Monthly Archives: March 2025

Lady Rose Just Wants to Be a Commoner!, Vol. 2

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By Kooriame and Nami Hidaka. Released in Japan as “Lady Rose wa Heimin ni Naritai” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Caroline W.

We have had numerous books where I have observed that the protagonist and/or the antagonist tends to be a bit too quick to see the world they’ve been reincarnated in as the actual otome game they remember, rather than as a world with living, breathing humans with real feelings. That said, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a series lean quite so hard into the concept as Lady Rose, in which Lady Rose has to be handed a lot of the answers to the mystery she’s trying to solve as she is SO ingrained into the mindset that everyone is like the characters she remembers that she not only can’t see the forest for the trees, but can’t even see the tree. And when you add in the fact that, like so many other shoujo light novels, she is utterly unable to see her own value, calling everything she does “acting”, and you end up with a book that is less of a mystery and more of a psychological horror story.

We pick up immediately after the cliffhanger from Book One, as Felicia and Seth confront her adopted younger brother and try to figure out why he’s kidnapped Liliana… though this ends up being more an exercise in making Felicia face reality, something that proves to be… very difficult, frankly. Things are not helped by the fact that Liliana is now actively trying to kill herself, and Felicia has to figure out why that’s happening. And oh yes, Evan was also in on the kidnapping. This means that both Shade and Evan are going to be executed, unless… Rose goes back to the castle, and pleads with the King for clemency. Something which is unlikely to have any impact, unless of course she goes ahead and marries Nika, who she at least finally admits she loves. Will she be forced to give up on everything she’s fought for?

I’m gonna be spoiling a bit of the climax of the book here, but I just have to talk about how delighted I was by the ending, which until the last page I thought was going to be reversed. Hell, so did everyone else in the cast, and they’re very surprised at the final outcome. Because this is not “Lady Rose Learns How Important She Is”, or “Lady Rose Makes Sacrifices But Finds True Love”, it’s “Lady Rose Wants to Be a Commoner”, and it’s absolutely committing to that bit. Now, she and Nika are still being cute and blushy at the end, but notably: she’s a commoner, he’s a prince, and they aren’t married. She not only defies fate but defies the narrative, and I love that. (I also love the fakeout opening of Chapter 6, which gave me a brief heart attack till I laughed).

The series ends here… except it doesn’t, as there is a third and final volume, from the perspective of Liliana, the “saint”. Honestly, any perspective that isn’t Felicia’s will be welcome at this point – she’s too unreliable a narrator. Very much enjoying this.

The Dorky NPC Mercenary Knows His Place, Vol. 3

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By Toryuu and hamm. Released in Japan as “Kimo Ota Mob Yōhei wa, Mi no Hodo o Wakimaeru” by Overlap Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Josh DM.

We’re starting to get a bit of an overarching plot for this series, though for the most part it is still fairly episodic, showing us John taking a job, John doing the job, the complications that set in, and the aftermath. There’s far fewer girls crushing on John in this volume – the romance, emphasized in Book One, is almost completely removed now. That said, don’t worry, all the love interests have been replaced by people who are trying to shoot John instead. We are tripling down on people trying to kill him, and while some of it is just garden-variety bad guys, we’re getting the sense that there’s a conspiracy going on here, mostly in scenes with the worst of the nobles, a cartoonishly evil girl who looks like she stepped off the pages of a villainess book. Needless to say, she’s not a threat, but her eventual fate does show us that this series is not afraid to get dark if it has to.

John has been doing pretty well lately, but this book sees him having an awful run of bad luck. On the plus side, he does make enough money to finally pay off his parents’ debt, though he gently rejects their offer to get another job, as he feels that mercenary is the one that best suits him. He tries catching some pirates, only to run into a noble’s territory, which means he can’t go further. He acts as security for a noble party, only for a murder to happen there, and one of the accomplices decides to make their escape with John’s help. At the guild itself, an arrogant ex-noble who can’t get over the fact that she’s not allowed to simply murder anyone who she dislikes really hates John. And when he does pilot duty for an archaeologist, he’s left for dead and his ship is destroyed. Just… not a great book for him.

This book definitely is “guild fantasy in space”, but it’s not afraid to be other things “in space” as well. Sometimes this is for the sake of broad comedy, such as the murder “mystery”, which talks about an amateur detective showing up to solve everything, only to treat it the way amateur detectives are usually treated in real life. That said, that was the weakest section of the book, so I hope we don’t get “pastiche of the volume” going forward. The best segment was the last one, which did not have a strong villain (almost every villain in this book is dealt with ludicrously easily), but does manage to have John in actual peril briefly, though it is a bit deus ex machina to have him rescued by… well, spoiler. Sadly, even deadly peril doesn’t really cause John to move from his default “well, whatever” emotional state. Which might be due to his traumatic backstory, but doesn’t really help us in the present.

We’ve caught up with Japan – Vol. 4 comes out in two weeks there – and that’s probably for the best, as I need a break. I’ll get the next one, and I hope we get more of the evil plotters behind the scenes, but this is almost the dictionary definition of “okay”.

Imperial Reincarnation: I Came, I Saw, I Survived, Vol. 1

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By Masekinokatasa and Kaito Shinobu. Released in Japan as “Tenseishitara Koutei deshita: Umarenagara no Koutei wa Konosaki Ikinokoreru ka?” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Jason Li.

I pay more attention to publishers than most, as readers of my reviews know very well. I’ve talked before about how, if I see something is GC Novels, my rate tends to be 9 failures for every 1 success. If I were to name the opposite, it would probably be TO Books, which is not quite the reverse ratio, but I do find that books I would not normally have tried (Otome Heroine’s Fight for Survival, for example) tend to be better than I’d expect. This was the main reason why I took a flyer on this title, which is in a genre I have mostly forsaken at this point. And, sure enough, I found it quite interesting. Well, let me clarify that. I found the actual plot and characters interesting. There is, however, a MASSIVE PILE of backstory in this book, which our emperor is not only expected to learn, but expects US to learn. It feels like homework.

Our dead Japanese man, who can’t recall much about his past life than that it was rather boring and unfulfilling, gets his memories back RIGHT from birth, and finds that he is now Carmine, the new Emperor of the Bundarte Empire. Unfortunately, he is an actual baby, and has not gained his isekai memories (such as they are) when he’s 7 or 8. Or perhaps that is fortunate, as our newborn emperor knows very well what fates historically await child emperors, and decides that the best thing he can try to do is pretend to be a good little puppet, and perhaps a bit stupid, while trying to secretly find out what’s really going on. Unfortunately, what he finds out is that his Empire is on the verge of collapse, and that everyone has taken one of two sides in the political maneuvering, neither of which are his side. On the bright side, he discovers magic exists, and that he’s good at it.

As mentioned above, the thing I least liked about this book was the history lessons, which will likely be important later but which I promise you I have already forgotten. The best part was probably the alternate narrative that I was slowly sussing out as the book went on. Carmine narrates most of the book, and shows us that he’s trying to put on an “I am an incompetent child” persona to avoid getting assassinated, and that, for the most part, folks buy it. Whenever we focus away from Carmine on other characters, we see that he’s actually very bad at the facade to anyone with half a brain. His eyes simply look too clever. I also very much liked his betrothed, Princess Rosaria, who pretty much immediately spots that he’s faking but also falls for him relatively quickly because of this dissonance. She then turns around and shows that she is even smarter than him, which impresses him in turn. This is still a relationship too young to go anywhere (and some concubines are promised as well – I think we meet both of them here, if I’m right), but it’s cute nevertheless.

The first book is about the first eight years of his life. It’s still ongoing in Japan, and later books promise we’ll see him reach adulthood. I’ll keep reading to discover how. Good stuff if you like reincarnation and college textbooks about Prussia.