By Hiiro Shimotsuki and Takashi Iwasaki. Released in Japan as “Itsudemo Jitaku ni Kaereru Ore wa, Isekai de Gyōshōnin o Hajimemashita” by HJ Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Berenice Vourdon.
It’s pretty astonishing how much authors think they can get away with provided their hero is mild-mannered and polite. Shiro already has the ability to go back and forth between his world and Japan – something most isekai’d folks don’t get. He gets magical translation, teleport abilities (sort of), and currency conversion. He doesn’t need to learn how to make mayonnaise because he can just go buy it at the local Inageya. He has, hovering around him at various points: his grandmother, who looks like a young girl; his twin high school age sisters who alternate between being mean to him and sucking up to him; a young girl who worships him and her hot widowed mom; a powerful fairy who’s tsundere for him; the mayor of the town; and (in this book) we add a dragon. He has to have little to no personality for this to work. If he had any notable character traits at all we’d despise him.
We pick up right where we left off last time. Shiro’s twin sisters Shiori and Saori have found the door to the other world, and there’s no way they aren’t going through it. To his surprise, instead of leading to his shop it drops them in the middle of the forest where he started way back when. While there, he finds a huge egg, which the twins insist he carry with him. Eventually, all is explained and the twins decide to start their OWN store dedicated to clothing and makeup, the egg finally hatches… and inside is not the minor monster they expected, but a dragon. A very powerful dragon. Who quickly morphs into a young girl and imprints on Shiro heavily. Now they have to figure out what to do with her… especially because demons are also apparently looking for the egg, and would likely destroy the entire town to get at it.
As with previous books, this is not great. Elianna the rabbit girl continues to be the most annoying character ever, and not in a fun way as the author is clearly intending. The twins are also annoying but that works better because it’s in the typical bratty sibling way. As for the plot itself, despite the threat of imminent death and the supposed murder of 3/4 of the cast, everyone is fine. This remains a slow life book at heart, so it’s no surprise that this manages to be one of the murderous demons who knows that murdering humans is not the right thing to do now. Not to mention that she has a very good reason to want the egg… and the whole thing ends up being undercut massively, because the whole reason for this plot turns out to be something she could just have bought at Shiro’s store. The sad trombone noise is almost audible.
All this plus we finally get “I am your slave” in this isekai. Shiro’s not going to be down with the whole slave thing, but I doubt he’ll really protest too much, because mild-mannered and all. If you like beautiful twins, cute dragon children, and hot demons… there are still probably better books with them in it.
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