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A Lily Blooms in Another World

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By Ameko Kaeruda and Shio Sakura. Released in Japan as “Isekai ni Saku wa Yuri no Hana” by GL Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Tom Harris.

We have been getting rather glutted with this genre over the last couple of months, but I have to say I’m still not really that tired of ‘otome game villainesses’, if only as we have a long way to go before it catches up to ‘nebbish guy in fantasy dungeon crawl’ or even ‘grumpy cynical high school guy gains a heart (and a harem)’. It helps that, Bakarina aside, most of the genre tends to be one-shots or short series, so doesn’t wear out its welcome quite as much. This has a similar premise to another title I reviewed recently, I’m in Love with the Villainess, and it’s not hard to see why – Japanese otome games rarely if ever give you a chance to go that route, and frequently the villainess has a lot more character than the love interests. Why wouldn’t anyone be drawn to them? Especially someone looking for romance between young women.

Our heroine is another in a long line of office workers who give and give and give till they have a heart attack and die young. She is reborn as Miyako Florence, the star of her favorite otome game, and is engaged to one of the nobles. There’s just one problem. She has no interest in Klaus, the noble in question. Instead, her attention is drawn to Fuuka Hamilton, the “stereotypical villainess” character who tries, seemingly, to belittle her at every turn. Miyako, though, sees through Fuuka’s facade and knows there’s a serious-minded and kind woman underneath the arrogant exterior. So… she kidnaps her, Retreating to her own family’s cottage, Miyako promises Fuuka that within 14 days she will get her to admit that she is happy living there with her. Fuuka, suffering from the effects of the first good night’s sleep she’s had in ages, agrees to this plan. That said, this world runs on “young women are only as important as who they marry”. Will Miyako be allowed to get away with this?

This is by the author of Sexiled, but aside from a brief mention of Laplace as a figure in the land’s past history, they aren’t connected. Except, of course they are, because this is a world where a woman’s value is in who she marries and those who fail or otherwise embarrass their families are completely destroyed. The first half of the book softens us up, being very much watching two women have a honeymoon together at a lovely guest cottage in the country. It’s cute, but it’s also slight. The second half, when Fuuka decides to return home to accept what she knows will be a horrific punishment, is where things really get good, particularly in regards to our heroine, Miyako. I’d written her off as the weak part of the book, but seeing her character development, particularly when the penny drops as she meets another couple who let her know that no, you do NOT have to accept that this world is sexist and just run away – is excellent, and leads to an action-packed and satisfying ending, giving Miyako and Fuuka’s love the depth it needed.

It’s possible I’m playing this up a bit too much – it is pretty fluffy and slight at the end of the day. But I had a lot of fun reading it, and am absolutely not tired of the genre. Or the author, who I’d love to see more of. Fans of Sexiled and otome villainesses will find this a must-buy.

Deathbound Duke’s Daughter: Erika Aurelia and the Angel’s Crypt

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By Terasu Senoo and Munashichi. Released in Japan as “Shini Yasui Koushaku Reijou to Shichi-nin no Kikoushi” by M Novels (Futabasha). Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Roy Nukia.

The second volume of the Erika Aurelia series sees her trying to prevent her death in Route Two of the otome game she played in her past life. That said, honestly, if you’re after otome game villainess novels you may find this wanting – Erika’s past life is important in determining her character as a whole, but rarely comes up in the text itself. Which simply leaves us with a fantastic action-adventure mystery series for young adults – and that’s fine by me. Erika ends up befriending her rivals, wandering into deathtraps, having to think her way out of deathtraps (and not always succeeding, though rest assured she is not killed off), and otherwise behaving just as I’d like a savvy eight-year-old with past-life memories to behave. Plus, in this book, there’s piles and piles of dragons. And if the villain seems a bit overly obvious, well, that’s what the extra chapters after the main story are for – this is not just Erika’s tale.

Erika and her father are headed to Ynys Negesydd, which is not in Wales, but is instead the capital of Ignitia, and they’re there for a royal banquet and also to watch a joust with dragons as the mounts. Erika is nervous as this is what sets up Death #2 on her list of things to avoid; her old self was rude to the first prince August, who is unable to ride dragons in a land where that is considered scandalous for royalty. Erika is unlikely to be as rude and obnoxious as her old villainous self, but she still has a tendency to speak her mind without thinking, so she could still be in trouble. Especially when August invites her to see the underground crypt rumored to hold the Beast of Contracts, and you start to realize that selling his soul to be able to ride dragons may be happening much faster than in Erika’s otome game.

There’s lots to like here. Erika is a great lead character, being very clever but also prone to making mistakes. Her past life, we are told, was filled with boys flocking around her and girls hating her, and honestly in this one, while she’s managed to avoid the latter, she still has the former. That said, the fact that everyone is pre-teen means the romance can be cute rather than annoying, especially given Erika right now has no feelings for anyone – and no sense of self-preservation, a fact noted by about half the cast. It’s also not a series that revolves entirely around her – her older brother has his own adventures, which seem to be just as if not more dangerous than her own, and there’s lots of bits of world building and lore that you know will pay off down the line but are just dropped casually here. Best of all, it’s simply thrilling to read.

Unfortunately, this may be all we get to read. While the webnovel this is based on has more material, Futabasha has not published a new volume in almost three years, so it seems to be cancelled. (This seems to be a problem with this publisher – see also The Epic Tale of the Reincarnated Prince Herscherik.) That said, if you’re looking for a fun YA novel with a great protagonist, you can’t really go wrong with Erika Aurelia.

Mapping: The Trash-Tier Skill That Got Me Into a Top-Tier Party, Vol. 1

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By Udon Kamono and Hitomi Shizuki. Released in Japan as “Hazure Skill “Mapping” wo Te ni Shita Shounen wa Saikyou Party to Dungeon ni Idomu” by Overlap. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Mana Z.

I admit when this first came out, I was planning on skipping it. While I do read far too many light novels, my days of trying to read all the Vol. 1s are gone forever. And when J-Novel Club posted the first chunk on their site/app, it read like someone who enjoyed Arifureta but wished the lead was a bit whinier. But a couple of folks told me that it actually got pretty interesting, so I ended up checking out the first volume all the way through. And, while I don’t think I’ll be reading any further, I can confirm that it does get interesting, despite its extremely poor start, and ends up being more an examination of how to try to drag your way to improving yourself when you don’t have the resources that everyone else around you has. It also has a final reveal that is quite well handled.

Our protagonist is Note. He and his childhood friend are getting the Skills that, in this world, can make or break your future. She gets three fantastic skills. He gets one Super Rare one that takes all three skill slots… and is famously known for being useless (there are two, much better mapping skills after this one). A year later, he’s been dumped by his childhood friend and is trying to join adventuring parties as baggage handler and getting drunk in bars. Then he’s scouted by a high-grade party who seem to have figured out a use for Mapping… it can handle mapping dungeons, which the other two mapping skills can’t do. Of course, he has Mapping, but he’s also a weak, self-hating guy, so the rest of the book is spent trying to get him in shape, teach him other, more useful talents for their party, and get him to actually stop acting like a wuss.

As I said before, the book starts off terribly, and I was also annoyed that we never got the perspective of the childhood friend that abandoned him, who reads as nothing other than a plot device. Things improve after he’s picked up by the Arrivers, the dungeon-crawling party that recruits him. The idea of taking months to train him up to do dungeon crawls (which are minimal in this first volume) is a good one, and we do see him slowly regain a sense of self-worth and show off quite a bit of cunning and self-awareness. The last quarter of the book has him trying to stop another one of their party, the sword expert, from leaving as he’s fallen in love with a girl. The classic “oh no, he’s fallen for the girl who has eight different men on the side” plot made me roll my eyes at first, but here we actually DO get her perspective later on, and her backstory, and while that doesn’t make her more likeable, it does work very well with the story.

The book has, beyond its stock low self-worth hero, more stock characters – our party leader whose dark past is no doubt waiting to be unearthed; the lecherous sword guy; a cardboard tsundere magic user (that’s her on the cover); and a dwarf girl who is there to fill the “I look (and act) underage but am not” slot. It improved in the second half, and if you like these types of characters, or “weakest becomes strongest” fantasies, this might appeal to you.