Category Archives: reviews

Re: ZERO ~Starting Life in Another World~, Vol. 25

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By Tappei Nagatsuki and Shinichirou Otsuka. Released in Japan as “Re: Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Dale DeLucia.

And so another arc bites the dust, as the 6th Arc of Re: Zero ends with this volume. There are more returns by deaths, there are lots of surprises, there are absolute PILES of cool fights, and there’s even a bit of tragedy. That said, there’s still a whole lot of stuff we don’t really know. Some folks who had their identity eaten by Gluttony are restored, some are not. Gluttony, who of course is three siblings, gets sealed away/killed/we have no clue. As for Subaru, well, he didn’t get a 100% victory, but he did his best. And he did it by knowing his strengths, which is cheering people on, taking their own pain as his own, and knowing that everyone else in his party is ludicrously stronger than him. Emilia gets amazing things to do, Ram is awesome, Julius is fantastic. It’s a pump the air sort of book… at least till that cliffhanger. Whoops, new arc.

Subaru may have decided that now is the time for his counterattack, but about 15 more deaths show that he himself cannot actually affect anything. As such, the one thing that helps him out is spotting his OWN book of the dead in the library… or rather the multiple, multiple volumes of books of each of his deaths. The outcome of reading all these books I won’t spoil, but by the end of it Louis is taken care of and Subaru has all his memories back. Now he’s ready to figure out what should be done to win: give Julius the cheerleader he’s dedicated himself to (who it turns out has not so much been in danger of dying as curling up and sulking), give Emilia a huge morale boost that allows her to pretty much be damn near invincible, let Rem fight with her sister in a very real way to take out Lye, and then go with Beatrice to help Meili to try to hold off Shaula till all this can be done. Oh yes, and can anyone pass the test?

This is a long book, with a lot going on. Emilia fans will eat VERY well in this book, though I get the feeling that the next arc may flip the heroines again. By the end of the book, they have won a bittersweet victory, one that is perhaps more bitter for them than it is for me: I can appreciate the tragedy of Shaula’s existence waiting for her master, but her death doesn’t quite land as tragically as I think the author wants it to. The other really good bit in the book was the climax, where they have Roy captured but not dead, and when Subaru suggests killing him to try to get everyone’s memories back, Anastasia is quick to point out that is a very UN-Subaru thing to say. As for Rem, having had a moment of triumph from within a book of the dead last time, she’s still comatose here, though that does not stop her from unconsciously helping Ram to get more power to defeat Lye. the cliffhanger suggests her fate will change very soon, though, so Rem fans, your long wait is almost over.

The next arc is not only the longest in the series, eight books, but it’s also far less popular than the last two. Get ready for almost an entirely new supporting cast. And go back and read Re: Zero EX 4 and 5, you’ll need them. Till then, this was a mostly very satisfying finale to this round of Re: Zero…. oh wait, we’re finally getting the Short Story volumes! See you next month, back in the Arc 2 days of yore.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life: Fall Down

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By Mato Sato and nilitsu. Released in Japan as “Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

First of all, big props to the author for actually keeping my attention through the first half of this volume. I’ve talked before about how the first half of these recent books have all been dire, so this is a definite step up. More seriously, I also noticed while reading this volume how compact the cast list is. This is basically a variation of shonen battle manga, in a sci-fi sort of vein, and each volume needs to escalate the danger because our heroes need a bigger threat. But the threats we’re seeing have been around since the start, they’re just coming back because everyone in this series is damn near impossible to permanently kill. Hell, even one of the cast from a thousand years ago is a supporting character in this book due to (handwaves) reasons. The “new” antagonist who threatens our heroines with bigger and bigger guns turns out to have been accidentally stifled by Sahara four books ago, and she doesn’t even remember it. So sad.

Menou, Abbie, Sahara and Maya have arrives in the wilds of the north, where they come across the stunning city of ruins, which is not only still intact after so long but is also technically TWO cities… there’s a second one upside down above the first. Unfortunately, they can’t simply sit around and watch terrible movies about sharks in space – not only is one of the biggest mobster bad guys around trying to kill the woman who killed off Flare, for tragic backstory reasons, but also Pandaemonium is here somewhere as well, and Maya, for obvious reasons, wants to try to stop her. Fortunately, the four of them have some help in the form of an ally thought long dead. UN-fortunately, Momo is there as well, and she’s got her own agenda, one that Menou really isn’t going to like.

As usual, I loved Sahara here, who continues to be forced to care and be heroic against her will. The final scene where she takes out one of the big bads because, among many other reasons, she never got breakfast OR lunch today is hilarious but also dead on. Sometimes you’ve got to let compassion fall by the wayside because you’re too cranky. More impressively, I really enjoyed reading Menou in this book. I’ve made no secret about the fact that Menou is my least favorite of the many “good guys” in this series, but here she’s given subtext that makes you pay attention to her – she’s losing more and more of her self. She’s already forgotten everything about Momo, which does not bode well for when the two inevitably meet up again, but seeing her casually take a scripture because she can’t remember why she wouldn’t be using one is chilling because she REMINDS us why earlier in the book. She’s falling to bits. Still not optimistic this will end with any of the main cast alive.

The yuri may be thin on the ground these days, but it IS driving most of the character motivation deep down, so that’s fine. This was good. I look forward to the 9th book. Which only came out in Japan 6 months ago, so we may have to wait more.

The Eminence in Shadow, Vol. 5

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By Daisuke Aizawa and Touzai. Released in Japan as “Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!” by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nathaniel Hiroshi Thrasher.

I really did not need there to be a two-year gap in between volumes, and I don’t really care that the author said they were doing a lot of other stuff. I don’t have any time to reread series, and when it’s been over two years since the last book we’re going to be lucky if I remember anything, especially as I found written word Cid much easier to take than anime Cid. Fortunately, the author is apologizing for the back half of Book 4 (Akane is pretty much absent from this book, no surprise there) by having us go back to the beginning – this volume takes place at school, and there’s a heaping helping of Alexia and Claire, though unfortunately both of them have a very bad time. Actually, no one really has a good time in this volume… except for Cid, who is hilarious when he’s treating everyone as helping him with his dramatic posing but slightly less hilarious when he’s ignoring a subordinate using those he cares about in a demonic ritual… wait, does Cid care about anyone?
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Cid returns to his normal class life and tries his hardest to be a generic schlub while also lurking on rooftops and practicing looking edgy. Unfortunately, this world takes itself seriously even if Cid does not. Students are disappearing, including Claire, though she quickly reappears. Rose, who is now the Queen of the Oriana Kingdom, finds that every other country in the land, who does not know the secret bad stuff that forced her to do all this, regards her as evil and are uniting against her. And the fact that there really are a large number of conspiracies all working against each other, and Shadow Garden’s willingness to just be “ominously evil”… well, Cid, in any case… means everyone just lumps them in with the other terrorists. Worst, one of the Seven Shadows may actually be summoning an ancient horror. Oh well, at least she told him and got permission first.

Yes I know, I take these books too seriously. But so does everyone else. Leaving Cid aside, there is a lot of very basic trauma here, with lots of dead students, most of them gruesomely dying by exploding bomb collars. Alexia now has her sister thinking she’s a fool, mostly as her sister is being fed false information. Claire is possessed by an ancient witch, who may or may not be evil. Oh yes, and then there’s Zeta, who we meet in this volume (the anime introduced her much earlier). She’s a therianthrope (beast person), and her backstory is, as with the rest of the Seven Shadows, incredibly awful. Unlike the rest of the Seven Shadows, however, she’s not content to simply pine after Cid and do whatever he wants, and she’s decided that the best thing to do is to revive Diablos’ right arm. This is the first of two volumes, so I’m not sure if Cid will notice what she’s doing or care, but I fear caring is a high bar for Cid to clear.

This is still interesting, and funny in many parts, so I’ll keep reading it. But get used to me whining about it too.