In Volume 1, we encountered a world in which “Lost Ones,” normal humans from Japan might find themselves saddled with “Pure Concepts,” magic too big, too unfettered, too uncontrollable for that world. In order to avoid monstrous calamity, there are Executioners who kill these Lost Ones. Executioners are not heroes, they are killers. Menou knows she is the villain of her story, but still strives to do her best in her job. In The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Volume 2, Menou is failing to do her job well.

The basic set up of the world is the typical three estates of the ancien regime – Nobles, Church, Commoners and the Knights who protect them. In this world (where media almost complete lacks of any kind, which I maintain is weird) the Fourth is a combined force of people who think this whole setup is ass and are trying to find power in the chaos. That’s the setup of the world, but it is almost irrelevant to the story, except as a background.

The actual story is that Akari is a Lost One with the pure concept of Time and therefore cannot be killed, despite Menou’s increasingly half-hearted attempts. Momo, Menou’s junior brings Menou important information almost having sacrificed herself to gain it. One of the worst calamities to strike this world, a Human Error, is free once again. And indeed, Menou encounters it…her. Akari is not strong enough to fight it, neither is Menou, but a concerted effort by Menou and “the Princess Knight” Ashuna (in a kind of Nobles-Church alliance) are able to bring her to a short-term standstill.  The battle, as one might expect from this series, is meant as an exercise in grossness and body horror.

At this point, I am now faced with the same choice I had in regards to Roll Over and Die. Do I keep going through what must be ever deepening levels of body horror and guro…and to what end? Will the payoff be enough for me to care? There are at least 4 more books in the series in Japan to date. Right now, I have no answer.

There are elements to this story that I genuinely like – primarily, the magic. The world is uninteresting and, sadly, so have the people been so far. The world is filled with that are mostly bad people, apparently.  We rarely, if ever, see someone decent, kind or even neutral. And here is where I find myself in a quandry. Some of those bad people are interesting, even if the book is at pains to present them as uninteresting. For instance, Manon’s backstory was to date the only fully realized story we’ve had. She’s initially presented as bored/boring, but turns out to have layers. Evil is presented in a way that works, but isn’t interesting in the same exact way Momo is uninteresting – monomanias are bad storytelling.  Ashuna and Momo present us with an avenue for growth and that interest me. And, ultimately, one might want Menou and Akari to have their stories filled in, since this is presented to us as the key plot of the series, around which all others revolve. But will it be enough to keep me engaged?

The worst element of this book is, without question, the art. I don’t know why it exists at all, honestly. Well yes, I do and it makes me want to punch someone. It serves one purpose, as the characters barely look different except to have increasingly insulting lack of underwear and clothing for costumes. It’s, frankly embarrassing that no one says, “No. Seriously, stop.” for “clothing” drawn in this fashion. The breast fetishism here is just…dull. Who is the front cover even supposed to be? It’s definitely not Menou (who wears blue,) Momo (pink hair, white robes,)  Manon (kimono and hair loosely bound at the bottom,) Ashuna (chainmail bikini and tall, with a lot of hair) or Akari (absurdly emphasized chest and black hair.)

Jenny McKeon does a pretty solid translation here, given that the overall tone with which this particular volume is written is “boredom.” And she makes the magic interesting to me, which is keeping me going. Since Yen does not credit anyone else, I’d just like to thank the rest of the team who made this volume possible.

Ratings:

Art – Atrocious and vulgar
Story – On the magic alone I’d give it a 9, but let’s temper it to an 8 for the grim
Characters – This one is still hard, let’s say, 7 with an upward creep.
Service – See art. Yes, I get it, it’s all very exciting that women have tits. /eyeroll/
Yuri – Everyone loves Menou.

Overall – 8

Yen was kind enough to provide me with a review PDF, thank you Yen Press, but I ended up buying the volume in print when I saw it in Kinokuniya. I am unlikely to keep this series on my shelves, but it actually looks really substantial and nicely put together as a print volume. It’ll go into a future Lucky Box. In the meantime, I’ll have some time to decide if I’m continuing as Volume 3 will hit shelves here in November.

When I tell you that Girls Kingdom, Volume 4 is worth reading, please understand that I am 100% aware of what I am saying. The series is, thus far, a ridiculous concoction of overblown Yuri tropes seen on a jumbotron screen of Light Novel excess. It’s also kind of fun. In Volume 4, it is both entirely, gobsmackingly, batty and much more clever than it has any right to be…and then it is…charming. Imagine that I write that sentence in equal parts awe, amazement, frustration and maniacal giggling.

You may remember that series is set at a school for absurdly wealthy young women, in which commoners aspire to become maids for the wealthy young women.

In Volume 1 of this series, we met Misaki, a regular girl attending this school, who has no desire to become a maid, and Himeko, a wealthy young lady who has no desire to have a maid, and who thus join as maid and mistress.

In Volume 2, Misaki and her roommate are required to jump through silly hoops for silly prizes.

In Volume 3, Misaki is both detective and diplomat and maid and one hopes her school grades are okay, but hey, she’ll probably always have work as fixer. And, oh, by the way, there is a surprise vampire.

So, by Volume 4, surely you know not to take any of this too seriously. And we don’t, as the initial scenario is a battle of the absurdly wealthy girl Salons to recruit a new member; a story whose conclusion which rests on a secret sauce of business acumen, baking and friendship.

And then the story takes a serious turn, as a maid and mistress pair faces a crisis no one can find a way out of …until a resolution is indeed found and I stopped and said, “Well, that was clever. How annoying.” ^_^ This book ends with more vampire hunting and the only actual laugh out loud moment in the book for me as Misaki seriously states, “The ‘III’ is important.”

She’s right too, because now Misaki has a magical animal mascot. And that surely must be important in this school where maids cook and clean and negotiate and fight and draw up legal contracts and arrange polite confrontations and engage in battles of eating escargot, and, presumably, go to class sometimes.

This series is too silly to hate. ^_^ You might not like it, but from my perspective Misaki is delightful and the whole story is so utterly loopy that you might as well just lean into it. And so author Nayo does. Shio Sakura’s illustrations once again illustrate the people, not the scene, so expect elaborate, yet impractical costuming. (Also, not sure what they think “evening gowns” look like here.)

Ratings:

Art – 7 lost me on the “evening gowns”*
Story – 8 Actually good in places, or am I losing some grip on reality? Not sure.
Characters – 9 Even more likeable and even more loopy
Service – 6 Still tiresome, but shifting
Yuri – 4.5 Himeko is finding reasons to touch Misaki

Overall – 8 I…liked…it?

In any case, if you have managed to make it this far, I encourage you to read Volume 4. Misaki may not be Noriko, but her relative normality at this absurdly fictitious school makes the whole thing work. You are not reading this series for either sense or sensibility, but as far as entertainment goes, you’re golden.

*Evening gowns for tea? Look, I’m not “British,” either, but that’s not how that works.

Today I want to talk about My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Volume 9 and I think I’m probably more surprised than anyone about that. ^_^

If you are still reading by Volume 9, you know that for anything in this series to work, Katarina must remain an uncarved block and all the people around her will flail to preserve her simplicity, at any expense. That remains true here as well, but also, we get to see a new facet of our protagonist…and it kind of changes everything we think about her.

Larna takes Katarina, Sora and Maria on a mission to track down the source of the child trafficking ring that has been constantly mentioned, but sort of skimmed over as a “bad thing over there that we’re not looking at” much the same we most of us deal with, well real-world child trafficking.

In a beautiful seaport town, Katarina makes her peers fall in love with her all over again and drags a new enemy-to-ally into the harem. She forgets that she commands a powerful magical creature, then remembers, then forgets, then remembers. All is well and this crop of children are rescued and maybe, possibly we’re one step closer to finding the shadow noble / dark magic practitioner who is doing all this. But none of that is why I am writing this review.

As you know, I am firmly on Team Mary for shipping with Katarina. Sure, I like Maria, but did not agree when last year, Maria x Katarina came on top of the best couples poll for the series. Until this volume. ^_^

Maria’s no dummy. She can confess as openly as she’d like to Katarina, knowing that no matter how low she flies her banner of love, Katarina will not understand it (and, realistically, it won’t threaten anyone else, as she’s a commoner.) In Volume 9, Maria’s declarations of love are SO blatant that even Sora thinks Maria’s the best choice. In the end, I was convinced that if this were an otome game, Maria probably does have the best route end, by a single scene in which Katarina was allowed to be good at something.

The premise the readership has assumed is that Katarina is a doofus. What if…she’s not? What if you or I had actually been reincarnated as a Duke’s child and forcefed years of etiquette and arcane language classes for magic we couldn’t control? Go ahead…think about it. It’s not a stretch to imagine that I’d also have gotten into loads of trouble for climbing trees and doing shit unbecoming a young lady. (Thanks, Mom and Dad, for not punishing me for climbing trees.)

So, here in this seaport town, as Maria takes over the management and cooking for a restaurant and we learn that Katarina was in her past life a *completely competent waitress,* it kind of changes everything. Even Katarina allows herself a fantasy in which she and Maria run a restaurant together…it’s hard to argue that it wouldn’t work, when we can see that it most certainly would.

If you’re reading this series for Yuri, it’s only here and there in between everyone else’s gaga-ing over Katarina, but you know what? It’s there! For those of us who wish there was a full-on book just about that, our wish is coming true. My Next Life as a Villainess Side Story: Girl’s Patch is on the way from Seven Seas in May 2022.

Ratings:

Art – 7 Perfectly fine, always irrelevant
Story – 8 Predictable with a side of Yuri
Characters – 10 I’m not reading this for the intense crime story
Service – 3 Katarina being swept off her feet by Maria is service, yes.
Yuri – 4 Same, plus 1 for Sora agreeing with us.

Overall – 8

While I will never give up rooting for Mary, now I can definitely agree with the Maria groupies. ^_^

Volume 9 is available now in digital format from J-Novel Club on Amazon Kindle or Bookwalker Global. It will be out in print in winter 2022.