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Reincarnated as the Piggy Duke: This Time I’m Gonna Tell Her How I Feel!, Vol. 8

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By Rhythm Aida and nauribon. Released in Japan as “Buta Koushaku ni Tensei shita kara, Kondo wa Kimi ni Suki to Iitai” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Zihan Gao.

I’m starting to give up on Charlotte doing anything, and I think the author is as well. Her function here is to a) have a comedy side plot where she tries to fatten Slowe up again because she’s worried other girls will thrown themselves at him now, and b) be a mirror to the new girl who’s on the cover, who actually is important. And then there’s the cliffhanger, which implies that Book 9 is going to be all about Slowe and Alicia rather than Slowe and Charlotte. It is annoying because, after 7 books of waiting to see these two idiots finally confess to each other, it feels like Charlotte no longer has a function in the story. They’re still keeping her status secret, and the main “plot” of the anime has wrapped itself up, so… guess she’s just there. Instead, we get a one-shot plot that feels like a placeholder.

The first half of the book, frankly, drags. The main plot is that Prince Neon is at the school in order to, supposedly, make friends – something so obviously false that it makes everyone uncomfortable, especially as the Prince is trying to act all buddy-buddy and getting too handsy with other girls. He also has a retainer, of course, named Suz, who is stoic but also seems to be incredibly obsessed with her charge. She’s also ridiculously strong, to the point that Slowe is beginning to wonder if something is up. Something *is* up, of course, but we’ll have to wait till after the world’s most annoying dungeon crawl to find out why, as for some reason the one person Prince Neon is really interested in is Shuya, who he seems to be trying to drive insane… or trying to stop it, we can’t be sure.

Fortunately, the second half of this volume is much better than the first once we actually start getting answers. Prince Neon is meant to be a very close analogue to Slowe himself, which of course makes Suz Charlotte, as she is also a retainer in love with her master and possessed of a secret no one must know. This is handled quite well, and I also liked the final fight, which sees Slowe kick ass, but not in a way that makes him seem OP. He still contrasts very well with Shuya, who is the protagonist of the anime and cannot stop acting like an anime protagonist, even as everyone around him says he’s too soft. Shuya actually gets a leg up on Slowe here, who is so busy trying to avoid whatever is going on with Prince Neon that he misses a lot of the danger signs. And while I want to leave the villains of the piece a spoiler, they’re very good “you know they’re not a recurring thing” villains.

So a middling volume of Piggy Duke this time… which I think I’ve said a few too many times before. We’ll see if focusing on Alicia rather than Charlotte helps things any next time.

An Introvert’s Hookup Hiccups: This Gyaru Is Head Over Heels for Me!, Vol. 1

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By Yuishi and Kagachisaku. Released in Japan as “Inkya no Boku ni Batsu Game de Kokuhaku Shitekita Hazu no Gal ga, Dō Mitemo Boku ni Beta Bore Des” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Satoko Kakihara.

I suspect most readers of this site are familiar with the concept of a visual novel, and the ones that feature romance or sexual content tend to get called “eroge”. The usual premise is that you play a faceless high school… erm, college, sorry, of course everyone’s over 18… boy who, depending on the choices he makes, can score with one of 5-6 different women… or get a “bad end” when you screw up and get none of them. A lot of fans like to wait until there’s a walkthrough. They’re not here for the gaming part of it. They’re here to read the story and see our hero get it on. I don’t need the bad choices, I only need the one correct choice each scene to advance the story. If you took that concept and made it a light novel, it would be this one. We are here to see sweet romcom, and no mistakes will be made.

Yoshin is, as the title might suggest, a quiet introvert, not an otaku type but one who naturally lurks in the back of class and goes home on his own. One day he returns to the classroom after school to get something he forgot and overhears the class’s three “gyaru” girls playing a game… with a penalty dare. The loser, Nanami, has to ask Yoshin on a date, and date him for a month. They don’t spot Yoshin, who quickly goes home and does what any other red blooded high school introvert would do: he hops on the internet and asks his gaming buddies, who consist of 1) confident adult guy with good advice (that he says he just looked up on Google) and 2) teenage girl who clearly has a crush on him telling him to reject her at once. He does not, though, and he and Nanami start to date. And, by an amazing series of coincidences, they fall for each other almost instantly! Is this some sort of manga or something?

As I hinted above, the flaw in this series is that everything goes ridiculously well for Yoshin. Despite being an introvert, having a poor self-image, and only having black clothes, he’s kind, listens to others, and can be incredibly confident when he wants to. As for Nanami, she’s a shy big-breasted gyaru with no experience dating men and she has a secret side that wears glasses and looks more frumpy. In other words, she’s practically a walking fetish. But she’s nice, and sweet, and overenthusiastic, and possibly a bit naive. The series manages to work on pure charm, and also because it embraces the ridiculousness of its premise. (Nanami has two friends. One is dating her stepbrother, the other is dating a guy 12 years older than her. They both sound like they need spinoffs.) Even meeting her parents goes well, mostly as these two are never going to have sex even if they are already practically proposing marriage.

If you want realism, look elsewhere. If you want a sweet romcom where everyone acts like they stepped off the screen of Kimi Ga Nozumo Eien, this will do fine. And it’s only four volumes, which seems just about right.

The Ideal Sponger Life, Vol. 9

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By Tsunehiko Watanabe and Jyuu Ayakura. Released in Japan as “Risou no Himo Seikatsu” by Hero Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by MPT.

For the most part, one of the big reasons that Zenjirou has been so successful in the political nightmare that is his new world is that he doesn’t have the ingrained reactions that anyone brought up there would. He tends to react like a Japanese person from Earth would. (I’d say “normal”, but honestly, Zenjirou’s not all that normal even to begin with.) This serves him well for a lot of this book, as attempting to negotiate with him is like hitting a brick wall much of the time because his body language and verbal questioning are so far off the range from everyone else. Unfortunately this can also be a negative, as Aura quickly points out at the end of the book,. Threatening Zenjirou’s son, even mildly as a political feint, earns his enmity, and a canny person will realize that this is a very valuable button to press. Fortunately, there’s more good than bad here, as Zenjirou accidentally on purpose gets involved in a throne war in the Twin Kingdoms.

Zenjirou is in the Twin Kingdoms to try to negotiate for a healer to be present during the birth of his second child. Unfortunately for him, while greeting him, King Bruno drops the bomb that he’s planning to abdicate in favor of his successor. The obvious choice is the eldest son, who is 49 years old but has basically trained for this. The dark horse is his youngest son, who is in his thirties and seems to be very upset about the abdication. But is that really what’s going on? And how on Earth does this tie in with Prince Francesco, who just wants to sit around and dabble in magic tools his entire life but who ends up being seen as the second coming by some groups? And, perhaps most important of all, how can Zenjirou get the latest in his succession of love interests off the cover art?

As always, the title and premise are a lie. There’s no harem seeking, and certainly no sponging here. Indeed, Lucretia strikes out with Zenjirou over and over until the middle of the book, when it becomes clear he’s not looking for a lover but a political helpmate – something that, frankly, she’s much better at doing. As for the Twin Kingdoms themselves, the plotline we get here is well thought out and handled, although I thought that Zenjirou hearing about a certain monster and immediately making a logical leap to a breathtaking new magical tool was perhaps one OP move too many, in a series when all the OP moves are intellect-based rather than fighting-based. Oh well, I should probably consider myself lucky he doesn’t sample any of the young hot single women who all essentially proposition him in this book, though they all have their own agendas.

So yes, no sex in this book, but as noted before, in this book the politics IS sex. And we still haven’t left the twin kingdoms, as there’s the other half to negotiate with. We’ll see that next time.