Once upon a time there were three women who were just fucking done with the everyday sexism of the sexist society in which they lived. They had all experienced any number of ways in which they, despite the fact that they worked twice as hard and were twice as good as the men around them, were never given the credit or the benefit of the doubt and that every individual man required them to prove their worthiness to him, individually, and none of those men ever bothered to share that information with other men, so the women had to prove themselves over and over and over and over again endlessly.

Oh, sorry, I was thinking about Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. It’s just completely coincidental that the exact same story also applies to Tanya, Nadine and Laplace, the protagonists of Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress! Volume 2.

Tanya, Laplace and Nadine, known collectively as Lillium, are the most powerful party in all of Pajan. They are nonetheless subject to the systemic misogyny of life in Ode. Overpowered as they are, it doesn’t concern them much other than as a thorn in their shoe, endlessly pricking and wasting their time and energy.

When they are approached by the Princess, they are provided an opportunity to right an old wrong, and change things from the top down. To do that, Laplace must confront her own past and the man who raised her to be a powerful weapon – the Court Mage, Maxwell…her father.

I knew I was going to like this volume when I read this tweet, by translator Molly Lee:

SEXILED Volume 2 https://t.co/laEQhn89w7

— molly lee@TAISHO x ALICE ON STEAM (@verdelishJP) November 17, 2019

And I did like it. For one thing, the main part of the plot delved into Laplace’s backstory, and it addresses the one real weakness of the first volume, Laplace’s tendency to kiss Tanya without her explicit consent. Although it does explain why, I wish it had emphasized a little more that it’s not right…even if Tanya ultimately doesn’t mind.

Maxwell turns out to be a distilled essence of all the mediocre men ever and it was deeply satisfying to see him defeated, but that was probably one of the least important things that happened in the novel. Lilium giving hope – and opportunity – to the people of Ode and greater O’toyok area are far more powerful. Two of the most important things to occur are the gelling of Tanya and Laplace’s relationship into something more mutual and permanent and the final moment when Tanya meets a young man who was motivated by Lilium to follow his dream. His sincere thanks changes Tanya’s perspective on her work and opens her eyes to the fact that they are providing an example and a way for anyone.

Ultimately, the fight scenes and even more the scenes where Laplace transforms her prison into a luxury suite, are icing on a revenge narrative cake.

The weakest bit, in my opinion, is the fact that Maxwell has specifically been manipulating the laws in Pajan in order to make women’s lives miserable because as a mediocre man, he wanted endless revenge on women. It would be nice if we could sweep away misogyny by removing one misogynist from power, but real life is not that simple.

I will part here from my respected peers Yurimother and Sean Gaffney, when it comes to the art. They both found Kazutomo Miya’s illustrations to be a weakness, while I very much liked them and significantly preferred it to the art of the first volume, which I found created a sense of severe dissonance between the characters as described and seen. The art here is less finished which never bothers me – I quite like pencil or pen sketches – but far more importantly, it reflects the actual characters as described in the text.  It drives me crazy when art and text are at odds.

In some ways this story was so on the money, especially the scene about Nadine’s glasses and the court’s insistence on heels, just as the #KuToo and no glasses for women controversies landed in real-world Japan, that it felt a little too current. As it turns out these were just coincidences of ghastly real-world misogyny. Whee.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Service – 7 With actual intent. On purpose.
Yuri – 8

Overall – 10

There are any number of things seeded into the text upon which a third novel could be built and I’ve already let Kaeruda-sensei know that it’s selfish of me, but I really want a Volume 3. ^_^

“It is important to note early that women’s historically subordinate ‘place,’ in science (and thus their invisibility to even experienced historians of science) was not a coincidence and was not due to any lack of merit on their part, it was due to the camouflage intentionally placed over their presence in science.” – Margaret Rossiter from Women Scientists in America quoted in Smithsonian Magazine, “Sidelined” by Katherine Lam.

Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress!, Volume 1, by Kaeruda Ameko, out in English from J-Novel Club, should be required reading for every- and anyone who is interested in RPGs, fantasy literature, light novels or, indeed, any pop culture genre.

Powerful Mage Tanya Artemiciov has been thrown out of her party by the leader, Ryan, a man whose fame largely rests on her shoulders. The reason? Because she’s a woman, Tanya is just not “suited” to adventuring. In fact, as we learn, everything in the world seems to be skewed in a way that limits women’s achievement, forcing them into lower-paid and scantily clothed classes.

During a well-earned fit of magical pique, Tanya accidentally frees a 300-year old legend, the powerful Sorceress Laplace. In thanks, Laplace powers Tanya up even further and the two set out to right wrongs, both personal and societal, and change the world for the better. And, so they do…and it’s magnificent.

Kaeruda states in her author’s note, that the motivating factor for this novel was the 2018 scandal in which Tokyo medical universities admitted that they’d been lowering women’s scores “to be fair to men.” This mind-boggling use of “fair” is imported whole into Sexiled, where it is just as enraging. This is not a book that hides the rage women feel at being systematically held back, having their accomplishments camouflaged by mediocre men who ride on our support, our unpaid work, unrewarded research, unnoticed housework, child rearing, extra hours, so they can be paid more, given promotions and be considered better “leaders.”

Sexiled is so pointed, I’m surprised I’m not bleeding.

That said, what made this book so delightful is not the rage. It’s not even the revenge – which was amazingly satisfying, I’ve gotta say. What made this book so wonderful was the humor, the teamwork, the humanity of it. And the Yuri was nice, not terribly intrusive and given a lot of room to evolve naturally, even if it had a ridiculous genesis.

It’s hard to not quote-binge Sexiled, because there are a lot of excellent passages. I’ll confine myself to one passage towards the end, that was a powerful gut-punch for me.

Women are so emotional. Women think they can cry their way out of anything. Society was filled with stock phrases designed to steal away a woman’s right to cry. Well, fuck that, Tanya thought. Everyone’s gotta cry sometimes.

As Nadine sobbed, Tanya pulled her into her arms, then looked over at Laplace. Together, they recited:
“And sometimes a girl’s just gotta cry.”

The original Japanese title, 女だから、とパーティを追放されたので伝説の魔女と最強タッグを組みました, Onnadakara, to Paati o Tsuihousaretanode Densetsu no Majyo to Saikyou Taggu o Kumimashita does not get shortened as “Sexiled”, but instead as “Onna dakara,” i.e., “Because I’m a Woman.” So, to some extent, the title nickname embedded in the English title is itself an example of the kind of sexism the book is written to surface and combat. “Ohhh…Sexiled, sounds good…” You are instantly forced to hear the kind of person who might find the word Sexiled appealing. ^_^; But, in choosing such a salacious word, the title might entice readers who need to read this. So, is it sexist or is it a title nickname version of a box on a stick with a hunk of delicious meat under it?

Above and beyond all of this, Sexiled was laugh-out-loud funny in several places. In large part I credit the exceptional translation by Molly Lee. There was no doubt that her work transported this book from a good read to a sublime one. J-Novel Club intelligently had a female translator and editor on this book, a choice that I think was damned smart. Lee’s translation and Hannah N. Carter’s editing meant that there was an extraordinary subtlety in the language; the way scenes are communicated beyond literal meaning. For instance, a description of the Inn our protagonists visit is done in the kind of marketing language that might be used to sell a cafe to women (delicious food, cute, drinks, friendly atmosphere…). The narration mocks and plays with itself in a way I have never seen before in a Japanese novel. If there is an award for adaptation of a light novel, Lee and Carter deserve nomination.

Ratings:

Art – 6 Once again, the weakest thing about the book. It wasn’t awful, the book just deserved better
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Service – 7 With actual intent. On purpose.
Yuri – 7

Overall – 10

I’ve been informed by YNN Senior Correspondent and excellent reviewer in his own right, Sean G, that Sexiled 2 will be available in December of this year. I cannot wait to see what the series has in store!

Many thanks to J-Novel Club for the review copy!

Ancient Vampire Princess is reborn
To enact the most elaborate PG revenge porn
More super-powered than a god
She forces the plot not to plod
It’s so silly one can’t even scorn

Seriously Seeking Sister! Ultimate Vampire Princess Just Wants Little Sister; Plenty of Service Will Be Provided! by Hiironoame surely must be given some credit for taking it’s overlong title and actually providing useful information with it. I knew going into this novel nothing beyond the fact that I am overtly not the audience for it. And, indeed, I aborted my first attempt at reading it. But a second attempt was more successful once I stopped caring at all. ^_^

Ristia is a cheerfully unreal overpowered scion of a vastly overpowered vampire race, the destruction of which happens offscreen while Ristia is trapped in a crystal for millennia in a fit of pique because her parents would not procreate and give her a younger sister to dote upon. This opening is so overtly ridiculous that you’d do better to skip to roughly midway through the book and start there, after Ristia has been awakened and is overpowering her way through a feudal society unable to cope with her overwhelming magic. Ristia ends up taking over an oprhanage and making improvements that would catapult the orphans several centuries forward in technology. Throughout, of course, Ristia spends the entire book insisting that she’s normal, despite magicking everything around her.

Bad guys are, one and all, horrible vulgar men who rape and pillage, and speak in crudely malformed suggestive lines, a veritable pack of frat boys being appalling to the young women around them, so of course we feel nothing when they are bloodlessly disappeared out of the story. Good guys are thankfully split between men and women, or I’d suspect some kind of agenda.

Because I don’t read too many Light Novels of this kind, I turned to translator David Evelyn and shared that I found it hard to know whether there is humor in the overpowered Ristia or I’m being made fun of. He suggested that the language was typical of isekai novels, but there was a kind of self-awareness that made it funny. Like a joke that is funny only after the characters become aware that they’ve repeated it too many times, as Sean Gaffney noted in his review. After all the carpenters agree to never mention how obviously not normal at all Ristia is, I finally relaxed into the story.

The title is not wrong – there was a great deal of service and very little of it served this fan. There are a number of lingering looks at lingerie and physical descriptions of too-young women, which just flat out bore me. The idea that a line like “With her clothing now reduced to only her matching light bra and panties, Ristia went fishing through the assortment of dresses” is considered “service” by any human on the planet, fills me with exhaustion. Up your game, my fellow humans. The Internet should quench your fetish for matching underwear sets. Go find yourself a catalog. Matching bra and panty sets are the Wal-Mart of fetishes. It’s all so 12-year olds gathered around the NatGeo mags.

Because I had an easier time relating to this novel as a comedy than as an action or drama story, the sort-of emotional relationships Ristia forms in her quest for a little sister, were somewhat less satisfying to me as a relationship than a punchline. And they were the only (inevitably service-y) feature where her nature as a vampire has any relevance…which made it funnier to me.

As Yurimother noted in her review of this novel, the one strong point was the lack of violence against women, beyond implication that it had occurred in the past. But the threat of violence against women and children as a plot driver is still not optimal. Thankfully most of the “good” characters are thoroughly likable, so its gilding the reaction lily to make us worry about the cute dog-eared girl.

My only genuine criticism of this book is that the art does nothing to illustrate anything that is described in the text. Ristia is presented as a young woman with an ever-present allure, (due to her being a vampire, you know) but the character we see is goofy, not alluring. We read that her hair is long, thick and lustrous, and we’re shown her with a bad collar-cut. It feels weirdly dysphoric to have the text and art so at odds with each other.

Ratings:

Story  – 7
Characters – 8
Art – 4 Not bad in and of itself, but wholly unrelated to the text
Service – 5 Blood sucking, dressing/undressing for no reason, underwear (yawn)
Yuri – 5 Same as above, no real emotional connections…wasted opportunities to be a good story there

Overall – 7

As an elaborate form of a comedic revenge narrative, Seriously Seeking Sister is an amuse-bouche of a novel…it won’t satisfy your hunger, but it will pass the time until you find something more filling.

Much obliges to J-Novel Club for the Review copy.

This summer J-Novel club announced a number of Yuri light novels for English-language distribution.

This is the beginning of a really ambitious program, about which I spoke briefly at Otakuthon with founder Sam Pinansky (the same Sam Pinansky who started Anime Sols kickstarters for classic anime series.)

Here is a rundown of the first set of licenses, with a reminder that these are Light Novels, which generally are written to an 8th grade reading level and sensibility. While there are a few LNs that really reach above this, like the Maria-sama ga Miteru series, most are dead set in the written, reading and thinking style of 12 year-old boys. ^_^;

Here’s the full line up of this first batch, with synopses and a little light editorializing:

Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress!

Tanya Artemiciov is a talented Mage-class adventurer who just got kicked out of her party by a sexist scumbag. So what’s a girl to do? Go to the wasteland and blow stuff up of course! One small problem though: she inadvertently frees a mythical Sorceress named Laplace who was sealed away for the past 300 years… Surprise! Turns out this so-called “wicked” Sorceress is actually pretty cool. Laplace wants to start a party of her own, Tanya wants revenge, and the solution is obvious: team up. It’s time to kick ass, kiss girls, and dismantle the patriarchy!

E: I’m mostly looking forward to this, despite having maxed out on isekai/D&D adventures in my teens, and expecting the word “boobalicious” to appear. More than once. ^_^

You know, I’m not looking for high art here, but this had better be fun! Lady, you have a sword and an evil sorceress – there had better be vengeful violence.

Otherside Picnic

Her first encounter with Toriko Nishina was on the Otherside after seeing “that thing” and nearly dying. Ever since that day, exhausted university student Sorawo Kamikoshi’s life changed. In this Otherworld, full of mystery, which exists alongside our own, dangerous beings like the Kunekune and Hasshaku-sama that are spoken of in real ghost stories appear. For research, for profit, and to find an important person, Toriko and Sorawo set foot into the abnormal. A tale of two girls’ bizarre exploration and survival, brought to you by an up-and-coming Sci-fi author!

E: I’m looking forward to reading this one a lot, having read the first volume of the manga. It seems to be a little more imaginative and science fiction than the others. I might save this one for last, just because I expect it to be good.

Miyazawa is not a bad writer, from the stuff I’ve already read, so consider me on board for this.

Side-by-Side Dreamers

Saya Hokage, a high school girl who is unable to sleep due to insomnia, encounters Hitsuji Konparu, a girl who can put anyone to sleep as a “lover” in a dream. When Hitsuji’s senpai – Ran Aizome – sees potential in Saya, she ends up joining them and their group of Sleepwalkers. As it turns out, unbeknownst to the common citizens in their town, a battle has been unfolding between the Suiju – beings that possess people’s spirits in the land of sleep – and the Sleepwalkers, who have the power to move about freely in their dreams. Sleeping together as a team, Saya and her newfound group are doing a good job hunting Suiju. That is, until an unexpected darkness comes along… Will the girls be able defend humanity’s sleep?

E: Another Miyazawa story and an interesting premise. Could be anything from okay to fantastic. I’m betting on at least “good.” ^_^

And you know what I always say about entertainment – all it has to do is be entertaining.

Last and First Idol

“Bye-bye, Earth! My idol activities here were so much fun!” 4th Hayakawa SF Contest Special Prize 48th Seiun Award (Japanese Short Story Division) 27th Dark Seiun Award (Guest Division) 16th Sense of Gender Award (Future Idol Award) Last and First Idol earned the first ever special prize in the Hayakawa SF Contest, and the first debut work to win the Seiun Award in 42 years! This existential widescreen yuri baroque proletariat hard sci-fi idol story has carved out a new legend in science fiction history! Also includes Evolution Girls, in which some gacha-expert friends race to find the truth of the universe, and Dark Seiyuu, a brand-new space opera about voice actors! Gengen Kusano’s astounding debut collection!

E: OMG, “yuri baroque proletariat hard sci-fi idol story”. Who wouldn’t want to read that?! I mean…and all those awards.

I guess this is going to be my first review of the bunch, just for that synopsis. Holy crap that sounds awesome.

Seriously Seeking Sister! Ultimate Vampire Princess Just Wants Little Sister; Plenty of Service Will Be Provided!

Long ago, on the continent of Ephenia, there existed the feared tribe of vampires called “True Bloods,” whose great strength allowed them to reign supreme over all other tribes. However, a millennium has passed, and any trace of them has vanished off the face of the planet. That is, until the youngest and most talented royal daughter of the True Bloods awakens in the modern day. Vampire Princess Ristia has only one wish—a cute little sister! Monstrously strong, skilled in magic, and incredibly beautiful, people regard her as an “angel,” but she assures everyone she’s just a normal girl. Can this “normal girl” be the elder sister she so desires? Follow this (unusual) vampire through a fanservice-filled sibling-searching fantasy adventure.

E: I tried to read this, despite the fact that every single thing about it is lined up against me liking it. ^_^;

As I read it, I had a lot of feelings. I’m currently re-reading Count of Monte Cristo in which Dumas’ grasp of and love of human nature and his humor and delight in life is so clear and wonderful. As I read Seriously Seeking Sister, a part of me wept for the me that read Madelyn Arnold’s Year of Full Moons, or Jane Rule’s Desert Hearts, back when I was young and foolish and would never had read a vampire isekai imouto-fetish story written for an audience who need to be assured that, despite her chronological age of a millennium, the main character is not-yet 18 and be told her matching bra and panty set are blue.  The translation is not adapted, it’s pretty much a literal translation and I have no doubt David Evelyn did a fine job of communicating just how not-all-that-well-written this book is.  That said, if you think a vampire isekai imouto-fetish story is up your alley, here is Yurimother’s review of it! Enjoy both review and book. I will never think less of you for enjoying something I don’t. That’s why it’s good that there is variety in the world. ^_^

J-Novel Club is looking to expand their Yuri offerings and, as I said, is planning an ambitious rollout, so if any of these sound good to you, give them a try! I think there’s a lot to look forward to!