How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord, Vol. 1

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By Yukiya Murasaki and Takahiro Tsurusaki. Released in Japan as “Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo Dorei Majutsu” by Kodansha. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Garrison Denim.

Occasionally I get asked by people why I sometimes clearly read things that are not remotely in my genre or that I think I will dislike. The answer is that sometimes I’m wrong and I turn out to enjoy it quite a bit. Of course, sometimes I’m right and I can’t even manage to finish the volume. And then there are titles like this one, where I finished the title with a sense of “well, that had some really annoying bits but wasn’t quite as bad as it could have been”. I will note right off the bat that if you are the sort of reader who enjoys these sorts of stories – isekai with an overpowered hero, slave girls who have to obey him, one large and one small breasted girl to start, lots of fanservice and the occasional cool battle – this is a very good title to get. The writing is competent, as you’d expect with a Kodansha novel. Its market is young horny men, and it delivers.

Well, delivers to a degree. The light novel market has not gotten to the point where we’re getting explicit light novels, and so as expected our hero is surrounded by attractive girls who are falling for him but nothing happens. This is fairly realistic, given that our hero is a gamer who was transported to another world but still has zero social skills or ability to talk to women. The way he gets around this is by pretending to be the game character he played online, Diablo, who is the titular demon lord. This works well when facing down evil minions or town guards, but less so when he’s got a handful of boob, at which point his brain simply turns off. He’s summoned, somehow, though there’s a question as to who actually did it. Rem is the tsundere catgirl who’s a skilled mage with a terrible secret. Shera is the airheaded elfgirl who has a hidden past and a desire to use summoning magic. And, due to the botched summoning and the nature of “Diablo” as a character, they are also now his slaves.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I dislike the fantasy world style slavery in these sorts of isekai, particularly when it seems to be used as an excuse to get the hero a harem who can’t reject him. Diablo (his real name comes up occasionally, but for all intents and purposes he goes by his game title here) is not abusing it beyond the occasional grope, and doesn’t really order them to do anything awful, but again, the idea is “well, slavery exists here, so let’s accept it”, rather than the push back against it that I’ve enjoyed in some other novels. It’s also another book that leans heavily on the technical side to a degree, as the fantasy world is sort of like Diablo’s old game but not quite, and being an actual Demon Lord here rather than a computer creation, he has to figure out things like how much MP he can drain before it affects him. This can be interesting, but can also drag, depending how much of a gamer you are.

This isn’t terrible – the two female leads are actually amusing in a bratty rivals sort of way, and their backstories promise some interesting plots down the road. Diablo’s schtick may remind fans of Overlord, but there’s far less of a sense that we’re actually going to see a villain in the making the way that Overlrod gives us. I was also reminded of Death March, but that seems like damning with faint praise. I’m definitely picking the novel over the manga, which apparently doubles the fanservice and has Diablo being far more perverse – that’s out in 2018 from Seven Seas. In the end, another in a long line of “only if you like isekai”.

ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Department, Vol. 1

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By Natsume Ono. Released in Japan as “ACCA – 13-ku Kansatsuka” by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Big Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Jocelyne Allen.

It’s rare that I read a Japanese manga translated into English and think to myself “I think I’d have liked this even better in the original French.” But that’s the sort of mood that ACCA gives off. It’s not something that I’m unused to with the works of Natsume Ono, whose art seems designed to constantly be showing people descending into hole in the wall cafes and small, dingy apartments. But even when the canvas opens up – much of the action in this book takes place in large rooms and wide streets – it feels like I’m reading a manga directed by François Truffaut. The plot of this story is fairly standard – various shady goings-on are happening but are for the most part dealt with by our hero, who seems unassuming but is Very Clever Indeed. But honestly, I don’t read Ono’s stories for the plot, I read them for the evocative mood that she sets. With ACCA, she has another big success.

No, that’s not Sanji on the cover, though he is blond and does smoke throughout the volume – indeed, smoking is why he’s famous, in a country where cigarettes are a luxury item. Jean is instead near the top of a group of inspectors whose job it is to inspect other inspectors. The first chapter sets out precisely what he does and his attention to small details, while also dealing with a plot to close down the agency (I wonder if it was devised as a one-shot?). He and a subordinate (who is seen depressed at the end of the chapter, possible as she realizes she’s not in the rest of the book) root out small-time corruption, then he quickly wraps up and returns to not-Paris, where his department survives to audit another day. For now – he’s also beset by jealous regular police officers, mysterious higher-ups with plans and schemes, and his sister, who wants him to just help her run the expensive apartment building they’re in charge of.

As I said before, the plot is mostly irrelevant. There was an anime of this about a year ago, and I’d be interested to see how the dialogue was handled – much of it cries out to be murmured rather than spoken, perhaps with one of the deadpan smirks that Jean occasionally gives us. I also enjoy it when I notice the scenery as much as I do the plot and characters – Dowa, somewhat ridiculously, is a country shaped like a bird, and is filled with fantastic bakeries and high-ceilinged government buildings for Jean and some of the other characters (particularly his female counterpart, Mauve) to sweep out of dramatically. Well, Mauve sweeps dramatically. Jean sort of shuffles like a French Columbo – sorry, like a Dowan Columbo.

There are hints of an expansion on the plot and a possible betrayal in the cliffhanger for this volume. That said, I still say this is the sort of volume you read while sitting out on the 4th-floor balcony of your city apartment, sipping bitter coffee and eating a croissant from the bakery down the road. I’m happy I picked it up.

I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse, Vol. 6

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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.

Despite the occasional attempt to tie things together between sections, this is what we always knew was coming in a series this large: a short story collection. The good thing about this is that everything takes place around Rekka’s school and neighborhood, so we get to relax a bit after the high stakes of the last volume. The bad thing, of course, is that low stakes events sometimes don’t equal high impact. The first story in this volume deals with Lea, the human-looking leviathan from Volume 2, and her attempts to actually hold down a job and earn money so she does not have to rely on “nice young men” buying her meals. Lea’s ‘clueless yet strong’ character is not really top tier among the heroines, and the addition of a terrible gay stereotype (which I was going to give a pass until he took the perverted customer into the back room for punishment – yes, the guy was a lech, but no. don’t do that) did not help matters. Thankfully, things pick up a bit after that.

Only two heroines on the cover and added to the pile (that’s a total of 15 now, if you’re counting), but both of them are solid additions. Little Apocalypse sometimes tends to forget it’s meant to be a parody, but it’s a bit better on that front this time around – Rekka has never been more clueless about the fact that all these girls are in love with him. Given that, if you’re going to add memorable new heroines you need to make them ‘types’ so they stand out. Thus we have the teasing, large-breasted literature club girl, Midori, who is thought to be a ghost but in reality is simply quiet and weird – except around Rekka, whom she loves to hug from behind because, well, did I mention the large breasts? Despite the stereotype, she’s a lot of fun – it makes you realize we never really had a ‘tease’ among the heroines till now, and it gives a nice dynamic. The other heroine is Momone, who is not only Student Council President but also a Shrine Maiden and Demon Hunter. Honestly, you could fit three heroines in that description, but she does it all herself. Her blunt forcefulness is also something new added to the heroine lineup.

Neither one of these girls needs saving by Rekka, as R notes – they aren’t “traditional” heroines the way the rest of the group has been, they’re more like Hibiki (who gets a short story at the end dealing with a vengeful ghost, which reads like an episode of Urusei Yatsura so much that I’m going to check my DVDs to see if they actually did that one). That said, it’s fairly clear by the end of the book that they both like Rekka just as much as the rest of them. The final story here is R reporting to her superiors on her progress, which is pretty much near zero. It does have R serving to remind us that this is technically HER story – the story of how she’s stopping the Apocalypse by going back in time and helping Rekka. Which so far seems to involve dragging him around then house as he sleeps so that she can watch TV late at night.

So overall a decent addition to the series, and these books are always so short that they’re a light, snack-like read as you wait for the next Arifuerta or something similar to come down the pike.