Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town, Vol. 1

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By Toshio Satou and Nao Watanuki. Released in Japan as “Tatoeba Last Dungeon Mae no Mura no Shonen ga Joban no Machi de Kurasu Youna Monogatari” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

First things first, this was hilarious. And, unlike some other books I’ve reviweed recently, I mean that in a good way. Last Dungeon Kid is funny in a KonoSuba/Cautious Hero sort of way, with clueless leads, over the top heroines, fourth-wall breaking narration, and “anyone can be the straight man” style humor. Well, anyone except Lloyd, our hero. As the title implies, in the village he grew up in, he’s a weak little kid everyone pities. But the village he grew up in is a legendary village where everything is a next-level monster and the townspeople are all at Level 99. So when he decides to go to the big city, everyone thinks he’s doomed, except the village chief (who has ulterior motives herself). But the city he goes to is not nearly as dangerous or terrifying as his own village… so he’s suddenly stupidly overpowered. If only he realized this.

The humor in this book strikes a nice balance, never settling on being one specific thing, except of course for the premise of “Lloyd thinks he’s a weak wussy kid but is actually stupidly strong”. Six-foot-tall locusts are just ‘pesky bugs’ to him. His strength with a sword annihilates the practice target when he applies to be a soldier. His magic uses ancient runes no one has seen in a thousand years. Major plot points in the book are resolved offscreen by Lloyd simply saying “oh, by the way…” He’s a hoot. He’s also cute, sweet, and can cook and clean just like the perfect wife. Now, this is the first of (so far) eight books, so the reader will have to be aware going into the series that Lloyd is not going to “wise up” anytime soon, as that would defeat the premise. He’s always going to misunderstand. If he keeps up like he does in Book 1, that should be fine.

The rest of the cast are mostly the girls who fall in love with him. I wasn’t impressed with the village chief, but that’s mostly as I don’t like her “type”. We meet a young witch who holes up in a small house in the poor end of town, who turns out to be far more than she seems. She functions as the straight man half the time. The other half is taken up by (I swear I’m not making this up) Riho Flavin, a mercenary who will do anything for money and has a robot arm made of mithril. Yes, despite that description, she’s the normal one of the group, mostly thanks to Selen, a girl who grew up with a cursed leather mask on her face, something almost instantly undone by Lloyd. She proceeds to fall in love with him HARD. I dislike using the term yandere, as it’s frequently applied wrong, but… yeah, that’s what we have here. (Also, the illustrations of her choose to ignore the author’s description so that she can be “really pretty and cute” instead. Shame.)

This book was fun, and looks like the sort of thing that you can easily make a series out of. If you enjoy silly light novels that mock the usual tropes, it’s an absolute winner.

Full Metal Panic!: Ending Day by Day, Part 1

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By Shouji Gatou and Shikidouji. Released in Japan by Fujimi Shobo. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis.

Welp, it’s another of those “I tried to make it fit into one book but it got away from me so have a two-parter” books, meaning this volume is VERY short by modern light novel standards. That’s not to say that there is not a lot going on in it, however. The title implies the end of the status quo, and that’s not a lie. After a first half that’s mostly action sequence, Sousuke is told that he’s being pulled off of Kaname bodyguard duty and sent back to finally figure out how to bond with the Arbalest that he’s been not-so-secretly grumbling about. This upsets Sousuke, who takes it out on Tessa, who in turn takes out her own spurned love on him. And in the meantime poor Kaname is left baffled and afraid. But really, this is Sousuke’s book, as he’s forced to confront a question that he’d never really thought of before now: what does he want to do with his life? As a child soldier who can die anytime, this never came up. It does now.

Sousuke and Kaname spend almost the entire book apart, but it’s telling that two of the best scenes involve the two of them. The first is hilarious, as Kaname, back at school, is on the phone with Sousuke trying to see how he’s doing, and Sousuke (in an overloaded car running from the Sicilian mob, which I suspect is a Lupin III homage) is answering as best he can whi8le avoiding explosions. The second is sweeter, where, after a disastrous attempt at getting a haircut at a salon goes south, Kaname offers to cut Sousuke’s hair. This shows off how much he trusts her now, and is really sweet, but also leads to darker things. Kaname has two bodyguards, one “hidden”, and the other bodyguard, in Sousuke’s opinion, has been incompetent. “Wraith”, the hidden bodyguard, also seems to hold Sousuke in contempt. In fact, Sousuke is rather untrusting of most of Mithril at the moment.

Which may not be a bad idea, as the reader (and Tessa) go from last volume’s “there was a mole or two in our ranks” to “are half our ranks and our entire intelligence system filled with enemies”? It’s well handled, as the decision to recall Sousuke is both a good one (he really does need to bond with his AI, it’s become a real problem) and also highly suspicious. (Honestly, I’m amazed Kaname wasn’t kidnapped IMMEDIATELY after this happens, but they seem to be ramping up her own paranoia as well.) It also leads to the final “best scene in the book”, the frustrating screaming match between Sousuke and Tessa that reminds you that no matter how brilliant these kids are they probably should not be in major paramilitary anti-terrorist organizations. It doesn’t help that Sousuke is still clueless about Tessa’s feelings.

So everything is set up to blue up in the next book, which should have more action adventure and lots more angst. Is Sousuke’s new commander *another* enemy agent? Is Kaname’s hidden bodyguard an enemy agent? Is the nice general Tessa used to work for an enemy agent? It’s hard to tell who the good guys are anymore. Well, Kaname’s good. We have that.

Toradora!, Vol. 7

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By Yuyuko Takemiya and Yasu. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by Will Holcomb.

Despite the fact that it’s a Christmas volume, and it does feature the two leads realizing (if only to themselves) that they are in love, this is one of the more emotional, gut-wrenching volumes in a series that usually wears its heart on its sleeve to begin with. The premise involves the class (with Taiga now back after her two-week suspension) coming up with a Christmas party idea, helped along by Kitamura, who is newly popular after his very public confession and rejection. Sadly, Minorin is in a massive funk, refuses to talk to Ryuuji, and also says she won’t be at the party. Taiga decides that this is absolutely the time when she will finally get the two of them together, and pulls out all the stops to do so… only realizing after a visit from “Santa” that this isn’t what she wants at all. Meanwhile, Ami is merely sad that she arrived in the second book, too late to do anything about our tortured couple.

The astute reader knows why Minorin is in a funk, of course, as she too sees what Taiga and Ryuuji do not. Ami is merely somewhat melancholic about coming in second, though, Minorin is devastated – the narrative not helping things by having her errant foul ball destroy the class’s Christmas tree in a metaphor from hell. The final cliffhanger scene of the book is well-written but terrible – Minorin’s choice, and callback to the fourth book, is absolutely wrong and will be very bad for her. Speaking of Ami, she tries a bit here – her “you’re like her father” metaphor would work very well if Taiga and Ryuuji were not the endgame, but it obviously is so it’s wrong. I admit that I do find the leads’ codependency a bit worrying, but it’s obvious to literally everyone by now that they can’t live without each other.

Then there’s Taiga’s “good girl” act this book, as well as her discussion of Santa Claus. No question, the middle part of the book, with Taiga and Ryuuji at the post office, is one of the two highlights of the whole thing, showing off how far the palmtop tiger has come from just being a ball of rage and the loneliness – and desire to erase other’s loneliness. It allows Ryuuji to realize just how much his life revolves around her now. The other highlight is, of course, Ryuuji’s desperate run back to the apartment to be Taiga’s Santa – something she knows immediately, of course, but buys into anyway. It’s unbelievably sweet and lovely, and makes her emotional devastation after he leaves to go find Minorin even harsher. (I wonder why he was hospitalized afterwards and she wasn’t, given she ran into the cold in bare feet? Possibly he spent the entire night just staring into the air and losing core temperature.)

So yes, we are reaching peak realization. Sadly, everything is terrible as a result. We’ve got three more books till the end, so I know we can’t fix everything in Book 8, but can we at least fix something? This was a fantastic book, and hurts so good.