The Wicked Princess and Her Twelve Eyes: The Legendary Villainess and Her Elite Assassins

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By Daken and saino. Released in Japan as “Aku no Reijou to Juuni no Hitomi: Saikyou Juusha-tachi to Densetsu no Akujo, Jinsei Nidome no Kareinaru Musouroku” by Overlap Novels. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by piyo (Irene Nakano). Adapted by Rei Geronimo.

I was going to buy this anyway simply as I like the genre, but then I saw it was by the author of Who Killed the Hero?. And then, for some reason, as I was reading it, I totally forgot that. I’m not sure why. But the first, oh, two-thirds of this book is content to just be a hoot. You’ve got the usual villainess who goes back in time and does things over again. There’s a large helping of humor, both because she’s an absolute sadist but also from the author themselves (one of the color pages tells us what each of her squires excels in, and one girl is simply “energetic!” in a “no thoughts, head empty” sort of way). That said, don’t worry, this *is* by the author of Who Killed the Hero?, and the last 50 pages or so made me sit up, and then made my jaw drop as I recalled all the things I hadn’t bothered to pay attention to.

Serena Rosenberg starts this book, as all good villainesses do, by getting her engagement broken in front of a large crowd of nobles. Unlike most villainesses, she really is guilty of a lot of attempted murder against the heroine. Even though none of her attempts succeeded, she’s sentenced to death. As she’s forced to drink poison, she realizes that her biggest fault was that she did not have competent minions. Then she wakes up as a baby again, but with memories of her past life. Unfortunately, she’s still pretty much a terrible person, but she definitely wants to avoid her previous fate. Therefore, she actually studies magic and the sword, getting good at everything. She also goes to an orphanage, grabs the six “problem children” from it, and puts them through training. Ridiculously hard training.

The bulk of this book goes sort of how you’d expect, being one of those “Serena does something with evil intentions, but everyone else sees it as good” sort of books. Her hellish training really is needed to snap this orphans out of their mindsets, and makes them better people. She gets them dogs, who become good pets and like family to them. She does this for absolutely WRETCHED reasons, but because she’s being so good, those reasons have to be abandoned. And as the book goes on, we see her realizing that she doesn’t really want to get revenge, and doesn’t care if the heroine marries the prince after all. It’s headed for a “doing good thing feels good” sort of ending… and then we’re reminded about things we took for granted because this genre has lots of mediocre things that make the brain assume. Like why does her mother avoid her? Like why did she go back in time in the first place? The last chunk of this book is here to answer the questions, and the answer is pretty terrific. And yes, author, I appreciated the added ending.

If you like this author, cool plot twists, or books where the protagonist is terrible but in a fun way, this is a must-read. Also, I teared up a bit when I realized what the title meant.

The Twelve Kingdoms, Book Two: Shadow of the Moon, Shadow of the Sea, Part 2

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By Fuyumi Ono and Akihiro Yamada. Released in Japan as “Tsuki no Kage, Kage no Umi” by X Bunko White Heart. Released in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment. Translated by Kim Morrissy. Adapted by Monica Sullivan.

Last time I assumed that things would get better for Youko over the course of this second book, and to be fair they do SORT OF, but it does not remove the trauma of what has happened to her, especially once she discovers that this journey, much as she would like it to be otherwise, is pretty one-sided. By the end of the first book she was betrayed twice over, and is mentally and physically on her last legs, and so at the start of this book she regards any act of kindness at all as an attempt to soften her up before they betray her again. It doesn’t help that she’s still getting attacked by youma, which she’s getting quite good at killing – her sword skills are improving by leaps and bounds! – but it does also mean that she’s starting to regard herself as a bad person… and perhaps not even a person at all. Which, um, turns out to be correct. Except for the bad part.

After the events of the last volume, Youko is in bad shape, and unable to trust anyone. She ends up, fortunately, getting picked up by the best possible rat that she can. And no, I don’t mean a rat as in a terrible person, I mean an actual walking, talking rat. Rakushun is a Hanjyuu, a half-beast, who is smart and kind but unfortunately in the wrong kingdom to be able to get ahead. He spends a large portion of the start of the book trying to convince Youko that he’s not going to sic the guards on her the first chance he can get. He also gives her a lot more information about this world, which will come in handy when they are inevitably separated on their journey and she has to go on alone. Eventually she ends up in the kingdom of En, which is a LOT better than where she was. Unfortunately, the youma keep attacking her no matter where she is.

I was prepared for this to feel a lot different from the anime, as Sugimoto doesn’t exist in the novels beyond the very start. But wow, this book is concerned with Youko and her situation, and everything else about it is secondary. Not to spoil too much, but there’s a huge battle between an army of soldiers trying to protect a false queen and Youko and a number of crack troops, and it starts on page 209 and is done by page 210. The false queen herself takes up half of the cover art. We never meet her. This book is laser-focused on Youko and her thought process, and it’s absolutely riveting. We see her start at the lowest possible ebb, and as she gradually learns to trust again and gains more and more information, she realizes how intertwined she is with this world and how it’s practically impossible for her to run away without causing a catastrophe. The climax of the book is not the battle – it can’t be. It’s Youko’s choice. The rest is just an afterthought.

Now, the next book does not in fact focus on Youko, but moves to a different kingdom, as if to remind us that the title of the book is indeed The Twelve Kingdoms. I still can’t wait to read it.

The Adorable Dungeon Master, Vol. 1

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By Hunger and Llo. Released in North America by J-Novel Club.

This is the 2nd of the J-Novel Club original light novel contest winners I’ve taken a look at, this one with illustrations by the artist who does Reincarnated as a Sword. Unlike An Unruly Summon, I don’t think the author has a large number of similar-looking webnovel series lying around the internet, so this is definitely the first I’ve seen of them. This won the Bookwalker Prize, which was as far as I can tell the one the Bookwalker Judge wanted to single out, and the judge commented on how cute it was. And they’re not wrong. Though you may not guess it after reading the prologue, this book is called The Adorable Dungeon Master and that’s exactly what you will get. Lilac’s inner narration can be a hoot, as she alternates between being a sensible gamer bringing modern-day knowledge to a “based on a game medieval fantasy” world and a chatterbox young women with no off switch. She loves cute things, and there’s a lot of them as well. That said, be warned: this is about as deep as a puddle, and the one or two times I thought it might get deeper, it ran away from it.

Luicia Morales has big plans. Sure, she was a bit of a nerd in high school, mostly interested in linguistics, and with an overprotective family making sure no guys came anywhere near her. But now her family is getting ready to move out of the dangerous neighborhood they live in, and she’s going to study to be an interpreter! Unfortunately… no, not Truck-kun… as she’s about to get in the moving van, a nearby turf war means she’s shot and killed as a passerby. She wakes up as (try to contain your surprise) the character in the old game she loved! She’s a Sprigian (fairy), she’s about half to a third of the size of a human, cute as hell, and she’s stacked and has a big ass, which I merely mention here because she mentions it an awful lot. She’s also very OP, and as it turns out she’s the Heir of Balance, which means she’s Very Important. Which is good, as she’s in the nightmarish forest of monsters.

This is, as I said, a lot lighter in tone than the grim beginning might suggest. Lucia/Lilac has one brief moment where she grieves about her death and thinks of her family, but her grief causes bad weather in the fairy castle she’s in (it’s controlled by her emotions), so she basically moves on to make things nicer. There are actual bad guys in this new world, but they’re all of the “cartoonishly evil noble” sort, and the biggest surprise in the book is that the fate of one of them isn’t just “killed off in the worst possible way”. The best parts of the book are when Lilac is either making new minions and interacting with them (I particularly liked the bear who turns out to be a bear mascot who is cripplingly shy), or when she’s actually thinking about the linguistics that she wanted to be her specialty back in Japan… wait, no, this is an OLN, back in America, I assume. She bonds with an ancient human scholar in the new world, and their relationship was pretty cute, and possibly the healthiest she has given that her default way of looking at those she’s created as minions tends to be “oh no he’s hot”.

There is an exciting battle against a giant frog/crocodile lake monster near the end, but for the most part this book is for people who don’t want to see its lead break a sweat, but they do want to see her snuggle cute giant wolf puppies and make teddy bears for young princesses.