Earl and Fairy: The Secret Behind Your Tears

September 11, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Mizue Tani and Asako Takaboshi. Released in Japan as “Hakushaku to Yōsei” by Shueisha Cobalt Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Alexandra Owen-Burns.

I don’t want these reviews to get too similar, so let me start off with something that isn’t the tortured romance between Edgar and Lydia for a change. Perhaps the plot itself. This book really hammers home that we’re seeing a re-enactment of Shakespeare’s Richard II in Japanese light novel form here. Edgar wants to be the Blue Knight Earl. He acts like a proper English noble, which includes caring about those whose lives he governs. He’s a good person who’s trying to do what the Blue Knight Earl is supposed to do. And he gets the reward in the end. Unfortunately, Ulysses has the bloodline in his (borrowed) soul, and so all the magical guff actually works for him, whereas Edgar is left with a reward that he cannot actually see or access. The good guys do sort of win here, but it’s a bittersweet victory, comes with a death, and its only real success was getting Edgar to finally realize that “it’s OK if I die” is not a good way to live.

We open with Lydia back in Scotland, determined to separate herself from Edgar, but missing him nevertheless… and despite the multiple letters a week he writes her. However, circumstances end up reuniting them on the island where this all began, where they are dealing with a banshee who is related to the Blue Knight Earl of a hundred years ago… and has amnesia. Unfortunately, Edgar is feeling rather depressed and morose about his inability to get his feelings across to Lydia, so goes to his club, gets drunk (and, it’s implied, also smokes some questionable drugs), then goes home, and when Lydia tries to talk to him, it goes badly. (No, not like that… though he’s initially afraid it was like that.) Unfortunately, as all this is going on, Ulysses is ma,king everything worse, as usual.

Ermine continues to be interesting, though I’m not sure how long she can keep up being a double (triple?) agent without wearying the audience. The author is being pretty good about keeping us on our toes as well, but I can’t help but notice that most of the recent cliffhangers are all “Ermine does something that looks evil”. That said, after her resurrection, I don’t think the author is getting rid of her anytime soon. If only as she’s still able to completely torpedo any efforts at Lydia and Edgar to get over their hangups and talk to each other about their doubts and fears. Edgar makes his biggest declaration of lover ever this book, but it’s a drunken murmuring of Ermine’s name that Lydia takes to be his “true” feelings, partly as I think she’s scared of her own feelings for him. Certainly she’s ready to walk into a massive deathtrap for him, as well as save his life when even he doesn’t want that. But… yeah. Still not quite a couple yet.

If you love exquisitly frustrated romance and supernatural action thrillers, this remains a must read.

Filed Under: earl and fairy, reviews

I’m in Love with the Villainess: She’s So Cheeky for a Commoner, Vol. 3

September 10, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Inori and Hanagata. Released in Japan as “Heimin no Kuse ni Namaikina!” by GL Bunko. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Kevin Ishizaka.

(This does spoil the spinoff’s one big reveal, but not till after the picture.)

And so the I’m in Love with the Villainess story comes to an end once more – this time, apparently, for good, as the author says there are no plans to do a Claire POV for Book 3-5 of the original series. Which makes sense, because while there’s a lot of great stuff happening in those books, Claire’s character arc is the focus of this spinoff, and it comes to its head here. We see Clire’s determination in ferreting out the corrupt nobles, her horror at discovering her father is seemingly behind them all, and her stubborn nobility coming to the fore when she decides the best thing to do is to die for the sake of her country. Fortunately, things play out like the original series, so she’s free to marry Rae and have incredibly embarrassing naked apron incidents near the end of the book. And of course we have the side characters. Loretta and Pepi get resolved as well, of course. And then there’s… um… what was her name again?

I’m not going to summarize the main events of the novel, as we’ve read them before, from Rae’s perspective, in the original series. Interspersed with this we get POV scenes from others. I’ll discuss Catherine’s in a bit. Dole gets a brief scene where we learn about where his dedication to wiping out corrupt nobility came from, as well as his belief that he’s already going to hell for what he’s done. Pepi gets to defend the academy from the revolution, as well as try to figure out how to protect Loretta and not see her die. We see Manaria’s POV of what happened when she returned home, as well as what made her come back at just the right time. Lene and Misha also get scenes showing what they did during the revolution, and their own complicated thoughts on it. Loretta gets to deal with life post-nobility and the chance of a new love. And we get a flashback to Melia’s last moments, where she may not return to Claire’s birthday party but she manages to save… well, let’s talk.

There are two big things about Catherine’s plotline, and I’m going to talk about both of them, so apologies to those who haven’t read the book yet. The first, and most “normal”, is that she, as a child assassin trained by her awful father, was the one who killed Claire’s mother, something which has haunted her and crushed her with guilt ever since, especially because Melia ends up saving her life. Needless to say, Claire is a bit poleaxed when she discovers this. My favorite part of the book, though, was the revelation that Catherine can erase memories, and does so in order to protect Claire and escape from the academy. I love this because I’ve spent this entire series wondering how it is that we see Catherine with Claire so often and she never appeared in the main series at all. I was chalking it up, of course, to “because this hadn’t been written yet, duh”, but there’s a better reason now. Catherine literally wrote herself out of the narrative! It’s only after the main story has resolved that Manaria can deus ex machina things to try to once again meet her, and even then we still don’t see it. Catherine exists at the edge of the novels, a ghost in the pages who then walks off the back cover… along with her maid, because try as she might, there are SOME things that you simply can’t wipe away in a light novel series, and “saving a girl from certain death and making them into a devoted maid” is one of them.

If you’ve read the original books, this is a terrific addition. If you haven’t read the original books… well, go read them first.

Filed Under: i'm in love with the villainess, reviews

Goodbye, Overtime! This Reincarnated Villainess Is Living for Her New Big Brother, Vol. 2

September 9, 2024 by 1 Comment

By Chidori Hama and Wan Hachipisu. Released in Japan as “Akuyaku Reijō, Brocon ni Job Change Shimasu” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Rymane Tsouria.

This book really depends on the reader getting Ekaterina, and if there’s anyone still reading it after Book One who doesn’t get her, they likely stopped before the end of this book. Ekaterina… or rather, Rina from Japan… is a fangirl. She is the sort to see the character she really likes and actually *say* “SQUEEEEE!”. She will happily monologue in her head about possible BL ships, and she goes over the moon whenever her beloved brother deigns to kiss her forehead. The author asks “are these two siblings really OK?”, and the answer is yes, because the best thing about this otherwise pretty typical series is how the author knows exactly how much “comedy incest” to tease without making it creepy. This isn’t incest, really. It’s brocon/siscon stuff, which is functionally different. Just as dads in light novels who say “I’ll never let you marry my daughter!” aren’t really lusting after her themselves, so these two are determined to head off anyone who dares get between their very G-rated relationship.

This volume doesn’t take place at the academy quite as much, though we do get the villainess standard “oh no, I accidentally was too smart and ended up having the best grades in the class” scene. Instead we see Ekaterina trying to learn how to run her family’s estate, so that her brother can concentrate on everything that should be on his plate. A lot of this involves continuing to purge the elements of the family that her grandmother controlled, but there’s also meeting the royal family (who absolutely love her, and are somewhat bummed that she doesn’t really care for their son. She also introducing new fashion trends, and coming up with ideas for a birthday present for her beloved brother. Which, because everything gets out of hand around her, means accidentally inventing the fountain pen.

Like most series in this genre, the basic idea is that Ekaterina is making everyone’s lives better, partly by design and partly by accident. There are, of course, a few people who are too far gone to help, such as her grandmother’s old attendant, who is just as arrogant and prejudiced as grandma was, and is quietly sacked. But even there Ekaterina reasons to the reader that she was the ninth child of her house, likely this was the best job she could ever have gotten, and her grandmother was very good at indoctrinating people. We actually hear that in this she takes after her grandfather, and I like the idea that it’s not JUST “I’m from Japan” that makes all the difference. The first book made a big deal about their personalities fusing, and while it implies that Rina basically “won”, I like the idea that we’re seeing what an Ekaterina without toxic influences might have developed.

We’ve got a ways to go, and there’s still no sign of any successful romance, mostly due to the denseness of the lead. (And, unlike Bakarina, it’s not obvious who will win.) Still, if you can get past the premise, there’s much to like here.

Filed Under: goodbye overtime, reviews
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