I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, Vol. 3

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By Kisetsu Morita and Benio. Released in Japan as “Slime Taoshite 300 Nen, Shiranai Uchi ni Level MAX ni Nattemashita” by Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel

For all that the premise of this book is about a girl who likes to take things easy and relax, they sure do a hell of a lot. But that’s where the humor comes into play, of course. The only thing relaxed about Azusa’s life is her general attitude and desire to simply live in her cottage. What actually happens? Well, OK, the cookie baking battle seems to fit in nicely. But then one of her daughters is stuck as a slime, leading to a big adventure to try to fix things, which includes a martial arts tournament. Then a fake witch is abusing the name of the Witch of the Highlands, forcing Azusa to track her down and find out why it’s happening. Even a barbeque party, which you’d think would be as peaceful as the cookie baking, involves killing off masses of dangerous boar animals – and teaching dragon girls that nudity is not OK. There’s a lot going on here.

There is more of what I enjoy about the series in this volume (some great humor, “found family” affection) and less of what I don’t like (Halkara’s clumsiness and jokes about her chest – well, OK, there’s some of those). There’s also still a large amount of yuri subtext, though it’s not going anywhere as Azusa really isn’t interested. It’s heavily implied most everyone who lives in the house – and even some who don’t – love her romantically, but she seems to be a) straight, and b) mostly indifferent anyway. Actually, that may be by design – when we meet another long-lived witch, and discuss the loneliness that happens when you outlive everyone around you, Azusa strongly implies that she’s deliberately suppressing all her emotions in order to not be affected by this. It helps that she’s made several long-lived girls part of her family (or ghosts, as the case may be), but I do wonder if it will come up again in the future.

Frankly, though, I’m happy with Azusa being relatively subdued and snarky – except in her head, when the tsukkomi comes across much louder. We get a lot more memories of her previous life on Earth, both from her wageslave days and her school life (she brags about her ping ping club skill… which proves to be a mistake against two dragons she describes as being “classic high school jocks”. There’s a bit more development of the others, particularly the dragons and Beelzebub the Demon Lord, who isn’t living with Azusa but might as well be for how often she pops up. There’s also some examination of modern Japanese foibles, as we get a fantasy undead who’s also a NEET, and the “fake witch” trying to get people to praise her by a method so oblique that it feels a little ridiculous.

If “my pace” heroines drive you nuts, steer clear. But however much Azusa may not want it to, things are happening in this series. Just… very slowly and leisurely.

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!: 110-Million Bride

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By Natsume Akatsuki and Kurone Mishima. Released in Japan as “Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

For all that KonoSuba is occasionally called a harem manga, it’s more clearly a love triangle. And having given Megumin her due again in the 5th book, we’re back to focusing on Darkness, who is dealing with the realities of being the daughter of a noble. As the title may imply (it’s a parody of the “My Bride Is a Mermaid” series), she’s getting married off in order to clear a family debt, one that hearkens back to events of the previous books. This is actually very well handled, as it looks more closely at the “we saved the world but there was massive property damage” trope from various fantasy titles. Knowing Darkness’ sense of duty, it’s no surprise that her first thought is to sacrifice herself for the sake of everyone else. Of course there’s no way that Kazuma is going to let her get away with… oh, he’s sulking. OK, he may actually let her get away with it. Fortunately, Megumin and Aqua are on the case. (Fortunately?)

Before the wedding, Darkness is trying other avenues to earn cash, including taking out a hideously dangerous (and thus high bounty) monster, which naturally likes to attack and eat people, leading to Kazuma dying – again. This helps to emphasize something that we saw in the previous book – Kazuma and his partners work better in a large group than they do as a quartet. Unfortunately, this also means the reward is divided among various adventurers, so she has to go through with the wedding. Which is, naturally, to the evil Lord we’ve seen before, who is pretty much the bad guy behind nearly everything in the series. To Kazuma’s credit, he does try to rescue her from this plight, at first, but he simply cannot resist running his mouth off, which leads to a fight, which… well, you know. Kazuma.

This is one of those books that’s all about the climax, though. It’s also very much about Darkness’ specific masochism fetish, which is on display throughout the book. It can be very difficult for both her and Kazuma to draw a line between “you are being mean and embarrassing me and I find it really arousing” and “you are being mean and embarrassing and I am pretty furious”, and after the events of this book, I don’t think either one has really gotten closer to figuring out where that line is. In terms of the reader and KonoSuba’s sense of humor, though, nothing can quite top Kazuma’s declaration that she’s his property now and he plans to use her body to the fullest. This is in the middle of the wedding, and is essentially followed up by Darkness having an orgasm. It’s strangely heartwarming too, in that KonoSuba way. Also heartwarming is the way that everyone in the town arrives to help Darkness.

This series has been very consistent lately, which I’m quite happy with. And the cliffhanger shows that Kazuma has finally figured out who Chris is, which is nice. The next volume seems to feature both Eris and Aqua, so I’m expecting less romantic comedy and more just plain comedy. KonoSuba will make any reader who likes funny stuff happy.

Ojojojo, Vols. 1-2

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By coolkyousinnjya. Released in Japan by Takeshobo, serialized in the magazine Manga Life. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Ben Robert Trethewey. Adapted by Clint Bickham.

Well, this was a pleasant surprise. We’ve seen a lot of this author’s works over here recently, including Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, which I dropped after a few volumes as I found it overrated, and Mononoke Sharing, which I didn’t like at all. Here, though, in a 4-koma series that lacks either monster girls or fanservice, I’ve found a series I can get behind. It helps that this handles the ‘4-koma slice of life’ genre very well. There’s always a danger in these sorts of titles that it will end up being plotless and lacking in forward motion, moving through the school year, festivals, etc. and ending up at graduation. Ojojojo, though, seems to actually care about character development, and things do, in fact, happen. Indeed, our leads end up dating by the end of the first book, which surprised me a great deal. That said, it’s not a surprise, as they complement each other perfectly.

…OK, perhaps they don’t complement each other perfectly immediately. As you can see by the cover, where they stand as far apart as they can and still exist, there’s a bit of awkwardness. This is because Haru Jikogumeguri (you can tell she’s rich because the name is *six* syllables) is socially inept and therefore acts like an arrogant rich princess, and Tsurezure Kawayanagi (who seems to be of modest status, despite also having a “rich” last name) is sopcially inept and therefore doesn’t really interact at all, preferring to stare at nature. When she transfers into his class, they bond almost despite themselves, and the joy of this book is watching the two of them grow close and learn how to communicate honestly. They’re helped by Akane Tendou, Haru’s first female friend in class and the relatively “normal” one of the group, Haru’s acid-tongued butler, and Chris, an English transfer student who has a similarly arrogant introduction as Haru did, but gets away with it more (probably as he’s a guy.)

Haru is the sort of arrogant rich girl you can’t help but love, especially once you get her semi-tragic backstory and see her earnest yet awful attempts to change her ways. The first volume is fairly normal 4-koma stuff, as we learn about our heroes via various quick gags and the occasional sweet moment. (The author says he planned to end it with the first book.) In the second half, he starts to deepen things, particularly the relationship between Haru and Akane, which turns out to involve a lot of misplaced guilt on Akane’s end. (The last name is a bit unfortunate – be assured she is not crossing over from Ranma 1/2.) By the end of the 2nd volume our leads have progressed to holding hands (which, given their personalities, is a big jump), and Chris is beginning to get over his own arrogance. There is one more omnibus to go, though, and since we know next to nothing about Tsurezure (who is unrelated to the Children of the same name, speaking of which) I suspect the next book will go into his past in an effort to move things along further.

Add to this next to no fanservice (Akane is jealous of Haru’s large chest at one point, but it’s a normal large chest, not the massive bosoms we see in Dragon Maid and Mononoke Sharing) and you have a title that’s a perfect introduction to casual fans who want to read a nice romantic comedy and don’t mind the “gag comic” format. A nice pleasant surprise.