Tearmoon Empire, Vol. 7

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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.

The narrative voice is one of the most well-known parts of this series, but we do occasionally see inside Mia’s own thoughts as well, and when we do we can sort of get what the narrator is talking about. There are several points in this book where Mia is essentially being a petty, selfish and gluttonous princess – we see how she thinks. In those cases, yes, the fact that everyone misinterprets her can be ridiculous. That said, we also see many times in this volume Mia’s sharp instincts to avoid the guillotine, and those are top-tier. When Mia doesn’t think but simply reacts, be it to a death flag or when she sees one of her friends is unhappy, she shines. And heck, even her selfish pettiness doesn’t last long – her desire to see a money-grubbing merchant suffer is thrown out the window when she sees him legitimately suffering the aftereffects of a heart attack. In this book we really do see that if she does become Empress, she might just do OK.

The first fifth of the book wraps up the third “arc” we’ve been reading, with Mia returning home for the weeklong festival to celebrate her birthday, as we are reminded that her father is, not to put too fine a point on it, a freak. That said, it’s the colors Mia wears to her party that make the impression. After this we move into a new arc which features Mia, having set up an excellent program to combat famine, trying hard to keep it from collapsing. Chaos Serpents are still trying to sow discord, but we also have to deal with those who realize that a famine can be a great way to make a pile of cash if you’re the one delivering the food. Now Mia and Ludwig have to face off against an antagonist who Mia remembers from her past life… when things ended in disaster. Can she turn things around with the help of a commoner studying medicine and the power of wheat?

This is usually the point of every review where I get annoyed at the narrator for harping on Mia being chubby, and yeah, it’s here as well. That said, we also see Mia chiding herself for a different kind of flab. A couple of times in this book she makes the mistake of being complacent, and that’s when disaster pricks at her intuition. Given that there is a secret society whose goal is to destroy her and her kingdom, Mia simply can’t stop and just relax. I think, in time, this will become second nature to her – she just needs to have her thoughts map to her instincts more. She also has help. Ludwig is hilarious here, taking on the brunt of “misunderstand Mia in a positive way” and realizing that if you truly want to change everything about the Empire, might as well also let people like him be Chancellor. As for Shalloak, the “evil” merchant, his story actually ends up being heartwarming and tragic at the same time – the benefits of people dreaming of their past lives in another world.

Add to this one of the best side stories in the entire series, where a search for cake will make you cry, and you have a fantastic volume. Each one of these is a treasure.

Strike the Blood, Vol. 20

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By Gakuto Mikumo and Manyako. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jeremiah Bourque.

I’d like to welcome you all and thank you for coming to another one of my attempts to review the latest volume of Strike the Blood. If you’re reading this, I assume that either you are a hardcore fan of the series (and have therefore, no doubt, seen the anime that has already adapted this volume) or you just enjoy reading about me trying and failing to get 500 words out of a series whose main plot is “cool action sequences for 279 pages”. It’s always felt like a novelization more than a novel, but here in English, where we’re reading the novels after the equivalent anime, it’s even more apparent. This is, essentially, the final arc, Part 2 of 4. It will therefore not surprise you that it ends with a bit of a downer, though honestly not as much as previous books. That said, fans will feel relieved to hear that Kojou says “my fight” and Yukina corrects him with “No, senpai, this is OUR fight”, so all is present and correct.

As noted, for the most part this is the second part of what we saw last time, so there’s still a lot of Itogami Island being divided into factions that are fighting for supremacy. We do, however, get the reason that this is happening: Avrora is alive again, and that means Kojou does NOT have all 12 beast vassals… meaning he’s essentially about to spiral out of control. There’s two main ways to solve this: kill everyone on the island by removing their memories and reason (bad), or kill Avrora (kind of what they’ve been trying not to do for the last several books). This therefore sets up most of the book, which is a lot of plotting, counterplotting, and friends turning against each other for the greater good and then feeling like absolute crap about it afterwards. That said, Kojou’s actual solution SEEMED like a good idea at the time, but…

The end of the book, i.e. Kojou’s fate, is honestly something I thought we’d have gotten about a dozen novels before now, so I’m relieved to see it here right before everyone gathers for the big finale. It’s still a powerful moment, mostly because it’s so quiet, just him and Yukina sitting watching the horizon after completely failing to stop the end of the world. Also a surprising scene, and showing that the author is perhaps getting a handle on light-hearted stuff at last, is Kojou in the shower, struggling against his vampiric instincts, and then Kanon, Shizuri AND Yukina all offering him their bodies. Separately. Which means it briefly turns into a British farce. That’s not the surprising thing, the surprising thing is that Kojou doesn’t get beaten up for it. Perhaps we have graduated from the Rumiko Takahashi school of slapstick.

Presumably next time we will be headed to the big island in the sky to have yet more exciting battles that are very hard to review. Till then, please enjoy another Strike the Blood. It is what it is.

The World’s Strongest Rearguard: Labyrinth Country’s Novice Seeker, Vol. 6

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By Tôwa and Huuka Kazabana. Released in Japan as “Sekai Saikyou no Kouei: Meikyuukoku no Shinjin Tansakusha” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Alexandra McCullough-Garcia.

One of the strengths of this mostly ridiculous series is that I get the sense the author does not take it seriously. Now, I’m not saying it’s meant to be a comedy – the battles are clearly meant to be dangerous and deadly action sequences, and this volume in particular ends on a big downer of a cliffhanger. What I mean is that it doesn’t take the tropes seriously. It’s a harem genre with a passel of women all in love with our oblivious hero, but there’s no infighting or even any real anger about it – hell, the closest they get to being upset is when Misaki almost spills the beans on what they have to do every night after Arihito goes to sleep. There’s also the reality-bending power of fiction, where our heroes end up being the ones who always fight the strongest monsters, even when they’re told not to. But even then, after they win, they’re told “sorry, you really are that powerful, please have a special title.” It’s just… funny.

We pick up where we left off last time, with our party in a trap laid for them by Shirone, who unfortunately also appears to be trying to do a “suicide by dungeon”. This trap includes monsters that raise your karma if you attack them, and a named monster (of course) that can not only inflict pain on our heroes but also guilt of their past actions and present fears. And while they do end up escaping this and defeating the monster, it’s clear that Elitia is still feeling the aftereffects of this. Things aren’t really helped when they are asked to go to the 5th Level to help to subjugate a swarm of scorpion monsters… the 5th Level being where they were aiming for to try to rescue Elitia’s friend. The scorpion monsters and their leader prove to be fairly easy to take down. But the Simian Lord whose dungeon holds Rury proves, for once, to be too much for Arihito, and he pays dearly.

Despite that cliffhanger, this is possibly the most Rearguard volume of Rearguard ever. We get our heroes taking on THREE named monsters and defeating two of them, something that is almost becoming old hat. Everyone theoretically gets cool things to do, though I will admit that a lot of it is the narrative spewing game stats at us and then trying to figure out what they actually do in terms of visuals. More to the point, Arihito is the star of this series, and it’s made very clear that the narrative of this world knows it. There are other parties who were jealous of how fast he’s risen… then they see how he deals with The Calamity and they fall over themselves to apologize and grant him an even cooler title. As I’ve said before about this series, if you are a fan of light novels who takes them Very Seriously Indeed this must make your skin catch fire. It does not give two hoots.

That said… erm, hope Theresia is OK? Fortunately, we don’t have a year to wait for the next volume in the series as we did last time. Unfortunately, from what I’ve heard, the arc may go on even longer than that next volume. Still, I’ll be reading and enjoying.