Category Archives: reviews

A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 22

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By Kazumi Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “To Aru Majutsu no Index” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

If this is to be the final novel of Index released in North America (something still up in the air at the moment), it’s a good way to go out, despite the fact that it also ends up killing off its main character. Still, I suspect precisely no fans believed he was dead at the time, and they certainly don’t now that we’ve had New Testament 1-23 and are starting a 3rd light novel sequence. As with the previous two books, this is a big ol’ action sequence, complete with a battle on a slowly crumbling cathedral made up of cathedrals. This time around, though, we do get more of the themes Kamachi wants in the main story, as Touma points out that writing the world off as being too evil and reformatting it is a foolishly naive thing to do, Hamazura discovers that – surprise! – Academy City’s ‘ranking’ system is fixed, and Accelerator sings out loud and sings out strong. There’s even time for some “new” characters.

Appearing on the cover are Accelerator and Misaka Worst, who ironically get the least to do in this book. New characters: Klans Tzarskij, the Russian Patriarch. “New” characters: Silvia and Ollerus, who show up at the end, both of whom the Japanese readers met in the unlicensed 2nd Short Story volume. In terms of Timeline, we end on Halloween night, which means that it’s been a little over four months since Index and Touma first met. Busy months, to be sure. There’s actually something of an attempt to show off everyone trying to save the world: Agnes’ nuns are around, Kaori swings her sword, etc. That said, in terms of action this is still very much a three-person book, with an assist from Mikoto, who gets to stop a nuke going off but for the most part is reduced to trying to save Touma and having him abandon her because he still has more saving to do.

Hamazura’s battle against Mugino ends a lot cleaner than I’d expected, mainly as Mugino is already sort of half-broken and exhausted. He appeals to the good old days when they were ITEM, and asks to reform the team (minus Frenda, who is dead, but at least he mentions apologizing at her grave for killing her). Also, it turns out his girlfriend may be the most important person in all of Academy City, as she has the potential power to move quirks… erm, sorry, skills… from one person to another. I admit I am not overly fond of Hamazura torturing (offscreen) an Academy City soldier for blackmail info he needs, but then I hate “torture works!” scenes. Accelerator manages to combine magic and science and save Last Order, though he almost breaks himself doing it, and he once again reaffirms the idea of family that’s hovered around him.

As for Touma, well, he’s there to yell at the bad guy and punch the bad guy, and he does both of those – even when the bad guy is an angel. It looks like he got through to Fiamma, though we’ll need to see more books to figure out if it stuck. Did he die? Well, no, look at the covers for New Testament 1-23. Is he dead for now? Yes. It makes for a slightly bittersweet ending to the whole arc, which otherwise is relatively happy. I’m going to assume that the first volume of New Testament will be another “Touma-light” volume, which is much easier now that there’s two other main heroes – or antiheroes. As for whether we’ll see it, that’s up to Yen Press and Dengeki Bunko. I hope we do someday.

Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?, Vol. 5

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By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

This is a slightly stronger volume than the previous one, if only as the author has hit upon a very solid plotline for this book: a tournament arc. Do You Love Your Mom? is not exactly a Shonen Jump series, but certainly mom is overpowered enough to be a last boss in the sort of tournaments you see there. Here she fights against 15 other mothers who are all basically variants on the position. There’s elf mom, giant mom, robot mom, devil mom, angel mom, ninja mom… etcetcetc. There’s also our two minor comedy villains, who disguise themselves as “one girl on another’s shoulders wearing a coat” but get away with it because LOL. The most interesting competitor, though, is “Hahako”, who at first appears to be Mamako’s dark mirror or evil doppelganger. That’s not QUITE true, but it’s certainly playing on those ideas until we get to the reveal. As for Mamako, well, she even has a few points here where she struggles. Briefly.

The rest of the cast exist basically to a) get humiliated, and b) show that they have grown as well, if only slightly. Given the nature of the series, Masato gets humiliated a bit more and also has to wait longer to prove he’s not pathetic. He has at least gotten better at identifying the “powers” that his mom has and differentiating hers from, say, the other fifteen moms who all seem to love him and want him to be their son as well. (For one thing, he’s not attracted to his real mom. I appreciate that a series which at times seems entirely to have been released because of the incestual premise refuses to go down that road.) He also trusts her to do the right thing even when it might require a leap of faith, which helps to defeat Hahako, who “feels” almost exactly like Mamako. But isn’t.

I won’t go into Hahako’s actual identity, but I will say that I liked the attention devoted to “what is it that makes a mother?”. Mamako’s speech was actually good, and reminded us that the relationship need not be biological either. The rest of the book, well, is a lot of gags, some funny, some not very funny. The sports commentary stuff was great. I could have done without Mamako being changed into various different fetishes… erm, sorry, types of character. Even if the last one dies actually make her struggle for perhaps the only time in this series to date. There are also a few hints for future books… it’s now really obvious that Porta’s mom is one of the main villain group, and Shiraaase is also not infooorming nearly as much as she could be. There’s a lot of secrets going on here.

The next book, which features Mamako in a wedding kimono on the cover, fills me with dread, but oh well, it likely won’t go there. This remains rather silly, but not as bad as you’d expect.

The Isolator, Vol. 5

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By Reki Kawahara and Shimeji. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

Last time I said it might be 2020 before we see the next book in this series, and here we are. More amusingly, last time I talked about this series have a better class of villains than SAO or Accel World, and in the afterword here’s Kawahara talking about how he hates it when villains turn good and always has his villains be “extra evil” because of it. Kawahara-san, you are wrong and should feel bad, at least about the second part of that. This particular book is sort of a breather volume in the series, with minimal battles but a whole lot of set up for what’s to come. Liquidizer, who gets the subtitle this time around as well as a second cover picture in a row, isn’t joining the good guys per se. But she wants Trancer back, and for that she’s willing to join forces with Minoru if she must. Meanwhile, Minoru is slowly (though he doesn’t realize this, which is honestly a good thing) letting others into his life.

We get a large chunk of the book that takes place at Minoru’s school, including a handsome guy who is highly interested in Minoru, mostly as he improves vastly on his midterm grades. Of course, the question is was this him being smart or others falling – there’s a rash of illness going around the school, leading the previous top scorers to all be too tired and drawn to do their best. This applies to athletics as well, including Minoru’s not-girlfriend Tomomi, who is feeling more and more as if she doesn’t want to run – to the point where she eventually collapses and goes to hospital. We do eventually figure out who’s behind this, but not till the cliffhanger ending. Still, it’s far more school than we’ve had in the previous book.

The rest of the volume is devoted to Liquidizer and her request for help in recovering Trancer from the hands of the… good guys? Well, that’s a good question. Given this is a book where the author has decided not to make all his villains evil beyond all measure, it makes sense that the people in charge of the good guys likely also have murky motives of their own. Of course, she’s not asking the others to work for free – she’ll give them the location of Oliver’s younger sister Claire, who is revealed to have been captured before Minoru joined them and also had Jet Eye powers. I… kind of wish this had been seeded into earlier books, as it really reads like a far-too-handy reveal here. The few action sequences that we do get are well-handled as always, and show off Minoru’s growing strategic thinking. Oddly, the one think missing here is romance – Yumiko is briefly seen to be annoyed that Minoru has had Suu to his house before, but Liquidizer’s relationship with Minoru rarely goes beyond allies, possibly as she spends a lot of it with a bullet wound.

I enjoyed this book despite it mostly feeling like putting pieces in place for next time. As for when next time is, shall we bet on 2022?