High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World!, Vol. 3

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By Riku Misora and Sacraneco. Released in Japan as “Choujin Koukousei-tachi wa Isekai demo Yoyuu de Ikinuku you desu!” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nathaniel Hiroshi Thrasher.

I’m not even sure where to begin. It’s sad that this is a book where our heroes literally fire a nuclear weapon that destroys a stronghold, and yet that isn’t even close to the most appalling thing that happens in it. I am familiar with the light novel cliche where, in order to show that your morally vague heroes are on the side of goodness and niceness, you need to show that the bad guys are evil, raping the virgins and biting the heads off kittens sort of guys so that the audience says “they had it coming” to any punishment they may get. I had thought dropping In Another World with My Smartphone would mean I might see the end of that. And yet here we are. For now, I will merely content myself with saying lobotomies are bad, were historically mostly done on women, and please do not use them as what amounts to a comedy punchline – even if I grant you the author does not want us to find it funny.

Keine’s on the cover, and also gets the biggest fanservice in the book. The plot of this volume mostly involves gearing up for the next steps – trying to get a republic started. Tsukasa does not want him and his geniuses to stay here forever, of course, and knows that a democracy band-aid is not going to cut it. And “the nobles rule, we just serve” is pretty ingrained into the people. More troubling is that they’re running out of penicillin (which Keine and Lyrule take care of, inventing sulfa drugs) and the other nations are starting to want to stop this before it goes too far. And let’s not even get into the fact that the supposed saviors the Blue Brigade are actually mostly bad guys. It’s getting so that he can’t even go out on a note date with the girl who’s crushing on him!

So yes, I could have done without the entire Keine chapter, which seems to simply show off that she’s a sociopath. And, as I noted, we get not one but TWO sets of villains who talk about raping young women. The best chapter in the book, hands down, was Ringo’s date with Tsukasa, and its general tone of “you are already losing to the girl who got the cover of Volume 1, do something or you will not be able to catch up”. The date went well considering Ringo’s extreme introversion (we also learn about her past, which is sort of what I expected) and Tsukasa’s deliberate obliviousness. She also gets the emotional climax, where it’s her turn to remind Tsukasa that he is in fact a real human being who is allowed to feel things, and this time it’s Lyrule who’s on the outside looking in.

That said, in a series about establishing a new political landscape and finding ways to defeat bad guys who seem to be unkillable, the fact that I’m focusing on the love triangle is not a good sign. The High School Prodigies may be having it easy, but they’re giving me trouble.

Fushi no Kami: Rebuilding Civilization Starts with a Village, Vol. 2

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By Mizuumi Amakawa and Mai Okuma. Released in Japan as “Fushi no Kami: Henkyou kara Hajimeru Bunmei Saiseiki” by Overlap. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Maurice Alesch.

Not to spoil or anything, but around 4/5 of the way through this second volume, a demon monster shows up. It startled me, as the entire book before this had essentially been ‘let’s learn how to make fertilizer’ and ‘tomatoes are awesome!’. What I said when reviewing the first book goes double for this one: it’s a slow life book where the slow life is running at top speed. Indeed, the inability of anyone to stop Ash and his ideas becomes a running gag. But then ‘rebuilding civilization’ is in the title, and it can’t be denied that Ash’s ideas are very good. So the demon monster, just like the bear from the first book, is there to give Ash a chance to be a more typical hero, one that can fight against huge antagonists rather than simply be an intellectual. It’s a good fight, too. That said, I think I like Ash casually tipping over all preconceptions of what society is like a bit better than stabbing a creature through the eye.

Ash and Maika have arrived at the nearest city to continue their educations. It’s not the grandest city in the world… Ash is unimpressed. But it’s certainly got more books than his village had, and maybe here he can learn to make better fertilizer. His roommate is Arthur, a noble who is actually a girl disguising herself as a boy. Ash, sensing tragic backstory, doesn’t let on he’s guessed this and merely gives Arthur space every morning and evening. They’re theoretically there to learn reading adn writing, but both know how already, so instead Maika works on her martial arts and swordsmanship, and Ash works on overthrowing all common sense. He makes liquid soap… which turns out to be illegal, but eh. Semantics. He grows delicious tomatoes… which everyone thinks are poisonous, and he has to research why. Can he drag this city kicking and screaming into the modern world? And can Maika ever get through to Ash that she’s in love with him?

As with the first volume, the POV here alternates between Ash and various other characters to show both things happening when he’s not around/unconscious, or to show how others react to his eccentricities. Maika is the most interesting of these, as it’s become clear that her love for Ash is burgeoning on obsession, as she talks about making sure she’s worthy to stand at his side. Honestly, there’s a very messianic quality about Ash in general, not helped by the author’s afterwords supposedly being written years later showing us Fushi no Kami as a “history textbook”. The other main character introduced here is Arthur, and I was rather surprised that we only got a few hints of their rather unhappy life to date, and don’t get into the reason for the disguise. Arthur is mostly miserable, meaning their fake smiles piss Maika off, and seeing the three of them bond is the heartwarming part of the book.

Ash may not have magic swords or fireballs, but in his own way he’s just as OP as other isekai heroes. How much you enjoy this book might depend on how much you can tolerate everyone worshiping the ground he walks on. That said, it’s a very readable book, and you never feel bored, even when discussing things like “I need seaweed in order to take the next step in my plan”.

Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight, Vol. 10

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By Hyougetsu and Nishi(E)da. Released in Japan by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen.

Now that Veight has pretty much succeeded in uniting the continent, and Airia is settling in as the new Demon Lord (and also getting pregnant, which answers that whole ‘can werewolves and humans mate?’ question from the last book), the book have been branching out into other unrelated countries, showing how they really need Veight to come in and shake things up. His trip to Wa was fairly straightforward and normal, despite the past life shenanigans, but this time things are a lot more difficult, and Veight is going to be forced to take action despite wanting nothing more than to stay by Airia’s side. Oh yes, and teach young students how to be a good leader. In fact, this book may be outdoing Realist Hero on the subject of running a country, and it also does not need to venerate Machiavelli, which is always a plus. Most of all, though, we get a really nasty and horrible villain here, something we haven’t seen in these books for a while.

Kuwol, a southern kingdom with lots of sea transport, is getting close to a civil war between two varieties of nobility and a rather shallow and brainless king. Veight is trying his best to stay out of it, knowing that they don’t have the ships to send a huge army and also don’t want to get involved in foreign affairs, but as things go further south, and Parker goes missing, he is forced to act. What he finds is that one of the groups of nobles has hired mercenaries to supplement their forces, led by Zagar, who is a thoroughly reprehensible man who nevertheless commands intense loyalty from those at his command. Veight doesn’t trust him, but is not particularly a violent man, so is content to wait and watch and try to make things better for the civilians caught in the war. Unfortunately, this proves unwise as Zagar has grander plans than a simple civil war.

The main plot is pretty much what you’d expect, and the author says in the afterword he wanted to show Veight’s hands-off approach being the wrong choice. That said, there are lots of little details in this book I liked. Seeing Veight’s young students trying to come up with forward thinking ideas. Airia’s absolutely awful morning sickness, and Veight feeling somewhat helpless to do anything for her. There’s a moment near the end when Zagar offers Veight three of the former lord’s mistresses for pleasure, and Veight, naturally, is uninterested in anything but Airia. However, Zagar is determined to second the women to Veight’s company (are they spies?) and so asks if they can be secretaries, and they promptly show off a savviness that I quite liked. That said, the brutality of the final scenes is start, and we’re left with a cliffhanger that makes us wonder how Veight is going to handle things without the whole nation falling apart.

The next book is supposed to be the last book in the “main series”, though I know there’s at least one after it. I suppose peace and prosperity are harder to write about, which is probably why Veight is traveling to a civil war. In the meantime, Der Werwolf remains very underrated, and has a minimum of Veight being super modest this time around.