saving 80000 gold in another world

By FUNA and Keisuke Motoe. Released in Japan as “Rōgo ni Sonaete Isekai de 8-Man-Mai no Kinka o Tamemasu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Kodansha Books. Translated by Luke Hutton.

(A reminder that the English Vol. 9 is the equivalent of the Japanese Vol. 10.)

Last time I said that the next book would have Colette get attacked, but I was not expecting this to literally happen on the first page of the new book. It does end up being a good introduction to one of FUNA’s most common tropes, another Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Mile’s group doesn’t do this quite as often, and usually it involves people who try to con them getting humiliated. Kaoru’s moments of extreme violence are taken more seriously, and tend to be in more traumatic situations, though after the time skip she seems to have mellowed to being closer to the other two heroines. And Mitsuha, well, her shtick is that she’s a flake, even more than Mile and Kaoru, so it makes sense that her revenge is the most emotional, off the cuff, and complete. There’s no stopping it, you just have to give in and accept your bad decision has ruined your life.

As Mitsuha and Colette walk down the street, someone comes at them with a knife, and stabs Colette in the back/abdomen. Mitsuha, as noted above, goes nuts. Colette ends up being OK after some surgery, though she’ll have a scar (which horrifies Mitsuha but Colette is proud of). The assassin is questioned, but come on, you’ve read the last few books, you know who’s responsible for the assassination attempt, it’s that empire again. After this, we deal with Mitsuha’s restaurant getting a scheming golddigger, the recuperating Colette getting some suspicious visitors in her hospital room, an accident at the gunpowder factory that Mitsuha has to deal with (not intentionally caused this time); The noble teenage girl group suffering from being too popular; starting a new junior noble girl group for youngsters; and having this turn into an Idol Project.

As always, I try to look at the more serious parts of this series, which have been hard to come by sometimes. But given that the premise is Mitsuha trying to ensure that she has enough of a safety met to live on in both worlds in case she ends up being unable to go back and forth, and she continues to think about the future of everything she’s done even after she dies, it can get quite dark. She pointedly has a discussion with Former Count (now Marquess) Bozes about what to do with her land, stores, and people she looks over in the event she’s killed. To her this is sensible and planning ahead. To Bozes, who still regards Mitsuha as a teenage girl who should be out there having teenage fun, it’s depressing as hell. Mitsuha KIND of gets this (she knows not to have the discussion in front of Beatrice or Sabine), but also does not get it at all.

Not that this series is ending with Mitsuha’s death. It’s FUNA. Oh, and we get the obligatory grateful orphans desperate to work for food, so check that off your bingo card.

By FUNA and Keisuke Motoe. Released in Japan as “Rōgo ni Sonaete Isekai de 8-Man-Mai no Kinka o Tamemasu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Kodansha Books. Translated by Luke Hutton.

(A reminder that the English Vol. 8 is the equivalent of the Japanese Vol. 9.)

I mentioned last time that I think the series has gotten into a bit of a rut, and while this volume does not remotely solve that issue, it is nice to see the author deliberately leaning into the rut. The first long-ish chapter has Beatrice reminding Mitsuha that she was promised an even bigger party when she comes of age, which means Mitsuha has to whip out fireworks and light shows and the like. This infuriates Sabine, who notes that when *she* comes of age in three years or so, Mitsuha will need to get even GRANDER! Likewise, Mitsuha’s promise to keep a princess safe are taken as keeping her KINGDOM safe, and Mitsuha deciding to solve the problem using only her own men and minimal deaths means the winning nation can’t take any advantage of it. Mitsuha is a realistic isekai protagonist – in that she never thinks ahead.

This book, like a lot of this series, is divided into chunks that may as well be short stories. 1) The above story, where Mitsuha is asked to pull out all the stops for Beatrice’s coming of age party; 2) Mitsuha talks with an Earth scholar about ways to analyze the other world… and things that she didn’t think of when inviting other scientists over there; 3) The empire who attacked last time is now desperate, and decides to attack a different kingdom… one which has Princess Reina (remember her? Princess Kaa-Kaa-Kaa?), who Mitsuha promised to help if she was in danger, which means we need to resort to attack helicopters; 4) One of Mitsuha’s young noble lady-run businesses is attacked, the young lady has her arm broken and face beaten, and a guard is killed. Sadly, the cops and the nobles are on the side of the company that did this, which means it’s time for Mitsuha to snap and go on a roaring rampage of revenge.

I’ve called this series the “Easy Mode” of the three FUNA series, and I still think that. Compared to Mile, and DEFINITELY compared to Kaoru, Mitsuha gets off very lightly. Her dimensional travel has become so blase she not only talks about how she’s managed to teleport herself while leaving her sweat behind, but has to clarify that she does not leave behind her poop – though she does teleport to Japan to use the toilet every time. These are the little details of Mitsuha’s life that I did not need to know. Likewise, her desire to have as few people die as possible in a dangerous war between nations contrasts nicely with her swearing of total vengeance on the company that murdered and beat employees in her company. Mitsuha may grump about everyone thinking she’s twelve, but she acts like it much of the time, especially when someone goes after anything she cares about. Of the three series, this is the one most likely to end with the world being destroyed by a temper tantrum.

Next time apparently Colette is attacked, so we may see even more of this. You know what I’m about to say. Recommended for FUNA fans.

By FUNA and Keisuke Motoe. Released in Japan as “Rōgo ni Sonaete Isekai de 8-Man-Mai no Kinka o Tamemasu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Kodansha Books. Translated by Luke Hutton.

(A reminder that the English Vol. 7 is the equivalent of the Japanese Vol. 8.)

All of FUNA’s series tend to suffer from the same issue, which is that there does not seem to be a goal other than “have cute overpowered girls do fun stuff”. I Shall Survive Using Potions had an obvious end point, but timeskipped past it and started over again. Make My Abilities Average had an even more obvious end point, so moved the main cast to a different continent to do the same old stuff. Mitsuha has also done the continent – or at least country – hopping thing, and we’re a couple volumes now into her antics in this new country. And… it’s gotten a little boring? Most of Mitsuha’s out of nowhere powerful moves are not a surprise anymore, and her tendency towards, if not sociopathy, than at least a sort of apathy, are also less than surprising. Mitsuha is in a rut. Fortunately, we may see a way out – but I’m not confident the author will take it.

This is a book of two halves. The front half is sort of a series of short stories. We see Beatrice glom onto Mitsuha for a trip to Bozes County, where she finds that she’s not Mitsuha’s number one friend, or even number two, and this upsets her. Then Neleah, the third princess in Vanel and part of Mitsuha’s social group of girls, uses her makeup connections to blow away the competition… though she unfortunately finds she can’t then run away for seven years till the fuss dies down. Mitsuha is forced to attend another party, and struggles with being the center of attention. The second half of he book, meanwhile, has Vanel going to war with the country two nations over, Noral, and Mitsuha struggling to help out the country she has a financial and emotional investment in while not helping them so much they get arrogant.

The most interesting parts of this book feature Mitsuha briefly having an attack of melancholy or sense. She meets at one point with her friend Micchan (this is a Japanese friend, not the Vanelian noble), who is home on break from college, and comes to realize that as time goes on they’ll likely see each other less and less. She briefly muses on the fragile nature of friendships over time… then says “well, whatever” and goes back to her shtick. There’s also an increasing sense that she is losing control of her many balls that are in the air. Beatrice has already realized that she’s keeping things from her. Sabine has almost entirely figured out everything about Mitsuha’s powers except maybe the divine interventoin. And a lot of people on both Earth and her isekai’d land are figuring out she can teleport, and where she’s getting her infinite goods from. There’s a reckoning coming…

Except there isn’t, this is written by FUNA. I expect more wacky antics next time. But hey, when all you have is cute tweens, every light novel starts to look like a nail.

By FUNA and Keisuke Motoe. Released in Japan as “Rōgo ni Sonaete Isekai de 8-Man-Mai no Kinka o Tamemasu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Kodansha Books. Translated by Luke Hutton.

(A reminder that the English Vol. 6 is the equivalent of the Japanese Vol. 7.)

I seem to recall that in earlier reviews of this series, I would applaud the very rare effort to give Mitsuha some depth, such as her reaction of grief when discussing her family in the first book, etc. Anyone who has been following later volumes of this series will, I think, agree with me when I say that depth is the last thing I want now. That honestly applies to all three FUNA series, I think. As they’ve gone on and gotten bigger and bigger, it’s clear the author knows exactly what their skill set is, and it’s writing a cartoon. Not a Japanese anime-style cartoon, but like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon with Mitsuha as both Dick Dastardly AND Muttley. Not only do we not take Mitsuha seriously, but none of her allies take her seriously. The only ones who do take her seriously are the ones desperately trying to either curry favor from her or sabotage her. She destroys those people.

The bulk of this book continues to take place in Vanel, as the royal family finds out that Mitsuha holds grudges forever (though the third princess manages to find a way around this, in one of the funniest scenes of the book). She deals with a rival company breaking into their warehouse and stealing their merchandise, and then decides that the best thing to do is to start a society of cute teenage noble girls, get them to bond with each other over a shared goal (get Mitsuha’s makeup, which she starts to introduce here), and make then the biggest force in the country, as they also end up funding a relief column for one of their members whose barony is experiencing a famine. Meanwhile, back in Yamano County, she’s building entire islands just so she can trade as a tax dodge, and once again setting up a young girl to run it so they can get better marriage prospects.

As with all FUNA series, if you scratch at the core of this you find “I want to write about cute 8-13-year-old girls, but not in a sexual way, just in a cute and empowering way”. Potion Girl and MMAA also do this, with the “gimmick” being the lead is always a reincarnate in a permanently 12-year-old body. Mitsuha’s not a reincarnate, and is 18, but her looks are basically the same thing. And the goal of 80K Gold seems to be to get all these little girls running the economy. After 7 volumes they’re all store owners, merchants, etc., finding better ways to transport goods and Mitsuha can barely keep up with them, to the point that she needs to invent a better sugar here so she can make rum to use as a bribe. Honestly, this volume is best when it’s making fun of Mitsuha and itself – her tendency to monologue for pages on end about her grand plans are now shown to be her saying them all out loud without realizing it, which reminds me a lot of Elgala from Excel Saga. And honestly, this series sort of fits in with the vibe of Excel Saga. We’re even siding with a villain. (Mitsuha. Mitsuha is the villain.)

As always, if you don’t read everything by this author, don’t read this. If you do, it’s good.

By FUNA and Keisuke Motoe. Released in Japan as “Rōgo ni Sonaete Isekai de 8-Man-Mai no Kinka o Tamemasu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Kodansha Books. Translated by Luke Hutton.

(A reminder that the English Vol. 5 is the equivalent of the Japanese Vol. 6.)

I feel at this point that I need to apologize to Mile and Kaoru. I’ve talked before about how all three FUNA heroines are basically agents of chaos who have large body counts to their names, which is true on the face of it. However, Mile (very much so) and Kaoru (somewhat) have people who are around them most of the time, who are there to hear the worst of their atrocities and talk them down. Mitsuha, on the other hand, spends a great deal of these books by herself, wandering all over the land with her teleport powers and with no one to stop her but a tween girl who usually would rather be joining her in the chaos instead. Mitsuha may whine about looking perpetually twelve, but she’s by far the least mature of the FUNA three, and will happily throw intruders on her property onto a remote island for the rest of their lives just because. She’s fricking terrifying.

There’s a new artist, though one that may be familiar – it’s the manga artist, now pulling double duty. As for the “plot”, as usual with this author it’s essentially whatever they feel like doing. Mitsuha manages to get herself a ship to repair/study by posing as a goddess and rescuing sailors from a wrecked ship… which she then has “ascend to heaven”. She gets another teenager to run another company selling luxury goods for her, though at least this one is not an orphan. And she continues to avoid the king and prince on this new nation, who are by now desperate to meet her, and continue to use their secret identities to try to corner her. This goes about as well as you’d expect. People that try to force Mitsuha to do what they want end up longing for a quick and painless death.

There’s minimal gunplay in this book, despite the cover art. But that’s fine, as Mitsuha has shown that she can completely upend all of society without needing to bother with guns. There are so many scenes in this book that come down to “roaring rampage of revenge”, and while with Mile, and especially Kaoru, such displays only really get out of hand when they’re upset or emotionally compromised, Mitsuha doesn’t really have that. Mitsuha spends most of the book happy, making jokes and puns, and laying economic waste to everything around her. She cares about some of the people around her, mostly Colette, but she’s also very casual about “if things go south I’ll just abandon them” when she makes new alliances. I don’t think this is intentional, but I think that the death of Mitsuha’s family has arrested her development and also her moral sense (her brother’s teachings didn’t help). If this was a different series, I’d say it’s a setup for a massive amount of hubris and karma bringing Mitsuha down. But this is not that kind of series. She’s just like that.

This is light, frothy fun provided you don’t take it remotely seriously. As always.

By FUNA and Touzai. Released in Japan as “Rōgo ni Sonaete Isekai de 8-Man-Mai no Kinka o Tamemasu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Kodansha Books. Translated by Luke Hutton.

(A reminder that the English Vol. 4 is the equivalent of the Japanese Vol. 5.)

Folks, I’m gonna talk about it again. Just as I did with the last Potions volume. And MMAA as well. And, honestly, Kuma Bear, which is not by the same author but does the same thing and appeals to the same audience. What the hell is with all the child labor love in these books? Every series seems to bring a tragic tale of orphans who are suffering terribly until our heroine comes along to offer them a job where they can earn cold hard cash to live on, and the kids subsequently develop a messianic devotion. Not to the heroine, though yes, for her as well. To work. They will work all the overtime. They will work weekends and holidays. It’s ridiculous. You could argue it’s a good way to get a small army of cute moe kids for this series for moe kid lovers, but… there are other moe kids in this series who are not child labor! It drives me NUTS.

Mitsuha quickly decides that she does not want to do any more of her diplomacy tour, and so she takes the kids and simply runs away back to her kingdom, with a few stops in Japan to set up a new business and make sure all her tax documents are in working order. (Mitsuha is very, very dedicated to making sure she does not screw up her Japanese taxes, even as she exploits less developed countries for labor and real estate.) She also takes two mercs, who are upset they were sick for the dragon battle, to fight some monsters, and quickly realizes that actual monster hunting is not Safe And Fun. In the second half of the book, she heads to the country that had sent that warship to do reconnaissance… which in practice just means doing the same stuff she did in the first country, only with more money and more mistakes.

I can probably answer all my questions about this author by observing the monster hunting scene. Mitsuha actually has to try to find a place with real monsters, as they don’t hang around the capital. Then, when she goes with two mercs and the captain, her noble family friends insist on coming along as well… because they know monsters are freaking dangerous, and bullets, as it turns out, can’t stop them. Swords can, though. Mitsuha ends up teleporting everyone back, flees to Japan with her two girls, and is super depressed… for a page. She then gets over it. This is even lampshaded. I think the author does not want the reader to overanalyze things too much, this series is for fun. Unfortunately for the author, I have a word count to make up, so here I am. I did enjoy Mitsuha make a couple of really dumb “I assume I am mature and know everything, but am actually a naive little baby” mistakes, especially when she starts handing out priceless jewels like candy.

So yeah, (checks author) this series is still not good, or bad. It’s FUNA. That’s what it is.

By FUNA and Touzai. Released in Japan as “Rōgo ni Sonaete Isekai de 8-Man-Mai no Kinka o Tamemasu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Kodansha Books. Translated by Luke Hutton.

(A reminder that the English Vol. 3 is the equivalent of the Japanese Vol. 4.)

I feel a certain regret in my past choices. When I started to review I Shall Survive Using Potions!, I had only read the first volume of 80K Gold, and given Kaoru’s, um, tendency towards war crimes, I described 80K Gold as “beginning” FUNA, Make My Abilities Average as “intermediate”, and Potions as “hard”. The thing is, though, all of these series are essentially exactly the same. You could take Mile, Kaoru and Mitsuha and swap them into each other’s books and not much would have to change, except the Potions cast would wonder where their grumpy cuss went. They are all basically “a girl who looks younger than she really is wreaks havoc on a fantasy landscape, collecting other young girls along the way”. And boy, is much havoc wreaked in this volume. Mitsuha is going on a world tour, and she’s brought a camper van and her own barrel of war crimes.

Having vanquished the invading country with their newfangled ships and weapons, Mitsuha and company now have to tell the neighboring countries about the same danger. While also trying to get them to form an alliance, and possibly sell them some cool guns. A diplomatic team is put together… with Mitsuha as a supernumerary, not part of the actual team, so she can do whatever the hell she wants. She takes Sabina and Colette with her, and, after introducing the two of them to Japan and the wonders of Japanese food (and, after overeating, the wonders of Japanese toilets), she buys an RV that she names the Good Ship Lollipop and sets off in style and comfort… while occasionally waiting for the diplomatic party to catch up to her.

There are always a few light novel series that make me uncomfortable with where they sit on the political spectrum, and this is one of them. The author and the main character love their guns, and we get more discussion of them, along with which ones are best to use in which situation. The diplomatic mission amounts to blackmail most of the time, as basically the other countries have to give in or they won’t get any of Mitsuha’s armaments… and, after observing the effect of one rifle on their standard suit of armor, they HAVE to give in. It can feel a bit mean. She also wins over a new princess and solves the succession crisis for her (good) but also gets her addicted to gambling (bad). This series never gets too serious, unlike Potions, but there is some melancholy as Mitsuha realizes that her unaging self means that in a couple of years she will have to give up her Japanese life for good to avoid unwanted questions. It depresses her.

That said, it doesn’t depress her enough that she’s not rolling through a fantasy world in a camper van with her two child soldiers… erm, assistants at her side. As always, if you like FUNA, you’ll like this. If you don’t, you’ll hate this.

By FUNA and Touzai. Released in Japan as “Rōgo ni Sonaete Isekai de 8-Man-Mai no Kinka o Tamemasu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Kodansha Books. Translated by Luke Hutton.

Sigh. There was no good way to do this. Kodansha Books re-released the first two volumes of this light novel series as an omnibus, which is good! It meant folks didn’t have to re-buy two books that they already had from the late, unlamented Sol Press and we could get to new content faster! But it also means that this second volume is the third in Japan. And that will be the case going forward. That’s why this is another review of the 2nd volume – it’s really a review of Volume 3. Got it? Good. That said, the first volume of this series originally came out here in 2019, the second 19 months after that, and here’s the third, about 30 months after that one. You might be forgiven for completely forgetting what’s been going on. Fortunately, there was an anime! It covered Books 1 and 2, so go watch it, then come back here. Because this is more of the same, and it’s fun and mind-boggling and a little disturbing. See: this author.

Things are getting busier for Mitsuha – so busy that she seriously considers, near the end of the book, stopping the “go back and forth between here and Japan” thing and permanently settling. She has a new territory to run. She’s being asked to attend all sorts of society balls. She’s trying to get board games to be a thing in this country, specifically shogi and reversi. She’s trying to create popcorn, with the help of some adorable… if somewhat mercenary… orphans. And of course she’s looking to make that money so that she can retire, though several times in this book she admits to herself that she needs to stop inventing new things and let this world relax and catch up a bit. That said, the biggest problem may be when three huge ships show up in her domain. Maybe they’re friendly!… OK, probably not.

Fans of FUNA will be happy to know there is quite a bit of what I call “the heroine goes completely batshit” in this book, the biggest being how she deals with the invading foreign army. As with I Shall Survive Making Potions!, the heroine’s morality is firmly in the grey area, and her solutions do sometimes involve “there’s no way I can do this without killing a few people, sorry”. Much of the “fun” in this series is seeing her do something along these lines, then act surprised that everyone is staring in disbelief at her. She actually has another crying breakdown here, after the Count who has become her surrogate father has to remind her that people actually love and care about her here, and she should not treat her life as disposable. Which, let’s be honest, she is. Almost all her decisions in this volume have a form of “what if I die, how will they deal with this then?” Which is great in a worldbuilding way, but not so good in a psychological one.

If you hated Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average and I Shall Survive Using Potions!, you’ll hate this too. If you loved them, you’ll love this too. It’s as simple as that. See you next time for the third (fourth) book.

By FUNA and Touzai. Released in Japan by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Sol Press. Translated by Lukas Ruplys.

When I reviewed the first volume of this light novel… 19 months ago… I remarked that it was relatively mild in terms of the eccentricities of its author, FUNA, and their other works, I Shall Survive Using Potions! and Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average!. I regret that now. This, the second novel in the 80,000 Gold books, is absolutely bananas. Mile and Kaoru wish they were this overpowered. Our heroine stops a war using modern artillery, gains a domain of her own to rule, and sets about ruling it, all the while flitting back and forth between this fantasy world and modern-day Japan. Can she keep it a secret? LOL. Not at all, and by the end of the book dragons are now “real” and Mitsuha is telling readers about the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine. The good news is that the book remains a lot of fun provided you don’t believe in gritty realism, and Mitsuha has toned down her fourth-wall breaking tendencies… somewhat… so is a far more tolerable narrator.

When we last saw Mitsuha she was running her little shop that sells shampoo and other luxury items. But that’s more a job for the heroine of her other book; Mitsuha has bigger things to do, even if she really doesn’t want to. She befriends the princess, who is a cutie and also loves to escape her guards, and from there the king. This means that she’s also called in when the country goes to war, and after an assassination attempt wounds her and mortally wounds Alexis, Mitsuha decides to stop holding back and calls out her friendly mercenary friends to destroy the enemy army (with has orcs, ogres, and teenage dragons) with modern-day tanks and rocket launchers. Her reward for all this is becoming a viscountess and gaining her own territory, which she spends most of the rest of the book sprucing up. And if that means bringing in experts from Japan to help her with the harder stuff… and indeed just selling the rights to the world in auction… well, that’s how Mitsuha rolls.

In the first book there was a great scene where Mitsuha, talking with her “newly adopted” family, suddenly remembers her dead parents and starts to cry without realizing it. There’s a similar scene here, after Mitsuha is shot with a crossbow and Alexis ends up taking several other crossbow bolts to defend her, where she just has a complete freakout. The author is good at this sort of scene (Potions has also used them), and it helps to un-smug Mitsuha, which is occasionally needed because most of the time she is pretty smug. I was rather startled at how fast her “I can travel to a fantasy world and back” thing became public, though at least she’s managed to hide that it’s “Mitsuha Yamano” who is doing thing. (This also leads to the funniest joke in the book, where the merc squad nicknames her Nanoha, because there’s no kill like overkill.) In between these parts there’s a lot of ‘building my little fiefdom’ sections, which are not as exciting but are fun for those who like Realist Hero and its ilk.

The other good news is between the first volume and this one, Sol Press learned to format digital books properly. As a result, there are no issues with the interstitial art and everything looks fine. As for the book itself, again, if overpowered – LUDICROUSLY overpowered – heroines annoy you, stay well away. But I found it relaxing, goofy fun, despite the very high body count. Mitsuha may be nicknamed Nanoha, but she’s not “befriending” her enemies.

By FUNA and Touzai. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by Sol Press. Translated by Lukas Ruplys.

This is the third of FUNA’s series to be brought over to the West, but it was apparently the first one serialized (though they do say this and Potions debuted almost at the same time). Having now read all three, there’s no question why Make My Abilities Average! got the attention and the forthcoming anime adaptation: it’s the best of then. Potions gets by on Kaoru being somewhat terrifying rather than cute and plucky, and both it and MMAA have the heroines having to deal with situations where they’re dealing with permanently being in another world, even if they’re loaded up with ridiculous cheats. Mitsuha, though she appears to “die” and be reborn in a fantasy world, in fact has it the best of all of them. As a result, the danger level in this first book is fairly low, and it’s not as interesting as a result. That said, if you enjoy FUNA’s ridiculously OP heroines, there’s a lot to like here.

Mitsuha starts off the book pretty badly, to be honest. She’s not dead like Mile or Kaoru, but her parents and older brother are, leaving her alone and dealing with the fallout. One day at a lookout point, she’s attacked by some young creeps (she’s 18 but looks 12, in the best anime cliche tradition) and they accidentally push her off the edge onto the rocky cliffs below. She wakes up in a forest, and after walking herself to collapse finds herself in a rustic cabin… indeed, in a rustic world. Eventually she discovers that she can transport herself between this world and Japan, and, thanks to some friendly deus ex machinas who explain why she isn’t dead, she also can speak any language and has a healing factor. So what’s a young, recently orphaned young woman to do? Why, earn a pile of gold coins in the fantasy world, convert it over in Japan, and live a life of ease! Except she’s a FUNA heroine, so adventure and ridiculousness is bound to follow.

As with Mile, and especially Kaoru, there is a risk of Mitsuha coming off as uber-smug, especially when she’s doing things like bribing mercenaries to teach her how to use knives and guns, or showing off her general store with amazing inventions such as store-bought shampoo. (There’s also FAR more intrustive fourth-wall breaking in this book.) This being the case, I thought the best scene in the book is when she’s ingratiating herself with the local noble family, all of whom are taken in by her sob story (adapted for the fantasy world), and she gets carried away and calls the patriach “Father”… then starts to unconsciously cry. It’s a reminder that the author really does remember the character backstories, and this is a young woman who recently lost her entire family, who appeared to be pretty loving from what we hear (though the brother was a bit of an otaku). It’s a nice bit of grounding that helps you smile and nod when you see Mitsuha use dry ice and the power of FISH to wow everyone at a debutante ball.

This is my first Sol Press purchase. The translation was good, but the digital formatting was merely eh. They need to figure out how to make the interstitial pictures be one page on their own, rather than having text on the same page. That said, if you’re looking for silly heroines, and have run out of Make My Abilities Average!, this is a pretty good purchase.