Tearmoon Empire, Vol. 11

January 7, 2024 by Leave a Comment

y Nozomu Mochitsuki and Gilse. Released in Japan as “Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Madeleine Willette.

(This review gets a bit spoilery about the fate of one of the main characters, be warned. Though I try to glide over it.)

We’ve seen Tearmoon Empire be a fun comedy, and we’ve seen it be an action thriller, and we’ve seen it be a romance as well. But we really have not seen it as a dark tragedy. Or rather, it’s only been seen in flashbacks to the bad future, where we see the consequences of Mia being unable to save everyone and getting executed. And that’s tended to be more along the lines of “my God, what have I done?” The latter half of this book, though, goes as closely as this series is likely to get into the tragedy mode, and I’m kicking myself that I did not pick up on the ominous foreshadowing in the last volume, which I cheerfully thought was “oh boy, secrets are going to be told once this arc gets finished!”. Unfortunately, this leads to the question of “why won’t secrets actually be told?”, and the answer is possibly “because the person with the secrets is now dead.”

We pick up where the last book left off, with the race between Mia, on her “slow but steady wins the race” horse, and Xiaolei, on her “fastest in the land” horse. If you’re suspecting we’re seeing a retelling of the Tortoise and the Hare fable, you’re pretty much dead on. Mia is, of course, trying her best NOT to win, for various reasons, but we already know how that’s going to go. She does, however, manage to unite the tribes. Which is good, as unfortunately while this was going on Citrina was kidnapped by the Chaos Serpents, led by Abel’s older sister Valentina. Mia goes to rescue her, and oddly she is allowed to take other people with her, such as Abel and Dion. Why, it’s almost like the Serpents’ goal is not merely to kill off Mia but something far more sinister…

This is the second book I’ve read recently that felt like a final volume of the series, enough so that the author needs to assure us it’s not the end. The cliffhanger ending helps, as we’re introduced to what appears to be yet another Tearmoon from the future (?). As for the book itself, Mia is pretty great in it (I always enjoy a good “I won’t let the villains die, that would be too easy on them, they will have to live on” plot), but honestly the emotional lifting is done by Citrina and Bel. I joked on Twitter that since Mia had changed the future so that she doesn’t suffer, Citrina had become Tearmoon Empire’s designated woobie, and it’s not wrong. The other reason that this feels like a final volume is that we get a ton of flashforwards to “the good future”, the one Mia will eventually get to, with everyone alive and married off. It’s nice to actually *see* Grandma Mia rather than just hear about her. As for Citrina… well, I suspect the start of Book 12 will help. At least, I hope so.

I haven’t even mentioned the other high point of the volume, where Valentina tells us what the Chaos Serpents actually are. This was one of the best in the series. And again, the arc ended at the end of the book! Keep it up!

Filed Under: reviews, tearmoon empire

Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!, Vol. 17

January 6, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By FUNA and Itsuki Akata. Released in Japan as “Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne!” by SQEX Novels. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Diana Taylor. Adapted by Maggie Cooper.

This one is really doing its best to trick you into thinking it’s the final volume. Hell, look at the cover, which screams “and the adventures continue…” And to be fair, that is how it ends, it’s just we go along with everyone when they continue their adventures. But what this amounts to, honestly, is a soft reboot of the series, which had grown fat and placid on its regular cast, sci-fi backstory, and ended the last book with Mile having finally visited the final “non-human” race she wanted to see, and announcing to the world that the invasion of monsters from another dimension is imminent. There’s nothing left to do but have the final battle, which takes up the first 40% of the book. But after that? What do you do when you’ve won? Worse, what do you do when you revealed all because you were planning on dying, but then DON’T die?

We pick up right where we left off, with Mile imitating the MGM lion as she broadcasts herself to everyone in the continent. She then explains that the invasion is coming in the next few days, that most of the armies who have to deal with it won’t make it in time, but that’s OK, because the Crimson Vow will take on all 100,000 monsters for them. She also reveals that she’s Adele von Ascham. And “Miami Satodele”, for that matter. From there, the four of them go off to certain death… and are very surprised to find that the ENTIRE cast has come to help them in the final battle. Really, everyone who can fight shows up here, including the elves, the demons, and the dragons. Hell, I was expecting Lenny to show up (she did not, but we do see her later on). The battle is indeed tough – they absolutely would have lost without the help of everyone – but they prevail. And… um… the battle was also accidentally broadcast to the continent via Mile’s MGM widescreen. Whoops.

So yeah, now they’ve all achieved their goals. They’re all nobility. Pauline has a successful business. Mavis is an S-rank hunter and is Mile’s holy knight. Reina is also an S-rank hunter, and can publish her memoir. And Mile… has been captured by everyone who’s been trying to catch her since Book 1, and is now being forced to be The Holy Saint. Needless to say, after six months of this they’re all bored out of their gourds. So it’s time for that soft reboot – they all run away and go to a completely different continent. (the Wonder Trio, as well as the Princess, follow them, because we can’t leave EVERYONE behind.) This will allow the author to start over with slightly different baselines – for one thing, the monsters in this new continent are a LOT smarter than the ones we’re familiar with. That said, Mile is still Mile. I’m sure it will be fine.

If you were looking for an excuse to stop reading the series, this is basically the perfect volume to do so. If you want more Mile and company, good news, that’s coming. This was a fun “finale” that wasn’t.

Filed Under: didn't I say to make my abilities average in the next life?!, reviews

Earl and Fairy: The Spectral Lover

January 4, 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.

This review, by necessity, features major spoilers for this volume, and I recommend not reading it till you finish it. I will put the cover (which does not spoil) first to allow you to avoid the spoiler.

Earl and Fairy’s first volume was clearly written as a one-shot. Most series are. Not everything is created to be a massive hit without having to actually sell the books first. And sometimes authors look back at decisions they made in the first book, when they were not expecting it to be, say, a 33-volume behemoth, and think “man, why did I do that plot twist? It worked great for a single book, but I could have done so much more with the character?” Mizue Tani was clearly thinking exactly that when she was writing up the plot of this volume, which features… well, come on, you have to guess what I’m talking about given I’m discussing major plot twists from the first book. She’s back, there’s a supernatural explanation, and it’s cool.

Edgar has been attending a seance held by a suspicious medium (one who seems to recognize him) that is meant to help a mourning woman marry off her late daughter’s ghost. Oddly, someone else is also attending the seance pretending to be him… and creating nasty rumors in the tabloids, rumors that Lydia (who doesn’t trust Edgar more than she can throw him) immediately believes. She’s also annoyed that she has to pretend to be engaged to him for reasons we saw in the last book. Then she’s promptly kidnapped (again, it’s that sot of series) and when Edgar and Raven track her down, she seems to genuinely be possessed by the spirit of the woman’s dead daughter. Well, possibly her daughter. And also only possessed half the time. Is this another of Ulysses’ clever plots?

So yeah, Ermine’s back. Arguably this ruins the tragedy of her death in the first volume, but frankly I always found her death in the first volume rather annoying, so I don’t really mind this all too much. She’s now a selkie, as apparently this is how she was saved from death in the first place. Unfortunately, having betrayed Edgar and Raven in Book 1, she’s got to do it again, this time because Ulysses has her “skin”, in the form of a glass bead, which if destroyed will kill selkies for real. We’ll see how long she lasts this time around before what I suspect will be a slightly better death. As for Lydia and Edgar, he is at least starting to get why she doesn’t trust him in the least – he has to stop treating her like a solution to his problems. That said, I think most of the readers are siding with him more than her right now – we do want a romance novel, after all.

I greatly enjoy the writing in this series, because (I have observed) it’s nothing like modern light novels. Anyone looking for something different, come get this.

Filed Under: earl and fairy, reviews
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