Arifureta Zero, Vol. 1

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By Ryo Shirakome and Takaya-ki. Released in Japan as “Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou Rei” by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen.

If a spinoff of Arifureta was going to be done, the Liberators were the only obvious choice. And, despite the novel starting out trying to make us think that Oscar was going to be the main character (which he is to an extent), this is all Miledi’s plan and all Miledi’s book. As such, enjoyment of this book will depend on how much you enjoyed Miledi in the second novel. She’s deliberately written to be annoying, and even though we get a tragic backstory here to explain why she does that it can still make you want to grit your teeth at times. That said, her drive to try to change the world and go up against the gods is laudatory, and her recruitment of Oscar (and later on Naiz) also allows plenty of scenes of her getting physically and emotionally abused for comedy purposes. (She reminded me of Shea a bit, to be honest, without the trolling that Miledi does all the time.)

(The author wonders if we were surprised at Miledi’s appearance, but honestly, this is pretty much exactly how I imagined her.)

As I said, Oscar is the focus at the start of the book, a synergist (much like our hero in the main series) trying to keep a low profile to avoid the Church. Said low profile falls to bits once Miledi arrives and starts harassing him, but honestly the church is so evil anyway that it was somewhat inevitable that it wouldn’t last. We also get a pile of adorable plucky orphan children, and once Oscar and Mikedi team up to find Naiz we get two more plucky adorable children, all of whom are put in deadly danger by events of the plot. And do you want tragic backstories? You’ll love Miledi’s, whose childhood was pretty crappy and then got much, much worse. There are also several very cool fights, as you’d come to expect from Arifureta, involving clever manipulation of gravity, creating impossibly hard shields via a cool umbrella (apparently a reference to Kingsman, though I kept thinking of Ryouga Hibiki), and teleportation badassery. And, as I said before, Miledi being really, really annoying.

This actually came out a mere 4 months after the Japanese release, so I would not hold your breath for the second volume right away. That said, I can’t imagine fans of Arifureta not enjoying this, even though the regular cast are nowhere to be seen. You get a good sense of the three leads and why they made the dungeons that they did. It also reminded me that Miledi’s spirit is technically still around in the main series, and I wonder if she’ll do anything else. (I also wonder if she and Oscar will ever hook up. Probably not, I suspect.) Basically, this is exactly the sort of thing you’d like a spinoff to be, and I will definitely enjoy more of it whenever it comes out.

Monster Tamer Girls, Vol. 1

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By Mujirushi Shimazaki. Released in Japan as “Kaijuu no Shiiku Iin” by Houbunsha, serialized in the magazine Manga Time Kirara Forward. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Amber Tamosaitis.

When I reviewed New Game!, I went into a bit of detail regarding the classic Kirara work, i.e. “a group of girls doing but really just relaxing and chatting a lot”. It’s a shame, because it would help to pad out the word count of this review, as there’s a lot of that happening here as well. To be fair, Monster Tamer Girls does have the girls taming monsters a hell of a lot more than, say, K-On! has the girls playing concerts. This is a world where monsters are still being analyzed to a degree, and as such, even though it’s treated as a typical high school club, the need for girls like Ion and her friends is absolutely needed. Sadly, Ion is rather shy and tends to still be wary of monsters, which is why we also have Sora, who has no talent for taming but is spunky, outgoing, and really loves monsters. Stop me if you’ve heard of this type of twosome before.

As you might guess by the cover, if you were expecting cute Pokemon-style monsters you’re in for a surprise. The main monster we see here is essentially a dinosaur, and even the short cute one that follows after the girls quickly grows to enormous proportions. Joining our two main heroines are Tsukiko, an overly serious monster tamer with horrible naming sense, and Kotomi, a teen genius in the graduate program whose chief job seems to be providing yuri subtext, although honestly there’s plenty of that to go around. And then there’s Kyouko, who is not only a level above every other monster tamer girl (she’s a monster charmer), but is also the girl who saved Ion from a monster when she was just a kid. Sadly, Kyouko is straining her voice from too much abuse (as a former chorus student, I can attest to how easy it is to do that), and also worries that Ion does not have what it takes to do the job.

As a first volume, this did its job very well, and manages to be a “monster” series without the fanservice that usually goes with that sort of thing, possibly as the girls aren’t the monsters in this case. Sadly, it apparently wasn’t interesting enough for Japanese readers, as the second volume will be the last one. I think it will definitely appeal to those who like relaxing, girls-in-school type manga, and I’d argue its main audience may be the yuri fan. There’s no yuri here, but, y’know, girls hug other girls and say they missed them, so it’s not all that hard to connect the dots. This may actually be a good series to wait till summer and get both volumes as a gift for someone else. And since the fanservice is nonexistent and the yuri is all hypothetical, I wouldn’t object to younger readers looking at it either.

Accel World: Signal Fire at the Water’s Edge

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By Reki Kawahara and Hima. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jocelyne Allen.

A lot of what I’ve seen in Accel World has been the author recognizing, lampshading, and attempting to either fix or downplay the faults that we’ve seen in his previous series, Sword Art Online. The lead here, Haruyuki, is if anything even more powerful than Kirito, but while Kirito does have inner turmoil (something the anime was not that great in bringing out), Haruyuki is all inner turmoil. Kirito spends most of his time in SAO either solo playing or reluctantly partnering up; Haruyuki cherishes working with people and forming friendships. Also, while Kirito may be your typical light novel hero and amass a harem of girls who like him, Haruyuki is short, stout, and has twice the number of girls after him. And what’s more, with the exception of the current Alicization arc, Kirito’s problems tend to be easy to solve, while the Accel World narrative never quite wraps anything up, and things just continue to snowball forward in one broad narrative.

Niko is on the cover, and it has been a while since we’ve seen her, even though the book is filled with reminders that the last several books or so have only happened over a period of a few days. She shows up as some other Brain Burst user, who seemed very similar to Kuroyukihime, was being evil, and thus some of her legion took it upon themselves to challenge Nega Nebulus (which now has a new addition as another old face we’re already familiar with returns to the fold). It’s all a misunderstanding, but reminds us that the Acceleration Research Society is still trying to get their way, which involves parasitizing as many users as possible with ISS kits, including sadly a very familiar face. Niko shows up in order to apologize for the rash actions of her legion and also add some muscle in their fight, along with Pard. And they’ll need the help, as they decide they can’t afford to wait any longer, they have to attack Metatron NOW.

The book, as always, is well written, with lots of funny moments, good fights, and emotional scenes. My favorite scene was probably the most chilling, though, which is where Niko notes how safe they feel around Haruyuki. She’s quite to point out that it’s not that he’s a “nice guy” per se, it’s just all female-type avatar users have a certain fear of being found in the real world, and Haruyuki, who knows a ton of them, doesn’t trigger that fear. He cares about what they think, and listens to what they say. For an author who I have yelled at for going to the “rape as drama” well far too many times, this is a surprisingly nuanced take – and all the more chilling for it, as all these girls are 15 years old or less by definition. It’s something that girls have to deal with every day in our real world, and it’s sad and yet very realistic that even in the future, female gamers still risk getting attacked.

The author lets us know this is going to be another multi-book arc, though honestly, as I noted above, this book feels far more like one long narrative than SAO ever did. I really want to find out what happens next. The 14th book better arrive soon.