By Hyougetsu and Nishi(E)da. Released in Japan by Earth Star Entertainment. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen.

One of the things that Veight has been lacking as we travel through these books is a strong enemy on the opposite side. The Hero was sort of a generic type, brought to life to have a climax to the book. The Senate are, as we see in this book, pathetic and ineffectual, trapped in political backstabbing and vituperation. Most of the ‘antagonists’ Veight goes up against in battle are either cannon fodder or won over to his side fairly quickly. He needs someone to fight against who’s actually good at what they do. Not TOO good, of course – the basic premise of the book still has Veight being super awesome while insisting he’s just a mild-mannered vice commander. But enough to force him to actually think out a couple of different plans – especially necessary given that his subordinates are trying harder and harder to make sure that he does not try to do everything himself. (They almost succeed. Almost.)

Conveniently, we’re starting to learn about countries and territories outside of “the northern parts of the country” and “the southern parts of the country”. There’s apparently nations past the demon forest, and on the other side of the dry desert. And there’s also a nation over the mountains up north, a nation who we see in this book really wants to get a fingerhold into Meraldia. To that end, they’ve joined forces with a few of the north’s cities who don’t like the Senate too much, and also sent over Eleora, their sixth princess, who is Veight’s distaff counterpart. She’s crafty, good at military matters, and also has a crack brigade of mages who reminded me quite a bit of Tanya the Evil much of the time. (She even has her own Visha, this one named Natalia.) Her nation, Rolmund, has succession issues, and this is very much a succeed or die sort of mission. Too bad there’s Veight.

There’s a lot of fun here. Every time Veight denies that he’s really strong or impulsive is wonderful, if only as it’s getting harder to believe he’s not doing it on purpose. Speaking of which, the funniest parts of the book involve coming up with a series of plays that will serve as propaganda. In reality, they’re basically bodice rippers, with each play involving a handsome actor playing Veight winning handily and causing his actress of the moment (playing Airia, Melaine, Firnir, etc.) to swoon and coo. Veight is rather embarrassed by all this, though the others (who no doubt hope Veight will catch a clue sometimes) have no issues. The final play we see involves Eleora and her own attack on Meraldia. I’m not sure whether she’ll join the list of women in love with Veight yet (honestly, I suspect it will be Airia if anyone), but the afterword definitely says the next book will involve Rolmund, so I’m sure we’ll see more of her.

I sometimes feel like I’m overpraising things, but I really can’t get enough of this series. Each volume is fun, easy to read, not too short or too long, has good characters and great humor, and makes Veight overpowered and harem lead-ey without him feeling like a stock light novel guy. Really, start reading these books.

By Hyougetsu and Nishi(E)da. Released in Japan by Earth Star Entertainment. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen.

The author described this as being a “slow” volume, which is a bit of a stretch given that one third of the way in our heroes are fighting a kraken. The plot of this book is essentially “Veight goes around to the rest of the Southern Territories and convinces them to join forces”. One area has the aforementioned kraken that needs to be taken out. Another, a town made of labyrinths designed to trap enemies, is already being targeted by the villainous Senate, and Veight and company have to convince people that a) they’re not responsible for the assassination of the ruler, and b) stop all the assassins who are. Fortunately he has help from a number of old friends as well as a new character, Parker, who is… well, he’s Brook from One Piece. Though he can at least disguise himself as “not a skeleton”. The puns, unfortunately, are still there. That said, does Veight even need help?

Veight continues to be the best reason to read these books. We’re used to harem protagonists that are clueless about the girls who like them, but Der Werwolf has little to no romance as of yet, so with Veight it’s more “he is unaware of his nature”. It’s not clear if he’s doing this deliberately to avoid the issue or not, but Veight’s tendency to pick the most dangerous solution has been noticed by most of his subordinates, and they aren’t very happy. It’s especially funny when he chastises others for the exact same thing, and is somewhat amazed when called out on it. To be fair, Veight probably COULD take out everything that goes against him by himself. We see more of his ludicrous “I can use magic and am also a werwolf” combos here, and they’re enough to get an enemy army to run away in fear.

The rest of the characters are not as good as Veight, sadly. I’d mentioned Parker was Brook from One Piece, and am wondering if “undead skeleton + puns” is a thing in Japan. There’s also a viceroy who decides, to make himself stand out, to act flamboyantly gay, and all the little stereotypical tick boxes are checked there, but fortunately he only shows up near the end. And we also get a glimpse of the Senate, which seems evenly divided between “evil” and “stupid AND evil”. Probably the best new character was Shatina, the daughter of the murdered viceroy, who starts off as a terrified teenager but, by the end of the book, has to be talked down from turning her city into a tool to get monstrous revenge on all those who have wronged her. The author would seem to agree, as the short story after the main book has her and Firnir, the centaur girl, bonding as they explore the underground labyrinth below Shatina’s own labyrinth of a city.

Der Werwolf’s most impressive feature continues to be its readability – you never get bogged down in prose the way you do in so many other light novels. I look forward to seeing more of Veight being ridiculously overpowered and totally unaware of it.

By Hyougetsu and Nishi(E)da. Released in Japan by Earth Star Entertainment. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen.

I’m always pleased when a second book in the series proves to be even better than the first, and that’s definitely the case with Der Werwolf. I enjoyed the first book quite a bit, but the second volume steps up its game, showing off Veight’s political and diplomatic skills in the first half, then pulling the rug out from under the reader with a plot twist I wasn’t expecting for a few more books yet. Perhaps best of all, there’s virtually none of the typical isekai cliches in this book – probably as the “I’m from Japan” part is still mostly irrelevant. There’s no gamer terminology, dungeon levels, and the romance is kept very much on the back burner – i.e. there isn’t any yet, though there’s clearly a few women who like Veight. Instead, we are simply reading a fantasy book. It reminds me a lot of The Faraway Paladin, and fans of one should enjoy the other.

At the start of this book, Veight is interested in expanding his allies on the Southern half of the continent, so reaches out to a pseudo-Arabian city along the coast. As with the first book, we occasionally get the viewpoints of other characters (though I wish they were marked off in the text a bit better – it can be tough to tell when we’ve left Veight’s viewpoint and when we return), and that helps here to show off the rock and the hard place that the other city is caught between, and also how Veight thinking that he’s being calm and reasonable is seen by other people as Veight being threatening and terrifying. In fact, there’s a running gag here, even more than the first book, of Veight saying he’s “just a vice-commander” and denying that he’s anything special, despite constant evidence to the contrary. It would be annoying if he were doing it deliberately, but he means it, so it’s just funny.

The second part of the book is much darker. We’d been introduced to the concept of a Hero arriving and challenging the Demon Lord at the start, but this proved to be a false lead (though it did get us another cute girl character, the stressed-out mage who can do illusion magic). Then a real hero does show up, and things go badly very quickly. It’s great to see how the concept of a hero here, in a book essentially narrated by “bad guys”, is that of a fiercely destructive force that none can stand against except the Demon Lord himself. Even more intriguing, there’s clear backstory between the hero and the Demon Lord, apparently involving a woman… but we never really get to find out what it is, except it’s made the hero hell bent on revenge. Actually, I’ll be honest here, I was expecting things to get even MORE dark, but thankfully things got a little better at the end, and Veight gets to go on being the most humble yet awesome vice-commander ever.

This is a pretty long-running series in Japan, so we have a ways to go. This pleases me, as reading these volumes is a treat. I highly recommend Der Werwolf to anyone who enjoys good light novel fantasy without the “light novel” cliches.