Stuck in a Time Loop: When All Else Fails, Be a Villainess, Vol. 3

May 4, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Sora Hinokage and Tsukasa Kiryu. Released in Japan as “Loop kara Nukedasenai Akuyaku Reijō wa, Akiramete Sukikatte Ikirukoto ni Kimemashita” by DRE Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Andria McKnight.

At the end of the last volume I wondered where else the story could take us, and hoped that Selene had a “love epiphany”. Well, I got half my wish. She definitely has an epiphany. And while that is eventually good news for the future of the world this book takes place in, but it’s very bad news for every main and supporting character in this series. Honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised. This has always been on the darker end of Villainess books, so wrapping up with a “now we can get married and live a happy, peaceful life” would have felt wrong somehow. We certainly don’t get that, as Selene gets some very bad news about where the last two demons are located, and realizes that, in order to really, *really* fix things, she will have to weaponize being a hated villainess and make it her own.

As Selene opens the book, things are very quiet, with the only worry being Euclis wanting someone to kill him. The other problem, of course, is that they’ve killed four of the six monsters that threaten the world, and the other two are proving very difficult to find… at least until Etoile gets a future vision that tell him the fifth monster is a lot closer to King Euclid than anyone is really comfortable with. Someone has to deal with it, and since Selene is, frankly, the most powerful of them, it’s up to her. Unfortunately, she then discovers the location of the last monster. What follows is inevitable but will also lead to her downfall, so she needs to come up with a solution that will resolve *all* of this – the guardians, the king, the powers, her time loops, and Dier’s immortality – once and for all. That that solution is… well, it’s a happy ending IN A WAY.

The main reason this book succeeds and does not become just depressing as hell is the ongoing dissonance between Selene’s deadpan narration (and, if I’m honest, deadpan personality) and her kindness, which only seems to come out at times when she is forced to make a horrible but necessary decision. The decision she makes, once it becomes clear that she does have to kill the king, is to fight fate. In fact, it’s to essentially slaughter fate and burn the corpse, in an effort to ensure that the cycle of this happening over and over, Dier being immortal but sad, and her being constantly killed and getting increasingly jaded. At least here she can weaponize that jadedness. I did appreciate that almost everyone gets that something is going on – no one, especially not Dier or her sister, believe she’s suddenly turned mad with power, and they all know she’s kind. It is a bit frustrating having her blow off telling them what she’s actually doing, but I get it.

So, in the end, it all ends in fire… minus a cute epilogue that is thematically appropriate but perhaps a bit too pat for my liking. This was a solid little tragedy in the end, a nice change of pace from other “you are NO LONGER my fiancee!” books.

Filed Under: reviews, stuck in a time loop

Rising from Ashes: My Dear Emperor, You’re Putty in My Hands!, Vol. 2

May 3, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Makino Maebaru and Yoko Matsurika. Released in Japan as “Torotoro ni Shite Sashiagemasu, Kōtei Heika. Moto Konyakusha ni Ie o Yakareta Tsuihō Miko wa, Ringoku Kōtei ni Chōai Sarete Sainō o Hanahirakaseru” on the Shōsetsuka ni Narō website. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Zihan Gao.

As with the first volume, this is a series that I find interesting for its darker elements more than the romance at its core (though I will admit to a fondness for Sai’s dorky maid, who at one point vows to defend her mistress by hitting a man with a broom over and over… and then we fond out he’s the king of a foreign nation. Luckily, he’s amused). Lilly, the Saint who has been busy destroying Sai’s home country since the start of the first book, is barely in this. When we do finally see her, at the very end, Sai is there to sacrifice her own life to send Lilly back to Japan… which is a shame, as Lilly would rather die than go back there. In fact, that’s her goal. She’s riveting, and I wish her fate was a bit less vague.

Everything’s been going well for Sai lately. The Wagtail Priestess is hideously popular… indeed, perhaps a bit TOO popular, as a visit to an island that’s also a penal colony proves. Indeed, she’s so popular that she’s getting a lot of marriage proposals… mostly as her daughter will, of course, have the same powers. But there’s a slight hiccup – Sai’s in love with the Emperor, and the Empress can’t be the Wagtail priestess because *she* has to give birth to the next God. And that’s not even getting into Sai’s terminally low self-image. With all this going on, honestly, a request from her old country, which is now being completely destroyed, to get rid of the Saint might be a welcome distraction.

A bit of a spoiler here, but it’s also my biggest issue with this series: given that so much of Sai’s personality and backstory revolves around her beloved parents dying in war and her abusive, Cinderella before the ball childhood, the revelation that her parents *are* still alive… and in fact that she has a sister… really reads like a rabbit out of the hat too many. Then again, it might have been the only way to possibly get the writer out of the hole they’d written themselves into. When you have various things that can only be done by sacrificing life, magic, or life AND magic, sometimes it helps to have a spare daughter who can take up the slack. The book ends rather abruptly in general, to be honest. The fate of Centoria, with a queen who was presented as being very sympathetic, is basically “eventually the country fell” with no other explanation. And Haruka and Sai’s wedding is confined to an “extra story”, not even wrapping up the main series. Ah well.

As with the first volume, this wasn’t terrible or anything, but it’s definitely in third place (of three) in terms of series by this author which have come out over here.

Filed Under: reviews, rising from ashes

Making Jam in the Woods: My Relaxing Life Starts in Another World, Vol. 3

May 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Kosuzu Kobato and Yuichi Murakami. Released in Japan as “Mori no Hotori de Jam wo Niru: Isekai de Hajimeru Slow Life” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Jade Willis.

The author says in the afterword that the webnovel version of this series ended with the second book, and that this third volume was an “after story” written for the published books. That might be a bit of a surprise given that this book ends with Margaret and Mark’s wedding, which you would have expected to end the series proper, and also that it manages to (mostly) resolve the other open-ended romance in the series. But it also does explain some things, like the total lack of conflict in this volume. If this is a final volume, there’s no real resolution of the “Spirit Caller” plotline. Sure, Margaret does meet with the Spirit herself, and we learn a little bit about her that may have odd implications, but in the end if that scene wasn’t in this book nothing would change. This volume is pleasant little scenes that chug along until we get to the end. And honestly, that’s fine.

Margaret and Mark are together, and she’s living a happy life with Adelaide and Daniel, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more things to do. First of all, there’s jam making, as Rachel (who is very carriage sick, as Walter is too busy and couldn’t come) returns so they can hang out and talk about romance together. Then Margaret finally goes to the capital,,, not to meet the royal family, but so that she can sign off on the illustrations for her children’s book, which have an incognito artist. After this, Walter, who has been doing nothing but work for the past x months, finally collapses, and is forced to both take time off and have to face up to the fact that Rachel is in love with him… and also getting proposals from other men. And Margaret also finds that her total lack of mana makes her ideal in dealing with the children at the magic academy, all of whom suffer from too much of it.

I will admit by the end of the volume I was wondering if this series started off as one of those recipes you see online, the kind that can’t give you directions without a long story first. The jam making is detailed for pages on end, and I’d be interested in seeing if anyone tries it out using this volume. I will admit I was briefly worried when Rachel met the Spirit and got her voice back, but it turned out that this was something that could only happen when she was in Spirit Land, so when she returns she is still mute and her leg is still not quite healed. I appreciated this, as it underlines the actual plot revelation from Book 2: Margaret’s summoning was entirely by accident. In the last scene in this book, Margaret wonders to Mark if her life will continue to be troublesome due to her calling. I’m not sure, I suspect as her life goes on the crisis moments will continue to be small in number, and the jam making, trying on dresses, and being good with kids will take up far more.

In the end, this series is just NICE. I’m glad I read it.

Filed Under: making jam in the woods, reviews
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