The World’s Strongest Witch: I’m Starting My Free Life in a World Where Only I Can See the Online Strategy Guide, Vol. 1

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By Mochimaru Sakaki and riritto. Released in Japan as “Sekai Saikyou no Majo, Hajimemashita: Watashi dake “Kouryaku Site” wo Mireru Sekai de Jiyuu ni Ikimasu” by SQEX Novels. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Phil Charbonneau.

This was one I took a flyer on because it sounded very silly. It’s always dangerous when you try to read a comedy, or a book that’s trying to be “zany”. You need to commit to the bit. But you also have to be careful not to drive off your readership without something too out there. This comes close, and I admit may not be for everyone, but I was quite pleased with how it turned out, because it is absolutely ludicrous. It takes its basic idea and does all the dumb things you’d want a book like this to do. Unlike Bofuri (and more on this later, but I guarantee Bofuri will be what you think of once you start this), the main character is part of this world. Also unlike Bofuri, there is no one with common sense to tell her when she’s being too ridiculous, just NPCs who are absolutely agog.

Lorna Hermit used to be Lorna Guugelheit, and spent most of her childhood ensconced in her family’s mansion and totally ignorant of anything they did. But then she manifests the skill that all these “sort of based on a game” worlds have people do, and it turns out to be SSS-Ranked. Her family is horrified! Skills go from A to G! To have her skill be SSS, it must be ludicrously bad if it’s that late in the alphabet! Needless to say, she is thrown out of the family and dumped in the incredibly dangerous forest at the edge of her domain. Then she actually figures out what her skill does… she can access the wiki page for her world, which turns out to be a game! Not that she knows this, all she knows is that the “gods” are giving her helpful hints on where the monsters and valuable herbs are. Unfortunately, she immediately gets the endgame “most powerful weapon” – by wiki searching – and so is just a LITTLE bit overpowered…

Lorna will remind you of Maple quite a bit, to be honest, but by the end of the volume I was struck by the fact that this is a secret villainess story. Noble girl thrown out of her family, who all turn out to be not-so-secretly evil. She goes to the nearby town to make a life for herself and dazzles everyone around her. But if I’m being honest, this series is really for those who like Kuma Bear and Make My Abilities Average but wishes there were fewer 8-year-olds and more magic battles. Lorna is a classic airhead, so keeps using the smallest spell she can think of, even when with her MP the smallest spell can still take out top-tier bosses. Antagonists see how thick her mana is and drop to their knees in terror. Best of all is the internet skill itself. Lorna deals with popup malware, cryptocurrency, and comment trolls telling her to take off her panties. She thinks it’s the gods speaking to her. By the end of the volume, even the elves believe commenters are using slang of the gods, and adopt it themselves. This book is ridiculous.

So, not for everyone, but I had a ball. I will definitely check out a second book, though this risks getting old fast. Also, terrific pun that I missed until the very end of the book.

Banished from the Hero’s Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside, Vol. 14

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By Zappon and Yasumo. Released in Japan as “Shin no Nakama ja Nai to Yuusha no Party wo Oidasaretanode, Henkyou de Slow Life Surukoto ni Shimashita” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Dale DeLucia.

I admit I had sort of hoped that this volume would be entirely devoted to Red and Rit’s wedding, given the cover. And there are a few bits with everyone being really happy for them, getting the wedding dress made, etc. And yes, it does end with the wedding. But sadly this has always been a slow life series where the slow life struggles against the rest of the universe trying to drag everyone back into its troubles, and so the bulk of this book is trying to resolve the demons and God. That said, how it’s resolved ends up being pretty slow life in the end, as it’s just Red using… not his blessing, because that’s the whole point, but winning by being clever and strong. I am hoping, though, that this is the last we see of both sides of the conflict, and that the honeymoon volume (the final one) really is slow life.

A letter arrives from Yarandrala saying that she’s coming back to Zoltan. As such, Red and Rit realize that the time has finally come to set a date for their wedding. They’re try to keep the news quiet… which lasts about three seconds till everyone they know is screaming “they’re finally getting married?!?”. Unfortunately, there’s a nasty cold going around… or is it just a cold? Investigating, Red finds a mysterious plant near where the tomb they raided was. He also finds the demon lord and his aide, who Red and Rit have a long history with. We’re told that they’re trying to be heroes now, and certainly they’re saving villages and giving good advice about the sickness… but can they be trusted? And will Demis simply give up and let Ruti live her own life?

Demis has never been anyone’s favorite, and I think that applies to the readers as well as to the cast of the series. Here they possess a long-forgotten minor villain, Eremite, in order to make their point. Unfortunately for Demis, as with a lot of gods in fantasy series like this, they’ve long since lost the “I must help humanity because it’s the right thing to do” part of their godhood and are left with the “why does everyone not simply do exactly what I want them to?”. It feels thematically appropriate, if a bit pat (the fight goes ludicrously well) that Red is the one to defeat both Demis and Taraxon. On the bright side, this means the wedding happens (relatively) smoothly, without needing to worry about anyone’s blessing suddenly turning them evil. Best of all, Ruti allows Red and Rit to get married with not one single incestuous remark! Let’s hope it’s an excellent sign of maturity. Maybe she won’t even go on the honeymoon with them.

The next volume is the last, and honestly, this series has gone on a bit too long. But not to the point where I’m annoyed reading it. This was good.

Agents of the Four Seasons, Vol. 5

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By Kana Akatsuki and Suoh. Released in Japan as “Shunka Shūtō Daikōsha” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Sergio Avila.

After all the trauma of the first four, I noticed this one was a stand-alone volume, and I hoped that it might be a breather, a chance to relax and perhaps have a more lighthearted plot. And indeed the first half of this book fulfilled my wish. For the most part we have not had to deal with the supernatural person being in love with their minder in this series. Agents tend to love other agents, or other unrelated people. This also applies to the Archer of Twilight. Oh, sure, they are so ridiculously close to their minders that you can see the relationship as homoerotic (see my prior reviews regarding Hinagiku and Sakura), but we haven’t really had a romantic relationship until this book. Kaya is a teenager who is unable to deal with a crush, and her minder, Yuzuru, who clearly loves her deeply but is repressing it. The two of them push against each other, and get grumpy and sad, and it’s adorable. Well, until it isn’t.

Last time we met the Archer of Twilight, Kaguya, whose arrows brought about the night. The Archer of Dawn had a brief, minor appearance, but we get to know her here. After being chosen to be Archer, she was assigned a custodian, but he quickly found that walking up and down a mountain every day for years was too taxing for him. His son, however, Yuzuru, proved only too happy to step in and take care of Kaya. And now she’s in high school. She’s even able to go to an actual school, thanks to concessions from the organization behind all this. She’s a bit worried about Yuzuru, though, who’s so awesome and deserves so much better than staying with her his entire life. Even if she really wants him to, but is too shy to say so. And then there’s a landslide, and everything goes to hell.

While you can rest assured that the bad guys who want to control everyone and everything involved with the seasons and the day/night cycle are still here and still bad, I was rather surprised to find that they weren’t behind the natural disaster that leads off the second half of the book. Sometimes tragic stuff happens and it’s just because of natural causes. That said, the theme of this series is still present and correct. When Kaya makes the decision she does later in the book, she knows that she’s going to be punished for it. Everyone does, in fact, and other people are trying to take the punishment so she doesn’t have to. The best part of the book is when, in the epilogue, Kaya is told her punishment will end soon, she briefly feels it’s not nearly bad enough. Whereupon she’s told “You’re still in high school.” As these books go on, other people are bringing up over and over again what they are doing to children, and pushing back is becoming less a travesty and more a necessity.

We’re back to an arc next time, with more focus on Autumn, who played a major role in this book. Till then, this remains very well-written but also a bit worrying. These poor kids.