Unsung Epics of the Hero’s Journey, Vol. 2

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By Hachigatsumori and Nat. Released in Japan as “Yuusha no Tabi no Uragawa de” by Dre Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by MPT.

In my last review I mentioned that the hero’s party itself barely featured in the book. That changes with this second book, and we get to see what kind of hero’s party they are. And, frankly, it’s very much towards the idealistic end of the spectrum. No one is getting banished from the party with these guys – in fact, we literally see that near the end. The hero is the sort of girl you want to be the hero who saves the world, and she’s got strength and stamina out the wazoo. Sadly, no one really trained her, so she lacks any real experience – which is probably why Rhuys’ prophesies keep showing her dying horribly before she can complete her destiny. Technically Ariagnée, who is demi-human herself, should not really be training the hero on how to kill folks like her should the time come. But alas, the bad guys reckoned without one important fact that this book emphasizes as much as the last: Ariagnée is gay as hell, and will do anything for a cute girl.

Acting on a new vision that says that the hero is going to be ambushed by assassins, Rhuys and Ariagnée try to quickly get ahead of the party to take care of things… and end up running right into them, as noted above. Ariagnée helps Lina (the hero), who is quick to learn but also a bit of a meathead when it comes to combat. Rhuys has an awkward meetup with Agnes, the party’s cleric, who is the protoge of the woman who tried to have Rhuys killed in the first book. There’s also Sierra, a typical “not the hero but very similar” warrior, and a mage who is the only guy in the group. After ditching the party, and having a quick detour at a lake (more on that later), they end up being attacked by assassins… no, not the assassins who are ambushing the hero, another, slightly less good group of assassins. Because it turns out that the hero being chosen by magic fiat upsets folks who dreamed of THEIR hero being chosen.

That detour I mentioned is basically a maguffin that allows our two heroines to come to terms with their past. They meet a guy who is trying to find an artifact that lets you talk to the dead… which gets pretty dark when you hear why she died. But then Ariagnée uses it to talk with her mother, who is rather blasé about being dead, and encourages her. Rhuys has to rely on a DIFFERENT maguffin, but also gets a bit of closure that hopefully makes her a lot less death seeking than the first book, in that it turns out only half her family didn’t care about her at all. This may be an adventure series with yuri subtext, but the world they’re in is dark, and there’s a lot of corpses stacking up, particularly towards the end. Rhuys may keep seeing vision of the hero dying, but when merchant Utile (who, by the way, looks EXACTLY like Richeh from Witch Hat Atelier) asks Rhuys to make sure Ariagnée stays safe, we nod along. Please protect Ariagnée from the narrative.

There’s no third volume of this yet, but Drecom tends to wrap series up fast rather than cancelling them unfinished, so I’m sure one will pop up. If you like subverting the hero’s journey, or just a lot of gay women (there’s at least three, and I’m prepared to go up to seven if I have to) this is a good read.

The Villainess Speaks Not: The Black Pawn and The Summoned Heteromorphs

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By Kei Yose and Ruria Miyuki. Released in Japan as “Akuyaku Reijou wa Shaberimasen” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Adam.

These are chunky books, with each volume being around twice the size of your average light novel. As a result, I deeply appreciate that the book starts with a “story so far” catching me up on what happened in Book One, because after that the reader is not really given any more help. There are lots of characters in this, and you need to remember who they are and which faction they’re with. More characters are introduced. Some characters we thought would be major players in this book end up being taken off the board instead. Liliana has changed a lot about the way that the “plot” of this world is supposed to go, but it feels like fate wants to railroad her anyway. Things are definitely not helped by her attempts to distance herself from the love interests, which not only fails, but actually gets worse. Basically, she’s so good at everything that she may accidentally end up as dead as the narrative wants.

Liliana can actually speak now, though she hides that from most people. And she’s much calmer and better at powerful magic, meaning she has an alive handmaiden rather than the dead handmaiden she had in the narrative. Despite this, the world keeps moving on, and she keeps trying to figure out how to fix things so she escapes her fate. Maybe it can be by understanding the complicated politics of the various countries that deal with them – especially the Empire, who seem to be actively sabotaging them. Maybe she can save the entire country when a massive monster swarm attacks the royal capital on the Prince’s birthday party. Maybe she can make an ally, and indeed hire, the assassin who’s been trying to kill her and her allies. And maybe she can get Riley to choose someone else to be his fiancee, though honestly, that’s the hardest goal. After all, he’s mostly figured out what she’s hiding.

This book has a problem a lot of light novels taken from webnovels do, which is that the big climax of the book happens a little over halfway through it, and the ending is sort of a quiet “to be continued”. I suppose it’s better than a nasty cliffhanger, but after 389 pages it can feel anticlimactic. That said, we did have lots of climaxes in the pages beforehand. The addition of Obsidian to the cast is fantastic, as every heroine needs someone who will snark at her and also try to kill her just so she can prove she’s still better than him. I also liked the subplot around Austin, who ends up going out on the monster hunt even though he’s too inexperienced. He survives, but clearly needs therapy, and I appreciate this is recognized and forced onto him. As for Liliana, I think she may need to admit soon that she and Riley are in fact a perfect couple. Then again, she still isn’t even ten years old yet.

If you like your villainess stories to be more like black coffee than sweet tea, this is right yup your street.

Anime NYC 2026, Sunday

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Sunday is usually my quietest day, and this year was no exception, as I only had a single panel. Technically it should have been two, as Crossed Hearts split up their panel as they were introducing two new imprints, but the late time of that panel would have meant I’d get home around 10pm or so. The panel also helped to remind me how old-school I am. I started covering NYCC, then Anime NYC, carrying around a notebook that I would write in very quickly as the panelists spoke, and I have leveled up to carrying around a laptop that I type on very quickly, but otherwise my modus operandi is much the same. Which can be a problem, as panels go faster and faster and the slides stay on screen for a shorter and shorter period. This was especially true with Crossed Hearts, who had the most multimedia-driven panel I saw at the convention. They were here with Tiktok-style videos, and while they were cool, it meant it was hard to be there typing away like a beaver before the next one hit.

Crossed Hearts also featured a team that seemed to be very good at everything except public speaking, so they thoughtfully hired an emcee to yell loudly and get the crowd excited. It was a good move. The actual head of the panel was Aurora Aurealis, and the description of what the company is and what it offers reminded me a lot of the Kaze panel the previous day. They don’t narrow down by genre, they’re not just interested in hits. They focus on manwha from Korea (mostly of the webtoon/vertical scrolling sort), manga from Japan, and novels (from Korea for now). Their first titles, including Baroness Goes on Strike (a Peggy Sue rewind title), From a Knight to a Lady (a wake up in the body of a noble title, sans otome game), and The Archduke’s Adopted Saint (saint abused by her family Cinderella story), but future series seem to be wandering away from the typical shoujo stuff popular right now.

Out digitally this month and in November in print is The Matchmaker’s Fiancé: My Fiancé Won’t Leave Me Alone While I’m Finding Him the Ideal Bride (“Risou no Hanayome wo Sagashite Shiawase ni Shite Sashiagemasu” to Ittara, Sokkenakatta Kon’yakusha ga Nazeka Kakawatte Kimasuga, Hanayome Assen Ganbarimasu), a Comic Brise title about a matchmaker who is convinced her fiance isn’t into her, so breaks up with him, vowing to find his ideal woman. Little does she know… The Executioner of Greminal (Grenimal no Shokeinin) is also a digital August, print November title, about two talented guys who team up to hunt vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures. This somehow doesn’t even have a female lead! Out in November in print (not not digitally, the Korean stuff seems to lack digital, probably for rights reasons) is Darling, Why Don’t We Divorce?, a villainess story where her divorce is contingent on seducing a guy who hates her.

Rounding up the stuff already announced, out at the end of the year is All-Rounder Maid Connie Wille (Bannou Jochuu Connie Wille), a FK Comics title about a maid who does everything perfectly and only wants to have a quiet, dull life, but sadly the manga is named after her, so that ain’t happening. They also have two novels. These got short shrift at first, but that turned out to be because it was the first in many new imprints that the company announced, A Novel Press. The Abandoned Villainess Became a Zombie is a Korean title whose name pretty much sums it up. She has to hide her zombie status while trying to figure out how to reverse it. The first volume is already out digitally, and I’m pleased to see the ebook has been fixed to be a real ebook and not a print replica (though it still looks thrown together). The biggest reaction (it got an anime earlier) was for Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke’s Mansion, which also features a girl who ends up in the body of someone doomed to die and tries to change her fate. This has print and digital in December.

Time finally for new announcements. Doomsday Requiem with You is a shoujo romance about a girl trying to save her father from dying by a curse, and her interactions with the Crown Prince who seems to be behind the curses. Soul Guiders is, by the way, when their slides started to go so fast I was not able to get the information. A princess and a demon search for macguffins is what I can tell you. Chiaroscuro has a princess who has no cool powers getting involved with a sacrificial boy? These all had fancy videos that made them look cool, and possibly distracted form the fact that I couldn’t read the slide in time.

New licenses that aren’t original series included Welcome to the Rose Manor, a manwha about an impoverished noble who accepts a job as a tutor at the most haunted mansion ever. Emma and the Eyes that Bid Farewell is a manga I can’t track down the Japanese title of, but it runs on the GANMA app. A non-magic using girl enters the academy for magic users. Fortunately, she meets a hot guy. Unfortunately, a conspiracy wants her dead specifically. The Two of Them Can’t Be Mobs (2-Ren wa Mob Ja Irarenai) is also a GANMA manga, about a really hot guy and an oni girl (literally, she has horns) who want to blend into the background but can’t because of who they are. Love Beyond the Final Boss: The Hero’s Party’s Quest for Love (also can’t find the romanji, also on the GANMA app) takes place after the demon lord is defeated… and now all these isekai’d folks are going berserk. Our heroes have to stop them. This was noted as having, in addition to the main het couple, asexual, bisexual and intersex characters. That said, it appears to be for KonoSuba fans. Flirting with the Villain’s Dad is a manwha about a girl who wakes up… as the heroine’s AUNT in a tragic webnovel, and has to stop the deaths of everyone in the previous generation (i.e. hers) from dying.

The last original title before the panel got cut off by the con for going too long was Where Sea Meets Shore, and I wish I could tell you about it, but the slide went too fast. It’s an OEL title, and I am but one man with poor eyesight. It debuts next month.

Speaking of things I missed, as I mentioned, I was not at the 2:30pm panel that was the sequel to this one, where they announced new imprints. Glam Beat (shoujo/yuri stuff) and Blush Club (BL). The Devil in Me is a Thai yuri title about a priestess and a vampire, seems to be on the dark end of things. Ink Soaked into Ashen Paper is a Korean yuri novel about two countries at war brokering a peace by having a young princess marry an older queen. Fairy Trap is also a Korean novel, this one BL, about a guy who sleeps almost the entire day who finds he can dimension walk. And there’s Addicted to You, a BL title about an Angel who finds love with a human, and reincarnation is involved? This is the trouble with announcing things via Tiktok videos. Lastly, they’re joining with the Thai publisher Lily House to release more Thai yuri content in the future.

And that’s it! It was a good con!… except maybe for the DJ, whose music was FAR TOO LOUD. Looking forward to next year!