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The Twelve Kingdoms, Book One: Shadow of the Moon, Shadow of the Sea, Part 1

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By Fuyumi Ono and Akihiro Yamada. Released in Japan as “Tsuki no Kage, Kage no Umi” by X Bunko White Heart. Released in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment. Translated by Kim Morrissy. Adapted by Monica Sullivan.

There’s isekai, and then there’s ISEKAI. This is one of the OG isekai, back before it was a genre, and around the same time as the other majorly influential OG isekai, Fushigi Yuugi. Almost twenty years ago, Tokyopop published the first half of the series, but it then got cancelled due to poor sales, as happened a lot back then. Now it’s back, with a new translation and a spiffy looking cover. And after reading this first volume, I cannot help but feel a sneering contempt for those modern wannabe isekai. Oh, the poor guy who gets truck-kun’d into another world, and all he has its a cool sword, a bunch of catgirls, and a guild that lets him explore all the dungeons he wants for money. Or he’s summoned to be the savior of the world… well, actually, that is SORT OF how Twelve Kingdoms starts. But things go very bad very quickly. This book is dark as hell.

Youko Nakajima has been having bad dreams. Dreams of being trapped in darkness, unable to move, while hungry killer beasts are running towards her. They are making life difficult for her at her private all-girls’ school,. where she tries to keep up good grades, be a nice girl that’s easy to get along with, and ignore the bullying of other girls lower on the totem pole. Then one day, while in the teacher’s office where they’re getting annoyed about her red hair – again – suddenly a man shows up, says she needs to come with him, and tries to drag her off. Then she’s attacked by the same animals that were in her dream, who burst through the window and injure the faculty. Then she’s being told to kill then with a sword that is handed to her. Then she is possessed by a creature that can manipulate her body so she can swing the sword. Then… she’s flown to another world.

For those who saw the anime when it came out in 2002 and wonder where the other two Japanese kids are, they’re not here. (OK, Sugimoto is here to get bullied, but she doesn’t get isekai’d). Youko is all alone – indeed, very much all alone, as she quickly loses the handsome guy insisting that she come with him to fulfill her destiny and ends up in a hostile country. The book is very well written, with evocative descriptions, and Youko’s descent from terror into confusion into anger into just giving up is incredibly well done. That said… in Japan, the next volume came out one month later, and I’m going to assume that things get better for her in that. That does leave this volume, which is just unrelenting. She’s torn from Japan and told she can never return. She’s imprisoned, and told she’ll likely be executed. She meets one or two nice people… who immediately turn out to be not-so-nice. By the end of the book she can’t accept that anyone being nice to her isn’t secretly evil, and is on the verge of starvation, exhaustion, and death because she’s also having to battle countless youma every single night. This is a MISERABLE isekai for her.

That said, this is a 30+-year-old series, so I know things get better for her. Eventually. Till then, this is gorgeous trauma.

The Otome Heroine’s Fight for Survival, Vol. 5

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By Harunori Biyori and Hitaki Yuu. Released in Japan as “Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyō Survival” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Camilla L.

Apparently, according to the afterword, having a volume that LOOKS like it’s going to be a typical otome game “nobles at the academy” book and then not having it be that at all is a habit with this author. In my last review I mentioned that I would like some academy hijinks and a few less stat screens, and I absolutely did not get my wish. In fact, there was apparently more academy content in the webnovel version that was cut out, in order that we could add more fights. Because, rest assured, this series still knows what its readers really wants, and that’s – no, not stat screens – pages and pages of Alia fighting and brutally murdering many, many, many bad guys. They can be traitorous knights, zombie villagers, or vampire demons, and none of that matters. If they are threatening Elena, they are going to die. That said, there really are an awful lot of them, and worst of all, they seem to have a plan…

We are now finally at the start of the game. Elena is there, with Alia as her aide and bodyguard. Clara is there, destroying her life and health in order to try to figure out a way to be with the man she loves (surviving has become secondary). Karla is there, and she’s still trying to live her best life, which is to say having a double-murder with Alia in the smoking remains of the world. Elvan is there, and boy, he’s a wet rag, isn’t he? And Alicia is there, which might be surprising, given Alia *is* Alicia. But another Alicia is there, and even though she’s not quite the right one, she’s still doing her best to get with all those otome game hotties. And if that means that she ends up destroying the actual game plot, oh well! As for the kingdom itself, well, political assassinations, kidnapping, and upheaval. You know how it is.

There is not quite a “the bad guys win” ending at the end of this volume, but the good guys certainly are having a tough time. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed that the fake Alicia was not one of the hundred or so people that Alia slaughters in this book, because my god, not only is she annoying, but she’s unintentionally doing what the kingdom’s enemies are trying to do deliberately – weaken the crown prince and make him a wussy puppet they can control. Elena has been emboldened by her encounters with Alia, and cares deeply about the kingdom, so all those who want to manipulate everything for their own ends think she’s a horrible potential ruler. As such, they send assassins, they send kidnappers, and even the demons are in on the fun. Half this book may just be Alia cutting folks, but there’s a good reason for it.

So Elena and Alia are not dead, but they’re not in a great place right now! This remains a fun series, though folks who want standard otome game villainess stuff might look elsewhere. Alia has murdered the typical story in its sleep.

Who Killed the Hero?, Vol. 1

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By Daken and toi8. Released in Japan as “Dare ga Yuusha wo Koroshita ka” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kim Morrissy.

It’s always hard to try to review a book whose very nature requires that the reader is surprised as it goes along. It’s even harder to do this when the book is excellent, as your review essentially amounts to “You’ve got to read this, it’s great!” “Why?” “I can’t tell you, spoilers!”. But here we are, and this book is great, so let’s settle down and try to do this. At its heart this book takes a long look at the fantasy standard “hero’s party goes to defeat the demon lord” cliche. There’s a prophecy, there’s the hero/swordsman/mage/healer party composition, there’s a promised reward of a royal daughter, and, inevitably, there’s a death. Because the book is called “Who Killed the Hero?”, I can at least talk about that. The death, in turn, leads the book and its cast to ask about the nature of the hero, why they have to defeat the demon lord when others cannot, and how a story can be turned on its ear by a simple investigation.

Four years earlier, the hero, Ares, led an elite team to defeat the demon lord. There was noble swordsman Leon, beautiful priestess Maria, and intelligent yet cynical mage Solon. They succeed… and yet, when they return, Ares did not come back with them, and they said that he perished on the return visit. Now someone is going around, getting the word on the street, talking to the other members of the hero’s party, as well as the prophet who made the prophecy about the hero in the first place, to try to figure out what happened. Because no one’s quite sure. Some say Ares was killed by a rogue demon. Some say the other members of the party killed him as there was a love triangle going on. And even the person who is going all around the capital trying to figure things out has their own agenda. What happened?

This is, by necessity, not a book with a large cast, and I enjoyed all the characters tremendously. My favorite was undoubtedly Maria, theoretically a girl devoted to God but in reality someone who will have a boy go and get her the “best” bread every day because it amuses her… only to be stunned when he actually manages to learn the things she was theoretically teaching him. I also was fond of the young princess, who listens to the hero say that he’ll defeat the demon lord, but he’s not coming back, and refuses to accept that. There are a lot of cynical people in this book, and it’s dealing, through almost its entirety, with a death. Despite that, I was amazed at how life-affirming and happy it is, and that once you get all the answers in the end even the one person whose life you assumed would end here ends up being forced into happiness.

There’s two more volumes of this, which seem to have a similar premise but a different cast. Similar to Brunhild the Dragonslayer, I think. In any case, despite not being able to give much away, this is a very rewarding book. Seek it out.