Death’s Daughter and the Ebony Blade, Vol. 7: Finale

September 19, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Maito Ayamine and Cierra. Released in Japan as “Shinigami ni Sodaterareta Shoujo wa Shikkoku no Tsurugi wo Mune ni Idaku” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sylvia Gallagher.

I’ll be discussing the final pages of the book, but only under the picture, so be warned.

Before we get around to how this series seems to love to lead me around by the nose, we need to, I suppose, address the fact that this is definitely the second part of Book 7, not a book in itself. I probably should have saved the two books and read them as one. If only as this is 95% fights, and I just don’t have it in me to talk about those. Wow, those undead really are hard to kill. Oh man, the goofy scientist is mortally wounded (and then never seen again). The large cast means that we have a lot of viewpoints to flit between, but I’m going to be honest, I don’t care about most of these people. I like them well enough, and wish them well. But in the end, I’m here for Olivia, Ashton, Claudia, and maybe Felix. If pressed.

Felix and his knights, along with the sleeping emperor, have defected to Olivia’s side in hopes that she can do something about the emperor (easy) and the man currently causing the undead to overrun the entire country (difficult). Fortunately, while they may not have Ashton anymore, they do have that old librarian from previous books, who also turns out to be a strategist, and she comes up with a plan: Fernest, Mekia, and Sutherland all join forces and offer a deal: one big battle against Darmes’ undead army, and if they lose they’ll surrender. Olivia knows he’ll take the deal, but that will also give her and Felix the opportunity to run straight for the castle to take out both Darmes and Xenia, the evil God supporting him. That said… they still have to fight scores of undead. No getting around that.

Even given the fact that it’s the second part of a 550-page book, this book is still badly paced, and needed an epilogue that was longer than the 4 pages or so it gets. I was starting to get a bit suspicious of the ending around 3/4 of the way through the book, when we see Claudia and company fighting valiantly but NOT dying tragically. If this book was going to keep going the way it had been, we needed a lot more death, and no, that one woman from Mekia doesn’t really count. Then at the end, when Olivia wins (yeah, sorry to spoil, but you guessed that) and she is told she can get one wish that’s anything she wants, I knew where it was going. So yeah, I was wrong. AGAIN. And it’s fine, I’m OK with it. I’d be a lot more OK with it if the epilogue was 20 pages rather than 4, and showed ANY of the other characters in the book. Which, um, guess that means I did care about people other than Olivia, Ashton and Claudia.

I think I’ve now run out of “military battle fantasy” series that I’m following, and this certainly was one. It’s worth reading for Olivia’s eccentric, striking personality, but also in seeing how much she grows and changes, particularly in the last two books after Ashton’s death. And she has only more room to grow.

Filed Under: death's daughter and the ebony blade, reviews

Even a Replica Can Fall in Love, Vol. 1

September 18, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Harunadon and raemz. Released in Japan as “Replica Datte, Koi o Suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

I admit that I have gotten rather blase about titles that have won or been nominated for awards in Japan. They seem to have a LOT of awards for manga and light novels, and there are so many titles that carry “award-winning” and “award-nominated” on it that it tends to pass me by. I had not really realized that this was the winner of the most recent Dengeki Grand Prize till I was about to start it. There have been a few Grand Prize winners in the past that I’ve admitted were excellent, such as Kept Man of the Princess Knight and 86. That said, these days that can’t even guarantee that you’ll get licensed in English at all – sorry, Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio. It was going to take a lot more than just winning an award for me to be blown away by this book. But I was unprepared. The book steps up and immediately proceeds to blow you away. I love it to bits, everyone should read it. It deserves its award.

Our heroine is a replica, created by Sunao Aikawa when she was seven years old. She looks and speaks exactly like her. The replica takes Sunao’s place when she’s feeling grumpy, tired, or is on her period. The replica has all of Sunao’s memories, but they’re sort of like reading a book that’s been smudged. (Sunao does NOT have her replica’s memories, which causes problems later.) The replica likes to read a lot more than Sunao, so she joins the literature club, where she reconnects with Sunao’s childhood friend Ricchan, a budding novelist. Then one day she interacts with recently injured basketball player Sanada, who seems captivated by her, and joins the literature club to get closer to her. But that’s a problem. After all, she’s a replica.

You know I really love a book when I try not to spoil it, but that also makes writing reviews harder. There are some really fantastic twists in this book, not least of which is what the hell a replica IS, something that we don’t really find out here. Before I read it I thought it was some sort of android – nope. Sunao can simply “unthink” her replica and she goes away till needed again. Then I wondered if it was dissociative identity disorder, but later events show that can’t be right either. As for the original, well, trust me when I say you will not be very find of Sunao throughout a lot of this book. But everything about her behavior makes sense, and she’s very quick to change when she realizes what’s really going on. Near the end of the book, there’s a terrifying tragedy that becomes an “oh thank God” moment of relief for everyone involved… except the replica, who now begins to despair. Again, for reasons I don’t want to spoil, but man, it’s so good. This book has serious thought put into its concept (which is echoed by the novel her friend is writing, a nice touch).

Like most grand prize winners of a contest, this works well as a stand-alone book. There’s more of it, though, and I am very happy to hear that, even as I worry – there was a lot of serious drama in this book, and I’m sure later books will have it too. But I’m desperate to read more. If only to see if we’ll be told what’s going on with the replica. Or if it matters in the end.

Filed Under: even a replica can fall in love, reviews

I Abandoned My Engagement Because My Sister is a Tragic Heroine, but Somehow I Became Entangled with a Righteous Prince, Vol. 1

September 17, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Fuyutsuki Koki and Haduki Futaba. Released in Japan as “Higeki no Heroine Buru Imōto no Sei de Konyaku Hakishita no Desu ga, Naze ka Seigikan no Tsuyoi Ōtaishi ni Karamareru you ni Narimashita” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Sarah Moon. Adapted by Veles Svitlychny.

I spent most of this book feeling that it was schizophrenic. There’s a very serious plotline at the core of this, with the prince doing his best to ferret out corruption despite assassination attempts, our protagonist suffering from an uncaring family, a broken engagement and unverified accusations, and a lot of dead bodies (at one point a puppy is murdered, for those of you who want to add this title to Does the Dog Die?). And yet throughout the book there are bouts of comedy, at times so broad that I wondered if it was parody. This comes to a climax at the climax of the book, appropriately enough, where ferreting out a horrible man and a literal murderer descends into exposing the world’s two dumbest people. The author says that it was deliberate, so well done, I guess, but I’m not actually sure if it worked or not.

Leia Westoria is the saint of the kingdom, whose magical barriers help prevent monster incursions. She’s also engaged to a duke. And she has a younger sister who is NOT the Saint and is NOT engaged to a duke, but is very good at crying on a dime and making gullible people believe what she says – which is that Leia is abusing her. This includes Leia’s fiance, who breaks off the engagement and quickly gets engaged to Jill. Then, when she’s reinforcing barriers in the forest, the crown prince, Eric, drops by to accuse her as well. Leia, finally snapping (though really her mood is “overly serious and a bit passive” throughout the book, till the end), denies the accusations and tells the prince to actually investigate. The prince is taken aback, possibly because, as we learn, investigating is what he does. So he apologizes, and asks Leia to be one of his many bodyguards to protect him against the multiple assassins that arrive every day.

Some of the humor here *is* very good. I really loved Leia pointing out that the reasons the assassins have slowed is that whoever is sending them does not have an “infinite cauldron of assassins”, if only for the mental image. There is a Chinese stereotype girl who is an odd cross of Tenten and Shampoo but who is goofy enough to not be too offensive. Leia frequently has a taste for very dry humor. And the ending is so over the top that one cannot help but laugh. But there’s a black hole in this book, and it’s Jill, the “tragic heroine” of the title and a massive spoiled brat that I don’t think I’ve seen quite so bad in any other “villainess” title. She’s worse than anyone else you might think of. We also get her POV at times, which almost made me drop the book. It’s beneficial, as it helps sell the ending – it’s hard to be a mastermind when the pawn you decide to trick is unable to carry out a simple murder plot without cocking the whole thing up. But it’s hard to read.

This is multiple volumes, and I really hope Jill does not come back and this becomes an artifact title, but the fact that she’s not dead at the end of this one leads me to think I will be seeing more of her. If you like straightforward, serious protagonists facing off against a girl so dumb she will happily murder a puppy for the guy she has a crush on, this is ridiculous enough to give you what you want.

Filed Under: i abandoned my engagement because my sister is a tragic heroine, reviews
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