By Fujino Omori and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka? Gaiden – Sword Oratoria” by Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Liv Sommerlot.

First of all, I apologize, as it turns out I’ve been crediting the wrong illustrator for this series all along. The main series does indeed have illustrations by Suzuhito Yasuda, but this side story uses Kiyotaka Haimura, the illustrator of the A Certain Magical Index series, instead. Honestly, it’s pretty obvious if you just look at the style – it feels very Index-ey. As for the content, this takes place just before the events in the 7th book of the main series, and involves the Loki Familia hunting down more evidence on the Evils and the other things they’ve spent the last six books trying to deal with. Unfortunately, though most of the book is a dungeon crawl, it’s not the main dungeon they have to deal with here, but one created by Daedalus, and it proves to be far more deadly for the familia than the lower levels of the main dungeon.

Ironically, though Aiz is alone on the cover, this isn’t really her turn to shine – she actually gets beaten up worse than ever here. In fact, that sets the tone for the book itself, which is separated into halves. The first half shows our heroes getting into big big trouble and dealing with seemingly insurmountable odds. The threat is made significant by taking out Finn early on, meaning everyone is having to rely on their wits rather than do what they’re much better at doing, which is following orders. That said, the second half shows our heroes regrouping and kicking much ass, though they don’t so much win as survive. Several of the more minor characters show off their strength – though Raul showing off his strength just leads everyone to laugh at him, alas. But it gets the point across. Unfortunately, not everyone is so fortunate – a few minor characters who’ve been around since the start are killed off in a brutal last-minute downer ending. This is not Loki Familia’s finest hour.

Loki Familia is joined in their quest by Filvis, and in case it wasn’t really obvious beforehand, Filvis has a massive crush on Lefiya that everyone but Lefiya can see. Honestly, I think that Lefiya would be much better off with Filvis, but a key running theme in the Danmachi books is that the most obvious pairing isn’t going to happen because we cannot control who we love. Lefiya loves Aiz. Likewise, as much as Finn is correct that he and Lilly would be a really awesome pairing, she loves Bell, so oh well. Much of DanMachi’s harem elements run on frustrated unrequited love, and the author is good at simply letting it speak for itself without belaboring the point.

The next volume is supposed to focus on Bete, which I’m not all that wild about, but he’s much more tolerable in this side story. I also hope that it’s just a bit lighter in tone. The last two volumes have been pretty damn bleak. For those who enjoyed DanMachi, this is a very good side story, even if you didn’t like its adaptation.

By Fujino Omori and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka?” by Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Winifred Bird.

It stands to reason that over the course of a well-written series, you’d expect the characters to grow and change. That said, it’s rare we get such a direct look as we do here. This entire volume of DanMachi is about Bell and his familia’s growth over the course of the last eleven books, and it underlines several times how they’ve matured and are growing up, even if they may not be aware of it themselves. Sometimes the growth is mental, sometimes physical, and sometimes both, but these are not the same people that we met in the first book. It helps that this book is also a pure dungeon crawl, the first in a very long time, and that they face off against a very clever Irregular monster – not one of the Xenos that we’ve gotten to know in the last few books (and we meet another one here), just a monster who was smarter than his brethren, and then started to eat their cores, and now is smart *and* evil.

Bell and Lilly are on the cover, and it’s appropriate that this growth metaphor focuses the most on them. Bell’s has been easier to see in terms of battle prowess, but now we see how he’s matured as a person as well. His “mind has caught up with his body”, as Mikoto puts it, and this has made him a more capable adventurer. That said, he’s still Bell, much to Lilly’s relief, as she worried he was getting too far ahead of everyone else. As for Lilly, she’s learning more how to be a leader, being trained by Daphne here and also imagining a Finn in her head that she strives to be like. (The real Finn does not always match the Finn in Lilly’s head, and I wonder if she knows that his last-minute plan is basically “make myself lose control and go nuts”?) She’s also dealing with abandonment issues, both not wanting to be forsaken by the man she loves and also when she’s told to abandon the injured in her party and escape and seriously considers it. Her maturity is in realizing that’s the most sensible plan… but not doing it.

We meet another Xenos here, a mermaid who seems nice and sweet and has already fallen for Bell, and I suspect we’ll see her again in the future. (I am grateful to the author forgetting her farewell confession to Bell out of the way BEFORE Lilly and the rest arrive – it’s a heartwarming scene that did not need a jealous harem added to it.) We also see that Hestia’s group is now a D group, meaning they have to accept missions from the main office. This first mission was “conquer a new floor”, basically, and it’s implied they failed as they got derailed by this nightmare of a monster, though I’d argue the fact that they took it out should work in their favor. That said, it looks like the next volume may be a murder mystery more than a dungeon crawl, judging by that cliffhanger.

I’m in danger of sounding like a broken record, but DanMachi is simply very well written, and benefits well from being confined to a single volume for once. Any fan of fantasy light novels should have it at the front of their queue.

By Fujino Omori and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka? Gaiden – Sword Oratoria” by Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Liv Sommerlot.

I am frequently amused when I find that my own thinking as I read a book has mirrored the author’s. As I read this new Sword Oratoria volume, which focuses on Tione and Tiona, the twin Amazons from Loki Familia, I remember thinking that I didn’t really think much of them beyond “loves Finn” and “kind of an idiot”. And sure enough, in the afterword the author states that they had the same thought, and writing the book involved finding their character to an extent. Fortunately, it works out great: this is one of the strongest books in the Sword Oratoria series, with not only the usual excellent fights and seeing Loki be clever, but also some terrific backstory for the twins, whose live growing up was horrific and has left its mark on… both of them, though it’s not surprising that Tione thinks at first that it’s just her.

Here we meet a new goddess, Kali, as well as her followers, who the twins split off from years ago. As you may have guessed, Kali is bloodthirsty and desires endless war, so her children participate in a battle royale event from the moment they can walk, fighting each other to see who is strongest. (There is a chilling age reveal at one point that was handled fantastically.) Of course, it’s not just the new people – the series continues to also mirror what’s going on in the main one, and we’re nearing Book 7 on the timeline, so Ishtar Familia proves to be very active behind the scenes as well. This is unfortunate for Aiz, as the frog-faced battle warrior of the family, Phrynne, has a hate-on for Aiz for being… well, powerful and beautiful. And there’s another God involved as well, which surprised me, especially after reading the Lyu spinoff.

That said, Tione and Tiona are the stars here. We’ve seen Tione angry before, but here she spends almost the entire book in an incandescent, uncontrollable rage. I’ve never been a big fan of her goofy crush on Finn, but it works here because it’s actually weaponized, and also serves to remind Tione of what she’s gained since leaving the Amazons. As for Tiona, she absolutely knocked it out of the park for me, taking “smiling idiot” and showing how it can be one of the most powerful, heartwarming things ever – as well as showing that the idiot is not as true as it seemed. Tiona’s very clever here, in many respects.

This book lacks Bell Cranel for the most part, which works in its favor. As for Lefiya, well, she’s peril monkey here, sadly, but at least is shown to be more upset about her ongoing magic advancement and less about her crush on Aiz. The book is on the larger scale, so you’ll need to set aside from time for it, but if you like DanMachi, and particularly Loki Familia, you’ll love this.