Otherside Picnic, Vol. 4

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By Iori Miyazawa and shirakaba. Released in Japan as “Urasekai Picnic” by Hayakawa Bunko JA. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sean McCann.

Last time I talked about the fact that the narrative voice in this series is Sorawo’s, and how that makes the character of Toriko more intriguing. After this book, I’ll go even further and say that the narrative of Sorawo is vital to what makes Otherside Picnic so good, and that it’s even better because it can’t be trusted. In the first story in this book, Sorawo worries that she and Toriko are becoming desensitized to horror, but quickly shoves that off to the side, which is a shame, as yes, she absolutely is. More to the point, the horrific urban legends that she and Toriko are seeing are starting to be personally aimed at her, to the point where 3/4 of this book takes place in the “real world”. Sorawo’s past is not a pleasant one, and this book wants to remind her of it and, if ,possible, drag her back into it again. And then there’s Toriko, who is finally able to get Sorawo to stop denying what’s really, really obvious.

There are four short stories here. Two are good (1 and 3), two are great (2 and 4). The first sees our girls joining Migiwa and the rest of his organization in cleaning up the remains of the “farm” where Sorawo was kidnapped, and finding several Otherside creatures and booby traps along the way. The second sees Sorawo being threatened by something in the apartment next door to hers, to the point where she’s forced to stay first with Akari (to the displeasure of a jealous Natsumi) and then Kozakura, before finally confronting the source with Toriko. The third story sees the two (plus Kozakura) at a hot spring, which is mostly Toriko trying to make her feelings clear but also involves a brief brush with mannequins. Finally, after getting their APV upgraded, Sorawo and Toriko spend a night in the Otherside… at a crumbling and abandoned love hotel, where Sorawo’s past finally catches up with her and tries to get her to make a tragic choice.

I joked on Twitter about how Sorawo made a deal to have all that urban legend knowledge (her bookshelves are RIDICULOUS) at the expense of being unable to recognize lesbians, which is not really true, but it feels like it at times. She doesn’t seem to quite get why Natsumi is jealous of her staying with Akari, and the first half of the book has the usual uncomfortable denial of Toriko’s feelings. After a while, though, it becomes more clear that Sorawo really does know what Toriko means, but is too busy being scared and self-loathing to confront it. She can say ‘I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you” here, but that’s not quite the same thing as what Toriko wants – Toriko wants physical affection. It’s not clear where things go from here, but after confronting her past again in the Otherside (that kerosene bit – brrrr), I do think they’re in a better place to actually be in a relationship.

The anime is airing as I type this, and seems to be leaning more into “cute girls doing cute horror things” than I’d like, but for those who would like a bit more terror and a bit more yuri, this volume fits the bill perfectly.

Sword Art Online, Vol. 21: Unital Ring I

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By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

This is the first book in the “main” Sword Art Online series that was not adapted from the webnovel that Kawahara wrote years earlier. As such, it’s the first one where we should have raised expectations, and for the most part the book delivers on those expectations. No, sorry, Kirito haters, he still gets to have the big climactic finishers, but honestly, if you’re a Kirito hater but still reading Sword Art Online at Volume 21, I’m going to put the blame on you there. And, if it helps, he spends most of the book in just his underwear. That said, the prose feels smoother, the cast all get things to do that don’t involve mooning over Kirito, and some of them even get really cool things to do on their own, without Kirito at all! Yes, that’s right, More Deban has finally paid off, if only for Silica. As for the plot, well, let’s take all the SAO-style games in the world and dump all its players in a blender? Sounds about right.

We pick up in the fall, a few days before Asuna’s birthday and a couple of weeks before Kirito’s. After having to essentially spend an entire month doing homework because “I was in a coma after being stabbed, but it’s a state secret” is a poor excuse for your high school teacher, Kirito is back at his log cabin preparing to help Liz and Silica do some grinding. Unfortunately, right after Asuna and Alice arrive (yes, Alice is now a regular, and is trying to get a dragon mount in ALO), a huge system crash causes all of Aincrad to disintegrate. Our heroes are barely able to steer the falling cabin to a water landing, but it’s still pretty smashed. Worse, they appear to be inside a new game, Unital Ring, which has taken over ALL the games that use Kayaba’s “Seed”, and promises a huge reward to whoever gets to the goal. But Unital Ring is a survival game, where you have to make your own rope and knives, and our heroes are suddenly level 1. Can they figure out what’s going on? More importantly, can they save the cabin?

I will admit, it’s a lot of fun seeing Kirito depowered through a large chunk of this, though of course by the end he’s starting to get back in business. Honestly, the book feels like he’s been reading his fan mail and taking its advice. Kirito and Suguha/Leafa, for the first time in the entire series to date, actually feel like an older brother and younger sister. Yui, in the new Unital Ring, is back to being a real live girl… though that also means she has real HP. It’s not a death game per se, but apparently when you’re killed off you can’t get into the game again, so there is a lot of tension for our heroes. And then there’s the last four pages, which I will try not to spoil. But really, if you’re Kawahara and are starting to write the first non-webnovel book in the main series, what’s the very first thing you’re going to import from the other works? Correct. The other character introduced is a bit of a “I won’t tell you about her till the next volume”, but Accel World fans may find their name very familiar, especially those who just read the last volume in December.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see the outcome of that double cliffhanger, as Vol. 22 is a short story volume, containing four short stories that were released as exclusives with various DVD anime packages in Japan. That said, one of the characters who showed up for the cliffhanger will be in the first of those short stories. In the meantime, I was very pleased with this SAO. Let’s keep it up.

The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy, Vol. 2

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By Yu Shimizu and Asagi Tosaka. Released in Japan as “Seiken Gakuin no Maken Tsukai” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Roman Lampert.

I am, as readers of this site well know, easy to please. This can sometimes be a bit frustrating when I have series that don’t do anything particularly wrong, but are also not particularly stellar. The Demon King Master of Excalibur Academy falls under that. I will admit that I find the fact that the Demon King is in a 10-year-old body irritating, but it is mostly avoiding fanservice and groping, so that’s not a big enough reason to move on. The books are short, the prose is readable, the girls get things to do, and the battles are pretty cool, so boxes checked off there. That said, this really isn’t going to be making anyone’s top 10 light novels list anytime soon. There was an argument recently about whether using the word ‘generic’ is pejorative, and yes, it probably is, but there’s no word that better fits the series than this. It’s like eating a slice of bread. No butter, no jam. Just the bread.

The Academy is put on the back burner for this volume, with the biggest class-related event happening being that Leonis skips class. There’s a good reason for this, though – a huge ship is arriving carrying the Fourth Princess, who is paying a visit. Unfortunately, a horde of void creatures break out as she arrives, causing those who have gathered to see her to have to be evacuated onto the ship. Also unfortunately, this turns out to be a plot by terrorists, who are there to kidnap the princess and gain more equality for beastmen. Also also unfortunately, the terrorists have a mole in their ranks who has her own agenda, which is “kill everyone by having the ship slam into a reef, so that she can get her hands on a bunch of demon swords. Fortunately, Leonis and the girls from the first volume are there to stop them.

One of the interesting things in the series is the fact that it’s post-apocalyptic, and not very far away from it either. This allows Leonis to be thoroughly confused at how much has changed since he was alive, and also allows the book to constantly be interrupted by monster attacks, which are well-written but also mean that there’s not much actually happening here, even with the short page count. We do get a few revelations about Regina, Reselia’s maid, comrade in arms, and Girl With A Secret (TM). The secret is not hard to guess, and I will admit that I was frustrated that a meeting we were building up to did not happen, but that’s the trouble with long-running series like these. (Also, sadly, the princess was very underwritten, and I wish we’d seen more of her.)

That’s one interesting thing about these books – they read like they’re cancellation proof. The author has been told “your name is big enough, so we’ll guarantee that you won’t be cut after two novels”, and it shows, as there’s a lot of long-term things going on here. Unfortunately, that means we don’t really get satisfying answers in THIS book. It’s a series that is “good enough for now” to a T.