The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess, Vol. 1

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By Kotei Kobayashi and riichu. Released in Japan as “Hikikomari Kyuuketsuki no Monmon” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Evie Lund.

As every writer will tell you, it’s much harder to write comedy than it is to write drama. Something that is funny to one person will be boring, annoying, or offensive to four other people. It can be especially difficult when you’re trying to balance out your book, having a lot of funny things in the front half before it gets dark and turns serious. I’ve talked before about Japanese light novel authors in particular being bad at this, singling out the writers of A Certain Magical Index and Strike the Blood for putting in lowbrow harem comedy “whoops I fell into her boobs” moments to lighten up the honestly very well written action and drama in those books. The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess has comedy that is absolutely dire and painful to read, but it does eventually up the stakes and make things more serious. Unfortunately, that only improves the book very slightly.

Terakomari Gandesblood is the daughter of a renowned family of vampires, so it’s sort of a shame that she’s weak, can’t use magic, is clumsy, and looks younger than she is. Then one day a maid shows up and announces that she’s going to be one of the new Seven Crimson Lords who wage war on behalf of the Empress of their country against the other six countries that surround them. This HORRIFIES Komari, who has barely left her room in the last three years owing to a bullying incident while at school. What’s worse, she’s assigned a company full of perverts, murderers and wastrels, who are famous for mutiny against their new commanders. How on earth is she supposed to deal with this? Can she stop her new maid from being a complete pervert? And why does she have no memory of the incident from three years ago that supposedly started her shut-in days?

Saying what’s wrong with this book will take a while, so let’s dig right in. The first 40% or so is the comedy part, and it’s not funny. Lots of jokes about Komari almost peeing herself (always a bad sign in light novels), the main constantly sexually harasses Komari, the military company are all tenth-generation Irresponsible Captain Tylor rejects, and there is also a guy who raps. Through the entire book. I also dislike the main conceit, which is that they live close to what is essentially a magical resurrection thingummy, so while nearly everyone is brutally murdered in this book, no one actually dies. And once we get Komari’s true backstory and who she really is – and more to the point how it’s covered up – it feels like the villain might be a bit justified in being upset. As for the serious bits, as noted, they’re handled better than the comedy, but they’re also very predictable – the entire final fight had precisely zero surprises.

To sum up: having lesbian maids trying to grope our teenage heroine when she’s trying to go to the bathroom isn’t funny, light novel authors. Thank you.

Hazure Skill: The Guild Member with a Worthless Skill Is Actually a Legendary Assassin, Vol. 1

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By Kennoji and KWKM. Released in Japan as “Hazure Skill “Kage ga Usui” o Motsu Guild Shokuin ga, Jitsuha Densetsu no Ansatsusha” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jan Mitsuko Cash.

This is the fourth of the books that I never read when they initially came out where I had a Twitter poll to see which I should read. It came last. I can see why. That said… all the other books, after finishing them, I was immediately left with a sense of “I don’t want to read any more of this series”. The World of Otome Games Is Tough for Mobs has a protagonist I really hate, Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra is in a genre I try to avoid, and Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World was so boring I didn’t even do a review. This one, though… if I get another gap in my reading schedule, I might try the next one. It’s in the genre of what I call “McDonald’s” books, i.e. big dumb fun. More to the point, it’s filled with fantasy light novel cliches but mostly avoids the bad ones. Note the mostly.

Roland is part of the party that has been sent to defeat the demon lord. His talent, being unobtrusive, was thought to be completely worthless but makes him a fantastic assassin. He ends up defeating the demon lord himself, though he lets the rest of the party take the credit. Now what he really wants is to retire from his assassin work and live a normal life. The trouble is he has absolutely no idea what normal is. AT ALL. He ends up in a town with an adventurer’s guild, and decides to join… as a guild receptionist. Naturally, as the book goes on everyone else in the cast realizes that he’s far more than he seems. Also, isn’t the demon lord supposed to be dead? Who’s that hot girl who’s hanging out at his house?

I was not kidding when I said this was Big Dumb Fun. It reads like one of those fanfics where the author makes the main character able to do literally anything and have any woman he wants. Unlike a lot of light novels, Roland screws his way through a lot of this book, bedding not only the former demon lord but also the head of the guild and even a passing adventurer. Also, despite his “useless skill”, he’s had so much training that he can literally do almost anything. The reason this is not absolutely unreadable is that Roland is, at heart, a nice person… but he does not ACT like one, as a majority of the OP light novel potatoes do. Roland is brusque and rude, and really does have no idea what normal is, but he not only is incredibly powerful, but he’s good at teaching other people how to maximize THEIR useless skills to become more powerful. This was probably my favorite part of the book, where we see him pinpoint exactly how an adventurer can best be utilized.

So yeah, not going to immediately pick up the next book in this series, but if I get another lull in my reading, I might try the second volume. Which I guess makes it the winner of my poll, even though it came in last.

My Friend’s Little Sister Has It In for Me!, Vol. 6

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By mikawaghost and tomari. Released in Japan as “Tomodachi no Imouto ga Ore ni dake Uzai” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Alexandra Owen-Burns.

This honestly may be the best volume in the series to date. We get a plotline that was completely unpredictable and fun, development of the ongoing love triangle, a lot of great humor, seeing Akiteru try to be proactive and sympathetic but missing the point a good 3/4 of the time, and while the book does have a bit of Sumire in it, she’s mostly in school and forced to be in teacher mode, and thus no shotacon jokes for the second book in a row! The series continues to do a very good job of making everyone likeable – even Akiteru, despite being the classic punchable oblivious guy. It helps that he’s so supposedly “logical” and matter of fact, and thus a different type from the usual pleasant potato. The whole thing ends up in a beauty contest, which features gorgeous pictures of Iroha (in a dress) and Mashiro (in a suit). Sadly, I must report that the illustrator and publisher are goddamn cowards.

It’s the culture festival, which means maid cafes, as well as the school beauty contest. Before that, though, there is the problem of Iroha, who is still freaking out over the fact that she can’t be friends with Mashiro AND be trying to win Akiteru’s heart at the same time. Taking Otoi’s advice to try to see things from the perspective of people other than her own, she spends most of the book acting out the “roles” of her friends and classmates, including Mashiro, Sumire, and Midori. Unfortunately, all of this is frustrating Akiteru, who is trying to demonstrate to Iroha that she can simply be herself and does not have to be the perfect honor student OR other people, she can be as annoying as she wants to be. She’s never going to agree to that, because her being annoying is a form of flirting reserved only for him. So there’s only one thing he can do, really: dress up as a woman and enter the beauty pageant to defeat her.

There is a large amount of this book devoted to Akiteru dressing up as a woman, including some good makeup tips, and it is remarked upon how gorgeous he looks as the end product (provided he doesn’t speak, something he manages to pull off. I actually flicked back and forth over the book three times to make sure I was not missing an obvious illustration. But no, this book is written for teenage boys, and they do not want to see boys in dresses. Feh. The highlight of the book, though, is the growing friendship between Iroha and Sasara, as it turns out most of the “rivalry” stuff was simply because Sasara saw that Iroha was wearing a mask and hated it. Getting her to remove it is fantastic, and it’s nice to see that, despite deliberately ignoring romance for the time being, Akiteru’s sense of what Iroha needs is probably accurate.

As is common with this series, we get a vicious cliffhanger at the end, and I suspect the next volume will make Akiteru very uncomfortable. Till then, this is excellent high school romantic comedy.