Combatants Will Be Dispatched!, Vol. 7

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By Natsume Akimoto and Kakao Lanthanum. Released in Japan as “Sentouin, Hakenshimasu!” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Noboru Akimoto.

It’s been over two years since the last volume of this series came out in English, but honestly this one doesn’t take too long to get back into the swing of things. There’s rarely a lot you have to remember with Combatants Will Be Dispatched! except for the one maxim “everyone is horrible”. If you remember that, you’re good. So we have Six saying that he needs to sexually harass a woman just in case doesn’t know what sexual harassment is when bad men do it, Alice and Six gleefully sending their “colleagues” all around the world and not bothering to bring them back, and a new nation where a new princess competes to see if she can have as black a heart as Tillis seems to. Oh yes, and as the cover might tell you, we also have Belial, one of Six’s three bosses, whose idea of how to solve a problem is “punch it”, but whose backstory comes as a big surprise to both Alice and the reader.

After the events of the last book, Six and company are enjoying a bit of downtime while they work on building their new city. This downtime is occasionally interrupted by Little Bashin, who is a native tribe girl who can’t speak the language… supposedly (we may have another chuuni here) and a large dragon which is too much for everyone to handle, except maybe Belial, who is asked to to come over to help out Six. She then proceeds to make her way across all the nations, cowing them into submission with sheer firepower and blackmail, and unites most everyone under the Kisaragi banner. Which… makes you wonder about the competency of Six and Alice. Was brute force the answer all along? That said, they have one problem that can’t quite be solved by punching it: Tiger Man has kidnapped a nation’s princess. Who is a little girl. And it’s Tiger Man. Uh oh.

So yes, the usual word of warning for this series, pedophilia is used as a joke for “hilarious” laughs, though the little princess is not in any danger herself and in fact asked to be kidnapped. That said, everyone being a terrible person is the vibe here, and if you enjoy that there’s a lot to like. Six is a terrible person, but he’s smarter than Kazuma, and Alice is smarter than both of them. The Belial focus is appreciated, as is her backstory, where it reveals she was a yamato nadesico sort who Lilith’s enhancements “accidentally” brainwashed/mindwiped, though it’s fairly clear by the end of the book that she remembers who she was but is not particularly inclined to return to that. The main question is what happens now, as Belial has pretty much finished 95% of their “to do” list.

Expect another long wait before we find out, as the eighth book is not out in Japan yet. If you like KonoSuba but wish everyone was scuzzier, this is still your go-to series.

Formerly, the Fallen Daughter of the Duke, Vol. 4

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By Ichibu Saki, Nemusuke, and Ushio Shirotori. Released in Japan as “Moto, Ochikobore Koushaku Reijou desu” by Mag Garden Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Andrew Schubauer.

Last time I said that this series remained OK, and that I hoped the fourth book was the final one. And it certainly FEELS like a final book. All the plotlines are wrapped up. The bad guys are taken care of. Our heroine is ready to marry her love once they are of age. And yet in the afterword we’re told that the author hopes to write more adventures of Claire and Vik after the wedding. So, I will admit, I do appreciate the fact that a romance book does not have to end with a marriage or end just because the characters may have aged past the series’ market. That said, I admit my reaction to seeing this news was “oh hell no”. There’s nothing hideously wrong with this book aside from an odd disconnect I’ll get to. But there are too many fallen duke’s daughters out there for me to care about this one, who is pleasant but oh so dull.

Things are going well for Claire, aside from a few hiccups. Charlotte is still missing after the events of the last book, and seems to have completely vanished from the entire country. Moreover, the magical tornado that forced her to time loop is still on its way, and she wants to make sure her magic is strong enough that she won’t exhaust it and trigger the same thing happening. She’s even, with Vik’s help, able to get her old dream job back of being Isabella’s governess. Unfortunately, she gets an invitation from Prince Gilbert, who is prince of a neighboring country, to come visit. Just her. Not her fiance. Suspicious. She goes, with Lui at her side as her bodyguard/attendant, and finds that Prince Gilbert is nothing whatsoever like what everyone thought of him. She also finds something even more annoying – Charlotte.

Getting the really obvious spoiler out of the way (I feel no shame, the author doesn’t try to hide it), Gilbert ALSO is a Japanese isekai. He’s not a gamer, but his sister was, and drilled into him her favorite route. Unfortunately, her favorite route is Claire’s. Even more unfortunately, all the other routes seem to lead to everyone in his kingdom being killed. This actually DID catch my interest, and could have led to some interesting things going on. Unfortunately, Chaire’s somewhat… unique relationship with the source (her memories of Japan are muddled and mostly come in dreams) and her desire to not tell her dear friends they’re fictional mean that resolving this by just saying “stop treating me like an NPC” isn’t happening. Meaning we get a lot of tedious “comedy” as Gilbert tries to woo Claire by hitting game flags only to fail over and over.

I did like the epilogue showing us Charlotte’s final fate. Assuming it is her final fate. Certainly, I’m perfectly happy leaving the Formerly Fallen Daughter here, even if there are later adventures.

Though I Am an Inept Villainess: Tale of the Butterfly-Rat Body Swap in the Maiden Court, Vol. 5

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By Satsuki Nakamura and Kana Yuki. Released in Japan as “Futsutsuka na Akujo dewa Gozaimasu ga: Suuguu Chouso Torikae Den” by Ichijinsha Novels. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Tara Quinn.

In the last volume we saw that discovering the wonders of living inside a healthy and hale body broke down Reirin’s emotional reserve, to the point that when she was confronted with a horrible tragedy she broke down in tears. In this volume we see that the experience of having a friend who doesn’t spoil her and treat her like she’s made of fragile glass has broken her reserves even more without her knowing it. Unfortunately, this friend is also the sort of person to have every single emotion, no matter what it is, come out as “anger”. And this is very unfortunate, because for once in her life, Reirin is completely unable to cope. As for said friend, Keigetsu, well, she’s throwing wild tantrums and raving that she’ll never, ever apologize, but that’s far less surprising. Unfortunately, the timing on this is really awful, as the maidens are having a competition for the Top Spot, and the knives are coming out.

Three months have passed since the events of the last book, and it’s now time for Rite of Reverence, where the five maidens all compete to see who can show the most devotion to the Emperor. This is a hotly contested battle, with the respective house fortunes rising and falling depending on the placement of said maidens. As such, Keigetsu is even more stressed out than usual. And she’s not the only one, as we get a good look at the other three maidens in the series. Seika is trying to do this in an honorable way, but is cowed by her consort’s power and threats. Houshun is discovering that her cutely incompetent act is starting to show its cracks, and her own consort can see them. And Kasui is on a detective mission, desperately trying to find out what happened years ago that led to the death of her sister and the mere mention of her name being forbidden in the inner court. As for Reirin? She’s fiiiiiiiiine.

This is an amazing book in an amazing series, frankly, and I am desperate to read the next one because, of course, it ends on a cliffhanger. Reirin and Keigetsu get into a huge fight, and you can absolutely sympathize with both of them. After four books of finding Keigetsu’s tantrums cute and funny, Reirin is finally hurt by them, and finds her powers of observation and judgment severely curtailed. Of course, that may also be the fact that she’s getting progressively more ill after getting her foot burned in a murder attempt and diving into an icy lake to try to save Keigetsu’s poetry. I think everyone else in the cast was too stunned at seeing the supposedly deathly ill Reirin doing these things to bother to be angry at her. Keigetsu, though, expresses all her emotions through rage. Including worry, and concern, and guilt. Not great. Especially when Reirin genuinely screws up in a conversation with Kasui and ends up beaten up and dying at the bottom of a well.

That said, the cliffhanger is not “will Reirin be found before she dies?”, because the author is aware we know she will. Also, this is a book where the main premise is bodyswapping. So the cliffhanger is, instead, how are we going to stop Reirin’s Roaring Rampage of Revenge this time? Everyone, I beg you, read this.