By KAYA and Naru. Released in Japan as “Tensei Shōjo wa Mazu Ippo kara Hajimetai: Mamono ga Iru toka Kiitenai!” by MF Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Amy Osteraas.

It can sometimes be difficult, when a series is told entirely from one person’s point of view, to remind ourselves that they may not necessarily be the best narrator for the job. Sara tells the entire story in these books, and for the most part that’s fine, but there is a good deal of snark, apathy and general grouchiness to her entire character that makes the narration fun but also reminds us that everyone else doesn’t necessarily adore her. That said, the people she’s grouchiest to (Ted, the knights) generally deserve it. As the series goes on, I’m hoping that we get more of her joyful delight at seeing the ocean, which we get at the end of this book, and a bit less of her “whatever, I don’t care” attitude when people try to railroad her into annoying things. Though she’s right, she really should settle on figuring out what to do with her life soon.

Sara and Nelly head back to Rosa to do some shopping for clothes, but end up getting sidelined by a ton of plot. The other Invited we met in the capital last time, Haruto, has arrived in the town, and is acting like a 10-year-old kid – which, to be fair, is about when he died in Japan, so Sara has a big leg up on him. More dangerously, the knights are returning to get Sara and forcibly have a noble adopt her and get her working for the state. She really does not want to do that, so after letting Haruto and fellow Invited Bradley handle the cottage on the mountain, she, Allen and Nelly join Chris is a trip to a town two weeks away that is trying to train new apothecaries. Unfortunately, when they get there it turns out almost every single apothecary has in fact left the town. Oh yes, also frogs. LOTS of frogs.

Because Sara has for the most part been living on a mountain with a mentor who does not really care about much of anything, or else in a town that is very clearly the “last dungeon” town in this fantasy world, she has not really had a normal isekai reincarnation like everyone else in this series. That’s clearly for the good, as it turns out that while reincarnates are coddled, they’re also pretty much used as government-sponsored slaves, with a name change. You can see why – Sara is really, REALLY powerful, and we see more of that here, though at last we seem to have finally hit a magic thing that makes her feel tired rather than just being easy as pie. The next book is set up by Nelly suggesting they go to her hometown to get her family (who are nobility) to adopt Sara, which should stop the knights from trying to abduct her. I’m fairly certain it will not be that simple.

So yeah, Sara’s not sure what she wants to do with her life here yet, but till she’s safe and can relax, I don’t really blame her. Also, the gimmick is that Sara attracts monsters, right? I think we all get that by now, even if the cast don’t yet. She’s a Monster Magnet.

By KAYA and Naru. Released in Japan as “Tensei Shōjo wa Mazu Ippo kara Hajimetai: Mamono ga Iru toka Kiitenai!” by MF Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Amy Osteraas.

This series continues to interest me far more than I expected, possibly as, while it is doing a lot of the usual fantasy tropeland stuff (mana, guilds, etc.) it at least manages to avoid game stats and power levels. Our heroine and her too-young-to-be-a-boyfriend are both quite powerful, but in his case, this has mostly completely ruined his life, and in her case, she’s hiding most of her true strength to avoid attracting the wrong kind of attention. Honestly, in the first half of this book, everyone is sort of prickly, including the heroine. You’d expect this to be a warm, fuzzy series where the townspeople take in this plucky orphan and make sure she has everything she needs, but no, she’s still living in tents or watchtowers – albeit because she wants to, she can afford better – and they’re still content to use her skills on a regular basis. It’s slow life, but until the end of this volume it lacks the sweetness.

Sara is still selling meals at the adventurer’s guild and collecting healing herbs, all while trying to avoid the attention of Ted from the Apothecary Guild, who continues to dislike Allen and Sara intensely (though, as the book goes on, the reader sees he’s more a tsundere than anything else). Unfortunately, Nelly is *still* not back yet. What’s worse, she’ attracted the attention of a knight from the capital, who sees these two extremely powerful orphans sleeping outside the city and gets several ideas in his head. First he says they should come with him to the capital and be his maid and butler – rejected. Then he leans on the town to make things much harder for adventurers sleeping outside the city, in order to clear them off – and, it’s hinted, drive Sara and Allen to him. Fortunately, Nelly is finally able to return, and a whole lot of misunderstandings are cleared up.

I will admit the big flaw with this volume is that a lot of it depends on everyone being somewhat thick. Nelly and Sara’s descriptions of each other do not match the reality of who they really are, so no one recognizes they’re connected. Hell, they don’t even realize Sara is a girl till the other women of the town (who do know right away, of course) tell them outright. No one connects a missing 12-year-old kid desperately being searched for to the powerful 12-year-old kid who showed up in town at exactly the same time. You start to understand why Sara’s general reaction to most of the adults around her is disappointment and irritation. That said, the friendship between her and Allen is a definite highlight of the book, and I do wonder how things will go for them in the third book, especially now that Sara has revealed to all she’s from another world. I suspect she won’t be allowed to live a quiet life in the woods with her wolves for long.

This isn’t terrific, but definitely falls under “better than I expected”, and I’d like to read more. I miss the first book’s running gag, though, and hope it returns.

By KAYA and Naru. Released in Japan as “Tensei Shōjo wa Mazu Ippo kara Hajimetai: Mamono ga Iru toka Kiitenai!” by MF Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Amy Osteraas.

Just because a series is trying to be “Slow Life” does not mean that it can’t make things difficult for our protagonist. We can’t all get magical farming implements and a harem of young girls, or find that we have the power to control slimes that can do virtually anything. Sometimes even OP is not enough if you don’t know how to use it, and are in the middle of nowhere. This does, though, make it rewarding, for those who can tolerate a book starts starts very slowly, to see Sara slowly figure out things like how not to immediately get eaten by wolves, or which magical herbs will net the most cash when her mentor/older sister figure takes them into town. And then even that is taken away from her, and she’s forced to go on a perilous journey to find her guardian, make friends, and deal with the worst of isekai enemies: that jerk from that one guild.

Sarasa has spent her entire life in Japan feeling drained of energy, just lethargic all the time. Then one day, coming home from work, she ends up in the realm of a goddess, who explains that the reason she has so little energy is her body was designed to run on mana, which our world doesn’t have. The goddess proceeds to reincarnate her in a world which has TOO MUCH mana, where Sarasa (shortened to Sara) can be a mana sponge. Sadly, she’s dropped in the middle of nowhere on a mountain surrounded by dangerous animals. But there is one young woman there, a mysterious hunter named Nelly, who will help Sara get accustomed to things, give her a textbook on how to learn magic, and help her build up the stamina needed for a five-day trip into town. Which she will need, as after two years or so of slow life cabin living, Nelly doesn’t come back one day, so Sara goes to search for her.

I enjoyed most of this book, so let’s start with a quibble. I get that for most writers now the isekai is just a necessary evil to get readers to start the book, but don’t be so half-assed about it! The goddess handwaves the fact that Sarasa isn’t even run over by a truck, saying “I’ll explain things to your family”, and Sarasa just sort of shrugs? Other than that, this i a solid fantasy. Sara is very likeable, which helps get us through the first third of the book or so, which is mainly her slowly learning how to use magic. The second half gets her into town, where she meets a best friend, who has his own issues, and together the two of them deal with prejudice against those who were not already born into privilege, and we discover that Nelly was absolutely not a normal everyday hunter… and Sara is also far from normal as well.

So yeah, another book to throw on the decent isekai pile. Plus it has a great running gag! I love great running gags, especially if they involve wolves.