Welcome to Olivia’s Magic Jewelers, Vol. 2

Leave a reply

By Rinrin Yuki and Suzaku. Released in Japan as “Olivia Maseki Houshokuten e Youkoso: Ka to Mise wo Oida Sareta no de, Outou ni Mise wo Kamaetara, Naze ka Moto Konyakusha to Gimai no Kekkonshiki ni Dero to Iwaremashita” by Mag Garden Novels. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Jordan Taylor.

I enjoyed this a great deal more than I did the first volume, though I do feel a bit guilty about that, as the main reason I enjoyed it was I kept waiting for Olivia to finally break down. We already knew she was an earnest young woman with a low opinion of herself, and we saw, at the start of the first book, her treatment at the hands of her abusive adopted father, cheating fiance, and terrible stepsister. But she ran away to the capital, made a name for herself, has a shop, and also has the most attractive man in the city in love with her, though she has not quite cottoned on to that last one. That means that this book, where she is forced to go home, be a witness at her sister’s wedding to her ex-fiancee, and then discuss her birth father’s old shop with evil adopted father – well, she reaches her snapping point.

Things start off well. Olivia now has her shop, and is satisfying customers once she manages to get out of her own head and stop stressing. She has a capable assistant who tries to make her rest (with limited success). She has her friends who helped her when she first came to the city. And she has Elliot, who sure seems to show up an awful lot around her. When she gets the letter telling her to return home for the wedding, everyone springs into action. She’s given a fashion and makeup upgrade, and Elliot decides to start taking her out to fancy restaurants and the theatre – not for any ulterior motives, of course, just as a pal. He’s also agreed to go with her when she returns home. Because the one thing Olivia and all her friends agree on is that this is a giant trap.

The third quarter of this book is dedicated to getting on Olivia’s last nerve. Her father’s shop sits abandoned and covered in weeds. The one employee who used to work there, but had to retire due to injury, is missing. At the wedding itself, her stepsister proves to be a shrieking harridan, demanding Olivia publicly apologize. The noble who controls the area – her ex-fiance’s father – decides to have Olivia marry him after all. And when she refuses, thanks to the help of Elliot, who the noble is terrified of for some reason, they go with Plan B, which is to knock her out, kidnap her, and say she’ll be imprisoned for life making artifacts. Apologies for all the spoilers, but this is a good way of showing that when we learn Elliot’s true identity (which should not surprise any reader who’s paid attention), she just gives up and goes back home by herself. The definition of the final straw.

Now, of course, they make up, which is the last quarter of the book. And there’s a third book which implies that Olivia’s low nobility status (which means she can’t marry Elliot) may soon be fixed by a secret in her family’s past. But for me, the best part of this book was seeing Olivia suffer. It was very realistic and well handled. Sorry, Olivia.

Welcome to Monstrous Miss Sophie’s Enchanted Salon of Healing, Vol. 2

Leave a reply

By Sachi Konzome and Harenochihareta. Released in Japan as “Bakemono Jou Sophie no Salon: Gokigenyou. Kawa Ichimai nara Naosemasu wa” by Mag Garden Novels. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Dawson Chen.

Endings are hard, especially when a book is only two volumes long. Honestly, I think this might have worked better as one big brick, but I can guess why the publisher didn’t want that – these are chunky books as it is. But the main issue is that the first volume was alternating between Sophie and Kurt and their budding love and Sophie essentially having a new customer every chapter with a scar and a story. The second volume also starts out this way, but it almost reads like the author was told to wrap things up, as a little over a third of the way into the book, we end up dealing definitively with Sophie’s skin issues and disfigurement, as well as her self-loathing which is preventing her from accepting Kurt’s love now that he has finally realized what emotions are and that he has them. It’s still a good book, but it feels unbalanced.

The book starts with Sophie still taking care of clients with issues. We meet two kids who claim to be lost princesses but the truth is something far more tragic and well-worn; a clown following in his grandfather’s footsteps who wears his tragedy on his face; a beastman gatekeeper who is struggling to bring up a wayward daughter; and a bartender who is troubled by her past as a pirate. Throughout this we also get Kurt, who is going off to help fight a monstrous dragon, a task so dangerous that he gives Sophie half his dog tags, something you usually only give to your wife or fiancee. She’s very, very worried about him. Then, he returns, with a nasty scar (which she heals of course), and a proposal. She rejects him bitterly due to her condition. Can something be done about that?

The book wears its heart on its sleeve, sometimes a bit too much. Sophie’s cure amounts to finding a doctor who knows what it actually is, and the psychological component of it all, which I was sure might cause her to reject an immediate cure, does not come into play – at least not like that. The little girls’ story is tragic, but also somewhat incomplete – I was expecting the story to circle around to the mother and daughters once more, but it never did. The back half of the book is almost pure fluff – the one cure Sophie administers is to a literal living magical creature that makes people happy. It’s an emotional book, but I wish it had a bit more heft to it. Everything here happens pretty much exactly as you could have guessed. And they all lived happily ever after.

Still, it wasn’t that long, and I enjoyed Sophie essentially collecting tragedies and then upending them. That’s what I’ll remember this series for the most.

Babel: The End of the Journey to Restore Language

Leave a reply

By Kuji Furumiya and Haruyuki Morisawa. Released in Japan as “Babel III: Torikago Yori Izuru Youki” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Amelia Imogen.

The final volume of this series delves deeply into the question of what drives humanity to succeed. In the past of this world, humanity was pushed to the brink, and feared powerful witches. These days there are no more witches, and things are relatively peaceful. But will humans make the same mistakes they made before, just because they don’t remember what it’s like to life in fear and thus innovate? If you’re nodding along to this, congratulations, you agree with the villain of this book. If you’re staring and wondering what the hell this teenage history logic is, you’re a lot more like Shizuku, who has to try to deal with this while also finding a way to return home and also deal with the fact that – as we’ve occasionally noticed since the very first book when she looked at that forbidden tome – there’s something a bit off with her. Fortunately, she has Erik by her side this time, as opposed to written out by the author.

Shizuku continues to work on her language learning aids, but there’s a new problem. Some of the kids at the castle, after hanging around the older children, regain the innate language abilities. Does this mean the thesis that she and Erik have been so carefully working on is completely wrong? That said, she has other things to worry about. She’s apparently staying up for hours at night reading the blue-covered book she has, though she never remembers doing this. A neighboring country invites her there as they want that book, and are… well, not willing to kill her, but willing to hide her body if she gets killed by something else. Worst of all, a witch has appeared and recreated a very familiar witch’s tower (well, familiar if you read Unnamed Memory), and wants people to challenge it. And she’s also going around slaughtering women and stealing their souls. That’s bad.

I have to admit, I enjoyed this series more for the plot and worldbuilding than the characterization. Shizuku and Erik’s relationship can best be described as “kinda nice”. She and Ortea (and, for that matter, she and Lars) had a much more interesting back and forth. I also note that she only says “I love you” to Ortea in this book. But no, dull love prevails. Ah well. This also sort of gives away that she does not return to Japan, though if any reader is surprised by that they must not read many series like this. The best part of the book is what is actually up with Shizuku, and how they manage to use it to save the day. That said, while I would not call her behavior suicide ideation, we do get a lot of “I must sacrifice myself to save everyone” and she jumps off a very high building – again – with worse consequences this time. You can see why Lars finds her frustrating.

There’s a sequel to Unnamed Memory that is apparently also a sequel to this, but I’ve no idea if it will be licensed given the UM anime was a dud over here. Fans of the author will enjoy this.