The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy, Vol. 5

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By Yu Shimizu and Asagi Tosaka. Released in Japan as “Seiken Gakuin no Maken Tsukai” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Roman Lampert.

Before The Asterisk War went on hiatus here due to no new volumes in Japan (the artist has been sick), I was frequently asked by fans why I kept reading it given how generic and cliched it was. And granted, it absolutely is that. But my answer was, simply, “It hasn’t done enough wrong for me to stop reading it”. And The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy feels a lot like that. There’s really nothing here you can’t get in other magical academy series, and they likely don’t have “lol, he’s in the body of a 10-year-old” dragging down the harem premise. But I dunno, it all feels so harmless. There’s goofy fun, there’s cool battles, there’s the occasional dribble of plot, and the girls are all beautiful. It is a series that you can read and immediately forget about, but when the next volume rolls around you’ll grab it and read it because it’s there. Plus, pool battle!

After the events of the last book, Leo now has to deal with the fact that a Dark Lord has been resurrected… albeit, like Leo, with only a fraction of her power. Also like Leo, that’s mostly irrelevant, because Veira is hella powerful even muted, and the first half of the book is mostly her getting a tour of the modern world and running our heroes ragged. That said, the second half gets more serious, as the Mysterious Organization that is behind all this has decided that the deadliest Dark Lord is the next one they want to bring back… the Undead King, Leonis. I, um, have some bad news for them about their timing. More seriously, there is also a problem of Holy Knights getting corrupted by a mysterious “voice of the goddess” and having their Holy Swords turn into Demon Swords. Which, unfortunately, also seems to send them into a rage.

Not gonna lie, I was startled to see the minor villain from the first novel come back to be a minor villain in this one as well. Arrogant jerkass shows he’s even worse is good only in small doses, so it’s absolutely fine that he gets taken down immediately. If there is a “focus heroine” beyond Riselia here it’s Elfine, who is suffering from PTSD from prior battles causing her sword to lose some of its power, and decides to go on the front lines with our team this time to do something about it. Good thing, too, as the other teams they’re paired up with to explore Leonis’ old underground tomb are being led by demon sword users. Elfine is able to get over her trauma and emerge victorious, but there’s a lot of others who also try hard but either get turned into demon sword users or lose their swords to said users, and unfortunately I don’t see a really good reason why Elfine is different from them other than “main character syndrome”. I wonder if we’ll ever see any of them again.

So yeah, if you like this series, this is a decent volume of it, and if you don’t, you dropped it ages ago. It’s still not doing enough wrong for me to stop.

I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss, Vol. 2

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By Sarasa Nagase and Mai Murasaki. Released in Japan as “Akuyaku Reijo Nanode Rasubosu o Katte Mimashita” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

Given the sheer number of villainess novels and other similar “this is the same world as the game I played!” scenarios, it’s surprising that we’ve had so many of the protagonists accept that this is their new reality. Admittedly, VR technology has not gotten to the point where this sort of thing could be faked well, but “I’m dreaming” is probably a valid response. Of course, the main reason that we don’t see this too often is that if you think that you’re just inside some game world, you start to think of the world as not having real people but ‘target characters’, and that death is irrelevant because you can restart and they’ll all be alive again. That’s not true in these books, and the villainesses usually know it. But this is one of those ‘good villainess = evil heroine’ books, so it should come as no surprise that, when the heroine gets her OWN memories of Japan back at the start of this volume, she decides to send things off the rails.

Having successfully avoided her doom, Aileen is safe within the demon lord’s domain. Unfortunately, the game she played back in Japan had a sequel, which she also played. New heroine, new love interests, new bad guy. And now it seems someone is trying to make events in that game happen, which will be very bad news for the demons in this world. To try to prevent this, Claude is going to the duchy of Mirchetta to investigate. Aileen is told to stay behind. A ha. A ha ha ha. Disguising herself as a boy, she infiltrates the academy where the second game took place, then inveigles herself onto the student council and establish a guard unit to protect the students (mostly from each other). But investigating is going to be a little hard when her fiancee is the school principal. A clever disguise is needed. Or, failing that, the most bizarre disguise ever.

This book is more well-written than a lot of the villainess novels I’ve seen, and you really find yourself drawn in – I can see why an anime is coming. Aileen is a combination of clever and too-clever-by-half, and she gets a new cast of characters in the student council, who are all fun types. Given that the second game had a different heroine and a different villainess (though it takes place in the same world), it’s no surprise that Aileen quickly makes friends with said villainess, who turns out to be a sweetie pie with poor self-esteem, as you’d expect. This doesn’t really break new ground – mind controlling drugs as the main threat has been seen before, and the evil church being behind it surprises no one – but it’s fun to read, and Aileen is a hoot. If I had a complaint it’s that we only see one picture of her in her masterful disguise. More art was needed.

The end of this book established that we’re going to be seeing evil heroine vs. good villainess for some time to come, so it’s a good thing this is ongoing. Even if you’re tired of villainess books, this is worth the read.

So You Want to Live the Slow Life?: A Guide to Life in the Beastly Wilds, Vol. 1

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By Fuurou and Yuki Nekozuki. Released in Japan as “Shishi Kamori de Slow Life” on the Shousetsuka ni Narou website. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Andrew Attwell.

If you do want to read slow life books, you’re going to have to put up with the slow life. And that can sometimes be hard. I have a few slow life books I’ve had to drop simply because the everyday descriptions of their slow life were putting me to sleep. On the other hand, if you can come up with a good plot and characters, you can usually hook your reader enough that they will put up with your slow life anyway. That’s exactly what we get here. I have to tell you, there is a lot of food preserving in this book. A whole lot. Honestly, the book should have been titled “So you want to preserve food?”. And, having peeked at the webnovel itself, that is absolutely never going away. That said… likeable leads who are both adults, good worldbuilding in terms of how this sort of thing would work, and an occasional action scene. I enjoyed it.

Our main character is Mikura, who is decidedly NOT hit by a truck and does not end up in any sort of fantasy world. That’s because it’s already come here. There is a massive forest in Japan called the Beastly Wilds, host to Beastpeople. Grownups look like humans with animals ears and tails, but the kids look like animals wearing clothes. There are all sorts of rules and regulations about going into this forest at all. And Mikura’s great-grandfather had a house here, where he paid the beast people to tend to the chestnut and walnut trees and sat around preserving food as a hobby. Now that he’s passed away, Mikura decides to quit his fast-track office job and follow in his footsteps. Of course, there’s a bit more to it than just moving in… for one thing, he’ll need to deal with the locals.

I’ll be honest here, the best thing in the book by a mile is the main female lead, Techi. She’s essentially a grade school teacher/foreman/minder for all the kids who are working on Mikura’s farm (and there is a welcome discussion of child labor laws and how they apply to beastmen who essentially get a lot less agile as they get more human), and she takes a while to warm up to Mikura… or anyone, really. She is what I would call a ‘lovable grump’ and Her basic expression most of the time is :| or variations on it. Seeing her slowly start to fall for Mikura is the highlight of the book, even as she’s also helping him acclimate to this new situation and fighting off crooked chestnut dealers who want to use the beastfolk for their own ends. The first half of the book is all plot, for the most part, and I loved it. The second half is about 1/3 plot, 2/3 recipes, and I felt like I was googling ‘pancetta’ and having to read someone’s life story before I got to the recipe.

Despite that, and the risk of future volumes being worse, I really loved the lead couple, even if they aren’t a couple yet. (He sensibly sees her flirtation as more of a fascination with romance than him specifically, though I’ve no doubt that will change.). If you’re a cook, this is a must read. to everyone else, recommended if you like relaxed isekais or chipmunks.