The Oblivious Saint Can’t Contain Her Power: Forget My Sister! Turns Out I Was the Real Saint All Along!, Vol. 2

May 5, 2024 by Leave a Comment

By Almond and Yoshiro Ambe. Released in Japan as “Mujikaku Seijo wa Kyō mo Muishiki ni Chikara o Tare Nagasu: Imadai no Seijo wa Anede wa Naku, Imōto no Watashi Datta Mitai Desu” by Earth Star Luna. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Dawson Chen.

Last time I mentioned that this book was unsubtle about letting the reader know exactly what was going to happen next. This volume is a bit better, but that might just be because everything that happens to Carolina in this book is done to put off her happy ending some more. Which is ironic, given that she gets married to Ed at the start of the book. This leads to the most frustrating part of the book, which is where Ed, on their wedding night, says that he wants to wait a little longer before consummating their relationship as he worries he cannot control his heathen lusts and will break his new bride with her enormous… lovemaking skill. Unfortunately, all I could think to myself was “oh goddammit, they need to not have screwed so that some third party can declare the marriage invalid later on”. Cue the cliffhanger to this book…

Despite the occasional assassination attempt, Carolina and Edward are ready for their wedding at last, and the wedding itself goes without a hitch. Unfortunately, on their honeymoon they go to the domain of Carolina’s handmaiden Marisa, who turns out to have a backstory that’s quite similar to Carolina’s, with a horrible sister and a surprise engagement. Then she goes to get her magic tested, and discovers that the reason that the magic test came up blank for her was that she basically broke the test. She’s really a divine bearer, and this explains why the kingdom has been so fertile and monster free since she arrived (and why Flora is now failing and her old kingdom is in crisis). Amidst all this, she also volunteers to heal Edward’s brother Gilbert… but this leads to problems of its own.

Last time I asked why they couldn’t do the obvious thing and just test her for magic and heal the prince when the signs were obvious? The answer turns out to be “we need a plot for the second book”, but honestly I’m glad we waited, as it allows us to get a better look at Gilbert. He’s a lot less pleasant than he looked when we first met him, and shares something with his younger brother – an obsession with Carolina. It’s never QUITE made clear how much of this is sheer amazed gratitude and worship for essentially near healing his fatal condition almost immediately, and how much of it is love at first (well, second) sight, but at least he has the presence of mind to recall that Carolina is already married. Unfortunately, that leads him to pull a “I will make my brother who does not make time for her new bride jealous” story, which really didn’t sit well with me. Honestly, both of these princes feel a bit predatory. Perhaps Edward was right to hold off on the wedding night.

In any case, the third volume will no doubt feature Celestia reaching out to Edward to ask “hey mister, can we have our ball back?”. Till then, this is pretty good, but something about the characters kind of grates on me in general.

Filed Under: oblivious saint can't contain her power, reviews

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
Next Page »