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Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town, Vol. 14

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By Toshio Satou and Nao Watanuki. Released in Japan as “Tatoeba Last Dungeon Mae no Mura no Shonen ga Joban no Machi de Kurasu Youna Monogatari” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

I was somewhat surprised when I read the afterword to find that the 15th volume of this series is supposed to be the last. Honestly, this felt like the sort of series that could go forever, even if it did feel like it was wrapping up all the plot points. But here we are, with the penultimate volume, and the focus this time is definitely on our main Big Bad, Eve. She’s always been a fairly dislikable figure, even in the bunny suit, and the prologue we get here hammers home why she’s far more loathsome than anyone else in the cast could ever hope to be. That said, we get the next best thing: to see the narrative treat her almost as badly as the other characters in this series. (I say almost. Marie is still the worst. Sorry, Marie.) Almost every single woman in this cast has humiliated themselves because they’re in love with Lloyd, after all…

A prologue gives us the full story of what we already know: Eve has possessed the body of Vritra’s daughter Asako, who has the same incurable disease Eve has, and has been running amuck in said body since the very start of this. Now she’s blackmailing Vritra to finish her new, adult body… though when it’s finally revealed, everyone notes it’s a bit too bling for anyone to really appreciate. In the meantime, a summit is being held to accuse Eve of her crimes, held in Eve’s own country… except the king and queen are sending Lloyd and Maria as their representatives, knowing that Lloyd is a secret weapon that can defeat almost any evil plan. That said, I don’t think anyone expected this evil plan to go off the rails in QUITE this way…

So yeah, this is one of those books that’s eclipsed by its best scene, which overwhelms the rest. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some funny stuff here, and even a bit of drama, but the interrogation of Eve, and her responses to same, is pitch-perfect. Eve, of course, is baffled that she’s behaving this way, possession or no, but it makes sense: inside her rests a 17-year-old girl whose dream it is to be rescued by a prince on a white horse, and Lloyd ticks every single box imaginable. Of course love was going to come into the equation. And I appreciate that it’s the possession talking, because that’s what makes it funny rather than creepy – Eve herself may be influenced by this, but when push comes to shove, she literally concusses herself to stop it and move on with her evil plan.

So yeah, now Eve has a new superpowerful body, looks like she stepped out of a Donki, and is headed off to take out Alka and her village of oveerpowered superpeople with her anti-superperson serum. I’d be worried, except, well, Lloyd. Also, who (snicker) will Lloyd end up with (guffaw) in the end? (Come on, we know this is not resolving jack.)

My Happy Marriage, Vol. 6

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By Akumi Agitogi and Tsukiho Tsukioka. Released in Japan as “Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon” by Fujimi L Bunko. Released in North America Yen On. Translated by David Musto.

Reading this volume of My Happy Marriage felt so different from all the previous volumes, it was absolutely like a breath of fresh air. Oh, don’t get me wrong, the other volumes are also excellent. But there’s always been this sense of suffocation to the events, a feeling that we’re waiting for the other shoe do drop. Frequently it has dropped, so we’re absolutely correct on that stage. Here, though? It’s only at the start, where Miyo is about to ,make a very dumb decision. Once she’s warded off that, though, everything unfolds exactly the way that it should. She seeks out allies, gets them to help her, researches her powers so she can use them better, makes peace with her mother, and heads off to go rescue her man from the hellish prison that he’s incarcerated in. And this works, because the climax is not “will Usui win or will the good guys prevail”, it’s “will Miyo stop hating herself and let love into her heart?” Spoilers: she does.

Miyo starts off this book by thinking the only way to do things is to just walk up to Usui so that she can get Kiyoka somehow. Fortunately, he’s powerful enough, even in prison, while being tortured, and with gift suppression all around, to create a familiar to stop her and tell her that she should actually go and gather allies to do this properly. The familiar also looks like Kiyoka as an 8-year-old boy, which leads to the cute moments of this book, as she finds him adorable, calls him Kiyo, and even lets him sleep in her bed – something I fear she will regret later when she realizes how familiars work. In any case, she goes to visit the Usuba patriarch and gets the complete story about what happened with Usui and her mother, then she goes to Kiyoka’s parents to ask his father to help her gather gift-users, and she gets Kiyoka’s military crew. Then it’s time to go do a prison break.

As I said, if you’re reading this for the thriller aspect, you may be a bit disappointed. Everything goes almost embarrassingly well, due to a combination of Miyo’s dream powers and Kazushi’s ability to hit people very hard. They literally walk into the prison because, due to everything that’s happened in the last couple books, there aren’t enough soldiers Usui trusts to guard it and also beat off the diversion that’s being fought outside. Even the one bit where things look bad happens exactly as expected – if you’re surprised at what Arata did, I’m so sorry, you must not read very many of these series. But the true climax of the book was Usui trying to talk Miyo into joining him in ruling the world, and Miyo snapping and screaming at him. That was wonderful, I will be so happy if it gets animated. Miyo may also have super powers and come from a terrible family life, but she is using her powers to make herself happy, not impose herself on others. Something Usui doesn’t get.

This isn’t the last book, and the author promises the happy marriage is imminent (though the blurb for the next volume suggests a snag). Fans of this series will love this.

I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, Vol. 14

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By Kisetsu Morita and Benio. Released in Japan as “Slime Taoshite 300 Nen, Shiranai Uchi ni Level MAX ni Nattemashita” by GA Novels. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jasmine Bernhardt.

I had been wondering what we’d see at the end of this new volume. For most of this series, the main storyline has taken up the first 2/3 of the book or so, and the last 1/3 was taken up by a side story about another character. First it was Beelzebub, and that ended up getting its own genuine spinoff. Then it was Halkara, which did not get a spinoff but at least allowed her to be something other than “the drunk with big boobs”. And then there was Laika, probably the best of the three spinoffs, and that also got a manga adaptation. That said, we are starting to run out of characters that can carry a side series. As such, it’s probably a good idea, given that the CD dramas themselves are long out of print in Japan, to add the original CD drama scripts. The unfortunate problem with this, of course, is that CD dramas, by their nature, cannot affect anything. Unlike the side stories, there’s no character development here.

As always, this is basically a short story volume, as there isn’t an ongoing plot. We start off by Azusa and company heading to an underground city as the demons have discovered that an elder god might be released if a seal comes undone… which of course it promptly does. They then attend a demon-run exhibition about apples, showing off varieties and different scientifically grown apple-related things. They go to a cat cafe run by the ghost city, and a ghost cat ends up possessing Azusa. And then it’s time for them to run their cafe again, but since the word about the cafe has gotten out so much, they worry that it’s gotten completely out of hand and will be too big. Fortunately, the pine spirit is able to step in and help them out, and we then see the cafe (now moved to a different location) doing well with its star waitress (Laika) there. And we then get the two CD drama stories, where Azusa discovers that this world has curry, and Azusa discovers this world has ramen.

There’s not really anything to really dig into here, and I don’t think readers really want there to be. A serious, life-threatening plotline would feel grotesquely out of place at this point in the series. It’s all fluff all the time, and this volume certainly provides it. It does perhaps pretend that there’s a major crisis with the first story, but the elder god turns out to be about as threatening as all the other gods we meet in this series, and by later in the book is wandering around the town like a tourist. As for the CD dramas, it’s nice to see the scripts, but god, they’re slight. There was a bit of yuri tease that the author has been pulling away from ever since they first wrote this and realized a yuri fandom they really did not want had glommed onto it. Other than that? It’s cute, it’s sweet, it’s funny.

The previous volume of this came out in 2022, and it’s been a long time ill we got this one. The next one should be much sooner. If you wanted more of it, this certainly is that.