Repeated Vice: I Refuse to Be Important Enough to Die, Vol. 4

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By Kuroakawa Hitsugi and Kushiro Kuki. Released in Japan as “Repeat Vice: Akuyaku Kizoku wa Shinitakunai node Shitennou ni Naru no wo Yamemashita” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by piyo.

We’ve had a couple of “trapped in the world of a game” series with more than one person aware of it, but those tend to go a different way than this one is. Usually you get the main character figuring things out, trying to change their fate, etc. and we get the other character (often an evil heroine) simply waiting for their life to be the same as the game and getting upset when it is not. That’s not what we get here, as there are two people actively trying to push back against the game’s events… in a previous life, no less, so it’s a mashup of that as well… and occasionally struggling as they see things out of context. Lilka knows that Lofus is already quite different from before, and yet when she hears about him interacting with Fol, she immediately can’t help but thinking of Fol as being the same as the past world. It’s very hard to draw outside the lines of the coloring book in your head.

Lofus continues in this book to do what he does best: make everyone’s lives a much better place while being an absolute dick about it. He is, unfortunately, unable to find an easy fix for Iz’s wasting mana disease, but he does manage to forge new ties with a merchant who really likes Lofus… possibly a bit too much… and get his railroad started with the unwanted but grudgingly necessary help of Raymond, who is still trying to be the one to force Lofus back into the game plot. Meanwhile, Fol is doing her best to map the unmappable, and Lilka is continuing to be a sky pirate. Unfortunately, as love interests go, they both have one primary flaw, which is that they’re not near the hero every day. Yes, that’s right, remember how I was feeling bad for Yusurika, Lofus’ hapless bodyguard who seemed to be unable to stop him waltzing into trouble? Turns out she’s also a love interest, and moves to the front of the line in this book.

I will admit I am not entirely positive about the Yusurika subplot. Not necessarily because of the love interest thing, it’s that kind of book, I know he’ll just continue to stack up women like cordwood. And her tragic past as a cursed dark-haired girl, despite her amazing healing powers, is unoriginal but par for the course. I am merely grumpy about the old chestnut “wait, I met you years ago and became your reason for living but have totally forgotten it because for me it was Tuesday” plot, which even Lofus has to fudge and say “no, of course I remember you”. Speaking of other love interests… not, not Fran the Saint or Maylene the Mage, but Raymond the wannabe Demon Lord, who is our token BL option (sorry, fans of the merchant, but he’s clearly comedy relief). Lofus may try to avoid dealing with him and hate his personality, but there’s no denying that their hate chemistry would spawn a number of AO3 fanfics if this were in Shonen Jump.

There’s a semi-cliffhanger at the end, but I would not worry too much about Lilka. Especially as the 7th book came out in July. For fans of the “villain” genre.

Loner Life in Another World, Vol. 15

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By Shoji Goji and Saku Enomaru. Released in Japan as “Hitoribocchi no Isekai Kouryaku” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Andrew Schubauer. Adapted by Rei Geronimo.

There’s a bit right at the end of this book where all the nobles ask Haruka why he’s not all that worried about the Empire invading, even though they clearly are saying they’re going to do so. And Haruka utters a stream of gobbledegook, as he always does. But when translated by Book Club President, it amounts to: they don’t want to invade, they want all their enemies to collapse from within and then waltz in as saviors. It makes a lot of sense, though Haruka is also well aware that there’s a time limit on this, and I suspect in the next book we may finally leave Omui to go somewhere else again. Because this is the third book in a row where the plot is basically Dungeon, Inn, Dungeon, Inn, over and over for nearly 500 pages. The dungeon stuff is mostly filled with Haruka’s monologues about how he’s trying to improve, why no one will let him do so, and the occasional sensible observation. As for the inn, well…

On the cover is Haruka’s new servitude victim, an archdemon that Haruka decides to name Morning Star Archdemon, after the weapon he gives her. That said, relax – not only does she look like an underage gothic lolita on the cover, but Haruka thinks she is as well. So she’s going in with the demon scythes and the chickenatrice, in that she’ll be seen fighting but will not be part of the ongoing bedroom adventures. Which is good, as those are taking up more and more of the book. The book is still somehow rated OT rather than Mature, probably as Seven Seas knows that this series is not exactly picking up any new readers. That said, I used to say that the sex was there but ignorable because Haruka’s narration mostly made it incoherent. That is mostly true, but we also now get narration from the girls, which is a lot less incoherent. Honestly, I’m impressed the author has almost made this all plot relevant – the Dungeon Masters clearly want the other girls to get with Haruka as well, but know that, as they are and as he is, he would simply break them. So there’s training instead. Which involves either a lot of “stamina training” and also consumption of some “miracle medicine”. Class Rep seems to be doing better than the others, mostly as she’s their sacrifice half the time. Anyway.

In non-sexy and dungeon-related stuff… there is a bit of it… we see Haruka trying to open a portal back to Japan so that he can send the girls back home. (He’s given up on the guys, who are either married now or avoiding getting married.) He’s thinking of their families back home, and also worries that if he lets it go too long they’ll be too inhuman to ever really return. I have news for Haruka, that’s long since already happened, even if it’s only been four months since the start of the series. The girls all know this too – they’ve explicitly told him they’ve come to terms with the isekai and are staying, but he is, of course, ignoring them, mostly as he still feels responsible for everything. The Dungeon Emperors don’t only do “sex training” with the girls, they also do dungeon training, and they’re the biggest hardasses out there. Mostly as they know the girls have the same issue they do – if Haruka gets strong enough that they can’t be at his side anymore, their hearts will completely shatter. Meanwhile, Haruka thinks the ideal solution is to not have anyone he cares about at his side. You can see why this isn’t getting anywhere.

So yeah, we read another 500 pages of wheel-spinning, as the author admits in the afterword. Will things happen in Book 16? We can but pray.

Unsung Epics of the Hero’s Journey, Vol. 2

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By Hachigatsumori and Nat. Released in Japan as “Yuusha no Tabi no Uragawa de” by Dre Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by MPT.

In my last review I mentioned that the hero’s party itself barely featured in the book. That changes with this second book, and we get to see what kind of hero’s party they are. And, frankly, it’s very much towards the idealistic end of the spectrum. No one is getting banished from the party with these guys – in fact, we literally see that near the end. The hero is the sort of girl you want to be the hero who saves the world, and she’s got strength and stamina out the wazoo. Sadly, no one really trained her, so she lacks any real experience – which is probably why Rhuys’ prophesies keep showing her dying horribly before she can complete her destiny. Technically Ariagnée, who is demi-human herself, should not really be training the hero on how to kill folks like her should the time come. But alas, the bad guys reckoned without one important fact that this book emphasizes as much as the last: Ariagnée is gay as hell, and will do anything for a cute girl.

Acting on a new vision that says that the hero is going to be ambushed by assassins, Rhuys and Ariagnée try to quickly get ahead of the party to take care of things… and end up running right into them, as noted above. Ariagnée helps Lina (the hero), who is quick to learn but also a bit of a meathead when it comes to combat. Rhuys has an awkward meetup with Agnes, the party’s cleric, who is the protoge of the woman who tried to have Rhuys killed in the first book. There’s also Sierra, a typical “not the hero but very similar” warrior, and a mage who is the only guy in the group. After ditching the party, and having a quick detour at a lake (more on that later), they end up being attacked by assassins… no, not the assassins who are ambushing the hero, another, slightly less good group of assassins. Because it turns out that the hero being chosen by magic fiat upsets folks who dreamed of THEIR hero being chosen.

That detour I mentioned is basically a maguffin that allows our two heroines to come to terms with their past. They meet a guy who is trying to find an artifact that lets you talk to the dead… which gets pretty dark when you hear why she died. But then Ariagnée uses it to talk with her mother, who is rather blasé about being dead, and encourages her. Rhuys has to rely on a DIFFERENT maguffin, but also gets a bit of closure that hopefully makes her a lot less death seeking than the first book, in that it turns out only half her family didn’t care about her at all. This may be an adventure series with yuri subtext, but the world they’re in is dark, and there’s a lot of corpses stacking up, particularly towards the end. Rhuys may keep seeing vision of the hero dying, but when merchant Utile (who, by the way, looks EXACTLY like Richeh from Witch Hat Atelier) asks Rhuys to make sure Ariagnée stays safe, we nod along. Please protect Ariagnée from the narrative.

There’s no third volume of this yet, but Drecom tends to wrap series up fast rather than cancelling them unfinished, so I’m sure one will pop up. If you like subverting the hero’s journey, or just a lot of gay women (there’s at least three, and I’m prepared to go up to seven if I have to) this is a good read.