I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, Vol. 1

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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

The premise for the start of this book may seem a tad familiar: a young woman dies and is told by an apologetic angel that she can be reincarnated in another world, and is entitled to 1 (one) cool power. Azusa wasn’t actually killed saving a young boy or murdered by a jealous colleague, though – she just worked herself to death as a corporate wage slave. Since dying for her job proved to be very unsatisfying, she asks to be immortal in her next life, and is reincarnated as a perpetually 17-year-old witch in your standard fantasy land. (If this is made into an anime, she’d better be played by Kikuko Inoue or I’ll be sad.) She meets the local villagers, finds a conveniently abandoned house, and spends her days killing off low-level slimes. Then 300 years pass…

If this sounds like I just spent a paragraph explaining the plot of a book whose plot is actually explained in the title, well, welcome to the world of Japanese light novels, where the longer and more pedantic the title, the more popular it seems to be. Yes, after killing slimes every day for 300 years, Azusa is rather shocked to find she’s now a Level 99 powerhouse. This upsets her, as for 300 years she’s also been doing the opposite of what she did in her former life – taking life easy, slow, and not really doing anything at all. Unfortunately, now that word’s gotten out, she suddenly finds adventure coming for her. A dragon wants to challenge her, two slime girls are here for revenge, a busty elf arrives demanding protection from a demon… you get the idea. Will she be dragged into dangerous yet compelling adventures against her will?

Well, no, she won’t, in fact. The conceit of this series, and its most entertaining aspect, is that everyone who tries to fight Azusa ends up pulled into her “my pace” lifestyle. The dragon, once defeated, transforms to human form and lives as her apprentice. The slime girls are really children who need a family more than anything else. And what’s more, Azusa benefits from this as well, as she realizes that while living alone and relaxing for 300 years was all very well, her new found family is even better, and she’s even willing to protect them in a pinch, despite that not being very relaxing. (I haven’t mentioned the elf girl, who is the weak point of the book, being a busty airhead with lesbian tendencies who is in the book because it’s written by a male author for a male audience that wants to see a busty airhead elf with lesbian tendencies. She’s not as funny as everyone would like us to think.) The general theme of this book is “relax and take it easy, do things at your own pace”, and I quite like that.

The book has several volumes out in Japan, and I’m not sure how well it will succeed going forward, but I’m perfectly happy to find out. Another “don’t read if you hate overpowered characters” warning, but if you can get past that, Killing Slimes for 300 Years will put a nice smile on your face. A good beach read.

Silver Spoon, Vol. 2

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By Hiromu Arakawa. Released in Japan as “Gin no Saji” by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Amanda Haley.

It seems a bit startling for our hero and his classmates to be headed into summer break right at the start of the series, but that’s the Japanese education schedule for you, which begins in April. And summer break at an agricultural school means everyone goes back to their farms… except Hachiken, who has no farm but does have an intense desire not to go back home. So he takes up Mikage’s offer to go to her farm for the holiday. You’d think cute romance would ensue, but that’s pretty much still just in Hachiken’s head right now. Instead we get more examples of Hachiken as a fish out of water, and a lot of discussion of the various aspects of farm life, including butchering deer and watching a cow give birth. But before that, there are more important things to do. Things like pizza. Priorities, please.

One of the many things I love about Silver Spoon is the way that Arakawa portrays Hachiken, the male lead. It would be all too easy to turn him into your standard harem drip, a la Keitaro Urashima. But while Hachiken is inexperienced in the ways of farming life, and still having difficulty with the idea of “animals become food”, he’s smart as a whip and quick to understand things. Moreover, he’s a planner who sees ahead, which will become very important as the series goes on. For now it’s important because it allows him to see everything that needs to be done with the pizza oven, which ends up requiring the help of most of the school in order to repair it and procure ingredients to make the pizza. He’s also getting a little more buff, which is inevitable when you’re doing the daily farm routine he has to do. But most importantly, he feels realistic. He feels like an actual person. This is what Arakawa has always excelled at, and it goes doubly for this series.

I also love the attention to detail we see here. There’s discussion of what kinds of pizza cheese work best in Japan (gouda, not mozzarella), and we see three kinds of farms: Komaba’s small one where even the elementary school twins are pitching in constantly, Mikage’s medium-sized one (which she is expected to take over, something she clearly doesn’t want to do but is unwilling to open up about just yet), and Tamako’s huge industrial farm showing off the finest in modern advancements. When we kept joking that Silver Spoon was a farming manga back in the pre-licensed days, we weren’t kidding. This book is here to tell you what farming is really like, and that it requires a lot of labor, time, money, and care. No matter how big or how small your farm is, things need to be done constantly.

Aside from Mikage’s worries about her future and Hachiken avoiding his parents, there’s not really a lot of forward progress on a “plot” here per se. But the plot is a coming of age story, and in that sense we see Hachiken grow and change a lot in this volume. If you like Arakawa’s books, farms, or just good manga, Silver Spoon is essential.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Flight

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By Yoshiki Tanaka. Released in Japan as “Ginga Eiyū Densetsu” by Tokuma Shoten. Released in North America by Haikasoru. Translated by Tyran Grillo.

So the war’s over and the Empire won… now what? We knew that things weren’t going to begin to slowly wrap up given we still had five more books to go, and so, unsurprisingly, we see that maintaining the peace and holding on to what you have is not as easy as it seems. Reinhard is dealing with assassination attempts, the fact that not all of his underlings are capable and brilliant, and everyone and their brother telling him “you’re the Emperor, now get married and have an heir”. As for Yang, he is now married, but heirs may have to wait, as his very existence seems to annoy people on both sides, none of whom think he simply is retiring peacefully. Which… well, they’re right, he isn’t, but things really don’t go the way he hoped. As for Julian, he makes it to Earth, and finds it ruled by a petty tyrant held up by a group of misguided religious zealots. Insert wry political commentary here.

Reinhard doesn’t get as much focus here as previous books, despite the assassination attempt. Honestly, that attempt, done by Hildegarde’s cousin, seems more narratively designed to separate the two of them for a bit more, as everyone and their brother is telling Reinhard to find a wife and Hilda is the really obvious option. It is sort of amusing seeing him justify not only letting Hilda and her father not be killed/exiled for unthinkingly leading him to the assassin, but even keeping their positions – though the whole scenario does throw into sharp relief how little Reinhard seems to have actually grown up, and how important (still) Siegfried is to him. He’s really good at war, and really good when he has a rival like Yang. When he lacks both, what’s going to happen?

Not that Yang has been removed from the picture just yet. There are some amusing scenes of his attempt at domestic bliss, though given they mostly revolve around “Frederica only knows how to make sandwiches” it’s probably for the best that he’s quickly arrested. There’s a rumor going around that he’s starting a rebellion, everyone thinks that Yang wants to start a rebellion, therefore Yang must be starting a rebellion, even though it’s not quite true. (Yang DOES want to do something, but not for a few years – a plan that gets blown to hell by the events of this book.) Reinhard and Yang always make good contrasts, and here it’s seen by how much Yang is trying to avoid being the face of the opposition. He’s a charismatic leader that could easily be another Reinhard if he wanted, he and everyone else knows it, and he hates the idea.

The romance is not just Yang and Frederica, by the way. Leaving aside everyone telling Reinhard to get married, it looks like Julian has been introduced (somewhat clumsily, I will admit) to his future love interest, who I’d call a tsundere if this weren’t written in 1985. And von Reuentahl seem sto be sleeping with the girl who’s trying to kill him. That’ll go well. You get the sense that the author is trying to move pieces for the final arc, and sometimes they move smoothly and sometimes they hit you in the face. Still, Legend of the Galactic Heroes fans won’t want to miss this. Given this was a mostly politics book, I expect a lot more space battles next time.