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Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, Vol. 10

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By Ryo Shirakome and Takayaki. Released in Japan as “Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen

In general, if you’re going to have an unbalanced book, it’s best to have the strongest material be towards the end than towards the beginning. This is a problem for Arifureta Book 10, which has as its first third or so some of the best scenes in the entire series, then tries its hardest to keep it up. Unfortunately, keeping it up would require the reader to feel a lot more sympathy – or a lot less – towards Kouki than they do. This means that we spend a good deal of the last half of the book waiting for Kouki to finish typing his Reddit post on how girls he deserves won’t sleep with him. To be fair, the book very clearly takes a negative stand on this sort of behavior, and I appreciate that. I’d appreciate it more if this wasn’t also a male power fantasy where a bullied loner literally gets revenge on his high school class and also has sex with all the hottest babes. Which it still is.

Before that, though, there is the battle with Yue and Shea. I haven’t talked about Yue much in these reviews, mostly as there hasn’t been that much TO talk about. Here, though, she gets some backstory showing off who she used to be and the family that she loved – including a set of double reversal betrayals, which left her so devastated that she’s tried hard not to think about her past at all, including why she was sealed rather than just killed off. After meeting up with Shea (who sails through her own test), A pensive Yue makes the mistake of saying that if anything happens to her, she wants Shea to take care of Hajime. Actually, the bigger mistake may be that she doesn’t get why that’s upsetting to Shea. What follows is one of the best fights in the series, as Shea and Yue go toe to toe with each other as Shea tries to beat the resignation out of Yue. The funniest part is that it takes in Kaori’s fight as well – normally the idea of Kaori as the “Steph” of this series annoys me, but it’s handled SO well here I can’t be churlish.

Elsewhere, Tio also sails through her test, showing off that she’d be a fantastic character if she weren’t such a depraved masochist. Suzu is forced to admit that she lives her life by deflecting, and Ryutarou that he really would rather not be a sidekick character (even though he totally is). And then there’s Kouki, who is forced to admit that he’s jealous of Hajime and not as good as he thinks he is… and fails miserably. At this point I’m fairly sure Kouki is not going to be killed off, as if he was this would be the perfect place to do it. Instead we simply see him fail – again. He comes to his senses later to a degree, but there’s still seething resentment underneath everything he does. It’s well-written, but also means that I have to read far more about him than I really want to. Also, I suspect he’ll be useless in the upcoming battle that the cliffhanger suggests.

There’s only a couple more books left in the “main” storyline judging by when the webnovel is, so the cliffhanger ending may be moving us to the climax. Everyone (bar Kouki) has evolved and powered up. They know they can now get home. All that’s left is beating the bad guys. I expect the next book will have a lot of that. Till then, at least we can enjoy Shea beating the snot out of Yue and Kouki railing against the friendzone.

No Game No Life, Vol. 9

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By Yuu Kamiya. Released in Japan by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Daniel Komen.

This is, despite a few minor issues I had, a strong return to form for No Game No Life, which remembers what its main goal is besides being perverse, writing awkward prose, and occasional outbursts of plot: making the reader laugh. This is a funny volume, particularly if you enjoy seeing Sora suffer. While we do see [ ] in action towards the end, for the most part this is the Ex Machina, another of the Sixteen races and the ones who supposedly killed a God, trying to seduce Sora and get him to make babies with them. As you can see, this ridiculous premise hits on a lot of things that you know will be funny even without reading it: the war between Sora’s desire for sex, his fear of it, and his gamer brain trying to work out the actual plot behind it; the others’ over the top reactions to this, and the Ex Machina’s ludicrous attempts at seducing Sora, which run the gamut from offensive (the class of elementary schoolgirls) to actually well thought-out. Does Sora lose his virginity? Take a guess.

There is also the subplot which becomes far more important as the book progresses, which is Sora and Shiro closing the castle and devoting all their attention to becoming idol producers, with Holou as the idol in question. She’s still searching for answers, which means she compares nicely to Ex Machina, who are doing the same via this scheme. They declare that Sora is their “Spieler”, which is to say Riku from Book 6. But we already know that Sora isn’t, and deep down Ex Machina know that as well. Therefore what we end up with is “we want a purpose in life”, as well as how someone defines who they are. As robots, Ex Machina are not particularly unemotional, despite speaking in a very robot sort of way. Only two of them have actual roles, but they make them count.

Einzig is the “comedy gay” option among the otherwise female robots, and I like to imagine him looking like Koizumi from Haruhi, as he’s trying to do the same thing. Normally I might carp at this portrayal, but Sora’s “noooooooooooo!!!” is clearly meant to be mocked mercilessly rather than sympathized with. And then there’s Emir-Einz, named by Sora in a casual “your name’s too long to say” way that actually proves to be one of the more pivotal sentences in the book (also, props to him for remembering her full name anyway later). As with Einzig, she becomes a “type” – the obsessed stalker girl – but again, this is worth it because it’s funny seeing Sora in a state of constant panic. And Jibril, for that matter, who does not have her best book trying to help Sora escape these Droopy Dog robots. Steph is also mocked and embarrassed, but that’s par for the course, and she had a high point last volume anyway.

Assuming you enjoy the series, and can put up with what is still not the best translation in the world, this is a very good volume to pick up. The things I could object to are not things anyone reading this series to begin with would care about. Feel free to have fun with it.

In Another World with My Smartphone, Vol. 17

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By Patora Fuyuhara and Eiji Usatsuka. Released in Japan as “Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson.

As with so many prior volumes of Smartphone, the lighter and fluffier the series gets the better it is. As such, let’s start with the less light and fluffy stuff, which is mostly towards the end. Touya and company get themselves involved in a murder mystery in another country, one that is – as with many countries we’ve seen in this series – having a succession crisis. Unfortunately, they’re being manipulated on both sides by what’s left of Yulong, the country taken out mostly by the Phrase in a previous volume. They say Touya did it, which he denies. This is true, but perhaps acting like a smug asshole and killing off the royal family part might be some of the reason. But this is Smartphone World, meaning that the bad guys are all REALLY REALLY EVIL, so it’s OK. This was my least favorite part of the book, mostly as Touya, who is passive at the best of times, is really unlikable as a passive killer.

The best section of the book is, without a doubt, the Mario Kart race. Now, names have been changed to protect the guilt,y but that’s essentially what we have here. Touya is asked to hook up the nerdy engineer price we saw in a previous book with another princess, who also turns out to be a nerdy engineer. They love the sweet cars – erm, Ether Vehicles – but disagree as to exactly how they should be modded, and so get really angry at each other. Clearly a race is the answer, and with a course designed by the Mad Scientists of the book, it’s gonna be Mario Kart. The main reason this is so fun is that Touya spends most of the race grumbling and not doing well, and then is the first one eliminated. Given that Touya is the standard perfect hero who an do anything (and is a literal God by now), this pleased me. Also, the couple bond over their cars and fall in love. Aww.

In between we have the rest of the book. Another country is wiped out by the Phrase, but this time in the reverse world. What’s more, the Red Cats base is destroyed, so now they’re in Touya’s universe. Which is going to be irrelevant soon, as the next book promises to have the two universes merge for good. Oh yes, and Touya also helps save a mom ‘n daughter diner from the forces of eeeeeeeevil (another typically broad villain from a series that can only write broad villains) and gives his spy/sex worker friend a magical panther to be her bodyguard. The other notable part of the book is Ende, who was introduced as the enigmatic know-it-all who gave Touya important info, and has somehow become comic relief, abused by his love interest and his teacher. How the mighty have fallen.

Should you read this volume of Smartphone? Well, if you’ve read the others, sure. It’s not a good jumping off point if you want to stop, and certainly has a good cliffhanger. I’d read it for the go-kart race.