I Shall Survive Using Potions!, Vol. 9

January 30, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By FUNA and Sukima. Released in Japan as “Potion-danomi de Ikinobimasu!” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hiroya Watanabe.

Again, I am trying to figure out the ideal audience for this series. First and foremost, it needs to be someone who is there for overpowered girls doing whatever the hell they want however the hell they want it, with money and powers being no problem. This is the core of all three FUNA light novel series. Secondly, you need to be really tolerant of underaged girls being cute. There’s no real fanservice in these books (which there has been in MMAA), mostly as the art style is so cartooney and abstract, but but it’s pretty clear we’re meant to go “aaaaaw, cute girls” for 200 pages. And, of course, the core audience has to enjoy seeing men get completely humiliated. This is especially true of Potions, where entire arcs consist of nothing but “completely destroy that guy who did me wrong until he cries and passes out”. If you are all three of these… well, you should also be reading Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, but yes, Potion Girl is right up your alley.

We pick up where we left off, with KKR trying to organize the downfall of that one scummy merchant guy. Which they proceed to do, and then they go after someone else who Kyoko hired to manage her store while she was away but who turned out to be sneaking a peek at her stock to try to replicate it. And then they go after the guy who hired the guy to do that. And then they go after the guy who employs THAT guy. It is a TAD ridiculous. More annoyingly, at least for the KR part of KKR, Kaoru disguises herself as the new girl she’s trying to make into a holy saint, does ludicrously impossible things while saying “I’m not suspicious”, and then assumes no one will say anything. This is said to be because of her soft nature, and fair (she was upset an innocent guard had his tendons cut), but overkill. Which, admittedly, is what the plot of this book is.

Pardon me if I get back onto a high horse I have gotten on before, but the orphans in this book drive me ding dong up the wall. It’s possible that they’re meant to be a parody of this trope – Potion Girl is so bonkers most of the time it’s hard to tell what it wants us to take vaguely seriously – But man, I hate the way this series, and FUNA’s other series, and, yes, Kuma Bear, treat orphans as “yay, child workforce!”. The implication is that with wages and benefits, they’re much better off than they were before. But the side story here shows the kids genuinely traumatized by the very idea of not working every hour of every day for their “savior”, and going so far as to frame work activities as “playtime” to slip through a loophole in Kaoru’s rules. This is meant to be amusing, but all I could think is: these kids need a therapist.

No FUNA series goes quite as hard as Potion Girl in terms of making you grab your head and shake back and forth. Recommended for those who know.

Filed Under: i shall survive using potions!, reviews

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 18

January 29, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Fujino Omori and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka?” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Dale DeLucia.

There’s no getting around it, this book is punishingly long. Not just because it’s 500 pages, though that is absolutely the case. It’s because it operates on the usual way that Omori writes giant action set pieces, which is to say “always darkest just before the dawn”, where the first part is the darkness, and the second part is the dawn. And because this is about 500 pages, it means we get about 175 pages of “darkest” in this book, which is a whole lot of time spent watching every likable character in the entire series getting the shit beaten out of them by Freya Familia. After a while I was tempted to do a search of the digital text I was reading for “Lyu”, because, not to spoil too much, but she is noticeably absent from the first half of this book. Which… is for the best, as apparently there was a whole Lyu side-story in this book originally, but it would have made it 650 pages, so the publisher said no.

It’s a battle royale between Freya Familiar and Hestia Familia. Unfortunately, Loki’s team has been forbidden from participating, and Ais has been forbidden from even SEEING Bell till this is over. As a result, once again, no one wants to team up with Hestia except her immediate friends and allies, even though the entire city is furious at Freya Familia for the events of the previous book but none of them are furious enough to be part of what is obviously a losing battle. The guild has basically said “this will end with Freya taking Bell, deal with it”. The battle itself is “hide and seek”, where all the involved Gods are wearing flowers and hiding, and the opposing team has to find them and remove the flowers. Of course, Freya Familia being who they are, they figure out a way to turn it into “beat the shit out of everyone” anyway.

Of course, the payoff is worth it. There are so many “punch the air triumphantly” moments in the back half of the book it’s impossible to list them all, with my favorite probably being the complete participation of the waitress staff at Fertility. We’ve been slowly getting everyone’s backstory over the last few books, so it’s wonderful to see it pay off, but the main reason that it works is because of Freya. Or rather, Syr. The issue here is not so much dissociative identity disorder but rather a milder version of what Sayo did in Umineko, and the resolution is that Freya has to accept that she and Syr are in fact both part of the same individual. No one wants to save Freya, frankly, except the misguided ones in her family. But there’s a TON of people who want to save Syr. The best moment in the book is the last scene, featuring a callback I had honestly forgotten about (I mean, it’s been 17 months since the last book) and a giant ball of heartwarming.

The idea that this is going to have a school arc fills me with dread, but at least it should be shorter. Till then, we’re done with this epic arc, and Freya is gone. Sort of. In a good way.

Filed Under: is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon?, reviews

The Princess of Convenient Plot Devices, Vol. 4

January 28, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Mamecyoro and Mitsuya Fuji. Released in Japan as “Watashi wa Gotsugou Shugi na Kaiketsu Tantou no Oujo de aru” by B’s-LOG Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Sarah Moon.

The plot of this book can basically be summarized as “fallout from the previous book”. Octavia wakes up to find herself back in her room at the castle, which is good… but she’s not allowed to leave the room, which is bad. What’s worse, Klifford is also being confined, and not “in his room”. Not only was Octavia wounded while he was guarding her, which is something that normally leads to being punished, but there’s a conspiracy to attack the royal family, and Octavia’s brother Sirius is convinced that Klifford is part of it. There is, to be fair, some evidence, but for the most part the main reason is just “I hate him”. Now Octavia has to talk herself out of her room, talk Klifford out of the dungeons, and go on the city tour that she was supposed to do before the party from the last book went all pear-shaped. And, oh yes, the King has revealed she discovered the True Crown.

This gives us a much closer look at Sirius and what his deal is… is what I’d like to say, but because so much of this is from Octavia’s POV, and she’s still having trouble figuring him out, it’s less than I’d like. This is not helped by the fact that she’s still trying to lay over the characters she knows from the BL series and the actual people that she has met as Octavia. One example is Hugh, Sirius’ guard, who in the series was one of Octavia’s allies in her support for her brother and Sil’s hot romance, but here is a lot more mysterious figure. In fact, he could stand to be a bit less mysterious. There’s a mystery culprit in this book that we don’t find out about, except it’s super obvious. In fact, probably deliberately obvious, given brain teaser questions like “what if your master gives you two opposing orders, which one do you follow”?

There is, of course, also the romance part of this book. We get occasional stabs at Octavia trying to find a “fake boyfriend” to save herself from a terrible life, but her lack of awareness about Klifford and his feelings is starting to seem very familiar to those readers who dread “oblivious” protagonists. I mean, they’re even sharing each other’s dreams! This actually leads to one of the scarier parts of the book, as Octavia dreams of Klifford being beaten nearly to death and then literally tossed in the water in a sack to drown, and it’s harrowing (she wakes up and can’t even hide from her maids the fact that she had a terrible nightmare). As for Klifford, he sees a young Octavia stare at this world’s equivalent of a Sakura tree – except it’s not the Sakura tree she knows, it blooms in autumn. He is despairing seeing her mourn the family that she has lost forever, even though he’s not sure why.

So yeah, still good, and the next book might wrap up this arc? Maybe?

Filed Under: princess of convenient plot devices, reviews
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