By Kuroakawa Hitsugi and Kushiro Kuki. Released in Japan as “Repeat Vice: Akuyaku Kizoku wa Shinitakunai node Shitennou ni Naru no wo Yamemashita” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by piyo.

We’ve had a couple of “trapped in the world of a game” series with more than one person aware of it, but those tend to go a different way than this one is. Usually you get the main character figuring things out, trying to change their fate, etc. and we get the other character (often an evil heroine) simply waiting for their life to be the same as the game and getting upset when it is not. That’s not what we get here, as there are two people actively trying to push back against the game’s events… in a previous life, no less, so it’s a mashup of that as well… and occasionally struggling as they see things out of context. Lilka knows that Lofus is already quite different from before, and yet when she hears about him interacting with Fol, she immediately can’t help but thinking of Fol as being the same as the past world. It’s very hard to draw outside the lines of the coloring book in your head.

Lofus continues in this book to do what he does best: make everyone’s lives a much better place while being an absolute dick about it. He is, unfortunately, unable to find an easy fix for Iz’s wasting mana disease, but he does manage to forge new ties with a merchant who really likes Lofus… possibly a bit too much… and get his railroad started with the unwanted but grudgingly necessary help of Raymond, who is still trying to be the one to force Lofus back into the game plot. Meanwhile, Fol is doing her best to map the unmappable, and Lilka is continuing to be a sky pirate. Unfortunately, as love interests go, they both have one primary flaw, which is that they’re not near the hero every day. Yes, that’s right, remember how I was feeling bad for Yusurika, Lofus’ hapless bodyguard who seemed to be unable to stop him waltzing into trouble? Turns out she’s also a love interest, and moves to the front of the line in this book.

I will admit I am not entirely positive about the Yusurika subplot. Not necessarily because of the love interest thing, it’s that kind of book, I know he’ll just continue to stack up women like cordwood. And her tragic past as a cursed dark-haired girl, despite her amazing healing powers, is unoriginal but par for the course. I am merely grumpy about the old chestnut “wait, I met you years ago and became your reason for living but have totally forgotten it because for me it was Tuesday” plot, which even Lofus has to fudge and say “no, of course I remember you”. Speaking of other love interests… not, not Fran the Saint or Maylene the Mage, but Raymond the wannabe Demon Lord, who is our token BL option (sorry, fans of the merchant, but he’s clearly comedy relief). Lofus may try to avoid dealing with him and hate his personality, but there’s no denying that their hate chemistry would spawn a number of AO3 fanfics if this were in Shonen Jump.

There’s a semi-cliffhanger at the end, but I would not worry too much about Lilka. Especially as the 7th book came out in July. For fans of the “villain” genre.

By Kuroakawa Hitsugi and Kushiro Kuki. Released in Japan as “Repeat Vice: Akuyaku Kizoku wa Shinitakunai node Shitennou ni Naru no wo Yamemashita” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by piyo.

I do enjoy this series, but it seems every book has something there to tick me off specifically. Last time it was the rape victim recovering by basically being told “get over yourself”. The issue with this book is not one unique to this series alone… in fact it’s in a large number of light novels… but it’s made more annoying because Lofus is in a constant state of rage, and thus it’s handled even worse. This series focuses on a noble kid with lots of power trying to escape his fate. He has met a few commoners, and he does not like them at all. “Know your place” is literally said at one point. And lest we think it’s just Lofus, the love interest from the first book is told that if she wants to get anywhere with Lofus, she’s got to be a noble, and perform great deeds to get there. I get that this genre invites this sort of thing, but don’t make it sound like a goal.

Picking up from where we left off at the end of the last book, Warm has been arrested for trying to save his father, who was arrested for pointing out the corruption of the corrupt but vital to the nobles merchant. Oh yes, and the captain of the sky pirates we met last time? Also arrested. So Lofus has to go rescue everyone, despite the fact that you sense he’d rather chew glass. He’s being egged on by Warm’s little sister, who is a cutie pie; by the mysterious white-haired girl from last time, who remains mysterious and white haired till suddenly she isn’t; and by the rest of the pirates, particularly Lilka, who has started acting very weird… and not in the “I am madly in love with Lofus” way that she was before. With all this going on, will Lofus still find the free time to do what he does best, be an asshole?

No fear there. I’m going to skip the flashy battles that are about half the book, because we know already I don’t care about those. There were some very effective scenes in this book. Most of Lilka’s subplot plays out here. As it turned out, she was indeed playing dumb in the second book, and is in a similar situation to Lofus. But while he’s a “I was reincarnated into this game” sort, she’s the “I am redoing my past life” sort. As such, a lot of her “I’m absolutely smitten with you” bullshit is a false front… though you get the sense not all of it is. I also likes the scenes with Lofus and Warm once he got over his annoying “why are you so weak I kill you” routine. Sometimes keeping an animal alive when they’re hurting is more painful than letting them go, and that’s a lesson Warm needs to learn. It’s done very well.

So will Lofus and his merry band really manage to cure Iz? Or will they get drawn into some other plot instead? If Iz dies, does she reincarnated into the Bofuri LNs? For fans of “villain” novels who like their villain extra pissed off.

By Kuroakawa Hitsugi and Kushiro Kuki. Released in Japan as “Repeat Vice: Akuyaku Kizoku wa Shinitakunai node Shitennou ni Naru no wo Yamemashita” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by piyo.

This series has one big selling point that makes it a lot better than most of the “reincarnated as some dude who dies” series I’ve been reading lately. Lofus starts this book angry, goes through the book angry, and ends the book angry. He is a perpetually frowning, bitching twelve-year-old, even when he’s rescuing slaves, helping to extend the life of dying wyverns, or helping one of the heroines escape from his family’s deadly crypt. Why does he have to do all this? Why can’t people just leave him alone to get on with escaping his pointless fate? An escape that seems like it might be harder than it sounds, as when the main bad guy of the series shows up to invite Lofus to join his Council of Evil, Lofus really has to struggle to say no. The narrative wants what it wants. Well, mostly. SOMEONE besides Lofus is able to twist the narrative to serve their own devices. I wonder who?

We pick up where we left off last time, as Lofus and his bodyguard Yusurika find themselves teleported to where the slaves are being sent. They find Norn, Faltiana’s friend, almost too quickly, though she’s been raped and tortured by her abusive owner. He also finds Warm, who is another “character” who was part of the Council of Evil (not its real name) and who is, at the moment, just some guy who loves his wyverns – though Lofus feels a need to fight him anyway, as in the previous world he was intensely jealous of Warm. Finally returning home, he’s immediately sent by his dad (another of those “I think he’s horrible but the reader sees he’s just awkward” dads) to investigate a break-in of the family crypt… and finds another “heroine” like Faltiana, who has triggered a trap and is now surrounded by monsters, as this crypt is basically a dungeon.

Setting aside the part that annoyed me first – I accept the author did not want this to be a series that realistically covered the aftermath of a rape and abuse victim, especially if she’s not going to show up much going forward, but “I was told to get over myself” is not really how I wanted her to recover either. Honestly, this series is a bit too quick to have rape as a threat to begin with, because it’s trying to show a tonally dark setting. On the bright side, the new love interest, Lilka, is an absolute hoot, being one of those “bright, talkative, has no sense of personal space or noble customs” girls. The funniest part of the book is where he realizes she must also have knowledge of the game, and tests her… but no, she has no idea what the hell he’s talking about. She *is* different from the game, but not, as far as we can tell, because she’s from Japan.

The book ends with a cliffhanger, but I’ve no doubt that Lofus is going to save the day, have ludicrous amounts of cool magic tricks, and be very, very grumpy. I’m here for it.