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Log Horizon: Krusty, Tycoon Lord

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By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

It’s been a long time since the last volume of Log Horizon – almost a year. It may be even longer till the next volume as well, as there’s no sign of it in Japan. That said, this is a big volume for fans of the series, as it’s the first volume that has not actually been animated. As such, it will prove to be entirely new material. Appropriately, it focuses to a large degree on Kanami’s party, who were the subject of the 9th book (which was adapted the least by the anime), and have now reached the equivalent of Mongolia. But as you may have guessed by the title, the other major participant in this volume is Krusty, who is having memory issues but is not letting that stop him from living the easy life, as he’s essentially in the game equivalent of heaven being waited on by cute animal person servants. The book’s main thrust has a scheming villainess try to pit the two parties against each other.

The book mostly succeeds, but it is worth noting, once again, that there is a truly ridiculous amount of gaming chatter and discussion in these volumes, and that it can quickly get tedious, especially when you’re in the middle of a large battle. Classes, levels, aggro… I don’t really care. But someone cares, and that someone is Elias, who we get to know a lot more about in this book. From the last book, we know that he labors under a curse that means he never gets the last hit in – he can’t be the one to kill the monsters. Of course, since Log Horizon was a game, and he was one of the bigger NPCs, it makes sense. The players make the big kill. But here we see how this weighs heavily on him, and also how his party seems to have been broken, and possibly killed, simply by hinting at their very nature – Elias, throughout the book, seems to be shying away from thinking that he’s just an NPC in a game.

So it’s pretty easy to get him to go all out against Krusty, who’s perfectly happy to have people think he’s a villain if it gets him a good fight. We get a lot of Krusty’s own background from Earth here too, and it fits with his personality to a T. Krusty really can’t stop Elias, especially given he’s dealing with his own curse. Kanami is there to be Haruhi Suzumiya and not much else. I like her, but she’s completely at peace with everything about herself, so is terrible at this sort of thing. And Coppelia is still pretty much monotone. That leaves Leonardo, still a frog and not a turtle, to deliver the big verbal cooldown speech to Elias. I won’t spoil it, as it’s easily the best part of the book, and made me smile quite a bit. When Log Horizon isn’t pouring verbiage into its worldbuilding, it can be pretty heartwarming.

We’re almost entirely in ‘the China server’ this volume, with only one chapter back in Akiba to show us that Raynesia’s noble friends are all getting engaged, which I suspect means that an arranged marriage is in her future. Her noble friends also think she’s in a relationship with Krusty, which she’s not. In the next volume, whenever that may be, I suspect we’ll be headed back to Shiroe and company. Till then, enjoy this look at what it means to be “cursed”, and how to resolve it.

Outbreak Company, Vol. 7

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By Ichiro Sakaki and Yuugen. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

For the most part, I tend to wait at least a day before writing a review of something. Reflection can be a good thing, and so sometimes my opinions on Twitter – which are as I read – don’t match up with what’s here. And, let’s face it, this volume had an uphill battle to win my affection in the first place. I enjoy Outbreak Company a great deal, but not for the fanservice. Thus when you have a volume that, in one way or another, doubles down on such things, you’re going to be losing me. That said, it is not without interest. If you can ignore the fact that the entire first story seems to revolve around Minori’s tits, it’s actually a lot of fun, and there is some actual suspense in there briefly – that turns out to be undercut. It’s Outbreak Company’s excuse to do a beach episode with swimsuits, something it admits within the text, and as such is fine. The other two stories were a bit more problematic with me.

The second story should have easily been my favorite, as it’s an emotional character-driven piece. It’s also from the POV of Myusel, which makes for a great change. We’ve known since the first book that she’s half-elf, but the subject of her parents has never come up. Now, all of a sudden, due to changes in the family, her mother has arrived (she’s the elf) and wants Myusel to leave the mansion and come live with her. Myusel, we know, really does not want to do this at all, but runs up against everyone seemingly thinking it’s a done deal and accepting that it has to happen. And if Minori and Shinichi are already arranging for her replacement, how can she say no? I was struck by how obtuse everyone was being in this part. Frankly, as a reader, Myusel’s depression could not be more obvious if she’d tried, and the fact that the characters all assume she’s fine with it really bothered me. Do they really know her all that well? This was well-written but the characterization just felt… off.

The third story was apparently written with the help of one of the author’s female assistants, who is a fujoshi. He clearly said to her “I want a story where Minori is going through BL withdrawal, make it as exaggerated as possible.” And boy howdy, that’s what happened. Again, the issue I have is with the characterization. I’m fine with Minori being like this. Though the constant chants of “homo, homo” are perhaps a bit… insensitive, shall we say, they certainly fit with a certain type of fujoshi. I was more annoyed with this essentially turning into a fujoshi zombie movie, with Minori infecting everyone else in the story (even Myusel, though she holds out at first, for reasons that everyone but Shinichi understand) so that the entire cast are suddenly mindless BL maniacs. Yes, that’s the exaggeration, but it didn’t sit well with me. That said, if you enjoy over the top comedy, this may be your favorite segment. It’s certainly that. And OK, the “Vitamin BL” gag was very funny.

This was certainly a volume of short stories. There were some interesting parts, but I am hoping that next time around we get back to the main plot.

In Another World with My Smartphone, Vol. 12

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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.

It’s actually been a while since I’ve had a volume of Smartphone that didn’t irritate me in some way. Touya does not take the time to wipe out and entire country full of evil cliches here, which helps a lot. Instead, we get what are essentially a bunch of short stories, as always – Smartphone has an ongoing plot, but it sort of judders along, and gets abandoned whenever the author feels like it. Here Touya investigates the hidden island discussed in prior volumes and makes contact with them; deals with a return of the creepy soul eating monster, which he now knows is being controlled by the rogue God (the one bit of ongoing plot here); travels to another dimension to help a group of phantom thieves; and tries to resolve a political romance. In between there’s time for a forest that’s being taken over by bad guys (and fanservice), and a puppet show. A very leisurely Smartphone, in other words.

The art is… mostly good, except for that cover, which has creeped me out ever since I first saw it in the original Japanese. Yae and Leen’s expressions are just deeply wrong. In any case, the fiancee horde actually gets a fair bit to do here, with each of Touya’s missions except the third one involving him traveling with one or more of the girls. The third, the one in the alternate world, honestly reads sort of like a backdoor pilot for a different series, and given most of the thieves are cute young girls, it’s likely for the best that the fiancees didn’t come along. They’re still not married, having a couple years of waiting to go, though after a fertility device works as planned (Sue’s getting a little sibling), Touya does take the time to ponder having children with his wives, and the wisdom of perhaps staggering them out a bit so he doesn’t have 8 kids at once. And, let’s face it, Linze’s puppet making ability, and the show that follows, runs on pure adorable. I won’t even complain about the forest of monsters that involves licking the heroine’s butts, though I will roll my eyes a bit.

As for Touya, the author has found a nice balance between him doing ludicrous things and his getting called out on doing ludicrous things. Given Touya’s lack of emotional range (he’s the sort to say “that makes me mad” in the same vaguely cheery voice he uses for everything), everyone around him has to pick up the slack a bit. This is shown off best in the final story, where he is forced by circumstances to fight a 10-year-old girl who is very strong in both fighting and magic and has grown rather proud and arrogant as a result. He’s asked to teach her humility… and he does, literally saying “it’s time to dunk on a 10-year-old”. Leaving aside how weary I am of terrified girls wetting themselves in Japanese series, the fight is hilarious, as is the reaction of everyone else, which is basically “I know we told you do to this, but eeeeeehhhh.” Poor Touya, once again history’s greatest monster.

If you’ve been avoiding Smartphone because it’s been leaning a bit too hard on the genocide sort of thing recently, this is an excellent volume ot pick up. It’s relaxed, fun, and features Touya being ludicrous.