As you know if you read Okazu regularly, I have been following the Light Novel series by Mato Sato, The Executioner and Her Way of Life, and the resulting anime. I haven’t, however, had a chance to read the manga at all and wanted to see how it holds up. Since I know the story, I felt it was perfectly acceptable to jump in at any volume. Thanks to the generosity of Yen Press, I have a review copy for just that purpose. So, here I am, beginning with The Executioner and Her Way of Life Manga, Volume 5, with character designs by nilitsu, illustrated by Ryo Mitsuya. 

Also, as you may remember, I have not been a fan of the art for the Light Novels, as they until recent volumes favored portraiture over illustration – a common enough issue in Light Novels and artist alleys alike. Overall, I find the manga artists for Light Novels have to do a great deal of work – especially in early arcs – to build up the look and feel of a world. I say especially, because in many cases, Light Novels that began as webnovels aren’t really fully featured in the writing, either. But now, having gotten to the 8th volume of this series in Light Novel and finding both story and character settling in to a fairly rich narrative, how would it feel to step backwards to those early days?

It wasn’t bad, honestly.

Mitsuya-sensei does a very solid job of conveying both the horror of the Human Error “Evil” and the action of the fight, in a way that the narrative did not fully communicate. The art still does not portray Menou as an unusual beauty, although Akari’s chest is portrayed as prominent. I do think that going forward the use of the word “boobs” is going to have to be a point off, though. Like “spicy” for a book with sex scenes, breasts, chest, decolletage even, but boobs will always feel infantile to me. As does the portrayal of said breast tissue moving in ways that they certainly do not naturally move. That said, due to the original character designs being followed pretty closely, it was easy to recognize everyone on sight.

A story like this, with a great deal of fighting, action and dramatic spellcasting really seems to do better with a more visual medium. I had enjoyed the anime, which did a decent job of paring down some of the early story building. Jumping into the manga at this point, might not be something a new reader could do, but I was able to skip a lot of the clumsiness of the early arcs.  This story still is an isekai, but it is not just a “game world” or a simple reflection of generic feudal life. The history and politics – and the magic use – in this world are worth delving in to.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7 (not my favorite arc, the story will get better from this point on)
Characters – 7 People’s motivations are still a bit muddy, something else that will become clearer as the story progresses
Service – Besides the aforementioned breasts, shockingly little in this volume
Yuri – 4 Momo’s feelings for Menou, toxic as they are, Menou’s feelings for Akati, as unfocused as they are

Overall – 7, but I hope to move quickly past this arc into the Mechanical Society arc, which I quite liked.

It was painfully apparent from Volume 1 that I am not the ideal audience for Tamamushi Oku’s Cheerful Amnesia series. As the story progressed, so many handwaves had to be added to the original premise to keep the joke going and each additional handwave felt more and more threadbare. In Cheerful Amnesia, Volume 4, the story comes to  climax, but…

Arisa’s amnesia has been traced to an overload of positivity, which makes her collapse. But she and Mari are going to get married anyway. Before they do so, Arisa wants to meet Mari’s mother, who has been presented as a conservative obstacle to their happiness. In between Mari stressing that she and Arisa are not having sex and Arisa stressing that they are not having sex, but being far too embarrassed and/or collapsing in an excess of emotion, the entire conversation rolls around the same territory of “boobs,” underwear and “sexy times,” which is great if we are 12 years old. As I am many decades past that, I found it all excruciating. But, wait! There’s more!

Added to the idea that Arisa lost her memory because she was “too happy,” and that neither she nor Mari can manage a single adult conversation about their lives and relationship, even as they plan on having a wedding ceremony, we must confront the fact that Arisa blurts out the most inappropriate and useless information and has absolutely no ability to speak coherently. That gaping mouth does, actually, indicate a person who shouts strange things to complete strangers. But the deal-breaker for me was Mari neglecting to mention her father or siblings, even as she brings Arisa home to meet her family. “Oh, I have a younger brother,” she said and later – as an aside- , “I have a sister, too.” and I just…snapped. What the actual fuck. (-_-)?!?!? Mari has confronted her mother’s disapproval, at least, and I guess yay for that?

Arisa and Mari do get married and, the kiss, when they finally manage it, seems to unlock Arisa’s memories and she does not collapse, so perhaps they will spend the remainder of their lives happily-ever-after.

Of course one cannot take this story seriously. Even knowing that, I found it absolutely exhausting. Nothing in it was even near the realm of “comedy” for me. Since the entire plot was predicated on two adult women who had a long-term relationship simply ignoring their history and not having a conversation, it was both annoying and frustrating. So why am I reviewing it? Mostly to tell our late friend Bruce that he was absolutely right in his final review here on Okazu.

Ratings:

Art – 7 Still noticeably better
Story – … 4
Characters – 5 They are adults who need to grow up already
Service – 6 “Sexy” things. “Boobs.” Come on already
Yuri – 9

Overall – 4

Thank you very much to Yen Press for the review copy. I hope to give it to a loving home.

Oh, and my prediction was totally wrong about the ending, phew. ^_^