In the Land of Leadale, Vol. 8

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By Ceez and Tenmaso. Released in Japan as “Leadale no Daichi nite” by Famitsu Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jessica Lange.

The Leadale series does something that I very much appreciate… well, to an extent. It knows that readers may not always remember what’s come before, so has a handy summary of the series before each volume. That said… perhaps the summary can be shortened a bit in the future? By the time I read through what had previously happened in the first 7 books, I was already nearly 30 pages into THIS book. It needn’t pad out the word count so much. As for the book itself, it continues to have fun with its main joke, which is that Cayna sees the other powerful players in her old group as eccentric lunatics, and they see her as the exact same if not worse. But really, Leadale is the ultimate book for folks who just want to read the worldbuiding. So much of this series is about game mechanics, both past and present, and how to abuse flavor text or what happens when your last boss monsters get unsealed. The gaming really is the plot.

Cayna is invited to help guard the princess as she and her fellows go out on an educational camping trip (a plotline also done, almost note for note, in Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear). Unfortunately, she also has a job she has to do for Opus, checking out the stability of a barrier holding back the last boss monsters mentioned above. The second mission quickly outstrips the first, and the school trip has to be rapidly cancelled. (The entire purpose of the trip seems to have been to introduce Exis’ little sister, who was also a player and thus is also in Leadale. That said, they need all the players and strong NPCs they can get, as the barrier is finally breaking, and bad things will overrun the kingdom if they don’t stop them. What’s more, if Cayna dies, the whole “game” part of this world goes away forever.

The connection between this world and Cayna has been its strongest mystery, still being revealed to us, and the most interesting part here is the fact that the players that have ended up inside Leadale is a figure much larger than the players who were actually active when the game shut down. Cayna has no idea why this is, and apparently Opus doesn’t either. As for the rest of the book, well, if you like Cayna being Cayna, it’s fun. She overreacts, she terrifies people, she will brings out a terrifying monster to act as a blanket so she can be warm when she sleeps. And, since the book is from her point of view, we as the reader don’t regard it as oddly as everyone else who deals with her. It doesn’t help that she’s now getting fangirls, thanks to players being too glib when creating their “children”…

The book ends with a cliffhanger, as our players are still in the midst of a big battle against a monster horde. Sadly, this is the final volume out in Japan as well, so we’ll be waiting a while before we continue. Probably long enough that I’ll need the 30-age summary for Book 9.

Young Lady Albert Is Courting Disaster!, Vol. 1

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By Saki and Haduki Futaba. Released in Japan as “Albert-ke no Reijō wa Botsuraku o Goshomō Desu” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Ray Krycki.

As everyone knows, we are at the height of a villainess boom right now, with seemingly every single new villainess title getting picked up for publication. That said… are they really new? I looked to see when Young Lady Albert Is Courting Disaster! began as a webnovel, and it debuted in late July, 2014. For comparison, My Next Life As a Villainess debuted in EARLY July, 2014. And the light novel itself had its first volume published in 2015. That said, unfortunately, its translation is being published in 2023, and therefore the reader may have to stop themselves from sighing and saying “total ripoff”. It’s not, really. What’s more, the plot of this is almost the inverse of My Next Life As a Villainess. Katarina Claes does wacky things to avoid getting killed/exiled, and despite these she wins the hearts of everyone. Lady Mary Albert does villainous things to deliberately try to get exiled… and despite these she wins the hearts of everyone. Because at heart, they’re both great people.

Mary Albert is the daughter of a powerful noble house… and she’s just regained her past memories from Japan. She immediately tells her beleaguered manservant that Mary was the villainess in an otome game, doomed to be exiled to northern lands at the end after bullying the heroine for the entire game. Mary’s reaction to these memories is to say “Welp, guess it’s time to be a villainess” and break out her ojou-sama laugh and cruelest remarks. She quickly targets Alicia, the heroine, and verbally abuses her sense of direction… while directing her to the correct place. She viciously mocks her tables manners… by showing her the correct way to eat. Adi, her servant, is getting very frustrated. What the heck is Mary actually trying to achieve? Is there method to this madness?

Actually, yes, there is. I was suckered in a bit. The first third or so of the book is Mary Albert’s increasingly silly attempts to bully the heroine, and those same attempts failing miserably, because at heart Mary is a nice girl. It’s hilarious. Then Adi asks why she’s REALLY doing this, and things get a lot more serious. Mary turns out to be a lot more on the ball than I was expecting, and can see how her family’s political power, as the nation now is, is a massive liability for the future. Her goal, to achieve her ruin, is meant to sacrifice herself to save everyone else, which is impressive… if it were not for the fact that she’s STILL terrible at it. In reality, Alicia becomes her best friend, much to her horror. Oh yes, and there’s also the relationship between her and Adi. He’s clearly in love with her. She’s in love with him too, but as yet unaware. It’s a very solid romance.

This could have been a one-shot, but there’s more to go. Still, it’s a good old-school villainess book, for a good reason: it is old-school, being written long before most other pretenders to the throne. But, most importantly, Mary Albert is a hoot.

Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town, Vol. 12

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By Toshio Satou and Nao Watanuki. Released in Japan as “Tatoeba Last Dungeon Mae no Mura no Shonen ga Joban no Machi de Kurasu Youna Monogatari” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

This is a series that is a broad comedy, and is usually content to be just that. The characters are hilarious but also pretty much unrealistic, and the plot will always take a back seat to a joke. That said, there have been a few moments of drama in the books, usually involving Alka’s generation, and it’s the same here. In particular, it’s Eug. There was one scene in the book that had be basically recoiling and going “Jesus Christ”. Surprisingly, it was not the part where she dropped off weapons so horrifying that her soldiers are all appalled at the very though of using them, or her inevitable downfall after being manipulated by Eve. It’s where she gets so angry at the thought of Lloyd that she accidentally breaks her own fingers from clenching her fist too hard. That’s terrifying, and it gives the scenes afterwards a bit of pathos.

It’s time for military exercises, as everyone is posted to a different department. That said, our boy Lloyd is so over-powerful that he’s posted to handing out food to the soldiers, mostly as that also helps to avoid one department getting an advantage over the other. Unfortunately for the country, Eug’s nation has decided (with a little help from Big Bad Eve), that now is the perfect time to invade for real. They have traitors in Azami’s forces. They have really powerful tac nukes. They have soldiers who have recently been given delicious hot meals… by Lloyd? Wait, what the hell is Lloyd doing aiding and abetting the enemy? Unfortunately, Marie has an even bigger problem: some hussy in a hood is the new military advisor, and she’s taking the queen’s place in her father’s heart!

A series like this advances its plot bit by bit, so it’s no surprise that only three real things of consequence happen here. The first is that Rinko reveals herself to Marie, which is mostly played for comedy, but allows the joke to not get stale. The second is the revelation of what actually happened to all the Earth scientists, which turns out to be totally different from what we thought. And indeed what most of them thought as well, particularly Eug, whose repressed guilt over the population of Earth is what allows her to be so easily manipulated. And the third, of course, is the removal of Eug from the board, though I expect that will be temporary. Eve is now very definitely the main antagonist, and it will be interesting to see how things go. Oh yes, it was also nice to see Lloyd essentially lose here, and even get injured enough he had to be carried off. That’s a rarity in these books about Lloyd being basically invincible.

So yeah, a decent entry in the series, though I admit Marie’s patheticness is starting to wear on me. The author knows she’s #1 in the harem stakes, but is doing too good a job of knocking her back.