By Nozomu Mochitsuki and Gilse. Released in Japan as “Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari” by TO Books. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by David Teng.

When we last left Mia, it appeared that she had managed to avoid her dreadful fate – indeed, the author says what we all guessed in the afterword of this book – it was supposed to be two volumes originally. But the series grew to be quite popular (there’s even a live-action stage musical coming out in Japan), and so Mia’s story lives on! Because Mia may have avoided the guillotine as a young bratty princess, but that doesn’t mean she can’t later be killed off as an adult! And so we now get Mia’s granddaughter Bel, who has traveled back in time to avoid her own horrific fate, because 50 years on or so, the whole of Tearmoon Empire has gone to hell again. There’s only one way to fix this and keep Mia from a horrible fate… she has to defeat the Saint, Rafina, and become Student Council President!… wait, what?

Most of the book has what made the first two books so much fun. Mia trying to act selfishly and failing; Mia’s actions being completely misinterpreted by everyone around her. The snarky narrator is there but does not seem quite as mean or nasty to Mia this time around. That said, Mia is not magically a good and noble-hearted person; she’s still growing up and trying to mature, and it’s a slow process because she doesn’t want to. When it’s suggested that she can use negative campaigning to win the election against Rafina, she’s thrilled, as the idea had never occurred to her! Of course, this is then balanced out by her realization that this sort of thing was also done against her in his first life, and she absolutely hated it. As a result, she refuses. She also has an excellent memory for names… we see her groping to recall someone’s name a few times in this book, but unlike other heroines of this type, she always gets it right. Her instincts usually steer her correct.

As for the rest of the cast, I was rather surprised at how little an effect Bel had on the plot. As Mia’s granddaughter, you’d expect her to be taking over having to replace the timeline, but she is there mostly as she ran away rather than to fix things, and she’s also four years younger than Mia. As a result, she’s there to be cute, occasionally tell Mia what life was like in the future, and be cute. (Yes, I said cute twice.) The other major character here is Rafina, and the reader gradually realizes, before Mia, why Mia’s winning the election is so important – Rafina is stretched too thin and has no one she can trust as a friend. In the future, this leads to tragedy and hardens her heart. Here (again via misunderstanding Mia… stay on brand, Tearmoon) she realizes what Mia is trying to do and acquiesces. There’s also a sneering villain sort of character (no, the book really describes him as this) who gets taken down by Mia, almost accidentally, immediately. Both he and Rafina benefit from having “please forgive me for my own mistakes” be thought of as “please forgive OTHERS for their own bad choices”.

Another thing I really enjoy about this series its its forays into the ‘Bad End’ pasts (or rather futures) of the characters. Anne visiting Mia in prison is a short story that is truly sweet and tearjerking. And Dion gets most of the last fifth of the book – first in the second bad future, showing him fighting to the death so Bel can escape to allies, and then in the present, as he delivers a missive to Mia and also has her show him around the city. It’s a good reminder that, while Mia is usually pretty good at covering up her airheadedness, not everyone is 100% under her spell – Dion does misinterpret her actions, but he also thinks that her face is that of someone “not thinking anything at all”. This also leads to the other tearjerking moment in the book, when Bel hugs Dion and thanks him for saving her, something which he is rather nonplussed by (as he hasn’t done it yet). Tearmoon Empire can be hilarious, but I also love the sweet heartfelt bits.

This is not quite as top-tier as the second book in the series, but it’s definitely a solid read, with well written and translated prose. The fourth book suggests Mia’s school she set up in Book 2 is not going as well as hoped. The good news is that we only have to wait three months rather than 5 for the next volume. Highly recommended.

By Nozomu Mochitsuki and Gilse. Released in Japan as “Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari” by TO Books. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by David Teng.

A majority of the fun in Tearmoon Empire 1 was the dissonance between Mia’s actions, Mia’s reasons for those actions, and the narrator caustically calling her out for the reasons for those actions. That’s still very much present in the second volume – in fact, if anything the narrator’s malice is even more prominent. But something strange happened, because suddenly I ended up being less interested in Mia’s headspace and the silly misconceptions of the people around her and more interested in the world that’s been created here and what’s going on with it. And with good reason, too: here we find that Mia may have jumped back in time to try to make it so she isn’t executed, but that doesn’t mean that the forces behind the scenes are not still gunning for her, or that they don’t still need revolution to happen. Mia, after all, was not the Big Bad in the old world, just a selfish Royal. So can she not only save herself, but the future of multiple countries?

Mia has a lot to do here. It may be summer vacation, but she has to stop arrogant counts from destroying the forest of the tribe that ends up fighting against her in the future; deal with the man who personally executed her; and worst of all, her not-quite-boyfriend Abel’s country is undergoing a very familiar revolution. Fortunately, she still has the magic ability to have her every word and deed misunderstood in the best possible way, and it’s still just as funny. That said, as with the first book, sometimes the misunderstandings have a serious core, as we see her avert a genocide and, yes, stop a revolution, but also force the future rulers of these kingdoms to change the way that they think, and not be so quick to turn to execution and unforgivable actions. That said, don’t worry, the narrator is here to remind us that Mia is shallow and only thinks of herself.

(My pet theory is that these are books commissioned by a future Mia to counteract the slavish hagiographies that are being written about her.)

The narrator, as ever, is sometimes correct but also sometimes full of it, and even they have to occasionally stop and say “OK, Mia was being genuinely good here”. (For a great analysis of the narrator in this book, see this Beneath the Tangles article.) Actually, my favorite scene in the entire book shows us the bad future that Mia originally came from, where a desperate Ludwig is trying in vain to stop her execution, and he points out that Mia, once actually taken in hand and shown she’s being vain or arrogant, is taking pains to actually learn from her mistakes. (It also contrasts with King Sion, who in this bad future did not have Mia’s words to misunderstand and take as well-meant advice.) That said, as I indicated, the plot is the best part herre, with a lot of tension, some good action scenes, and a terrific denouement where Mia takes out the villain as only Mia can.

As with My Next Life As a Villainess, this book feels complete at two volumes, with the main future having definitely been changed and everyone being quite happy. Also as with My Next Life As a Villainess, there’s more books to come, and next volume may see Mia having to face an even more startling future. Till then, this remains an absolutely terrific series. The author recommends in the afterword it be used for book reports. Sounds good to me.

By Nozomu Mochitsuki and Gilse. Released in Japan as “Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari” by TO Books. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by David Teng.

It’s been a while since I’ve been so entertained by a light novel debut. The premise of the story already had me half-won over, to be honest. Mia Luna Tearmoon is this world’s Marie Antoinette, a spoiled young princess who only cares about herself and thus, when the revolution comes (a revolution she unwittingly instigated), she is sent to the guillotine. But then… she wakes up ten years earlier, right as rain! Now she has a firm goal: change history! So far so normal, right? It’s a familiar plot to fanfic writers, so familiar it has a name – “Peggy Sue”, after the 1986 movie Peggy Sue Got Married. However, Mia hasn’t really changed all that much. She’s still a selfish princess who thinks only for herself… mostly. The intense desire to not get her head cut off, combined with the miserable three years in prison she spent before that, have led to several alterations in how she interacts with people. In fact… she slowly becomes terrific. Despite what she or the narrator might think.

In addition to the Peggy Sue aspect, there are other ‘genres’ of books I was reminded of. Mia is an “Otome Game Villainess” in all but name, and a lot of the interactions she has with others will make the reader think of Bakarina. I was also reminded of the old J-Novel series Me, a Genius?, in that some of the humor of the book comes from Mia misinterpreting everyone’s actions, and absolutely everyone misinterpreting hers. Her maid, Anne, becomes absolutely loyal and devoted. Her advisor, Ludwig, is convinced she’s brilliant (because she remembers all the issues that made the Empire fall in her past go-round and parrots it back to him). The exception to this is the narrator, who is very much a Lemony Snicket-style narrator, constantly reminding the reader that Mia’s motivations are focused only on herself, and that frequently she does not MEAN to do the immense good she does.

That said, one of the few drawbacks in this book is that sometimes the narration overdoes it a bit, because over the course of the book, we *do* see Mia doing a lot of good, even if her intent may be different. Though her, people’s lives get better, things are happier. What’s more, Mia is gradually getting less selfish. Part of this may be simple premonition – when she tries to ignore some noble girls bullying Tiona, who is the girl who eventually leads the revolution against Mia, she gets a chill down her spine. Is it realizing that ignoring it would be a disaster for her future? Or is it a growing conscience? I suspect the latter. She chooses to go to the rescue, and it’s great. Mia has a sharp tongue, something that does not change in either timeline, but using it for good rather than evil is a definite plus. She also flirts with a young prince, at first in order to gain his country’s help should the revolution still occur, but gradually finds him genuinely attractive and charming, and so reacts like a normal teenage girl. It’s sweet. (There’s also an amazing scene where a bitter young noble swaps out some food at a party for stale crackers she brought as a prank, and when Mia eats them she not only is nostalgically reminded of the food she was given in prison, but is clever enough to realize that the preservatives used in these THREE-YEAR-OLD crackers can help her kingdom’s food issues.)

I tend to ‘quote tweet’ parts of a book as I read them. I didn’t do that with Tearmoon Empire, but that’s simply as the quotable bits were entire paragraphs and scenes that would have been too long to tweet. This book is funny from start to finish, from the snarky narration to the hilarious misinterpretations and even to normal “just write it funny” scenes like the young noble girls trying (badly) to make a lunch for Mia’s beau, which was AMAZING. There’s also a diary extract at the end that reminds you that no one misinterprets Mia’s own actions quite like Mia herself. It’s the sort of book you want to go back and re-read the moment you finish it. (You may have to – the 2nd volume hasn’t started up on J-Novel Club’s schedule yet, though I understand it’s coming soon.) If you avoided this book because of its shoujo-style cover, you need to give it a read. I loved it.