By Hayaken and Nagu. Released in Japan as “Eiyu-oh, Bu wo Kiwameru tame Tensei su. Soshite, Sekai Saikyou no Minarai Kisi ♀” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Mike Langwiser.
This is getting an anime starting in a few days, and it will be interested to see what sort of tone it takes. I suspect it will be more towards the light-hearted end, because there’s just no other way to see Inglis and Rafinha otherwise, but there is a lot of darkness and tragedy in this series as well… which is frequently glossed over, let’s be honest. In any case, the anime will likely adapt at least three books and possibly four, because these books are short and read very fast. They are not interested in stopping to think about what happens to the people left behind, or to the buildings destroyed in Inglis’ fights, they are moving on to the next fight. That may change in Book 8, though, as the cliffhanger to this book is a nasty one, and is bringing the “let’s kill generic monsters” part of these volumes a lot closer to home.
Believe it or not, things happen away from Inglis as well, and the first third or so of this book shows us Rafael, Eris and Ripple trying to combine fighting a war with fighting monsters and getting very frustrated that they’re the only side that wants to call off the first part because of the danger of the second part. The enemy commander is very determined to destroy Karelia, and he has a somewhat naive but deeply besotted hieral menace to help him. Fortunately, when all seems lost, along comes Inglis to save the day… mostly because saving the day, for once, involves fighting a really strong opponent and going all out. Yes, for once, everyone’s interests align with hers, and only Rafinha seems to care that this is merely Inglis doing what she would have done anyway.
The front of the book is interesting as it reminds us that there are normal people in this world doing things sensibly. Rafael, Rafinha’s brother, is an upright, honest young man, who spends much of this book infuriated that people are not fighting honestly or sensibly. Eris and Ripple are both there to essentially hold him back from the last ditch move that he has against horrible threats, which does resolve the threat but also kills him. They’re all good people, and I’d say that they deserve a book of their own, but it would probably be very dull, because we’re reading this for our meathead heroine and her total lack of common sense. Heck, even her bad habits save the day here – not only her fighting, but also the fact that she and Rafinha brought along a huge chunk of ancient dragon meat, which turns out to have healing properties. Yes, Inglis has now combined her fighting and eating to have infinite fighting without having to worry about killing her opponent. Tremble in fear.
And then there’s that nasty cliffhanger… theoretically. This series is on the lighter end of the spectrum, despite all the bad things happening, so I suspect the answer to “is this reversible” will be “yes”, but you never know. Till then, enjoy the fighting.
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