By Piero Karasu and Yuri Kisaragi. Released in Japan as “Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Haydn Trowell.

There was a long gap between Book 8 and Book 8.5 in North America, which allowed the series in Japan to not only get further ahead but even finish – the final volume will be lucky number 13. Fortunately, there’s less of a gap between 8.5 and this book, so we can start to catch up. This is the start of the final arc, according to the author, and as such we’re finally going to be looking outside of Palettia to other countries – in particular the Ailean Empire. Anis and Euphie have spent most of the series dealing with troubles in their own backyard, be it Anis’ magical inventions, the wicked nobles scheming to make her a puppet Queen, Euphie’s own broken engagement, etc. Now that most of that has been resolved, it’s time to look outward… though Anis and Euphie really don’t want to look outward. They’re still laser focused on progress at home. Unfortunately, when you’re making really cool things that can change the world, “sorry, they’re not for sale” isn’t going to cut it.

As Anis tries to deal with all the paperwork that starting a new Magicology City entails, she ends up discovering something terrible – denizens of the Ailean Empire want to assassinate her! See, the Empire had a massive “take over everything” phase a while back, and took over some countries that bordered on Palettia and traditionally hated them – and that tradition hasn’t gone away even though they’re now subjects of the Empire. Fortunately, Anis now knows in advance, and can take precautions. This leads her and Euphie to meet with the emperor, who sounds like a freak, and acts it too a lot of the time, but ends up being one of those “I disguise my intelligence behind an annoying false front” sorts, and he’s here to psychoanalyze Euphie – much to her displeasure. Can all this be resolved by a visit to the Empire?

I really did like the Emperor’s talk with Euphie. He points out, and he’s not wrong, that she has no desires of her own as ruler. She’s only doing it for Anis. In that sense, Anis really is the driving force behind the country at the moment. It’s a good point, and I can see why people would be wary of someone who doesn’t seem to have any wants or needs. There’s also what amounts to a resolution of Tilty’s storyline – I get the sense the bulk of the rest of the series is going to be visiting the Empire, and she’s definitely not coming. Searching or a way to fix her issues has led to a solution that works well for her, but I agree it should stay secret till they sort everything out. I also really liked the way to bring Ilia back into the plot, as she’s done very little lately, short stories aside. She also does nothing in this book, but the future looks better for her and Lainie.

In the end, my favorite scenes in this series remain Anis and Euphie being lovey-dovey even as they discuss assassins, empire building, and a turbulent future. Still great fun to read.

By Piero Karasu and Yuri Kisaragi. Released in Japan as “Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Haydn Trowell.

Ah, the good old .5 volume. This one even helps us out by telling us where most of the original short stories were seen – they were in Fujimi Shobo’s Dragon Magazine, which frequently has short story extras for its popular series. This is good news, as it means they’re all chunky short stories written for an attentive audience, rather than, say, the “these are all 2-3 page stories written for bookstore giveaways” short story volumes. In fact, I’d say this is just as strong as the regular volumes, and some of the stories I’d call essential. They mostly, with the exception of the first, examine life after Euphie takes the throne, and deal with the fallout of what comes from that. As we saw in the last volume, it’s still ongoing and nasty, and is destroying a number of families and lives. That said, we know where our sympathies lie, because the families whose lives are getting destroyed are trying to marry Euphie off to a man and still hate Anis.

The stories: 1) Near the start of their relationship, Anis shows Euphie how she collects spellstones, and they have a nice bath and are attracted to each other; 2) Anis tries to repair her relationship with her mother, which is difficult as they’re both very awkward and blame themselves for everything that happened between them; 3) Ilia’s family has gotten rid of her abusive parents, and are trying to get her to come back to them and marry her cousin, but Lainie isn’t going to let that happen; 4) in an original story for the book, Anis tries to ruffle Euphie’s coolness by being her maid for the day; 5) We get Tilty’s backstory as she tries to avoid reconciling with her father; 6) Halphys is getting married but a surprise succession change may mess things up for her at the last minute; 7) In another original story for the book, Euphie asks Anis if she can sometimes wear nice dresses and actually socialize.

The relationship between Anis and Euphie has always tried to toe the line between “codependent, but in a good way” and “codependent, but in a terrible way”. There’s a scene in Halphys’ story where a noble admits he’s abdicating simply as Euphie terrifies him, and given what happened in Book 8, I absolutely get it. Anis may get upset that Euphie always seems to be the dominant one in their love, but that’s more down to Anis’s embarrassment, whereas with Euphie being overly affectionate is how she holds on to what’s left of her humanity. The best story, I thought, was Tilty’s, where we meet her father and realize that they’re the classic case of two people trying to be considerate of each other who only end up hurting each other instead. It’s a must read if you like her character.

Hopefully we’ll get the 9th book a bit faster than we got this one. Another great volume in a series I really love.

By Piero Karasu and Yuri Kisaragi. Released in Japan as “Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Haydn Trowell.

Technically this book is the second half of an arc that began with the last one. That said, what this book really does is take everything that we’ve learned in the last seven books and boil it down into an examination of how monarchies really function, especially ones where the nobles don’t necessarily do what the ruler says. And that’s not even the case either, because of course this is a magical kingdom, and being a magical ruler is not remotely the same as being, say, Henry VIII. The magical revolution is still ongoing, and there are people who are very unhappy… not with the revolution itself (i.e. Anis’ magical tools) but simply with the loss of power that this entails. And the fact that it’s come from the non-magical Anis. What does all this mean? It means that both Anis and Euphie spend more time being utterly furious than in any other book we’ve read to date, and both consider simply executing everyone to solve the problem. (Spoiler: they don’t do that.)

Anis is busy working on the construction of her new magical city when she gets an urgent message from Lainie to return to the royal palace, and when she does she finds that Euphie is in her room on forcible rest. What’s worse, she hasn’t been able to sleep for days, and when she tries to eat food it’s tasteless and she can barely choke it down. Euphie is losing touch with her humanity and moving towards being a spirit contractor. And the reason for this? Well, they were meeting with the Western Nobles, who have always been difficult. But when one noble, Count Leghorn (I did try doing the Foghorn Leghorn voice, but it doesn’t match the character) venerates Euphie in a religious fervor, and suggests that all of Anis’ accomplishments have been falsified, Euphie almost loses control of herself in rage. So now she’s on forced leave… and tells all this to Anis, who is now ALSO losing control of herself in rage.

I haven’t really talked much about Lainie lately, who gets the bulk of the narrative here that’s not Anis or Euphie. (Most of the POV in this book is Euphie, and it’s really good.) This series began by combining an isekai with a villainess story, and Lainie was the “heroine” in that scenario. Now a loyal maid, she’s just as livid with what the Western nobles are doing but is not quite as close to it as Anis and Euphie are, so instead calls in the cavalry to come up with a solution. It’s pretty terrific. I also liked her discussion with Lumi, who points out that neither Anis nor Euphie are truly human anymore, and isn’t that a bit disturbing? Lainie believes in them, but then Lainie is a vampire, so she’s dealing with the same problems. The Western nobles have a much higher bar to clear… and they don’t clear it. There are no mass executions, but trust me, an epic smackdown happens.

This book shows that “happily ever after” is hard to achieve and requires constant effort, and even that may not be good enough. Fortunately, it ends rather triumphantly. We get a short story collection before Book 9… but both only came out a couple months ago in Japan, so it may be a bit. Highly recommended.