By Ameko Kaeruda and Sencha. Released in Japan as “Totsuzen Papa ni Natta Saikyou Dragon no Kosodate Nikki: Kawaii Musume, Honobono to Ningenkai Saikyou ni Sodatsu ” by GC Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Giuseppe di Martino.
While reading this book, I was asked about it on Twitter, and I made the observation that it was like reading a parfait. Having now finished the book, I stand by this 100%. Everything about this is adorable and sweet, and you get the added bonus of a good example of how found families can end up being much better for someone than a birth family that resents and disparages them is. All that said, please be aware, this book is not here to be serious or to raise questions that require deep analysis. It cares not about power levels – all four leads are ludicrously more powerful than anyone else in the book. There is a bit of worldbuilding, but it’s about as important as any other ingredient you’d have in a parfait. This book is here for a dragon dad, usually in the form of a hot guy, and his adorable daughter, who he dotes on.
Our narrator is an elder dragon who has spent the last few hundred years high up a mountain. One day, a four-year-old girl shows up, calling him “Daddy”. He tries to dissuade her, but after discovering what her birth father is like, he makes the decision to raise her as a doting parent. He makes her delicious milk soup. He moves them to a large castle, perfect for a growing girl… though the Demon Lord and her partner who already live there might think differently. And he teaches her how to read, and the Demon Lord teaches her magic. By the time she’s old enough to go to school, she’s possibly the most powerful human being alive. But, I mean, that’s fine, really? As long as she can make friends, and hang out with her dragon daddy and her two lesbian aunts.
It’s a sign of Bunny Drop’s fandom presence that I feel the need to say this once more: this is not going there. Even if the daddy weren’t really a huge dragon, this is by the author of Sexiled, and we can be pretty sure that they’re not going to have this end with the girl marrying her dad. Speaking of Sexiled, in the afterword the author admits they wrote this to have fun with tropes: adorable girl who dotes on her dad, hunky dad who’s really a powerful dragon… and the Demon Lord and her partner, who (because this is entirely narrated from the POV of the dragon, who doesn’t get relationships) are clearly a couple but never explicitly called such. The Demon Lord is amusing in her own right, essentially being a shut-in with a tendency to talk big but fold like a card table, having to be bailed out by her knight/partner. The four of them end up being a wonderful and amusing family unit.
By the end of this first book Olivia (the daughter, sorry, names are hard) has already pretty much blown school out of the water… though she and her father elect to have her stay in her proper grade anyway, so she can better make friends. I expect even more ridiculous and sweet things will happen in the next book. If you love the author, or love found family, or just love sugary books, this is a winner.