate. This includes Shusei, who is generously giving him ten days to decide whether to abdicate or go to war. And Shusei, by far, has the larger force to make war. There are, unfortunately, other problems as well. They still haven’t found the spy in the court, Mars. Tama has been out of sorts ever since they returned, and her actions midway through the book cause a crisis. Oh yes, and Shohi starts to become ill and also go blind, which doctors say is some mysterious illness, but the reader can very obviously see is because he’s being poisoned. By Hakurei. Which… makes no sense whatsoever. Can Rimi figure out what’s really going on? And are they really going to war?

Mars’ identity has been a well-placed mystery this whole book, and when it’s revealed here it makes sense – I won’t spoil it, but it has an impact. I also enjoyed seeing the four consorts have a large role in this book, especially Ho, who is forced to deal with all the manipulation Hakurei has done against her and help with the main plotline. (Yo continues to be comedy relief, alas, but at least she’s funny most of the time.) As for Shusei and Rimi, it’s very clear from Shusei’s actions that he’s got several tricks up his sleeve, and I don’t think all of those involve his own victory. Unfortunately, given he’s a traitor, and also given Rimi right now thinks that “Lord Ho” has killed the Shusei she knew and is 100% against him, I’m not sure quite how this ends. Exile with Rimi at his side would feel far too pat.

I should not have too long to find out, though, as the next book is the last in the series. A good addition to one of the classic “intrigue in the emperor’s court” genre.

The Ideal Sponger Life, Vol. 12

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By Tsunehiko Watanabe and Jyuu Ayakura. Released in Japan as “Risou no Himo Seikatsu” by Hero Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by MPT.

You don’t see it quite as much these days, but, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a thing called a “backdoor pilot”. The creators had a show they wanted to get on television, but knew it did not quite have the pull with the networks to get it there on its own. So what would happen is that you’d be watching, say, The Golden Girls, and the episode would instead be devoted almost entirely to a new cast, with the members of The Golden Girls basically serving as a cameo. (See: Empty Nest, as I’m using a real example). Now, sometimes this did not work, and what you ended up with was one of the characters of your hit show meeting a whole group of people, introducing all their plot points and characters, and then we simply never see them again. I mention this because boy, this 12th volume of The Ideal Sponger Life sure seems like it’s a backdoor pilot to show off adventures here in not-Poland.

Freya, Zenjirou and company are making their way slowly back to Uppasala, but they can’t just said there on a non-stop boat ride. So they dock for a few days in the country of Złota Wolność, which is sort of like what Poland would be if it was France. There they try to relax, but are almost immediately caught up in something, as a young orphan boy has big news to tell the priest who came to his (now destroyed) village a year or so ago, and in order to see the priest, he needs people with clout. People like Zenjirou. What they find is that the port is about to be invaded, and they’ll need to rally forces to have a hope of fending it off. Fortunately, they have a royal on their side, who drops in – literally – to help them. Naturally, this has the added benefit of helping her own fight for the throne…

In many ways, The Ideal Sponger Life also reminds me a lot of Bookworm, in that Zenjirou and Rozemyne both seem to casually upend everyone’s lives without even realizing it. I imagine that Aura, like Sylvester, is going to be rubbing her head to ward off the migraine when she hears about what happened. Honestly, Zenjirou does quite well here given the circumstances – despite his “I’m just an ordinary vice-commander… erm, royal consort” talk, he’s quick enough to spot that Anna has an ulterior motive behind all of this. Unfortunately, he and Freya are not quite quick enough to pick up on how she plans to draw them into it, though this will affect Freya more than it does the Southern Continent. There’s also some very interesting history dropped into the conversation at a party which ties in to Francesca’s people, though given that she stated she won’t talk about it till they return to Capua, it may have to be put on the back burner.

All in all, the most inaccurately titled light novel ever continues to trundle along, even as this volume feels like it wants to be the start of some other series set in the same world. Next time we should actually reach Freya’s homeland.

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!, Vol. 4

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By Touko Amekawa and Wan*Hachipisu. Released in Japan as “Loop 7-kaime no Akuyaku Reijou wa, Moto Tekikoku de Jiyuukimama na Hanayome (Hitojichi) Seikatsu wo Mankitsusuru” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Amy Osteraas. Adapted by Vida Cruz-Borja.

The 4th volume in the series decides to lean a little less on “why is Prince Arnold so determined to go to war with everyone in the future” and focus more on “why are Prince Arnold and Rishe not admitting they’ve both completely fallen for one another? Well, they have, sort of. In their own way. The trouble with agendas is that it can be very difficult to admit explicit feelings of love when you know that eventually you’re going to destroy several countries. Or, in Rishe’s case, when you’re trying to juggle six prior lifetimes and solve each issue with them one by one to get a golden ending. That said, this book is far more explicitly romantic than the previous three, even if it does throw in the cliched “heroine is scared of ghosts” subplot. To be fair to Rishe, though, she has looped over and over. Given that’s possible, anything is.

While the romance at the start of the book is still theoretical, the wedding plans are trucking along anyway. In particular, they’re starting to get foreign visitors who will be there for the wedding, including the prince of Siguel, Curtis, and the princess, Harriet. Harriet is currently preparing for a political marriage in the neighboring kingdom of Fabrannia, a fact that Rishe knows all too well. She was a hunter in Siguel in her 5th life, and remembers Queen Harriet as an evil spendthrift who was executed and led to Siguel being forced to go to war against (who else?) Prince Arnold. As with previous books, Rishe has to fix things so that events don’t turn out that way. This time, though, there’s an added twist: Harriet is a fluffy hamster of a woman, and is highly unlikely to have been remotely evil.

There are several points in this book where Rishe is thrown off her game, but frankly they all involve Prince Arnold. Around him she gets flustered and stammering. Away from him she is, as the antagonist of the book Raul notes, “a monster”. Hell, even Raul isn’t a real antagonist, because here she actually can use all the info from her past life to save him. Harriet is trickier, but Rishe still manages to act as a sword-wielding guardsman, show Harriet that proper skincare is a great way to gain confidence, and fake being poisoned to let everyone think that she won’t be riding to the rescue with Prince Arnold, shooting down enemies with a bow and arrow and dramatically crashing through a stained glass window. Frankly, I think it’s Arnold who should be terrified of her. But this isn’t really that sort of genre.

I can’t wait for the next book. Alas, I may have to. This is the last to date, and a 5th is on Amazon Japan with a release date of “2100”. Let’s hope we can get the end of Rishe’s story.

To Every You I’ve Loved Before & To Me, the One Who Loved You

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By Yomoji Otono. Released in Japan as “Boku ga Aishita Subete no Kimi e” and “Kimi o Aishita Hitori no Boku e” by Hayakawa Bunko JA. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Molly Lee.

First of all, I will note a couple of things. a) I am reviewing two linked novels here, so the titles are separated above by the & sign. b) there will be more spoilers than usual. Even summarizing them destroys the surprise. When I first saw the solicit of these two titles, I had assumed they were part of a multimedia project like so many of Yen and Seven Seas’ novel licenses these days, and that it would be another slight variation on Your Name. But no, this is instead more like Otherside Picnic or Last and First Idol, a science fiction series with a heavy helping of theory mixed into its plotlines. Get ready to understand a lot more about parallel universes than you did before. The books were advertised as something you could read in either order, and I read them in the order I give above. I recommend that order too, for reasons I will lay out later in the review. Did I enjoy it? Kind of, in a detached sort of way.

In the first book, we meet the protagonist, Koyomi. He’s a smart kid, with a father who’s an expert in imaginary sciences. They’ve discovered that we’re constantly shifting between parallel universes, and developed wristwatches to let you know when it happens. In high school he meets Kazune, a classmate and rival, and becomes friends with her one day when she tells him she’s a different Kazune from a different universe. The book shows their life together. The second book has the same premise, but here the imaginary sciences are not as developed as they were in the first world. Koyomi and his father work with another brilliant scientist and her daughter, Shiori. Koyomi and Shiori grow close, but when tragedy strikes Koyomi finds himself going down a dark path that may not have a solution.

I can see how the final scene of the first book would be a lot more impactful if you’d read the second one first, as opposed to my own feeling, which was mild puzzlement. That said, I think if I’d started with the second book I’d have dropped this halfway as being too dark and angsty. The first book is a cute romance between two nice people. He falls in love relatively quickly, she takes a bit longer (“You’ll do” was the funniest line in both books), they get married and have a child, they grow old together. The drama near the end is character-based, involving grief and how parallel universes might lead one to commit a crime over that grief. The second book is almost entirely ABOUT that, as Shiori’s death comes before the novel is even halfway finished, and we see a Koyomi who would sacrifice anything to save her. The second book also has a lot more scientific theory to talk through than the first.

Did I like them? They were both good, I had moments of emotion reading them, but ultimately all I can come up with is “yeah, they were pretty good”. This happens a lot with concept SF and me, though. There’s a book that came out last year focusing on Shiori, though, and is this does well maybe Seven Seas will pick it up.

Though I Am an Inept Villainess: Tale of the Butterfly-Rat Body Swap in the Maiden Court, Vol. 4

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By Satsuki Nakamura and Kana Yuki. Released in Japan as “Futsutsuka na Akujo dewa Gozaimasu ga: Suuguu Chouso Torikae Den” by Ichijinsha Novels. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Tara Quinn.

Sometimes when you’ve lived a certain way your entire life, and are suddenly shown that there are other ways to live, it can be very very difficult to go back to what you have always done. That’s what Reirin is dealing with in this book, as a consequence of the body swaps. For the most part, she’s held this in, because, well, that’s the sort of person she is, but the stress of the situation in this book and the fact that, for the first time, someone might be dead because of her actions, makes her have a breakdown and admit – she hates being in constant pain. She hates being at death’s door. She never used to worry about not waking up every time she fell asleep, now she does. And it terrifies her. It terrifies her so much that she misses something else – why is her sickly, dying body now so utterly healthy whenever Keigetsu is in it? I mean, this is new, right? It wasn’t the case in the first book. What’s going on?

We pick up right where we left off with the previous book. Reirin, in Keigetsu’s body, is trying to deal with the outbreak in the village, while she and her allies also try to figure out how to stop the entire village, AND the maiden, being burned to the ground as a “necessary measure”. Meanwhile, Keigetsu (in Reirin’s body) is having to deal with her reputation being tanked so hard that there will be no way for her to come back from it, and now she has to give a tea party with three of the other maidens, including the one behind all of this. Fortunately for both of them, they have actual allies this time around, including the Emperor. Which helps a lot, let me tell you. But is it going to be enough?

There are three scenes in this book which should make every reader sit up and cheer. The first is the tea party itself, where Keigetsu finally manages to apply al of the observational skills she’s never really tried to use before to manipulate the conversation away from the master manipulator and swing things back her way. The second I mentioned above, where Reirin (who is noted beforehand to have never cried before) breaking down, a scene which is probably the first time I actually though that she and the Emperor could be a good couple after all. But the final scene is magical. Everyone is doing their best to stop Reirin’s roaring rampage of revenge, and they fail miserably. But it’s actually Houshun who’s the MVP here, as all this has done is make her FAR more interested in Reirin than she was before. She’s clearly one of those “anything but a boring life” villainesses, and now that Keigetsu is effectively a dual heroine, we needed a really great bad guy. We have one now. “I’ve taken a liking to you” is like a white glove thrown to the ground. Let the duels commence.

That said, our dual heroines may be in trouble with Book 5, which promises (in the author’s afterword) to break them up. This remains one of the best series I’ve read this past year, and is recommended to everyone, even if you think you’re tired of villainess books.