The Economics of Prophecy: Avoiding Disaster in Another World

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By Norafukurou and Rei Shichiwa. Released in Japan by Legend Novels (Kodansha). Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

So you want to read an isekai, but instead of being a horny Japanese teenager, you’re a late 30s-early 40s Japanese officer worker. You’re married, have a couple of kids. You really are not looking for a fantasy involving game systems, harem building, and fanservice. You don’t even need illustrations. You’re looking for something a bit more highbrow. Fortunately, Legend Novels, a fairly new Kodansha imprint, has you covered. The Economics of Prophecy is not kidding about its economics, and so will replace discussion of gaming stats with correlation coefficients. There is more than one girl interested in the hero, but they are more understated and political about it. As for the hero, well, yes, he’s a bit bland, but he’s bland in an ADULT way. All that said, this is still a young Japanese man transported to another world with monsters and magic, who goes to an elite private school along with his unlucky childhood friend and the gorgeous, naive princess. Not ALL the tropes are gone.

The actual “reincarnated and growing up in a new world” part of Ricardo’s life is glossed over in about two paragraphs – we jump right into him as a young businessman, trying to attend school and get his family honey-making business off the ground. Unfortunately, rival companies are bigger and richer than he is. All he has is his knowledge from Japan of economic theory and his secretary/childhood friend Mia. The fourth princess of the realm, Alfina, even does a taste test between the companies. Unfortunately, as Ricardo finds, once you start meeting this princess you can’t stop meeting her. And she’s actually an oracle with a different prediction than the usual “everything’s fine again this year” – there will be a disaster. What kind? She doesn’t know. Exactly where? She’s not quite sure. Can Ricardo help her figure out what and where is going to happen? And will it even matter given the complacency of this kingdom?

The plot and the main leads are the strongest part of this book. There is a lot of economic stuff, but it never quite gets to the point where you want to flip ahead. Ricardo is one of those “I am scheming and clever but also secretly really nice to people” sorts, a bit like the Genius Prince in Yen’s recent series – he works best when he’s being pressured. Alfina manages to be a very naive, innocent royal without becoming annoying, and she’s really sweet. On the flip side, Mia is vastly underused – we clearly see she has a thing for Ricardo, but given that she (like he) is also emotionally minimal this mostly comes out as disapproval when he’s around other women. I would have liked more of their childhood backstory. Alfina also has an aide that ends up getting relatively humiliated, but I’m not entirely sure that the crime merited the punishment – it wasn’t clear enough that Claudia had abandoned Alfina, so it seemed sort of mean instead.

This is still definitely strong enough that I’d recommend it, and I’ll be reading the second volume. It’s respectable, an isekai you could happily introduce to your parents.

The Irregular at Magic High School: Ancient City Insurrection Arc, Part I

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By Tsutomu Sato and Kana Ishida. Released in Japan as “Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

Just because a large majority of the cast go “eurgh” whenever Miyuki is snuggling up to her brother does not mean that the writer is not leaning on the incest subtext as hard as he possibly can. Indeed, one can’t happen without the other. And since a lot of this book is Minami suffering through watching the siblings be “embarrassing”, or noticeably avoiding saying anything in order not to upset the powerful teenager with a hair-trigger killer ice move, there is an awful lot of my least favorite plot element in this series in this book. I made a promise to myself that I would hold out till the 16th book – this is, after all, one of Dengeki Bunko’s ‘flagship’ series, alongside titles such as Sword Art Online and A Certain Magical Index… which also have issues. We’ll see why I chose Book 16 in the summer. Till then, fortunately, there is more to this book than just snuggling against Tatsuya, though it suffers from being part one of two.

The Thesis Competition is coming around again, though this year Tatsuya is not involved – at least not directly. He’s going to be doing security, given what happened at the last event. Unfortunately, he’s also still dealing with fallout from the last couple of books – in particular, Gongjin Zhou’s whereabouts, which likely will impact a lot of things going forward. The ancient magicians are taking interest in him and his friends as well. Fortunately, trying to locate the base of these magicians allows him to travel to Nara and make a new friend. Possibly unfortunately, Minoru is, of course, probably going to be a major enemy down the road, particularly if they’re dealing with the parasites that have been cropping up for a while. Fortunately, he’s on their side for now, and is a nice, polite, pretty and very powerful young man. Possibly unfortunately, Minami falls for him – hard.

When you snip out discussion of magic and incest, what little is left in this series is action, and the action is very good. We even get the death of a character we’d seen before, which surprised me, and their death also impacts Mayumi, who is unable to get much information out of her “I am evil and sneering” dad. (Their relationship makes em think of Tokiomi and Rin.) Mayumi also gets to be in possible the funniest scene of the book, where she’s having lunch and discussing things with Mari and tries to deny that she’s in love with Tatsuya, a denial that is rather pathetic – she’s trying to say they’re like a big sister and little brother, but this is NOT the series to say that in. And it is nice – although, as Tatsuya and Miyuki acknowledge, rather odd – for Maya to actually ask Tatsuya to do a thing, rather than order him.

As I noted, this is Book 1 or 2, so I expect the second half will have a lot more action and payoff. Till then, this remains a good series provided you strip out the incest and magic talk – which, alas, leaves about 50 pages per book.

Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World, Vol. 2

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By Kei Sazane and Ao Nekonabe. Released in Japan as “Kimi to Boku no Saigo no Senjou, Aruiwa Sekai ga Hajimaru Seisen” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jan Cash.

The days when people were begging for a light novel – any light novel – to be released are long since past. We live in a glut of light novels, with new titles releasing several times a week, and it’s impossible to keep up with them all. This is difficult for someone like me, as I have a very high tolerance when it comes to entertainment. I have started to try to find reasons to drop series so that I don’t have to get even further behind in reading all the other series I read. And, honestly, Our Last Crusade seemed a perfect candidate for this after its second volume. Its plot was OK but not earth-shattering. The women in the book are… not great, particularly in this volume. There are some decent fights, but less of the self-analysis of the respective regimes we saw in the first book beyond “the empire tortures witches”. It seemed like a good place to leave off. Alas, then came the epilogue.

A vortex has appeared in the world, one that can give the right people amazing powers. Unfortunately, it’s desired by both sides. And so once again Iska and Alice are fighting against each other… or so it would seem. But unlike the last book, this time they keep missing each other, turning a Romeo and Juliet-style fated romance into drawing room farce. Most of the emphasis of the book is on Iska’s end, where his battalion has a very rude and uncaring leader and also a traitor, which is not good news for Captain Mismis, who is captured by said traitor. On Alice’s end, there’s a smug masked man and a powerful woman named “Kissing” with a blindfold and an attitude, but mostly there’s just Alice getting very, very annoyed that she isn’t making out with… erm, pardon me, fighting Iska to the death like she should be doing.

I’m gonna be honest here, Alice whining over wanting to fight Iska about every single page is going to get very boring very fast, and given that I suspect that once she gets over this it’s going to turn into “a young maiden in love” I’m not looking forward to future developments. Mismis, also, really really needs to develop beyond a captain who reads more like a mascot, and spending most of the second half of the book captured and in peril does not help. The book doesn’t really slide into being actively annoying or bad… it’s well-written, the pacing is good, and you can simply grump at Alice and Mismis as you go. But it lacks a hook that made me want to read past this volume. Or at least it did till the end. I will not reveal what the two hooks are, but I will say they’re perfectly delivered for maximum “dammit, now I have to get the next book in the series” effect. In particular, I’m cautiously optimistic one of the two issues I had with the book might change because of this? Maybe?

It could also be I’m just a soft touch who’s too easily pleased. But I am hoping that the third book in the series gets a bit more political and also does more with its female leads than having them be cliches.