A Late-Start Tamer’s Laid-Back Life, Vol. 11

October 5, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Yuu Tanaka and Nardack. Released in Japan as “Deokure Tamer no Sono Higurashi” by GC Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by A.M. Cola.

I’ve mostly given up on trying to make sure these reviews don’t repeat themselves. I can manage it with books where the plot is “awkward teens in love” or “Guy with a +2 Sword of Awesome and His Catgirl Maid Harem”, but this is one of those slow life books that genuinely IS a slow life book, and it doesn’t even have the decency of being a reincarnation or an isekai. This is a game, and the only reason we know that the series will eventually end is that Yuno took two weeks off his job just to play it all the time, and eventually those two weeks are gonna end and he will presumably go back to being a salaryman. The goal here is to find new awesome things to use in the game and cute things to gawk at in the game. Well, that and to rubberneck as Yuno ends up doing ridiculous bullshit without realizing it. Let’s face it, most light novels have the reader imagine they’re the hero. We can’t even. We’re one of the schlubs gushing about the hero.

Yes, that’s a new tamed monster on the cover. After leveling up the bit of the sacred tree that he planted at his farm, he finds it summons a demon… a demon who is immediately, and really easily, tamed. She’s called (of course) Lilith, and she’s just as goofy as she looks, but she also helps Yuno with some fairly useful skills. He also manages to figure out a really obscure way of evolving his olive treant, who now becomes another wood nymph, which is to say a cute… well, a cute non-binary child. (There is a literal debate about Olea’s gender on the series’ equivalent of Reddit.) He manages to traumatize Alyssa even more just by telling her about the completely ordinary things that he’s done, which of course are anything but. And he has five of his tamed monsters create things to put up for an auction… not realizing that they will sell for ludicrous amounts to fans of Yuno and his crew.

There is a cliche in light novels that all a romantic lead has to do is be nice to a girl once and she will immediately fall madly in love with him. Here, in a series with no romance at all, we see how it actually works when you have a genuinely nice, selfless hero. At one point Yuno triggers an event where he’s thanked by the Gnome Chief for being so good to Olto, and that they should help each other grow. No one else got this event ending, and we find that’s because no one has raised the affection level of their tamed anything more than Yuno has. And he does this by involving everyone in his daily life, helping them when they need it, helping them fight, and caring about their opinions more than his own (except when they try to dress him in tacky yukatas). He cares about his tamed monsters and sees them as a family, not as cute NPCs, not as pets, and not as glorified fetishes. It makes a difference.

So yeah, still enjoying this series that is nothing but watching a guy game real good the only way he knows how.

Filed Under: late start tamer's laid back life, reviews

Brunhild the Dragon Princess

October 4, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Yuiko Agarizaki and Aoaso. Released in Japan as “Ryu no Hime Brunhild” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jennifer Ward.

No, this isn’t a direct sequel to Brunhild the Dragonslayer, and thank the Lord that the author decided against the weird “Brunhild wanders through Hell” plot they mentioned in the afterword. In fact, this takes place long before the first book. That said, you will find the cast of characters familiar. As if this was a Tezuka series, we see the main characters of the first book recast in the second book, as if they’re a company of actors. That said, there’s a totally different plot for the characters, and a lot of the thing that we thought we understood from the first book are upended here. The first book was about Brunhild’s revenge against humans. This definitely isn’t. Also, while the first book was more a Wagnerian tragedy, I think this one swings more Greek. It’s still a tragedy, though, believe me. Brunhild was voted the series least likely to get a 4-koma spinoff manga. That said, it is, like the first in the series, a VERY well written tragedy.

Brunhild is a priestess whose family works closely with the royal family. She lives in a kingdom that is protected by the Divine Dragon, who will keep everything peaceful and happy provided that a) no one leaves the kingdom, and b) he gets sacrifices every month. This is a problem, as the current priestess, Brunhild, is an all-loving sort who will even pick up dying children on the street and nurse them back to health, so the fact that she has to give seven people a month, mostly orphans that no one will cry over, to the dragon is a bit upsetting. She tries to talk the dragon out of the sacrifice, but he absolutely does not agree. Then she makes the mistake of staying behind to see what happens. Something if going to have to be done. And all Brunhild has is her manservant (who she picked up when he was dying on the street), her bestie Sigurd (the royal prince), and Sigurd’s good but kinda stolid guard Sven.

It’s hard to talk about this book without spoiling some very good things, but I will do my best. It’s divided into four chapters, and each of them essentially ends up upending everything we thought we knew about where this story was headed. There’s also a lot of great themes here, such as the desire to be able to trust allies and friends versus the feat that they will betray you in the end (which, trust me, gets zigzagged throughout this book), what love is and how someone can be deeply in love and never realize it just because they don’t understand what trauma is, and how sometimes you need to try to achieve an impossible dream, even if you fail badly and end up regretting everything. This book is just as dark as he last book, but it reads very easily. You’re really rooting for them to defeat evil and save everyone and… well, there is more to this series, I guess.

Yes, next time we get another book in the timeline of this country with more Brunhild. Just not this Brunhild, or the one from the first book. I’ll still be looking forward to reading it, though.

Filed Under: brunhild the dragonslayer, reviews

Duchess in the Attic, Vol. 1

October 3, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Mori and Huyuko Aoi. Released in Japan as “Yane Urabeya no Kōshaku Fujin” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by piyo.

This is the sort of book that I call an “eat your veggies first” book. You know there’s good stuff coming. You want to get to the cool, good stuff. But you have to get the setup for all the cool, good stuff. And sometimes, even though it’s good for the book, it just tastes horrible. The first quarter of this book made me grind my teeth – which is entirely intentional on the part of the author, I assure you. This book has a message, and that message is “the sexist patriarchy is awful”. This is a message, by the way, that resonates through the entire book. Yes, our heroine manages to turn the tables and be incredible and badass and make us proud, but every step reminds us that she is limited in what she can do because she is a woman. So even the dessert is, like, carrot cake or something. But it still tastes good.

When the book opens, Opal, an earl’s daughter, is sexually assaulted at a party when some random dude kisses her, pushes her to the ground, and runs away. This destroys her reputation, infuriates her father, who thinks she should never have let it happen to her, and results, a couple of years later after the fuss has died down a bit, in her being married off to a duke who is trying to clear his sizeable debts with her family’s money. This despite the fact that she clearly has a thing for her childhood friend. But he’s a baron, so oh well. What’s worse, Hubert, her new husband, clearly despises her, seeming to only have eyes for the wheelchair bound and frail Stella, a women who lives in his mansion with everyone doting on her. As for Opal? She lives in the attic. In fact, she chooses to live in the attic.

Folks who read my reviews know that I take a dim view of the “evil beyond all reason” noble, the sort who rapes servants and kicks puppies, and the best thing about this volume is that there’s no one like that here. This may puzzle readers who are just starting the book, as it looks as if everyone in this book except Opal and her childhood friend Claude is vile. And they’re not nice people. But then you get a few POV from Hubert showing off his naivete, bluster, and trauma from a past tragedy, and you also see him trying to become a better person for Opal. You also realize, as the book goes on, that Opal is a lot more like her father than she’s comfortable with, and that a lot of all the terrible things he did was because he expected her to clean house and stand tall, and he’s mostly flummoxed that she’s done it in a totally different way than he thought. I also loved the fakeout that we get over the second half of the narrative, where it appears that then book is going for a cliched, annoying ending, and then kicks it in the face. Sorry, please be content with being a better person.

This book takes place over the course of an entire decade, and ends with all its plotlines wrapped up. I am thus very surprised to see there’s a second book. But I’ll happily read it. It may go down with difficulty at first, though.

Filed Under: duchess in the attic, reviews
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