Monthly Archives: February 2025

Lycoris Recoil: Ordinary Days

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By Asaura, imigimuru, and Spider Lily. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kiki Piatkowska.

Lycoris Recoil ended up being the big hit of Fall 2022, and evidence of that hit is starting to trickle over here to manga and light novels. The manga began a few months ago, and a manga anthology was just licensed last week. And we also have this spinoff, a Dengeki Bunko short story collection featuring some of the stories that the creator was not able to fit into the 13-episode anime. It feels like a regular old short story collection. I’ve talked before about how these seem to either be front-loaded (best stories come first) or back-loaded (best stories go last). This one turns out to be middle-loaded – the three stories in the center of the book are pretty damn good, but the first main story is incredibly irritating, and the last story is monumentally bleak and awful. Fortunately, we have the main cast. Well, we have Chisato and Takina. As with the anime, the other three “main” cast are mostly here to be support, though Mika gets some nice scenes. But it’s about our girls.

The wraparound story in this volume is about a reporter who wants to do a feature on the LycoReco cafe. He’s sensibly told “no”, but hangs out at the cafe anyway, as it’s a great place to come up with ideas. The main stories: 1) a recently retired man comes to the cafe but seems depressed, and Takina is showing him a lot of attention. Chisato thinks that this might be… love! 2) Chisato and Takina infiltrate a hideout pushing drugs, featuring a very big foreign man who hates the weak coffee Japan has; 3) Takina’s extreme way of thinking has led to increasingly spartan lunches when it’s her turn to cook, and the cast try to figure out a way to tell her “vary the menu” without upsetting her; 4) Takina wakes up to find that Japan is overrun by zombies, and she and Chisato have to battle their way out of the cafe and find help; and 5) a middle schooler who’s been enjoying the cafe turns out to have a terrible home life, and terrible school life, and has decided to murder everyone who is bullying her. Will she ask for help before it’s too late?

So, I know Japan is different, but I’m pretty sure the North American audience who wanted to read 50 pages of “is Takina in love with a 55-year-old dude?” is precisely zero. It’s meant to be in the genre of “Chisato inspires people”, but did less than nothing for me. As for the last story, after a while I started to skim, because it’s so unrelenting grim that I was not having fun – the reverse, it drags the entire end of the book down. I also note that the author should not have had one bad guy say that he wanted a really good cup of coffee and then not pay it off later with Chisato getting him one, that was a missed moment there. The best story by far is the zombie one, and it’s no surprise that it’s the one that focuses most on the relationship between Chisato and Takina, and where along the yuri spectrum it lies. Takina’s headspace is fascinating.

So a mixed bag, which this was always going to be, but not a total loss. For fans of the anime.

The Hero and the Sage, Reincarnated and Engaged, Vol. 3

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By Washiro Fujiki and Heiro. Released in Japan as “Eiyū to Kenja no Tensei Kon: Katsute no Kōtekishu to Konyaku Shite Saikyō Fūfu ni Narimashita” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Joey Antonio.

I regret to tell you that this series has become difficult to write about. Oh, it’s still good. I quite enjoyed this volume, and will read more. It’s sometimes funny, the OP-ness isn’t ludicrous (unless it’s because it’s funny), and the characters are all interesting and not annoying (except that one guy, and he’s now comedy relief). But aside from one plot point, which I’m saving for later in the review so it’s not just 500 words of me whining, there’s nothing here to jabber on about. I suppose I can talk about how this is an overpowered protagonist fantasy that is not meant to really have the reader identify with it. Raid is not just “potato with a +infinity sword”, and Eluria is his co-star rather than just love interest. The climax of the book is not “oh my God, how will our two heroes possibly defeat this thing that is beyond their abilities”, it is “wow, a monster so powerful that they don’t have to be told to hold back and can go all out”.

It’s time to prepare for exams! …well, for everyone except our lead couple, who are going to take the time to investigate the ruins of Raid’s old country. Everyone ends up at the water resort city of Palmare, where Raid and Eluria put their friends, rival, and rival’s maid and butler through some awful torture… pardon me, I meant excellent training. They then meet up with two sorcerers – note the different magic terminology – from the nearby country of Legnare. They are also powerhouses, and consist of Totori (young-looking girl who’s actually over 100, has cat ears) and Savad (her husband, seemingly normal but we’ll find out that’s not true). The four of them, plus Alma (who admits in text she’s a fifth wheel, and she’s right) are off to investigate Raid’s old country… and there they find it’s not as abandoned as previously thought.

The interesting bits in this book (an d again, I enjoyed the book, it’s just the first 2/3 are froth I can’t analyze) are right near the end. Last time I theorized that we might be seeing a child from the future plot going on, and that turns out to… sort of be true, but not remotely in the way I thought it would be. The cliffhanger ending, which I will try not to spoil is also another good example of this series taking a seemingly silly, comedy character (see Millis, for example) and then showing off their depth (as in Millis), or showing off that it’s all a front. As for the love comedy part of the series, aside from the running gag of the flirting, I did like how, at one point where Eluria appears to be having a genuine crisis, Raid steps in immediately and diffuses it in ten seconds. In any other series, these two already having had all their character development before the plot begins might be tedious. Here I think it’s the point.

So: good stuff, cute couple. They like to fight. Their relationship even progresses here. The next book should develop the future/past/present time travel stuff a bit more, but I think it will end up being cute flirting 60% of the time.

The Eminence in Shadow, Vol. 6

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By Daisuke Aizawa and Touzai. Released in Japan as “Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!” by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nathaniel Hiroshi Thrasher.

I think I am finally, mostly, beginning to give in and accept the series’ vibe, and the fact that it’s written as a ridiculously overblown piece of… satire is wrong, but so is parody and comedy, to be honest. I’ll roll with it. Also, I’m sure those terrible, terrible name puns (and there are a LOT more in this book, like four times more) are just as bad if not worse in Japanese, so I will forgive the translator… just. That said, we are running into a really big issue with this series, which is that it is very dependent on remembering things from previous books, but it only comes out once in a blue moon. I reviewed the first volume in 2020, and here it is 2025, and we’re only on Book 6. Worse, Book 6 came out in Japan in 2023, and there’s no new book on the horizon. So yeah, apologies, little girl from apparently Vol. 1 who was meant to be tragic. I had forgotten about you. As had Cid, I think.

After the events of the last book, evil noble Eliza is manipulating things to make sure she’s found innocent, and is also planning to quietly do away with the star witness (who we find out here is named Kanade, and oh my god, more on her later). Christina Hope is trying to prevent this, but her family is actively hindering her, and all she can do is take Kanade and that annoying background extra Cid, who seems to have found definitive evidence, to one of her villas to hide from assassins. Meanwhile, the latest Mysterious Evil Group of Evil are indeed planning to kill Kanade (and Christina, and Cid, and possibly Alexia if they could get away with it), but all of a sudden they’re getting killed off one by one by a man covered in blood, dressed as a clown, and calling himself Jack the Ripper. Who could this mysterious assassin be? Who?

I won’t deny that this volume was helped by having slightly less Cid than usual. Also, Kanade is hilarious, and I hope we see more of her. If Cid is a chuuni who has ended up in a dream world that runs along his desires, then Kanade is that sidekick girl in a shonen manga who keeps trying to be cute and sexy but ends up looking stupid all the time instead. She and Cid are wonderful together, and I’m, glad she doesn’t die. Also, finally, we get Akane back into the storyline, though she’s a bit stunned to find she’s suddenly one of the weaker characters. Naturally, she ends up in Shadow Garden… as does a victim from the first volume, who has Cid literally cut the monster out of her. This scene is, honestly, as heartwarming as this series will ever get, and I hope she and Akane bond.

So yeah. This was good, especially Christina’s character arc. I will try not to take it too seriously. I will also be waiting a while for the next volume, though.