A Late-Start Tamer’s Laid-Back Life, Vol. 14

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By Yuu Tanaka and Nardack. Released in Japan as “Deokure Tamer no Sono Higurashi” by GC Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by A.M. Cola.

Another day, another attempt to squeeze 500 words out of “Yuto sure is a main character”. I’ve even compared it to Bofuri before, but the obvious comparison comes up again here. The designers of the game suddenly find that Yuto has done several random things that, when taken together, accidentally open up a boss battle well before they’re ready for it, so they have to make the boss more powerful, then they have to also give the players an out so that they don’t get too discouraged. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the help they give, and where the event takes place, and the connection means that guess who saves the day and gets the biggest bonus? Honestly, it’s a good thing that everyone adores Silver-Haired (some a bit too much), because they’re right, this game’s balance is always in danger of collapsing. Sorry about your daughter, my technician guy, it’s probably doomed. On the bright side, Yuto isn’t eating poison… yet. And romance is unlikely to be even one-sided here.

Yuto has always done things his own way, sometimes deciding to just relax and take it easy, so it should not be a surprise that he finds an area where he can literally weaponize being “chill”. (Later, he finds another one for being “rowdy”, with opposite yet comparable skill sets.) This allows him to do what he does best, which is make friends with NPCs, do things that make you smile, and then suddenly find he’s actually unlocked the key to the universe again. Then he’s asked by his friend Hamakaze (who seems like the sort of person who’s an overly stressed class president in the real world) to help her defeat some yokai… which ends up getting him more cute monsters. That he can play with in his new additions to his house, or take out on monster hunting quests, or break Alyssa’s mind again.

I do appreciate how we get the standard Alyssa breakdown here, but we’re also dragging in her co-worker… whose name, possibly deliberately, is Maple. It doesn’t matter who he tells, because he lacks the gamer common sense that everyone else has. This actually leads to the funniest joke in the book, where, during the final boss battle, he sees some of his weirder friends going all out, and asks Hamakaze if the more eccentric players are more powerful. She stares at him like he’s in The Office, and I get it. Yuto being oblivious to his own eccentricity is great. But it also underscores the other point of this series (and Bofuri), which is that there’s no way to play a game wrong. Just do what you want to do. Well, provided the designers agree with you. We do see in this volume that the folks who invented a game to be the complete opposite of this one bombed badly.

This series is in no danger of ending, and in no danger of having character development I could talk about. It is what it is. Relaxing fun.

Lady Bumpkin and Her Lord Villain, Vol. 6

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By Ageha Sakura and Kurodeko. Released in Japan as “Imokusa Reijou desu ga Akuyaku Reisoku wo Tasuketara Kiniiraremashita” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Vasileios Mousikidis.

This series continues to be pleasant. It has a nice cast, and after the drama of the last book, I was expecting a more lackadaisical one. That said, I’m starting to feel like Agnes does through most of this volume. I wish that the book would stop coddling me and actually go places. It’s been very clear for a while now that the author’s idea for the way the series goes began and ended with the first book. This is quite common with light novels, where the publisher says “It sold, write more”, and the author says “more what?”. I was wondering if the series might end with Agnes giving birth to her child, but no, that’s the beginning of this book, and it ends up going so smoothly and easily even Agnes is surprised. Worst of all, the author is aware that there is a certain lack of conflict in this volume, and brings back the series’ worst villain, Robin. Who is still the worst.

Six volumes in and we’re no closer to figuring out why the cover art always has a little chibi-Agnes floating around. I had wondered if it might be their future child, but no, Agnes gives birth to a healthy baby boy, named Solis. What’s more, not only does he have rare soil magic, but he’s seemingly been able to use it from inside the womb, as it turns out that was the reason behind Agnes’ magic soil powers in the last volume. That’s not to say she doesn’t do a lot of Cool Magic Tricks here, including essentially putting up a dome to protect the entire estate from a nasty storm. Unfortunately, Robin has escaped from his light novel stereotypes prison, and is helped out by an apathetic, aggrieved man from another country. They’re supposed to flee to that country, but Robin can’t help going to Sutrena to try to make Nazel’s life miserable.

To get the bad stuff out of the way, I hate Robin. I know that’s deliberate, but I hate how he’s written too. It’s interesting that one of the funnier things in the book was how Agnes got Robin to stop being obsessed with her – she put her old pancake makeup from Lady Bumpkin days back on. But yeah, Robin is stupid, arrogant, and terrible, and him being put back in prison also means we get a lot more “hah, it’s funny because prisons have lots of gay rape!” bits. On the bright side, I quite liked the aggreived foreign aide, who seems to realize that he’s on a mission where everyone will abandon him when it goes wrong, and when it does, he’s absolutely right. Fortunately, he’s in this series, so it turns out his magic is far more amazing than he expected. Also, because he’s in this series, Agnes wins him over with the sheer power of niceness, though he doesn’t fall for her.

So yeah, I’m basically reading this series on inertia, but I still want to read more, unlike her other JNC series I dropped recently. And we may get another child soon, if Nazel’s behavior at the end of this volume means anything. For fans of series with chibi-versions of the protagonist floating in the air for no reason.

Mercedes and the Waning Moon: The Dungeoneering Feats of a Discarded Vampire Aristocrat, Vol. 4

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By Fire head and KeG. Released in Japan as “Kaketa Tsuki no Mercedes: Kyūketsuki no Kizoku ni Tensei Shita kedo Suteraresō nanode Dungeon wo Seiha suru” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Maddy Willette.

I do love it when a character I 100% vibe with arrives on the scene. I love, as I have said in a few reviews before, incredibly strong, powerful women who are also dumb as a bag of hammers. It just tickles me. And we get that in spades here with Julia, a vampire who’s on the side of the bad guys and actually forces Mercedes to try. See, she’s not only strong, but it seems to be entirely instinctual – she hasn’t been taught anything, but when she sees a move she’s able to work out counters and the like just on her own. And she’s also the funny kind of dumb, which is important. She will fall for them pretending to be on her side and spill all sorts of secrets. The big bad, when their plans inevitably go south, assumes it’s her fault simply because she causes chaos wherever she is. I was so happy she wasn’t killed off.

Things are going pretty well for Mercedes, though she’s still struggling with the whole succession thing. Unfortunately, Sieglinde may be the official princess, but the country does not really want her to rule, especially since the empire next door were all misandrists. So she’s got to get married, and the person who marries her will have all the power. Then Mercedes gets a visit from a guy named Basil, who she notes looks exactly like a typical anime bad guy (he looks a lot like Gin from Bleach, in fact). Basil says that there is, in fact, another royal with a claim to the throne – and he has a dungeon. Sure, he’s a naive ten-year-old who is clearly being set up as a puppet king, but that’s irrelevant – he has a dungeon, and he’s male. How are they going to handle this?

As it turns out, the backstory that led to all this turns out to be rather convoluted, especially since it means that there’s another person with a connection to the royal family. My favorite part of the book was possibly Mercedes’ unreliable narrator moment. To be fair, it’s not without signposts – there are several points where she notes that she’s being too kind or too soft, and we think “wait, back up, Mercedes? Too soft?”. But her father clocks her right away, and instantly lays out her entire thought pattern in three paragraphs. It’s very clear that whenever this series ends (I’m estimating 1 or 2 more books), it’s going to end with Mercedes battling her father for supremacy. In the meantime, congratulations to the country, which now has its royal who can be king, and he’s at least semi-competent. Oh yes, and the little boy who was being manipulated is not killed but put in prison instead. I’m sure that will be FINE.

The 5th volume is not out yet, so get ready to wait. This is a decent little OP cynical vampire series, even if I could have done without hearing about how vampire’s breasts never sag because of their eternal youth (or, in the case of Mercedes, eternal tweenhood).