Archive for the Light Novel Category


Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou -Revolution-, Volume 2 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。-Revolution-)

November 10th, 2022

As we all wait breathlessly for the formal announcement of an anime for I’m in Love With the Villainess, today I am looking at the Japanese print edition of Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou -Revolution-, Volume 2 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。-Revolution-). As a reminder, this series came out in print in English before it made it to print in Japan. So the edition you have read is the English translation of the webnovel which was put out digitally by GL Bunko. The series was licensed for print by Ichijinsha. Volume 1 of the JP print edition was reviewed here on Okazu last spring.

This will make the third time I have read this volume, having read it in the GL Bunko novel and English language editions. Because this is a new, deluxe version, with extra stories that have been written since the webnovel was initially licensed, there was quite a bit of new material tucked in between things with which we are already familiar.

There are several key elements to this content, even aside from the new content.  Lily becomes a major player on the board and we eventually learn several secrets regarding the Royal Family and their advisors. Rae explains her former life and tragic first love to her friends. Claire’s class consciousness is awakened when they visit Rae’s hometown. Manaria arrives and forces Rae and Claire’s relationship to change during the Scales of Love arc, which coincidentally completed in the December issue of Comic Yuri Hime as grandly as I had hoped. ^_^

So while the Yuri goes up significantly, with the addition of Manaria and her boyish charm, as well as the Love Scales, the LGBTQ rating stays high with open discussion of complicated queer lives, once again.

Ratings:

Art – 7 Still portraits of the people rather than the scenes.
Story – 9
Characters – 10
Yuri – 10
LGBTQ –10
Service – Rae’s obsession about Claire shifts more to her moods than her body, but there’s still some body commentary, Let’s still say 2

Overall – 9

The board is set now for what is to come. In Volume 3, what is to come will be…revolution.





The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Volume 5: The Promised Land

October 26th, 2022

In Volume 4, we left everyone in this series rushing towards “The Holy Land,” about which we have been told very little. In The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Volume 5: The Promised Land, we are convinced that this is because there is very little to say about it.  It is small, white, has no hotels or restaurants, just some churches that may house pilgrims and is, in every sense of the word…a complete flim flam. The Holy Land is a distraction to hide the two secrets of this world.

Nonetheless, everyone in this story has arrived at the Holy Land. And, dull as it is, it is playing host to the prelude to the climax of this series. A climax that has not so much as been hinted as as, well, basically the narrative has giant pointing fingers, in case you didn’t pick up on things.

Menou has a first round against her master, Flare. More than one Human Error is involved in this volume and by the end, and in the middle of the hurley and burley, Momo’s scenes were the most interesting. Because this volume was mostly focused on reveals of things that were fairly obvious, the only thing I demanded of the story was that one of the priestesses, Hooseyard, be alive by the end. Killing her off would have been been like killing a dog – unacceptable collateral damage. The only spoiler I will give you is that Hooseyard lives. At least this time.

There are no more secrets now. The next volume will have to wrap this arc up, or it will be annoying. ^_^

As with previous volumes, Mato Sato spends a lot of time re-describing things already described and, as previously mentioned, the Holy Land is very dull, so details tend to sort of fade into the word count. I did very much like the extended scene in which Flare lit and smoked a cigarette merely to irritate herself. That’s some dedication to purgatorial description.

nilitsu’s art is much less mannerist in this volume, which is kind of nice. Jenny McKeon does her absolute best with the translation, props to her wading through a lot of simplistic declarative phrases.

Ratings:

Art – 5
Story – 5
Characters – 7
Service – Implied more than actual, but lingering on the edges
Yuri – Akari loves Menou, Momo loves Menou…

Overall – 7

All the pieces are on the board, all of us know who is where, and what they can do. It remains to be seen what the author envisions as the grand finale. I know what *I* envision it as, we’ll see if there is any overlap. ^_^ And whether, in the end, this is indeed, Yuri.

 





I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 5

August 4th, 2022

“What if you had the chance to remake the entire world in order to save the person you love…and learned that the world was never what it seemed?” is what I said when I reviewed Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou. Volume 5 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。) in Japanese. And, now, you have had the chance to read I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 5 and can, I hope, understand what I meant. ^_^ I’m still trying to avoid spoilers, as best I can. ^_^

The Nur arc comes to a crashing, sword-waving, magic-using, epic ending, that has shockingly little to do with Nur and Bauer at all. Because Volume 5 is about the Demon Queen and the truth of the world. Basically, if you primarily read isekai, you are probably mostly unprepared for just about anything here, until it all settles down.

As I re-read this volume I am fascinated by the scope of this story, which has implications far beyond this narrative. Will future volumes of the upcoming She’s So Cheeky For A Commoner (which I have reviewed in Japanese, as Heimin no Kuse ni Namaika, Volume 1)  – and any series will come after –  let these petals fall and be dispersed, or will they float around reminded us over and over of what, exactly, is going on? I look forward to finding out. There was a great deal of territory covered in this volume and repeated visits in future volumes might help to reify it.

Even more broadly, this series does all sorts of interesting things with the concept of “another world.” Like the Locked Tomb series, it is simultaneously both fantasy and science fiction and some new hybrid child of those genres and isekai. AND it contains that single important question that fills so much classic science fiction anime – what does it mean to be human?

Despite all this, this novel never pretends to be be meaningful in that pretentious literary way of very serious men writing about humanity. It is a human look at the power of community. Once again, I must quote myself here, when I wrote, “If you are familiar with Doctor Who, you will entirely understand how everything in this book works…and how it must work. ^_^ This leads to the only criticism, if you can even call it that, I have. Because of that specific narrative structure, there was no way to give it a punchy ending, which was perfectly okay. It ended as it had to…and then didn’t end for a few more post-epilogue shorts. When you like your characters, it’s hard to let go, I understand completely. ^_^ ”

What I mean to say here is that this ending was the right ending for this book. ^_^ This series ends where it must, with home and family. I have said this about a dozen times recently, but I’ll repeat it – this is what I am looking for these days in the books I read. Future-building with hope…hopepunk, as Ada Palmer calls, it. Stories in which communities come together to build a better tomorrow. The fact that the leaders of this particular community are queer women is delicious icing on this sweet and satisfying narrative cake.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 10
Service – Very little, for perfectly good reasons.
Yuri – 10
Queer – 10

Overall – 10

This…was a very good book. I hope you’ll all read it. If you have read it, do let me know what you think in the comments!

 





Otherside Picnic, Volume 7

June 13th, 2022

Otherside Picnic, Volume 7 is an excellent read on every level. In fact, please feel free to stop reading right here and just go read the 7th novel in Miyazawa Iori’s scifi-horror series. It’ll be worth the time and you’ll probably get more out of it than reading me talking about the book.That said, I have quite a lot to say about this volume. ^_^

When the cover was released, you could hear the cries of fandom Internet-side. This cover presaged an intense volume. It wasn’t lying.

Volume 6 set up a newish conundrum for Sorawo and Toriko. Having established that they both have reciprocal feelings does not actually help Sorawo at all to sort out how she’ll deal with her partner.

As the curtain opens on Volume 7, important things have shifted. Sorawo still isn’t really able to human quite yet, but she’s…different. Her ideas are better formed, her goals are clearer, and in this volume she steps into a leadership role that suits her well. Toriko is struggling with the idea that she’s been one of many women for Satsuki Uruma, and, for the first time, Kozakura joins the adventure as an adult, and equal. Up to now, she’s acted much more like the child she resembles, rather than the adult woman she claims to be. In essence, our team has begun to find themselves in the middle of the chaos of the Otherside.

As a thriller, this volume was super solid. The main plot, the way the Otherside in general and Satsuki in specific, responded to Sorawo’s tactics were fantastic. This volume successfully rehabilitated several previous characters, while never losing site of humanity’s weaknesses.  The climax was excellent. Well-conceived and executed…this was a genuinely outstanding volume.

shirakaba’s art is back to illustrating the people but there’s been visible improvement in the art, so it feels less like a sop to the concept of a “light novel” than it used to.

While the series does feel a bit like it must be winding down at this point, there’s still some cleaning up remaining. Or…I certainly hope so. This has been a wild and creative ride – I’m reluctant for it to end. We need more Yuri scifi. I need more Yuri scifi. This volume had some outstanding horror beats and even more excellent emotional beats.

For a series built around unspoken fears and emotions, Otherside Picnic has done a fantastic job of expressing the unspoken fears and emotions of humanity at large and the individuals it features. As a result, I’ve been able to learn about myself, as well. If you’ve been hesitating picking up this series, I think it holds up under scrutiny. Give it a try.

Ratings:

Story – 9
Character – 9
Service – 1
Yuri – 8

Overall – 9

I’ve managed to review this without spoiling it at all. If you’ve already read it, I’d love to hear what you think in a spoiler-free manner in the comments!

My only spoiler – I was so glad to see Kokkuri-san in this volume, I applauded. ^_^





The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Vol. 4: Crimson Nightmare

May 23rd, 2022

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. ^_^