By FUNA and Itsuki Akata. Released in Japan as “Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne!” by SQEX Novels. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Tara Quinn. Adapted by Maggie Cooper.

One of the very first things I observed about this series, back in the first volume, is that it gives its heroine a supporting cast and then replaces with with another, seemingly similar supporting cast. Now, as the series has gone on, we’ve found that this works fine: the Wonder Trio, for all that they came first, are basically three very similar girls who are “upper class”, “middle class”, and “lower class”. Reina, Mavis and Pauline have been given far more opportunity to show off they are more than just that and also they are lunatics. As is Mile. The Wonder Trio can be a bit eccentric, but compared to our main girls they are common sense personified. That said, now that they’re here, they can help develop the main cast, as they are nearly perfect at everything – and Reina and Pauline, as it turns out, are not.

Our two groups have settled into their new country, and are able to easily fend off merchants who are trying to lowball them on jobs. That said, there is an elephant in the room: Mile has her fantastic Storage Magic. Mavis can now also use it. The Wonder Trio has Inventory, which they are quietly pretending is Storage. But Reina and Pauline, since they’re not Nanomachined up, are struggling. Perhaps… the problem is how they’re being taught? After this, everyone decides to take a quick trip back home to check in on folks, only to find that when you’re the heroes who saved the world, a lot can happen in the little hometown you came from. This hits Reina especially hard.

This was a solid volume, with the usual good points and bad points (Mile once again tells us how AWESOME child labor is if you’re an orphan). I liked how the difference between Mile’s teaching (teaching magic as it’s learned here, trying to convey the power of imagination) and Mavis’ methods of teaching (we must use the power of EMOTION and FEAR to make your storage POWERFUL!) and, as it turns out, this is exactly what Reina needs. She gets the climax of the book, which has some wonderfully black comedy (what’s happened to her parent’s graves in the interim) and some triumphant power-ups (about to be murdered when trying to save a group of children being sold into slavery, she unlocks her inner storage through the power of not wanting to die), and you really feel great for her. Pauline also gets some nice development (quiet, you) as she realizes that maybe, with the Crimson Vow’s weird party makeup, she needs to learn how to direct a battle rather than be the support.

All this plus our heroines asking each other about marriage and gradually realizing that they’re all gay (no, not really, but yes, really). FUNA fans will have a ball.

By FUNA and Itsuki Akata. Released in Japan as “Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne!” by SQEX Novels. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Tara Quinn. Adapted by Maggie Cooper.

Let’s address the elephant in the room first: I am reading the digital version of this title, and it has one very large (20+ pages) and one very small section of text that repeats itself verbatim. Fortunately, nothing seems to be missing as far as I can tell, and I assume it will be fixed soon. Leaving that aside, this is another FUNA book, and in particular a volume of Make My abilities Average, which has as its one goal showing a lot of teen and tween girls kicking ass, making their own careers, and deliberately not getting married or even thinking of getting married anytime soon. I’m not sure I can comfortably call it feminist, but at least you don’t have to worry too much about anything too uncomfortable getting in the way of the goofy overpowered antics. Even on another continent, the Crimson Vow and the Wonder Three are going to be ridiculous, and now they’re infecting the royalty.

We pick up right where we left off, in the fishing village, as they try to figure out, now that they have all this rare and expensive fish, how they can preserve it when they don’t have ice magic and they’re miles from anyone. (It involves to a degree, eating and then throwing up, because they’re somewhat devout about not wasting fish.) After departing (and leaving behind the selfish merchant, who ended up being far less important than I expected), they slowly make their way to the capital, where they finally meet up with the Wonder Trio. The two groups, now that they both have Mile to themselves to a degree, agree to team up, after the Wonder Trio manage to game the system and get promoted the same way the Crimson Vow did, and they all move into a big house together. It’s very cozy.

Once a volume, the series tries to remind you that the author does have this ongoing sci-fi plot involved, where we see Mile discussing the fate of the world with various robot dogs, birds, and assorted intelligences. But honestly, this volume seems to half-ass that, and happily gets back to cute girls doing cute things. That even affects the side stories, where we see the two princesses (who also have Mile’s OP cheats) saving their countries from famine/surplus, making a profit doing it, and getting revered as saints. By accident. In the other side story, the baron’s daughter in the Servants of the Goddess – the one who hits things very hard – is inundated with marriage proposals, up to and including the princes of the kingdom, and like every other girl in this series decides the answer is to run away and be a monster hunter. FUNA has a leitmotif, and dammit, we’re going to play it over and over again.

That said, this is fine, aside from the usual “oh no my breasts are small” shtick. As always, for fans of the series only, but they should be happy.