The Otome Heroine’s Fight for Survival, Vol. 6

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By Harunori Biyori and Hitaki Yuu. Released in Japan as “Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyō Survival” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Camilla L.

When I started this series, I had thought it was going to run about six volumes, and here we are at the sixth volume. That said, we’re nowhere near done, and in Japan the tenth volume just came out, and it doesn’t look like the final one either. This series is stretching itself, and I don’t think it’s just because of the long, lovingly detailed fight scenes. There are more of those than ever, of course, though blissfully we have a few less stat screens than usual this time around. One thing I did notice is that now that Alia is in a grim desert town, most of her opponents tend to be about her level, with the exception of her one big showcase fight, where she takes out two hundred mooks and five strong fighters without too much difficulty. There is, rest assured, actual plot in this book, but I need to tell you, this series is here to have fights and do otome game stuff, and it’s more interested in fights.

Alia and Elena are now in the middle of the desert, halfway between the demon lands they were meant to be teleported to and the Kingdom of Claydale. They find their way to a town that’s divided into four factions: merchants, dwarves, beastmen, and yakuza, and they have to negotiate their way around them while also trying to find a way to, if not get Elena back home, at least get word to Claydale that she’s not dead. Because trust me, back home if she’s gone more than three months they will move on. Speaking of back home, Alicia is continuing to be the most irritating girl in the world; Clara once again tries to achieve something and accidentally makes everything much worse; and Karla gets religion… and promptly butchers it. Karla remains my favorite part of this series. She’s awful. I love her.

It is rather interesting noticing the development of each of the female leads of this “otome game”. Elena, originally a villainess, has started to grow and realize what a ruler needs to actually do… and that she wants to do it. Clara is determined to get the prince she loves to love her back, and if this happens to destroy everything, oh well. Sadly, employing assassins who failed to kill Alia is not the answer. Karla is an immoral nightmare, but to be fair the people she murders here are literally torturing children in the name of God, so she gets a handwave. Alicia not only is ignoring the evil voice in her head telling her she’s being too evil, but actually gets a major power up in this book, which is terrible. And then there’s Alia, who is gradually starting to realize that she has friends that she likes and cares for, and not only wants them to live, but wants to live with them. Alia and Elena get the most development, and it’s no surprise that they’re the two I expect to live till the end of the series.

The volume ends with the “rescue Elena” team arriving and being told to attack if they see dark elves or Kal’faan royals, right as Elena arrives in the city with a dark elf and a Kal’faan royal as her bodyguards. That’ll go well. We will have to wait, however, as Vol. 7 hasn’t started yet on JNC, so it may be a while. For fans of beautiful girls covered in blood.

The Devil Princess, Vol. 3

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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.

One reason that this series works so well is that, no matter how dark or serious the climax of each volume gets, or how many corpses pile up, the start of each new book is mostly fun and often funny. Yulucia spends some time in this volume at the standard noble academy, and her quest to make friends, or at least interact normally with people, suffers from everything about her presence. There’s a great side story about a young girl who also has memories of a past life, and knows that this is a “dating sim”, and is there to game the system… and runs into Yulucia, after which she reforms and we never hear from her again. You can almost hear the sad trombone. Alas for people like the second prince, they are too important to vanish from the narrative, and the second half of this book gets substantially darker, as we learn why it’s a bad idea to poison the saint and use her body to summon God.

This volume, like the others, takes in a 2-3 year period in the life of Yulucia, who is dealing with normal light novel things like “I can’t understand why this tsundere guy keeps hanging around me it can’t be love it must be something else” while also doing things unique to this book, such as eating souls in order to gain power and trying to cultivate evil people, who have the most delicious souls to eat. She also runs into the “so-called hero’s party”, which not only contains her two sisters, but also an elf, whose name is unfortunately a Japanese pun and so she can’t stop laughing. In the back half, though, she’s invited by the evil rival to her mother to come visit, and please bring the prince along as well to visit her sickly daughter. And it turns out the mother’s soul is just what Yulucia likes.

Yulucia literally eating souls is pretty evil, of course, but I will admit to loving my favorite part of the book. Cordelia is the daughter of Isabella, the evil rival woman, and she’s been trained by her mother to be a standard jealous catty bitch… till she meets Yulucia and witnesses her doing super powerful healing magic, at which point she undergoes a conversion and decides to be the best “big sis” ever to Yulucia. The funny part is Yulucia’s reaction to this, as Cordelia’s yummy evil soul has now turned all good and yucky. This author really loves playing in the “rooting for the bad guy” sandbox, and while Yulucia is not quite on the level of Karla from Otome Heroine’s Guide to Survival, she’s still pretty bad. That said, it is notable that even when she’s become a mindless monster lashing out and killing all around her, she tries to avoid killing people close to her. She’s not completely evil.

Which, as it turns out, may be the plot leading into the fourth book, where she’s likely to reunite with the demon who made her what she is today. If you like dark comedy, with the emphasis on dark, this is a good one.

Sword of the Stallion, Vol. 2

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By Gakuto Mikumo and Manyako. Released in Japan as “Sword of Stallion: Taneuma to Yobareta Saikyou Kishi, Ringoku no Oujo wo Netore to Meijirareru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jake Humphrey.

Last time I said that this mecha fantasy might be meeting up with a villainess story, and this second volume leans right into that. Ras goes back to his country only to find that they’re immediately returning, as it turns out that Princess Tishna has an assassin that’s been hired to kill her. So they’re moving up their plans to try and cut this off at the past, all while dealing with their own internal politics – they attend an event that features the ex-fiancee of Auriol, the prince that Fiarca is currently impersonating, which is fun – and trying to figure out exactly what Tishna, a so-called Wicked Princess who acts selfishly and horribly but whose selfish actions always turn to be the right thing to do and uncover greater crimes – is up to. Oh yes, and she and Auriol – who is really Fiarca – are getting engaged. Given all this, it’s no wonder Ras has no time to deal with his increasingly poor reputation.

If you’re familiar with my reviewing style, and see that I put the summary of the volume before the cover art, you know spoilers are a-coming. Because I want to discuss my favorite part of the book, which examines the type of plot device that most “time loop” villainess stories use. Generally speaking, for the most part, the books rarely go into the mechanics of the loop itself beyond “stop dying” or “stop being evil” – the protagonist taking actions to prevent her (it’s always her) fate are what’s enough. The main part of this volume is no secret, as it’s discussed in the first few pages – Tishna has gone back in time and is redoing this life. This also explains why she’s being “wicked” in order to ferret out corruption. But she also plans, when she’s achieved her goal, to die. But… is her goal achieved? What evidence does she have that she won’t just wind up back in time again because she died? How much of a happy ending do you need? She can’t know, and thus they’re able to stop her.

Other than that, this is a perfectly decent book that is also not really exciting in any way. I’ve dealt with this author before in Strike the Blood, so I know how things are going to go. The fights are good, the interaction is solid, the characters are types. There’s never going to be anything here that will make you go “wow!” and punch the air. Likewise, you’re never going to go “ew” and put the volume down – even the so-called premise gets undercut at every turn so that we can be assured he’s not actually a sleaze. It is very much written to be adapted into an anime down the line. Whether that happens or not I don’t know – but this is just the sort of book to read on the beach, when you need something uncomplicated.

There’s a lot left up in the air at the end of this book, so I think when I tell you this book came out in 2023 in Japan and there’s no sign of a 3rd volume, you’re just going to be annoyed I made you read the review at all. Sorry! Tee-hee. (bonks head) We can just imagine that they solve everything and he ends up with multiple partners, just like Strike the Blood.