Spy Classroom Short Story Collection: From Inferno with Love

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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.

We may have finally drained the Avian well dry (or maybe not – I hear there’s another spinoff just started that features them), but that doesn’t mean we’re going back to the main girls for these short stories. In fact, as the cover might suggest, the main girls, with one or two minor exceptions, don’t appear in this story at all. That’s because, despite the formatting, this really isn’t a short story collection at all, it’s a prequel, dealing with Inferno, the spy group Klaus was drafted into years ago, and how they trained him to be what he is today, as well as hinting at their tragic downfall. It honestly may be the best collection to date, and despite the ending being as sad as you’d expect (I am thankful the writer did not go full Se7en on us, but it was close enough that I did not like it), most of this can best be described as heartwarming or funny. Mostly as Inferno have adopted a feral cat. Named Klaus.

In a prologue, we see Guido, who we know well from the start of this series, coming across a terrifying monster who steals food and leaves it with kids. This turns out to be Klaus, who is ten years old and turns out to have been named by Guido. Klaus is feral, and I mean that sincerely. Over the course of the book, we get the other members of Inferno giving their brief opinions of Klaus (they like him, with the exception of the tsundere in the group), we get four stories. 1) Guido takes Klaus on his first mission, taking out a gang, as well as its leader who is busy trying to train his eldest daughter Sybilla to be a murderer; 2) Gerde takes Klaus on a mission to see who is killing a politician’s allies, and Klaus starts to gain empathy; 3) the twins take Klaus to another country to learn how to read people and also the fine art of triple crossing, and 4) Heide and Klaus go to see why their agents keep disappearing, and Klaus learns some unfortunate things. Well, unfortunate for him, Heide seems happy.

Heide was probably my favorite part of this book (and I was highly amused at the author writing it so that it made emotional and storytelling sense that they had sex, while at the same time leaving an out just in case it needs to be taken back later). Heide is an annoying older sister-style brat, but like a lot of those she is annoying out of love. Really, the whole group is great. Unfortunately, as Veronica points out, Klaus has gotten TOO close with them, too involved, and throughout this book we see her and Guido yelling at each other in the background, and we know how that turns out. The final story, written for this book (the other four were in Dragon Magazine) shows us where Klaus was when Inferno were wiped out, and the answer is “in a horror movie” essentially. Still, Klaus ends up taking the right lesson from his time with Inferno, and resolves to build a new family for himself. It’s really sweet, in a tragic spy sort of way.

Also check out the afterword, which has the author’s “stories that will never be written”, some of which are funny, and some of which are kind of creepy. The anime may have tanked this series,l but the books are still great.

Otherside Picnic, Vol. 10

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By Iori Miyazawa and shirakaba. Released in Japan as “Urasekai Picnic” by Hayakawa Bunko JA. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sean McCann.

(More spoilers than usual in this review.)

Since the famous Book 8, I’ve felt that this series is riding on a newfound confidence and swagger, and this volume does nothing to disabuse me of that feeling. Divided into three stories, the first shows us Sorawo’s conflicted and muddled feelings about her relationship with Toriko, and how normal tokens of affection such as a lap pillow can not only be twisted by jealousy but also turned into an Otherside encounter. In the second story they discuss Kozakura’s AI ghost story teller (which may be influencing things a lot more than expected), and then go meet Runa, who’s being let out of supernatural jail and being taken in by Tsuji, who still feels a bit dodgy. The final story decides things have not been scary enough, and makes up for that, with a terrifying journey into the Otherside involving bears, crows, lots of corpses, and the worst underground subway station out there. Fear not, though, they’re still constantly flirting with each other. In their own way.

I left out one part of the story, which is easily the funniest bit in the book. Toriko has decided she wants to meet Benimori, who Sorawo describes as a yokai who eats love stories. The idea that Sorawo finds a “normal” romance with Toriko to be scarier than any ghost story, to the point where she has in a way fashioned their relationship *into* a ghost story to make it palatable to her, really appeals to me. But that’s just from her point of view – we’ve talked before about how to others Sorawo and Toriko are just shamelessly flirting in front of everyone all the time. To Benimori, who lives very much in “the real world”, theirs is not a nue, it’s just a new love between two shy, awkward girls who still dance around their own pasts and their own feelings. Just because Sorawo doesn’t like to see it as a normal relationship doesn’t mean that normal relationshi0p advice can’t be good.

As the series has delved into a lot of the backstory back in the “real world”, we’ve seen the Otherside treks a bit less, so the back half of this book was a welcome change. That said, whoa baby a lot of that was pretty unnerving for me. It doesn’t help that it ties into Satsuki Uruma and her past with Toriko, who feels a bit ashamed of it but doesn’t deny it. And then there’s just the horror imagery – this is something else where I wonder how the manga will handle it, as there’s a lot of things that work best in the mind’s eye here. And it ends with a nasty little cliffhanger as well. Over the past few months, no one has made more of an impact on the Otherside than our two heroines, so naturally there are people who regard them as the greatest threat. They’re good at defending themselves against random horror – or not so random horror – but this feels more like they’re going to need to fend off assassins soon, which is a step up. Fun times!

And now we wait another 16-18 months again. Still compelling as hell.

The Devil Princess, Vol. 4

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By Harunohi Biyori and Geso Umiu. Released in Japan as “Akuma Koujo” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Julie Goniwich. Adapted by Emlyn Dornemann.

I’ve talked before about the sort of series that has a clear ending but keeps going as the publisher wants it to. I’m not sure that’s what’s going on here – the author seems to indicate they had this in mind at the start – but it’s pretty blatant, complete with an “End of Part One” at the finale. Yulucia spends most of this book marching towards the demon lands, where the demons are getting ready to invade humanity, and where her not-quite-ex-boyfriend is currently being held after being summoned. Once she gets there, she’s quickly so insanely powerful that everyone else just immediately agrees to do what she says – well, almost everyone. But she still has to go after a really tasty soul, and ends up dimension hopping, which does not have an easy fix. So while I have no doubt we’ll end up back in this world eventually, for now Yulucia looks to be playing around in one far more familiar to readers.

This series remains mostly half-horror half-comedy, and the funny bits still work well. Yulucia’s description of her entourage that goes with her to the demon lands is hysterical, and Nia’s accidental slaughter of 1/3 of the demon forces is darkly funny. That said, there are a few bits here that are even emotionally heartwarming. One of the bad guys is (like several people in this series) isekai’d from Japan, in this case via truck, and he’s made a deal with a demon so that he can get a chance to return to his newly wedded wife before she moves on and marries someone else. The resolution to this, which I was sure was going to be about as cynical as this series can get most of the time, proved touching. Even Yulicia’s “taking care of” her sister, which is kind of appalling, is at least appalling in a kind of sweet way?

If that sounds ambiguous it’s because this is still, at heart, a series that wants to be horror. Yulucia is after tasty souls. Some of her friends are also. Her relationship with the Demon Beast could be defined as “toxic” even in the most romantic sense. And the reason the series works well at showing this off is that she really is also the Saint who heals thousands at a time, or the goddess who can stop a major war just by talking to the other side, and be so gorgeous that some men just faint when they see her, and both her main love interests feel incredibly inadequate when they try to stand by her. (Oddly, the other sweet romance in this book ends up being between two of its most pathetic people, who decide to simply abandon the plot of this series and go be pathetic but happy together.) As for Yulucia? She’s a nightmare, but she does love her family… in her own way.

So next time we start… a new life? Transfer students? Not sure, but I’ll be here to see what’s next. A dark fantastic comedy.