Monthly Archives: December 2018

Defeating the Demon Lord’s a Cinch (If You’ve Got a Ringer), Vol. 2

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By Tsukikage and bob. Released in Japan as “Darenidemo Dekiru Kage kara Tasukeru Maou Toubatsu” by Famitsu Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Caleb DeMarais.

The good news here is that everything is just a bit more toned down than the first volume. Sure, Ares spends much of the book frustrated and gritting his teeth, insulting the hero and companions at every turn, but he never runs into them, so it’s more tolerable. Toudou and company likewise are a lot more likeable than the first book (knowing Toudou’s secret helps), and I like their resolve even in the case of crippling fear and dealing with insane priests. And no, I don’t mean Ares, though he’s clearly not all there either – in fact, given Amelia also seems to exhibit some eccentricities this volume, I’m wondering if being in the Church means that sanity is an optional extra. But no, instead the second volume is spiced up by the arrival of Gregorio, a smiling nightmare of a crusader who seems ready to restart the inquisition. For once Ares seems to genuinely have something to be frustrated about.

We start where we left off, with our heroes trying to level up in an area known for tombs and undead. Sadly, two of the three in the hero’s party are terrified of the undead – including the hero. Area and Amelia try to help them out by finding an apprentice priest to join their ranks. Sadly, there isn’t one available, so Amelia grabs the cutest orphan she can find at the church and Ares forcibly has her killing (restrained) undead till she’s at least Level 10. That said, mostly what Spica does in this book is sit back and marvel at what is going on around her. Particularly once Gregorio arrives. He’s very devout, to a manic extent, very sure of his faith, and very ready to kill anyone who is not faithful enough. Which, given “faith” to him means “strength”, is not good news for Toudou, who’s still dealing with being rather low-level. Can Ares manage to intervene before Gregorio decides to purge them all?

The high point of the book is Spica, who is a fascinating study in what happens when you take an orphan girl with little to no power and then put her in situations where power is needed and she constantly feels useless and pathetic. You expect her to break, and arguably she does a bit, but once again Demon Lord Ringer has a last-minute reveal that’s so good I don’t want to spoil it. It absolutely makes sense for the character, though. As for everyone else, the hero’s team is a lot more likeable this time around, and we get a lot more from their perspective. This allows the narrative to not hammer on Ares’ asshole qualities quite as much, to an extent that I can almost start to feel sympathy for him. Almost. Also, Amelia, I think you’re going to have to throw him onto a bed and straddle him in order for him to get a clue about your feelings.

It’s a good second volume, and I’m liking this series a little more now. It keeps surprising me. If you can tolerate Ares, as well as endless discussion of levels and buffs, it’s a good read.

So I’m a Spider, So What?, Vol. 4

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By Okina Baba and Tsukasa Kiryu. Released in Japan as “Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?” by Fujimi Shobo. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

I’m still not quite sure about where out spider girl stands in terms of the current timeline (my current guess is that she’s the “white” girl rather than the demon lord, despite personality differences), but the two timelines are definitely starting to converge a bit. Or at least the spider is out of her dungeon… mostly… and starting to see the world. More to the point, much as I like seeing the spider’s adventures fighting things, I’ve become far more interested in the rest of the reincarnated kids, who are (mostly) all reunited at the Elf Village this volume. It’s a shame that the Demon Lord is about to annihilate all the elves. And also that the kids at the elf village feel rather strongly that they’re being used by their teacher. Which… may be true? Certainly Ms. Oka is not the pillar of goodness and light that, say, the teacher from Arifureta is.

On the spider side of things, she gets to the top of the dungeon, but the battle between both her mother and a higher spider that her mother calls in to help means that most of the time she’s shuffling back and forth between the dungeon and outside, fighting a mostly losing battle against various enemies. With a character as overpowered as our spider girl, there has to be a balance to show that she has it tough as well, and we certainly see it here – she’s decapitated twice, and is constantly at death’s door… and this is AFTER gaining the power of immortality, which she rightly assumes is not quite as great as it sounds. We also see one of her rare overconfident decisions, as she goes to fight the final battle against her mother with just better stats, not realizing that her mother is even craftier at traps.

Still, spider battles are not as interesting to me as the adventures of Shun, Katia and company, still trying to deal with the fact that Hugo has mind controlled the kingdom into making them public enemies. They go to the elf village to regroup, but that requires going through the dungeon to get there, which means running into some of our spider girl’s leftover selves. It’s not really clear how she pulls this off, but given it’s about 18 years later it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s just that powerful. In any case, there’s no battle with the heroes, but her mere presence – and announcement that she’s a reincarnation – is enough to stun everyone. Things don’t get better when Ms. Oka explains the mechanics behind this world and what the elves are doing to ensure that the gods/administrators don’t win. Honestly, their plans just sound mean. You can see why the other kids are sort of angry about being told to farm and never get strong. I don’t blame them.

We end with a bit of a cliffhanger, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I won’t have to worry about remembering most of these kids for much longer. Meanwhile, our spider has finally met another reincarnation… and she’s a vampire! Will the two plots finally converge? Well, now that we’re out of the dungeon, we can hope things move a bit faster. And hey, not NEARLY as many stats in this book! Excellent news!

Ne Ne Ne

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By Shizuku Totono and Daisuke Hagiwara. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Shonen Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Taylor Engel.

The artist here may be familiar – the same one also draws Horimiya. The author is relatively unknown, however, and this did not take off the way Horimiya did – it’s just one volume total. But to be honest, that seems about right. Not that I didn’t enjoy this series, it was very cute and had some great humor. But you get the sense when reading it that future volumes would have been much the same – it’s the sort of series that only resolves when the main couple gets together, and has no plot except “will they finally get together”, so ongoing volumes would have felt a bit like it’s dragging it out. Of course, Ne Ne Ne has a bit of a head start on those other cute romantic comedies, in that our heroine starts the book off married to the hero. Why aren’t they involved physically? Well, it’s an arranged marriage, and she’s a bit too young. He’s also awkward, and inexperienced himself. Basically, they’re both naive blushing cuties.

There’s a supernatural element to the series as well, but it feels very tacked on. I’ve talked before with some isekai series how the “brought to another world” aspect feels halfhearted and tacked on, and to be honest the yokai stuff in Ne Ne Ne feels much the same. It seems to be an excuse to have Shin, the male lead, wear a mask all the time to make him a bit less nebbish. We never really get a good explanation as to why – he says it’s to make him less easy to possess, and you get the sense that if the series had gone on this is the direction the authors may have taken it in. As it is, though, the supernatural is not the reason to read the book. They treat a wounded fairy, he points out dragons flying in the sky that normal people can’t see, etc. The real meat of the story is in the embarrassed romantic flirting.

Shin is told by Koyuki’s overprotective father that he’s not to try anything with his wife till she’s twenty, but we’re never quite sure how much younger than that she is. At least a few years, I’d expect – she seems pretty young, and has a bit of a complex about getting older as quickly as possible. Like many newlyweds in Japanese ‘arranged marriage’ stories, there’s also a frisson of ‘Do you even like me at all?’ to the proceedings, though that’s entirely on the part of the characters – the reader knows immediately that they’re perfect for each other, though I agree with the dad that they should wait for now. There’s humor in seeing the local villagers mistake Koyuki for Shin’s maid (and then, when he corrects them, becoming the big gossip of the day) and Koyuki pouting when Shin says something unthinkingly. But they actually communicate pretty well, and there are no difficult problems to get past.

Ne Ne Ne may be only one volume because of that. This is a story of two people who are married and really like each other. And they all lived happily ever after.