She’s the Cutest… But We’re Just Friends!, Vol. 2

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By Akamitsu Awamura and mmu. Released in Japan as “Ore no Onna Tomodachi ga Saikou ni Kawaii” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by airco.

There’s a narrowing of focus in this second volume. In the first book, we got to see a whole lot of Kai and Jun’s peers, classmates, and rivals and see how their “relationship” impacted all of them. For the most part, there’s very little of that in the second volume. Indeed, Reina, my favorite character from the last book, has a much smaller role here, though she certainly makes use of it, seeing what the rest of the cast don’t. But for the most part this volume deals only with three characters: Kai, Jun, and Kotobuki, the girl who confessed to him in the cliffhanger of the last book. I was honestly worried about the addition of Kotobuki after that last book, fearing this would become a “one girl per book” sort of harem series. Fortunately, my worries were unfounded – I’d argue this book is better than the last one, getting into the nitty gritty of friends vs. girlfriends and coming out on the friends side.

Kotobuki has indeed confessed to Kai, and suggests dating in order to get to know each other, an idea that floors him because he’s read too much manga and believes you only date AFTER falling in love The date actually goes pretty well, and they’re a cute couple. Then they coincidentally run into Jun on their date… and she can’t get over how CUTE Kotobuki is! No jealousy on her end at all. The trouble is the other end… Kotobuki had heard that Kai had a friend who came over to play games, but assumed it was, well, a female otaku stereotype. Not a stacked blonde goddess. Feeling a bit desperate and threatened, she decides to up her seduction game… which proves to be EXACTLY the wrong move. Can she and Kai recover from the backlash? And can you have a girlfriend and also have a close female friend who’s even more tactile than your girlfriend?

The most interesting thing about this book is that the drama is almost entirely one-sided. Jun is simply not remotely getting jealous, loves Kotobuki to death, and her reaction to Kai accidentally walking in on her topless is nonexistent. If the series is eventually going to get Kai and Jun together, it’s got a long way to go on Jun’s side. That said, she fills an important role here, as she allows Kai and Kotobuki to recover from their dating mishap and find steadier ground. Kai, like Jun, does not feel mature enough to be in a relationship, something that Kotobuki also realizes about herself during the course of the book. Indeed, the book may be an ad for “just friends”, as the best scenes in it are the ones with no tension or romantic angst, just the three of them hanging out and having fun. (It’s also a giant ad for anime and manga properties, and not just GA Bunko series. The lack of censorship is jaw-dropping.)

Unfortunately, after two quick volumes in February and June of 2020, there has been no more of this series in Japan. I hope we eventually get some closure. In the meantime, this is a good one if you like romcoms with a bit less drama than usual.

I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss, Vol. 1

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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.

Generally speaking, the best types of isekai stories (and villainess stories) are the ones that actually try to do something with the format beyond “I have memories from Japan”. In particular, villainess stories that examine what exactly it means to be that sort of character I’ve found to be a cut above, and this book definitely falls into that category. For all that we hear about girls constantly playing otome games with villainesses who sneer and plot at the heroine, the game never gets into how they grew up to be that sort of person. Why would it? The villainess is an obstacle to be overcome. But villainess light novels do have that opportunity. What’s more, as with male-driven isekai novels that show the hero amassing a loving harem and having amazing OP powers, the villainess books are also fantasy-driven… but the fantasy tends to be “have men actually respect me” and “start my own successful business”. It knows its core audience.

The start of this book may seem a bit familiar to readers of this genre. Aileen suddenly realizes she has memories of her past life from Japan, where she played an otome game called Regalia of Saints, Demons and Maidens. Unfortunately, this comes back to her while she’s being publicly dumped and shamed by her fiancee. And now she recalls that the next steps are getting disowned and dying in the slums. PASS! Trying to figure out a way out of this mess, and with her sadistic father being of very little help, she decides to confront her fiancee’s older brother, the titular final boss and also the demon lord. It takes a while to win him over, and she often has to rely on pure moxie, but she does it. Unfortunately, bad things keep happening. The business she started has been taken from her. Everyone insists she’s trying to kill Lilia, the heroine. And most annoyingly, her otome game memories are faint, and only come up after the bad end has begun. can she manage to survive?

Aileen definitely falls on the ‘smart and savvy’ end of the villainess scale, though as with ALL entries in this genre she tends to be somewhat oblivious about men falling for her and their being jealous of other men. There’s very little downtime in this book, as she realizes that if she doesn’t fix everything FAST, she’s going to die. I really enjoyed the scenes with her father, which help to explain a lot of her personality. He’s twisted and enjoys seeing her suffer – mostly to see the look on her face. Actually, that’s a running theme in this book – the demon lord also says he wants to see her cry, probably because she’s normally so together and adept at everything. She also has a lot of allies who stick around even after her public shaming… though for once this does NOT include the heroine, who… well, let’s just say she’s no Maria Campbell.

This series is 8 volumes long so far in Japan, which is worrying as this also suffers from another issue common to villainess novels: it feels complete in one book. That said, we do know that most of the events here take place on the first “route” of the game. Will she have to deal with other bad boys? Honestly, she can probably take them. In the meantime, enjoy a strong entry in the Villainess sweepstakes – it’s even getting an anime soon.

No Game No Life: Practical War Game

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By Yuu Kamiya. Released in Japan by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Richard Tobin.

It has been a rough couple years for No Game No Life. The author has had health issues, which has led to a long hiatus in Japan (though the 11th volume is due out there next month). As with Re: Zero and Index, Yen licensed this side story volume out of order, so a lot of it is setting up a 10th volume that we read a year and a half ago. And of course the entire series has been banned, in print and digital form, by Amazon… except for this new volume, which they are quite happy to sell because no one can guess how they actually decide anything. That said, it is good to finally see this book which goes back to the events of the 6th volume and shows us things from the POV of Think, the elven legend. Unfortunately, this flashback is only a little more than a third of this book, which is otherwise padded out with short stories that originally came with the DVD releases in Japan. Yep, it’s a short story volume.

Practical War Game itself starts off with Sora and Shiro playing Feel and Chlammy in a game of chess, which Feel is trying to deliberately lose once she hears what the prize is (molesting Chlammy). Jibril then tells the siblings about Feel’s ancestor, and about her acolyte Nina, who takes over after Think supposedly “disappears”. After this, we get a story showing off a desperate Steph, running low on sleep and sanity, challenging the siblings to game after game, even it means more humiliation. Par for the course, in other words. We then get a story about Feel and Chlammy’s past, and how and why they set up what happens at the start of the series. Finally, we get a two-parter focused on Jibril, just why she’s so special, and her determination to do the impossible simply because everyone else says it can’t be done.

As always with this series, I love Steph, even when it’s making her the fanservice queen or having her be the chump for the sake of humor. She almost manages to speak out a win here, and is basically told “try this again when you’ve slept and are calm”. The story with Feel and Chlammy was also fun, showing them as a lot more of a loving couple than the main books do, as well as exactly how they got that way. The bulk of the book are the stories with Think and Jibril, which are flawed but good. I can do without the author’s “is this LGBT representation or shameless trolling fanservice!”, mostly because by now we know it’s both. The sections of Jibril’s story dealing with the dragon are fantastic, but Azril is simply FAR too annoying to make it 100% enjoyable, and the canon explanation as to why really doesn’t work for me.

Still, overall it’s a better volume than some of the recent books have been, and should make fans of the series happy. Oh yes, and there’s a new translator. I think the books read a bit smoother than before, though Kamiya’s writing is always hard to parse.