By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

Just as the grandfather in The Princess Bride has to reassure us that “she does not get eaten by the sharks at this time” (or eels, I was always more a book person), I feel a need to reassure those people seeing the cover and emitting screeches of rage and horror that “he does not marry his mother at this time”. This is not to say there isn’t teasing to that effect – remember what series you’re reading. But it always walks up to the line but never crosses it, and that’s the case here as well. What this volume is is a short story collection, with several stories written for Dragon Magazine as well as a larger story written for this book. As with most short story volumes where this is the case, the original content is much better than the magazine imports. That said, the short story nature of the book does also add a new interesting wrinkle: Mamako really doesn’t do much in this book.

The first story takes place prior to Medhi joining the group (with a “let’s have a flashback” section so awkward I winced) and is mostly about goblins, which leads to an amusing pun that is also very Japanese. The second story is the worst, taking us back to the classroom full of NPCs, this time with Mamako as the teacher. This is a story for you if you love fanservice and Masato at his most immature. The main story is a two-parter, the first of which involves our party helping a mother whose daughter is a little TOO spoiled… and it turns out that’s the only thing stopping her from destroying the world. After that we meet the character designer for the game, along with her mother (of course), who has entered the game as she’s in love with the Prince that she created and wants to marry him. This is treated more seriously than I expected.

As always, the book rises and falls depending on how tolerable Masato is. When he’s showing he’s learned from his prior experiences and is actually being a normal teenage boy, the book is quite entertaining. When he’s doing nothing but whining and moaning, I once again ask myself why the hell I am reading this. Fortunately, most of the bad stuff is front loaded. Mone, the girl who needs to be spoiled, is a type that we didn’t quite have in the series yet – a love interest for Masato who actually admits she likes him. This does not sit well with our two reluctant mages. The most interesting part was at the end (it’s also the most amusing part – I won’t spoil why, but it involves Medhi and embarrassment, and it’s possibly the funniest the book has ever been) when Rika, the character designer, has to defend falling in love with a character in a game. There’s discussion of the fact that, since games are THIS interactive now, it’s not the same as, say, marrying a body pillow, as well as discussion of when to let your child go (something Mamako struggles with, obviously).

There’s also a bit more plot tease – by now it’s very obvious Porta’s mother is being held back till near the end of the series (assuming this ever ends) and we once again see a fantastic opportunity for Mamako to mention her husband… which she does not do at ALL. This is not Do You Love Your Dad?, and – more to the point – Mamako is the heroine, and the author knows Japanese readers won’t want to see her obviously paired up with anyone. (She’s both virgin AND mother!) In any case, after a rough start, this was a decent book, provided of course that you’ve gotten over the basic premise.