My Big Sister Lives in a Fantasy World: Humanity’s Extinction Actually Happens This Time With the Evil God’s Revival?!

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By Tsuyoshi Fujitaka and An2A. Released in Japan as “Neechan wa Chuunibyou” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis.

This was one of the first series that J-Novel Club ever put out, and I recall being quite pleased with the ridiculousness of the first volume. Since then, however, J-Novel has released much better and much more ridiculous series, and Big Sis feels like it’s now running second to last in the marathon, just trying to finish the course so it doesn’t get extra laps from the teacher. The plot that’s been shoehorned in the last couple of volumes gets a lot more exposition, but sadly that doesn’t make it more interesting, and I cannot help empathizing with Yuichi when the Chinese waitress girl starts to introduce her own convoluted backstory and he says “nope, not dealing with this”, so we never find out what it is. Fortunately, when it comes to actual confrontations with bad guys, the series is still pretty fun.

I was going to start this review by saying that the narrative is divided into two halves, but that’s not really true. The narrative is divided into about 7 sections, but the divisions are poor and they all melt together after a while. Natsuki, who was absent from the last book, is fleeing the titular evil god, and unfortunately does nothing in this book other than be a damsel who needs to be rescued, because she’s handicapped by trying not to actually be a serial killer anymore. Yuichi is busy training behind sacred shrines (and destroying sacred forests as he is not a hero who thinks about things) and learning important backstory, and we finally see how he got the ‘soul reader’ ability in the first place. And then we have the search for the Evil God’s body parts, which brings together a variety of heroes and villains in various melee battles, including the Little Apocalypse wannabe from the last cliffhanger (who proves more boring than I expected), led by the Evil God himself, who may need to be revived but this does not prevent him creating a body to walk around and be smug in.

As I said, the final part is the best, as the villain is very punchable, and it’s always nice seeing smug people get what’s coming to them. That said, honestly, Yuichi and Mutsuko are starting to get a bit smug themselves. Mutsuko has been absent from these pages for far too long, and her running commentary on the fight was the funniest part of it. I also liked the setup for the next volume, which goes into Mutsuko’s own powers, and how they affect Yuichi easily beating universe-shaking horrors with one punch. The difficulty is that the plot of this series has become so convoluted and hard to follow that it’s almost become the series it was supposed to be making fun of. The next volume is the final one in the series (the author says there may be more, but so far there isn’t), and I am slightly looking forward to the conclusion, but the Big Sister has long since worn out her welcome.

Log Horizon: Go East, Kanami!

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By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

We continue our tour of the Elder Tales universe, with this volume not even taking place on the Japanese server for the most part. Instead we take a look at a group in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, to be precise) and their attempt to move slowly east so that they can swim to Japan (which seems ludicrous, but remember, adventurers). The reason to swim to Japan is quite a clever one: the whole disaster that caused the players to get caught in this world happened before the expansion pack had actually dropped… except in Japan, where they got it by virtue of the time zone. The group is led – sort of – by Kanami, a name that has come up quite often in previous books. The former de facto leader of the Debauchery Tea Party, she’s more a force of will than a leader. That said, it makes sense that of the main cast of this book, she actually gets the least attention – she has no character arc, being basically perfect.

No, instead, the main character for this book is Leonardo, who dresses like his favorite American hero, silly as it may seem, and says “Cowabunga” during desperate attacks. And is named Leonardo. But it’s OK, because this is a frog, not a turtle. Which makes this OK! Seriously, the mind reels at how much Touno wanted to use Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles here, and the serial numbers aren’t so much filed off as covered over with see-through tape. Leonardo is actually a New Yorker, which is refreshing, and we get a passable idea of what his life was like in the real world before this (he seems to be a computer nerd). Here, he’s a very competent assassin, though he’s still not quite invested in their current situation, and has trouble seeing the People of the Earth as anything but NPCs. A lot of this book is showing him the error of his ways, including a subtle romance with Coppelia, a girl with a mysterious past.

The Log Horizon anime did a good job of steadfastly putting each book on the screen… with the exception of this book, which got short shrift, getting only one episode devoted to it. As such, if anime fans wanted to know which one they had to buy to get more details, this is definitely the one. There is the usual endless discussion of game mechanics, far more than almost any other LN in a game world bothers to do, but there are also some very cool battles. And we get more insight into what exactly is happening, and how the People of the Earth and its denizens are reacting to it. Lastly, I was very amused by the occasional mention of the series’ big bad, Indicus, the smug maid who’s using Nureha as a puppet ruler. Every time she’s mentioned, it’s in a “My friends… and Zoidberg” way, showing that almost nobody can stand her. I expect a confrontation between her and Shiroe soon.

This volume didn’t blow me away like the previous one did, but it’s a rock-solid volume of Log Horizon, and fans of the anime will absolutely have to get it. And remember, this Leonardo likes SUSHI, not pizza.

Hybrid x Heart Magias Academy Ataraxia, Vol. 1

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By Masamune Kuji, Riku Ayakawa, Hisasi, and Kurogin. Released in Japan as “Masou Gakuen HxH” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comp Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Caleb Cook.

Every once in a while, despite knowing that it’s not really my thing, I take a look at one of these “excuse to draw large breasts” series. If I’m unlucky, I can’t even finish the thing. If I’m lucky, I find enough points of interest to catch my eye besides the boobs. Most of the time, though, I finish the volume and think “well, that certainly was that kind of series”, and such is the case with Hybrid x Heart, which also manages to work in the cliche of the magical academy of fighters. The thing that did surprise me, though, is how much the basic plot feels like Evangelion. Boy who was abandoned for being useless is brought back in a time of crisis to use his mecha powers to save the world, being led by his older sister, who is not a great Gendo figure, but we can’t have everything. The difference is that in order to save the world, he has to feel up the female cast until they gain power.

Yes, you read that right. Usually these series at least try to put a veneer of technology over the ecchi deeds, and we try to get that here with talk of “hybrid counts” and how it’s Kizuna’s power that basically refuels them. But it’s really about the breasts, which are groped quite a bit in this series, because there’s also a lot of mecha fighting and the girls who do the actual fighting need a bit of a recharge. I did notice that this is the sort of series where we not only credit the original character designer, but the original mecha designer, and the powered suits do look pretty cool if you’re into that sort of thing, though I imagine hardcore Gundam types might want to see more mecha battles and a bit less groping. As for the characters, they’re very generic, with the heroine Aine seemingly OK with Kizuna doing whatever he wants as long as she gets more power, and the standard blonde American Yurishia who will no doubt be the first main rival figure.

This was originally a light novel, and I think, as with the other series of this sort where the manga was licensed but the LN wasn’t (High School DxD, Testament of Sister New Devil) I should probably be grateful – the groping and constant boobfest is bad enough visually, but as prose I think it might be unbearable. As for the art, it’s passable, though I do note that Aine (blue hair) and Yurishia (blonde hair) have a tendency to look a lot alike in black and white, and it can be hard to tell them apart. Honestly, this reads sort of like the harem Evangelion fics you used to see back in the day on FFNet, with of course one big exception: no one is getting lucky here. The series doesn’t go beyond groping in this first volume. I’m not sure oif that will change, but in the meantime, I can recommend this series only to the most hardcore “must get everything with mecha” fans, or its likely audience, 13-year-old boys.