How to Melt the Ice Queen’s Heart, Vol. 1

Leave a reply

By Kakeru Takamine and Ichigo Kagawa. Released in Japan as “Kouri no Reijou no Tokashi Kata” by Monster Bunko. Released in North America by Tentai Books. Translated by Alejandro de Vicente Suárez and Noor Hamadan.

We’ve discussed this before. In order to make the male lead of a romance – be it light novel, manga or game – appeal to the average reader who is basically plastering their face on his, they must have as few defining traits as possible. They should have middling to lower grades – but not actually failing – and either be average at sports or avoid them altogether. They tend to be members of the Go Home Club, unless of course the romance in question involves a club, which it usually does. This is all very well and good, but it always leads to the question: what on Earth does she see in him? In fact, “they”, because usually these sorts of books have multiple girls all falling for the hero. Fortunately, How to Melt the Ice Queen’s Heart, in addition to avoiding most of these pitfalls, has an excellent answer as to what she sees in him and why her heart melts: HE CAN COOK.

Asahi is a young man who is somewhat reserved, not really prone to sarcasm or cynicism, and his biggest problem seems to be dealing with his best friend and his best friend’s girlfriend – who are both very loud, energetic, and flirty with each other. He doesn’t pay much attention to his classmate Fuyuka, a stoic young woman who is the Ice Queen of the title – she avoids interpersonal relationships. One day, when she does not show up for school, he finds that not only does she live next door to him in the apartment complex, but she’s also suffering from a bad cold and high fever. Initially throwing off all attempts at his help, she finally gives in after passing out in the hallway. After he cares for her and makes her food to feel better, she tries to pay him back, at first with plain old cash (he refuses), then by helping him study. From here, romance blossoms.

There’s not really a great deal to this book beyond the romance – it is here for one thing and that is seeing these two nice kids slowly start to fall for each other. Naturally, Fuyuka’s ice queen reserve is more “socially awkward” than anything else, though she seems to have a tragic past. Asahi does not have a tragic past per se, but he does have two “famous” parents and their restaurant, which is the main reason he’s living by himself. The two mostly bond through cooking lessons (him) and study lessons (her), and we also get a sports festival which involves a prize which traditionally is given to the person you love, trying to hide your not-quite-relationship from the two Worst Best Friends out there, and how to negotiate a night out on Christmas Eve when it’s spent at a restaurant not only run by Asahi’s parents but literally named and themed after him.

It’s sweet. It’s heartwarming. It’s got virtually zero drama or wacky comedy shenanigans – there’s not even any fanservice! It is a light novel you could happily introduce to your parents – though beware if your parents are as goofy as Asahi’s. I liked this a lot.

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, Vol. 7

Leave a reply

By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda.

Last time I talked about how one of the most interesting aspects of the Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear series for me was the fact that it kept getting dark, despite being about cute girls doing cute things. Naturally, this new volume therefore has none of that, with no dark moments and very little real conflict at all. It is almost pure fluff. Fortunately, I am at a point right now where I need pure fluff, so this book was like a nice balm to my soul. If there’s any conflict in the volume it comes from Fina, who is still terrified whenever she has to be around nobility, and here is passed off the Ellelaura and the actual King. She’s convinced that she’ll do something to screw up and get herself executed, and spends the entire time in a froth. Yuna, of course, does not understand this at all, not even when Fina spells it out for her later in the volume. Yuna has no issues interacting with anyone, of course.

We start off with Yuna going into the mines to deal with the pesky respawning golems. She’s joined by the friendly adventurer party we’ve seen before, and also opposed by a rival adventurer party, whose leader is quite a jerk. (Yuna, amusingly, compares the rival party to the Power Rangers.) Unfortunately, most of the things Yuna does to defeat enemies would also cause a cave-in, so trying to get to the golem that’s the cause of all of this is going to need a bit more strategy. After this, Yuna manages to score mithril knives for Fina and her sister (who is seven, but it’s never too early to give a child a knife) and some mithril weapons for herself. The rest of the book is made up ,mostly of cooking, as Yuna finds one of Morin’s relatives in the capital who wants to be a baker and sends her to Cremonia to meet up, and then invents strawberry shortcake.

In general, the funniest parts of this series involve either a) Yuna getting belittled for wearing the bear onesie, or b) Yuna having no concept of social customs, mores, or ethics. We get both of those here, with the highlight being when Yuna gives Fina the mithril knife – for free – and then tries to give her another one for her sister, and Fina simply loses it, berating Yuna in the middle of the street about how much mithril costs normally, and that Yuna cannot simply live her life not giving a crap about the economy, giving away all this and expecting nothing in return. This is especially true of Fina, a very serious girl who is unfortunately saddled with Yuna for a best friend. Other highlights include Yuna visiting the royal family with her bears in cub form, and finding it very hard to get Flora and the Queen herself from letting go of them.

So yeah, nothing much happens, but it’s cute. This is what folks think every volume in the series is like. That’s not really true, but this is fine too.

High School DxD: Vampire of the Suspended Classroom

Leave a reply

By Ichiei Ishibumi and Miyama-Zero. Released in Japan by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Haydn Trowell.

To a certain degree, all “harem” series (at least those with multiple girls all in love with the same guy) all suffer from the same major flaw, which is that the guy has to be fairly normal and dull. It might seem surprising that I’m saying this about Issei, someone who literally cannot go three pages without talking about tits some more. but it’s true. All the girls love Issei. They get jealous when he’s with another girl. They fight over him. They offer up their virginity to him. And why? Well, he’s nice to them? I mean, with Asia I get it, he literally is her savior. You could say the same for Rias, though it’s a higher bar to clear. But Akeno? Xenovia? Why does this lecherous dipshit who won’t even grope anyone without passing out offer such temptation? Well, frankly, it’s probably what he’s got inside him. The sacred gear, and the dragon that comes with it, make Issei an important player in the battle between the angels, fallen angels, and demons. That is… if there is a war.

No, Akeno is not the titular vampire (and I apologize for having to use the word titular when discussing High School DxD). I thought this might be her “focus” book, but while we do get some hefty revelations about her past, it’s clear her time is still to come. No, the new character here is Gasper Vladi, who is the vampire of the title, and who ticks off several more “light novel cliche” boxes. He’s a boy who everyone mistakes for a girl; he’s got cripplingly low self-esteem and a fear of interacting with others, and he’s ludicrously overpowered, as he can cause people to freeze in time… though, like Issei, his power has more weaknesses than strengths right now. That said, while trying to coax Gasper out of his shell, Rias’ group also have to deal with a peace conference, which risks blowing up before it begins.

Despite the previous paragraph, there’s not a lot that happens in this book compared to the previous three – it’s a lot of setup for the next few books, as we introduce a couple of major players who look like they’ll give Issei trouble (though one of them turns out to be more of a mecha otaku than anything else). Indeed, I was more surprised at things that didn’t happen. The book starts off by telling us about parent-teacher conferences, which will not only feature Issei’s parents going but also Rias’. Any other light novel series would make this a book of its own, but here it takes fewer pages than the pool battle between Rias and Akeno to see whose breasts get to be groped by Issei. The series manages to work for its target audience because it not only assumes its readership are horny teenage boys who don’t have the guts to cop a feel, but that all the women in this series are essentially ALSO that. It’s… weird.

Still, the one fight we got was pretty cool, and if there’s any series you can’t get mad at for staying on brand, it’s this one – there are breasts in High School DxD? Who knew? Recommended for those who read the fan translated PDFs years ago.