Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook With My Fluffy Friends: The Figurehead Queen Is Strongest At Her Own Pace, Vol. 4

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By Yu Sakurai and Kasumi Nagi. Released in Japan as “Tenseisaki de Suterareta no de, Mofumofu-tachi to Oryouri Shimasu: Okazari Ouhi wa My Pace ni Saikyou desu” by M Novels F. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Emma Schumacker.

Sometimes your worst enemy is yourself. Sure, you could be reincarnated as a stunningly attractive noble lady. And yes, you could be married off to a cool yet attentive king of a neighboring country and end up their (temporary) queen. And you may also be possessed of truly staggering amounts of magic powers. And you could also be a genius chef, continually coming up with ideas that astound the nobility of this pre-industrial land, such as pizza toast. You could also be surrounded by cats, wolves, and other animals who all adore you and want to do your bidding. And yes, it could be that one of those wolves is ALSO your husband, the King. You’ve got a pretty good thing going on here. Unfortunately, if you are Laetitia, only one single word in the preceding paragraph stands out, and that word is ‘temporary’. She can’t get it into her head that the king has fallen for her.

The kingdom is about to be visited by representatives from the Wildam Empire, which is to pegasi what her home base is to wolves. Unfortunately, it gets off to a bad start when one of the Pegasus Knights ends up picking a fight with… a little dog that barked at him. Believe it or not, this does almost cause an international incident, but Laetitia helps to smooth things over through her negotiating skills and her prowess at flying her gryphon. Then there’s a ball where she has to meet and greet, and she discovers that… well, no, she does not discover that her husband is jealous of anyone who comes near her, please see above. Things then go even further south when a lady in Lady I-Liena’s camp supposedly helps the disgraced Pegasus Knight escape, and is now in prison. Which… makes no sense. Can Laetitia figure out what’s really going on?

I must admit, sometimes it can be hard to tell “this is background informatoin I’m giving out to give a character depth” from “this is a clue and hint for what happens later on in the book”, and as such, I was rather surprised at a revelation that happens late in the book. Mind, I knew that there was something deeply suspicious about them, and that they were likely a spy… which was true, but the rest of it was news to me. Speaking of being news to me, I had assumed that laetitia was the only one in this world who had been reincarnated from Japan, but the more we hang around her older brother Claude, the more I think that he is as well and she’s just in denial about it. Which works, given everything else she’s in denial about. Honestly, given that she already hits a lot of the “overpowered character” buttons, we can grant her this flaw.

If you enjoy romance, political dealmaking, or are simply hungry, this is a fun series to read.

Tearmoon Empire, Vol. 8

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By Nozomu Mochitsuki and Gilse. Released in Japan as “Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari” by TO Books. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by David Teng.

Tearmoon Empire is a very funny series. There are tons of scenes of Mia being silly or smug, other people misunderstanding her to comic effect, etc. But the series also knows when it’s time to be 100% serious, and that time is whenever get get a glimpse of what life was like in the original timelines. We’ve already seen how things progressed in Bel’s world (and see why Dion is her absolute hero, something that baffles both the Dion of this world as well as Citrina), but we’ve also seen the main cast occasionally have dreams of their prior lives. They’re never good dreams. It’s Tiona’s turn here, and it hits especially hard given that Mia was thinking that she hopes the Tiona and Sion of her past life, the “perfect couple”, lived happily ever after. Instead, in both Tiona and Sion’s case, we see that the need for vengeance, justice and revolution ended up driving them away from each other, and nobody ends up happy. Everyone should be relieved Mia went back in time.

Because no Tearmoon Empire volume can ever QUITE get the arcs to line up properly, we start with the end of the previous arc, as Mia fosters better relations between the Empire and its domain by doing the one thing that even the narrator admits she’s fantastic at: dancing. Feeling good about things, but reminded of her previous complacency, she decides to read her Bloody Diary. It’s a good thing she checked – now it says that Sion is assassinated in a month’s time. Coincidentally (or is it?), Esmeralda comes to Mia in a panic, as her father has said she'[s to be married off to a Sunkland noble. Realizing that she can go to Sunkland and stop Sion getting killed if she tags along with Esmeralda’s engagement party, Mia and her entourage visit Sion’s country for the first time. And, as it turns out, getting assassinated by bandits may be the least of Sion’s worries…

We do sometimes get the device of seeing Mia’s POV of a scene and then seeing the same scene again with another character, though not nearly to the extent of, say, My Next Life As a Villainess. And sometimes we don’t even need to get the other half of the scene because we can infer the heartwarming in our heads. Now that Citrina is no longer an enemy, she’s ready to do anything she can to help Mia – including, she assumes, what she’s be best at – killing people. But Mia assures her that she will never ask her to kill someone else for her, something that poleaxes Citrina. Yes, it’s framed around Mia wanting delicious mushrooms (as is most of the book, really) but the sentiment is also genuine. Mia wants as few people killed as possible, even if that might affect her end goal. It inspires Citrina, who is really crafty for such a young girl, to try to help Mia in slightly less permanent ways. Her growth was my favorite part of this book.

This volume spent most of its time setting up a stack of dominoes, but unfortunately we have to wait for the 9th volume to knock them over. Till then, this remains one of my absolute favorite light novel series.

The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy, Vol. 6

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By Yu Shimizu and Asagi Tosaka. Released in Japan as “Seiken Gakuin no Maken Tsukai” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Roman Lampert.

One of the sure fire ways to give a character suitable pain and determination is a good tragic backstory. And there’s no tragic backstory quite like the death of beloved family members. That’s what Sakuya, the Japanese — sorry, Sakura Orchid — swordswoman in Leo’s cadre of hot, powerful friends has dealt with since she was six years old. The death of her older sister right in front of her still gives her nightmares, and it informs not only her actions and, to a degree, disregard for her own future and safety, but also others also from Sakura Orchid, who are being far more, well, kamikaze about the whole thing. (Look, you don’t get subtlety in this series, read some other one for that.) As such, if you need to up the stakes a lot and devastate your character with the tragic past, nothing quite gets it across like resurrecting the family member who died in front of her. it’s not clear if Sakuya’s sister is actually still alive or merely a zombie of some sort, but either way, she’s still better than Sakuya in combat.

Leo may have taken over a terrorist group, but he’s having a lot of trouble keeping them from, well, doing terrorist things. Which is especially bad news when they find a cargo hold filled with… voids? How? Meanwhile, the aforementioned Sakura Orchid is having a festival, and our hero and heroines decide to attend it. It’s very much a standard Japanese summer festival, complete with yukatas (that Leo is reluctant to wear) and fireworks (that Leo thinks are an actual attack.) Unfortunately, there actually IS a real attack, but it’s not attacking the festival but the core of the entire Seventh Assault Garden. In order to stop it, Leo may not only have to push himself farther than he’s had to before, but also make another pact similar to the one he has with Riselia. Is Sakuya prepared to be no longer human?

Again, the calling card of this series is that it does not really do things well but it doesn’t really do things badly (apart from, as always, Leo being ten but being treated like he’s sixteen half the time). The fights in this one are particularly good, especially near the end, where Sakuya has to figure out what her new ability is and how it works while in a match where one false move would mean her death. On the down side, the threat of the Kenki gathering was rather pathetic – kamikaze or no, having them all suddenly be betrayed and turned into monsters was a bit too pat given they had not really accomplished much of anything. And of course there’s still the cute slice-of-magic-academy-life stuff, which such boffo gags as Leo’s minion using her spy work as an excuse to find the best places to snack and Leo’s monstrous wolf familiar essentially becoming Sakuya’s pet dog.

The next volume of the series has not been scheduled by Yen yet, so we may have to wait a bit. but that’s fine. This series does not require us to remember much about it except what’s on the surface.