By Fujino Omori and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka?” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Dale DeLucia.

It’s been almost twelve years since the first volume of DanMachi came out in North America, and I think we can forgive the reader for forgetting the original premise of the series, as well as the reason for the title. Bell Cranel arrives in Orario to become an adventurer. He does this so that he can meet girls and get a harem. Now,, to be fair, this is mostly planted in him by his pervy grandfather, but still. Now, twenty volumes and unfathomable amounts of spinoffs later, Bell is an adventurer. He’s met plenty of girls. And, if you look at those girls, you know that he definitely has a harem. Even if he’s ignoring that fact. But this series has always been about getting Bell to see the bigger picture, and for this volume we get the biggest picture of all. Bell is needed because the heroes of old, the really strong ones, are all dead. And now there’s another world-shattering crisis, and they need not only Bell, but every other hero on deck.

Bell has returned from the School District, and he and his Familia are ready to go back into the dungeons… especially as they have a cute new intern, Nina. Who it turns out also has amazing healing capabilities – the one thing they’re short on for these long dungeon crawls. She’s perfect! Unfortunately, the shmuck who runs the guilds does something dumb again, and as a result the School District has pulled all its students back from internships and announced it’s cutting Orario off. This interests the Gods, who love giant messes, and so they make a deal to turn the whole fight between school and adventurers into a tournament arc, best of five, to see who wins. Meanwhile, Bell disguises himself as a student again and goes to talk with Leon… who turns out to be a Level 7 powerhouse, and probably the guy who’s going to be fighting Bell in the tournament. Welp.

Maybe it’s because it’s been two years since the last main volume of the series, but I liked this one a bit more. For those wondering how many volumes it would take for Syr to stop being every God’s punching bag and go back to flirting with Bell and teasing the others, the answer is “one” – she’s almost moved into Bell’s mansion. I do also like how, even though the romance is not really the focus of this series anymore, the author never lets it drop – Lyu has confessed, but knows what Bell’s answer will be, so begs him not to say anything. Nina and Eina realize they’re both in love with the same guy, and kind of bond over it. And above everyone is Aiz, who expresses affection to Bell through aggressive training, and gets very jealous when she hears Lyu has been training him as well. Resolve Bell and Aiz, and everyone else will come after it. Erm, assuming Aiz isn’t dead…

Yes, that’s right, cliffhanger! We don’t hear exactly what happened, but that’s what Sword Oratorio 15 is for, I’m guessing. Which is fortunately out in two months, rather than two years. Good stuff. Also, dragons! Wait, dragons are bad in this series…

By Fujino Omori and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka? Gaiden – Sword Oratoria” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Dale DeLucia.

So, this wasn’t bad. It didn’t do anything wrong, and the climax moves up to “pretty good”. That said, it’s been a while since I last read a volume of Danmachi and my main reaction was “eh”. I think I can put some of this down to the basic premise, and how little it deviates from the expected. If I was to tell you that the plot of this book is “we find out how Finn, Riveria and Gareth ended up joining Loki Familia”, and asked what you thought would happen in the book, I bet you’d come up with something pretty similar to this. It hits the beats it needs to hit. Finn is clever and smug, Riveria is powerful but haughty, Gareth is strong but stubborn. And Loki is, well, Loki. This gives folks the backstories they wanted, but it has exactly zero surprises, unless you count Eine’s mom (who, as Loki tells us a few times, has got it going on).

Loki Familia is having a big celebration – though admittedly one close to home, as they’re short on cash to go to a bar right now – to celebrate the big news. Finn, Riveria and Gareth have all hit Level 7, and they did it at the same time, too. After a raucous feast with the whole family, the three of them and Loki have a quieter drink afterwards, and get to reminiscing. We see a Loki who’s just come down to the human world and has zero followers. She meets Finn, who has a tragic backstory but is also determined to show the world not to look down on prums, even if he has to give up his first love to do so. Riveria is shown as a princess who’s trapped in the forest with the high elves, and her escaping with her attendant and best friend Aine, despite her father and the other elves pursuing her. And we see Gareth in a small, poor mining town, doing his best to make sure everyone can live even though he’d really rather be out adventuring.

As always with this author, the fights get better as they go along, which means Gareth’s story is probably the one that hit best for me. I could have done without Loki’s sexual harassment, but honestly I’ve seen worse from her, and I know by now it’s meant to be her THING. I did mention Aine, and she does not do much, and clearly is not suited to be part of Loki Familia. Unfortunately, we don’t see how she married a human here – maybe there’s a side story or game that talks about it. The bulk of the book is “elves and dwarves hate each other”, with a side order of “hobbits are weak” – sorry, prums – and about the three of them learning to get along and discovering how strong they are as a fighting team. And Loki does manage to be clever once or twice in amongst being a horny brat.

So yeah, this is exactly what it says it is, no more, no less. The next book promises to tie back in with the main series, and also have more of Ais.

By Fujino Omori and nilitsu. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka? Shohenshu” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jake Humphrey.

If you thought it was hard for me to write 500 words or so on the first SS collection, imagine how hard it’s going to be with this one, where I can’t even waste 100 of them describing what it is. That said, at least here there is slightly less of the “everybody loves Bell” show, mostly as he’s far more of a supporting character. These short stories, with one or two exceptions, focus on Loki Familia, and the majority are about either Aiz or Lefiya. Which means it is about romance somewhat – after all, Lefiya has a crush on Aiz at this point in the story (the stories go up to the 12th volume), and Aiz has vaguely warm feelings for Bell. Both of them have something in common, which is they can’t quite work out what Bell is to them. Lefiya settles on rival, and Aiz, strangely, settles on rabbit, but they’re both watching him dash ahead and wanting that.

The cover shows Aiz and Lyu, possibly as this also takes in the first Lyu volume and the Freya volume. That said, those wanting lots of Lyu will be disappointed. Most of these, as with the first, are 1-2 page stories that don’t impact much. They’re also mostly comedic, again with one or two exceptions, usually focusing on Leene, that one character we got to know well before she was brutally murdered. There are larger stories in here as well, which focus on Loki Familiar catching a unicorn, Tiona and her book nerd friendship with Bell, a romcom disaster set around the events of DanMachi 7/DanMachi SO 8, Aiz dreaming of various pasts and futures she could have, Aiz walking around the city talking with most of the regular cast and trying to figure out her own heart, a sequel to the Freya book focusing on Shalzad’s new king, and seeming to tie into Memoria Freese, and the last story, which I’ll go into below.

The final story takes place sometime after DanMachi 19 and Sword Oratoria 13, but not much longer after. It starts off silly, tying back to the first SS collection as Loki Familia are looking at the “character poll” and Lefiya is getting very, very angry that Bell beat Aiz in some categories. She goes off to find out who was responsible for this travesty… and runs into Syr, who is spreading the word of Bell, partly as part of her punishment (which goes over Lefiya’s head, as she missed everything and has no idea why Syr is) and partly as she’s still madly in love with Bell. Meanwhile, Aiz ends up running into Ryu, and the two are super awkward around each other, especially when they recall their first meeting. Naturally, the four eventually come together. This, the most recent story (it was written for the book itself) mostly made me happy as it shows that Syr is not going to just be a meek little good girl, even though she’s given up being Freya. She’s here to spread the word of Bell, and if Lefiya says “rival” and Aiz says “rabbit”, well, that’s fine with her.

So this was solid, but again, for fans only. Next up should be Sword Oratoria 14.