I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse, Vol. 7

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By Namekojirushi and Nao Watanuki. Released in Japan as “Ore ga Heroine o Tasukesugite Sekai ga Little Mokushiroku!?” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Adam Lensenmayer.

I was somewhat taken by surprise by the ending to this volume, as I kept reading and thinking “shouldn’t things be wrapping up soon?” It wasn’t until I got right near the end that I realized this would be Little Apocalypse’s first two-parter, something that should have been mnre obvious given this book features four heroines but only two of them are on the cover. It might be frustrating to wait till the 8th book too, as this volume actually ended up being one of the strongest in the series to date. The author has realized there’s only so far he can go with parody, and has moved on to deconstruction, which is a far richer vein. He’s also gotten better at juggling the heroines – sure, some are still missing or deliberately left out, but the balance we get here shows he’s thinking “who needs more attention?”, so Harissa gets a larger role here, as does Tsumiki. The series is beginning to mature… as much as a series like this can.

As I said, we stack up four different heroines in this book, and they are of a wide variety: an idol singer who’s getting tired of the grind; a psychic (which is a much broader term in Japan than it is here) on the run from a yakuza-like psychic gang; a (seeming) former hero sealed in the depths of an alien dungeon; and a sylpheed (wind fairy) dealing with a zombie infestation. It’s a tall order even for someone like Rekka. Fortunately, his current harem is not at war with each other (that’s supposedly in the future), and he is thus able to use them as sort of a mobile army. Thus, he and a team of girls go off to try to solve one issue, and Hibiki and another group try to work on the psychic problem. I really liked this, and enjoy that (for the most part) there’s not really much rivalry between the girls when serious events are happening. We also get lampshaded how weird everyone is when Rekka explains who he is to the idol and is surprised she DOESN’T know about magic.

The other highlight of the book is a bit of a spoiler, but I want to discuss it anyway: what happens when Rekka fails? And how do we define failure? The sylpheed rejects Rekka because her sister (who we saw in the prologue) is already dead – she died before Rekka even arrived in her world. As R points out, that doesn’t mean that the story is over, and Rekka is working on another aspect of it by trying to fix the zombie thing. But Rekka fixing the stories usually ends with everyone happy (and happily in love with Rekka), and that doesn’t seem like it’s going to work out this time around. Now yes, I am very familiar with the genre, and would not be too surprised if a magical sister-saving solution popped up in Book 8. But it’s still a good question to ask: what if Rekka fails? Can he deal with the aftermath of NOT saving someone’s story?

The book ends with everyone in trouble, and we’ve got to wait a bit till the next one. But Little Apocalypse in general has been qa quick, light, fluffy read. It’s nice to see it gain a bit of added depth.

New Game!, Vol. 1

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By Shotaro Tokuno. Released in Japan by Houbunsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Manga Time Kirara Carat. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jenny McKeon. Adapted by Jamal Joseph, Jr.

I have joked before about the tendency of trends in the Japanese manga and light novel industry, and over here in North America as well. The piles of vampire manga, the buttloads of zombie manga, the oddly weird Alice in Wonderland deconstruction mangas, etc. But one that has been around forever, and likely will be long into the future, is “a group of cute girls do cute and funny stuff in a 4-koma”, aka the Azumanga Daioh clone. The series are of various types – mostly in school, but some (like this one) in a workplace, and sometimes there may be a token man. But for the most part, that describes an endless number of series that have essentially the same premise and audience, and generally also succeed about the same way – “that was cute”. They also sometimes have yuri subtext, though that isn’t a requirement. It even has its own magazine devoted to the genre, Manga Time Kirara Carat. And now we have New Game!.

New Game! stars Chiyo-chan… sorry, Aoba, who looks like she’s a 7th grader but has actually graduated high school and headed into the workforce – in this case, a game company, where she’s starting off designing characters. The rest of the team consists of Kou, the “ladette” sort of woman who’s the main character designer; Rin, the art director and team mom who seems to have an unrequited crush on Kou; Hifumi (character design), who is painfully shy but also rather cute (and apparently a heavy drinker); Yun (also character design), who I didn’t get much of an impression of except she has a heavy accent; and Hajime (motion), who seems overearnest and a bit hyperactive. The bulk of the first volume shows us Aoba fitting into the team, learning how they do things, and designing background NPCs for the fantasy RPG they’re working on.

New Game! is cute. I enjoyed it as I read it. That said, a lot of the actual humor has difficulty sticking in your head after you move on. The one joke I recall is also, oddly, the most out of character, when Kou amuses herself by having Aoba finish the design of a character that’s clearly based on herself (which Aoba doesn’t realize), who is an NPC who’s there to start the plot and then get killed, much to Aoba’s horror. Apart from that, there’s a few workplace gags that touch on the insane hours these jobs entail, and some character development showing Aoba settling in but still being somewhat hapless. As I noted above, Rin seems to have a crush on Kou, and this occasionally comes up, mostly when she’s frustrated that Kou isn’t picking up on it. It’s all standard stuff, but I did find it quite enjoyable. I will note that, once again, the decision to translate a heavy Kansai (I’m assuming) accent as something out of the ordinary doesn’t always work well. Yun saying “Wot’s all this, then?” and calling someone a “tosser” took me right out of the manga and made me notice the effort, which it shouldn’t.

Despite having forgotten much of the manga a few minutes after reading it, I was pleasantly amused enough that I’ll get the next book. If you enjoy cute girls doing cute things with no plot to speak of, New Game! is an easy buy.

Obsessions of an Otome Gamer: Elementary School Years

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By Natsu and Shoyu. Released in Japan as “Ongaku de Otome wa Sukuenai” by the author on the Syosetu website. Released in North America digitally by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Charis Messier.

I’d never really read a Cross Infinite World novel before now. They specialize in both novels geared towards young women and also going directly through the author, i.e. most of the books published were published on the Syosetsu original fiction website, or various equivalents, rather than going through a publisher. (That said, the author has had published work as well.) But nothing had really caught my attention until the announcement of this series. I love visual novel-style storytelling, and I love classical music, so I was delighted to see the two combined. As I started to read the book, I was expecting things to be very light and fluffy, with the occasional warped sense of humor. I was surprised at several plot and character choices the book made, though. I was even more surprised by a plot twist that I will do my best not to spoil (yes, really) about one-third in. And I was not surprised but a bit taken aback by the length. This book is HUGE.

One thing that surprised me was the decision to have the entire book take place when our reincarnated heroine, Mashiro, is between the ages of seven and twelve, something that I blame on the light and hard to read font on the front cover, which meant I missed the subtitle. She’s the reincarnation of Rika, a young woman who was obsessed with an insanely difficult otome game called Hear My Heart, where you not only had to make the right romantic choices with regards to the two guys (one outgoing and arrogant, one sullen and introverted), but you also had to compose music – and if the music wasn’t good enough, you failed. That’s a high bar to clear. She then sees a poster advertising a remake of the game… and falls into an open manhole and dies. (This would be the warped sense of humor I mentioned above.) As Mashiro, she recalls her previous life when she’s seven years old and just your average elementary school girl who folds origami of Angkor Wat in her spare time. Now she’s in the game world, and has met Kou and Sou, the two heroes, as young boys. But is the game world what she really wants from life?

While Mashiro is eighteen years old in her head (at times – it’s lampshaded that this isn’t consistent, and is actually an important plot point), she and the two boys are young kids, and despite the occasional schoolkid flirtation, the book maintains those boundaries. Of course, this doesn’t mean we don’t get a heartfelt confession or two, but you may relax and not have to worry about kiddie makeouts. There’s also a heavy emphasis on classical music and piano, as Mashiro burns with a sudden desire to learn the piano, at first because she wants to meet the guy she liked from the game, but her love rapidly becomes genuine and all-consuming. The book helpfully tells us the names of the pieces she’s working on, and you could make an excellent Spotify playlist if you liked. Mashiro is a prodigy, though she may not be aware of it. And there’s also that spoiler, which revolves around her best friend Kon, who is Kou’s sister – and also reincarnated into this world from a previous one. Mashiro only has memories of the first version of the game. Kon played the remake, but not all of it. Is she really what she seems? And can Mashiro really avoid being a heroine?

The writing and plotting can get immensely wordy at times – I understand this was actually edited down from the original text, but it’s still super long, about twice the size of your average light novel. That said, I never found myself counting pages till it was over. Mashiro is a fun heroine, savvy when needed, clueless also when needed. There’s also a surprisingly deep look at how reincarnation into another world would work when you retain some of your own memories. The book ends with Mashiro graduating and moving on to Middle School, which I imagine will take up Book 2 of the series. If you’re looking for a nice romantic book with hidden depths, or love shoujo and visual novels, this is a fantastic read.