Combatants Will Be Dispatched!, Vol. 2

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By Natsume Akimoto and Kakao Lanthanum. Released in Japan as “Sentouin, Hakenshimasu!” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Noboru Akimoto.

Given that this is a series by the creator of KonoSuba, featuring characters who bear great similarities to those in KonoSuba, has a sequence where our “heroes” use The Destroyer from KonoSuba, and finally features a literal crossover with KonoSuba at the end, where a different evil operative goes to that world and is horrified by the overpowered nature of Aqua, Megumin and Darkness, it would not be unreasonable for a potential reader to ask me if Combatants Will Be Dispatched! is as good as KonoSuba. And the answer is… no, of course it’s not. Even if you weren’t aware that this was an earlier work that was dusted off and published by Kadokawa after KonoSuba became ludicrously successful, the fact is that KonoSuba’s characters are all likeable and you root for them, despite their many, many deep personality flaws. Even Kazuma. Whereas Agent Six, Alice and the others are just as flawed, but are really unpleasant people at heart. Rose comes closest, but it’s bad when the author has to say in the afterword “they’ll get more heroic soon, I hope.”

Alice is on the cover, and Akimoto states she’s the “featured girl” of the book, but honestly she doesn’t get much to do beyond what she did in Book One – snark at Six. Even her saving the day at the end of the book is only mentioned secondhand, because Six was knocked unconscious for all of it. To be fair, she is VERY good at snarking at Six – she’s still my favorite part of the book. With the Kingdom desperately short of water, the King missing, and the princess unwilling to say Six’s stupid password to a large crowd, he and his group are charged with negotiating water from a neighboring kingdom. Well, actually, he and the group are bodyguards for Snow, who is supposed to seduce the horny and easily led ruler of that kingdom. Unfortunately, due to a ridiculous chain of events, they end up starting a war. And also reviving an ancient superweapon. Fortunately, Six can still do what he does best – be petty and horrible till he wins the day.

I mentioned on Twitter that this feels like a KonoSuba with all the brakes removed, and I still stand by that. Snow is still a horrible combination of Darkness and Aqua with the flaws of both characters, and I longed for her to get run over by a bus. Rose comes off best of the crew, as I said before, but is driven by her appetite, which unfortunately leads to a lot of cannibalism jokes… not to mention sex = food jokes… when they have to cross a desert for several days with no food. Grimm is less fun here, with her one personality trait seeming to be “desperate”. There is a long-running argument over the course of the book between her and Alice over the nature of magic, which Alice, as an artificial human, rejects entirely. This could lead somewhere good, but it will have to be in future books, as nothing comes of it here.

Fortunately, this book does have one big thing still going for it: it’s funny. I laughed quite a bit. But with KonoSuba I laugh and also care, and I haven’t gotten to that point with this cast. They need a third dimension. Hopefully in future books.

The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life, Vol. 2

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By Usata Nonohara and ox. Released in Japan as “Ikinokori Renkinjutsushi wa Machi de Shizuka ni Kurashitai” by Kadokawa Shoten. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Erin Husson.

The second volume of this series has many of the same strengths and weaknesses that the first has. The writing is good and makes you want to see what’s coming next. There is slightly less detail about the creation of potions, which pleased me. Those who are into deep worldbuilding will love it. But it seems tonally off in a way that means I can never quite love it. The author still wants to use slavery and critique it, but also shows us that all the slaves we meet are “bad guys being punished for robbery and murder” so that we’re still OK with it in this series. More to the point, there’s a disconnect between the world this book exists in and Mariela herself, and I don’t just mean that she’s displaced by 200 years from her old world, though that might explain it. It’s a slice of grim-n-gritty life, with Mariela being a bright ball of sunshine bringing joy into everyone’s life. The two don’t always mesh.

There’s a lot going on in this 2nd volume, even longer than the first – and the first was quite long. Mariela and Sieg are trying to run her shop, meet new people, and avoid having her outed as an alchemist, as she’d rather not be shut up in a building and worked to death. We see as the book moves along that her fears are not entirely unfounded. The Kingdom is still trying to beat the Labyrinth once and for all, helped out by Mariela’s Holy Water. And a noble family has a dark secret, one not entirely known to the nice girl who befriends Mariela and shows her the wonders of modern appliances, but her older brother certainly knows and is obsessed with it. What is concealed in a secret passageway in their mansion? And what kinds of things are being done to slaves to ensure the safety of the royal family?

If it sounds like this turned into a different story, you’re thinking along the lines I was. The last part of the book is quite dark and disturbing, with sacrifices, blood magic, and graphic descriptions of people’s heads cut open and brains showing. It contrasts with the childlike Mariela, who is shown to be even more childlike than she had been before in these scenes, as if the author wanted to emphasize the contrast but took it too far. Indeed, for most of the book the author can’t quite decide whether Mariela is meant to act like a 16-year-old or a 6-year-old, and it pinwheels between the two. This is especially discomfiting given that both Sieg and Lynx are shown to be falling for her. Innocent is fine, immature is less so.

Despite this, the book overall is very readable, and while it has many parts that annoy me I don’t actually feel the need to drop it yet. The flashback scenes showing Mariela’s first learning of alchemy and the relationship with her master are excellent. I just wish the author would stay in the fantasy-slice-of-life lane and stop making detours to the wrong side of the tracks.

A Double Dungeon review

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Dungeon Builder: The Demon King’s Labyrinth Is a Modern City!. By Rui Tsukiyo and Hideaki Yoshikawa. Released in Japan as “Maou-sama no Machizukuri! ~Saikyou no Danjon wa Kindai Toshi~” by Overlap, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Gardo. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Elina Ishikawa-Curran. Adapted by Julia Kinsman.

My Room Is a Dungeon Rest Stop. By Tougoku Hudou and Takoya Kiyoshi. Released in Japan as “Boku no Heya ga Dungeon no Kyuukeijo ni Natteshimatta Ken” by Takeshobo, serialization ongoing on the online site Web Comic Gamma. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Wesley O’Donnell. Adapted by Kim Kindya.

After reading both of these titles I decided to review them together. Yes, they both have ‘dungeon’ in the title, but more than that, they’re both clearly catering to the exact same audience: light novel fans who enjoy fantasy manga, or in this case adaptation of light novels we don’t have licensed over here. They both have suitably generic male leads – one may be a demon lord and the other may be a schlub in a tracksuit, but at the end of the day they’re not why you’re reading this. And there’s also plenty of fanservice. Which is why folks are reading this.

Dungeon Builder might be an isekai – we do see the new Demon Lord has lost his memories but knows what guns are – but the isekai part is mostly irrelevant. Procel is new Demon Lord of Creation, and has to create minions and dungeons that feed on people’s despair and fear. As the flash forward at the start of the book tells you, however, he is too nice a guy, so decides to make his dungeon the happiest place on Earth. It’s not clear yet how he’ll do this – the first volume doesn’t get too far into the story. He’s joined by Marcho, his busty demon lord mentor (that’s her on the cover) and two cute minions, both of whom look underage (something cheerfully pointed out by Marcho, who nicknames him “Lolicel”. This has slightly less service than the other title, and might develop into something interesting, but also seems to run on cliche power – his rival Demon Lord of Wind is a classic tsundere with shaky self-esteem that shows as arrogance. There’s also a dwarf girl who ticks the “rei Ayanami Expy” box.

My Room Is a Dungeon Rest Stop is more of a reverse isekai. Our hero Touru (Why? What that romanization now for that specific name? Don’t get me wrong, I was an ‘ou’ fan for the longest tine, but really?… sorry, back to the review) gets an apartment that’s dirt cheap… because once he moves in, the front door turns out to lead to a dungeon! Luckily, he can go out the window to his modern-day life. Exploring the dungeon, he comes across a passed-out adventurer girl and takes her back to his apartment, where she discovers the wonders of modern lie and explains a bit to him about dungeon life. Like Dungeon Builder, this title has barely gotten started. It’s a lot heavier on the fanservice – there’s a long sequence regarding the girl wetting herself from fear and the consequences of this that I really did not need to read about – and Touru is slightly more generic than the already generic Procel. As with Dungeon Builder, it opens with a brief flashforward showing us other characters who have fallen into our lead’s orbit.

I’d argue that both titles deliver what the intended audience wants, and will irritate anyone who is not in that narrow audience bracket. I’d say Dungeon Builder, based on its first volume, has more promise than Dungeon Rest Stop. I may get a second volume of the former. Still, if you like fantasy dungeon series with cute girls, these two books exist for you.