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The Bladesmith’s Enchanted Weapons, Vol. 1

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By Kazuma Ogiwara and CARIMARICA. Released in Japan as “Isekai Toushou no Maken Seisaku Gurashi” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ryan Burris.

I usually try, when J-Novel Club announces their usual pile of licenses, to try one or two that I otherwise might not. With the ones announced in April, this one piqued my interest, mostly as it did not seem to involve “weak to strong”, revenge fantasies, or harems of elves and beastgirls, the current hot new subsubgenres. This seemed to be about a bunch of sword nuts, and had a likeable cover. Why not give it a shot. And I am happy to say this is definitely on the “good” end of the “give it a shot” spectrum, leaning towards “very good”, though that comes with a caveat I’ll get to later. The biggest surprise for me was that, while this was indeed a title that featured a bunch of sword nuts, it also has a really sweet and lovely romance at the center of it, which I was not expecting. When your “ah, slow burn, I wonder how long they’ll drag it out” turns out to be “twenty pages”, you know it’s a different sort of romance.

Lutz is a struggling smith who lives in the poorer areas outside the city, and he’s just forged an incredibly beautiful katana. Perhaps a bit TOO beautiful, as while examining it he almost kills himself with it. He’s not sure what to do with it, though, and doesn’t even sign or name it. Then he has to go rescue his friend and business partner Claudia from a bunch of thuggish knights who plan to sell her into slavery, and ends up trading the katana for her (afterwards, brought together by peril, a rescue romance, and them both being incredibly attractive, they quickly become lovers, then spouses). The katana ends up attracting the attention of an old enchanter, Gerhard, who is also fascinated by beautiful blades. And when they bring in an engraver who also falls madly in love with a sword created by Lutz, we have a combination that may prove far more dangerous than anyone could imagine.

I made that sound a lot more dramatic than the book actually is. While there are some tense, dramatic moments, such as Claudia getting rescued, or hero Ricardo facing off against some dangerous creatures, this ends up being a lot lighter and more goofy than you’d think. A lot of this is due to the fact that it’s a pretty horny book. Claudia and Lutz, once they hook up, are very sexually active, which is a refreshing change from most LNs that drag things out 15-20 books. But what I actually mean is Lutz’s weapon that ends up with Ricardo, which, well, makes people want to kill themselves, and also arouses them beyond belief. Erections are mentioned more than once. As is the word ‘ahegao’. It’s also a really sweet book. Lutz and Claudia’s love is adorable, even if Lutz would sometimes rather the adorable part not be revealed for all to see.

Basically, unlike almost everything else out there right now, this doesn’t pigeonhole itself easily into a subgenre. Even the “isekai” in the title isn’t quite right – this is a fantasy world, but no one’s here from Japan, at least not in Book 1. It’s worth your time, assuming you don’t mind a slight layer of eroticism over the whole thing. These blades enchant people. Yes, like that.

Spy Classroom: Annette and Her Many Knickknacks

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By Takemachi and Tomari. Released in Japan as “Spy Kyoushitsu” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nathaniel Thrasher.

The author says in the afterword that this is an attempt to write a much lighter book after the events of the last arc, and I guess it is technically? There’s certainly a lot of wacky shtick going on here. There’s childhood marriage promises, There’s a search for PIRATE GOLD!, there’s Annette… being Annette, and there’s Thea… being Thea. That said, this is also darker than you’d expect, with even one of the jokes being an incredibly dark one about disposal of a corpse. There’s murders, there’s revolution, there’s tortured confessions getting brutally rejected. And there is Annette being Annette, because she is who she is, and despite the cover art changing for the first time to show her being all happy and a beachside setting, at the end of the day this is just a brief delay. We know, and Lamplight all gradually figure out, that these happy days are coming to an end, and it’s time for then to evolve further.

Lamplight are on an island resort (with an attached Naval base) taking a vacation after the events of the last three books. After partying on the beach on the first day, Klaus has one instruction for them: they can’t all gather together as one unit till the 13th day of their vacation. As a result, Grete ends up dealing with an island teenager who met Klaus years ago and wants to marry him; Thea and Sara investigate the naval base, as well as a grisly murder that is one of a string of grisly murders that have been happening every three months; Lily, Sybilla and Monika decide to try to find that legendary pirate gold, and discover a lot more than they had really planned, and Erna… fishes. (It’s OK, she gets the bulk of the prologue for the next arc.) As for Annette, she’s helping to plan a wedding at first, then loses interest and helps Thea at the naval base, then ends up finding the three pirate hunters, and then … vanishes?

The best part of this book is showing how the character development everyone got in the last few books has not vanished and is being built upon. Grete’s love of Klaus is not demeaned or made comedic, and he’s taking it seriously. We don’t know how Monika and Lily’s discussion went, but they’re treating each other the same as always, and a newly risen from the ashes Monika can now even be part of the goofy comedy relief when it suits her. Thea … OK, Thea has the grandest goal in mind for her future, but she also has the furthest to go, as this volume shows – but I did love the conflict between her and Sara and how it doesn’t damage their friendship at all. And Annette is still a sociopath, but she’s figured out how to use that as part of her job, and she’s also realized that she doesn’t want to get SO evil that her friends stop liking her. She’s growing up! They all are. The next arc, I expect, is gonna be dark again.

So get ready for… short story collection? (sigh) Short story collection. This was excellent.

Reign of the Seven Spellblades, Vol. 13

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By Bokuto Uno and Miyuki Ruria. Released in Japan as “Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

One of the memes that goes around about Reign of the Seven Spellblades – let’s be honest, it may be the only meme – has Fred from Scooby Doo in front of a villain with “Harry Potter” as a mask, and he says “Now let’s see who Reign of the Seven Spellblades *really* is!”, and removes the mask, showing Fate/Stay Night. I have, in fact, made this joke myself throughout these reviews. That said, no volume quite hammers this home as much as this one. Shirou and Saber… pardon me, Oliver and Nanao… are competing to see who can be the biggest death seeker (OK, that’s not quite correct, but both think death within a year or two is inevitable). Meanwhile, I’ve already talked about the ways, both physical and mental, that I think Chela is like Rin, but I wasn’t expecting her to also be Sakura. And of course, if you’ve played the original Fate game, you know how explicit it gets. This volume comes close to that.

In the aftermath of the last book, Guy has to distance himself from the rest of the Sword Roses, which is particularly devastating to Katie. To make things more annoying, they’re fourth years, and now is the time when they all have to essentially “choose a major” – decide what specific course they’re inclined to pursue in detail. Oliver has not really thought about his future at all, so simply goes along with Katie to keep an eye on her. Nanao accidentally forgets the most obvious path, mostly as she too is not bothering to think about the future. And Guy is seeing if he could be a good curse breaker, and also has the folks from Book 12 he fought with – including comedy relief Annie Mackley – trying to separate him from the Sword Roses. This all comes to a head when Katie gets so uptight she needs… relief, shall we say, and Chela asks for what is an obvious solution. Things go badly.

This book reminds us of two big things. The first is that our protagonists, the Sword Roses, are all thought of as huge freaks within the rest of the school. They’re literally described as ticking timebombs, and the main reason seems to be the fact that they’ve been so close knit since they first met at the start of their first year – most friend groups in this school drift apart. The second is that, despite all of this, there’s still a lot of secrets that have never been told between this friend group. Nanao learned one of Oliver’s worst tragedies from the past, but Chela didn’t, and that ends up blowing up in her face – mostly due to Chela’s OWN backstory, which we get another part of here, and – as Chela herself points out – she and Oliver are similar yet also opposite in some ways. I’d said that I wondered if this would end with just Oliver and Nanao dead or everyone dead. I now suspect this may be an all-or-nothing series – either the six survive or they all die.

All this plus a whole lot of… well, there’s no other way to put it, mutual masturbation… reminds us that this remains a really well-written, really horny, and really suspenseful series. I have no idea what’s going to happen next.