Menou, trained as a priestess and an executioner, is vehemently not interested in having her worldview altered, but in The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Vol. 4: Crimson Nightmare there is no way around it. Her assistant Momo has kidnapped her target Akari and she is angry at both of them for a lot of reasons. She’s conflicted about killing Akari, a task she knows she must do, but wishes she did not have to.

And then a previous antagonist, Manon Libelle, and a part of a Human Error with the Pure Concept Evil, reveal to Menou some of the truth of the world. It’s enough to ruin anyone’s day, really.

This volume is emotionally rough on Menou, even as relatively little happens. Slowly, carefully she – and we – are starting to see how sincerely fucked up her world is and how the truths by which she lives are, and have always been perversions of the truth – at best.

The climax of this series is dead ahead and everyone here  is running towards it full steam. Otherworlder Akari knows what  awaits them, but she’s still trying to change the outcome, Momo is resisting being a decent person, and Menou is heading right into the same outcome she’s run into over and over. It’s inevitable….only, it’s not because I presume this series will have to end eventually. ^_^

Murder, mayhem and unhappy endings all around or do they snap the axle at the center of this grindstone and break the world? This volume has many arguments for either, or both. It ends up being a pretty solid set-up for whatever is coming next. Except for the new character which actually feels like “I inserted a man, because men were not in this story and without men, men readers cannot man.” I’m not being facetious. Suddenly, this guy is here and he’s SUPER important and mildly creepy in a sad, lonely way, but also says and does nothing of importance. He mans.

What I really admire is the way this novel leans in to describing 1) things its already described, like the social classes in this world and the magic in this series – of which, let me remind you, we are in Volume 4. We know. And; 2) utterly banal Japanese things that any Japanese reader would know, but here is treated as alien. Manon is in a Otherworldly room….so they actually describe a Japanese room. I mean… what? Did anyone need this? Was it a word count thing?  But the author is committed and therefore, so are we.

Jenny McKeon’s translation here is really doing double time making this book readable. And making Momo both intolerable and tolerable at the same time. If Yen credited the editor, I’d give them  a shoutout, as well, because the readability of this volume is upped from previous volumes. Maybe they are all getting used to the patter? Another solid effort from the team at Yen.

And even with the man manning and a multiple discussions of how much Japanese people like hot springs, it’s not a bad book for setting up for what surely will be the climax in the next novel or two. Mato Sato is having fun making stone soup out of disparate plot elements and isn’t going to rush for you. ^_^

Ratings:

Art -Always the weakest part of this series. It illustrates nothing, not particularly well.
Story – The tension built slowly over the volume. It really feels like something major is going to happen.
Characters – Finally, /spoiler/ shows up.
Service – It tries so hard, but it doesn’t really succeed. You can’t just “say” something is sexy and make us guess at it
Yuri – As much here as has been, with a little extra Yuri on the side, care of Manon.

Overall – 7? 8? It’s going to depend on if this was worth it.

I hope this series has a strong end. Not for any particular reason, I just do.

Many, many thanks to Yen Press for the review copy! I wish you’d list the folks that worked on it. ^_^

Anisphia is a very unusual princess. Awakened to knowledge from a life in our world, she has a unique relationship to the magic of her current world. While she has magical potential, she cannot manifest it at all. Instead she turns her energy to making technological uses for magic. And now, she has an idea, but she needs someone to test it out for her. In The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, Anisphia gets her wish.

Euphyllia is a young woman who has spent her entire life training to be Queen. Poised, educated and a genius with magic, she is the perfect vision of royalty…until her engagement is dissolved by her fiance in a rather abrupt and public manner. Shunned and unwelcome, Euphyllia has no idea what to do…when Anisphia comes sailing into the hall on her magic broom, sizes up the situation and carries Euphyllia off to be her assistant.

Last autumn I ran out and grabbed the first Japanese manga volume of Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei (転生王女と天才令嬢の魔法革命) to get a jump on the English language edition of the Light Novel. Sadly, I was left feeling uninspired by that first volume. It was…all right. But, having now read the Light Novel, I’m willing to reconsider.

Anisphia is a delight. Forthright, intelligent, positive, she fills the pages of the Light Novel in a way that the manga didn’t quite give her space for. Her interest in Euphyllia is charming and, while not innocent, per se, isn’t creepy at all. It’s very much as if she’s trying to not fall in love with Euphyllia too hard or too fast, specifically to give the other girl room to have time to deal with her own emotions.

Because the LN takes the story past Volume 1 of the manga, we get to leave behind the too-much-shouting that filled up the manga and made it hard for me to engage with the story. Instead we spend more time with Anisphia and learn about her history, her skills, her desires and her achievements,  that makes her a very appealing person. Euphyllia, having literally been carried off by her, is overwhelmed…understandably so. As a princess, Anisphia has proclivities in dress and demeanor more suited to a woman of our world. A woman-loving woman, in fact. Anisphia is so daring and brave that it’s really quite impossible to not like her, as Euphyllia finds out, as she is swept up in the princess’ plans.

And that, in a nutshell, is what makes this book fun to read. You want to know what the grand experiment is and how Euphyllia can help Anisphia and you cheer for them both as they launch themselves into a grand adventure. As I said, now I’m kind of interested in reading more of the manga to see what happens.

If there is one sour note, however, it has to be the art. Anisphia is described well – she’s strong (we know because she literally throws Euphyllia over her shoulder to carry her off) , favors dress that is adapted from what a knight wears, she does not like dresses, although she wears a short skirt over her pants. And yet, what we are given in the art is an infantile imp…in a magical girl costume. My teeth ground every time I had to look at this moe infantilization of what should and could have been a great girl prince. Grrrr.  Thankfully, as this is a Light Novel, we’re not forced to look at that too often, so I was free to imagine Anisphia with arms like Gideon Nav.  ^_^ To be petty, the scene in which Anisphia shows off her Mana Sword, I said to the art “Tell me you have never seen a sword without telling me you have never seen a sword.”

The originating scenario is not at all resolved and we end the book having no idea why Euphyllia was canceled, (although I have created a scenario to explain it and I wonder how close I am,) so we’ll have to wait for future volumes.

Ratings:

Art – 5 It’s okay, but wtf is it illustrating? Not this story
Story – 8 Threatens to be heavy, but veers hard away from doing so
Characters – 8 Anisphia carries more than just Euphyllia away. The whole story rests on her
Service – 2 Less than the manga
Yuri – 6 More than the manga. This sets up Euphyllia and Anisphia as a pair that could become a great couple

Overall – 7 with a lot of room to grow.

For a cute, low-tension book, with a couple you want to live happily ever after  – perhaps in another world, where women wear pants – this is a nice read with some decent visuals and a dash of grand adventure.

Fine work by the team at Yen Press!

Note: One day later, I am listening to The Lesbian Historical Motif Podcast on the idea of cross-dressing narrative as a “portal fantasy” and I thought, art aside, that this is exactly what we have here. Anisphia’s transgressive nature allows Euphylia access to another world. ^_^