ROLL OVER AND DIE: I Will Fight for an Ordinary Life with My Love and Cursed Sword!, Vol. 1

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By kiki and kinta. Released in Japan as “Omae Gotoki ga Maou ni Kateru to Omou na” to Gachizei ni Yuusha Party wo Tsuihou Sareta node, Outo de Kimama ni Kurashitai” by GC Novels. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jason Muell.

Given the title, you’re probably expecting one of those slow life titles. Young woman is told she can’t be in the hero’s party, so she ends up living her life in the city as an H&R Block Accountant and getting into everyday troubles. Well, half of that is true. Unfortunately for Flum, this first volume definitely is not a “slow life” book, but a “gore-filled horror” book. There is yuri as well, of course, and that seems to be the main selling point for the book both in Japan and here, but for the most part the reader is here to read about graphic, somewhat appalling battles that our heroine is forced to fight in order to save her own life and that of Milkit, a fellow slave that she met while being tortured to death. Yeah, that’s right, it’s one of those slavery books as well.

As noted, Flum is part of the hero’s party to defeat the demons, mostly due to a prophecy. Unfortunately, Flum’s stats are all zero – and can’t be raised. This seemingly makes the entire party hate and turn against her, though most of this hatred springs from Jean, who decides to do something about it by selling her into slavery and abandoning her. Given that her stats are zero, she’s not a great slave either, so the slave owner decides to kill her (this is where she meets Milkit). Fortunately, the “cursed sword” part of the title comes into play here, and Flum discovers how her powers are really supposed to work. Unfortunately, after escaping, things are still not very slow life. She has to work as an adventurer to live, and ends up pissing off the local adventurer goons. Milkit has been so beaten down by slavery that she’s unable to think for herself. And, while trying to get a rare and illegal herb, she discovers that her name is far more important than she expected.

First things first, if you dislike death, blood and violence, drop this book like a hot potato. I was not kidding when I said this was a horror novel, particularly in the back half, where we meet up with a nigh unkillable scientific experiment. That said, the book ended up being quite readable. Flum is likeable and grows fast once she realizes that she CAN grow. I’m less happy with Milkit, especially her need to dress up as a maid call Flum her Master, but I will assume that her character arc is not yet finished and but it aside for now. (Their yuri scenes are all packed together at the end of the book, and are sickeningly cute). There’s also the start of the book, where we see Flum’s POV of the rest of the party, and she comes to the conclusion that they all find her a useless burden. The reader accepts this too, and when it later turns out not to be true, it feels a bit out of the blue.

All this and an adorable ten-year-old battle nun. (More nuns should use maces instead of rulers.) This is definitely not Adachi and Shimamura, but if you like your yuri filled with swordplay, magic and a whole lot of blood and guts, it could be right up your alley.

Altina the Sword Princess, Vol. 5

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By Yukiya Murasaki and himesuz. Released in Japan as “Haken no Kouki Altina” by Famitsu Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Roy Nukia.

We start things off in this volume with the the battle Altina and Regis came to at the start of the fourth book. They win, but it isn’t pretty, and there are a lot of casualties, which briefly devastates Regis, who until now has been fairly lucky in his plans having minimal fatal consequences. They also lose Eric, who gets an arrow to the shoulder and has to be left behind. But they are able to muster a force and set out to help fight against Brittania, whose main force are the villains we met last time – Oswald, the eccentric tactician, and Margaret, the bored and changeable queen, who are likely meant to be a dark counterpart to our hero and heroine. Regis and Altina both must deal with the other companies of soldiers looking down on and belittling them. Can they survive what turns out to be a fierce battle? And, most importantly, can Regis survive meeting up with his sister?

Meeting up with Vanessa is probably the highlight of this book for readers who aren’t here for the combat. She’s a lot of fun, and I love her husband (he’s a blacksmith who is tasked with fixing Altina’s massive sword, which she broke in the initial battle of this book, and he’s also a sword nerd who will no doubt make it 800 times better). That said, I was intrigued by the serious core of her story, as she reveals just how Regis got his superhuman lack of self-confidence. It’s rather sad, and fits very well with a twelve-year-old girl who’s trying to be the adult in the family but is still emotionally growing and does not take kindly to having a younger sibling who’s brilliant. It also shows that words matter, and things that you teach kids can leave lingering scars even after you no longer mean them.

As for the battle itself, it’s a classic case of “we are arrogant and will listen to our arrogant tactician’, which sadly leads to piles on piles of dead soldiers and a tactician who has his mind broken by events. Luckily, Regis is there to ave the day, though I think he’s going to need to learn how to think about battles that are not related to a fantasy book he happened to read a while back. And the battle is won at great cost, while the war is still going. I expect this war will continue into the 6th book. One interesting feature was showing us a brief look at a common soldier, charging into the enemy. He’s a farmer and sets off several death flags, including mentioning wanting to see his wife and kids back home. Imagine my surprise when he shows up at the end to be the one soldier who was not beaten down by the battle and who wants their fight to actually mean something. I wonder if we’ll see more of him.

It may be a bit – Book 6 has not yet debuted on J-NC’s site – but I will definitely be sticking around for the next book in this series, an underrated military history where the only fantasy element is that it’s set in “not-France”.

In Another World with My Smartphone, Vol. 20

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By Patora Fuyuhara and Eiji Usatsuka. Released in Japan as “Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni” by HJ Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson.

I’d said before that I plan to read this series until the wedding/honeymoon and then drop it. Perhaps the author heard me, and also knows I was planning to do the same thing with Irregular at Magic High School and didn’t make it, because this volume seems to be filled with my least favorite things. Now, to be fair, Touya does not commit genocide, but that’s only as he’s starting to run out of countries, even with the addition of an entire new map thanks to the Reverse Universe and Touya’s own crashing together. No, instead we get a roundup of all the niggling little Smartphone things that get under my skin. Inappropriate sexual humor, gay rape as comedy, ‘henpecked guy’ as comedy., etc. The joy of seeing the J-Novel Heart line start, and other women-oriented light novels and isekais catch hold over here, is that it will mean fewer series like this. And it started so well, too…

Now that the Phrase and Evil God have been dealt with once and for all, it’s finally time to prepare for the wedding of Touya to his brides. Of course, nothing there is going to go smoothly. Touya is forced to intervene between two countries who are always at war, and essentially solves the problem by turning the two kings into The Defiant Ones. Back in “heaven”, there’s a war among the various gods as to who gets to attend Touya’s wedding, and he gains a “grandmother”, the God of Space and Time. Turns out Touya’s quite popular. Then he has a new crisis when a princess shows up asking to be another one of his brides… but she may be a fake. For this particular crisis, Touya is told to stay home and let his fiancees handle things. That said, the problem turns out to be more of the same: ancient tech gone wrong and a villain so evil it’s amazing you don;t see him kicking puppies.

If you were to ask me which character I least wanted to see become a regular, the unicorn from the last volume would likely be tops on the list. And yet, here he is, used as the “comedy” punishment for the villain, and it’s just as funny as it was last time, which is to say not at all. The start of the book also get very bad very fast, as Touya has to deal with the captured Luna, whose mind has been possessed so long that it’s hard to break her of her pain-loving ways. That said, Touya’s solution was fairly obvious, and I could ALMOST have accepted it as sort of fanservice comedy… if he didn’t then take her to a goddamn elementary school. Fuck. That. In between is the usual Smartphone stuff, but fortunately nothing else that stood out as monstrously awful like those two. It’s typical Smartphone. And it was nice seeing the fiancees show off how they’re now just as OP as Touya. (Could have done without the “ranking”, though, even if Touya insists it’s not him.

So next volume is the wedding and honeymoon, and barring a cliffhanger that is REALLY good, it will be the end of the line for me. This volume is recommended if, like me, you can’t seem to let go of this thing.