The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic, Vol. 1

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By KUROKATA and KeG. Released in Japan as “Chiyu Mahou no Machigatta Tsukaikata: Senjou wo Kakeru Kaifuku Youin” by MF Books. Released in North America by One Peace Books. Translated by Kristi Fernandez.

Last year I was at Anime NYC, and happened across the One Peace table. I admitted I had not reviewed any of their books, and asked which one they would recommend (not Shield Hero). This was the one they picked, so I picked up a copy. A year later, I’m about to head to Anime NYC again, and I felt, you know, I’d better read this or the conversation at the table’s going to be really awkward. The book did not really win me over from the start. Any time our main character starts a bo0ok by telling us how drab, generic and normal he is, I resist the urge to simply stop reading. As it turns out, though, there’s a few interesting ideas going on with this book, and by the time we’re one day into the fantasy world we know one thing for absolute certain: He is not remotely normal at all. That is a bald-faced lie.

Usato is (groan) An Ordinary High School Student (TM). One rainy day he runs into classmate and resident pretty boy Kazuki and student council president and perfect girl Suzune. Since someone took Usato’s umbrella, they walk with him … and suddenly a magical circle appears under them, and they’re summoned to another world to be heroes! Well, Kazuki and Suzune are summoned to be heroes. Usato was accidental. Kazuki has rare light magic! Suzune has powerful lightning magic! They decide to test Usato as well, because why not, and find… he has HEALING magic? Suddenly everyone in the throne room is terrified, and we soon find out why: Usato is abducted by an incredibly strong woman named Rose, who announces she’s going to be training him to be a healer! Of course, Rose’s training puts spartans to shame. What the heck is going on here?

This book knows exactly what genre it’s contrasting itself with. The king and his ministers are horrified and apologetic when Usato is accidentally summoned, and his isekai power turns out to be incredibly valuable. It’s the opposite of all those “useless power and thrown out of the castle with no money” books. Rose’s reason for the spartan training comes up near the end of the book, and it works psychologically. As does Usato’s dogged determination, as he finally gets a great opportunity to not just be some nebbish high school student. Best of all is Suzune, who turns out, once summoned, to be a massive otaku who had to hide it from everyone as she was a rich ojou-sama. Here she gets to live out her isekai fantasies, fire off cool final attacks with her lightning bolts, and flirt with the guy she likes. The last of these does not go well, alas, as Usato has Protagonist Syndrome, so thinks she’s kidding.

So I’m not incredibly sad I missed this when it came out – it is a very common genre, and I try not to read the standard ones unless they have a weird thing going on – but it was pleasant enough, and if I get a gap in my schedule I may read more. For isekai fans.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life: Wish Upon a Star, Pray to a Flower

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By Mato Sato and nilitsu. Released in Japan as “Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

Well, back to reality. After a volume where I actually managed to enjoy it from beginning to end, we’re back to business as usual for The Executioner and Her Way of Life. The first 40% or so of this book is absolutely dire, and I was once again wondering why I had not dropped the series. The difficulty is that most of the people who remain in the cast are profoundly unlikable and selfish, and it’s not fun to read about them. This is also a book whose plot synopsis can best be summed up as “everyone is ignoring everyone else’s feelings and desires for the sake of their own”. Now, frequently this is understandable. The color soldiers are looking for a new homeland, and worry that this will cause the humans to try to eradicate them. (Correctly.) And Menou’s grand plan for saving Akari amounts to “kill myself”, so it’s not surprising that Momo is not down with that. Everyone is, frankly, at the end of their tether, and it shows.

Menou, Maya, and Sahara have fled to the Mechanical Society with Abbie’s help, but Michele, Momo and Hooseyard are hot on their trail, and trying to work out a way to break in there. Menou’s goal is the Starseed, but things prove more complicated than expected when they discover that another one of the Four Evils, Gadou, is still alive. After dealing with the fact that Gadou has literal split personalities, Menou puts her plan into action, despite the fact that her memory has gotten so bad that she’s forgotten Flare, Momo, and everything else about her past. Momo, meanwhile, has an Akari-in-a-Box, and a plan to get Menou and Akari both back with their memories attached, but this plan sort of relies on killing Menou first. Just for a bit. A little killing.

This book really does get good in the second half, as everyone starts to fight for their lives and their goals, and realize that there’s no way that everyone can end this alive. Indeed, Menou’s self-hatred and death wish is about all that’s fueling her now, and it helps the reader to sympathize with Momo a great deal, even when she tries to solve a problem by taking Akari from her luggage and hurling her at Menou’s head. Momo and Akari still hate each other, for obvious reasons. That said, Momo’s plan wouldn’t have worked without Akari, so they can at least be grateful for that. By the end of this book, most of the cast are almost back to normal and we’re at the end of the arc. If only Ashuna were back in the series I’d be perfectly happy. (Monkey’s Paw twitches) Oh no…

So yeah, Ashuna is the cliffhanger, and I am no longer happy. I suspect in this world that runs on war, death, and genocide, a lot of other people aren’t going to be happy either. Still, at least with Menou and Akari back to normal, there’s potential for more yuri in Book 10. Recommended, but be prepared for the traditional slow start. Also, warning, this book contains Hooseyard, and she’s still really annoying.

Bofuri: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, So I’ll Max Out My Defense, Vol. 16

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By Yuumikan and KOIN. Released in Japan as “Itai no wa Iya nano de Bōgyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

Bofuri is, in the end, a series about what goes on inside a VRMMO, and most readers are here to follow the fun antics of Maple and Sally. Now, there are real players involved here, Kaede and Risa, and we have seen them on occasion. But we rarely have a chance to be in their heads for more than a couple of pages before we’re back in the gaming world seeing Maple eat a giant lump of poison. The series began with a brief mention that Risa had tried to get Kaede into some other games, but nothing clicked till New World Online. This volume, however, very definitely says the end is near. And as a result, we’re getting a little (very little) background into Kaede and Risa. Which is good! But given it’s the real world, we may actually get some real-life drama in Bofuri, the anti-consequences series. As frankly, Risa is starting to get very desperate about gaming with Kaede as much as possible before it’s too late.

Last time I said there would be an after-event recap of some sort, but nope. We’re straight into more gaming, as everyone goes around clearing dungeons, battling new monsters, and preparing for the 10th stratum. When that’s finally revealed, it’s shown to be the previous nine floors all in one – each section is one of the prior floors. The goal here is to Kill The Demon Lord, so Maple and Sally and the rest of Maple Tree start investigating to figure out how to do that. And they want to do it fast, as Maple and Sally have made things clear at last: they’re going to be third-year high school students soon, which means the days of gaming for hours a day are gone forever. It’s time to start getting serious about college.

It’s been clear from a while ago, and is made more explicit here, that Sally wants to fight Maple in a PvP battle, but holds off as she knows Maple doesn’t enjoy those. Maple is aware of this, though, and as their deadline draws near she’s starting to dwell on it more. She has no trouble fighting (and destroying) Frederica, mind you, but Sally is different. Back in the real world, not only is Risa anxious about those halcyon days with Kaede ending forever, but there’s also implications about Kaede’s past. We’d guessed that they’d been friends since they were kids, which is mentioned here without any detail. But now we hear how much Maple has changed since starting New World Online, and that she had never been so excited or enjoyed herself so much before. I want to know more about this! What was pre-Bofuri Kaede like? Was she bullied? Was she introverted? What’s going on here? And is there anything besides her latent crush and possibly different colleges that is the reason Risa is so desperate to enjoy this time with Kaede while she can?

There’s so much story I want to know about, and we get more of it here than most other volumes. But there’s still very little of it. Trust me, if you want to see Maple create poison copies of herself that explode, you’re also in the right place. Next time, probably more grinding and investigation.