By Mitsuru Inoue and Suzuno. Released in Japan as “Isekai Teni Shite Kyoushi ni Natta ga, Majo to Osorerarete Iru Ken” by Earth Star Luna. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Gierrlon Dunn.

It’s always a bit of a bummer when you’re reading a series and the author makes a decision about the book that you don’t like. And it’s even more annoying when it’s the entire plot of the book. This book picks up where the fourth book left off, with Aoi trying to get the guy who bullied Solare so hard he became a shut-in to apologize… only very quickly that becomes secondary to what these books always end up being about, which is how overpowered Aoi is and how her magic is super duper awesome because she knows science. The bullying part gets forgotten about till the very end (where, I will admit, we get a nice scene, and I think that framing it as Glen having to reach out works OK). And worse, we’re introduced to a new regular, and he’s bringing to the table a dish that I do not ever want to see in this series: romance.

Aoi has returned to the Elf Country, taking with her heaadmaster Glen, teachers Elisa and Strath, and student Shenley, in order to once again get Burrest and his family to realize what he did was wrong and apologize for his actions. This goes very badly at first, until everyone shows off their sorcery prowess, and then the elves quickly look on in awe. They end up being invited to the Elven Senate, who are trying to choose a new King from among four candidates… including Aoi’s mentor Owain. That said, the meeting quickly turns into everyone being shown amazing sorcery again. Including the current King, who ends up having a one-to-one battle in the sky, which Aoi wins handily. Aoi, meanwhile, discovers that Elven Sorcery uses spirits, which hers does not, so really wants to figure out what this means.

So yeah, let’s talk about the other thing that annoyed me other than everything boiling down to “Aoi is mighty”. We meet Langus, who at first is as aloof as the other elves, but once he sees Aoi in action, he becomes that worst of cliches, the guy who declares he’s marrying the girl he likes without bothering to listen to her reject him over and over again. He even goes back with her to the academy. And an epilogue suggests that the other nations are going to introduce their own guys who try to mack on Aoi, only for political reasons. I’m sure this will mostly be used for “comedy”, and there’s certainly no possibility at the moment that the series has Aoi fall in love – hell, Aoi having an emotion at all is a stretch. But I hate comedy one-sided obsession, and it’s sticking around, so grr. On the bright side, this book had lots of Shenley, which is always welcome. She’s a good kid.

This series ends with Book 8, so I’ll pick up the next one, but I hope that it has less of the annoying guy (unlikely). I don’t bother to hope it won’t all just be “Aoi is OP”, that’s sort of the point. I just wish the bullying subplot had ended with a bit more than “oh yeah, that.”