By Shoji Goji and Saku Enomaru. Released in Japan as “Hitoribocchi no Isekai Kouryaku” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Andrew Schubauer.

Given that a large chunk of this series consists entirely of the same goddamn thing over and over again (Haruka going from level to level of a dungeon, battling monsters, and gaining new power-ups/items), I hope you won’t be too disappointed that I talk about things I’ve talked about in previous reviews. The series’ reputation, both here and in Japan – indeed, more in Japan than here – is that its writing is incoherent and obtuse. This is true. It’s also clear that the author is trying, and slightly succeeding, in making that deliberate. Haruka is so busy telling us about the stream of church guards that he and Nefertiri are slaughtering and the cool +30 Eccentric Item Set A he’s acquired that he glosses over the abused, mentally broken slaves they’re freeing as they do this, the sheer fury that they’ve got on their faces, and Haruka’s battle with trying to save everyone and not destroy his body. Oh, and his depression. Which he hints at briefly. Once.

Haruka and Nefertiri are sneaking into the Cathedral, there to essentially take down the church. On the way there, Haruka comes across a gorgeous woman in a coffin… but he’s just her dead body, there’s no soul. What’s more, seeing her makes Nefertiri start to cry, though she can’t quite remember why. They have to deal with a lot of goons, a lot of monsters (including the husband of his chickenatrice), and the mother of the bunny girl and wolf girl from the previous book, who was tricked by the church and is now in cursed armor. That said, killing the pope and the evil clergy only turns out to be part one of what they need to do, as there’s another dungeon emperor, and Haruka is pretty sure that if he finds them he’ll find the soul that belongs to the body he found earlier.

Haruka’s exterior face and tone when others see him talking don’t always match his narrative blather. Class Rep and the others are used to seeing when he’s actually serious and when he’s just being a loon, but the reader sees it less frequently. That’s why the highlight of the book, frankly, is his confrontation with Faleria, the aforementioned Dungeon Emperor and holy saint, who is drowning herself in guilt and asks Haruka to kill her. You can imagine how well he takes this, and for once it actually shows, as he literally slams her head against a wall multiple times to get her to accept that the people whose lives she is mourning would not want her to simply give up on her own life – indeed, the plot of this entire book was engineered centuries ago in the hopes that someone will come along to save her. Haruka’s not going to let anyone around him (especially a woman) be anything less than insanely happy. And yes, that’s why she falls in love with him.

There’s the usual character bio errors (what is it with these? It’s not just Seven Seas, all the publishers struggle immensely with matching a character bio with the picture), but otherwise this is well adapted… I’d say it reads smoothly but you know it doesn’t, and that’s by design. In any case, next time will likely be Haruka trying to fix his new body, which lacks all the stuff he learned before, so I expect *even more* dungeon crawling and *even more* sex. Recommended for masochists who like puzzles.

By Shoji Goji and Saku Enomaru. Released in Japan as “Hitoribocchi no Isekai Kouryaku” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Andrew Schubauer.

This series continues to be a masterclass in doing things that I find questionable and them making them heartwarming anyway. Class Rep talks here about Haruka using “Eye Mastery”, which is basically a brainwashing skill that lets him read someone’s mind and then alter their memories. He uses it here on some nuns that were about to be raped by the Church soldiers, as this world, as we are constantly reminded, is awful. I wasn’t happy with hearing that he’d been using it on the girls for a long time now, keeping them content and selfish, fighting over clothes and equipment and being goofy. He wanted them to be unaffected by this crapsack world. Sadly for him, they’ve all now leveled up enough so that it doesn’t affect them anymore, and thus they go to battle knowing full well what the Church’s soldiers have been doing. And they kill them. A lot of them. This is war, and our heroines are no longer going to be kept out of it. Innocent no more.

Our cast are headed off to the theocracy, there to take on the Church who are responsible for so much of the evil in this world. (We meet the Pope here, and he’s cartoonishly evil.) Sister Girl, who is (natch) a princess, will be leading the charge, backed up by Princess Girl, MeriMeri, the 20 girls of Haruka’s group, and Armored Rep as backup in case anything goes wrong. Meanwhile, Haruka and Dancer Girl are headed off to the capital itself, to deliver letters to various cities letting them know that The revolution is coming, and it’s time to break off and join it. They’re also there to kick ass, murder a metric fuckton of goons and assassins, and along the way, pick up a rabbit girl (on the cover), who is searching for her sister, kidnapped by the Church. Her sister is a wolf girl, by the way. Haruka is over the moon, but also a bit disturbed that these two are such an obvious chuuni stereotype.

I deliberately avoided using any names except for Haruka there, because that’s how he thinks. It’s underlined in this volume, where the girls once again yell at him for not using their names, getting their backgrounds wrong, and forgetting the name of their own school. Haruka’s subtext has rapidly become text. (Class Rep mentions the deaths of Haruka’s parents and sister here, though we get no details.) The running gag in the book is that Rabbit Girl and Wolf Girl, who are desperate to thank him for saving them and want to ask if there’s anything they can do for him (sorry, kids, you’re too young for Haruka to feel comfortable with), always have food stuffed in their mouths by him to shut them up, because the idea of hearing himself praised for doing what is essentially a giant pile of murders bothers him more than he can say. (And, just to bring the book back around to its core again, yes, a lot of the time when he’s shoving food in their mouths it’s meant to be phallic.)

Again, this book is for hardcore fans only, but if you are one, it’s always rewarding. And completely filthy, of course. I assume next volume we’ll get a new Dungeon Emperor, and I’m sure she’ll end up being gorgeous. This series is what it is.

By Shoji Goji and Saku Enomaru. Released in Japan as “Hitoribocchi no Isekai Kouryaku” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Andrew Schubauer.

First off, we have a change of creative team in the copyright. To Eric Margolis: thank you for your service, please have a rest now. To Lorin Christie: I see you got a promotion, please continue to help us enjoy this as editor. To Andrew Schubauer: Welcome to our new Meat Shield Translator!

I’ve mentioned before that this series does have a real meaning and moral behind “let’s watch Haruka bang his gorgeous monster concubines”. This volume in particular hits it hard at the end of the volume. If you are in power, if you enjoy the largesse of the people, then you have a responsibility to care for those people and make sure they are happy and content. If you do not do this, if you ignore the people saying it’s too hard to help them, or if you actively say that suffering is a good thing, then you are scum and deserve everything you get. When everyone arrives at the Beast Kingdom, the reader is briefly puzzled why Haruka and the girls are so utterly furious, but then it becomes clear – to get there, they had to pass through the devastated beast villages filled with dead people that the rulers didn’t bother to save. As for the Church? Well, using religion to genuinely make everyone’s lives better is still approved of. But the bulk of the Church isn’t doing that. And as for God, no one is impressed.

The last book implied this one would have the visit to the Beast Kingdom and then the attack on the Pope, but you know Loner Life is never going to do things quickly. No, this one is 463 pages, and you feel every one of those pages as Haruka decides to try to level up (remember, something damn near impossible for him to do) by sneaking into dungeons, fighting dungeon bosses, and getting killed/revived over and over till he’s a bloody mess. Needless to say, he does not win any friends by doing this. In his spare time, he rescues some adventurers who had heard about how awesome life was on the frontier, came to test their skills, and then discovered why the frontier is still terrifying. Finally, Haruka ends up setting off for the Beast Kingdom/Battle against the Church, and yes, everyone does come with him – much as he wants to protect them, he can’t put the girls off this time.

One thing that happens at the start of the book is that the Jocks (or Meatheads, as even Class Rep is calling them now) reveal that they’ve gotten engaged to five of the First Division’s warrior women, and, while pretending to be embarrassed, seem pretty happy about it. What’s more, we hear again that the Nerds have gotten into relationships with four of the Beast Girls in their kingdom. Despite all this, Haruka is still talking about searching the Theocracy to try to find something that can get everyone home. Class Rep is already aware that he means “everyone but him”, and that’s just not acceptable. It’s become pretty clear that, much as they miss Japan, the cast have decided that this is their home which they love. The reason Haruka has not cottoned on to this, of course, is because he is determined to distance himself from everyone he cares about and therefore he cannot understand why anyone would want to be around him unless he’s literally enslaved them. And even then, with the Mean Girls, he still doesn’t get it. Class Rep ALMOST confesses to him at the end of this book, but not quite, and it looks like he barely notices.

As I write this, the anime based on the manga is airing, but it really does seem like a completely different series. There’s still a lot to love about this series once you get past everything to hate about this series.