Occultic;Nine, Vol. 1

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By Chiyomaru Shikura and pako. Released in Japan by Overlap, Inc. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Adam Lensenmayer.

Of the three initial licenses by the fledgling J-Novel Club, this was the one that people had heard of. The creators are responsible for such titles as Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate, Robotics;Notes, and other series with highly eccentric casts that abuse the common semicolon. Now we have Occultic;Nine, which is not connected to the other series that I know of (aside from the punctuation), but does have the advantage of an anime currently airing, as well as a visual novel coming next year. The plot of this book is not quite certain yet, except that it deals with a large group of people who are somehow interested or connected to the occult. The narrative viewpoint bounces back and forth between them (with one notable exception). And as a light novel, it’s not too bad.

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Our hero, if such a word can be applied to an ensemble cast, is Yuta Gamon, a teen loser who spends most of his time running a blog devoted to mocking the occult with the help of his mysterious, airheaded, and large-breasted friend Ryoka, who is not quite Mayuri from Steins;Gate but seems to fulfill much the same function. (She is the only character without a narrative viewpoint, which unfortunately makes it look like she was added simply for people to talk about her boobs.) Yuta is teeth-gratingly irritating in a way that most people who have been teenagers will likely be very familiar with, but ultimately harmless, and also seems to be getting mysterious messages on his ham radio setup. As the book goes on, we also meet a girl who tells people’s fortunes, someone who curses people via black magic, an occult reporter, a seeming detective (though honestly he could easily be faking), etc. Interspersed randomly throughout this (very randomly – the author admits in the afterword he added it after the book had been written) are the actions of a vast conspiracy doing… something.

This is very much a Volume One, promising a lot of cool things but not really delivering until the last few pages, which are easily the best part of the book, as Yuta discovers a corpse and unfortunately makes himself the prime suspect. But for the most part it’s there to show us the world these characters live in and slowly start to bring them together. I understand the anime compressed this entire first novel into one episode, which doesn’t surprise me. The characters are interesting, though. I particularly liked Miyuu, who despite her fortune telling powers is easily the most normal character in the book, and her determination is admirable. The whole thing reminds me a lot of the Durarara!! series, where you get a bunch of things thrown at you that won’t make sense till about Books 3 or 4.

The book’s main flaw, of course, is that at times it’s a bit TOO disparate, and can read sort of like waiting 200 pages for anything to actually happen. But if you enjoy a book based around mood, with a bunch of eccentric, annoying, yet ultimately sympathetic characters and an ominous undertone (what’s with the bodies in the lake?), Occultic;Nine is a good read worth your time. Though it will put Gloomy Sunday in your head (I like to think they heard the Billie Holiday version).

Brave Chronicle: The Ruinmaker

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By Kenya Atsui and Saori Toyota. Released in Japan as “Kimi Kara Uketsugu Brave Chronicle” by Overlap, Inc. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Dan Luffey.

As regular readers of my site may have noticed, I tend mostly to review things that I enjoy in some way. It’s easier to write about things I like for the most part, and with titles that I don’t like I have a tendency not to finish them, which makes things easier. But I do tend to give a lot of first volumes a try, which inevitably means running into some clinkers. And this is a new publisher, so I wanted to give them an honest shot. And I did positively review one of their other titles, so don’t have to feel too guilty. All this is a preamble for what you’ve likely suspected: Brave Chronicle is terrible.

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With a title like Brave Chronicle, I was expecting something a bit more fantasy oriented, but it actually takes place at a school for students adept at magic. Our heroine is the top student at the Academy and one of the most magically gifted students in the world, to the point where she’s not only a student, she’s also the headmaster. Our hero is her childhood friend and the number two in the school, who has minimal magic power but manages to kick ass in almost every fight anyway – except, of course, for her, who he has never beaten in 999 tries. Our hero is also a pervert who enjoys going on about his little sister, who has large breasts and a petite body, something he will remind you about endlessly. That said, his little sister is also a massive superweapon that can decide wars – and now an opposing world has come to take it.

The first third of this book is the worst, as it tries to do a daily slice-of-life, which means that we get the hero going on and on about his sister’s breasts, sometimes for pages at a time – note to authors, you’re only allowed to do that if you write as well as Nisioisin, and this guy does not. Despite all the seeming incest fetishism, it is never not clear that he’s in love with the heroine (whose name is Yukihime, just in case you wanted to see something else completely unoriginal. Did I mentioned she uses ice powers? Oh, you guessed, huh?). After a while, the book settles into serious mode and we are treated to a series of endless fights, which is actually a step up as I was merely bored and not disgusted. Oh yes, and I should mention that, unlike most light novels these days, this is complete in one volume. That did allow it to pull off an ending that I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting, which should technically be praised if it didn’t leave such a bad taste in my mouth due to being carried out in the most cliched manner possible – I was genuinely disappointed the hero did not scream “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” at the sky, which would have completed the bingo card.

I try to be nice to cliched series, and I do enjoy quite a few of them. But this series was so derivative, and offered so few genuine good points, that it was a struggle to get through it, and the reward at the end was bittersweet. J-Novel Club does have some other interesting series on their site for you to try, so try them, and don’t feel too bad by giving this a miss. Absolutely dire.

My Big Sister Lives in a Fantasy World: The World’s Strongest Little Brother

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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.

It has been well over ten years since the Haruhi Suzumiya books hit Japan, and almost exactly ten years since the animated adaptation, so it’s no big surprise that we’re beginning to find works that are clearly inspired by its ideas. Actually, much of this book sounds like it’s been pulled together from what’s popular these days. No one gets pulled into another world, but there is a girl who’s a huge fan of that genre. There’s a vampire, although she could be any other kind of supernatural creature for all the relevance it has. And of course the Japanese title itself reminds us that focusing on the phenomenon of ‘chuunibyous’ is also quite popular, and has spawned several anime. So, as a hodgepodge of things that are popular lately, as well as the usual light novel tropes that have always been popular, this should be a giant mess. Yet somehow, I quite enjoyed it.

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This is one of J-Novel Club’s three debut digital titles, and I picked it to read first for a very simple reason: it’s the shortest. The premise is laid out at the start: normal high school kid Yuichi wakes up one day to find that he can see tags over people’s heads that show their ‘role’ – this starts normally with ‘big sister’, ‘office worker’, etc, but once he gets to school he runs into ‘vampire’, ‘zombie’, ‘witch’, and most ominously, ‘serial killer’. Unfortunately, this is basically the limits of Yuichi’s new power. Fortunately, he has a few tricks up his sleeve, as my earlier remark about his being a normal high school kid is a giant lie. Moreover, he has the title character, his big sister Mutsuko, who has prepared for this day her entire life, and made sure Yuichi is prepared as well.

The subtitle of this series is essentially the big reveal, and I must admit it’s quite well done. There are a few suggestions that Yuichi is not what he seems at the start – the strength equipment he uses that his new friend can’t even manage to move – but from about halfway through the book, once we gather than Yuichi IS in fact the world’s strongest, he is allowed to be as ridiculous as possible, jumping off four-story buildings, fighting oni to a standstill, and avoiding kicks to the crotch by forcing his testicles back into his body. If this sounds utterly ridiculous, it absolutely is, and only Yuichi’s blase narration really helps carry it off – to him, this is Tuesday. As for Mutsuko, this is basically her fault – imagine if Haruhi Suzumiya got a hold of Kyon at a very young age and began to train him to take on aliens, time travelers and espers with the power of MANLY STRENGTH and you’ve got the idea.

There’s nothing really subverted here – the serial killer with a lust for killing turns out to be easily distracted by Yuichi, who she can’t actually kill as he’s too good, and I suspect his harem will only grow. It’s also clearly written to be a longer series with the possibility of an anime – we don’t really find out anything about 3/4 of the class and their quirks, or Yuichi’s YOUNGER sister, who he shares a room with and doesn’t think that’s unusual at all. I’d only recommend this to light novels fans with an open mind. But if you are one, this is light, breezy, enjoyable fun, and I liked the characters. Surprisingly recommended.