Category Archives: reviews

Duchess in the Attic, Vol. 3

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By Mori and Huyuko Aoi. Released in Japan as “Yane Urabeya no Kōshaku Fujin” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by piyo.

(This review discusses a plot twist near the end of the book, but I will wait till paragraph three to do so.)

This is a very odd series, in that it’s technically meant to be a thriller of sorts, where we see Opal struggle against events that are conspiring against her. But she’s never seriously in danger, and knows it. And we, the reader, are fine with that. We’re not reading this series to see Opal being threatened by goons, we’re reading this to see Opal being smug, and boy howdy do we get that here. We also get another attic, and this time she stays in it for an extended period. I sometimes wonder if the author thinks of Opal in the attic, and then writes a plot to get her into it, rather than the other way around. As for the book itself, well, it’s taking the events of Books 1 and 2 and telling the reader we should have been paying far closer attention to them.

After the events of the last volume, which ended with someone trying to break up Opal and Claude, she heads off to their new lands without him. There she finds an old-fashioned, Satan-hating land maintainer, a butler who screams “I am evil”, and a footman that she immediately dislikes on sight. Fortunately, she does have her loyal maid Nadja. Unfortunately, while on her way to inspect mines, which requires her staying at a ludicrously opulent mansion that looms over a poor neighborhood, she finds herself kidnapped, locked in an attic, and held for ransom, along with Nadja. At least she gets things to read from that footman she dislikes. As for why she’s been kidnapped, well, the anti-royal faction have decided to have their revolution, and she makes a great hostage. Supposedly. If their revolution were going well.

So, one mystery I love is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie. It’s not loved by everyone, however, and gets into “is it OK to withhold vital information when you are a first-person narrator?”. This book does the same thing, with Julian, the footman. I already knew he was going to be more than just one of the three bad guys. For one thing, he’s on the cover, pictured happily next to Claude and Opal. For another, he gets a big interior illustration the moment he first appears. That said, I assumed that he would be, y’know, an old friend of Claude’s who’s being a spy. Which, admittedly, is 100% true. But he’s also someone we’ve been hearing about since the very, very start of the series, always present by his absence, and Opal’s immediate dislike of him should have been a bigger clue. No one fights quite like a brother and sister, after all. This also makes the climax of the book, which should be tense and anxious, hilarious, as the two cannot stop sniping at each other. It’s glorious.

The first book had a definite ending, and then it continued. This third book also has a definite ending, and yet there is more. I’m looking forward to it a great deal, though.

Babel: The Bewitching Princess in the Birdcage

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By Kuji Furumiya and Haruyuki Morisawa. Released in Japan as “Babel III: Torikago Yori Izuru Youki” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Amelia Imogen.

So, first of all, I want to note that I *loved* this volume. It’s not only my favorite volume of Babel so far, but it may actually be my favorite book by Furumiya I’ve read so far. That said… boy, this is absolutely exhausting to read. As always with this author, it’s a brick – the digital version comes in at 463 pages – and much of it, especially in the back half, is a series of “is this going to end badly with Shizuku dead?” mini-cliffhangers. More to the point, while the start of the volume does indeed continue the themes of the previous one, showing Shizuku trying to explain how teaching language can be a good way to solve the current crisis – it rapidly derails into Shizuku doing what she does best, which is speaking to those in power and smacking them down. With Lars that mostly just led to a lot of arguments. With Princess Ortea, it leads to revolution.

We pick up from the cliffhanger of the previous book: Shizuku is being kidnapped and brought to another country by the evil mage Niké, with Erik’s life being threatened till she gives in. (As a result, Erik is almost entirely absent from this volume.) When she gets there, she discovers that mages have been conducting cruel experiments on children to solve the language issue, and Shizuku is there to try to solve it with her own solution, education. The one she has to impress is the cruel and capricious Princess Ortea, who has been running much of the nation behind the scenes and has a tendency to have people who displease her executed. As the book goes on, Shizuku becomes Ortea’s aide, and gradually comes to realize that there’s a lot more going on here than an evil princess and her worried brother the King. Is the answer overthrowing the monarchy? Yup.

For the most part, I adored this, though I could do without the curse above Shizuku’s womb that’s even more agonizing because she’s a virgin. The only thing more annoying than having superpowers that only work because someone is a virgin is having suffering that is even worse because someone is a virgin. That said, the best part of the book is talking about how you cannot erase your past actions, even if they’re atrocities (especially if they are), but you can try to atone for them and move forward, especially if you care more about the country than about power. Honestly, I kind of wonder if the final book will end with Lars and Ortea marrying, as while they get on even worse than Lars and Shizuku, I could see it working – they’re very similar. As for the lack of Erik, fear not, we do get a romance of sorts, as evil mage Niké turns out to not be all that evil really, and also gradually falling in love with Shizuku, despite her bad habit of getting kidnapped and shot at and stabbed and having painful womb curses put on her. Shizuku needs a break, let’s be honest. Anyway, needless to say he gets nowhere, but he does get in a kiss before she leaves, which is the one thing in the book that reads like a cliched anime moment.

The next book is the final one in the series. After Book 1, I was fairly sure that she would not be returning to Japan, but now I’m not so sure. Will Shizuku have to give up and settle down here? And can she solve the Babel crisis before she returns? A terrific series.

Bofuri: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, So I’ll Max Out My Defense, Vol. 15

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By Yuumikan and KOIN. Released in Japan as “Itai no wa Iya nano de Bōgyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

Generally speaking, when a series has a volume that consists of nothing but battle scenes, I tend to groan and whine a lot. Battle scenes are hard to review beyond “yup, they sure did hit each other hard”. Strangely, though, I don’t really mind the ones that happen in Bofuri. Part of it is Bofuri’s a game, as opposed to endless “fantasy world that just happens to have game stats”, so I really don’t need to be concerned when a character I like dies. But the other reason is that I trust this author’s style. It’s fast-paced – the action really does not stop for a minute in this volume. And it’s short, so that I don’t need to worry about this taking 600 pages like some OTHER action driven series. Congratulations, Maple, you’re better than Bell at this. As for who the winner is… well, the event does end, but any aftermath will need to wait for Book 16.

This is the climax of the event, and there’s a lot going on. Maple shows off some death from above with mysterious acid rain. The group try out various strategies, but given the enemy has the Best Snipers Ever, as well as Naruto and Hinata… pardon me, Velvet and Hinata, Maple is in danger from this. So the best thing to do is to literally shove her in a box till she’s needed. The twins are separated, but each of them manages a suicide attack that devastates the enemy forces. Marx gets to briefly be cool before dying. Kasumi gets to briefly be cool before dying. Kanade gets to briefly be cool before dying. OK, maybe I was right to worry about writing this review.

And then there’s Maple and Sally. As I write this, the webnovel version of Bofuri came to a close two days ago, and the light novel will wrap up with the 20th volume next month. We’re a ways away from that ending, but I think I can be fairly confident how it’s going to wrap up. Maple and Sally have been the focus of the series fro0m the start, and as the books go on that’s become even more apparent – this is not a series that is just “what crazy shit will Maple come up with next?” This book is all about showing us just how utterly, utterly broken Sally is, how she’s just as terrifying as Maple if not more so, and that it’s even more impressive because while Maple’s play style mostly runs on her instincts, Sally’s is calculated to the last microsecond, allowing her to do the impossible while fooling people into thinking she can go BEYOND the impossible. Also, she is 100% gay for Maple.

The next volume should give an after-event recap of this arc, but more importantly, I think it will begin the climax that will take up the last quarter of the series. Can Maple and Sally get to the 10th Strata without finally being killed off? And can they continue to make everyone stare at them with their jaw dropped?