Fired? But I Maintain All the Software!, Vol. 3

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By Yuki Kashirome and icchi. Released in Japan as “E, Shanai System Subete One Operation Shite Iru Watashi o Kaiko desu ka?” by PASH! Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Minna Lin.

Content warning: This review will be discussing a book that deals with multiple companies that use AI, and it discusses AI throughout the book, usually in a positive way (though it does emphasize AI without humans making decisions is a disaster). Reader discretion is advised.

This is still good, but we are starting to reach the point where I tell the author “you know this is not a sustainable idea for a long-run series, right?”. This book introduces a new person who feels their dream can never be achieved, and then marvels at Ai making it happen using both her computational prowess and her sunny, cock-eyed-optimist personality. A personality that she can only use on others and not herself, as Ai continues to struggle with self-confidence issues. We see her kicking herself that she doesn’t have a dream like everyone else, and she still doesn’t really feel like an adult. This is despite Tsubasa proposing to her (one of the most casual proposals ever), Megumi calling her a God, and Kenta, having returned from his sabbatical, seemingly reinventing his entire ethos because of her. Actually, that may be Ai’s biggest problem, and I suspect if this book does come to a close, Ai vs. Ken may be the final battle. Because she’s not happy with what he is now.

Now that they have Ai’s Smart Glasses and Megumi’s Megumi Arm, our small little startup needs to take the next step, and that’s virtual idols, which are a big thing. Ai and Megumi vow to find a fantastic virtual idol to be their collaborator, and they do find them, and eventually, after much angsting and worrying, recruit them. Unfortunately, Kenta’s become all about the profit now, and his idea involves teaming up with the company behind the biggest virtual idol group in the country. Which means that Ai’s friend won’t get their big debut after all. He’s become a big meanie, that Ken! But, he’s also correct in terms of what it takes to make it in today’s world. Can Ai find a solution, possibly involving an even bigger collab? And will the technology hold up?

We get a lot of that other company in this book, headed by their own version of Kenta, Kawabe. He and Kenta are after the same thing, but Kawabe also wants to be best and crush any potential competition, and is also a bit of a brat, so you know he’s going to fail. I did like that, when we meet the rest of Kawabe’s team, they all sound like eccentric personalities in and of themselves. We don’t spend any real time with them, but they feel like they have lives outside the meeting they had with Ai and company. I was also amused at Matsuri Komari and Megumi swapping tragic backstories, because everyone in Ai’s orbit has a tragic backstory. But again, the main feeling I got from this volume, even as the end of it was pretty triumphant, was “this ends soon, right?”.

There’s a fourth volume out, so it doesn’t end yet. And that volume has Kenta on the cover, not Ai. We’ll see what happens.

I’m Running for Crown Princess, but All I Want is a Steady Paycheck!, Vol. 1

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By Yuuri Seo and Okaya. Released in Japan as “Taikouhi Kouho dakedo, Kenjitsu ni Ikou to Omoimasu” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America digitally by Airship. Translated by Natasha Fujii. Adapted by Vida Cruz-Borja.

Seven Seas has started to do these digital-only light novels, ones that presumably are good enough to be licensed but not good enough to justify a print release. (And by “good enough” I mean potentially making money, not quality of the prose.) Most of them tend to cater towards the guy side of the line, but this one is a shoujo light novel. Possibly it doesn’t get a print release as it’s not an isekai, and magic and monster hunting barely feature in it. Possibly also because it’s a 7-year-old series and only has two volumes. (I do wonder about that second volume, more on that later.) That said, I find it very enjoyable. The lead is practical but also a bit flakey, there’s a girl with princess curls who’s more than she seems (I always love that), and the plot twist actually caught me completely flat-footed. It’s definitely worth a read, even with a few faults.

Decades ago, the Litharth family sacrificed its wealth to save their lands from a famine. They’re still nobility, but have to scrounge and save. So when a message comes that the Crown Prince is looking for a wife… and will pay a pile of money to the candidates even if they don’t win… Therese is delighted. She has no desire to be a princess, but she does want cash for her family and her subjects… and if she manages to get a job as a lady in waiting, that would be amazing! She heads off with her elderly maid, and is helped by a handsome knight and also an intelligent attendant who seems to have a bad case of backstory disease. But there’s lots of catty noble girls, seemingly the minions of the arrogant Claris. And there’s the fact that Therese isn’t quite sure what to do anyway – there’s not a series of competitions. Clearly there’s only one thing to do: create a lot of paper origami boxes and scrubbing brushes.

Therese is a lot of fun, though one of the flaws of the book is that sometimes the author needs to hit her with the airhead mallet to get the book to get the way they want. I like her better when she’s being practical and down to earth. I also liked her friend and attendant Leina, who also helps with the main issue of the book, which is that Therese is clearly the best candidate, being sensible, not full of herself, etc. And yet, also clearly any romance that’s happening here is between Therese and her guard knight, who get a lot more scenes together. Thus we need to give SOMEONE to the crown prince, and fortunately there’s someone with backstory disease. I will also admit, while I was taken flat footed by the antagonist reveal, it did lean a bit too much into “well, time to set the switch on my back to evil”. Most of all, this is, even more than others I read recently, absolutely done with the first volume. And yet…

There is apparently a second. Not sure when we’ll get that. In any case, this was fluffy fun.

Déjà Vute: Betrayal Begets New Beginnings, Vol. 1

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By Minami Kashiwa and Suzunosuke. Released in Japan as “Imouto ni Subete o Ubawareta Reijou wa Kon’yakusha no Uragiri o Shiri Kaiki Suru” by PASH! Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Jessica Speed.

This is the second debut in a row that features a “Cinderella” story that focuses heavily on the abuse of the main character by her evil stepmother and stepsister, and this one leans more heavily into the romance part of the equation. (For details on the first, which focuses on the abuse itself and the recovery, see my review of Keep Me Close). This one also features that ever popular plotline, getting killed off and then waking up years in the past to fix everything. That said, Déjà Vute struggled throughout its first volume to keep me from wanting to smack most of the cast around. Not just the evil stepmother and stepsister, who are joined in this series by an evil dad. But the heroine, who seems dedicated in her goal, seems to have missed several obvious signposts that might have helped her out. The first and most obvious being “hrm, I wonder if someone is withholding my mail?”.

The book starts with our main character, Freesia, being murdered by her younger sister Kalmina, who has also killed off another man to put next to her to help invent a story that Freesia had been cheating. This will allow Kalmina to marry Vute, Freesia’s fiancé, who hasn’t written her in two years. Then Freesia dies… and ends up back two years ago. Sadly for her, this is still when she’s getting abused by her family – even her previously kind Grandmother, who has turned into a vicious Education Mama. And since Vute clearly doesn’t care about her and never wrote her, she decides to break off her engagement and also go to school. This proves difficult, because Kalmina is The Saint, who protects their land from monsters, and Freesia is, well, the one who does all the prep work for Kalmina to achieve this. Even worse, it turns out that not only is Vute still madly in love with her, but he has ALSO gone back in time two years.

There’s a princess in this book, Olivia, who I quite liked, mostly as she’s the one character who has had it up to here with everyone’s drama. (In the original timeline, she dies tragically from disease, here’s hoping she avoids that this time around.) She seems to think Freesia’s attempts to get free of Vute hilarious… mostly because she knows Vute’s backstory, where he was trying to save his brother’s life and was helped by the tomboyish, outgoing Freesia, pre-abuse. (Freesia does not remember this due to one of the most suspicious concussions I’ve ever read in a book, and Volume 2 had better come back to it.) The main issue I have with this, and I feel bad about it, is that Freesia’s such a downer. This is due to the abuse, but it’s mostly made her cynical and bitter… which means she’s unable to see Vute’s reactions to being around her, which are basically “I am the one who adores you”. Meanwhile, Vute is baffled as to what’s happened, and all he has to go on is what he heard from the first timeline. And just as Freesia never thought “I wonder if my mail is being thrown out”, Vute never thinks “I wonder if the story told to me by the obviously evil girl is a lie?”.

I get the feeling this may wrap up with the second volume – it came out in Japan the same day as the 2nd book, and the books have “Part I” and “Part II” in their Japanese titles. As such, I’ll read the second one. But in the end, I found this a bit of a slog.