Durarara!!SH, Vol. 4

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By Ryohgo Narita and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

Apologies to those wanting to know what this specific volume is like, but I need to briefly get a little meta. Ryohgo Narita, a ludicrously prolific writer from 2003-about 2015, has been dealing with a chronic illness. It’s made writing on a regular basis very difficult for him. What’s more, when he is well enough to write he has other projects that take precedence, because they’re owned by people other than him. The Bleach light novels. The as yet unlicensed Fate/Strange Fake novels. What does all this mean? It means that this volume of Durarara!!SH came out in 2016, and there has not been another one since. I will be writing the same thing about Baccano! in a few months time. As with Hunter x Hunter’s long hiatuses, it feels wrong to blame Narita for this extended absence. It does mean, though, that this volume was one where I hoped there might be, if not a definitive ending, at least a good stopping place. Alas, no. This is just another day in the life of these violent idiots.

Despite the presence of Anri on the cover of this volume, she’s mostly a supporting role in the book, and Mikado is mentioned but does not appear. Instead, once again, the lead role pretty much goes to Celty, who is grasping for a new purpose in life and wants to try going back to her old courier job, minus the complications that always hounded that job back when Izaya was around. Sadly for her, Izaya may be gone but complications remain. The drug that was going around two books ago is still around, despite the folks behind it having moved on. She’s being asked to locate the eldest son of a rich family, who is, as a lot of eldest sons do, getting involved with a bad crowd. And even though she’s a supporting player in this book, everything seems to revolve around Anri’s antique shop.

I admit that I was very amused about the subplot with the guy who was upset at Ikebukuro in general for treating him like a nameless character, not even someone important enough to be called a weak loser. I was amused because I had trouble remembering who he was as well. Honestly, in addition to the various references to Narita’s other series that litter this volume (Firo and Ennis, though unnamed, get a mention, and there’s a Vamp! subplot in here too), I feel as if I’m missing something in regards to the Natsugawaras, and would not be surprised if the backstory we hear about happened in an unlicensed side story. Other than that, this volume is a lot of fun. Narita calls it lighter than the others, and I agree. It also features the return of Kujiragi, who gets my favorite line in the whole book.

So yeah, good volume, and for now… that’s the end of Durarara!!. Unless Yen licenses the Izaya side novels. Which I highly doubt. Let’s hope that we eventually get some more and perhaps some closure.

Secrets of the Silent Witch, Vol. 1

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By Matsuri Isora and Nanna Fujimi. Released in Japan as “Silent Witch” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Alice Prowse.

A book can get away with a lot if it has a really strong main character. With that already in the bag, you can feel free to set a book at a university filled with arrogant nobles and petty bullying without worrying about the audience going “oh no, AGAIN?”. You can afford to make your love interest a sort of generic nice Prince dude who only gets vaguely interesting in the final page of the volume. You can even afford to make your book, a mystery, have an incredibly obvious villain, making the denouement a bit flat. You can do this because your main character is why everyone is going to be reading more of this. And Silent Witch (Yen On added the Secrets part, possibly to avoid a copyrighted title) is one of those series. Monica is terribly shy, terrible powerful, and most importantly terribly easy to love as a protagonist. We want to see her succeed, we want to see her very, very slowly get better at simple communication, and we want to see her kick eight kinds of ass.

Monica Everett is one of the Seven Sages, mages so powerful that they can take out a black dragon capable of destroying cities all by themselves. Unfortunately, she brings new meaning to the word “introverted”, so she normally holes up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with only her familiar Nero for company. Then one day another of the Sages arrives and blackmails… sorry, asks Monica to help him with a task. She’s to go to Serendia Academy to be a bodyguard/minder for Prince Felix, who is currently part of a faction war regarding who will inherit the throne. The idea of going back to school (she already went to magic academy) and having to deal with people every day fills Monica with horror. But it’s probably a good thing that she’s there, as the problems at school don’t just involve magic, they involve math. Which is Monica’s other specialty.

Monica is wonderful. Prince Felix compares her multiple times to a squirrel, and you can see why. She tends to be a wreck around people, and essentially is the Silent Witch because speaking incantations out loud would be too difficult for her. But put her in front of anything to do with math or magical circles and she flips on a dime, becoming laser focused and determined to the point where you could hit her in the face with a fan and she would barely react. (Admittedly, part of that is that she doesn’t want to deal with whoever would be hitting her in the face with a fan.) I also loved Isabella, part of Monica’s cover story, who gets to play the villainous ojou-sama who bullies Monica at school and is SO HYPED, having read a ton of villainess books to bone up on this. The rest of the cast are also fun, and I look forward to Monica slowly winning them over in future books.

I think everything in this series will depend on how long Monica can keep her true identity as the Silent Witch a secret. Because I think if that gets out, several big things will happen at once. But till then, I am delighted to watch this math squirrel run through the academy of arrogant noble jerks in search of cookies and places with no other people.

The Holy Grail of Eris, Vol. 2

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By Kujira Tokiwa and Yu-nagi. Released in Japan as “Eris no Seihai” by GA Novels. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Winifred Bird.

The most frustrating thing about this volume is pretty much the same issue I had with the first one: the author is not telling the story I want to read most. Don’t get me wrong, I’m greatly enjoying seeing Connie sort of fumble around and slowly work out what happened ten years ago and why there’s a big chance it’s going to happen again. But frankly, I want the teenage years of Abigail O’Brian. I want a pirate adventure story, I want to see how she ended up at the center of everything and also a madam, I want to see how she inspires absolutely everyone around her. But I suspect all I will get will be the crumbs of backstory I get here, because the author does not want to tell an adventure story, they want to write a mystery. And this volume gives us a lot of answers in the main mystery, though the resolution is still a long ways away. And depends, most likely, on Connie, not Abigail.

Connie is getting closer to the truth, and that’s making a lot of people angry. They try to kidnap and kill her best friend to get her to stop. They murder several witnesses who would have undone all their careful planning. And they have a pesky reporter girl who, sadly, is very much an antagonist in this series. Fortunately, Connie does have a few allies. She has Scarlett, of course, who can still occasionally possess Connie when it’s for the greater good, and whose complicated backstory we learn here. She also has Randolph, her love interest, though both of them being the sort of person that love just bounces off of means that the romance part of the book is more frustrating than anything else. That said, the real selling point is what we find out here: exactly why Scarlett was executed.

I will, of course, not reveal that here – I like spoilers but am trying to get better at not saying them. Nevertheless, it turns out to be a far larger plot than Connie, Randolph, or indeed the reader had planned. It can sometimes be a bit of a stretch to realize that everyone we meet seems to be connected to everyone either in the present, the past, or both, but that’s mystery novels for you. And we also get a few detours that are tense, mostly as while the author is unlikely to kill off Connie or Randolph, they’ve shown they’re perfectly happy to kill off other characters. There actually may be a bit TOO much going on here, as there’s also the subplot of a powerful hallucinogenic drug once again becoming available among the nobility. Everything points to somebody trying to undermine the country. And the biggest bombshell is what some people are prepared to do to save the country. But again… spoilers.

The series has 4+ volumes out in Japan, but I have a suspicion that this arc, at least, will end with the next book. I definitely look forward to seeing what happens – just because the mysteries are solved doesn’t mean the problems have gone away.