Category Archives: reviews

Fake Saint of the Year: You Wanted the Perfect Saint? Too Bad!, Vol. 3

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By kabedondaikou and Yunohito. Released in Japan as “Risō no Seijo? Zannen, Nise Seijo Deshita! Kuso of the Year to Yobareta Akuyaku ni Tensei Shitanda ga” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Rymane Tsouria.

There have been a LOT of series recently with a guy who dies and is reincarnated as a woman, or is isekai’d into a woman’s body, etc. So many that we’re even seeing a few that are explicitly (at least according to the author) a “transsexual fantasy” (see I Guess This Dragon Who Lost Her Egg to Disaster Is My Mom Now). That said, Ellize is here to nip all that in the bud. She makes several things clear over the course of this volume, and the ones that do not have anything to do with her baffling and depressing death wish have to do with her sexuality. She’s a guy. She’s attracted to girls. She has absolutely no desire to admit that lesbians exist. And so therefore she plans on rejecting Verner no matter how high his “affection score” is with her. That said, the ending of this book seemingly makes all that irrelevant.

After the events of the last book, it’s clear that it’s time to take care of the Witch once and for all. Especially as the Witch – or rather, her most intelligent monster minion – is starting to make moves like “let’s kidnap someone and make them a patsy for Ellize to kill”. Which also involves kidnapping several students, and leads to… Eterna awakening as the Saint. OK, not a problem, Ellize can gloss over this. Things get a bit trickier when they journey to an island nation and find the grave of the First Saint… which turns out to have the first saint in suspended animation, and Ellize can free her. Now they have TWO real Saints and ONE fake Saint, and need to work out how to defeat the Witch without starting the cycle all over again. Oh yes, and Verner has figured it out: Ellize is not the Saint.

I’ll be honest, I thought this was the last book, and when the fourth volume in the series appeared on the JNC streaming site it startled me. Everything was set up for things to finish here. The trouble is… everything was set up for things to finish here tragically. Indeed, that’s the ending we get. The book ends with Ellize dying in order to prevent the Witch from taking over the next Saint, and the tragedy is that she mistakenly thinks that this will make everyone happy (because the world is saved) rather than destroy everyone around her (because they all love her). If this were the ending, it would be bitter indeed. I’m not sure what happens in the fourth book, which we are told *is* the final one, but I assume Ellize is not going to spend the whole book dead. Something will have to be done. And I sincerely hope that something will also fix Ellize’s “nothing matters because I’ll be dead soon” attitude.

This series has its flaws, mostly from when Ellize remembers to be skeezy, but it’s still more interesting than I expected. It’s worth sticking around for the finale next time.

Though I Am an Inept Villainess: Tale of the Butterfly-Rat Body Swap in the Maiden Court, Vol. 6

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By Satsuki Nakamura and Kana Yuki. Released in Japan as “Futsutsuka na Akujo dewa Gozaimasu ga: Suuguu Chouso Torikae Den” by Ichijinsha Novels. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Tara Quinn.

There’s a lot of terrific humor in this volume, most of it stemming from the series’ premise. I’ve talked about this before, but it’s even more true in this book: both Reirin and Keigetsu are absolutely, 100% terrible at pretending to be each other. For the most part they’ve been helped in the past by a) no one knowing bodyswapping was a thing, and b) no one knowing the two well enough to be able to pick out the obvious poor performance. Now that both of these things are no longer true, the best gags in the book come from Reirin’s misplaced confidence that she’s got Keigetsu down pat, or Keigetsu’s inability to not let her cynical anger seep in through everything she does. That said, it’s a good thing that there’s some humor in this book, as the basic premise of this arc is evil and terrible, and the consequences, for some people, are rather chilling.

We pick up where we left off. Reirin has just been rescued from her attempted murder, and has swapped bodies with Keigetsu in order to repair all the damage she blames herself for and take back everything they’ve lost. In practice, this means finding out why exactly Kasui snapped and tried to kill Reirin, plus what she’s actually desperately looking for. She also needs to try to stop Reiga and Hourin from trying to kill her – or rather, using their maidens to try and kill her – and if the way to solve that problem is by getting the maidens on their side, then it’s something she’s going to have to do, even if it means allying with (ugh) Houshun. And then there’s Anni the shaman, the cause of everything that’s led up to this and possibly the most evil person we’ve seen in the series to date.

I continue to absolutely love Ran Houshun, even though she’s also possibly the most terrifying of the maidens. I’m used to hearing Reirin rattle off “Though I am an inept villainess” when she’s gloating over her supposed attempts at being bad, which usually are nothing of the sort. With Houshun it’s chilling when she utters the same phrase, because she’s about to let her Consort and “mentor” be beaten nearly to death by all of her court ladies. And yet it’s also triumphant, because Hourin is a piece of shit who’s spent years abusing and torturing those same court ladies, and for once vigilante justice feels like (at least narratively) the correct answer. As for the others, Kasui gets the closure that is all she can get, really, and can finally achieve a real bond with her own (non-evil) consort. And as for Seika and Reiga, they also get a good scene, but it pales next to Houshun, who’s simply better at this. You can see why Reirin hates her.

I enjoyed this so much I will forgive the use of a deus ex machina “this gets people so drunk they tell everyone the plot out loud” device, though I do hope this is the last we see of it. The next volume promises to be lighter in time, and (theoretically?) only one volume rather than an arc. Can’t wait.

My Stepmom’s Daughter Is My Ex: “A Proposal Isn’t Enough”

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By Kyosuke Kamishiro and TakayaKi. Released in Japan as “Mamahaha no Tsurego ga Motokano datta” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Gierrlon Dunn.

For a series whose strongest point is not its fanservice, this series sure has a lot of it. That said, at least the fanservice serves a narrative purpose. Even the sex scene in the book – not between our two leads, I hasten to add, but between Aso and Hoshibe – ends up demonstrating, somewhat painfully, that the blush of first love is not always perfect, and that sometimes simple physical difficulties can “ruin” your perfect memories. Meanwhile Yume has been revving the fanservice up, in an effort to get Mizuto to drop his stoic poker face, and ends up going overboard, to the point where he finally snaps and screams at her in desperation. As for Isana… well, yeah, that is fanservice pure and simple, but it also serves to underline for Mizuto that he can’t simply pretend to be a logical robot who makes every decision using bullet points. And that’s important, because there’s a rather annoying thing undercutting this wannabe romantic reuniting… they’re both family now.

It’s Christmas, and Yume has a lot to worry about. She’s set a deadline of the new year to either get Mizuto to rekindle their relationship or just give up, and he’s not cooperating very well, to the point where she’s forced to do things like wave her cleavage at him and hope he reacts. Her birth father wants to meet with her and Mizuto, and given that he’s never particularly cared about Yume before, she’s not quite sure why. And Mizuto has started spending all his time at Isana’s place. The last is for a very good reason – having seen Isana’s art and how good it is, he realizes that she needs a manager in order to achieve anything, as she has no real drive to succeed of her own. So it’s time for Pixiv accounts and Twitter alts, as well as drawing more and more so that she improves. But doesn’t everyone still think they’re dating?

The “is this incest or not?” part of the conversation is not really resolved here, mostly as, well, the premise of the series means that “not” is going to have to be the correct answer. I think the fact that they’ve only been siblings for 9 months takes the curse off it a bit. More difficult is that these two are both big, BIG nerds, and it not only comes out in their school work and reading but also in how they live their lives. Mizuto has never really felt passionate about much till he gets the idea to “manage” Isana’s art, and he proves to be very adept at it. Unfortunately, he’s also listening to Yume’s dad, who is projecting hard onto Mizuto and giving him advice that may not be that helpful. As for Yume, she doesn’t want to cut Mizuto off from Isana, who is her friend as well, but can’t quite work out how close they should be after he and Yume become a couple without resorting to math. Never decide how friendly your lover can be with other women using math.

The author is quick to assure us the series is not ending despite the couple confessing (reconfessing?) at the end, so we’ll see what the fallout is. But this was an in-character, if not entirely satisfying, way for these two to fix things.