Walking My Second Path in Life, Vol. 1

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By Otaku de Neet and Kurodeko. Released in Japan as “Watashi wa Futatsume no Jinsei wo Aruku!” by Earth Star Entertainment. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Shirley Yeung.

It can be somewhat difficult to recommend light novel series at times, particularly the ones that are licensed over here, which tend to be marketed to the anime/manga fan, and generally speaking the male anime/manga fan. Many is the time I’ve read a series with many points to recommend it, only to have the storyline have a hero who gains about eight other women in love with him, or where the story is fine but the illustrations do nothing but show off the half-naked female form. Even The Faraway Paladin, which is about the closest comparison I can make to the title I’m reviewing, has elements of the classic “reincarnated in another world” story to it, though that lessens as the series goes along. But Walking My Second Path in Life is the first light novel I’ve read, I believe, that I can honestly say: this does not feel like a light novel. It feels like a romance book (with little to no romance) written for the average female North American reader.

Our heroine is the twin sister of the new Queen of a country. In fact, Fie is also, technically, married to the King as well – the twin sisters were a package deal. The problem is that Fie is the Unfavorite, and also has a reputation for being horrible. As such, the King gives her a pavilion of the palace to live in, with servants who one by one quit till she’s left alone to, presumably, starve to death. (The King’s callous motivations are rather ambiguous throughout.) Choosing not to do this, she instead comes across a flyer trying to get squires for the company of knights. She thus decides to cut off her hair, dress as a boy named Heath, and use the rudimentary sword training she got as a princess when someone bothered to give her the time of day to become a knight. The rest of the book is her life as a squire after achieving this, which (despite her best efforts) keeps occasionally intersecting with her old life – not least of which being the identity of her company commander.

The unfortunately named Otaku de Neet (it’s apparently a tortuous kanji pen name, but it leaves the fan who knows those two terms feeling very wary) has done an excellent job with Fie, who is your typical bright, enthusiastic young lad sort… except she (the book uses female pronouns throughout, and also calls her “Fie” in narration- Heath is a secret identity, after all) has a crafty, snarky, mean side to her as well. The mean side to her actually makes up some of the best scenes in the book, such as when she (in a flashback as Princess Fie) beats up rapist pedophiles with impunity, or when she gets around the fact that one of the squires has found out her secret by blackmailing him and treating him as a dog (trust me, it’s far more lighthearted and hilarious than it sounds). She’s a nice person at heart, though, be it Fie or Heath, and the rest of the main cast are also people who, while some are more fleshed out than other, I genuinely enjoy reading about. (I am morbidly curious about the other twin, who Fie never interacts with in this book.)

I won’t spoil some of the other great scenes – suffice to say the entire chapter with Cain is a treasure from beginning to end. I will note there is an attempted rape of an underage servant here, but Fie nips that in the bud before anything can happen. The illustrations are cute and fit the materials quite well. Even the squad member who dresses up as a woman in order to spy on the enemy is treated with (relative) respect and not made into the “comedy gay man”. Plus, since it’s only two volumes so far in Japan, you’re not laying out a lot of cash. I can’t even call it a fantasy – there doesn’t appear to be any magic in this world, it’s just a straight up medieval kingdom sort of world. If you like books with (pardon the expression) strong female leads, I highly recommend this series, possibly the biggest pleasant surprise I’ve seen from J-Novel Club to date.

The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan, Vol. 11

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By Nagaru Tanigawa and Puyo. Released in Japan as “Suzumiya Haruhi-chan no Yuutsu” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Paul Starr.

And now, the end is near. And so we face the final curtain. Since the Haruhi Suzumiya novels began in Japan in 2003, we’ve seen two manga, two anime series, a movie, two manga spinoffs, and two anime of said manga spinoffs. In 2006, Haruhi was the hottest franchise around. But in 2017, quietly, the last Haruhi spinoff has come to an end, and as far as I can tell there’s nothing out there to replace it. The novels are effectively finished, as the author apparently has massive writer’s block. The main manga ended, and Nagato Yuki-chan’s manga ended. And now we have the final volume of Haruhi-chan, though the decision to end it here does appear to be fairly last-minute – if it weren’t for the word ‘Final’ on the cover and the author moving on to his next project, you’d never know it was over. And yet, it is over. There is no new Haruhi content coming from Japan.

As an ending, of course, it doesn’t work, because as I said above it has that “suddenly cancelled” feel to it. But as a volume, it’s pretty much giving Haruhi-chan readers exactly what they got the previous ten volumes. We get comedic takes on the main series, with Haruhi’s Giants set to destroy the world being created for the pettiest of reasons. There are comedic takes on Haruhi-chan’s plot (such as it is), with Mikuru desperate to have Haruhi hypnotized into thinking she’s a cat again so that she can be cuddled. There is the occasional story with Achakura, though you get the sense that once Ryoko became the heart and soul of the Nagato Yuki-chan franchise Puyo lost interest in her mini-me form. Yasumi is also still around, showing if nothing else that we haven’t moved past the final volume of the novels. (Sasaki and company are absent – the fact that any future anime is allergic to Sasaki almost became a running gag in the Nagato Yuki-chan anime.)

Puyo’s stuff seems to work best when he leans on the fourth wall to a degree. The opening chapter, after an amusing dream sequence, is a very matter-of-fact Haruhi getting up and getting dressed for school, with the punchline being that once she puts on the headband she turns into her goofy Haruhi-chan self. At one point, Haruhi somehow arranges it so that she has a chyron below her saying she has “a shocking statement”, causing everyone to wonder what the heck it is. An entire chapter is drawn where only Haruhi is the focus – something she immediately notices and tries to fix, as she’s in a swimsuit and notices that the gaze is fairly male. (No surprise, most of the readers of this series were male as well). The second to last chapter is my favorite – Haruhi is late, so Mikuru and Yuki are waiting alone, and Mikuru is trying desperately to have a non-awkward conversation with Yuki. We even get flashbacks to the novels, where adult Mikuru said Yuki was difficult for her to deal with. Her flailing effort to be interested in Yuki’s game is a failure on her end, but the punchline here is really sweet and heartwarming.

Gag comics are not for everyone, and honestly at 11 volumes this one probably went on longer than it should have. But I usually found a great deal to enjoy as I read it – Puyo knows the series inside and out, and allows the characters to be exaggerated while never feeling out of character, even if they’re the butt of the joke. If you enjoyed the Haruhi franchise and want to delve into it one more time, the book makes a pretty decent wake. Oh yes, and Kyon is a deer, because why not go out with one last impenetrable Japanese pun?

Mixed Bathing in Another Dimension: The Turbulent Underwater Baths

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By Nagaharu Hibihana and Masakage Hagiya. Released in Japan as “Isekai Konyoku Monogatari” by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sophie Guo.

I have to hand it to this volume of Mixed Bathing, it may have the most synonyms for “breasts” that I’ve seen in any light novel to date. I’m not sure whether to put this down to the original Japanese or the translation, but in any case, kudos to whoever made it so that I can read the word ‘bazongas’ in the midst of this. That said, the truly interesting thing about this volume is despite the fact that it ups the fanservice considerably, to the point where the middle third of the book is almost entirely the cast bathing naked and trying to show themselves off to Touya, it STILL all feels rather innocent. Touya is a teenage boy who likes girl’s bodies, but he’s still a really nice kid despite that, and Haruno, who has reunited with him, is exactly the same. In fact, that may be the most frustrating thing for fans of harem titles – despite reuniting for Haruno’s group, and thus adding a few more females, things are still super, super chaste. Not even a welcome back kiss.

The plot, such as it is, is that Touya’s group take their submarine to the Water Kingdom to a) find out what’s happened to Haruno, and b) get another blessing, as Haruno is now filling in for the Wind Goddess, whose corporeal body was destroyed in the current battle that’s gearing up. After meeting up and bathing for about 70-80 pages, we then get a bunch of things happening at once, as they’re attacked by the demon forces and have to fight back. They also learn more about what really happened 500 years ago, and I must admit I was very impressed with this. It’s always interesting seeing how history can be rewritten or changed over the course of a few centuries, and seeing that the kingdom of Ares destroying all the other countries may have been merely a metaphor for something else was great.

The downside is, of course, that the pace of this series is crawling. To some extent that’s its charm, but when you make even In Another World with My Smartphone look fast-paced and frenetic, you may be doing your job a little too well. And, of course, there’s the complete lack of conflict among the good guys. There’s a brief scene where Haruno and Clena meet and “have a chat”… and we don’t get to see it at all! The POV stays with Touya as he proceeds to show all the girls the seductive value of washing hair. Intensely frustrating. Whatever the chat was, it seems to have been peacefully settled, though, and once again you realize this is going to be a relatively conflict-free harem once the whole war against the demons gets taken care of. It’s refreshing, in a kind of boring sort of way.

All that said, I’m still enjoying this series, and I do like that, unlike a lot of other isekais that I know, the cast is made up of a bunch of sweetie-pies. And if nothing else, the reader will improve their vocabulary when it comes to the female bosom. We’re caught up with Japan, so it may be a bit before the 6th book, though.