Category Archives: reviews

A Tale of the Secret Saint, Vol. 5

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By Touya and chibi. Released in Japan as “Tensei Sita Daiseijyo ha, Seijyo Dearuko Towohitakakusu” by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Kevin Ishizaka. Adapted by Matthew Birkenhauer.

I have to be honest, I should not enjoy this series as much as I do. It really does a lot of things wrong. At its core is broad humor involving a heroine who misunderstands almost everything everyone says to her, and that’s fine. In fact, it’s almost a genre in itself. And she’s really, really good at not getting it. But it also manages to bring up her very real PTSD that comes from her actual death and everything leading up to her death, to the point where she’s actively repressing the worst memories of it. This is also quite well written and handled with care, but the two plotlines really should not co-exist next to each other as well as they do. In addition, this volume once again is 2/3 of an actual book, followed by endless extra side stories that either tell other character’s POV of what Fia narrated for us, or Fia’s wacky adventures as Serafina in the past. Where we find she was also a giant ditz.

After the events of the previous two books, Fia is now officially a knight, but before she can get down to the business of protecting the royal family, she’s given some time off. She uses this to go north to visit her older sister, aka the one sibling that did not treat her like hot garbage growing up, and also check in with Zavilia, who is no longer a tiny little dragon familiar but has become King of the Mountain – literally. He even has his own dragon cult, though there’s some implication that this is mostly due to pure terrifying force of will. Unfortunately, when she gets back to her home, she’s also met by Guy Osbern, who used to “tease” her as a kid by calling himself a legendary demon. Sadly, he had no real way of knowing the very real trauma that she had in the past from demons, and seeing him again brings it all back.

Again, for the most part this is hilarious. Before she sets off on her journey she runs into “Green” and “Blue”, the royals from the neighboring kingdom who are still just random adventurers to her, and she takes them with her on her journey. Literally everyone except Fia can see they’re Very Important People, but she does not care. She also has a nice dose of accidentally using her saint powers and having to pretend that it’s for some random reason, though fortunately she doesn’t have to restore any severed arms here. Amidst all this, we do get actual plot, if only a bit. The past history of the kingdoms does not quite match up with Fia’s memory of her past from 300 years ago, and Kurtis knows why but does not want to upset Mia too much. What’s more, it turns out that they may not have defeated the real demon lord – and “the demon lord’s underling” is the one part of Fia’s memories that she’s still running away from in terror.

So: this is hilarious You will laugh. But there’s an odd current of deep tragedy also rolling through it, and the resulting taste should not work but does.

Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian, Vol. 4

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By Sunsunsun and Momoco. Released in Japan as “Tokidoki Bosotto Russia-go de Dereru Tonari no Alya-san” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Matthew Rutsohn.

There’s a short story volume due out next, but quite honestly, this one also feels a bit like a short story volume, detailing the wacky adventures of the cast on their summer break. There’s no real through line of plot except Masachika’s crippling self-hatred, and the cliffhanger is one I had sort of guessed, so for the most part this feels a bit disconnected. It is also the horniest book in the series, and this comes from a series that is already pretty horny. That said, it does have one of my least favorite things about light novels, which is the idea, held by both boys and girls, that a man having sexual thoughts is the same as the man doing sexual deeds. There are a whole lot of wacky harem manga situations in this book, and a lot of them lead to Masachika having an erection he’s trying to hide. And that’s OK. He’s a teenage boy. But it’s not OK for him, and he continues to consider himself the worst person in the world. It’s annoying.

The student council is going on a summer vacation to a beach house, but before that we have a few plots involving Masachika and Yuki being themselves. This involves a great deal of sex talk, a fair bit of sibling violence, and an amusement park visit where their secret identities end up getting exposed to Sayaka (who is shocked) and Nonoa (who’d already guessed). Oh yes, and Alya keeps coming over to Masachika’s house when everyone out to do homework, and so far… they’ve done homework. Which annoys her. At the beach house, we get bikinis, swimming, bathing, room switching, and a festival with fireworks, all of which are reasonably cute. Unfortunately, Masachika keeps assuming that he’s screwing everything up, and overcompensates to try to fix it, and ends up hating himself even more by the end of it. He ends up going back to the playground where he played with the foreign kid… who turns out to be someone he knows.

As is pretty typical in the genre, the reader ends up sympathizing with Alya heavily here, despite her accidentally getting groped when Masachika tries to save her from falling onto jagged rocks. (She even trots out the “take responsibility and marry me” chestnut, which I haven’t seen in quite some time.) There’s a whole lot of muttered Russian in this book, which Masachika understands but has to pretend he can’t, but really, she could not be more obvious. Even he gets it at the end of the book. But, as with so many other books in this genre, only one thing is stopping the two from being a couple, and it’s the man’s idea that he’s not good enough for her. To be fair, he has the trauma to back it up, and the scenes we get from his childhood in this book are as depressing as you’d expect. But it’s like eating a marshmallow sandwich where the bread is misery.

Next volume… won’t resolve this cliffhanger. Short story volume. Till then, if you like self-loathing and boobs, this is the perfect title for you.

Death’s Daughter and the Ebony Blade, Vol. 6

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By Maito Ayamine and Cierra. Released in Japan as “Shinigami ni Sodaterareta Shoujo wa Shikkoku no Tsurugi wo Mune ni Idaku” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sylvia Gallagher.

Generally speaking, if you’re trying not to spoil yourself when reading a light novel, there are several things you need to do. Avoiding covers is almost impossible, but you can certainly avoid the color inserts, which tend to spoil. Don’t read the author’s afterword till you’ve finished the book, of course, as it often asks readers what they thought of the plot twist. And, of course, try not to read the table of contents, because chapter titles frequently spoil. And so (spoiling here, sorry), when I saw that the last chapter before the epilogue in this book was called “The Girl Defeated”, I knew what was going to happen. It wasn’t a big surprise, the series ends with the next book, so there had to be SOME point where Olivia loses a fight, just so she’s not all-powerful. That said, I was surprised anyway. The Girl Defeated is an accurate chapter title, but the chapter itself ends very happily. It’s the Epilogue that kills you.

We’re finally at the big battle between Olivia and Felix… well, OK, there are a few other big battles before that that don’t involve our heroes, but honestly, most of them feel like they’re padding out the book, and resolving a romance by having a superior officer say “hey, clueless guy, get married to the girl who has an obvious crush on you” is possibly the most pathetic thing I’ve seen in this series. The important bit, though, is that Olivia’s army is finally losing badly, mostly as the other side are simply better, more experienced soldiers. So she decides to gamble it all on a one-on-one fight with Felix, sending Ashton back to base and taking Claudia and a few others to forge a path to Felix. Their battle is cool, well-balanced, and a fair fight. Alas, this world is currently being taken over by an evil Dark God, and he interrupts things to gloat at Felix and generally be evil.

I have grown used to the fact that this series is very good at writing instant gratification, with scenes that work well as you read them but fall apart the moment you try to think more deeply about the subject. This is not a bad thing – popcorn entertainment is perfectly valid. But it can be hard to review. I did appreciate that (spoilers again, sorry) after spending the entire series searching for him, Olivia is finally reunited with Z right as she’s about to die – I get the sense that he wanted to let her grow at her own pace till he had to intervene. The whole “now I will teach you the ultimate final move” ending is pure shonen, but honestly it’s a delight seeing Olivia’s face as she’s finally reunited with her “father”. Less delightful is that pesky epilogue – I don’t expect a permanent death, as this series is not that dark despite its title, but it certainly ends the book on a sour note.

So great stuff, provided you don’t look too deeply, and provided you let your eyes glaze over whenever a male captain and his female adjutant have a conversation with each other. Tune in next time for the final book.