By Fuminori Teshima and COMTA. Released in Japan as “Maou no Ore ga Dorei Elf wo Yome ni Shitanda ga, Dou Medereba Ii?” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

How much you like this volume probably depends on how much you like escalating shonen magic battles. About half of this book consists of a magic battle between Asmodeus and Phenex on one side, and Marchosias… erm (checks names), Glasya–Labolas, and Eligor on the other. This is entirely variations on “I will simply use the magic that always kills everything!” “Well, I’ve countered with the magic that ensures I never get killed!” over and over, with attempts to be ironic given that the battle has one combatant who can foresee their own death and another who has been desperately trying to die since before this world began. If you like this, you’re golden. If not, there is at least the rest of the book, where everyone watches videos of the long-lost tragic backstory of half the cast. I am begging the author to get back to cute romantic shenanigans. And so is Zagan.

Aside from Asmodeus’ glorious last stand against Marchosias, what else do we have here? Zagan’s still dead, but his soul at least shows up, and gets to see the story of Solomon, his grandfather, and Azazel, the seraph. Which should be very familiar to him, as they are basically him and Nephy, except unlike him and Nephy they do actually have sex. Alshiera and Marchosias are also there, as well as Azrael, who reminds me a lot of Chastille (well, competent Chastille… actually, it’s been a few volumes since crybaby Chastille, too. Oh, for the Archdemon’s Dilemmas of yesteryear…). Meanwhile, Alshiera and Asura are also watching memory videos of how everything went so badly. In the present, they’re all trying to rescue Kuroka, and Barbatos is trying to rescue Vepar… well, once he remembers to actually do it. Everyone’s fighting everyone else, in other words.

Death has always been fairly fluid in this series, with some folks genuinely being dead but a lot of the folks on the good guy’s side (though Zagan will, of course, insist archdemons are not good people) have been almost dying but not quite, or getting brought back from death. Here that’s directly addressed, as while Asmodeus would dearly love to bring back her departed loved ones from the dead, she knows that you cannot go back, only forward. Marchosias, meanwhile, presumably gestures at the previous volumes of this book as a response. Again, this isn’t badly written, though once again I wish it came with a bigger cast list than the small one it has at the back. It’s just this is not really why I started reading Archdemon’s Dilemma in the first place, and I desperately want everything to resolve soon so he and Nephy can moon over each other again. Unfortunately, it appears when this battle ends, the series may as well.

If you’ve been reading this series, there’s nothing here to make you stop. But man, please get out of Weekly Shonen Jump, Zagan.

By Fuminori Teshima and COMTA. Released in Japan as “Maou no Ore ga Dorei Elf wo Yome ni Shitanda ga, Dou Medereba Ii?” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a short story volume, but its main plot is definitely a framing device meant to set off each chapter. Mostly what we get here are flashbacks giving us insight into other characters, some of them very important and some of them mostly new to us. The reason for this, of course, is that Zagan is dead, per the cliffhanger of the last volume. Well, OK, probably not, but he does not appear in this volume, and Nephy, who is holding down the fort, only shows up in one scene. Of course this means that the overly sweet romance that was why we all started to read this series is once again in short supply. This is not unique to this author. A lot of light novel and manga authors start off writing something only to find, 20-odd volumes in, that it’s become an epic shonen battle series. Mostly as authors are (mentally) teenage boys.

So yes, Zagan is dead, but nobody really believes he’s DEAD dead. Least of all Nephteros, who has decided to go on a quest to revive Zagan, along with her beloved Richard. Their investigation shows that it’s mostly that Zagan’s soul is lost, and fortunately they have a soul-finder guy, but he’s hard to convince, plus he’s busy, um, imitating the Archangel Michael to such a good degree that the actual article begins to despair. What’s more the core group has already lost Shax, who is forced to ally with the enemy given that Kuroka has been captured. Who is the enemy really? Well, as it turns out, the enemy is a lot of people, and has interacted with our cast a number of times. That said, it may end up being Asmodeus who holds the key to resolving all this.

I jokes online that the big twist at the end of the series was that every single character would turn out to have been secretly Marchiosas, and while it’s not quite as bad as that, he does show up everywhere. The stories we get are a) Bifrons being a generally terrible person, investigating Zagan, and meeting a young girl who… kind of sort of led to Nephteros; Richard’s Sacred Sword, Camael, telling of her past as a seraph and what has led her to try to protect Marchiosas at all costs; Michael/Andrealphus going back to his home only to find his entire life has been usurped by a demon; and Asmodeus/Lily’s backstory, and why she’s so obsessed with getting those soul gems. As with most short story books, even the ones that aren’t quite, the best stories are near the end – Lily is definitely the highlight of the book. That said… I kinda want to get back to awkward handholding.

We’ve been told that next volume will be all battles, so I’m not getting that anytime soon. Enjoy this shonen battle novel that used to be something else.

By Fuminori Teshima and COMTA. Released in Japan as “Maou no Ore ga Dorei Elf wo Yome ni Shitanda ga, Dou Medereba Ii?” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

Despite the cover art, which is meant to match with the previous volume, there is very little romance in this book, and there’s nothing resembling a wedding. Instead, for the most part, we get a half a book of talking and posturing, and then a half a book of a big shonen fight scene. We all know how much I love reviewing big shonen fight scenes. Did you know that these two really powerful characters fight, and for a while it looks like one is going to easily win, but then the other one pulls out some great moves and so it looks like he is going to win, but then the first guy says “I have told you before that all sorcery is useless against me!” and turns the tables again… etcetcetc. On the bright side, I definitely think we’re getting near the end of the series, as this volume ends very badly for our protagonists.

After letting the bad guys stew for a week or so while Zagan and Nephy admire their engagement rings, they finally go to meet with Marchiosas for the first meeting of all the Archdemons in a long, long time. While there, Marchiosas explains why he’s called the meeting: the entire world is going to be destroyed in about a year’s time, because Alshiera’s barrier is finally breaking down. They throw around ideas to try to fix things, but there really aren’t any good ones. After this goes on for a while, Marchiosas boots out Zagan and half the cast and talks to the most important one there, Furcas, who is the only one who actually CAN save the world. Unfortunately, Marchiosas and Furcas are talking at cross-purposes, because Marchiosas wants to save the world by rescuing Alshiera… and replacing her with Lilith, who will become the new living battery. Furcas does not find this an attractive offer.

So yeah, there’s a LITTLE bit of romance here, and it revolves around the only love triangle in this series. Selphy has been fighting a losing battle from the start, as the only gay character in a series that pairs everyone very heterosexually. She knows that Furcas is madly in love with Lilith. She also knows that Lilith, once she actually figures this out and examines her own feelings, will likely return those feelings. So she hates Furcas… but also knows he’s a good person, so is forced, here at the big penultimate battle, to use an “I want my beloved to be happy” move that leaves her half-dead. Good news, though, she’s far from alone. By the end of this book, Furcas, Zagan, Nephy, Foll, and several other people are heavily wounded, and Zagan is actually in a coma. Oh, and one of our heroines is also kidnapped. Basically, it’s a darkest before the dawn moment.

When is the dawn? Well, Book 20 is due out in Japan next month, so it will probably be a while. Fans of the series, especially if they like cool battles with magic powers and punching things, will enjoy this.