By Bokuto Uno and Miyuki Ruria. Released in Japan as “Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

Reign of the Seven Spellblades is one of those rare light novel series that has, if not a huge fan wiki, at least a relatively up to date wiki, which is very useful when you have dramatic tragic deaths and you cannot actually remember who these people are. At one point I paused, looked up a name, went “ah, right, from Book 8!”, and moved on. That said, this is the final volume of the big Kimberly invasion arc, and we’re fifteen books is, so the author is finally killing off, permanently, actual people who have been around a long while and who we care about. I’ll get into the details of that a bit below, so spoiler warning. But I also need to emphasize that, even though this is a book filled with war, death and grieving, it never quite hits despair, and the overall theme is triumph, even if it’s at a painful cost. This book is optimistic. Well, as optimistic that a book about a boy killing off all the faculty can be.

Summarizing this is hard, as it’s mostly 250 pages of fight goes one way, then the other way. Bad guys die tragically. A few good guys die tragically. A lot of people we’ve never heard of die tragically. We also do find out why the bad guys are doing this, or at least why they’re saying they are. And we get some flashbacks that remind me that, much as I’m enjoying our main cast working their way through magic college, all their parents did the same thing a generation before, and they were all equally eccentric/bonkers. (The book is mostly serious, but the funniest bit has the students asking Katie if she’s all right and then having to clarify they mean “not possessed or consumed, we know you’re completely bananas”). In the end, the school is saved… just barely.

So, first of all, none of the six main characters die. (I have to be careful not to say “main six” because I know one day I’ll mistype it and this will become My Little Pony.) Katie, aside from the comedy bit I mention above, is entirely absent. Chela is mostly there to be support, the author clearly didn’t have anything for her to do. Nanao too is mostly absent aside from the very end. But if you like Oliver, Pete, and Guy you’re gonna be happy. Certainly happier than they are. Rita Appleton has been around since the 4th book and her crush on Guy has been around almost as long, and she gets to do what a lot of teenage girls with a crush would fantasize about, die to save her beloved. Richard Andrews has been around since the very start, the definition of the “arrogant rival guy turned reluctant ally turned reliable ally”, and it’s that reliability, as well as compassion, that leads to him saving Oliver, Nanao and Chela. Now a few characters I was sure would die somehow did not (there is more than one teacher given a backstory that is literally “I want to die”, and yet…), but this victory came at a cost. Still, it was damn cool as a fictional story.

Next time I assume we will be back to Oliver’s vengeance… whenever next time is. The 15th book came out in Japan over a year ago, and the series is now caught up. We wait for the author, and remember the fallen.

By Bokuto Uno and Miyuki Ruria. Released in Japan as “Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

The previous books have been packed with stuff, so many plots that it was hard to remember them all. What’s more, we were leisurely strolling through the years at school. Those days are gone now. Not only are Oliver and Company now 5th years (yes, it’s graduation for Tim Linton, though don’t worry, he’ll be around), but there is no leisurely strolling in this book – it’s war. Even worse, the war looks to continue into the next book. This means that the book is almost entirely battle scenes, with some no-names dying, some people we know getting grievously injured, and our heroes all getting the chance to show off both how cool and powerful they are and also that they are the biggest weirdos and freaks in the school. But that’s fine – it’s Kimberly, so everyone’s used to that. The trouble is that most of the powerhouse teachers were suckered away from the school, and the school itself is lacking powerhouse teachers as SOMEONE keeps killing them off.

It’s time for the war against the Gnostics, but fear not – everything has been foretold, and the teachers have gone to the most likely incursion spots. Unfortunately, the foretellers were compromised, and the Gnostics’ true plan becomes clear – attack and wipe out Kimberly. That means the students have to battle it out, led by student council president Vera Miligan, who is staying behind for an unheard of eighth year just so that she can whine about why this is happening to her. Katie and Nanao are sent to the front lines, while the other four (well, OK, other three, Pete is barely in this except for the cliffhanger setup) stay behind to battle the soldier/mages that will inevitably get through. All our old familiar friends and enemies chip in – even Teresa’s group, who find themselves in the midst of an attack from within. Can everyone show off why they’re awesome?

Of course they can, that’s the whole point of this book. Oliver, for once, is merely normally amazing, having lightning fast reflexes taught to him by a supposed traitor, and he does well enough but it’s not jaw-dropping. Same with Chela. Nanao gets the best action set piece, with what can only be described as “death from above”, and I liked the tie-back to Ashbury’s broom arts. But let’s face it, the best scene in the book, and one of the best scenes in the series, is Katie forcing an enemy general to explain why they’re fighting, and then trying to see how she could improve on it. Katie is regarded as a walking time bomb even by her friends, and we know that she’s got demi-human rights on the brain, but I have to tell you that when I saw “I just thought it’ll be my turn next“, I both shuddered and howled with laughter. Chela, Pete, your goal of a six-person harem living happily ever after is severely hampered by the other four.

As I said, cliffhanger, so we’ll have to see who lives and who dies next time. Thrilling stuff.

By Bokuto Uno and Miyuki Ruria. Released in Japan as “Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

One of the memes that goes around about Reign of the Seven Spellblades – let’s be honest, it may be the only meme – has Fred from Scooby Doo in front of a villain with “Harry Potter” as a mask, and he says “Now let’s see who Reign of the Seven Spellblades *really* is!”, and removes the mask, showing Fate/Stay Night. I have, in fact, made this joke myself throughout these reviews. That said, no volume quite hammers this home as much as this one. Shirou and Saber… pardon me, Oliver and Nanao… are competing to see who can be the biggest death seeker (OK, that’s not quite correct, but both think death within a year or two is inevitable). Meanwhile, I’ve already talked about the ways, both physical and mental, that I think Chela is like Rin, but I wasn’t expecting her to also be Sakura. And of course, if you’ve played the original Fate game, you know how explicit it gets. This volume comes close to that.

In the aftermath of the last book, Guy has to distance himself from the rest of the Sword Roses, which is particularly devastating to Katie. To make things more annoying, they’re fourth years, and now is the time when they all have to essentially “choose a major” – decide what specific course they’re inclined to pursue in detail. Oliver has not really thought about his future at all, so simply goes along with Katie to keep an eye on her. Nanao accidentally forgets the most obvious path, mostly as she too is not bothering to think about the future. And Guy is seeing if he could be a good curse breaker, and also has the folks from Book 12 he fought with – including comedy relief Annie Mackley – trying to separate him from the Sword Roses. This all comes to a head when Katie gets so uptight she needs… relief, shall we say, and Chela asks for what is an obvious solution. Things go badly.

This book reminds us of two big things. The first is that our protagonists, the Sword Roses, are all thought of as huge freaks within the rest of the school. They’re literally described as ticking timebombs, and the main reason seems to be the fact that they’ve been so close knit since they first met at the start of their first year – most friend groups in this school drift apart. The second is that, despite all of this, there’s still a lot of secrets that have never been told between this friend group. Nanao learned one of Oliver’s worst tragedies from the past, but Chela didn’t, and that ends up blowing up in her face – mostly due to Chela’s OWN backstory, which we get another part of here, and – as Chela herself points out – she and Oliver are similar yet also opposite in some ways. I’d said that I wondered if this would end with just Oliver and Nanao dead or everyone dead. I now suspect this may be an all-or-nothing series – either the six survive or they all die.

All this plus a whole lot of… well, there’s no other way to put it, mutual masturbation… reminds us that this remains a really well-written, really horny, and really suspenseful series. I have no idea what’s going to happen next.