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My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer, Vol. 2

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By MOJIKAKIYA and toi8. Released in Japan as “Boukensha ni Naritai to Miyako ni Deteitta Musume ga S-Rank ni Natteta” by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Roy Nukia.

After a first volume that seemed to take 200 pages to finally get to its point, we finally have a bit of meat to its sequel. There’s a lot going on here, both in terms of more action, more ongoing backstory and plot development, and more of a daughter who loves her father perhaps a bit too much. Note, as I said last volume, that isn’t the way you think it is. Unlike seemingly every other daddy-adopted daughter series out there the past few years, there are no romantic or sexual feelings here at all. But it is true that when Angeline is around her father, she tends to regress several years and act like a spoiled kid. Not to mention that she puts her dad on a massive pedestal. Of course, he does actually seem to deserve some of that. By now the reader realizes that his description of himself as just some guy with a sword is absolute crap. But then, he is living in Backwater Town, USA.

The start of this book is indeed the promised vacation, with Angeline and her two companions staying for a while and enjoying Belgrieve’s hospitality. That said, things can’t stay slow life forever. There’s a young albino girl and her stoic companion who are proselytizing in the big city, and seem to be secretly evil. And when Belgrieve and his daughter’s party arrive in the Bordeaux capital, they find that roads to their remote town are not as easy as they’d like as the local lord is kicking up a fuss. Indeed, the local noble, Count Malta, is actually allying himself with the religious duo, and his goal is simple: kill Helvetica off so that things can go back to how they should be, with nobles having all the power and abusing the common people. Can Angeline and the others save the royals?

Two points to make. First of all, we are getting a harem here, it’s just not the usual one we see in fantasy light novels. Belgrieve isn’t attracting lovers, he’s attracting girls who want a father figure. With the exception of Helvetica (who still really wants to marry him, and has annoyed Angeline by being obvious about it), the girls in this series are the kind who want a pat on the head or a shoulder carry. Even Charlotte, the Ilyasviel von Einzbern clone we meet in this new volume, seems to suddenly realize revenge is wrong after just a brief moment of being treated like a daughter would. Secondly, this book gets quite dark in places, and it works very well. The evil noble is exactly the stereotype you’d expect, but it’s Helvetica’s character who does the heavy lifting here, as she realizes what it truly means to lead for the good of the people and makes some hard, bloody choices. Hope to see more of her.

Angeline returns to the capital at the end of the book, so I assume the third one will be in two different places. Till then, though, this volume improves on the first, and is a great one if you love dads being great dads – to everyone.

Slayers: Delusion in Crimson

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By Hajime Kanzaka and Rui Araizumi. Released in Japan by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis.

It can be somewhat annoying to come at the Slayers novels from someone who grew up with the anime and realize how a huge chunk of them are Lina, Gourry, and one-off characters. Zelgadis and Amelia stuck around for a bit, as did Xellos, but they’re gone now. We’ve had Luke and Mileena come in with an attempt to add a new supporting duo to the cast, but they’re more of the ‘we keep running into each other’ sort than actual party members. They’re also not in this particular book either. We do get a villain from two books ago… but she doesn’t appear, she’s just an offscreen catalyst. It can be rather disheartening. Where’s the wacky fun times? Where’s Lina accidentally destroying things? Where’s Gourry being rock stupid? But this isn’t the anime, these are the light novels. And because of that we get something here which the anime almost never tried to do unless it was a huge world-shattering crisis: we get a straight up tragedy.

Lina and Gourry arrive at a city that is telling any and all sorcerers to report to the local sorcerer’s council at once. Doesn’t say why, and does not appear to be from the government. Lina, who has just been through sorcerers trying to take over a city a book or so ago, thinks we’re seeing much the same thing here, and she’s mostly correct. She teams up with Aria, a young woman who is trying to rescue her sister from the lord who killed her fiancee and forcibly married her, and Dilarr, a passing adventurer who just seems to like Aria, though he does find Lina somewhat terrifying, to her displeasure – her reputation is now that death and disaster show up whenever she arrives. Sadly, this book does not really change that reputation. Once they arrive at the city where Aria and her sister Bell live, we get a Chthulhian nightmare featuring lots of monstrosities and lots of death.

Despite the fact that these books frequently seem as if they’re written without an outline by the author simply going to the typewriter and typing till he stops, there is some decent character work here, particularly in regards to Aria’s sister Bell. Set up as the unwilling victim through most of the book, the reality is far darker than we’d expect. The second ‘series’ of light novels were never adapted to the anime, and this one shows why – the sister who is forcibly married after her fiancee is killed sends her little sister off to safety because she loves her, but also has hatred in her heart, as her sister is safe and can be happy while Bell is trapped. It’s a very real look at family dynamics that can stem from a family member being abused. Unfortunately, Slayers is still a fantasy, not a realistic look at power dynamics and coping mechanisms, so we get a massive bloodbath.

As Lina and Gourry walk away at the end, both are subdued and disturbed, and the reader has to agree. This is on the darker side of the Slayers novels, a series which is already much darker than its anime equivalent. I hope the next book has a bit more jollity.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life: The Cage of Iron Sand

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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.

This series continues to go back and forth between things I quite enjoy and things that kind of irritate me, and in this book they’re about fifty-fifty, meaning it gets a reluctant recommendation. There’s far less Akari in here than I’d like, though her scene with Momo was the highlight of the book, and promises good things for the book after this. We also get an amusing new addition to the cast, a colleague of Menou’s who seems to be a airheaded flirt, though it’s implied throughout that this personality is a front. Which is a shame, as I liked it better than the personality that showed up later. There’s lots of cool fights, all of which seem to point to the value of “being pretty good at everything because of working really hard” rather than “has an innate natural gift”. Which I’d appreciate more if it was not undercut by the implication that the supposedly hardworking woman is in reality Very Special Indeed.

Menou and Akari are making their way through the desert, which turns out to be another area that was completely devastated because of a Japanese isekai gone horribly wrong. Things start off badly as Akari has already been kidnapped as the book begins, and Menou has to infiltrate a criminal organization to rescue them. There she runs into an old colleague from the orphanage, Sahara, and the three of them proceed to a nearby oasis city, with Menou now having to suffer the attention of *twp* bokes. Arriving at the city, she and Momo get the help of Princess Ashuna, who is essentially in this book to be cool and not much else. Unfortunately, she and Menou have to fight off a dangerous crime lord, so Menou sensibly leaves Akari back at the hotel. Which ends up being the biggest mistake she makes in the book.

The problem I have with Sahara is likely down to the character skewing away from my tastes. I really like the ‘sleepy ditzy flirt’ sort of character, and when Sahara is revealed to in fact be a ball of jealousy and envy, I wonder what the point was in having her be likeable for 3/4 of the book at all except to annoy me. Then again, when the reverse happens – i.e. when Akari gets her suppressed memories back – I actually tend to like her more, so hey. And yes, everyone is angry at Menou for being ‘the chosen one’, and Menou keeps insisting that she’s not all that great and is just a fairly normal person, which is fine except it’s pretty clear that she’s also got a past that’s been completely suppressed. Which just makes me more annoyed.

Basically, it’s hard to like anyone in this series because they could turn into something completely different down the road. I know that “change is a process” is the theme of the books, but there’s a bit TOO much change. Right now, Momo is my favorite character because she’s at least consistent. That said, sure, I’ll read more.

Also, naming the new character in your desert-themed book Sahara is kind of like naming your dog Spot.