An Introvert’s Hookup Hiccups: This Gyaru Is Head Over Heels for Me!, Vol. 1

2 Replies

By Yuishi and Kagachisaku. Released in Japan as “Inkya no Boku ni Batsu Game de Kokuhaku Shitekita Hazu no Gal ga, Dō Mitemo Boku ni Beta Bore Des” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Satoko Kakihara.

I suspect most readers of this site are familiar with the concept of a visual novel, and the ones that feature romance or sexual content tend to get called “eroge”. The usual premise is that you play a faceless high school… erm, college, sorry, of course everyone’s over 18… boy who, depending on the choices he makes, can score with one of 5-6 different women… or get a “bad end” when you screw up and get none of them. A lot of fans like to wait until there’s a walkthrough. They’re not here for the gaming part of it. They’re here to read the story and see our hero get it on. I don’t need the bad choices, I only need the one correct choice each scene to advance the story. If you took that concept and made it a light novel, it would be this one. We are here to see sweet romcom, and no mistakes will be made.

Yoshin is, as the title might suggest, a quiet introvert, not an otaku type but one who naturally lurks in the back of class and goes home on his own. One day he returns to the classroom after school to get something he forgot and overhears the class’s three “gyaru” girls playing a game… with a penalty dare. The loser, Nanami, has to ask Yoshin on a date, and date him for a month. They don’t spot Yoshin, who quickly goes home and does what any other red blooded high school introvert would do: he hops on the internet and asks his gaming buddies, who consist of 1) confident adult guy with good advice (that he says he just looked up on Google) and 2) teenage girl who clearly has a crush on him telling him to reject her at once. He does not, though, and he and Nanami start to date. And, by an amazing series of coincidences, they fall for each other almost instantly! Is this some sort of manga or something?

As I hinted above, the flaw in this series is that everything goes ridiculously well for Yoshin. Despite being an introvert, having a poor self-image, and only having black clothes, he’s kind, listens to others, and can be incredibly confident when he wants to. As for Nanami, she’s a shy big-breasted gyaru with no experience dating men and she has a secret side that wears glasses and looks more frumpy. In other words, she’s practically a walking fetish. But she’s nice, and sweet, and overenthusiastic, and possibly a bit naive. The series manages to work on pure charm, and also because it embraces the ridiculousness of its premise. (Nanami has two friends. One is dating her stepbrother, the other is dating a guy 12 years older than her. They both sound like they need spinoffs.) Even meeting her parents goes well, mostly as these two are never going to have sex even if they are already practically proposing marriage.

If you want realism, look elsewhere. If you want a sweet romcom where everyone acts like they stepped off the screen of Kimi Ga Nozumo Eien, this will do fine. And it’s only four volumes, which seems just about right.

The Ideal Sponger Life, Vol. 9

Leave a reply

By Tsunehiko Watanabe and Jyuu Ayakura. Released in Japan as “Risou no Himo Seikatsu” by Hero Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by MPT.

For the most part, one of the big reasons that Zenjirou has been so successful in the political nightmare that is his new world is that he doesn’t have the ingrained reactions that anyone brought up there would. He tends to react like a Japanese person from Earth would. (I’d say “normal”, but honestly, Zenjirou’s not all that normal even to begin with.) This serves him well for a lot of this book, as attempting to negotiate with him is like hitting a brick wall much of the time because his body language and verbal questioning are so far off the range from everyone else. Unfortunately this can also be a negative, as Aura quickly points out at the end of the book,. Threatening Zenjirou’s son, even mildly as a political feint, earns his enmity, and a canny person will realize that this is a very valuable button to press. Fortunately, there’s more good than bad here, as Zenjirou accidentally on purpose gets involved in a throne war in the Twin Kingdoms.

Zenjirou is in the Twin Kingdoms to try to negotiate for a healer to be present during the birth of his second child. Unfortunately for him, while greeting him, King Bruno drops the bomb that he’s planning to abdicate in favor of his successor. The obvious choice is the eldest son, who is 49 years old but has basically trained for this. The dark horse is his youngest son, who is in his thirties and seems to be very upset about the abdication. But is that really what’s going on? And how on Earth does this tie in with Prince Francesco, who just wants to sit around and dabble in magic tools his entire life but who ends up being seen as the second coming by some groups? And, perhaps most important of all, how can Zenjirou get the latest in his succession of love interests off the cover art?

As always, the title and premise are a lie. There’s no harem seeking, and certainly no sponging here. Indeed, Lucretia strikes out with Zenjirou over and over until the middle of the book, when it becomes clear he’s not looking for a lover but a political helpmate – something that, frankly, she’s much better at doing. As for the Twin Kingdoms themselves, the plotline we get here is well thought out and handled, although I thought that Zenjirou hearing about a certain monster and immediately making a logical leap to a breathtaking new magical tool was perhaps one OP move too many, in a series when all the OP moves are intellect-based rather than fighting-based. Oh well, I should probably consider myself lucky he doesn’t sample any of the young hot single women who all essentially proposition him in this book, though they all have their own agendas.

So yes, no sex in this book, but as noted before, in this book the politics IS sex. And we still haven’t left the twin kingdoms, as there’s the other half to negotiate with. We’ll see that next time.

Dragon Daddy Diaries: A Girl Grows to Greatness, Vol. 4

Leave a reply

By Ameko Kaeruda and Sencha. Released in Japan as “Totsuzen Papa ni Natta Saikyou Dragon no Kosodate Nikki: Kawaii Musume, Honobono to Ningenkai Saikyou ni Sodatsu ” by GC Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Nathan Macklem.

This is the final volume of the series, and it has the strengths and weaknesses of previous volumes. The Elder Dragon is immensely powerful and also a pretty good guy, so any character development and angst comes from outside of that. Olivia is the same, only she doesn’t even get the character development. They’re meant to be “aw, look at the cute daddy and daughter” with an OP twist, and that works well, but they’re nothing more than that. They work best contrasting with whatever fractured familial unit we see in this particular volume, and we get that here as well. This is the final volume of the series, and it does have an ending of sorts, but the ending is very much “more of the same only Olivia is older now”. She’s rescuing other kids like her, who had bad home lives. Which is great, but the solution seems to be “:leave them all with daddy, it worked for me”.

Having obtained five of the seven Supreme Hallows, they’ve decided that that’s enough to do the ritual that will drain the built-up magic within the hallows. Unfortunately, the ritual is invaded by Vandilsen, a seemingly immortal wizard who proceeds to steal the five Hallows with the help of what he carries, the 6th. Fortunately, as it turns out, the Elder Dragon has had the 7th all this time without realizing it, and that can help them locate the other six. And so it’s time for Dragon and Daughter to go on a camping holiday, clearly… mostly as it turns out that Vandilsen is quite a long ways away, across the sea and in a foreign country that is now lifeless and arid due to having all the magic sucked out of it. Why does Vandilsen want the Hallows? And who’s the young boy they find on the beach unconscious?

A great number of the plots to Dragon Daddy Diaries have been about how to find the right level of protectiveness when being a parent. Don’t smother, don’t be too hands-off. Here we also get the added lesson of “listen to what they’re actually telling you, not what you want to hear”, as Vandilsen is literally killing himself in order to save the life of his adopted son, even if that’s not remotely what the son wants. This does, admittedly, help the Elder Dragon to have a brief crisis of conscience, as he becomes more aware of the fact that Olivia is going to get older and die while he remains the same. That said, Olivia is having none of this “let’s stay immortal forever” business, even though she’s spent her entire life in a family consisting of people over a thousand years old. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, even if that’s dramatically lacking.

This was a cute series and an easy read. That said, I’m almost positive it would never have been licensed if it had not been for the huge buzz around Sexiled, the author’s other work. Family-oriented fluff.