Archive for the Series Category


Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou., Volume 9 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。)

February 6th, 2025

A girl with blonde curls in a red fantasy school uniform jacket and blue skirt and a dark-haired girl in a white blouse and dark slacks, swing on metal swings, surrounded by lavender irises. Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou., Volume 9 ( 私の推しは悪役令)。picks up in the middle of Cardinal Lily’s delusion that she has a chance to be someone in romantic relationship with Rae.

I know I am in a minority of one when I say that this Lily is my least favorite character in the story. And because she is the overwhelmingly most popular character in polls, this volume adds extra Lily and Rae shenanigans into the narrative. So we accompany Lily and Rae on what Lily thinks is a date and Rae thinks is just part of their investigation into corruption among the nobility. Rae teaches everyone about plea bargains and she, Lily and Claire work their way up the hierarchy. After confronting Prime Minister Salas, who is apparently unnecessarily rude to his daughter Lily, Claire is left to imagine the worst about her own father.

BUT, this is not really what this volume is about. This volume is about Rae dragging Lily to underground MMA bouts and a magical circus, where Lily saves a giant griffon, thus making a friend for life. It’s about goofy reactions and action scenes and running away from mayhem. In all of this, the volume excels. Aonoshimo’s art is absolutely fantastic enough to carry even the absurd plot line of “in the course of an investigation of corrupt nobles, while Rae is also tracking down the Resistance leaders, she and Cardinal Lily end up at a magical circus.”

Silly mayhem in the middle of an otherwise quite grim arc? Sure, why not. It breaks up interrogating boring corrupt nobles and Salas’ sneering.

The volume ends on an oddly personal conflict. Prince Rod has a proposal for Rae…that is to say, he asks her to marry him. Her reaction sets Rae and Claire at odds for the first time since before the Scales of Love. What will happen to them? Volume 10 is currently ongoing, with no release date, but I expect to see it soon.

I know I am asking a lot, but I would love for this manga series to extend past the Revolution arc into the Demons and Nur arc. Aonoshimo-sensei drawing Dorothea would be breathtaking. The idea gives me a(nother) reason to live. ^_^ So everyone run out and keep buying this series so we can meet Aleah and Mae and see the cooking contest and the Demon Queen and Dorothea. Please. Thank you. Volumes 1-7 of I’m In Love With The Villainess manga are available in English from Seven Seas.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters  – I really struggle with Lily
Service – A bit here and there?
Yuri – 11 Lily needs an off switch

Overall – 8

If you love inori.-sensei’s work, don’t forget her newest self-published book Homunculus’ Tears: Alchemy For The Broken-Hearted is available for digital pre-order with an April release, and Yen’s print and digital EN edition of  The Girl Who Wants to Be a Hero and the Girl Who Ought to Be a Hero, Vol. 1 is also available for pre-order with a June release date!

 





I’m in Love with the Villainess: She’s so Cheeky for a Commoner, Volume 3

December 2nd, 2024

Two girls in red fantasy school uniform and two little girls, one in pink and one in blue look up as they hold their heads up and out to us.By the time we get to Volume 3 of the Villainess’ side of the story, is there even anything left to learn? Well, in I’m in Love with the Villainess: She’s so Cheeky for a Commoner, Volume 3, the answer is a resounding “Yes.”

This final volume of the series once again takes us through key points in the main story, from Claire’s perspective. Although we already know what Rae was planning – and why – watching Claire struggle against what she had to see as blunt force manipulation is both powerful and frustrating. In a sense, now we are able to understand Rae’s desperation fully. But, also, we are given much deeper insight into the person whois and who became Claire François.

We learn the full story of her youth, the loss of her mother and the ripples from that death that continue through and after the revolution. To fill the backstories with details we would not otherwise understand, we get the perspectives of Claire’s father, and mother, Pip and Loretta, Manaria, Lene, Misha and more.
The epilogue let’s us look both backwards…and forwards to see what becomes of some of our noble cast.

I have been a huge fan of this series from the first moment I read it, back in 2020. As a reverse-perspective, this spin-off series manages to provide a lot of insight and new information, a promise that reverse-perspectives often don’t live up to.

As I said, of my review of the JP volume (which wasn’t even a year ago…wow) if you enjoyed the main series, whether light novel, anime or manga, I highly recommend you read this iteration. It’s going to add a lot of new information to what has happened.  And may even move you to tears.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 10 Outstanding writing, yet again
Characters – 10 I cannot express to you how *good* the characters are here
Service – 3? 4? A bit, sometimes
Yuri/LGBTQ+ – Why yes, actually.

Overall – 10

I’m sorry to leave this series behind and hope there will be a published sequel one day.





Can “I’m In Love With The Villainess” Win The Tokyo Anime Award Festival?

November 7th, 2024

In autumn 2023, we got our very first look at the I’m In Love With The Villainess anime. Based on the first two novels of the same name by inori., the anime told an apparently scattered isekai story about Rae Taylor, the reincarnated former employee of an exploitative company, Oohashi Rei, into the world of her favorite game where she is free to woo the game’s villainess, Claire François. The end of the anime came at the climactic moment when Rae makes her love for Claire too clear to be ignored and Claire in turn finally admits that she has a vested interest in Rae. In other words, just as the story was getting good. As fans of the series know, the apparent “scattered” storytelling was always heading towards a very serious conclusion.

Fans of the light novel series and manga adaptation drawn brilliantly by Aonoshimo, (available in English from Seven Seas, and almost a dozen other languages across the globe,) were openly disappointed with the low-budget for the anime itself, but still enjoyed the voice acting from both the Japanese and English casts, and the fascinating multi-part Opening and Ending songs. WataOshi/ ILTV fandom is still going strong…and in recent weeks there has been a campaign to push for a second season of the anime, which would *at least* take the story into, and possibly through, the Revolution arc of the story.

Stepping into this conversation, inori.-sensei just happened to mention that the Tokyo Anime Award Best 100 was open for voting. She gave step by step instructions to assist her overseas fans to vote if they wanted to. By November 3, Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou. (私の推しは悪役令嬢。) had made it into the top 20. It faced some serious competition, like Frieren (葬送のフリーレン) and Delicious in Dungeon (ダンジョン飯), but WataOshi passed both and is now sitting at a strong #2 position behind the amazingly popular #1, Brave Bang Bravern! (勇気爆発バーンブレイバーン) and in front of the Sanrio collaboration with boy band JO1, Jochum.

Can WataOshi push past Bravern to win the top position? It’s not likely given the highly sexualized nature of Bravern and the fact that it is a BL mecha series, so it has cross-genre appeal. As one of our esteemed Okazu Discord members, Rugose noted, “Bang Bravern has the gays and robotfuckers supporting it,” and I can’t disagree with that summation. That said, Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou has so far made a strong stand. Even a #2 finish might convince the powers that be to develop a second season. Like all popularity-driven “best” contests, this contest is absolutely vulnerable to ballot stuffing by using multiple emails. That said, it does indicate the passion of a fandom and WataOshi fans are keeping up the pressure.
 
Voting is open until December 2 and all you need is an email and a few moments so if you too wish to see (an appropriately funded this time) second season to one of our favorite Yuri isekai, let the Tokyo Anime Awards know what you think!





Kininatteru Hito Ga Otoko Janakatta Drama CD, Special Edition (ドラマCD 気になってる人が男じゃなかった)

September 30th, 2024

Pictured: On a green background, a person in a hoodie, glasses and a mask, with a wrist tattoo of a musical frequency, crouches down to look at us, while a high school girl with long, wavy hair stands above them, looking down at them with a shocked expression.Last week, I was able to review the upcoming Yen Press release of Sumiko Arai’s popular manga The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All. It was a pleasure to share that review because Yen had done a very good job.I hope you’ll all read that review, and pre-order the book.

While I was on vacation, I took the Kininatteru Hito Ga Otoko Janakatta Drama CD (ドラマCD 気になってる人が男じゃなかった) with me to listen to on the plane.  And it, too, was fun. The cast did a terrific job, with the OTT reactions of the story. Ise Mariya as Mitsuki and especially Kito Akari as Aya really carried the narrative.

Going into this, I was very interested in how they would handle the issue of the music, since 90s 00s music are at the heart of this story. As popular as this series is, there was no way they were going to license every song mentioned in the manga. The approach they took was interesting. We mostly hear the music as if we are listening to someone else listening to them on earphones, so the notes are muted and the tune is implied by a short riff or a bass line. It worked well if you are familiar with the songs in question.

At the climax of the CD, they did license one song, Radiohead’s Creep – a great choice for the story and for Ise’s voice.

The Special Edition includes an booklet with a new, short manga showing us little Aya’s discovery of western rock, and a cute scene between her and Miysuki in story time.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Music – 9 The climax is on point
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 7

Overall – 9

Like most Drama CDs, nothing new is added to the story, but it gives us a new perspective on the characters as we hear them now as they torture themselves. ^_^ It was a fun time with characters we’ve already grown to like, which is what we want from a CD. And if Ise and Kito are the voices used for the anime…they’ll be great. 





Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Utau, Volume 8 (ささやくように恋を唄う)

September 26th, 2024

Two girls in Japanese school uniforms stand back to back, visibly pouting at one another.In Volume 7, Shiho finally addressed the elephant in her room and admitted that the source of her bad temper was unrequited love. Having shot her shot, it remains for Aki to respond. In Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Utau, Volume 8, (ささやくように恋を唄う) she does, in a very public way.

Remember – it is still the Battle of the Bands during the school festival. Aki chooses the intro of their final song…a song she changes the set list to include…to explain to Shiho that she has never rejected her, and would actually be happy being together. Their rivalry was mostly created out of whole cloth by Shiho as a way to deny her feelings and Aki’s response is to do a cover of a song she and Shiho performed when they were in their original band together. Once again, Himari has to be the crowbar that makes Shiho’s immovable object move. Of course Shiho was going to run from Aki…because that’s what she’s been doing for this entire time. Thanks to Himari, Shiho was right there to jump on stage and accept Aki’s feelings.

And then we learn that despite that added bit of show, the SSGirls still came in second to Lorelei. Boo. But it was all in good fun and now Shiho has got to learn how to be a human again. ^_^

This volume has fantastic paneling, absolutely wonderful. When contrasted with the sad little affair of the anime, the pages here are even more vibrant, fluid, varied and imaginative. How frustrating to have had one’s work mauled by a low budget and uncaring production committee. I really feel for Takeshima-sensei, the animators and seiyuu who all worked so hard. The battle of the bands would have been terrific musically, even if the animation was basically PowerPoint slides. Instead of gnashing my teeth, I’ll recommend reading this volume and imagining how amazing it might have been.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 0
Yuri – 8

Himari and Yori are a couple, now Aki and Shiho…who is even left at this school unpaired? Well, there is someone. But first, Shiho has got to learn to be a human again. ^_^

Whisper Me A Love Song, Volume 8 is out now from Kodansha, so we’re caught up to this point in English. Volume 9 and Volume 10 are out in Japanese and I have to catch up!