Who Killed the Hero?, Vol. 1

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By Daken and toi8. Released in Japan as “Dare ga Yuusha wo Koroshita ka” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kim Morrissy.

It’s always hard to try to review a book whose very nature requires that the reader is surprised as it goes along. It’s even harder to do this when the book is excellent, as your review essentially amounts to “You’ve got to read this, it’s great!” “Why?” “I can’t tell you, spoilers!”. But here we are, and this book is great, so let’s settle down and try to do this. At its heart this book takes a long look at the fantasy standard “hero’s party goes to defeat the demon lord” cliche. There’s a prophecy, there’s the hero/swordsman/mage/healer party composition, there’s a promised reward of a royal daughter, and, inevitably, there’s a death. Because the book is called “Who Killed the Hero?”, I can at least talk about that. The death, in turn, leads the book and its cast to ask about the nature of the hero, why they have to defeat the demon lord when others cannot, and how a story can be turned on its ear by a simple investigation.

Four years earlier, the hero, Ares, led an elite team to defeat the demon lord. There was noble swordsman Leon, beautiful priestess Maria, and intelligent yet cynical mage Solon. They succeed… and yet, when they return, Ares did not come back with them, and they said that he perished on the return visit. Now someone is going around, getting the word on the street, talking to the other members of the hero’s party, as well as the prophet who made the prophecy about the hero in the first place, to try to figure out what happened. Because no one’s quite sure. Some say Ares was killed by a rogue demon. Some say the other members of the party killed him as there was a love triangle going on. And even the person who is going all around the capital trying to figure things out has their own agenda. What happened?

This is, by necessity, not a book with a large cast, and I enjoyed all the characters tremendously. My favorite was undoubtedly Maria, theoretically a girl devoted to God but in reality someone who will have a boy go and get her the “best” bread every day because it amuses her… only to be stunned when he actually manages to learn the things she was theoretically teaching him. I also was fond of the young princess, who listens to the hero say that he’ll defeat the demon lord, but he’s not coming back, and refuses to accept that. There are a lot of cynical people in this book, and it’s dealing, through almost its entirety, with a death. Despite that, I was amazed at how life-affirming and happy it is, and that once you get all the answers in the end even the one person whose life you assumed would end here ends up being forced into happiness.

There’s two more volumes of this, which seem to have a similar premise but a different cast. Similar to Brunhild the Dragonslayer, I think. In any case, despite not being able to give much away, this is a very rewarding book. Seek it out.

The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor, Vol. 7

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By Sasara Nagase and Mitsuya Fuji. Released in Japan as “Yarinaoshi Reijō wa Ryūtei Heika o Kōryaku-chū” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by piyo.

It’s sometimes very hard to separate this series, where a young woman decides to get engaged to the man who may one day try to destroy the world in order to change her own fate, and at every single turn of the page worry that she’s going to fail and the book will end with most of the cast dead and a BAD END screen, and not compare it to I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss, by the same author, which has the exact same plot. And both series also have an antagonist, someone who sets herself diametrically opposite our protagonist and does everything they can do fix things. It’s just been harder to spot it in Do-Over Damsel, as Faris just hasn’t shown us much. Fortunately, in this book we get to see her dealing with a very, very useless goddess (no, not that one), and also bond with Jill over a mutual enemy. It’s sweet. Also, it makes her evil at the end hit even harder.

Jill is headed off to the Lehrsatz Duchy for a meeting with Faris, the queen of Kratos. Hadis is staying behind, with one of the candidates to be his wife handling things on his end, and being better at it than Jill, much to her chagrin. Unfortunately, when they’re flying to the duchy, Jill decides to investigate a mysterious village that may be home to the Order of the Ark, a group of religious terrorists who wants the Gods dead. As it turns out, she then manages to get accidentally abducted by those same terrorists – accidentally as the ones they really want to abduct are Raw, presumably so they can control dragons… and Faris, who they have already abducted and who is near unconscious due to the anti-magic barriers surrounding her. Can Jill break them out and manage to get to the conference? And what will Hadis do when he hears about this?

This was supposed to be the short story volume. CIW says that it is still coming, but they did this volume first. I’m assuming that, unlike, say, Re: Zero or Index, this is not causing us to miss all sorts of nuance in this current volume. Not that nuance is something Jill is good at. Her strength is indeed her strength, as well as her temper, as she realizes the best solution is to simply punch everything until it stops. Again. Her weakness is that this isn’t good enough this time, and Faris, who seems to only have the strength to break her ditzy goddess spear, is much better at crafty plans that you cannot punch your way out of. Hence the cliffhanger. There’s also the usual “Jill gets jealous and mad, Hadis panics and feeds her to make up for it” wackiness – these two know each other really well by now. That was fun.

Will we get Vol. 8 next? Or short stories? And yes, I did deliberately leave out all the reveals near the end. A great series, assuming you can get past the premise, which is still hard to get past.

Observation Records of My Wife: The Misadventures of a Self-Proclaimed Villainess, Vol. 1

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By Shiki and Wan Hachipisu. Released in Japan as “Jishō Akuyaku Reijō na Tsuma no Kansatsu Kiroku” by Regina Books. Released in North America by Hanashi Media. Translated by Ethan Holms.

(It’s a rare series where you can see where I bought it simply by what the title and cover art are. Hanashi has changed the main title of this series… everywhere but Kindle, which is what I read it on. Hence I keep the old title.)

This series makes no bones about the fact that it is “more of the same”. Cecil and Bertia may now be married, but seemingly nothing has changed between them except they now sleep in the same bed. Bertia is still hyperactive and goofy. Cecil is still one wife away from destroying the world. Together, they fight… well, not crime, but bad communication in relationships. Here we meet two couples from a country across the sea, and we find that it turns out that being a cool tsundere doesn’t really work well when you’re a princess, and also just because childhood friends are now engaged doesn’t mean they understand love.

Cecil and Bertia’s wedding went so well that she is now being asked for advice on how to make other noble weddings perfect. A magazine is a good idea, but it will have to wait, as her first big wedding prep event is for Princess Lysonna, who is marrying into the Kingdom of Seahealby. Unfortunately, on arriving, Bertia suddenly realizes that this city… no, it’s not from an otome game. But it is from a novel that she skimmed and half-remembered because one of the minor characters looked like Cecil. And what’s worse, she remembers that in this book, Lysonna was the villainess, due for a bad end! Clearly it’s time for Bertia to do the old villainess thing again, and bully everyone! This works about as well as it did in the previous books, but at least it amuses Cecil.

These books run on anti-suspense, and that’s fine. Honestly, the biggest threat of the series is Cecil, who is deeply in love with Bertia, and it’s shown over and over again that this is the only thing keeping him from being a sociopath who destroys the world because he’s bored. The issues of the two couples turn out to be 1) I don’t understand what my fiancee is thinking/showing love is super embarrassing, and 2) It’s not manly to do things like pay attention to your fiancee and be happy she has friends other than you. Bertia takes care of the women by just being really super nice (while thinking she’s being mean) and, of course, being gaga for Cecil. Cecil handles the male end by subterfuge, and, when he can’t do that, simply explaining it all till he gets annoyed and leaves. All this love drama is taking away from his Bertia time.

The book ends abruptly, and I suspect we’ll still be in this foreign land next time. If you liked Bakarina but wish it starred Jeord, this is the perfect book. For those who hate Jeord, it’s still pretty good anyway.