Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 13

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By Fujino Omori and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka?” by Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Winifred Bird.

When I had reviewed the Lyu spinoff of this series, I had wondered why we did not get the actual flashback showing how her Familia were all killed, and what set her on her roaring rampage of revenge. As you read this novel, it becomes clear: the author wanted to save it till we got to this point. Picking up right where the last book left off, and not even allowing Bell and company to emerge from the Dungeon (Hestia gets a small cameo to remind us she exists), this volume points and laughs at all the people who thought that we couldn’t possibly get even more over the top. A murder that sees Lyu as the prime suspect drives a bunch of 18th floor mercenaries and adventurers to hunt her down, and Bell’s team tag along because they think something more is going on here. They’re right, but the murder investigation soon becomes secondary to something far more important: trying not to be killed and left in a bloody mess.

As noted by the author in the afterword, we also get a much larger role here for Cassandra, the adventurer who, like her namesake, has prophecies that no one ever believes. She’s aware of this, and so this time decides not to lay it all out for people (it’s hard to interpret anyway, beyond “everyone will die), and instead tries to go along and see what she can do to help stop it from happening. Sometimes this is really great – the extra armor she has Welf make for Bell (which, amusingly, is a scarf, making it look like a present from a girlfriend) is ridiculously strong, and Bell would absolutely be dead by the end of the book without it. Unfortunately, she can’t really stop a landslide once it’s actually started, and once the true monster of the book gets going, she almost completely shuts down in despair and fear.

Speaking of which, this is a very different Lyu to the one we’ve seen before. To no one’s surprise, she’s not the murderer, but that doewsn’t mean that she isn’t rampaging through the dungeons, having spotted someone she thought long dead – because she killed them all. As I noted above, here we get the full story of what happened to her Familia, and why she’s so traumatized by the whole thing – in addition to the juggernaut killing everyone, she actually “sacrificed” some of her family members to escape… or at least that’s what she and the bad guy think, I suspect the actual reality is likely a bit different. Fortunately, she has Bell by her side, who is ridiculously impressive in the fights towards the end of this book, which are mind-bogglingly good. No one writes non-stop action and deep emotions at the same time quite like Omori does. The 5th chapter is worth the price of the book alone.

Sadly, and with the author apologizing to us for doing it again, there’s a cliffhanger here, so we’ll have to wait till the summer to see how Bell and Lyu get out of this. Not to mention Cassandra and the rest of Hestia Familia are still down there. I suspect it’ll all work out, but I dunno, DanMachi can get pretty dark. It’s still in the top tier of light novels right now.

Transparent Light Blue

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By Kiyoko Iwami. Released in Japan as “Toumei na Usui Mizuiro ni” by Ichijinsha, serialized in the magazine Comic Yuri Hime. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Katrina Leonoudakis. Adapted by Asha Bardon.

This yuri manga, right off that bat, had something different from the usual that made me raise an eyebrow: there’s a guy in it. In a major role, no less. A lot of the more recent yuri titles tend to avoid having men in them altogether, taking place at all-girls’ schools and the like. There’s a good reason for this: yuri fans tend to regard any guy in a title where they have ship preferences as the absolute worst. Just ask old-school Tomoyo fans about Syaoran in Cardcaptor Sakura. Having a cast be all girls does not remove the drama, necessarily, but it does allow the drama to happen without the worry of “what happens if this is just a tease and the het couple winds up together?” That said, that’s unlikely to happen here, as the magazine this comes from, Comic Yuri Hime, has yuri as the definition. So we do get a guy, and even worse, he’s a childhood friend.

Ritsu, Ichika, and Shun are all childhood friends. Unfortunately for Ritsu, Ichika and Shun have begun to date. This is particularly unfortunate as Ritsu is also in love… with Ichika. Yes, it’s a standard love triangle, only in a yuri fashion. Ritsu is torn up by this, but at least Ichika remains close to her, even allowing the other girl to clean her ears (a very intimate act in Japan). Ichika’s trust moves Ritsu to kiss her while she’s sleeping… which Shun walks in on. From that point, there’s lots of melodrama, discussion of who likes who and why, and teen angst. In the end, though, Ichika feels safest when she’s with Ritsu, and likes her back. I really liked that the manga makes Ritsu morally dubious while keeping her the heroine, and also doesn’t make Shun a villain, keeping him the childhood friend who realizes that his girl is going to go off with another girl. I could have done without the ear cleaning porn noises, admittedly, both at the beginning and as a plot point.

As with a lot of these sorts of single volume titles, there’s not enough material for a full volume, so we get Apron, a story of a girl at a cafe who’s in love with another female employee. She’s caught sniffing said employee’s clothing by her coworker, who has a similar height and build to the other girl, and therefore is semi-blackmailed into wearing her apron so that she can pretend. Unfortunately, the girl she has a crush on is fooling around with the (male) manager. Fortunately, the coworker she’s been using also has a secret they’ve been keeping. This chapter is not really allowed to get as deep as it possibly needs to, and feels a bit too pat as a result. That said, the author is very good at drawing crying faces of angst, and we get some good ones here.

This promises a quick-hit volume with some yuri, and that’s what it delivers. I think fans of the genre will enjoy it.

The Irregular at Magic High School: Visitor Arc, Part III

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

A word of warning that I’m still mostly grumpy about this volume, as I have become about this series in general. I think it’s become something where I’m interesting in seeing where the author takes things, but hate every decision he makes when he takes them. This volume wraps up the arc with Lina coming to Japan and Shizuku going to America, and also the killer “parasites” that do, in fact, kill more people before they are taken down. There’s also graduation, as Mayumi and the rest of her year move on to University – though not, the author reassures us, away from the story, though no doubt they will appear less. And there are some nudges towards the main plotline, as Erika figures out what family Tatsuya is really from. I was thinking at the start of this arc that she, like Honoka, might actually confess to him, but that’s unlikely to happen now. Besides, we know which ship will win.

I am almost at the point with Tatsuya and Miyuki where I wish they DID sleep together, if only as it would provide an excellent dropping point. But no, we continue to have Miyuki try to be the dutiful little sister even as her thoughts are growing more and more romantic and sexual as she gets older. As for Tatsuya, well, he’s ambivalent to everyone else, and seems to be pushing back on Miyuki when she takes things too far, but it’s hard to gauge his feelings on the matter given his past and lack of emotions. That said, I’m not really rooting for Honoka here either, who seems to have forgotten she confessed to Tatsuya and was rejected several volumes ago and is goaded by Shizuku (over the phone, and likely sleep-deprived) to press her case harder. This does lead to the funniest part of the book, where Honoka “makes herself useful” against the forces tailing them in a way that you know would have made Tatsuya facepalm if he had the ability.

As for Lina, her arc overall was “there’s always someone better than you”, in this case Tatsuya and Miyuki, showing her that she’s not as terrific as she thinks she is. Which is fine. I was far less happy with the “you’re too nice to be a soldier” bullshit from Tatsuya, which I’m fairly sure he would not have said had Lina been a man – but then if Lina had been a man I suspect her character would have been killed off anyway. It’s also a bit off that we never really see Lina reuniting with her superiors, or how they felt about her performance. I’m sure she’ll show up again, but it’s likely going to be a while, and I bet I’ll never really see resolution there, just as we never really resolved the 2nd part of the Nine Schools Competition after it got attacked. The author drops loose ends like crumbs.

We start the new school year next volume, which seems thankfully to be a single volume arc. I’ve no doubt that we’ll expand the cast with exciting new freshman. Till then, I’m honestly happy to see the back of this arc.