Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter, Vol. 6

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By Reia and Haduki Futaba. Released in Japan as “Koushaku Reijou no Tashinami” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Andria Cheng.

It would be more accurate to call this volume, and apparently the two following it, “Accomplishments of the Duchess”, as we now begin an extended side story telling us about Iris’ mother Merellis. Featured in the first few books of the main series as a caring mother who seemed the sort to speak with her mouth behind a fan, the final book in the series showed us that behind all that etiquette is a dangerous swordswoman who will cut you down as soon as look at you. I said I wanted to hear her story, and it turns out iris does as well. Merellis’ past had never been revealed to her daughter, so Iris asks and Merellis tells up about her childhood, starting with the tragic murder of her mother by bandits, which sets her on a path leading to revenge and… well, revenge. What else does one need? the book was excellent, but fans of the series who loved it for the economic theory might be a bit thrown off.

After her mother’s funeral, Merellis is consumed with rage and a desire to take revenge on the bandits who did this to her family. Her father decides to train her in the sword to at least try to distract her, and, although from her own perspective the gains she makes and slow and inadequate, it’s actually rather terrifying how quickly she takes to it. Soon she is Mer, impersonating her own body double and rising through other guards, then knights, rapidly becoming an amazing military commander. Unfortunately, when all your life is dedicated to one goal, there are obstacles that are hard to overcome, such as your father getting his own revenge for his wife’s death and leaving you with no purpose in life. If only there was a guy her own age she could talk to about this…

As I said before, this feels like a completely different story. Merellis is not a meathead swordswoman, and very much shows she can take charge on a battlefield, but the book shows her worldview gradually opening up, as she goes from “I only care about my revenge” to “now what the hell do I do?” to “I want to protect my family” and then to “I want to protect others around me so that they do not suffer as I have”. At her side, though they’re not a couple yet (the two haven’t even hit puberty by the end of this first novel in the subseries, though the inner artwork may not have gotten that message) is Louis, son of the Prime Minster and Merellis’ future husband. She’s fairly smitten with him by the end of the book, but they also fight,as he tries to get her to see the bigger picture.

I suspect the next book will feature a lot more nobility and gowns and less fighting, but who knows? Merellis was clearly a little hellion until she got married (and then became a big hellion). This is a great book, but it’s nothing like its parent series, except maybe as it regards the greater good and how to move towards it.

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, Vol. 12

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By Ryo Shirakome and Takayaki. Released in Japan as “Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen

It was about 18 months in Japan between Vol. 11 and 12, and it’s been about the same here in the West as well. I was briefly worried that I’d forget literally everything that had been happening before, but that was before I remembered what series I was reading. Arifureta is not particularly interested in its own plot, or even that much in its characters. Arifureta is interested in people powering up and getting new special moves. The author has clearly drowned himself in Jump series as a kid, and as a result this book, especially the back half, can be summed up by using the “It’s over 9000!” meme over and over again. That said, there is a little bit of character stuff in the front half, but I was less happy with that, as it leans too heavily into an evil cliche stereotype I dislike. This is also NOT the final volume of the series – we’ve got one more to go after this. Fortunately, it’s scheduled for the fall in Japan.

Kaori gets a nice cover art picture, which makes it a shame that she’s the only one not in the main book, getting left behind to guard everyone else and make sure they’re not killed. (She gets a nice short story at the end to make up for it.) The rest of the book is divided almost exactly in half. In the first part, Shizuku, Ryoutarou and Suzu head over to try and beat Kouki and Emi up and return them to their senses. Only one of them actually gets beaten up enough to have that happen, and you can probably guess who. But hey, Suzu gets to say goodbye. In the back half, Hajime is sent ahead to go rescue Yue (which will clearly be most of Book 13), so we get Shea and Tio taking on a whole bunch of apostles and monsters, as well as Freid. Unfortunately, the bad guys seem to have forgotten how our heroines are basically nightmares themselves by now.

So yeah, we get Eri’s backstory here to explain why she’s incredibly evil, and it’s because her father died saving her from getting run over, her mother blamed her and abused her, and she was almost raped by her mother’s new boyfriend. Getting abused as a child leading to a bad person later in life is something we need to see less of. Kouki, meanwhile, remains a shallow parody of the standard shoujo boyfriend, so it’s no surprise that once the mind control is removed and he’s punched a lot he manages to recover what wits he has… though we’ll see what happens when he sees Hajime again. But really the majority of this book is exactly what I said earlier: yelling out attacks, just barely avoiding lethal moves, pulling off near lethal moves in return, and lots of shouting.

The return of everyone’s favorite Zero protagonist at the end of the volume is interesting, and I wonder if she’ll help Hajime in the next volume. Till then: boy, this sure was a volume of Arifureta.

So I’m a Spider, So What?, Vol. 14

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By Okina Baba and Tsukasa Kiryu. Released in Japan as “Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

The subtitle of this volume could be summed up as “At Long Last”. At long last, we have finally caught up with where we left Shun, Katia and the rest of the human cast in Book 5. At long last, we get several extended flashbacks explaining to us the origins of Ariel, Potimas, and Guli-Guli… erm, Guliedistodiez. But perhaps most importantly, at long last, Potimas is dead dead dead. Yes, technically this is a spoiler and it happens at the very end of this volume, but I think most readers of the series won’t blame me too much, because every single one of us have wanted that asshole dead for almost ten books now, and it’s about damn time. Of course, there’s one slight problem with all these things happening at once, which is that none of them really land as satisfyingly as I want them to. For a book that should have been a home run, this ends up being merely “okay”.

The Imperial Army, augmented by hidden demon army members, has arrived at the Elf Village to kill every single elf there, including Potimas (but excluding Ms. Oka, who gets a pass for being nice to our spider long ago). Ariel asks White to leave Potimas all to her, which White very reluctantly does. But that’s fine, as it turns out there’s a lot more going on, including robots, giant robots, even gianter robots, massive sea urchin robots, and UFOs. All of these force White to work harder than she’s ever…. well, no, White barely breaks a sweat, but she does have to use a few tricks she’d been saving for later. As for the rest of the human cast? Erm, sorry, the title of this book is still about the spider. They barely get a look in. In the meantime, Ariel has flashbacks to her past, and the previous end of the world apocalypse, which is mostly thanks to Potimas, though the dragons helped.

There is some funny stuff here. White’s narration is always amusing, especially as Potimas keeps topping himself with more and more dakka. Her four spider daughters are also very amusing as they have to team up with Ronandt, something which pleases them a whole lot more than it does him. But for the most part I think the parts of this book set in the past don’t land as hard as they should, because they’re told from the perspectives of three people who were not present at the major events. It is interesting to see Ariel as a wheelchair-bound near death teenager, and helps to explain a lot of her actions (as well as her relationship with Potimas). That said, I’m going to be honest, the most interesting part of the book was the final line. White has always been a bit of a villain protagonist. Is she finally going to turn full evil?

So yeah, Spider fans will like this, but not a lot. The next book promises to be a banger, though.