By Satoshi Wagahara and 029. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen Press.

After Sariel proved to be a rather creepy and awful villain in Book 2, I was not going to be surprised if another archangel showed up to make trouble for Maou and company, and sure enough, Gabriel pops up halfway through the book to alternately threaten and be amusing. As with Emeralda, he seems to have some sort of regional accent in the original, which is conveyed by giving him a sort of ‘valley girl’ style voice – if you imagine Poland from the Hetalia books, you’re on the right track. In any case, as a villain he’s merely OK, mostly as we’re used to these guys being taken out fairly easily by now. As a comic character he’s funnier, being a whining slacker who seems to simply be very bad at his job, and he naturally ends up staying in Japan once the book ends.

That said, clearly the more important new character here is Alas Ramus, the magical child who appears from inside an apple (Ringotaro?) and immediately declares that Maou and Emi are her mother and father. She’s cute and clingy, as you’d expect from a girl who acts one year old most of the time, but she’s also a magical macguffin, so is allowed to do things like explain the plot in baby talk. Somewhat less successful is her resolution of the battle with Gabriel, mostly as the author wants to pretend briefly that Alas Ramus is returning to the fantasy world, so we get a brief “oh no, she sacrificed herself” beat. The trouble is that, as I indicated earlier, this isn’t the sort of series that would seriously do that, so of course it turns out she actually merged with Emi’s Holy Sword, which is now even more holy.

The bigger impact that Alas Ramus has is on the pseudo-harem that the books continue to tease. Chiho has a brief crisis of conscience when she realizes that, even after Maou says he depends on her, she still can’t help getting jealous about Maou and Emi raising a child together. (It’s almost as if she’s a teenager or something…) And Emi is again starting to realize that perhaps Maou is not quite the Fantasy Hitler that she wants to imagine him as, and continues to have more of the worldview that she keeps intact in order not to have a complete nervous breakdown kicked out from under her. (The cliffhanger implies the breakdown will not be long in coming.) And Maou gives us some backstory that suggests that most of the atrocities that happened while he ruled Ente Isla were less “I am evil” and more “I wasn’t really paying attention to my underlings”. And, more importantly, that he bitterly regrets that was the case. This is the best part of the book.

So while I don’t think this was quite as good as the first two books, it’s still very entertaining, and also continues the story past the anime, for those who hate to read already adapted novels. And the prose style, particularly the snarky narration, is excellent – as I’ve said before, this is one of Yen On’s smoothest translations. Definitely a fun read.

By Satoshi Wagahara and 029. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen Press.

The second volume of this series does what is expected of it. It expands on the themes and characters of the first book, adds a new villain and a new sort-of heroine, and relies on its comedy and its action scenes to carry it through. Luckily, the writing style is excellent, so this works pretty well. Out of all of Yen’s recent releases, this is one of the most smoothly translated. It also flies by, even though it’s easily the longest book to come out in August by a good 40-50 pages. We’re dealing with fallout from the first book, as back in Enta Isla, the fantasy world our hero and heroine came from, political machinations war with religious purpose in order to find out how to deal with what’s happened. This results in a literal Inquisitor being sent to deal with Maou.

As with A Certain Magical Index, those of a religious inclination might take offense at some of the things this series has to say about the Church, which is portrayed as rather Machiavellian in nature. Suzuno is meant to be of a purer, more moral type, but that doesn’t mean she has not killed people in order to properly serve the church. And, like Emi in the first book, she’s disturbed and distrusting whenever she sees Maou not being evil. In fact, Emi continues to be disturbed by this, and her pursuit of Maou has drizzled down into a sort of “OK, I guess I’ll go stalk him now” duty. Again, I really wonder what sort of horrible things Maou personally did (as opposed to having other evil people doing things for him) in Enta Isla – Chiho speaks for the reader when she says that she can’t judge him based on things she hasn’t experienced.

The main reason to read the series continues to be the comedy, which remains excellent. The narrative voice gets in several cutting remarks as well, without sounding intrusive. There are the standard anime gags – both Emi and Suzuno are annoyed at being flat-chested in comparison to Chiho, and it comes up several times – but there’s also genuine character-based humor. I was especially amused at everyone’s treatment of Urushihara, whose tendency to have everyone think the worst of him is matched only by actually being the worst most of the time. Chiho’s straightforwardness is also refreshing, as she’s straight up admitted she’s in love with Maou, and said so to his face. This does not resolve anything, really – for all the sexual desire he’s shown in the series so far, Maou could be asexual – but it’s still nice to see.

There were a few things that annoyed me towards the end. Sariel is meant to be a gross villain, but the series really goes above and beyond, making him a wannabe rapist who sexually assaults Emi and has delusions of taking Chiho back to Enta Isla as his bride. Maou seems to imply these tendencies were known about Sariel even back in Enta Isla, which is also horrible. The fact that he’s allowed to stay as comic relief (rather than. say, end up in prison, as Olba did) irks me. Still, overall this was another very strong addition to the series, which manages to combine fantasy, humor, and slice-of-life in ways that make the pages fly by.

By Satoshi Wagahara and 029. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Of the five titles I’m reading in April from Yen On, this is the odd one out, as it’s the only one that does not involve gaming in some way, shape or form. Instead this is a straight up fantasy/comedy, and reads as the most “traditional” of the lot. Our hero is our villain, who is forced to come to Japan and abandon his fantasy world, pursued by his nemesis, the hero, who seeks to destroy him. That said, Japan is not as laced with magic as they would like, so our hero is forced to bide his time and save his strength, instead deciding to try to use his part-time job as a stepping stone to world domination. Which is fine, except his part-time job is with McDonald’s… sorry, McRonald’s.

The main reason to read this title is the comedy – it’s very funny, in ways that come out of the personalities of the characters, which is one of the best kinds of humor. Maou is intelligent and capable, but has taken to life as a lowly paid wage slave in Japan a little *too* well, as everyone immediately notices. His Demon General/Househusband Ashiya is in turns nagging him about eating properly and returning to their world, but can also be an emotional drama queen at the worst time. Chiho is a normal lovestruck girl you’d see in any anime romance series, which is why it’s so funny that she’s stuck in the middle of all this. As for Emi, when doing research on this title I found a TVTropes quote about her that noted “She’s generally hated on /a”, which is always a true sign that I will love a character. She was wonderfully fun and emotional.

We do not get too many flashbacks to Maou’s time as the demon lord, notably. This is deliberate, I imagine, given that he is supposed to be the destroyer of many, many lives… including Emi’s father. We do see a bit pf her past, mostly as she is forged into a weapon used to take out the Demon King… and then tossed aside so that the real evil guy can get on with his behind the scenes manipulation. When she confronts Maou with his deeds, his response is to half-heartedly apologize, indicating he hadn’t really thought much about what he was doing. This is really dissonant, and I’m not sure how much of it is deliberate. We’ll see if it comes up again in future books.

There’s also many cool battles, and our hero and villain show that they’re definitely a force to be reckoned with if they team up and if the hero can stop screaming at him for long enough. I don’t expect Emi’s essential tsundere character to end anytime soon, as that’s her type, but I do think that a lot of her rage in the latter half of the book is more due to finding out that the entire life she lived was based on a lie than anything else… it will be interesting to see how she handles her black-and-white morality getting grey tones.

Mostly, though, this book is just plain fun. If you like comedic fantasy/romance, and don’t mind that some of the characters (everyone but Maou, basically) are stereotypes, this is definitely a book to pick up.