Spy Classroom: Annette and Her Many Knickknacks

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By Takemachi and Tomari. Released in Japan as “Spy Kyoushitsu” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nathaniel Thrasher.

The author says in the afterword that this is an attempt to write a much lighter book after the events of the last arc, and I guess it is technically? There’s certainly a lot of wacky shtick going on here. There’s childhood marriage promises, There’s a search for PIRATE GOLD!, there’s Annette… being Annette, and there’s Thea… being Thea. That said, this is also darker than you’d expect, with even one of the jokes being an incredibly dark one about disposal of a corpse. There’s murders, there’s revolution, there’s tortured confessions getting brutally rejected. And there is Annette being Annette, because she is who she is, and despite the cover art changing for the first time to show her being all happy and a beachside setting, at the end of the day this is just a brief delay. We know, and Lamplight all gradually figure out, that these happy days are coming to an end, and it’s time for then to evolve further.

Lamplight are on an island resort (with an attached Naval base) taking a vacation after the events of the last three books. After partying on the beach on the first day, Klaus has one instruction for them: they can’t all gather together as one unit till the 13th day of their vacation. As a result, Grete ends up dealing with an island teenager who met Klaus years ago and wants to marry him; Thea and Sara investigate the naval base, as well as a grisly murder that is one of a string of grisly murders that have been happening every three months; Lily, Sybilla and Monika decide to try to find that legendary pirate gold, and discover a lot more than they had really planned, and Erna… fishes. (It’s OK, she gets the bulk of the prologue for the next arc.) As for Annette, she’s helping to plan a wedding at first, then loses interest and helps Thea at the naval base, then ends up finding the three pirate hunters, and then … vanishes?

The best part of this book is showing how the character development everyone got in the last few books has not vanished and is being built upon. Grete’s love of Klaus is not demeaned or made comedic, and he’s taking it seriously. We don’t know how Monika and Lily’s discussion went, but they’re treating each other the same as always, and a newly risen from the ashes Monika can now even be part of the goofy comedy relief when it suits her. Thea … OK, Thea has the grandest goal in mind for her future, but she also has the furthest to go, as this volume shows – but I did love the conflict between her and Sara and how it doesn’t damage their friendship at all. And Annette is still a sociopath, but she’s figured out how to use that as part of her job, and she’s also realized that she doesn’t want to get SO evil that her friends stop liking her. She’s growing up! They all are. The next arc, I expect, is gonna be dark again.

So get ready for… short story collection? (sigh) Short story collection. This was excellent.

Reign of the Seven Spellblades, Vol. 13

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By Bokuto Uno and Miyuki Ruria. Released in Japan as “Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

One of the memes that goes around about Reign of the Seven Spellblades – let’s be honest, it may be the only meme – has Fred from Scooby Doo in front of a villain with “Harry Potter” as a mask, and he says “Now let’s see who Reign of the Seven Spellblades *really* is!”, and removes the mask, showing Fate/Stay Night. I have, in fact, made this joke myself throughout these reviews. That said, no volume quite hammers this home as much as this one. Shirou and Saber… pardon me, Oliver and Nanao… are competing to see who can be the biggest death seeker (OK, that’s not quite correct, but both think death within a year or two is inevitable). Meanwhile, I’ve already talked about the ways, both physical and mental, that I think Chela is like Rin, but I wasn’t expecting her to also be Sakura. And of course, if you’ve played the original Fate game, you know how explicit it gets. This volume comes close to that.

In the aftermath of the last book, Guy has to distance himself from the rest of the Sword Roses, which is particularly devastating to Katie. To make things more annoying, they’re fourth years, and now is the time when they all have to essentially “choose a major” – decide what specific course they’re inclined to pursue in detail. Oliver has not really thought about his future at all, so simply goes along with Katie to keep an eye on her. Nanao accidentally forgets the most obvious path, mostly as she too is not bothering to think about the future. And Guy is seeing if he could be a good curse breaker, and also has the folks from Book 12 he fought with – including comedy relief Annie Mackley – trying to separate him from the Sword Roses. This all comes to a head when Katie gets so uptight she needs… relief, shall we say, and Chela asks for what is an obvious solution. Things go badly.

This book reminds us of two big things. The first is that our protagonists, the Sword Roses, are all thought of as huge freaks within the rest of the school. They’re literally described as ticking timebombs, and the main reason seems to be the fact that they’ve been so close knit since they first met at the start of their first year – most friend groups in this school drift apart. The second is that, despite all of this, there’s still a lot of secrets that have never been told between this friend group. Nanao learned one of Oliver’s worst tragedies from the past, but Chela didn’t, and that ends up blowing up in her face – mostly due to Chela’s OWN backstory, which we get another part of here, and – as Chela herself points out – she and Oliver are similar yet also opposite in some ways. I’d said that I wondered if this would end with just Oliver and Nanao dead or everyone dead. I now suspect this may be an all-or-nothing series – either the six survive or they all die.

All this plus a whole lot of… well, there’s no other way to put it, mutual masturbation… reminds us that this remains a really well-written, really horny, and really suspenseful series. I have no idea what’s going to happen next.

One Piece: Heroines, Vol. 2

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Created by Eiichiro Oda. Written by Jun Esaka. Illustrated by Sayaka Suwa. Released in Japan by Jump Books. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Stephen Paul.

Given the extreme shortness of the book, and my struggles with the first volume, I was a bit worried I would have even less to say about this one. But it’s honestly not that bad! You could argue that Shanks takes over Uta’s story the way that Koza took over Vivi’s, but unlike Vivi’s story Uta is present and correct throughout, so I think it’s fine. It’s also, with one obvious exception that the author can’t do much about, a bit better at showing off these are cool, admirable characters who are not the type to go nuts over a man or to trip while running and break a heel. (The exception is Boa Hancock, and it’s not a surprise that I find that story the weakest, but that’s Oda’s fault, not the author’s.) Even the last story, which is about Nami getting upset about a tiny zit on her face, is sympathetic towards her love of her own beauty and how she uses it.

As with the previous book, there are five short stories. 1) On the island of Amazons, one of their number who had been missing for two years returns, heavily pregnant. Now she has to be interrogated by Hancock… but does not realize what has happened to Hancock in the interim; 2) Smoker and Tashigi’s boat needs repairs, so they land on a tiny island which is beset by small-time pirates. Meanwhile, Tashigi befriends a young girl who wants to become a swordswoman, but who doesn’t like Tashigi’s self-deprecation; 3) The four non-Sanji siblings commandeer a ship, but forget to have a cook on board. Aside from Reiju, the POV character, they all try to cook and then give up. Once they get to their destination, Reiju learns how hard cooking can be; 4) Shanks and an Uta who is about 3-4 years old go ashore when she can’t sleep, and end up going on a shopping spree, where Shanks tries to tell Uta what “peas and tancrillity” is without telling her too much about himself; 5) As noted above, Nami finds a pimple and gets upset, and the others try to help her out.

The Hancock story relies on Hancock being a) horny and b) dumb as a rock, so I wasn’t a fan. The Tashigi story is much better. Her tiny charge is happy to learn from Tashigi till she admits she’s much weaker than other swordsmen out there, whereupon the kid is like “oh, well, you suck then”. After getting captured (natch), Tashigi is able to show that while she can’t take on the sword powerhouses of the series, she’s still really strong in general. It also has her, again, reflecting on what the navy is supposed to do. The Reiju story is the most character driven of the four, being entirely an excuse to remind us that she’s the nice one of the siblings and also the only one who is vaguely sensible. Shanks and Uta’s story requires you to have seen the Red movie, but really, who picks up a One Piece novel and hasn’t seen Red? (Stop looking at me like that.) The Nami story shows that, even though it’s about something like a pimple, everyone knows that her appearance is important to her and no one really makes fun of her at all except to note they can barely see it. And Robin is 100% in her corner.

So a definite must for One Piece fans, and for casuals who know the series, pick up a copy of Red as well.