By Nozomu Mochitsuki and Gilse. Released in Japan as “Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Madeleine Willette.

It’s been a long time since the last volume of Tearmoon Empire, so it feels good that this volume was a lot of “here’s what you remember best about the series”. Lots of snarky narrator, lots of Mia thinking of a selfish reason to do something only for everyone around her to take it as the noblest reason ever (even when she literally says “I do things for myself”). Some lovey dovey stuff with her and Abel. And of course the ongoing plot, which is… erm, let me check my notes… or right, Princess Orania, who seems to only care about fishing, and Mia’s attempts to befriend the hell out of her. Which naturally end up interacting with her kingdom, a civil war, preventing another terrible future, and those pesky Chaos Serpents. Though honestly, to the Chaos Serpents, Mia is proving to be even more pesky, and they’re rather annoyed that she keeps showing up right before they enact their evil plans. It’s almost as if she has a book that can see the future.

Tearmoon Empire plays in the larger ocean of both villainess books and time travel to fix the future books, so it’s not a surprise that Orania’s tragic backstory may ring a bell to fans of those books. When you’re in a political marriage but only one of you is actually in love, life can be difficult, and naturally that can mean projecting all your hopes and dreams onto your child. Fortunately, sometimes your husband takes pity on you and gets you another husband who loves you! And you can have children out of love and live happily now! Hrm? Your first daughter? Meh. Whatever. As you can imagine, this has pretty much broken Orania, whose father is of the opinion that she can do whatever, he doesn’t care. Well, until the cliffhanger ending of the book, which promises there’s more behind that… hopefully for the better.

As for Mia herself, she mostly has a pretty good book. Honestly, it’s Rafina who suffers this volume – first because she’s the only girly girl in the entire cast, and thus the only one horrified at the idea of handling the live bait involved in the fishing contest. But also because Mia a) tells her that there’s an active slavery ring going on, something that infuriates Rafina, but b) dealing with it means Mia will be absent from the Holy Eve Festival. Let’s face it, Mia has too many friends, all of whom want to monopolize her time. I’d suggest she find technology to clone herself, but I can only imagine what a disaster that would be. We’re sixteen books in, and it’s getting harder and harder to wrangle everyone together to do a thing. And sometimes she can be completely caught off guard, like with the ending of this volume. Yes, after a couple books that don’t end in the middle of an arc, we’re back to normal here.

Fortunately, we won’t have long till we find out how Mia gets out of thi… hrm? Short Story volume, you say? Ah well.

By Nozomu Mochitsuki and Gilse. Released in Japan as “Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Madeleine Willette.

Generally speaking, unless God is literally involved in the plot, the “how and why” of these time loop stories is rarely examined. We know why – so they can redo their life and get it right this time. And for a lot of Tearmoon Empire, that’s been the case. Even with vanishing diaries and conflicting timelines, the premise has been “Mia fixes things so she’s not executed”. But with Bel and Patty, things aren’t quite so clear cut. We can guess that Patty might have been sent back to screw up Mia’s timeline fixes, but if so that’s going pretty badly. As for Bel… is it really just to help her mature and keep Citrina happy? Or is there some deeper purpose to her presence? Is there a guiding hand in this that is not Saint Mia and her sarcastic narrator? Unfortunately, this is Bel’s problem to solve, as Mia has a whole host of new things to deal with. Which, mostly, she handles very well.

This is a “set up the next arc” volume, so there’s a bit less drama and a lot more talking. What drama there is comes from Patty, who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and Mia realizes that she may have left it a bit too long before she needs to tell her the truth. We also get more details about Patty’s brother, who was supposedly very ill, and also supposedly assassinated by Citrina’s family… though we discover most of those “assassinations” were “ship them overseas on a boat” instead. Once Mia returns to home base, she must deal with her clingiest friends being out of sorts about not spending time with her, and also has to win over a new princess in order to further her own plans. Unfortunately, this princess is following daddy’s orders, and while she’s savvy she’s not really that clever… except when it comes to fish.

After last volume reminded us that Sapphias exists, this volume does the same for Esmeralda, who has mostly been absent from the story since the shipwreck arc. She’s very aware of that, in fact, and has been hearing about Mia having all of these adventures – some of them dangerous, but that doesn’t matter – without her. As for Esmeralda herself… look, with Mia, we have her genuine character growth constantly undercut by the narrator, so we have to pick it out in between the snark. The narrator, however, mostly shuts up when Mia or her immediate offspring aren’t involved, though, and it allows us to see that Esmeralda has changed as much as Mia.This also means that she not only spots regrets in others – such as one of Mia’s ex-maids who is now at the Mia academy – but also in herself, as she finally gives Arshia a richly deserved apology… which, to Arshia’s credit, she doesn’t accept. More needs to be done before the bridges can be repaired. It’s also a good example of the timeline changing as we read. as the start of her arc in this book has Esmeralda an obscure, mostly forgotten figure who worked behind the scenes, while at the end she’s a famous diplomat.

I was annoyed that the fat jokes seem to have returned here, but other than that this was an excellent volume, showing Mia actually thinking things through and making clever decisions, though it’s her empathy, as always, that wins the day.

By Nozomu Mochitsuki and Gilse. Released in Japan as “Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Madeleine Willette.

One thing I appreciate about Tearmoon Empire is that, unlike a lot of other current light novel series, it’s not really trying to be a mystery – or at least, not a mystery where the reader is supposed to figure things out. All of the things that are going to be happening a hundred pages from now are helpfully signposted before we get there, and even when Mia doesn’t really figure something out someone else does (Rina has been a godsend for this series, as she’s allowed to be the bitter cynic Mia can’t be). And, most importantly, the answer to every “how on earth could this happen” is always the same answer: it’s those Chaos Serpents again. Indeed, this time we get a woman who’s been a Chaos Serpent for a very long time as the main villain of this volume, and she’s not only out to destroy Mia’s alliance but she has a grudge against Mia personally… as well as the girl who looks a LOT like Mia’s grandmother.

We pick up with the plot we started in the last book, as Mia has created a horsemanship tournament to try to help Ruby get our of her arranged marriage… and possibly to get Vanos some glory so that Ruby’s crush is more likely to actually appeal to her father. Naturally things don’t quite go the way Mia planned… but honestly, they mostly do, and while Ruby still can’t quite work up the nerve to confess, for the most part it’s a happy ending. Unfortunately, there’s no happy ending in Tearmoon Empire that can’t be erased by the next arc, as Bel comes by with shocking news… Ludwig’s future diary says that Mia is going to be betrayed by… Sapphias! This is baffling, as any reader who remembers Sapphias… which may not be many, to be fair… will recall he’s firmly in Mia’s corner. What’s going on here?

Much as I’ve talked about Mia’s character growth in the books as we’ve moved along, I do appreciate that she can sometimes be caught absolutely flat-footed, as she is here with the identity of the latest Chaos Serpent traitor. It’s pure coincidence that Mia’s love of weird mushrooms just happened to vibe with Citrina’s “oh, those are basically used for confessions” knowledge to save the day. Mia’s real skills, which she’s always had but have been honed over these books, are improvisation – the narrative calls it “riding the wave”, but that’s a talent a lot of people just don’t have – and her increased empathy, as honed by the guillotine. Mia may have been ignorant of the Serpent plot here, but her goals for the cooking party – get closer to Sapphias’ fiancee, then try to work things out without accusations or violence – shows she may actually be a very good politician as an adult almost despite herself. It’s no longer “her selfish cowardice was misunderstood by everyone”.

I enjoyed this volume so much I will forgive the one or two mild fat jokes I spotted near the start. Hopefully next time Mia can finally solve the problem of her grandmother, who is desperately sad but can’t show it because of abusive indoctrination. That said, Tearmoon is (mostly) lighthearted, so hopefully the solution won’t be as bad as the end of Book 11.