petty villain plays by the rules

By MIZUNA and Ruki. Released in Japan as “Yarikonda Otome Game no Akuyaku desu ga, Danzai wa Iya nano de Mattou ni Ikimasu” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by sachi salehi.

This continues to be in my Top 5 “I’m enjoying this far more than I thought I would, and possibly more than I should be” titles. Its biggest flaw is its pace. It’s not slow life – there’s a lot going on here, most of it involving princes and other high nobles – but it is definitely slow writing. This thing is fourteen volumes and counting in Japan, and by the 14th book he still doesn’t really look much older than he is in this book, which is to say six. This despite the fact that he meets his wife in this volume and officially gets engaged. While also, erm, causing a major international incident. Which, to be fair, he was gonna have to do anyway. Kinda hard to solve the other kingdom’s problems without going full ham. especially in this series.

After training in martial arts with his tutor and his father, and in magic with his other tutor (and accidentally revolutionizing all magic… again), Reid and his dad are off to the neighboring kingdom of Lenarute, home of the Dark Elves, where he’ll be meeting his fiancee… who is also six years old. Unfortunately, the Dark Elves are in a massive power struggle between the King and the traditional Evil Noble Who Wants Power And Also Things To Be The Way They Used To Be. Sadly, evil noble has poisoned his fiancee’s brother against Reid, turning him into a proud arrogant brat. So when Reid is forced to have a sword battle with him, he’s asked to humble the prince a bit. Not a problem. Unfortunately, the prince and the Evil Noble decide to make Reid mad by insulting his slowly dying mother. THIS is a problem. For them.

Most of this book runs on a six-year-old accidentally being really smooth, far too smooth than someone his age should be. That’s a pretty good gag, and it helps that we already know his future wife (she was the lost girl in the town in Book 1, hiding her elf ears.) But there are other really good gags, mostly character based. Farah (his fiancee) is adorable, and also shows her positive emotions by wiggling her ears, something she’s very bad at turning off. Her bodyguard, Asuna, is a battle junkie, and oh my God I wish Diana was not already in a relationship with her childhood friend, because Asuna and Diane would make an AMAZING lesbian power couple. There’s also a bittersweet side story from the POV of Reid’s mother, who wants to be an active, teasing mom who loves her kids, but is simply too bedridden, and she hates it. She also gets the funniest gag in the book, at the end of her chapter.

Basically, this is better than I expected – again. Despite it being nearly 400 pages, and the author STILL couldn’t finish the arc. I’ll read another one.

By MIZUNA and Ruki. Released in Japan as “Yarikonda Otome Game no Akuyaku desu ga, Danzai wa Iya nano de Mattou ni Ikimasu” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by sachi salehi.

I kept waiting for this one to go wrong, and it never really managed to. Oh, it flirted with going wrong a few times, but for the most part this book was content to stay in its lane and do what it came here to do, which is be another one of those “reincarnated as a kid and I revolutionize the entire country with my inventing basic modern conveniences” genre, of which there are quite a few. Our main character learns magic. He invents hand lotion and conditioner. He invents radio calisthenics. And while he doesn’t immediately manage to cure a dread disease plaguing his family, he does manage to find a palliative cure, which sometimes is all we can do. There are elves. There are dark elves. There are beastgirls. There are petty noble jerks. There’s a empress who has all the real power. Hell, our hero even gets married at six years old, which comes as a surprise even to him. It’s got everything.

J. Random Salaryman discusses the otome game he just finished with his co-worker, heads home, and has a heart attack and dies. He wakes up in the body of a 6-year-old who is also recovering from collapsing in the garden, and startles everyone around him by being polite and sensible. Then he realizes that he’s in the young body of Reid Valdia, who… was barely in the game at all, at least until you cleared it all and got the chance to free play, whereupon you realize he had amazing things he could do if only he raised his base stats… which he didn’t. Turns out the reason he didn’t is his mother is dying, and he’s been too busy appalling everyone around him and throwing a massive tantrum. Now that he has new memories, he can make up with his sister, treat the maids and knights well, and also try to find a way to cure his mom. Among other things.

So, because it always gets asked, yes, there’s slavery in this world, but not in our main character’s empire. I’m sure we’ll be dealing with it eventually, but at least he clears the low bar by saying “let’s NOT use a slave” here. There’s also Reid forming a cute little crush on the hot elf that he hired to sell his products, though I could do without the comedy “everyone gets mad at me” part of that, as well as the hot elf’s reaction to the whole thing, which is “I’m reacting like a lovestruck teenager because I forgot he’s six.” To be fair, he doesn’t ACT six. One of the better scenes here has his father essentially straight up ask “what the hell happened, why are you different?” and Reid telling him the truth. I also liked the “like father like son” comparison, as we see Reid rescue a lost cute girl who later turns out to be someone important, and in a side story at the end we see his father rescuing a young woman from ruffians.

Oh yes, and the Empress is awesome. This is not going to set any “wow, this plot is original!” records, but it does what people want, and it does it pretty well. I’ll read more.