By Touya and chibi. Released in Japan as “Tensei Sita Daiseijyo ha, Seijyo Dearuko Towohitakakusu ZERO” by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Kim Morrissy. Adapted by Melanie Kardas.

One thing I’ve noticed about several light novels series that feature things that are supposed to be cute is that they can get surprisingly dark, at least at the start. I’ve talked before about Kuma Bear and its tendency towards horrific backstories filled with rape and murder for some characters, which we basically never get anymore. And, in the main series that this is a spinoff of, we get how Serafina died, and it also features rape and torture. That too, as the books went on, has been, if not removed, at least rarely mentioned unless it’s very plot-relevant. And the first novel in this spinoff was firmly on the site of cute and adorable, so I was expecting the same thing here. Imagine my surprise when I got another character with a tragic backstory that reads very much like a horror novel. Monsters exist here, and it turns out that they can lead to fates much worse than death.

Serafina is out and about now that she can see, and she’s shown off her cook saint powers to Sirius. So it’s time for her to work with him in earnest, and that also means she needs a cohort of knights to guard her. What’s surprising to everyone but the reader, who knows that Sirius is absolutely obsessed with Serafina, is that the knights chosen are the best of the best, cream of the crop… and they’re wondering why the second princess needs so much more protection than, say, the FIRST princess. That said, she is pretty freaking adorable… and the “special medicine” she makes to cure Canopus’ fever works a bit TOO well. Clearly there’s only one thing left to do: go the the beach. Which, to be fair, also involves a bit of investigation, as this beachside community has been in an economic slump recently. It’s almost as if the spirit who blessed them is dying…

This is, out of necessity, a series where our heroine is six years old, so it lacks any of the romance that the main series hints at. Sure, Sirius is obsessed with Serafina, but that’s meant to be more of a dad/older brother thing, and honestly, she’s more his emotional crutch than he is hers. I did briefly wonder, though, if one of the guards was going to have a childhood friend romance with one of the saints, who turns out to be from his own hometown. Unfortunately, this isn’t a romance, and the guards only get to be as obsessed with Serafina as a powerful saint as Sirius is. Instead, the childhood friend’s plotline is a reminder of the dangers of feeling responsible for things you do as a kid that aren’t really your fault – easy enough to do here, when it turns out the things are so horrifying. (I was honestly a bit annoyed at the girl here. “I know you feel bad about your whole family being murdered, but did you know their souls may also be trapped in torment?”)

So overall, this was quite good, concentrating on the cuteness while also leaving in some darkness for those who like the contrast. It does have a dangling plotline, though, I hope that gets resolved whenever the third volume is out. We’ll get the main series first, though.

By Touya and chibi. Released in Japan as “Tensei Sita Daiseijyo ha, Seijyo Dearuko Towohitakakusu ZERO” by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Faye Cozy and Kim Morrissy. Adapted by Melanie Kardas.

If you have a prequel series, it helps to have two really important things: a reason for the author to write it, and a reason for the reader to read it. The author explains in the afterword the reason that we’re getting this prequel: it’s a story they wanted to tell as flashbacks in the main series, but it rapidly got far too huge, so it was decided to make it a series of its own. As for the reader, I will admit I was a bit worried. The general premise of the main series is that, whether it be in the present as Fia or in the past as Serafina, our heroine is an extremely lovable goober who everyone adores. Technically that’s true here, but there’s a very important difference, which is that this is the story of Serafina at six, not sixteen (we get those flashbacks in the main series). As a result, she’s an ADORABLE lovable goober.

Sirius, the most powerful man in the kingdom of Nav, is sent out by the King to go gget the second princess, Serafina. Six years ago she was born blind, which is still frowned on when you’re royalty, and so she was sent to a detached house in the forest to stay so that she did not get bullied at the royal court. But circumstances have changed, and now she’s needed back at the palace. So Sirius and his beleaguered colleagues (who can’t keep up with him) head into the forest to find an extremely adorable six-year-old redhead. She can’t open her eyes, but she can apparently see spirits. When monsters attack, and prove too strong for most of the knights, a panicked Serafina calls on her Saint powers, regains her sight, and proves to be the Most Powerful Saint in the World.

This book has an agenda, and that agenda is CUTE. Sure, Serafina can still be a colossal airhead some of the time, but for the most part that’s explainable as her being a six-year-old who lived in a jungle all her life, rather than as her having none of the common sense of everyone she grew up around like the main series. Everyone who meets Serafina seems to adore her immediately, except (briefly) her brothers, who give in after Sirius trains them to death. We also meet Canopus here, and get a sense of the prejudice that he and his people go through… which ends up being steamrolled through the power of Serafina’s really liking him. And what do you know, he does indeed turn out to be really strong. She even manages to tame a griffon and a fenrir, which sort of serves as a replacement for the dragon she has in the main series. Basically, she’s a bundle of cute, and also packing ludicrous power, which Sirius is not yet ready to show off just yet. He’s too enraptured by her to do so.

The recent light novel rankings came out in Japan, and the main series placed a LOT higher than I had thought. Which explains the prequel. Fans of Fia will love seeing cute l’il Serafina wrap everyone around her finger.

By Touya and chibi. Released in Japan as “Tensei Sita Daiseijyo ha, Seijyo Dearuko Towohitakakusu” by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Kevin Ishizaka. Adapted by Michelle McGuinness.

Sometimes I enjoy a good bit even if it’s obvious. Indeed, sometimes I love it because it’s obvious. And Secret Saint is, let’s face it, a series that runs on comedy, tragic backstories aside. So I have to inform you that I was smiling gleefully all through the main plot of this series, which was a perfect combination of Fia being intuitive and clever based partly on her instinct and partly on her past knowledge, and Fia being a complete dimbulb who has no idea how the world of 300 years later works and doesn’t bother to find out. There’s also an extended scene between the captains which basically serves as an excuse for Desmond to scream for 65 pages or so at the top of his lungs. That said, by the end of the book I had noticed that, despite having supposedly been the start of a brand new arc to move the story forward, not a hell of a lot happened and there were side stories galore.

Fia returns from her extended vacation to find that all the other new knights have met with the King, which is something that happens with all the first-year knights. Fia, having been absent, now has to have her turn. The king, Laurence Nav, looks about as you’d expect. What is perhaps unexpected is that he has THREE court jesters, all of whom take the opportunity to pour scorn on and belittle Fia. Ah ha! This must be one of those tests! It is indeed, and as you’d expect Fia breaks it wide open. After this, the captains all have a meeting to discuss the strange and terrifying events of the last few books – all of which deal with Fia. And then Fia is asked to meet with the current Great Saint, who is supposed to be marrying the king. That should go well. After all, Fia is a knight, not a saint.

So, apologies for giving away the obvious gimmick of this book, one of the jesters is the real king, and the other two are his closest advisors. Fia figures this out due to a combination of 300-year-old knowledge and her magical saint powers, but it’s the way she carries it off that makes this so fun to read. She’s forced to play a poker game that’s really an excuse for the king to wave his secret identity in front of the knights’ faces without giving it away, so is rather upset when Fia, in fact, figures it out and wins in her own way. I really enjoy this sort of Fia, and hope we see more of her in the next book, which I suspect may get a bit Villainess-ey. I admit I’m not as fond of Fia not realizing that her powerful dragon familiar disguising himself as a chibi-version does not really count as a disguise, or once again not understanding that things are very, very different 300 years later. But you can’t have one without the other, really.

I’m not sure when we’ll get Book 8, but I won’t have to wait long to read more about Fia. Or rather, about Serafina. Tales of the Secret Saint’s getting a prequel series, and it’s out soon. Till then, this was fun.