Looks Like a Job for a Maid! The Tales of a Dismissed Supermaid, Vol. 2

Leave a reply

By Yasuaki Mikami and Kinta. Released in Japan as “Maid nara Touzen desu. Nureginu wo Kiserareta Bannou Maid-san wa Tabi ni Deru Koto ni Shimashita” by Earth Star Novel. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Sylvia Gallagher.

I do appreciate that, in a story that features a ridiculously overpowered maid, her friend the incredibly powerful mage, her friend the genius inventor, and her friend the incredibly strong wolf girl, that this is a series that still manages to have its feet firmly on the ground. Sure, it would be a lot of fun to see every single problem defeated through the power of being a really good maid, but that’s not the story the author is trying to tell. We especially see that in the longest part of the book, where our party arrives at a beach resort town that has a significant slum part, and while it would be easy for Nina to magically clean it better and hand out free meals, that won’t solve the underlying problem, which is capitalism. Besides, Nina is also dealing with larger issues. As we see in the second story in this book, she’s got a bit of PTSD.

This is an ongoing narrative, but the book can also be divided fairly easily into four parts. 1) Nina goes to thank the merchants responsible for helping her with the preservative issue at the end of Book 1, only to find they’re going under because of corporate espionage and also their manager is a love-besotted dimwit; 2) Their search for Tien’s parents leads then to a mercenary company that supposedly has lapalunes in their huge mansion… but won’t let them be seen; 3) The beach resort plot I mentioned above; and 4) Nina is accosted by both a noble who wants to make her his “third wife”, and his chief maid, who recognizes Nina has been trained by a “drunken psychopath” (Nina does not deny this), and demands that they have a maid battle! Meanwhile, Nina is finding it harder and harder to hide from whose who want to find her.

There are two really strong parts of this novel. (The weak part is the first story, which needs to rely on everyone being either incredibly dumb or incredibly forgiving or both.) The first is at the end of the second story, where Nina is set up in exactly the same way that she was at the start of the series, and accused of theft. This causes her to come close to a complete nervous breakdown, and I think if Tien hadn’t yoinked her away from there ASAP she would have. Nina tends to think of herself as a maid and has little sense of self, and they need to do something about that or this is going to come up again. The other is at the end of the maid competition, where the other maid claims victory by doing things the fastest, but Nina genuinely wins because she knows being a maid is not about laundry or cooking or errands, it’s about people and how to make their life better. You are a maid, not a robot or a slave.

The book ends with the party being summoned to the Empress, and I suspect there’s only so long that they can avoid having to deal with the main problem of this series: Nina is too valuable to be allowed to happily live her life adventuring with friends. She needs to be chained down somewhere and forced to be brilliant for the state. I look forward to seeing how the author gets out of this bind.

The Twelve Kingdoms, Book Four: Sea God in the East, Vast Sea in the West

Leave a reply

By Fuyumi Ono and Akihiro Yamada. Released in Japan as “Juni Kokuki: Higashi no Wadatsumi, Nishi no Sōkai” by X Bunko White Heart. Released in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment. Translated by Kim Morrissy. Adapted by Monica Sullivan.

Everyone loves a good scoundrel who’s secretly smart and caring. They’re a very popular fictional trope. The scoundrel – almost always male, as in this book, though I have seen excellent scoundrel heroines as well – is the sort that always looks like they’re a good for nothing. They drink a lot, they don’t dress or stand properly, they’re always hanging out in the bad parts of town rather than, y’know, ruling the country. It’s always fun to read about how everyone gradually realizes that it was all part of a clever plan, and that in reality everything they’ve been doing had a very good reason. Note that I said it was fun to READ about. As it turns out, when the previous king was renowned for being awful, your kingdom is on the verge of collapsing, and you’re only just starting to recover. having a king who never goes to meetings and is hanging out in brothels can, in fact, be bad.

We’ve met the king of En and his kirin before, helping Youko establish herself and her own kingdom, and later on Taiki needing to choose a new ruler, but it’s clear in those that he’s well-established. Here we go back a bit and see what things were like when he was just getting started. The previous king was a tyrant who nearly destroyed the kingdom, and the land was arid and inhospitable. Twenty years later, the land is starting to recover and the domains that make up the kingdom are beginning to find their feet. But it’s a struggle, and things are not helped by the new king, Shouryuu, who seems to want to fire his most loyal subjects and replace them with people who dislike him. The king, as I noted above, avoids meetings and likes to hang out in brothels. As such, it’s not a surprise when the chancellor of the most prosperous domain decides to have the king step down and let him take over.

As always with this book, the writing is stellar and I barely know where to begin. Shouryuu *is* thinking about the kingdom, and wants to try to get by with the least amount of lives lost. Particularly as his kirin is so sensitive to blood and death. That said, it is interesting that this book pushes back against the idea of kings ruling in the way they do, especially given that this is a world with real gods who have kings chosen by what amounts to people with magical ruler sense. In a normal fantasy universe, there might be a much better argument against Shouryuu’s rule, but here the world is literally set up to show he’s the one they need – which turns out to be true, the guy starting the rebellion is a complete loser who you get to hate. Imagine Tenya from My Hero Academia, only evil. I will also warn you that there *is* bloodshed here, and it’s not the bad guys who die. Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the kid who talks to youma, who turns out to be a far more interesting villain than the other guy, and I hope we see him again.

I hope I don’t need to tell people how good this is and that you should be reading it. Next time, it’s the first of a two-parter where we finally catch up with Youko and see how smoothly things have gone for her. (My guess: not very.)

If the Heroine Wants My Fiancé, I’ll Marry a Yandere Villain Instead!, Vol. 2

Leave a reply

By Kobako Takara and Jun Natsuba. Released in Japan as “Heroine ni Konyakusha wo Torareru Mitai node, Akuyaki Reisoku (Yandere Character) wo Neraimasu” by B’s-Log Bunko. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Emma Schumacker.

One of the problems that a lot of fiction has, be it in English or Japanese, is the trouble with sequels. In North America it feels like you can’t sell a fantasy series these days without it being a trilogy of some sort. Japanese books are frequently contest winners, which means they’re self-contained in one volume, but if they do well then more volumes are always around the corner. And sometimes a series just doesn’t need to be ongoing. This is the trouble I’m running into with the second volume of Yandere Villain. It felt very self-contained when I finished the first book, even though we hadn’t hit a wedding. And now we have a second book, which introduces the inevitable plot complications, and it feels very half-baked. I feel as if the author didn’t really have a plan, so decided to write what they like instead. Which is good news if you like fluff and bratty teens.

Having gotten engaged and solved their immediate issues, Cynthia and Siraiya are ready for a nice, relaxing vacation at her family’s hot springs hotel. All to themselves, where Cynthia dreams of growing closer as a couple… though she’ll find over the course of this book that, due to no sex ed at all, Siraiya is not remotely ready for anything physical. Unfortunately for both of them, the crown prince shows up at the hotel as well… and he’s got cat ears and a tail. This turns out to be due to a book he opened, but Cynthia knows it’s really the subject of a special event in the game world. Unfortunately, this isn’t a game world, and there’s an actual power struggle between Adelberd and his younger brother. Cat ears and a tail are probably not going to win points. Can Cynthia find a way to break the curse? And wait, now the second prince is here as well!

I will admit, the author has a way of writing a bratty teen who’s forced into power struggles he doesn’t want and wants to be more mature than he really is. Rutherford feels very true to life. He also ground on my every nerve, especially when he developed his puppy love crush on Cynthia. We also finally get to meet Adelberd’s fiancée Estellise, and they too have a “oh no, but if we hold hands that would be far too much!” issue. Clearly the otome game they’re from is very G-rated. On the bright side, I did like the resolution of the plot, which allowed Cynthia to save the day in a completely ridiculous way. And the fact that the Japanese word ‘yandere’, unknown here, has been taken by everyone but Cynthia to have a completely positive and not creepy at all meaning is an amusing running gag.

There’s two more volumes apparently, but I think I’m stopping here. The final volume has a wedding cover, so I assume things go well. Which is… not what actual yandere fans want, I think? But oh well.