The Trials and Tribulations of My Next Life As a Noblewoman: To Seize the Throne, Part 1

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By Kamihara and Shiro46. Released in Japan as “Tensei Reijo to Sūki na Jinsei o” by Hayakawa Shobo. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Hengtee Lim.

We’re definitely heading into the endgame with this book, though there will be three more after it (the series ended in Japan with book 6, and we’ve been getting it since book 2 in halves). The subtitle is absolutely not wrong, and for once the forced cliffhanger halfway through the book is a terrific cliffhanger – no “the book just kind of stops” here. That said, yikes, that escalated quickly, even for That Escalated Quickly: The Series. The entire volume is Karen trying to get word to Reinald to accelerate his plans, which may be a bit tricky given he was sent away to solve an insoluble problem. And there’s also the issue that, well, Reinald is kind of the bad guy here, and Karen spends a lot of the book firmly declaring she knows this but she is on his side anyway. We are choosing blood and conquest, and our heroine, despite her misgivings about gunpowder now being a thing here, is making it happen more than anyone else.

Karen prepares for Six to transport her to the city of Estaverde, where Reinald is doing delicate negotiations to try to get the city to be part of the Empire again – though so far they won’t even talk to him. Unfortunately, Six’s teleportation sends Karen on top of an assassin trying to kill Kiem, the leader of the city in question, and despite technically saving his life she’s thrown into prison. Quickly released thanks to Reinald, she delivers her message: the Emperor and Wilhelmina are teaming up to get rid of him. This forces Reinald to advance his plans, helped out a bit by the fact that Kiem has something he wants and Reinald can help him get it, and also by Karen, whose hair, in this country, makes her a sort of lucky cat statue. Then Karen goes back home and everything gets worse and worse.

The first two-thirds or so of this book is a lot of fun. We once again see, despite Karen thinking he has no feelings for her at all, and Reinald’s insistence that he’s not taking a wife, that they’re perfect for each other, and that Karen understands Reinald better than anyone except his closest aides, and while I think he still struggles to get Karen’s mindset, he’s now accepted it. We also get a really cool swordfight, showing that Reinald loves to fight dirty, not a great look for a supposed royal. That said, I was unsurprised that the moment Lubeck popped up in the narrative again things got worse, though Karen proves herself a very capable agent provocateur. Still, even she was unprepared for what she finds when she gets to The Box to destroy it. Gotta admit, they picked a really, really clever way to protect the box, despite it also being an atrocity in every possible way.

Excitement! Adventure! Really wild things! Horrors that make you ill and probably prevent this getting an anime! All this can be yours in another exciting Trials and Tribulations, a series whose title still does not lie.

A Tale of the Secret Saint, Vol. 11

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By Touya and chibi. Released in Japan as “Tensei Sita Daiseijyo ha, Seijyo Dearuko Towohitakakusu” by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Kevin Ishizaka. Adapted by Michelle McGuinness.

There’s a fascinating moment towards the start of this book where, in front of most of the Saint candidates and several doctors and patients, Fia once again does something completely and utterly ludicrous in terms of her magical power. It’s meant to be played for comedy, and it is funny, but it also reminds you what an anomaly she is. Those gathered don’t see her as a Saint, as she’s supposed to be for this competition, or as a Knight, which she insists she is, but as some sort of monster or cryptid. They rear back, and some literally run away. It’s a reminder of just how different she is – and you could say how far downhill the country has come in three hundred years, but while that’s true to an extent, let’s remember what the Secret Saint Zero books have taught us, that Serafina, in her own time, was ALSO ludicrously powerful above all of the other Saints. She’s just that terrifying. (And hilarious.)

We’re still in the middle of the first round of the Saint competition, and Fia is doing what she does best, which is “helping” all her fellow candidates by doing things that no one else could do as if it was nothing. In my review of Book 10 I mentioned that she failed to cure a man who lost his legs, and theorized that would wait till Book 11, and I was absolutely correct. She’s also winning the Saint candidates over to her side – the three from the last book are in her corner, of course, but even prickly Priscilla, who has really disliked Fia until now, starts to falter in the face of her goodness and niceness. Fia doesn’t have a political bone in her body. Which is good, as it means she’s not getting influenced by any of the political wranglings going on here, but also bad, as God, she’s such a dumbass.

If you’ve read my reviews of the last few books you can skip this entire paragraph, but here I go again: God, I hate the way these books are paced. I also dislike that the last third to quarter of every volume is short stories, but I think I wouldn’t mind that as much if things were not moving so glacially in the main storyline. Look, this is a good series, I like it. And yes, it’s very popular in Japan, and has an equally popular spinoff. The anime even starts soon. But come on, I don’t want to be reading it in 2032. I want to resolve the plotlines, bring in the demons, have Fia confront her past, figure out at last which one is really Sirius reincarnated (I *think* it’s Cyril, but…), and have everyone live happily ever after. Loner Life has an even slower pace, but at least it’s nearly 500 pages per book. Make things happen!

After Secret Saint ZERO 6, of course, which should be around in a couple of months. Till them, please stand in awe of the weirdness that is Fia.

Private Tutor to the Duke’s Daughter: Tales of the Royal Academy

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By Riku Nanano and cura. Released in Japan as “Koujo Denka no Kateikyoushi 0” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by William Varteresian.

I had tied myself in a bit of a knot trying to figure out what the header for this review should be. See, this is Volume 0, a common conceit for Japanese manga and light novels that want to do a prequel but sound cool. But it’s also getting a 2nd volume, out in Japan later this week, so it will be Volume 0-2? In any case, then I remembered that I used the subtitles for my reviews anyway so it didn’t matter. In Japan this came out the same day as the 20th volume of the main series, but you know that’s not how we roll here. But we do finally, at last, have the first meeting between Allen and Lydia. Sort of. Amusingly, the VERY first meeting between them is skipped, in order to give the book a more exciting opening scene grab showing the two of them teaming up for the first time. It doesn’t matter, we know why we’re here. For the harem. Which, yes, includes Zel.

The cover features a young Lydia, making a face that we don’t really see at all in this book. The wraparound has Stella, Tina, Ellie, etc. asking Lynne about the time Allen and Lydia were at the academy. From there we cut to the entrance exam, where Allen and Lydia are forced to fight against the headmaster in order to get in. This is fine, though. Lydia can’t use magic, but she has her swordplay, which ends up basically hitting away all magic. Allen, of course, is Allen. Both of them do very well… in fact, they do better than Princess Cheryl, which is controversial, albeit not to Cheryl or her father. Once in the academy, Allen has to deal with the usual prejudice and bullying, as does Lydia to a smaller degree. They also meet Zelbert, who is mysterious and yet somewhat pathetic right from the get go, and honestly comes across as just another character who immediately falls for Allen, just like Lydia and Cheryl. The four of them then get to take on a diabolical dragon conspiracy…

It can be easy to forget that both Allen *and* Lydia are dealing with vicious bullying most of their lives, and with Lydia there’s also emotional abuse from her extended (though not immediate) family. Lydia’s tsundere nature is here in full effect, but the arrogant confidence that she has through most of the main series is completely absent, and without Allen (who she falls for literally immediately), she simply falls apart. We joke about Allen’s dry, deflecting reaction to everyone and everything, but his narration also masks the fact that Lisa and the maids are incredibly, pathetically grateful to him for helping their shut-in daughter to achieve great things. As for Cheryl, she certainly gets more to do here than the main series, and she’s also the secondary narrator when Allen’s not around, but she mostly fulfills the function of “the normal one”, so lacks as much of an impact.

Honestly, reading this book makes me feel like a Leinster maid – not that I’m suddenly a combat expert, but that I want to take the Allen and Lydia stuff, record it, and rewatch it endlessly. Fans of the series should eat this up.