If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord, Vol. 1

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By CHIROLU and Truffle. Released in Japan as “Uchi no Musume no Tame Naraba, Ore Moshikashitara Maou mo Taoserukamo Shirenai” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Matthew Warner.

The most popular light novel genre at the moment, both here and in Japan, is “generic RPG fantasy world”. In this genre, however, you can do all sorts of things. There are isekai variations, and novels where it really is a game. There are harem romances, and dark gritty tragedies. These days it seems like a popular editorial request is “do fantasy but with __________”. And with this particular title, we’re getting another type of popular Japanese genre, the “single dad raises his daughter/adopted daughter (it’s always a daughter) and she’s really really goddamn cute” genre. The dad can be bumbling or competent, but the adorableness of the girl is never in question. (The light novel genre being male-oriented, the single mom raising her adorable son has not to my knowledge had any series, but hope springs eternal.) And now we have this series, where the adopted girl is a devil abandoned by her people for mystery reasons, and she’s just cute as the dickens.

The first 2/3 of this book is basically running on that premise. Our hero is a seasoned young adventurer who looks like the standard ‘generic guy’ you see in these sorts of fantasy book (Smartphone guy looks exactly the same). He runs into Latina in the woods, starving and unable to speak human languages, and decides to bring her home on the basis of being unable to let her starve to death or be eaten by monsters. Then he and the couple who run the inn he lives in slowly watch her grow up, learn to speak and read human, show she can use magic, wait tables, and wrap absolutely everyone around her finger. Part of the fun in this book is seeing Dale (the dad) turning into a complete over the top loon about his new daughter. Actually, one drawback is that I wish we’d had a bit more of Dale as he was before he met Latina – we see flashes of it, but it loses a bit of impact as we barely know him before he’s a doting dad.

The last third is far more serious, and at first I thought it might be dealing with Latina being bullied by her peers, but no, she’s being emotionally and mentally abused by her new teacher, who lost her family to devils and has gone half-insane to rage and prejudice as a result. Latina’s attempts to hide what’s being done to her with “everything is fine” even as she looks more and more worn and exhausted will ring a bell with anyone who ever dealt with a bullied child “staying strong”. The whole section is brutal, and it wouldn’t have nearly half the impact it does without most of the book being variations on “look at the daily life of this cutie”. It is nice to see the entire town seemingly standing up to protect her, including Dale, whose cold rage is absolutely terrifying to the temple who employed the teacher.

There are 5 volumes in this series, and each one shows Latina slightly older, so I suspect we won’t have cute antics for the whole series. But if you enjoy series like Yotsuba&!, Sweetness and Lightning, or Bunny Drop (the first half – I hope) and wish it had more swords and sorcery, I think you’d greatly enjoy this series.

Chihayafuru, Vol. 3

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By Yuki Suetsugu. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Be Love. Released in North America digitally by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Ko Ransom.

There’s a lot going on in this volume of Chihayafuru, which is starting to find its feet. We gain a new member of the karuta club, which has now hit the required five. Tsutomu, aka “Desk-kun”, is an introverted, small, nerdy guy who seems to be devoted to studies and has few friends. But once Chihaya sets her sights on him (which involves, at one point, kidnapping him), and he realizes that one of the otehr players on the team is in fact the #1 stude3nt in the school, he wonders if karuta can help his focus in other areas as well. I like Tsutomu. He brings a rookie lack of confidence that this sort of series always needs, and his crisis of faith towards the end of the book is both dramatic and understandable. What’s more, his suggestion of playing karuta with the poem-side down leads to a match of pure memorization between Taichi and Chihaya, and gives him his first big triumph.

Chihaya’s learning a lot in this volume, mostly as they now have a full team of five, which means that they have to learn how to play Karuta as a team – not that they play together, but such things as setting the right order for the matches and having trust that your other teammates are going to be fine. She’s also thrown off by one of her first opponents, who even gets her precious Chihaya card, which makes you feel like she’s going to break. (Her inner monologue has everything sounding far away to her, thus ruining her hearing advantage. I like this detail, as it makes it sound like she’s about to pass out – I’ve had that feeling myself.) Oddly, the true heart and leader of the team ends up being Taichi, who always knows the right think to say to Chihaya to snap her out of whatever funk she’s in. I suspect this is meant to be a love triangle with Arata, but given Arata’s ongoing absence it’s easier to fall on the Taichi side.

This volume is almost all karuta, but not entirely – there’s a “training session” at Taichi’s house that is just an excuse to give Chihaya a surprise birthday party. Sadly, it’s ruined when his incredibly strict mother comes home early, and the girls have to take off, but they at least get to meet up later (and we get an Arata text message cameo.) Chihaya continues to be the main reason to read the manga – Taichi may be the heart of the team, but she’s the heart of this series, and her incredible emotional ups and downs make for thrilling reading. Karuta isn’t just ‘let’s have fun and make friends’ anymore – by the end of the volume, the entire team is thinking ‘I want to win’ like it’s a mantra. Playing in a competitive sport means pushing your limits, and not slacking off. There’s a cliffhanger here, and Vol. 4 isn’t on Kodansha’s schedule yet, but I hope it comes soon. Unmissable.

Paying to Win in a VRMMO, Vol. 3

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By Blitz Kiva and Kuwashima Rein. Released in Japan as “VRMMO wo Kane no Chikara de Musou suru” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis.

The afterword mentions that this volume’s story was not part of the original webnovel, but was especially written for the books in order to try to flesh out Sakurako/Kirschwasser’s character, as she doesn’t get much to do in the main series. She gets a lot more to do here, and I like her determination and devotion to the game, but I wish that we’d gotten a little bit more of the mysterious backstory she has – it’s hinted she’s “had a rough life”, but that doesn’t really go anywhere, and we don’t have any flashbacks to how she met Ichiro. The author, in the afterword, notes that Sakurako’s age was a factor – not with him, but with the editors, who apparently think that being a Christ\mas Cake makes you unable to be a heroine. Bleah. That said, her scenes were good, even if the novel, understandably, feels like it’s just marking time.

The fight between Nem and Iris occupies most of this volume, and you feel frustration with both of them, though obviously far more with Nem. I kept feeling a sort of tension regarding their real-life identities – given Megumi’s irrational jealousy of Iris, finding out her real-life identity would be catastrophic, as she can and would destroy Iris’ life. Fortunately, this is likely not that serious a series, and instead the whole confrontation seems to be more of an object lesson than anything else. As for Iris, when she’s putting herself down adn indecisive she shows off her actual age – ironically, it’s only when tearing Ichiro apart verbally that she really comes alive, and I’m pleased that any romance, if there is any, is far away – I much prefer Iris wondering why on earth everybody else falls for him.

Ichiro himself spends most of this volume in the real world, meeting with the creator of Narrow Fantasy Online and also talking about his worldview with an AI that is one of the game’s sysadmins. This section serves more as setup for future volumes than anything else, but it does feature Ichiro being far less irritating than he was in the first two books. That said, his lack of presence in the game until the very end means that there’s not as much ‘parody’ in this story that’s meant to parody a certain type of genre, even if you add in obvious fanservice like the return of the Kirihitters. The main thing I enjoyed about this volume are the small details that come up throughout the book- I won’t go into specifics, but a description here, a character reveal there. It’s the sort of volume where the little things distract you more than the main plot and thrust of the book itself, which – as I said above – feels like it’s treading water. Which it is, that’s what it was designed to do.

So this is still a solid, but not great series. I hope the next volume features more of Ichiro being ludicrous and Iris screaming at him, which let’s face it is why I read this by now.