Rascal Does Not Dream of His First Love

Leave a reply

By Hajime Kamoshida and Keji Mizoguchi. Released in Japan as “Seishun Buta Yarou wa Hatsukoi Shoujo no Yume wo Minai” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

One of the things I like best about this series, which sets it apart from many of its contemporaries, is its use of short, quick sentences. The book reads fast, with dense paragraphs kept to a bare minimum and most of its page count being dialogue or inner monologue of some sort. However, this does not mean that it sacrifices any emotional impact – in fact, in many ways it’s heightened. The start of this book was always going to be a killer, and the prose makes it even more so. The sheer despair that Sakuta is feeling, the grief and rage that Mai’s mother and Nodoka have as they blame him for her death and cry out as to why it happened, it’s absolutely visceral and raw. Even knowing that this is not going to be permanent, that Mai will not remain dead (a series does not kill off its main draw), this is still a painful read. It gets better. But at some cost.

When we last left our heroes, Mai had just been hit by a truck. Sadly, she is not reincarnated in a fantasy world, but is simply dead. This shatters Sakuta, and things are not helped by the fact that a superstar actress died in order to save the life of her ordinary boyfriend – most of Japanese media is out to get him. refusing to accept Mai’s death, he returns once more to the beachfront we’ve seen in most other books in this series, and finds the older Shouko there once more. She reminds him of what almost everyone has experienced so far – Adolescence Syndrome – and that this might actually be a future we don’t want to see, rather than the present. But can Sakuta return to his “present” even though he’s already there? Will anyone notice him? And even if he can stop Mai from getting killed, who’s to stop HIM from dying?

I do wonder if there’s a fanfic out there showing what happened in that bad future if Sakuta couldn’t fix it, because the implication is there is no way the media would allow him to survive. Sakuta’s grief infuses over half of this volume, making it by far the least funny of the books to date, but that’s fine, you don’t want laughs here. When they come later, they’re as much a relief for Sakuta as they are for the reader. It’s also nice to see Mai reminding us that she is quite a sweet and loving partner, to the point where Sakuta has to actually find ways to upset her in order to have her be cool and menacing towards him (his professed fetish). And then there’s Shouko, whose life and death also rides on this book. The ending may be a bit sappy and unrealistic, but given the nature of the series, realism is not what I want. That said, it’s VERY abrupt – you’re waiting for another epilogue.

It’ll be interesting to see where we go from here, with the main backstory plotlines pretty much resolved. The next volume promises a return to Kaede’s attempts to go to school. Till then, please enjoy this cry of grief from the heart, and be thankful it all ended well.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life: Crimson Nightmare

Leave a reply

By Mato Sato and nilitsu. Released in Japan as “Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

For the most part this fourth volume of The Executioner and Her Way of Life is a bit of a breather volume. There’s pretty much zero gore, which is nice. Akari and Momo prove to be highly amusing together as they pettily snipe at each other, and both are more interesting away from Menou. And the running gag of various enemy agents being forced to admit they’re sex pests to avoid giving away their cover runs long enough to be funny and just that long. Plus we get the addition of several old villains, and they’re almost pleasant. All this and hot springs. The whole thing would be lovely if it were not for the fact that Akari is still a ticky ticky timebomb… or is she? As Menou slowly figures out… or is straight up told… various parts of the plot, she rapidly realizes that killing Akari to save the world might not be what’s actually going on. Unfortunately for her, her Master has come to take over.

Akari and Momo, reluctant allies – very reluctant – take a train to a nearby hot spring town in the mountains. Neither one wants to be around the other, but they both have one thing in common, which is that they want to save Menou’s life. Unfortunately for them, Menou managed to go after them much faster than expected due to the obvious solution of “ask Ashuna for money and a ride”. Good news for Ashuna (and the reader), this involves Menou dressing in a butler uniform. And, as it turns out, EVERYONE is arriving at this little mountain town, including Pandaemonium, who lacks power but is still dangerous, Manon, who is resurrected with a new body, and one other surprise guest. Things do not build to a furious climax, alas, but peter out, as Akari ends up spirited away by the one person whose presence has suffused this whole series.

The best parts of this book were the parts with Akari and Momo. Their constant insults and angry bitching is funny, yes, but as the book goes on we get to see how both of them are generally a lot kinder than they’d like to let on, and Akari in particular feels less upset by Momo’s attitude after she realizes that Menou is pretty much all Momo has. We also get a lot of stuff explained to us here, such as the nature of Conjurations, why Akari has to be killed, and what really happened in the past. This even ties in with Japoan, not only because the hot springs mountain town is the closest we’ve seen to Japanese culture in this world, but also because there may be a way to get Akari back after all. If she wants to go. And if she can put up with mass murder. And of course Flare, near the end of the book, shows us, unsurprisingly, that she’s not going to arrive to save the day.

This series has a cast that are interesting and fun to read about but are all, except maybe for Menou, various shades of unpleasant. It makes for an intriguing read.

Ishura: The New Demon King War

Leave a reply

By Keiso and Kureta. Released in Japan by Dengeki no Shin Bungei. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by David Musto.

I almost didn’t get this. It ticked off quite a few boxes in terms of “things I’m not interested in”, was very long, and looked like it would consist of one big fight. Most of those things are true, but I will admit that the book definitely picks up as it goes along, especially in the second half. It suffers from having a sprawling cast, each of which have to get their own introductory chapter to show off why they’re here and why they’re really pretty strong. Unfortunately, this means that it feels like we’re reading 16 prologues at times. In the back half things get much better, the fights are indeed very cool, and there are some surprisingly touching moments. I enjoyed reading it, in the end. That said, I’m pretty sure that this will be the only volume I read because, no matter how well it tries to hide it, this series is going to come down to two genres that I really cannot stand. It’s both a tournament arc AND a survival game.

This world we’re introduced to seems to have everything. There’s wyverns AND dragons. There’s various kinds of magic. There’s walking skeletons and walking mandrakes, both super powerful. And there’s isekai’d Japanese folks, though for once they’re just part of the cast pile – we learn nothing about who they were or why they ended up here. The first half of the book sets up for a war between the main city Aureatia, which is run pretty much by humans – called “mitia” here – and Lithia, a city that has split off, with its ruler declaring herself the new Demon Lord. That title is a bit taboo these days, especially after the appearance of the True Demon Lord. In the second half of the book, the war begins and we see who lives, who dies, and who gets tragic backstory and THEN dies.

As you’d expect with a book like this, some character arcs work better than others. My favorite was Kia, a young, seemingly blase elf girl with the power to control absolutely anything with her words. At first she almost comes across as a bargain-basement tsundere, but as the book goes on and she learns about how the world works – and what her powers can do – she suddenly gains morals and ethics, much to the horror of her teacher, an assassin named Elea who is trying to murder anyone who discovers Kia’s secret. I also enjoyed the touching relationship between Regnejee, a battle-hardened wyvern who is a little battle-hungry, and Curte, a blind woman who lives in a tower and marvels at everything Regnejee says… or at least that’s how it looks at first.

I could go on, I’m sure. There’s something for everyone here, and I liked the use of names and titles, which reminded me quite a bit of Katanagatari. As a fantasy series with a high body count, it’s a real winner. It’s just not my thing.