By Sty and Tsumeki. Released in Japan as “Shiou no Kikan: Moto Yuusha no Ore, Jibun ga Soshikishita Chuuni Himitsukessha wo Tomeru Tame ni Futatabi Isekai ni Shoukansareteshimau” by MF Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Roy Nukia.

I’m still enjoying this series a lot more than I expected to, and it’s for much the same reasons as the first. I’m not as wild about the “cringe” part of the title, though thankfully there’s less of him regretting his chuuni past and feeling embarrassed here. There’s more of the serious bits here as well, though, and I’m definitely enjoying those. This series has a backstory that it is content to give to you in bits and bobs, rather than as a giant wall of flashback, and I appreciate that. It also wants to remind you about what being absent for nearly two hundred years would do to people who are, shall we say, a bit codependent on you. Likewise, Shio not telling everyone he’s from another world turns out to be for a very good reason, especially given the aforementioned codependency. All this makes me forgive the fact that there’s a tournament arc in this book.

The first volume introduced us to four of Shio’s posse of supernatural badasses, here we meet another. Hræsvelgr, though, is having a much harder time getting over the vanishing of the most important person in her life. Sure, she’s kept herself busy helping out a schmuck of a guy who doesn’t even know how to use her power properly, but really what she is is suicidal. Meanwhile, our protagonist needs, of course, weapons. Which means he needs money. Fortunately, he’s headed to the fantasy equivalent of Las Vegas, where he can enter a fighting tournament to get some cash, as well as meeting the ruler of the city, Kaguya, who is very interested in him. Unfortunately, that fake Helheim is still making a bad name for itself, and it doesn’t help that there are a lot of demons around trying to bring back the Demon Lord Shio killed last time. Only… did Shio really kill him?

Things aren’t all serious, of course. We meet another demon, Furcas, who is basically the terrifying demon equivalent of “dumb meathead girl”, so I was naturally disposed to liking her. (There’s a human equivalent too. TWO meathead girls in one volume, my cup runneth over!). I was amused as well at the creeping horror that Shio has when he realizes that Aleu, the schmuck Hræsvelgr is helping, is not doing a bit but really is that much of a schmuck, and his flirting with Kaguya was first-rate. That said, the best scenes were the serious ones, particularly the ones with Hræsvelgr. Her meltdown after discovering that the gang has gotten back together without her is painful to read. And of course then there’s Shio finally telling Hræsvelgr what he’s been avoiding – that merely by his followers being around the man they love, he is slowly being killed. Oh yes, and Shio also finds that most of what’s been happening is thanks to the complete dick who summoned his middle school class in the first place. He’s not happy.

There’s a third volume of this series out in Japan, but it hasn’t started serializing on JNC, so we may have to wait a bit. This continues to be better than I expected, and not very much like The Eminence in Shadow at all.

By Sty and Tsumeki. Released in Japan as “Shiou no Kikan: Moto Yuusha no Ore, Jibun ga Soshikishita Chuuni Himitsukessha wo Tomeru Tame ni Futatabi Isekai ni Shoukansareteshimau” by MF Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Roy Nukia.

Occasionally there are series where I’ll buy it for one reason, usually because it’s advertised as something that intrigues me, only to end up enjoying the book for a completely different reason. This was one of those. The book seems to have been pitched (and judging by that cover, it was pitched in Japan that way as well) as being very much “for fans of The Eminence in Shadow”. There’s a guy prone to making over the top statements, there’s a society of evil made up of extremely loyal servants (though not all of them are women in this one), and there’s lots of fun comedy. But there’s another book that exists behind this book, the prequel that the author thankfully never wrote. And that book certainly is not a comedy. And it drives everything that happens in this book, and makes it a lot more interesting.

Back in middle school, an entire class full of students was summoned to another world by God to defeat the Demon King, each of them gaining special cool powers. At the end of this battle, the demon king is dead, but so are all the classmates, except one, whose special power gains strength whenever an ally dies. He’s returned to Japan, a month after he left, and after police questioning and hospitalization, he’s left to pick up his shattered life. Three years later he’s about to graduate high school when suddenly he’s summoned again. It turns out the “secret society of evil” he created while he was there, made up of various eccentrics, is causing havoc in his absence, and he has to return to clean it up. Two problems. One, he hates remembering his chuuni phase and wants nothing to do with all this edgelord stuff. Two, it’s almost 200 years later!

As noted, while there is humor in this it’s not the reason to read it. It’s mostly “ha ha, it’s funny as he’s horrified by his middle school dramatics being written in stone”. But there are several better reasons. First of all, Shio has suffered genuine trauma from his isekai stunt, and has lingering PTSD. He also feels guilt because, albeit unintentionally, he abandoned his secret society allies for two hundred years… and now it turns out someone is committing genuinely evil acts in its name, as opposed to merely using it to look cool which actually doing good. Most of all, thanks to his actions at the start of the book, ANOTHER class of students has been isekai’d to this world… to stop him. And they may not survive either.

So yeah, the dark, tragic edges in this series interested me a lot more than the funny parts. It was good, I’ll read another.