My Big Sister Lives in a Fantasy World: The Melancholy of the High School Girl Light Novel Author?!

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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.

I will save my objections for later in the review, so let me start by saying that a lot of this book is fun as usual. The author is getting more blatant in his Haruhi rip-offs, from the title of this volume to the fact that the villain is disappointed at Yuichi’s proactive personality and says she wants someone who says “yare yare” all the time, and it’s still funny. Mutsuko gets a lot less to do here than she normally does, but is still amusing in a “if I start to take her seriously she will be a Cthulian horror’ sort of way. Aiko and Yoriko make a good double act, and I’m amused at people saying Aiko’s not as much of a threat in the ‘love interest’ category as she’s too passive. And the overarching plot, which looks like it will be the core of the rest of the series, is not all that bad, taking the metatextual Haruhi stuff and trying to spin it in a dramatic way.

But enough of that, let’s move on to Kanako, who gets the spotlight here at last. I admit I had been misreading her in the first couple volumes as something of an airhead type, but now it becomes apparent that it’s more ‘withdrawn from reality’. And more to the point, Kanako has suicidal thoughts, and the book begins with her attempting to kill herself (it’s when she first meets Mutsuko and Yuichi). I will be fair, this scene works quite well. Mutsuko’s flip “that’s boring!” grates, but her solution, although ludicrous, teaches an important lesson, one that I think Kanako grasps. No, the trouble I have with Kanako’s subplot comes later in the book. Her relationship with her mother is written in a completely serious, realistic way, with no parodic elements at all, and the scene where she sees her, happy with her new family, is devastating. Having the villain take credit for her entire past, including her mother wanting a son so much that it poisoned her entire relationship with her child, is frankly awful and makes light of Kanako’s pain.

As for the climax of the book, Yuichi pays some lip service to the fact that you can’t just magically fix a suicidal person’s thoughts with a few well-intentioned words, but then he goes ahead and does it anyway. And Kanako is now added to the love interest pile, and I have a sneaking suspicion that we aren’t really going to touch on her problems again. It’s maddening in many ways, and one reason I find it hard to fully embrace this series – if it’s going to be a parody of Haruhi and similar series, it shouldn’t be using darker subplots like this one and the kidnapped girls one from Book 3, and if it does use the serious plots it should commit to them seriously and not handwave it away with the power of Yuichi’s GAR. And so I’m left with feelings of ambivalence. I do hope the next book uses Mutsuko more, as I find the series at its most intriguing when it’s examining her incredibly broken mindset.

Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 1

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By Ryoko Kui. Released in Japan as “Dungeon Meshi” by Enterbrain, serialization ongoing in the magazine Harta. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Taylor Engel.

This is, when you come right down to it, a straight up mix of two popular genres right now. Dungeon Crawling is popular in both isekai works and others that just like the genre of the fantasy RPG. And cooking manga has always been popular in Japan for years, with people spending pages upon pages telling readers how delicious they can make something in great detail. Combining the two is a clever idea, and on the face of it the main reason to read this book, but I’m going to be honest, I found the actual RPG and food sections rather boring. No, the real reason to read this book are the main characters, who, while not the most original bunch, do give a off a certain weird charm – emphasis on the weird. They’re individually eccentric, but even more eccentric when put together.

Our party seems very standard by RPG terms: among others, they have a front-line warrior, an elf mage, and a small, grumpy trap expert. At the beginning of the title, they have even more people, but they miscalculate what supplies and food they need to successfully fight off a monster, and as a result are exhausted and starved. So they lose and have to run away – and worse, our hero’s sister in literally eaten by one of the monsters. When most of the rest of their team quits, they’re left in dire straits – the sister can be rescued, but only if they return immediately. Thus a truly foolish, desperate idea – save on supplies by eating the monsters they capture. With the help of a dwarf who had a lot of cooking knowledge and very little common sense, they set out to slowly return to where they left off and maybe try to rescue the sister, though honestly they’re taking so long I’m not expecting much.

As I said above, the main reason to read this is the off-kilter sense of humor it has. Laios, our hero, is a monster freak with a lot of idealism and book knowledge, but it’s also made him a bit of a ditz. Marcille, the elf mage, is a walking font of common sense for the most part, forever forced to be the tsukkomi and be shocked to find the technically gross things she’s eating are actually really tasty when cooked properly. The other one with some common sense is Chilchuck, the trap expert, and he contrasts well with the dwarf, Senshi, who is a bit of a pop-eyed lunatic when he’s not talking about food. Fortunately, Chilchuck is easily flattered. Together, the four of them get into vaguely death-defying situations as they attempt to save Laios’ sister, whose fate seems to be a bit of a running gag, but I suspect will pop up later on if only as the alternative is a bit too dark.

I’m not exactly sure if this is a series I’d want to keep reading on a regular basis, but the first volume was amusing enough, and is definitely worth it if you enjoy dungeon crawls. As for the foodie crowd… possibly less so.

Invaders of the Rokujouma!?, Vols. 1-3

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By Takehaya and Poco. Released in Japan as “Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Warnis.

This series has an unusual history, at least in terms of translation. It’s 24+ volumes in Japan, so no one was seriously considering it as a possible license. Plus it had a fan translation already. But J-Novel Club reached out to the fan translator and made a deal, and so what we have here is that translation, newly edited for published release. It’s available for free on J-Novel’s site, or you can buy it on Amazon and the usual suspects as a normal light novel. As for why you’d want to? Well, do you like Strike the Blood? Do you enjoy its blinding obvious cliches but wish that it was less action oriented and more of a harem comedy? If so, then Rokujouma may be the series for you! It’s cliched as heck, but rarely actively irritating, and at times even can be heartwarming and amusing.

If you are wondering what Rokujouma means, well, I’m a little unclear on that myself, but the basic premise is that this young man, living alone as he starts high school, has found a dirt-cheap apartment. It’s dirt-cheap because, as the landlady tells him, it’s haunted and everyone’s been driven out of it. This does not bother our hero, though, as he’s a deep sleeper. After an accident he gets into while at work (which is, somewhat frustratingly, never followed up on in any of the three books), he comes home and finds he can now see the ghost, a cute young girl trying to get him out as this is HER apartment. And then suddenly we get a self-proclaimed magical girl, a member of an underground tribe, and an alien princess and her retainer, all of whom have designs on the room for their own reasons. And it’s not even a big apartment! Hijinx, as they say, ensue.

The author notes in the afterword of Volume 1 that this is only his second book, and his first series. It shows a bit – the flaws in this series are the sort you see in a new writer’s work, with some stuff explained too much, some not explained enough, and the occasional reliance on stereotypes to take the place of characterization, though that improves as the series goes on. The first book is the weakest, since it has to introduce the cast all at once and can’t really do much else. Stronger was the second book, which involves a school athletic festival and is filled with lots of opportunities for wacky comedy – the anime version of this is likely quite amusing. The best reason to read the series is Yurika, the magical girl who absolutely no one believes. I suspect the author was watching Haruhi Suzumiya when he wrote her, as she’s basically Mikuru, but the sheer amount of abuse and contempt heaped upon her by our hero, the other girls, and even the narration is so overblown it becomes hilarious.

This is absolutely a standard harem comedy, and doesn’t really do much of anything to set itself up above the pack so far. That said, it also doesn’t really do too much to really make it horrible, either. The ghost girl gets a lot of character development in the third book, and I suspect future books will do the same for the others. If you like this genre, and haven’t already read the series online, Rokujouma is worth checking out.