The Saga of Tanya the Evil: Dum Spiro, Spero, Part 1

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By Carlo Zen and Shinobu Shinotsuki. Released in Japan as “Youjo Senki” by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by James Balzer.

It’s been 15 months since the last volume of this series in English, and this one has a new translator as well. That said, it was 42 months between the 12th and 13th volume in Japan, so I think we lucked out there. To reverse this luck, Japan got the 14th volume only one month later, whereas we have to wait another six months or so. That said, after everything happening in this volume, I’m exhausted, and don’t mind a wait. I don’t think we’re quite in the final arc of the series – the Unified States haven’t fully joined the war yet – but we’re nearly there, and this volume throws us back at the Federation/Empire conflict, with not-Russia having a very cunning plan to win the battle and possibly win the war. It’s so cunning, in fact, that even Zettour doesn’t pick up on it, which leaves Tanya and company in a bit of a pickle, since they’re soldiers, and it’s bad form to do things without actual orders. Unfortunately, without orders, they’ll all die.

The Empire (including the Emperor and the royal family, who we’ve seen little of in this series) are expecting a fantastic victory from the Empire’s glorious military. The glorious military, unfortunately, is rapidly realizing that everything hinges on Zettour, and that’s bad, because if anything happens to him, the entire war collapses. Meanwhile, Tanya and her crew are back on the Eastern Front, and are somewhat disturbed by how… quiet it is. Technically this is good, right? It means that, as they thought, the Federation is not going to attack till at least spring. They *do* find a mage battalion, but they’re all weak and are taken out super easily. Everything’s coming up roses… so why is Tanya’s danger sense tingling? As it turns out, she’s 100% correct, and the Empire is now facing an unprecedented attack along the ENTIRE front. They need immediate orders to retreat or they’ll all be slaughtered. Unfortunately, the general at the front is MIA. What can Tanya do?

I was delighted to see a lot of Visha in this book. Let’s face it, I can do without Tanya talking about military history and what a good, kind person she is for 380 pages a pop, but give me some of Visha being the happiest adjutant around and I’m fine. I still suspect that all of Tanya’s unit except Tanya are going to die before the series ends, but hope springs eternal. As for the plot itself, well, not to spoil too much, but the climax of this volume relies on Tanya having to essentially do something that would normally get her court-martialed and executed (Bruce McCandless is mentioned) but, because she’s surrounded by people who trust her utterly, she’s able to do it. Given the whole “The Evil” designation for this series – and don’t get me wrong, she’s committed atrocities – it’s startling how she’s (presumably, hi, cliffhanger) able to survive here because her command group have all been with her for years and know what she’s capable of. Now – will it work?

Probably, but things are STILL going very badly for the Empire. Assuming you can get past the dense prose, this is still interesting. If you can’t, the manga reads better and also has more than two women in it.

Spy Classroom Short Story Collection: Honeymoon Raker

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By Takemachi and Tomari. Released in Japan as “Spy Kyoushitsu” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nathaniel Hiroshi Thrasher.

I’ve mentioned before that Spy Classroom drops far more short story volumes than most light novel series. This is the third, and there’s a fourth one coming after the next main volume in the series. The short story collections all take their subtitles from James Bond films, and this one is no exception. This one also has a purpose: just as the 2nd SS book had all the Lily stuff that the author had to cut out of the 4th book, this has all the bonding between Lamplight and Avian that had to be removed from the 5th. Which means, yes, it’s one last round for Avian, who have now been dead for five books but keep coming back for more punishment nevertheless. Of course, they’re all alive here, and since we already saw them abusing our heroines in the main series, these are a far more gentle series of short stories… mostly. Towards the end, we finally get to see exactly how Avian died, and it’s just as brutal as you’d expect.

The “honeymoon” part of the book just means that this takes place when Avian are in between missions and freeloading at Lamplight HQ, leading to the following short stories: 1) Pharma uses the three youngest members of Lamplight to catch a pedophile politician, much to Sara’s horror (she is one of the three); 2) Lan tries to avoid getting killed by Annette for calling her a “runt” in the main series, and also tries to catch a member of a gang of ex-spies, with Monica’s help… sort of; 3) Annette is trying to get a stray cat she saw in the alley by the docks to open up to her, and Queneau is there to tell her it’ll never happen as long as Annette is the way she is; 4) Avian continue to try to catch the ex-spies, as well as continuing to try to get one over on Klaus, but are horrified to find Lamplight are better at that than they are; 5) everyone comes together – if only by accident – to take on the leaders of the ex-spies; and 6) Avian gets brutally slaughtered, leading to Book 6 of the main series.

I’ve already said that Sara is my favorite character, but Annette may be the most interesting character, if only as she has the farthest to go in terms of character development. Her story may be the most predictable in this book (also, content alert, there are murdered animals in this part), but it’s also the most needed, as she’s told point blank that she needs to “alter her nature” in order to obtain her goals. Annette experiences loss here for possibly the first time she’s conscious of, and I wonder if it will impact her going forward. Most of these stories are an inverse of the 5th book, which was there to show us why Lamplight were so bad compared to Avian. Here we see, in cases other than pure combat, Lamplight have better teamwork and better planning, mostly as Avian doesn’t work as a team but as a bunch of folks who work together. They almost manage to get past this… before that ending.

Each of the SS collections has been better than the previous, which pleases me. Next time we’re back to the main story, which apparently starts its third arc.

I’m the Strongest in This Zombie World, But I Can’t Beat This Girl!, Vol. 1

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By Ryou Iwanami and TwinBox. Released in Japan as “Zombie Sekai de Ore wa Saikyou dakedo, Kono Ko ni wa Katenai” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Eriko Sugita.

Yes, it’s that time again. The time when Sean picks out a title that he normally would never touch with a ten foot pole and gives it a try to see what the people who don’t read what I read are reading. The author of this series has been active in light novel circles for over a decade, with various small run series, but this is their first license over here, I believe. And it’s a weird combination of ecchi romcom and zombie survival horror. Even the author admits that they didn’t think it would get picked up when they pitched it. So, with that in mind, how is it? Well, it does its job. It knows exactly what a readership who want zombies and a readership who want an ecchi harem title need, and it gives us both of them. There’s innuendo galore, and lots of saucy, sexy situations (with no sex). There’s also grim zombie deaths. And then there’s our hero, who… well, now, that’s the story.

Yuuma, the nebbish high school boy who always seems to star in these sorts of things, is in class one day when suddenly there’s a zombie outbreak. As everyone panics and gets bitten, he’s the only one to get out of the school. Unfortunately, he gets bitten by his zombie family when he goes home. Devastated, he lies by the riverside and awaits zombiefication. Just then, the younger sister of his childhood friend, Haruka, shows up. She isn’t a zombie, but is upset, as you might imagine, with current events. He reveals his own condition, and somehow the conversation ends up with her allowing him to grope her breasts before he dies. Then he turns zombie… but manages to revert, because he really wants to protect Haruka. Now he can switch between zombie and human… and also has a girlfriend? Maybe?

The general rule of thumb is you’re allowed one ridiculous handwave in your book. Obviously, the handwave for this series is that Yuuma can switch back and forth between being human and being a zombie because he’s just that good. Well, OK, the end of the volume hints that it may be more than that, as zombies really want to get at his blood, and his saliva can also cure zombiedom. Which means he has to make out with one of the other girls every few hours. I’ll be honest, this is still not my bag. But the zombie horror and discussion of existential zombie issues is done reasonably well. And, given its genre, the ecchi harem stuff is also done well. There’s four heroines, each a different “type”, lots of discussion of boobs and looking up skirts, etc. It manages to do what that genre should do without getting too skeevy. (It is a little skeevy, but that’s the genre.)

I’m not sure how invested in this series Yen is, given they got the name of the heroine wrong in both the first novel’s blurb and the second novel’s blurb. (Her name is Haruka Hyuuga, but some Naruto fan has sabotaged things, as the website designated her “Haruka Hinata” in the first one and “Hinata Hyuuga” in the second. I gotta say, Haruka is NOTHING like Hinata from Naruto. More of a Sakura type.) Anyway, digression aside, if you like zombies and boobs, this is right up your alley. As for me, back to villainessin’, I guess.