By Shoji Goji and Saku Enomaru. Released in Japan as “Hitoribocchi no Isekai Kouryaku” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Eric Margolis. Adapted by Veles Svitlychny and Lorin Christie.

I’ve talked before about how I enjoy the Loner Life light novels a bit more than the manga because the manga makes things lighter and fluffier, but trust me, I 100% get why nearly everyone says “skip the books, read the manga” when it comes to this series. Leaving aside the writing style, which is still so rambling and broken that at times I wasn’t sure if I had spotted an editorial mistake on Airship’s part of just Haruka repeating himself for no real effect, there’s the fact that the plot meanders and wanders all over the place. At the start of the book we learn that war has been declared on Omui, and it’s not until 350 pages later (these books are loooooong) that we finally start the process of taking care of that war. What replaces it? Mostly Haruka making bras. Lots and lots of bras. Because this series is also still deeply, deeply horny, another aspect mostly lost in the manga adaptation.

Class Rep is back on the cover art again, which means Haruka is on the “alternate cover”, just like the first volume. He’s crying and hiding his face, though, which reminds you that there’s a core of real pain and anguish behind all this nonsense. Most of the book involves the girls all trying to get past Level 100, and also defeat a dungeon boss all by themselves with no help from Haruka, Angelica, or Slimey. They succeed in the former, but not quite in the latter, partly as they’re too wedded to the “fantasy” aspect of this world to realize, as Haruka does, that he can use normal science-based solutions. Elsewhere, an assassin, who turns out to be the Princess’ maid and childhood friend, comes to kill Haruka, which goes about as well as you’d expect. And then there’s that pesky war…

Everyone is familiar with the meme “I know writers who use subtext, and they’re all cowards!”. If you take that and add “no” before the word subtext, you’ve got Loner Life, a series which requires you to read between the lines to have any hope of enjoying it. So much of this series is a meditation on grief and mourning, about trying to improve daily lives so that people don’t have to live in fear and can think of the future. Haruka remembers everyone he couldn’t save, and all those deaths haunt him almost to breaking point. Class Rep talks about the girls going nuts over food and clothing mostly so that they don’t end up crying in despair over never being able to see home again. The owners of the inn where they’ve been staying just cry silently as they watch Haruka rebuild it into an eight-story inn/bunker that will be a safe haven for innocents during the upcoming war. As for the bra scenes… yeah, OK, sometimes it’s not subtext but text. The bra scenes are there to titillate. Still, it’s nice that the girls all have well-made underwear now.

The volume has no real ending, and you get the sense we got to page 420 and the editors said “just stop here and we’ll begin Book 6 where you left off”, which is the danger of webnovels. If you enjoy overanalysis and ridiculousness, Loner Life continues to provide. But prepare for incoherence as well.

By Shoji Goji and Saku Enomaru. Released in Japan as “Hitoribocchi no Isekai Kouryaku” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Eric Margolis. Adapted by Veles Svitlychny.

Welcome back to another volume of “Unreliable Narrators: The Light Novel”. Most of this is due to the presence of Haruka, who deliberately obfuscates his own activities to be extremely annoying, obnoxious, or (most often) both, but also in how he describes the activities of everyone else in the series. In fact, the most important parts of the book are probably not his rambling descriptions and horny fantasies, but the “Interlude” chapters from other points of view – especially Class Rep, who I’m not certain is 100% reliable either, but is certainly better than Haruka. What he describes as the sports jocks out “playing tag with kobolds” because they can only relate to folks as dumb as they are, Class Rep describes as going out every day to grind and level to try to get stronger. Haruka will talk about his creating new Japanese food and having the girls all fight over it, Class Rep will talk about the fact that they sob as they eat it because they miss home so much. This series has layers.

Even the cover art has layers – the cover seen here features the Princess of the kingdom looking cool and noble, but turn to the color pages and you’ll see her half-naked and broken. This is, of course, due to Haruka, no matter how much he insists that it’s not really his fault. Most of the first half of the book is spent in the dungeons, with Haruka and the girls taking on a dungeon and finding a lot of useful books. Haruka also acquires tentacles (just like Maple – is this a thing now?), which he uses mostly to sew clothing for the girls with multiple appendages, though it’s implied that Angelica sees a more traditional use in their bedroom activities. He’s also been busy trying to kick start the Industrial Revolution in their frontier city, to the point where the kingdom sends its Royal Guard (led by the Princess) to put them down. Of course, she knows this is wrong, but she has to obey their commends… something she rapidly regrets.

There is a lot of goofy humor, over the top happenings, and sheer horniness in these books – the girls all level up Sense Presence in this book, it’s heavily implied so they can hear what Haruka and Angelica do every night), but it’s also a lot darker than you’d expect – and darker than its manga equivalent, which makes Haruka more tolerable but also less interesting. Class Rep here doesn’t go into detail, but mentions twice how his entire family in Japan is dead, and she also talks about how she would break completely if he dies. What Haruka sees as the girls stubbornly throwing themselves into danger they’re not capable of handling, they see as trying desperately to level up enough so they can protect HIM – he has a low level, and can’t rely on what everyone else does, so could easily die at any moment, despite his belittling of this. The book, like Haruka, is actively trying to drive the reader away from it, but the rewards are also great.

That said, you will need to sit through several mentions of his exhausting Angelica so much in the evenings he gets lectured the next day. For fans who were already gonna read this only.

By Shoji Goji and Saku Enomaru. Released in Japan as “Hitoribocchi no Isekai Kouryaku” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Eric Margolis. Adapted by Veles Svitlychny.

Increasingly reading Haruka’s narration in Loner Life is sort of like trying to solve a puzzle. Class Rep actually lays it out for us midway through the book: Haruka simply is incapable of seeing anyone’s actions except in the absolute worst way – and that includes his own. It’s especially true of him, in fact, because – with the exception of Angelica, who he has a very different kind of relationship with – he does not want to have anyone get too close to him or even like him all that much. For all that he complains about constantly getting lectured or having no money, it’s a situation he deliberately engineers himself. And I hate to break it to him, but the ship has definitely sailed with some of the girls – Class Rep, if no one else, certainly has feelings for him. But it gets to the point where even a spy sent to see what Haruka is like gets the absolute worst impression of him… at least till everything blows up.

After getting back from the Ultimate Dungeon, Angelica in tow, Haruka and his friends now have to go around trying to clear out all the other, lesser dungeons that lie around their town. Haruka’s casual, vicious approach to this makes everyone feel incredibly sorry for the monsters who just happened to be in his way. That said, he’s also casually doing things like saving the livelihoods of a dying hamlet by getting rid of the dungeon (and also giving them medicine and food, something he fails to mention in his tortured narration) or converting the general store in town into a 5-story department store with the latest fashions (also created by him, which prompts the girls to wonder when exactly he read so much about fashion). But when the “Stalker Girl”, aka spy, arrives from the noble city that financially cripples their town, it’s Haruka who sees the larger picture as to what’s going on.

It’s not quite as jaw-dropping as the speech from When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace, but Haruka’s breakdown near the end of this book is startling in how (seemingly) out of character it is, as for once he briefly breaks his facade to try to convince the girls that they’re all in serious trouble here. The corrupt lord ruling the area is not above sending soldiers to wipe them out, and he’s also certainly going to kill the spy once she gets back and delivers her report. He spent the entire time he was dungeon crawling with the spy at his absolute trashiest and worst in order that she could go back and say that he’s not worth caring about, but when this didn’t work he finally snaps and has to fix things. Class Rep and the others get it, even if Haruka doesn’t want them to – she says he and Angelica “destroy tragedies”, and that’s as good a description as any.

One last thing: yes, this is the one with the vibration magic. Between that and Haruka’s “nighttime activities” with Angelica, the light novels are 200% hornier than the manga equivalent. The manga is still probably a safer bet, but the light novels remain a fascinating but flawed experience.