By Masamune Okazaki and Hayase Jyun. Released in Japan as “Mob Dōzen no Akuyaku Reijō wa Dansō Shite Kōryaku Taishō no Za wo Nerau” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Caroline W.
As folks may know, I tend to pay attention to publishers a bit more than is normal. I have my favorites, and I have those where I always say “uh oh” (looking at you, GC Novels). Generally speaking I tend to really enjoy TO Books releases. They do Ascendance of a Bookworm, and Tearmoon Empire. They’re solid. And, like most LN publishers these days, they take the webnovel that’s already published online, have the author revise and add a few scenes to it, and publish it. What makes TO Books different from, say, Hobby Japan is that the cutoff point for where to end a book is much longer for them. To put it bluntly, these books are too dang long. Even the shortest of them usually top out at 260-270 pages, and most can get in the 350 range. And when you’re reading a book that’s doing obvious things, like this one, it can get exhausting.
Everything that Elizabeth has been changing herself for has finally arrived at school: the heroine is here. Lilia has transferred in, and she has Saint powers. Now all Elizabeth has to do is cut off everyone else’s romance routes and seduce her. Well, friendship her. Elizabeth doesn’t want an actual romance route or anything, she just wants to block the “otome game” from running down its rails. However, when Lilia arrives, Elizabeth is in for a shock: she’s clearly ALSO reincarnated from Japan, and is trying herself to hit those routes… and rather puzzled that she has run into this hunk rather than the sickly Prince Edward. Now Elizabeth has to try to step up her seduction while also dealing with a Lilia who has no idea what she should be doing now. Perhaps… it’s time to give up the act?
The best part of this book is the relationship between Elizabeth and Lilia… eventually. That’s what I meant about these books being too long. Though in this case it actually works in the book’s favor, as all the character development is towards the end of the volume. Lilia is written well – she’s not an “evil” heroine, and she’s not a BL fangirl who will love all the guys swooning over the “handsome” Sir Burton – she’s a girl who found herself in this role and is trying to survive while being rather annoyed and also depressed over how everyone forgives her everything because she’s cute. Yes, she DOES find out Elizabeth is really a girl, and it does lead to a brief fight. But just as Elizabeth realizes she’s been too wedded to trying to stop the game she’s forgotten to treat everyone as people, Lilia realizes that just because she’s the heroine doesn’t mean she has to romance one of the targets. The book ends with Elizabeth admitting she’s also from Japan, and Lilia doubling down and saying she has fallen in love with her and will seduce her. Now, this isn’t a yuri book, quite – Lilia seems very happy the game is Rated “T” so she doesn’t have to do any of the ICKY lesbian stuff – but Lilia seems quite happy with her bisexual awakening.
Elizabeth’s ethics are questionable – she’s no Katarina in that respect – and she’s even MORE oblivious than Katarina at times, who I think at least might recognize the voice of her own fiancee – but I still like this enough to recommend it. Also, she fights a massive bear.
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