Category Archives: reviews

Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki, Vol. 8.5

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By Yuki Yaku and Fly. Released in Japan as “Jaku Chara Tomozaki-kun” by Gagaga Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Winifred Bird.

I was wondering if any of these short stories would show the lead up to the cliffhanger from Book 8, but it’s the opposite. Most of these stem from the end of Book 7, and the two weeks or so where Tomozaki and Kikuchi are in love-love couple mode before he decides to forget that he has a girlfriend. That said, the real value of this book is the insight into the characters of Hinami and Rena. They’re similar in a couple of ways, with one basing her life around “goals” and the other around “guys”. More to the point, you could argue that both are vying to be the antagonist of this series. It’s become clear since the start of the series that Hinami’s advice to Tomozaki should be taken with a massive grain of salt, and that reaches its apex in Book 8. As for Rena, we get her tragic backstory, which also seems to be similar to Hinami’s in a way, in that both are characters whose minds do not work the way that we’re used to with light novel teenagers.

The stories here are: 1) a party to celebrate the success of the play, on Christmas Eve, complete with snow; 2) Some more insight into Hinami’s character, including additional allusions to her tragic past that are not third-hand like the previous book; 3) Mimimi coming to terms with the fact that Tomozaki has chosen Kikuchi over her, and talking with Kikuchi about this; 4) Rena’s past and some scenes leading up to her scenes from the 8th volume; 5) everyone gathers together to sing karaoke, and Tomozaki has the assignment to sing a song with everyone else there; 6) Kikuchi’s post-Christmas pre-New Year’s romantic glow, which also includes a conversation she had with Hinami at the Christmas party; and 7) an adaptation of a Bonus CD audio track, featuring the cast trying a virtual reality game.

Some of these stories are more important than others, frankly. The Hinami one was fantastic, and makes it even more clear (as does her conversation with Kikuchi) that she is going to be having a complete breakdown at some point before the end of this series. We’re still not sure what happened with her family, but certainly there were three siblings and now there are two. Her story, and Kikuchi’s, really hammer home how she has turned her life and her sense of self into a joyless empty shell, and I think she knows this deep down and that’s why she was briefly angry at Kikuchi for essentially figuring it out immediately. I also really enjoyed Mimimi’s story, though it once again reminds me she’s coming in third in a two-person race. As for Rena’s, it was certainly insightful, but also difficult to read. I don’t like her much.

So this was pretty much about what you want in a group of short stories, and the end audio CD story has a very satisfying beatdown that I’m sure isn’t a metaphor for anything. Good stuff. Now, let’s have Tomozaki fix his punctured romance ASAP, please.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life: The Promised Land

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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.

There is a famous quote (actually he said it a number of times) by Anton Chekhov about dramatic principles. One of the quotes says “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.”. This is a perfectly fine dramatic tenet to use, and I have no real issues with it. That said… you still need to write something OTHER than the pistol hanging on the wall. You can’t just have 90 minutes of ‘pistol on the wall, la de da’ and expect the audience to stay invested. In case you’re wondering where I’m going with this, the 5th volume of The Executioner and Her Way of Life does have some guns go off near the end of the book. But the first half of this volume may be one of the most boring I’ve seen in Japanese light novels, as everyone walks around aimlessly, reiterates what we already know, and waits for Menou to have some revelations about herself.

Everyone’s arrived at the Holy Land. Flare has taken Akari, put her in an ivory tower, and given her an existential crisis to keep her busy for most of the book. Momo and Ashuna arrive there, and have some warmed-over banter before Ashuna promptly exits the plot after seeing a future plotline. Momo is, to her surprise, taken in by the Archbishop and put to work with Hooseyard, who is a summary of all the “naive but nerdy” glasses girls in anime. Manon, Pandaemonium, and Sahara have arrived to wreak havoc. And Menou has arrived to fight Flare and lose, because she knows that’s going to happen. The problem is that she’s right for the wrong reasons. Something she figures out when they fight and it becomes clear that Menou has surpassed her master… in all ways but one.

The book turns around, as I said above, once Menou has a horrific realization: she’s only killed strangers she barely knew, and when she tries to kill someone close to her, like, say, Flare… she can’t do it. In other words, despite forcing herself into the role of a “villain”, she has empathy. Surprise! That said, it is pretty dramatically satisfying, and I enjoyed her burst of hysterical laughter. Akari has the misfortune of spending most of the book in a state of shock after realizing that if Menou dies, and she has to rewind time again,. she’s probably going to start losing her memories of her time with Menou, which nearly destroys her. Of course, there’s an obvious answer to this for both of them, one that Flare (who seems to be trying to commit suicide by cop throughout this book – Menou is the cop) is trying to hammer home. By the end of this book, we’ve finally moved past “I’m going to kill Akari/Only Menou can kill me”, and it will be interesting to see where things go next, especially after seeing the last few pages, which confirm something hinted since the start of the series.

I’ll keep going with this, because I want to see what happens to the characters. But “writing style” is not a reason anyone should read this series, and it makes the front half of this volume sheer murder.

Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!, Vol. 14

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By FUNA and Itsuki Akata. Released in Japan as “Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne!” by SQEX Novels. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Diana Taylor. Adapted by Maggie Cooper.

It’s been a while since we last had the adventures of Mile and company in front of us. Most of the reason for this is that the series got a new publisher in Japan, Square Enix, which necessitated renegotiating the license for the series, which takes time. But now, a mere 16 months after the last book, we have a new volume of the series. Perhaps sensing that this was a chance to show off why the series was picked up by a larger publisher, the author has decided to get slightly more serious than usual this time around. Oh, not to worry, there’s still plenty of “Mile does OP stuff” and fourth wall breaking, it’s just that the volume as a whole seems to want to go back to the main plot of the series, the one it usually ignores for books on end. It’s going to get harder to ignore from now on, though, as there are portals opening from another world.

That said, we have another plot to get through first. The Crimson Vow are hired as escorts/bodyguards… supposedly… to take Clairia and her fellow elves back to their village. The reason turns out to be trickier than that, as they wanted the Vow to distract from what turns out to be a “get married already” meeting set up by the village. This involves a lot of inbred misogyny, and the Vow quickly take matters into their own hands. The Guild then hires them to investigate a nearby kingdom, where things are just going… slightly worse than usual. For no stated reason. Mile is the perfect person to figure out what’s really going on… robots are making portals to their world from another world and sending in stronger, smarter monsters to take out the adventurers!

The elf stuff was not as good as the rest of the book, mostly depending on “ha ha, it’s funny because elf men are lolicons” and a heaping helping of “women should stay in the village and breed more elves”. The latter, to be fair, the narrative rips apart with its bare hands, and indeed one of the main themes of the entire series has been “you don’t have to get married immediately”. The second part is more setup for the next few books, made more amusing by Mile literally sacrificing some of her nanos to a portal to another world just to get information, and their irritated response. We also see that the Crimson Vow are a mature, powerful, respected team… but only in their own lands, and when they go elsewhere, or when their intelligence is disseminated by the Crown, it still has an air of “these are stupid kids, why should we care?” to it. Mike needs to become more famous, and not just as an author.

This is a good, not great book, with the series’ usual flaws. But it also has the series’ usual strengths as well, and fans should be pleased.