The Unwanted Undead Adventurer, Vol. 3

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By Yu Okano and Jaian. Released in Japan as “Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha” by Overlap, Inc. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Shirley Yeung.

Last time I complained about the dullness of Rentt’s POV, and though the cast remains as small as ever, it appears the author remains cognizant of it, as we get Rentt thinking about the fact that since he became undead, he’s become relatively flat and emotionless. Fortunately, though Rentt is still undead, he does level up a bit here, so at least we don’t have to read his halting, shambolic speech anymore in the second half of the book. In fact, I found the book very much felt like an inverted U as I read it. The middle two sections are easily the best, and I genuinely enjoyed them. I was not as enamored with the first section, which was essentially wrapping up events from the last book and meandered quite a bit, and the final section, which features far too many magic lessons. There are times when you can tell that the author is still learning the craft.

As I noted earlier, we pick up where we left off, with Rentt getting the flower that will help heal the woman in charge of the orphanage. While there, he meets an adventurer who turns out to be a butler (not named Sebastian, alas) and gets a request to visit the butler’s master… or mistress, as it turns out. This second section sees Rentt navigate a confusing hedge maze and then search through a pile of valuable magic artifacts for his “reward”, as well as making a contract to get more of that healing flower. Due to events in that section, Rentt is able to evolve further, becoming… sort of vampire-ish? He has bat wings, and is very pale. But he’s not QUITE exactly what the textbooks say, and he can still use his divinity, mana, etc. Finally, the young girl at the orphanage who hired Rentt to cure their caretaker is made a magic pupil of Lorraine’s, and she and Rentt attend a magic class which is made up of equal parts amusing pettiness and boring worldbuilding.

The best parts of the book are the ones where Rentt is allowed to wander outside the “boring old undead adventurer” narration. The sequence with the toy airship, and Rentt’s nerd infatuation with it, made me smile, and is absolutely terrific. That whole section was good, as Laura, the head of the family hiring Rentt, is intelligent and fun without being a brat (and knows the value of good tea). I also liked the aftermath of Rentt becoming a vampire-like being, as he and Lorraine take turns going over his body and exactly what he can and cannot do now. (I was disappointed that Lorraine didn’t ask if he was “fully functional”, so to speak, but then she seems just as shy as he is in many ways.) This was one of the sections where the worldbuilding and back and forth conversations worked quite well.

The end of this volume implies things may not go nearly as well for Rentt in the fourth volume, as we’re getting new characters who I suspect won’t take kindly to heroic vampire adventurers. That said, it may be a bit of a wait – the 4th volume is out in Japan in November, so I expect at least 3 or 4 months. Till then, The Unwanted Undead and Uneven Adventurer is still mostly keeping my attention.

Futaribeya: A Room for Two, Vol. 1

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By Yukiko. Released in Japan by Gentosha, serialized in the magazine Comic Birz. Released in North America by Tokyopop. Translated by Katie McLendon.

I haven’t reviewed a Tokyopop title in nearly seven years, I believe, ever since its founder decided to rearrange his priorities. But the priorities are rearranging themselves back a bit, it would seem, and so here we are with a new Japanese manga. Futaribeya seems to be a fairly safe choice to leap back on this train (given they’re doing a massive Aria release next year that may, God Willing, actually finish the series, I was always going to board the train eventually) as it’s light, fluffy, slice of life with a few yuri tease bits. There actually are more of the latter than I was expecting – honestly, given the number of series that folks say are yuri that merely feature two girls who stand near each other, my expectations were low. But this series is pleasant and amusing enough, mostly due to the strength of its two leads, who may not be a couple but who bounce off each other perfectly.

Sakurako is a nice, upright, studious young woman who’s starting high school and given the choice of living in a dorm or in an apartment complex nearby. There she meets Kasumi, who is beautiful but pretty much lives in the dictionary under the definition of “my pace”. The two get along much better than you’d expect, and the first volume seems rather Sunshine Sketch-y, reasonably free of major drama and content to have us watch the two girls live their high school life. We get to see everyone struggling to study, except Sakurako, who apparently has a photographic memory and gets straight A’s (except the one time she fills in the answers all over one place by accident). We see Kasumi struggle to… well, stay awake and exert energy, really, but she’s also the one I bonded most with over the course of the volume. We also meet some relatives and fellow classmates, but honestly the series is mostly about these two girls and their growing friendship.

As I said above, the yuri in this one is there, but if you don’t want to see it you won’t. Sakurako and Kasumi have a very close friendship, sleep together in the one bed, and Kasumi rejects guys who ask her out by saying she’s dating someone while describing Sakurako. That said, I certainly wouldn’t mind if the yuri actually went somewhere. It would not take a lot for these two to go from high school to college to just living together as a couple. Both girls admit they’re each other’s “type”, at least to themselves. And there’s a valentine’s day chapter and a subsequent white day chapter, which features Kasumi buying Sakurako… well, not a refrigerator, and they don’t shop for it together, but it’s a microwave oven/toaster oven combo that is a really serious thing to get a girl for White Day. I was impressed.

This is cute, mild yuri that left a smile on my face and I liked everyone. I’ll read more.

An Archdemon’s Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride, Vol. 2

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By Fuminori Teshima and COMTA. Released in Japan by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

The color illustrations of most light novels tend to spoil, and a lot of readers who hate spoilers know that they should avoid them before reading the book. That said, even if you looked at the color pages for the second volume of Archdemon’s Dilemma, you can’t have been TOO surprised. Having used Vol. 1 to set up the premise of adorable ‘villain’ and his even more adorable ‘slave’, with them essentially being a married couple, the fact that they gain an adopted daughter is not exactly a surprise if you’ve read any sort of manga or light novels. Seeing Chastille dressed up as a maid might be more of a surprise, but given what happened to her in Book 1, and the fact that this volume begins with her execution being discussed, it’s not hard to connect the dots either. Archdemon’s Dilemma is trying to balance out the cute found family stuff with the badass archdemon stuff, and so far… well, so far it’s a bit overbalanced on one side, I will admit.

Speaking of Chastille, I hadn’t mentioned her at all in the last review, probably as she very nicely filled the ‘other girl who likes him but isn’t going to get anywhere’ slot. That said, Zagan was impressed with her power, and I appreciated the fact that although she spends most of this book either at the peril of the Church, an Archangel who has supposedly arrived to kill her, or a dragon girl with a grudge against Archangels who keeps pranking her, she eventually does get over her deep depression and manage to take up her sword again – and once she does, she manages to kick ass. (It was also nice to see that it was Nephy, not Zagan, who was the one to talk her out of her funk.) I’m not sure how well she’s going to do at trying to get the angels and demons to talk to each other, but I’m rooting for her, despite her basically being Emilia from The Devil Is a Part-Timer! with a few serial numbers filed off.

As for Zagan, there are a few moments in the book where we get him and Nephy being adorable together (helped along by the illustrations, which do a much better job than the text of conveying his emotional awkwardness), but I wish there were more of them, as most of the rest of this book is devoted to showing off how super-ungodly powerful Zagan is. He’s still saying the wrong thing most of the time, but the things he says are designed to make him sound cool and brooding, and there’s not enough of his inner self NOT being cool and brooding. In other words, he feels too much like an OP protagonist. Things aren’t helped by the fact that the final battle sees Nephy staying behind at the castle like a dutiful wife, waiting up and preparing his dinner. Nephy helps make Zagan more down to earth.

Still, overall it was a good book, provided you don’t mind the battles being a bit boring because Zagan is always in control. And we even get a butler at the end, who I’ve decided I will call Sebastian. As with most fantasy light novels, recommended for those who like these sorts of books.