log horizon

By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

It’s been a long time since the last volume of Log Horizon – almost a year. It may be even longer till the next volume as well, as there’s no sign of it in Japan. That said, this is a big volume for fans of the series, as it’s the first volume that has not actually been animated. As such, it will prove to be entirely new material. Appropriately, it focuses to a large degree on Kanami’s party, who were the subject of the 9th book (which was adapted the least by the anime), and have now reached the equivalent of Mongolia. But as you may have guessed by the title, the other major participant in this volume is Krusty, who is having memory issues but is not letting that stop him from living the easy life, as he’s essentially in the game equivalent of heaven being waited on by cute animal person servants. The book’s main thrust has a scheming villainess try to pit the two parties against each other.

The book mostly succeeds, but it is worth noting, once again, that there is a truly ridiculous amount of gaming chatter and discussion in these volumes, and that it can quickly get tedious, especially when you’re in the middle of a large battle. Classes, levels, aggro… I don’t really care. But someone cares, and that someone is Elias, who we get to know a lot more about in this book. From the last book, we know that he labors under a curse that means he never gets the last hit in – he can’t be the one to kill the monsters. Of course, since Log Horizon was a game, and he was one of the bigger NPCs, it makes sense. The players make the big kill. But here we see how this weighs heavily on him, and also how his party seems to have been broken, and possibly killed, simply by hinting at their very nature – Elias, throughout the book, seems to be shying away from thinking that he’s just an NPC in a game.

So it’s pretty easy to get him to go all out against Krusty, who’s perfectly happy to have people think he’s a villain if it gets him a good fight. We get a lot of Krusty’s own background from Earth here too, and it fits with his personality to a T. Krusty really can’t stop Elias, especially given he’s dealing with his own curse. Kanami is there to be Haruhi Suzumiya and not much else. I like her, but she’s completely at peace with everything about herself, so is terrible at this sort of thing. And Coppelia is still pretty much monotone. That leaves Leonardo, still a frog and not a turtle, to deliver the big verbal cooldown speech to Elias. I won’t spoil it, as it’s easily the best part of the book, and made me smile quite a bit. When Log Horizon isn’t pouring verbiage into its worldbuilding, it can be pretty heartwarming.

We’re almost entirely in ‘the China server’ this volume, with only one chapter back in Akiba to show us that Raynesia’s noble friends are all getting engaged, which I suspect means that an arranged marriage is in her future. Her noble friends also think she’s in a relationship with Krusty, which she’s not. In the next volume, whenever that may be, I suspect we’ll be headed back to Shiroe and company. Till then, enjoy this look at what it means to be “cursed”, and how to resolve it.

By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

At last, after four volumes that focused separately on various groups and their growth and development, everyone is back together and ready to deal with fresh new problems. Which is good, as there are quite a few fresh new problems. Westlande is about to go to war with Eastal, and the adventurers are caught up in the middle of things. They have to defend the young crown prince, Raynesia’s little brother, from assassination attacks. They’re being attackied by killer moths that put people into a deep sleep. Shiroe is feeling that he’s inadequate for the job (well, OK, that’s more a leitmotif for the entire series, as Akatsuki and Minori both point out). And, perhaps worst of all, due to various screwups in real life, will there ever be a Log Horizon Book 11? Yes, as it turns out, but we were wondering for a while there.

Shiroe’s inadequacies are part of a larger theme in this book of growing up and becoming an adult, and what that means to various people. For Serara, much as I might not like it, that means getting stronger so that Nyanta might notice her in a romantic way. (To Nyanta’s credit, his interest is still zero.) For Minori, it’s realizing that her feelings for Shiroe AREN’T romantic, and that they’re more a function of who she is and how she handles situations. For Isaac, it’s simply living from day to day, not really thinking deeply about things, and watching all the idiots around him. And then there’s Shiroe. He has to deal with Roe2’s letter, which goes into much greater detail about what sort of world they’re trapped in, and that it’s not just a weird “we’re caught in the actual game” thing. He has to think about how to get back home, and whether some people WANT to get back home. Nazuna describes him at one point as a “wimp”, and that’s true, but when he calms down and stops his self-loathing barrage, he can also be brilliant.

Towards the end of the book they find a sort of radio transmitter, which makes contact with Kanami and company, who are still making their way slowly to Japan, and who seem to have a surprise new member in their party. As I noted in the last book, it’s hard to focus on Kanami as a character as she’s designed to be “perfect”. As such, she instinctually comes up with the idea that Shiroe and the rest couldn’t – instead of thinking about how to get back home, think about how to connect the two worlds, so they can come and go as they please. For Kanami, this is simply because she wants to show her three-year-old daughter back on Earth the wonders of this land. For Shiroe and company, it’s a revelation – they can try to have their cake and eat it too.

There’s lots of other things that Log Horizon fans will enjoy in this book – the fights, as usual, are well-written but rely a bit too much on gaming terminology for me to really get deeply into them. At least I get some more Naotsugu/Marielle ship tease, which is nice. There are also a few appendices showing amusing and informative background on several things (Log Horizon is one of the few print-only series left from Yen On – it’s print-only in Japan too – and the appendices would certainly be a pain to convert.) As I indicated above, for various reasons (search Anime News Network for the author’s name if you’re curious), there was a huge gap between Book 10 and 11, which likely means we won’t see 11 for a while. But it’s coming out in Japan soon, and will answer a question many have been wondering: what’s Krusty been up to?

By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

We continue our tour of the Elder Tales universe, with this volume not even taking place on the Japanese server for the most part. Instead we take a look at a group in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, to be precise) and their attempt to move slowly east so that they can swim to Japan (which seems ludicrous, but remember, adventurers). The reason to swim to Japan is quite a clever one: the whole disaster that caused the players to get caught in this world happened before the expansion pack had actually dropped… except in Japan, where they got it by virtue of the time zone. The group is led – sort of – by Kanami, a name that has come up quite often in previous books. The former de facto leader of the Debauchery Tea Party, she’s more a force of will than a leader. That said, it makes sense that of the main cast of this book, she actually gets the least attention – she has no character arc, being basically perfect.

No, instead, the main character for this book is Leonardo, who dresses like his favorite American hero, silly as it may seem, and says “Cowabunga” during desperate attacks. And is named Leonardo. But it’s OK, because this is a frog, not a turtle. Which makes this OK! Seriously, the mind reels at how much Touno wanted to use Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles here, and the serial numbers aren’t so much filed off as covered over with see-through tape. Leonardo is actually a New Yorker, which is refreshing, and we get a passable idea of what his life was like in the real world before this (he seems to be a computer nerd). Here, he’s a very competent assassin, though he’s still not quite invested in their current situation, and has trouble seeing the People of the Earth as anything but NPCs. A lot of this book is showing him the error of his ways, including a subtle romance with Coppelia, a girl with a mysterious past.

The Log Horizon anime did a good job of steadfastly putting each book on the screen… with the exception of this book, which got short shrift, getting only one episode devoted to it. As such, if anime fans wanted to know which one they had to buy to get more details, this is definitely the one. There is the usual endless discussion of game mechanics, far more than almost any other LN in a game world bothers to do, but there are also some very cool battles. And we get more insight into what exactly is happening, and how the People of the Earth and its denizens are reacting to it. Lastly, I was very amused by the occasional mention of the series’ big bad, Indicus, the smug maid who’s using Nureha as a puppet ruler. Every time she’s mentioned, it’s in a “My friends… and Zoidberg” way, showing that almost nobody can stand her. I expect a confrontation between her and Shiroe soon.

This volume didn’t blow me away like the previous one did, but it’s a rock-solid volume of Log Horizon, and fans of the anime will absolutely have to get it. And remember, this Leonardo likes SUSHI, not pizza.

By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

After spending the 6th book with Akatsuki and the other women of Akiba, and the 7th book with Shiroe and Naotsugu and their heist movie, this book continues the trend by turning to the rest of Log Horizon, the junior members. And for the most part it succeeds admirably, not only telling a good story and going into greater depth about what it really means to be trapped in a game, but also giving added depth to four out of the five main characters. (Apologies to Serara, but you still haven’t risen much above the level of a moeblob.) This goes doube for Isuzu, who has the biggest picture on the cover and arguably grows the most throughout the book, as she tries to overcome her amazingly huge amounts of self-loathing and realize that she can go past her limits and do something to save the People of the Earth.

Much of this book goes into greater depth about the People of the Earth; how they live their day-to-day lives, what life is like now that the adventurers are inventing so many amazing things (many of which the adventurers regard as commonplace or unimportant), and how they react to a girl going around singing music they’ve never heard before. Isuzu not only thinks that she’s a crappy musician (thanks to something her father told her, which we later learn she may have misinterpreted, and seeing her father’s own skills) but also that what’s she’s doing now isn’t even her skill as she only plays cover songs. It’s up to her not-boyfriend Rundelhaus (who is amazing in this book, and is about ten times more serious than the anime) to tell her the truth: this world only had 42 songs – the 42 pieces of BGM for the Elder Tales game. ‘Music’ and ‘the forty-two’ literally mean the same thing to them. So Isuzu really is changing lives. And when she finally begins to sing a song she composed herself, well, she cam move mountains. Or at least buildings.

Meanwhile, Touya and Minori are not left out. They’re both dealing with growing up as well, Minori trying to be the team strategist and thinking on her feet, and Touya by essentially being the team heart, and being able to see the true feelings behind a faked smile. We also get two new characters… well, sort of new. Roe2 is clearly related to Shiroe in some way, to the point that I was a bit aggravated that no one observed “isn’t that just Shiroe with breasts?” when they first saw her. As for Dariella, the book keeps her identity a secret till the very end (the complete opposite of the anime, which showed who she was from the start), and in retrospect you can see and feel a little bad for who she is and what she’s trying to escape. And for those who like a darker flavor to her Log Horizon books, we get the Odysseia Knights, who seems to have been driven half-mad by being trapped in the game, unlike Akiba’s “welp” sort of player, and Mizufa, a warrior who is a Person of the Earth, but just as terrifying as any adventurer.

It’s rare that I, a spoilerholic, say “I don’t want to spoil more”, but it’s true. This book is a delight, with many passages you’ll want to go back and reread immediately, and has Log Horizon’s usual depth of worldbuilding and characterization. I love Sword Art Online too, but if you’re going to read only one trapped in a game light novel, this should be the one.

Also, Isuzu says she sang a “Snoopy” cover to the People of the Earth, which makes me think it has to be “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” by the Royal Guardsmen. It even works well with lute, drums and keyboard!

By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

Confession to make: I’m an extrovert. It’s actually been difficult for me to accept this, as most of my close friends are introverts, as are most of the people I interact with on Tumblr and the like. But much as I whine “but sometimes I don’t like interacting with others either”, there’s no getting around my extroverted nature. As such, I find Shiroe very frustrating and hard to take at times, and I empathized very much with Naotsugu in this book, who knows there’s not much he can do but be there for Shiroe and let him work things out at his own pace. Of course, Shirou is trying to pull off an even bigger scheme than usual – this is essentially the Log Horizon equivalent of a heist movie, only with the true objective not being piles and piles of money – well, not DIRECTLY. The true goal is freedom and security.

The majority of this book is a raid, and once again I am painfully reminded that I don’t game. More than any other light novel that details game-like aspects of a world, Log Horizon depends on its readers being gamers. This means there’s lots of discussions of balanced parties and of HP and MP and the like, to the point where we need extended appendixes just to discuss MORE of it. Thankfully, it’s not completely incomprehensible, and enough of it is written in standard action movie terms that I was never lost. But we’re not allowed to forget that the people trapped in this world are all hardcore gamers. This goes double for William Massachusetts (I will never get used to that name) and his guild Silver Sword, whose close bonds are a reflection of a group of people who found real-life interaction difficult but were able to find true bonds online – and also learn more about how to interact offline. His speech of anguished frustration is a highlight of the book.

There’s a new regular introduced here, and I’m not sure how I feel about them. Tetora is a self-proclaimed “idol” who also happens to be a Level 93 cleric, and for a while you suspect has been added to the book in order to replace Akatsuki as someone to bounce off Naotsugu properly. The gender reveal – that Tetora is actually a boy, though it’s not clear if they just dress as a girl or have a female game body – seems rather odd and last-minute, and I assume that we will get a bit more of this later beyond “I just like acting overly cutesy and annoying”. Interestingly, Taylor Engel uses female pronouns the entire book till the reveal, then has Shiroe switch to male ones. How does Tetora see her/his gender? To be honest, I found Tetora a bit grating, but that’s possibly as I’m a massive Naotsugu/Marielle shipper, and don’t want someone horning in on their slowly developing couplehood. Luckily, we see a bit of that relationship here as well.

There’s a bit more going on here that will impact future books – Krusty has vanished, and his lieutenant seems to have permanently lost her right arm. This likely ties into the “flavor text” from the previous volumes. But the majority of this volume had the same goal as the 6th did for Akatsuki – get Shiroe to open up, explain things, and stop trying to take the entire world on his shoulders. Whether that will stick is something we’ll have to see about in future books. In the meantime, next book we’ll focus on the younger members of Log Horizon again. This is a good, solid light novel series that may appeal to the reader who finds Sword Art Online a bit too outgoing.