Monthly Archives: January 2024

The Drab Princess, the Black Cat, and the Satisfying Break-Up, Vol. 4

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By Rino Mayumi and Machi. Released in Japan as “Jimihime to Kuroneko no, Enman na Konyaku Haki” by M Novels F. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Evie Lund.

So I believe that this may not be the final volume in the series after all. It certainly feels like it, though. The princess is no longer drab and no longer a princess. the break-up has happened and was pretty satisfying. Viol is still a black cat on occasion, but part of this book’s plot is getting to see Seren in his human form, in order to ensure that the announcement of their engagement does not come completely out of nowhere. But for the most part, this book is in the subgenre of what I call “victory lap” books. Our heroes have won, the problems are solved, and what is left is just everyone feeling really swell. That’s exactly what happens here, there’s minimal drama. I suppose there are things they could do in the future of this series, such as children, or cool magic things, or maybe giving Marietta something to do. But really, this absolutely feels like the end.

After the events of the last book, Seren is finally a High Mage, and gets to start High Mage Classes. Of course, there’s one slight problem – she never underwent normal magical university classes at all. So she has to not only do the advanced stuff everyone else is doing, but also take the basic magic courses Viol did not bother to teach her. I’ll let you guess how difficult she finds this. Guessed yet? If you said “not in the least”, give yourself a cookie. In the interim, she also finds time to invent electric fans, and she and Viol also help intervene in the rescue of a ship stuck in the ocean due to calm currents, which ends up being solved due to… GIANT electric fans, basically. With all this going on, can Viol manage to get permission to court Seren?

There’s not really much to say about Seren and Viol’s courtship, mostly as it goes so smoothly that the book ends with a wedding. I was amused at meeting Viol’s family. He’s always sort of been the calm, stoic type, so it’s hilarious that his commoner family are the same as commoner families always are in these sorts of books, which is to say rural farmers who panic when they have to deal with noble folks and worry they’re offending them somehow. They don’t have much to worry about – Seren’s dad is basically as eccentric as she is, and the King and Queen ask for this to be a big wedding more because Seren was like a daughter to them than any other reason. The other suitors for Seren’s hand are basically driven away by the sheer power of their “we are a gorgeous and powerful couple” vibe at the most recent ball. And they all lived happily ever after.

Except a 5th volume came out in March in Japan. Does the electric fan break? Well, I’m sure something will come up. If you like “relaxing vibe” series, or enjoy seeing two nerds nerd out while being in love, this is a good one.

Revolutionary Reprise of the Blue Rose Princess, Vol. 3

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By Roku Kaname and Hazuki Futaba. Released in Japan as “Aobara-hime no Yarinaoshi Kakumeiki” by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by JC.

In my review of the first two volumes of this series, I said that my chief issue with the series was that it didn’t really have anything that made it stand out over a pack of other “redo my life” titles coming out at the same time, was overly serious, and could be a bit dull. It’s still overly serious (there’s nary a joke to be found here), but fortunately the fact that this is the final volume and has to wrap everything up solves the other issues. This is easily the best volume in the series, as Alicia has to try to balance out the fact that she needs to do what’s best for her nation with her love for Clovis, and Riddhe has to try to find the traitor behind most of the bad events in this book, and do so without getting caught and used to start a war between two countries. He achieves half of that. But it’s OK, there’s a trial to try to put things right.

The book begins with Alicia still in Erdal, meeting with the Empress to try to show why she wants their countries to reach out to each other WITHOUT needing her to get married to Fritz to do it. The Empress, after a quick “how devoted to your ideals are you?” test, is pretty much OK with this, but Fritz now basically sees Alicia as an enemy. Indeed, he sees almost everyone as an enemy, including his lover Charlotte, and is acting just the way you’d expect a bratty prince with too much power but not enough responsibility to act. And then there’s Alicia and Clovis, who are still both hung up on “he’s just her advisor, he can’t marry the future queen” to move forward, and are thus having communication issues. Things get so bad that Alicia decides the best way forward IS to marry Fritz… but before she can, chaos erupts in Erdal.

The back half of this book really sells the danger and drama, with several action sequences and threats to help overshadow the fact that we know who the bad guy is throughout. The mystery is not “whodunnit”, but “how to fix things without destabilizing multiple nations”. It helps that there’s a lot of “even if they are a bad person, I still love them like family” going around, which means this timeline has a hell of a lot less death than the last one. Actually, another great moment was the revelation about what DID happen in the previous lifetime – Alicia’s always had spotty memories, so it’s been hard to decipher beyond “Clovis killed her”, but now we see this was part of a larger scheme, which makes sense given how easily manipulable he must have been in that first timeline. As for the romance, I will admit that “it’s OK, you can marry your advisor, everyone knows you love him” doesn’t really work given this is a “political marriage is the norm” sort of world, but hey, the relationship is sort of dessert. The meal is saving the country.

So yes, always nice when a series ends with its best volume. I enjoyed this.