Monthly Archives: March 2023

How to Melt the Ice Queen’s Heart, Vol. 2

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By Kakeru Takamine and Ichigo Kagawa. Released in Japan as “Kouri no Reijou no Tokashi Kata” by Monster Bunko. Released in North America by Tentai Books. Translated by Callum Conroy and Alejandro de Vicente Suárez.

This may be the most unfortunately timed light novel volume I’ve seen in some time. The first volume of How to Melt the Ice Queen’s Heart, which I quite liked, came out in July 2021. Since then, Tentai Books has been dealing with the various things a small publisher has to deal with in terms of scheduling, and the co-translator also changed, meaning that the 2nd volume has come out in February 2023. And between those two dates there has not only been a giant pile of “sweet romance between a couple with little conflict to speak of” stories (some of them also put out by Tentai Books, to be fair), but The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten has exploded in popularity and gotten an anime running RIGHT NOW, whose quality you can argue about (I certainly will), but whose takeover of the “couple charts” is indisputable. And Ice Queen’s Heart is basically Angel Next Door with the genders swapped. Well, to a degree. it’s still a male fantasy.

We pick up immediately where we left off, right after Christmas, and with Asahi and Fuyuka feeling very close to each other. Asahi in particular, however, has trouble putting a name to this feeling until the very end of the book. In the meantime, there’s a New Year to have, which includes a shrine visit. Which also means introducing one half of this cast to the other half of this cast, and fortunately they get along fine despite the obnoxious couple being an introvert’s worst nightmare. There’s a birthday, which Asahi nearly blows simply as he never really converses with Fuyuka about anything but cooking. There’s Valentine’s Day, where Asahi can’t actually blow off this year the way he usually does. And there’s also Fuyuka’s maid returning to the apartment, which he fears will mean the end of their relationship, which of course only involves his cooking lessons. Right?

I mentioned this was a sort of inverse to Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten. Asahi has a similar personality to Amane, but Amane’s the one with the troubled past that has led to his personality being like this in that series. In this one it’s Fuyuka with the tragic past that has led to her being the “ice queen”, as we see when she talks about visiting her mother to tell her all about Asahi. This seems an awfully big step till you realize fairly quickly that she’s visiting a grave. Fuyuka’s story did not get as dark as I feared it would, which is good. It’s just a case of a loving mother passing away and a daughter now left bereft of any emotional support. Now that she has this, in Asahi, she’s opening up and starting to care again. And this, more than anything else, is why Asahi realizes he loves her at the end of the book. (Her own love for Asahi is far more obvious throughout.)

Are they a couple? Not yet – admitting love to yourself is not the same as confessing it. What’s worse, this volume came out two years ago in Japan, and the afterword suggests there may not be more (The Japanese publisher has very little patience with underselling ongoing series). This was a sweet little series, and I quite liked both volumes. But it drowned among more popular titles in this genre.

The Inconvenient Life of an Arousing Priestess, Vol. 1

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By Makino Maebaru and Hachi Uehara. Released in Japan as “Konyaku Hakida, Hatsujō Seijo” by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Kashi Kamitoma.

The danger of getting a killer premise is that you have to go through with the killer premise even though it will require reassuring some readers that it’s not THAT killer. So, let me reassure you, the reader. This book is a shoujo romance, basically Cinderella, and the lead heroine remains chaste throughout. That said… the premise of the book means that this heroine is frequently horny a great deal of the time, and sometimes imagines naughty fantasies. (Her powers also arouse the men she uses them on, and be warned there are a couple of sexual assault scenes in this book.) The author is not just interested in writing about Monica being aroused, though there are a few funny moment there. The book is more about why slut-shaming is terrible, and how treating women with respect and dignity will be its own reward. Plus, y’know, being rescued from an abysmal fate by a hot redheaded prince. Still a Cinderella story.

Monica, the priestess of the title, is not reincarnated from Japan or suddenly in her favorite game, but boy, the start of this book seems familiar anyway. Her fiance the prince publicly breaks up with her, and calls her a harlot. Her powers, which are fantastic when battling monsters and can heal nasty injuries, have an unfortunate side effect – she, and the person or persons she is healing, get aroused. And the more she uses them, the more aroused she gets. At first exiled, and then finding out that even worse is planned, she is fortunately rescued by Richard, a knight in the city she previously worked out of, and (as it turns out) the prince of the Empire next door. His country has a problem – the King is impotent, and this is leading to political difficulties. Can her powers help things along?

As you might imagine, this is mostly better than it sounds. I appreciated that the king’s impotence is NOT magically healed by her arousal powers, but instead requires months of repairing the infighting in the kingdom and restoring the self-confidence of the Queen to the point where they are no longer battling hideous stress every day. Monica herself has an odd combination of self-confidence and self-hatred – when it comes to her powers, or, by extension, her expertise in battle (being a monster-battling priestess, she’s basically had to be a general much of the time), she’s got it all down pat. But her upbringing and the attitudes of the kingdom she lived in prior to this have left her believing herself to be a worthless commoner, unfit for someone like Richard. Who, by the way, she is convinced is asexual, possibly the funniest part of this book.

The book enjoys its tropes – there’s a literal sadist maid here, as well as a knight who’s a bit TOO devoted to his master. But it uses a light touch to ensure that we’re not too put off by it. Basically, the author wanted to write a book that runs on horny but is still a pure shoujo romance, and mostly succeeds. I’ll read Volume 2, which I hope is not as long as Volume 1 was.

Reincarnated As the Last of My Kind, Vol. 5

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By Kiri Komori and Yamigo. Released in Japan as “Tensei Shitara Zetsumetsu Sunzen no Kishou Shuzokudeshita” on the Shōsetsuka ni Narō website. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Roman Lempert.

The danger of being a good-hearted, pure, perfect heroine is that apparently you are contractually obligated to walk into obvious traps. Tina, halfway through this book, is safely ensconced at the fort whose entire job is to stop her being kidnapped. Then, mysteriously, all of her important family and allies happen to be away from the fort at that moment. Then, mysteriously, a group of soldiers she’s never met before show up and beg her to help to save their grievously wounded colleagues, who they have not brought with them. The lead soldier is also holding a big sign that says ‘I AM NOT A TRAP HONEST”. (OK, not really.) What’s a Saint to do? Naturally, she selflessly goes off by herself with no guards to help the soldiers… you’ll never guess what happens next. If that paragraph fills you with rage, you may want to skip this one. If it merely makes you sigh, read on.

The start of the book is original to the light novel, not part of the webnovel, and is a nice return to the antics of the earlier volumes, as Tina is goaded into making a truth potion so that Shida and his father will open up to each other. She’s also really into creating fish sauce. Sadly, we then have to move on to the actual plot, which involves the aforementioned kidnapping. Tina then ends up meeting the ruler of Edesa Kura, who has grand twisted plans for the world that they’re both in. And, what’s more, the massive planetary disaster that has slowly been coming their way the last couple of books is finally here, and Tina and Renge still need to solve that problem with a minimum of lost lives. But the humans haven’t listened to any of their warnings at all!

The parts of this volume I enjoyed the most were the smaller, more character-driven bits. Tina and the court alchemist, Reiden, geeking out and bonding over the concept of magical vending machines is absolutely hilarious and wonderful, especially as it briefly stops the kidnapping plot dead for a few pages. I was also amused by Nakona, who all of a sudden has finally realized that she has at least four people in love with her, and is somewhat poleaxed by the idea. (Since she’s engaged, and later married, to Shida, she solves the problem in the best Nakona way – by beating the shit out of her other suitors.) Unfortunately, when the book broadens out to take on larger, more devastating problems, I was less interested. The revelation of the enemy ruler and what their deal is was interesting, but Renge remains a flat, boring boyfriend, and the resolution of this book pretty much hinges on him being even more powerful than everyone thought.

The author says there will be a 6th volume, but it sounds more like n epilogue than anything else, as the main plot is resolved here. In the end, this series was OK, but I liked it a lot more when Tina was back at the inn than when she was the Saint of the World.