The Ideal Sponger Life, Vol. 14

December 1, 2023 by Leave a Comment

By Tsunehiko Watanabe and Jyuu Ayakura. Released in Japan as “Risou no Himo Seikatsu” by Hero Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by MPT.

And so the author has finally achieved his dreams. We’re 14 volumes into a series that began with the idea that our hero was being isekai’d solely to impregnate a queen for the sake of the country, and he never would have to do anything else. Now, 14 volumes later, the sex is basically absent, there’s not even any action in this volume, and the entire book is devoted to political wrangling, all of which needs to be done by Zenjirou, because Aura can’t exactly go gallivanting all over the world. We are now finally in complete, 100% opposition to the title of the series. Fortunately, in this case that’s a good, thing. The worldbuilding is stepping up its game, and we’re also (finally!) seeing a lot of Aura in this volume, and seeing how she is stating to deal with Freya now that she’s married to Zenjirou and living in the same palace. It actually goes pretty smoothly, though now that Freya has gotten her man her eccentricity is more pronounced than ever.

Everyone is back in Capua, at least for the moment. That said, there’s a lot still to do. Lucretia is still trying to become Zenjirou’s second concubine, and while she’s changed her approach to be more mild, she still doesn’t really get him, and does not understand why “I have no actual wants or needs beyond what you have for me” is a bad thing. Aura, meanwhile, hears a secret from the Twin Kingdoms that is potential dynamite – they were once part of the White Empire, long long ago. And there’s a high chance that some people still hold a grudge about it. This is also stunning news for Freya, who realizes that she may have accidentally gotten her little Northern country involved in a massive global conflict by her marriage. And then Zenjirou gets a very odd invitation…

There’s some very funny jokes in this book, most of them involving Freya. Having seen in the previous book that she is thought of in her own country as “that out of control lunatic”, we get to experience a bit of that here, with her having to be literally dragged away from the fridge in Zenjirou and Aura’s room and also declaring that she’s moving in with them when she sees the air conditioner. (Aura says no, sorry, threesome fans.) There’s also her twin brother, who is basically her as a man, and this is emphasized by the color artwork, showing each of them throwing the exact same tantrum when being told they can’t do something they really want to do. Mostly, though, this book is setup for the next major arc. Zenjirou is at a point where he has to accept Lucretia as a concubine, but it makes him unhappy, which will not help anything. And then there’s his mystery invitation. The next book should be really exciting.

Hrm? What’s that? We’re caught up? It’s been over two years since the last book in Japan? Ah well.

Filed Under: ideal sponger life, reviews

From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman: My Hotshot Disciples Are All Grown Up Now, and They Won’t Leave Me Alone, Vol. 1

November 30, 2023 by Leave a Comment

By Shigeru Sagazaki and Tetsuhiro Nabeshima. Released in Japan as “Katainaka no Ossan, Kensei ni Naru: Tada no Inaka no Kenjutsu Shihan Datta noni, Taisei Shita Deshitachi ga Ore o Hōttekurenai Ken” by SQEX Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

It can be difficult when writitng a book to keep the reader’s attention. Conversely, one little mistake may make you lose all the goodwill you gained. A little ways into this book, there was a description of a character that was saw jaw-droppingly awkward that it took me right out of the book. The first thing I thought was “oh boy, this book is going to be A CHORE”. Now, I kept going, and honestly, the book turned out far better than I would have expected – the description really was just a one-off, not the sign of worse things to come. But it did mean it took till the final long chapter for me to appreciate that this book wasn’t making the mistakes that a lot of books in this genre make, but was instead basically doing what Der Werwolf does, and making fun of the Japanese habit of humility to ridiculous levels.

Beryl has spent the last twenty-odd years teaching kids in his father’s dojo. He likes to think he’s done a good job, and is quite happy to live his single life out in the boonies. But then he gets a request from one of his old students, Allusia. She’s now the commander of the knights in the royal capital, and she wants Beryl to go there to teach the other knights his swordsmanship. This is fine with Beryl’s dad, who kicks him out of the family home and tells him not to return until he’s married. So Beryl goes to the capital, and keeps running into old students of his, who all happen to be beautiful young women. That said, why are they all so interested in his teaching swordsmanship? He’s just a normal, average, everyday guy. Who can, um, win a battle against the second-in-command of the knights, the top-ranked adventurer in the country, and the top mage in the country. Yeah.

I picked up this series because I wondered if it would be similar to S-Ranked Daughter, and it is and it isn’t. It isn’t because, with no family to deal with here, all the girls he’s taught clearly have massive crushes on him. But it is because, to my surprise, that’s not the point of the book. The romance is actually ignored for the most part, and the focus is instead on Beryl being one of the greatest swordsmen of his generation but being totally unaware of it. This actually extends to every aspect of his life – he does not pick up on any of the signals other women give that they’re into him, and he even talks about his home village being “way out in the boonies, far from the capital” when it’s less than a day’s carriage ride away. How much you enjoy this depends entirely on how much you can tolerate “excessive humbleness” to the point of parody.

But yes, there were no annoying characters, the fights were cool, and I’ll give the next volume a try. Just please never say ‘She looked like a handsome man with breasts” ever again, I beg you.

Filed Under: from old country bumpkin to master swordsman, reviews

Sabikui Bisco, Vol. 6

November 29, 2023 by Leave a Comment

By Shinji Cobkubo and K Akagishi. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jake Humphrey.

You know, I appreciate its use as a plot twist or a way to get the characters to do something they would not normally do, but as I was reading this 6th volume of Sabikui Bisco, I began to think that this series goes to the “I am mind controlled” well a few too many times. Half the cast in this book is, at one time or another mind controlled, including Pawoo, who spends nearly the entire volume at the beck and call of the villain. It can be a tad predictable. That said, I can’t really talk about just mind control. Sabikui Bisco is a series that overdoes everything and dares the reader to object. This volume has reality-warping powers pulled out of nowhere, to the point where everyone remarks on this. It brings back every single cast member of the last five books to do a cameo. It has Milo veer so far into the yandere stereotype that I’m comfortable using the term. The book is just A LOT.

Kurokawa, the villain of the first book, is back. She’s in a female body now, she’s a film director, and she’s taken over all of Japan. If you’re thinking that makes no sense, clearly you have not read the other volumes of this series. Bisco and Milo are forced into action by the evil director, who wants to use Bisco’s attempts to stop her as the plot of her latest film. To do this, she has her assistant director/muscle (Pawoo, mind-controlled as I noted before), as well as any number of minions wearing rabbit masks, who she will happily kill if they don’t get her film trivia correct. As the book goes on, and Bisco keeps pulling out ludicrous solutions to Kurokawa’s even more ludicrous problems, I am once again left with the odd dilemma: how do I sum up the plot in this second paragraph if the book doesn’t have one?

This may make it sound like I did not like the book, which is not true. I actually think it’s the best book since the first. The series has always had an element of “action movie” to it, which normally feels like a Shonen Jump series but here is far more like a Western action film, complete with expensive sequences and CGI. The author now trusts the reader to not particularly care that none of this makes a lick of sense, or that Bisco can defeat the bad guy if everyone just claps for Tinkerbell (the second time I have written that this week). And, as with previous volumes, I am highly amused at the contrast between every single woman in the series falling for Bisco, and he and Pawoo still being married, with the fact that he and Milo are clearly destined for each other and the gayest things ever. The whole book is ridiculous.

But that’s why we read this. I don’t need self-examination from Bisco, even when he goes through genuine tragedy. Just keep pulling out more arrows.

Filed Under: reviews, sabikui bisco
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