Monthly Archives: March 2017

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, Vol. 1

1 Reply

By Dojyomaru and Fuyuyuki. Released in Japan by Overlap, Inc. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sean McCann.

There is a certain variety of story that has been seen more and more often lately. It usually is fanfiction, but as we’ll see, doesn’t always have to be. It usually involves the author (almost always a young male in their late teens or early 20s) reading a work and liking the general idea, but feeling the execution just wasn’t… badass enough. Or the main character was friends with the wrong people. Or the world was run in a nonsensical way, and things would be far better if everyone just had more common sense and thought things through. (These stories also usually involves a large number of heroines deciding they’re OK with sharing the love of the hero in happy polyamory, possibly as they were mostly written by late teen-early 20s boys.) The most famous example is probably Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, but if you’re looking for something along those lines but in an original work, Realist Hero may be right up your alley.

“But wait,” you say, “I thought you said this wasn’t fanfiction!” Indeed, it’s an original story in the isekai genre, of a young man summoned to another world to defeat a demon king, but who instead puts his college learning to good use teaching modern politics, economic theory, and the essentials of running a city to good use, becoming the king and ending up engaged to the crown princess seen in the cover. “But… that’s Saber, right? Saber Red, to be precise.” Don’t be silly, that is not Saber Red. It merely looks just like her. Not a surprise, as the illustrator’s pixiv page basically contains the cover for Realist Hero 1 and a ton of Fate/GO art. That is Princess Liscia, who warms to our hero over the course of the book, acts as a student for all the modern ways he’s teaching them, and in return teaches him about the little known facts of their fantasy kingdom, like the polyamory. Which is probably fortunate as he also gets a hot elf bodyguard and singer/temptress/big sister figure to fall for him (I’m ignoring the loli for the moment), and seems to be adding a feisty young dragonet noble, manipulative princess of the country next door, and tsundere thief to the mix in future books.

I’ve been fairly glib in this review, but I will happily admit the book is something of a hoot to read. It wears its heart on its sleeve, and while I wish it would tone down the Machiavelli (using The Prince as a guidebook on how to run a country is never, IMO, a good idea, especially as some scholars think The Prince was meant to be satire), the lead is actually likeable and not the massive jerk you sometimes see in these sorts of stories. His suggestions are sensible, but don’t always work out perfectly, and I like the fact that we move forward over several months as the book progresses. (There’s also a narrative device where sometimes we hear “little did they know that in thirty years time, this would become etcetcetc.”, which I also liked.) If you’re looking for an isekai that’s light, breezy fun (though the second volume implies there may be war on the horizon), this should fit the bill nicely.

Erased, Vol. 1

Leave a reply

By Kei Sanbe. Released in Japan in two separate volumes as “Boku Dake ga Inai Machi” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Sheldon Drzka.

I didn’t really know much about this going into it at all. The author is known for dark psychological stuff, and this title certainly qualifies. It also had an anime, which I also haven’t seen. I was thus unprepared for what a good, solid mystery series this would be, with several surprising fake-outs, both plot and character based, and a likeable but very flawed lead hero. It also seems to be examining child abuse, something I’m always pleased to see in Japanese manga, though sometimes I feel it only glosses over the root issues. That doesn’t seem to be the case here, though, and Erased is not only well-written but emotionally raw – it took me a while to finish the volume as it was hard to read in one sitting.

Our hero is Satoru, a wannabe manga artist who unfortunately is somewhat withdrawn and reserved – his manga fails because he doesn’t put enough of himself into his work. We gradually discover this is partly due to a tragedy that happened to him as a child, which he has been repressing memories of. His non-manga job is pizza delivery boy, where he has somewhat stilted conversations with his cute co-worker, who he feels is too young for him and in any case isn’t interested in him anyway. He also has a strange ability to “fix” things that are about to happen, which may or may not be tied into the past tragedy he had. When a tragedy is about to occur, he times loops for a few minutes till he can identify and fix what’s going to happen. Of course, sometimes he’s not there to fix things. And when his mother is murdered, partly as a result of something he thought he’d fixed, he collapses and finds himself back in elementary school, reliving his childhood to try to erase the original tragedy.

Satoru is not all that likeable a hero, but in a character development sort of way rather than an aggravating way. He’s our POV character, so for a time we tend to agree with him – in the early pages, his mother comes across as rather pushy and annoying, and it’s only as the series goes on that we see how smart and together she really is. As a kid he still has the memories of his 29-year-old self, but manages to act like a child most of the time anyway – I particularly liked his thinking something blunt and saying it aloud without realizing it at the same time. We also meet the truculent and reserved Kayo, who was the girl whose murder was the start of the tragedy he’s now trying to prevent. His attempts to stop the murder, save her from an abusive household and bring her out of her shell are awkward yet heartfelt, and seem true to life – or at least as true to life as a Peggy Sue time travel mystery can be.

This is being released here, I believe, in four omnibuses, and I’ll definitely be picking up the second one. It makes for unnerving and difficult reading at times, but it does what you want a new series to do – it makes me want to read on to find out what’s happening next.

Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, Vol. 2

Leave a reply

By Ao Jyumonji and Eiri Shirai. Released in Japan by Overlap, Inc. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sean McCann.

As I have observed many times in the past in my reviews, I am not all that much of a gamer. Sometimes this makes it hard to follow various aspects of Japanese light novels, many of which depend on knowledge of how RPG systems work. But it also means that I may not have the patience for the sort of level-raising behavior that these games, and subsequently these light novels, involve. This second volume does a lot of character building work, and by “a lot” I mean that Haruhiro, Ranta, and to a lesser extent Merry get more development. It’s good development too, as this series has a lot of reflection on the best way to act like a leader or a team player. This does not obscure the fact, however, that the plot of this second volume involves “kill things” for the entire length of the book.

For all that I complain about Ranta, sometimes Haruhiro can also be annoying fro different reasons. He’s never really had to lead before, and has no idea how the mindset of a leader works, and so is constantly doubting himself and criticizing his decisions when things go wrong. He seems to think that this is just him rather than the norm, but I think the problem may simply be that “leader” types never get the inner monologue that we get from him here, and in fact also think about these things all the time. Stepping back and looking at things from an outside perspective, we see he is getting better at making decisions, takes responsibility, and his battle skills are also improving. I think Merry can see this best (I don’t see this series as having much romance, but if it did, they’re the obvious pair).

Speaking of Merry, she’s able to put a few of her own demons to rest in this book, though she notably does not get an inner monologue. Ranta does, though, which confirms a lot of what we already know about him. He’s hotheaded and stubborn, but also tends to act this way as a pose half the time, and is frustrated that the rest of the group doesn’t understand him better – especially as Haruhiro seems to understand the other party members fine. But Haruhiro and Ranta have a complex relationship, more than just boke and tsukkomi, and only time is going to fix that. Luckily, the near loss of Ranta at the climax of the book seems to have united them a bit more closely (if he gets paired with anyone, it’ll be Yume, who’s already sparring with him in best Ranma and Akane tradition).

So good characterization, and the fights are pretty good. That said, if we don’t get something actually happening in the third book besides “kill things, level up”, I may let this series go. It’s a good examination of how “trapped in an RPG world” would go if it were realistic, but it’s sometimes simply too realistic, i.e. it’s a slog.