I appreciate how the dungeon diving is so irrelevant to this series that by now we just never see it. Arius, in his spare time, goes into the dungeon constantly, but to the reader it’s simply “I went to the dungeon and leveled up 50 more times, then I came back.” This series does not actually care about the fighting all that much. You can definitely see this is the case in how it resolves the battle between Arius and the hero, which I won’t spoil, but wow, I was not expecting that resolution. I was, however, completely expecting another girl to throw on to the Arius harem pile, and she fits in perfectly. Not that this matters to Arius, who tells every woman in his life he has no interest in dating. Unless it’s dating a dungeon. He is here to get stronger, which means battle battle battle forever.

After the events of the second book, which was over seven months ago so I had forgotten what they were, Arius has ended up in the middle of the demon’s country talking with the Demon King Alanis, who is, amazingly, someone that he cannot in fact easily defeat – or defeat at all. Nevertheless, he almost gets in a few shots, so she intrigues him. He admits the issue is the hero, and says he’s going to do something about it. Meanwhile, back at the academy, Eric’s sister, Princess Ellyse, has shown up. This is a bit of a surprise, as she’s engaged to marry Crown Prince Dominic in the neighboring country. Unfortunately, Dominic is a louse and a rapist, so she’s escaped for the moment. Eric and Arius convince her that she should screw the politics and have them destroy that guy, and she eventually decides to agree once she realizes she’s fallen deeply in love with Arius – like the rest of the female cast except for Sasha. You go, Sasha, stay with your man.

For the most part, Arius remains exactly what he’s been in the first two books – a blank wall of a man whose lack of a personality allows everyone to read good intentions into him. The trouble is that, by being around all his friends and wannabe lovers, that is starting to actually be the case. He resolves the hero conflict the way he does because it’s what leads to the least casualties, and he wants Ellyse to choose what she wants as a person, not as a princess or as a lover. He’s gradually actually becoming a nice guy, though he’ll insist otherwise. Certainly he’s nicer than Eric, who now seems to be engaged to Princess “I Swear I’m Not the Evil Boss”, though at least he allows Sophia to be treated as well as he possibly can – so that she can pursue Arius as well, of course. I am fairly positive that the winning girl in a series like this will be “none of them”, but hope springs eternal, I guess.

There’s lots more webnovel to go, but in terms of the GC Novels version we’re caught up with Japan. This remains a decent “stoic guy and his harem” series.

There’s definitely a shift between the first three books and this one. It’s almost as if the writer was told by their editor that the series is reasonably successful, so go ahead and plot something that will pay off further down the road. Which they definitely do, as this book enjoys setting up things that don’t really pay off in this particular volume. Misha accidentally gets involved in a throne war. Misha meets her uncle’s researcher friend and his very hot not-quite-wife. Misha goes mountain climbing, is drawn off a cliff, and becomes an agent of the spirits. The usual things. The People of the Forest are already by definition very special folks (and they’re still basically elves without the long ears), but Misha is more important even than that, she’s a light novel protagonist. She’s even got the very special set of modern surgical tools in a box, which I’m sure will become relevant once she works out what they are.

Misha is being taken by her Uncle Ryne back to the People of the Forest, where she will spend several years growing up, learning amazing medical things, and not interacting with the outside world in any way. …yeah, you and I both know that’s probably not happening. She promptly gets mugged by a ragged bandit… who’s actually a desperate knight, and finds that he’s leading the remains of a country’s royal family to safety, despite the horrible dangers of scurvy. (Another light novel where folks have to be taught about scurvy, take a shot.) They then go to a hot springs town where they meet Ryne’s friend Ganz, and Misha bonds with a sexy but scarred ex-prostitute whose life was saved the last time Ryne was in town. As it turns out, a terrible carriage accident will allow Misha to assist in saving a different life this time around. Finally, she and Ryne go mountain climbing, and she has to deal with a very ominous fog, a very ominous cave, and a very ominous box.

The amusing part of this book is seeing Misha, an innocent kid who wears her heart on her sleeve and wants to help everyone, contrasted with her uncle, a cynical, world-weary sort who talks to her constantly about not giving away secrets, trying to stay unnoticed, and picking your battles… who nevertheless also ends up saving everyone he comes across, and it’s very clear that most of what separates Misha from her elders is just experience. Which she certainly gets here, I liked some of the medical details we get in this book, such as the operating theatre with the slightly sloping floor. But again, a lot of this book feels like setup to a future payoff. We see Misha helping to rescue and repatriate a prince and princess and their entourage, setting them up at her old cottage she grew up in with her mother, and… TBC, I guess. Which isn’t too big a problem, as this series remains lovely to read, but after the last book it feels a bit less taut.

The book ends with the two of them getting on a boat that will take them to their destination. Again, doubting it will, but we shall see. Good kinda-slow-to-medium life series.

MICHELLE: I’m in a similar boat. I’ll go with What If I Said, “I Love You?”, I suppose.

ASH: I was likewise not especially excited by this week’s offerings, although What If I Said, “I Love You?” and Geniearth are the two debuts I’m most likely to read. But then I learned that Bubbles Zine just released Lunatic Lover’s by Maruo Suehiro. Definitely not a manga I would recommend for everyone, but I’m excited about it.

Never let it be said that the author’s firm commitment to no romantic pairings in this series doesn’t apply to BL as well. In an earlier volume, the author’s afterword got annoyed at the people trying to ship Sano with Katsuragi… and then added Katsuragi’s younger teen sister to the cast. Here we see Sano and Aikawa continuing to spend almost the entire winter hanging out, complete with a Valentine’s Day where he gets chocolates from Aikawa. The clerk at the local candy store clearly thinks they’re a couple. And yet only Aikawa notices this, and he gets Katsuragi and her sister to play up Sano being a very attractive heterosexual male to “clear up” the misunderstanding. Everyone understands what’s going on but Sano, which you could ascribe to his ongoing depression, but honestly, in this volume Sano also comes across as a bit dim. If he’s going to be the perfect boyfriend, he’s probably the himbo sort. That said, he’s nowhere near being ready for romance again.

I would summarize the plot here, but why bother? Sano watches the others hunt, but doesn’t do so himself. They all gather together to have delicious meals. Sano’s chickens are weird, and strangely overprotective. The Katsuragi sisters do return at the end of the volume, in time for the big event of the book: Sano’s birthday. Note that this party happens a bit late, because Sano doesn’t tell anyone about his birthday at all. Unfortunately, he lives next to a village which believes in community, and he is going to be dragged into that community like it or not. Even if the community has people like Kawanaka, who fills that role I hate in these sort of series, the creepy not-quite-predator friend that nobody likes but he’s a friend anyway. Less of him having to promise not to go after middle school girls would be great.

There is, of course, an actual plot to this series besides slow life – what the heck is up with those chickens? And that dragon? And those snakes? Here we see the hunters moving to the other mountains on either side of Sano’s. Katsuragi’s doesn’t go all that well due to a lack of trees (she has a lot more fields), but Aikawa’s is oddly eerie, as when they get to a certain point all the animals disappear. It’s suspected to be the work of Aikawa’s “pets”, but they’re both very cagey about it. In this book we get more clear evidence that actual Gods are managing these mountains, and are very likely behind Sano getting his chickens. The chickens function as pets and companions, but as we especially see in this book, they’re also bodyguards. They’re reluctant to leave Sano by himself for any period, and will only go off as a trio when he’s surrounded by humans. This could be related to his depression, but is that all it is?

Judging by the cover of Book 7, Sano will get a new addition to his family soon. In the meantime, this remains interesting to me almost despite itself.

I started to write a long, involved review of Kamiina Botan giving the basic plot and breaking down the relationships and then scrapped the whole thing. Yes, I loved the relationships, but that’s not why I got so obsessed with Kamiina Botan per se. Honestly, I think if the manga had been licensed and I’d gotten the first volume, I may not have continued on. This is a series that runs almost entirely on VIBE. The anime studio was handed a series that, let’s face it, is a cute college girls drinking cute things series. Instead of happy scenes of the girls building a house, or going camping, instead we get discussions of obscure art films, the joy of 80s and 90s vinyl LPs, and so. much. alcohol. And the anime studio took one look at this and said “You know what? Let’s turn this into an experimental cauldron. Instead of making sure everything is consistent, let’s let each storyboarder and episode director do whatever they want. The result is a rare yuri anime that elevates almost everything.

The basic pitch: a new first-year at a girls’ college dorm comes across her RA drinking alone, and looking happy about the booze but not much else. The new girl admits she’s never had alcohol before, and has a drink as well. It turns out that alcohol makes her extremely flirty and forward, and since she’s also outgoing and pretty, the RA starts to fall for her. This is terrible news for their sempai, who has an unrequited crush on the RA and has been trying to get her to have a drink together but to no avail. Halfway through the series, they get a new resident, a Taiwanese girl who sees all the yearning, unspoken feelings, and utter lack of any forward progress and just kicks it all down, which helps the girl and her RA to “stop being friends” (and become girlfriends), and also pushes the sempai to finally give up on the RA and find new love with someone who’s head over heels in love with her – the Taiwanese girl herself. Akane and Yaeka are also in it.

A lot of anime seems to fall under “no one knows about it, but if you get someone into it they’ll love it just as much as you”. This is not one of those series. As far as I can tell, there are two kinds of Botan watchers… well, three. Either they immediately get it and fall deeper in love with the series with each new episode (expect Episode 3… more on that later), or they struggle to like any of the characters, particularly Ibuki, and find themselves getting more and more frustrated about why people keep praising this nothingburger of a series. There is also a third kind, which is “I want to love it but all the alcohol consumption upsets me”. I totally get that, but if that’s the case, I’m sorry. Part of the series shows how Ibuki goes from using alcohol as a crutch to try to forget her trauma to the power of love causing her to reinvent alcohol as her hyperspecific obsession, just as Kanade has films, Akane has music, and Chin-lan has Kanade.

I’m not very familiar with the unlicensed manga, but from what I can understand there wasn’t too much added or subtracted in terms of the plot or dialogue of each episode. One episode had a special section written to give Akane and Yaeka something to do, but the author then posted it as a chapter on the manga’s website, so in a sense it’s also an adaptation. The manga covers also, frankly, seem to want it to attract a far more male, hornier audience than I think the anime really deserves – the anime doesn’t really have all that much fanservice, even if we get several scenes of the girls bathing, whereas the manga covers really want to emphasize Botan’s “gigantic cans”, as one social media person put it. The anime takes us through the first four volumes, with the last couple episodes setting up Akane and Yaeka finally getting a plotline of their own… unfortunately, that will have to wait for a mythical second season, meaning their characters suffer far more than the others.

One thing I appreciated, possibly due to the girls being in college, and possibly as the author just wasn’t interested in that part of the story, is that none of the girls have a “wait, am I interested in g-girls?” moment. The girls all appear to not only be gay but know that all the others are gay, and all the relationship drama is very much “is she as interested in me as I am in her” without the “what if they find out I’m a lesbian?”… which, yes, can also be read as a copout, but maybe it felt more refreshing as they are written to be older. Speaking of which, the writing and the art direction are both incredibly vague and elliptical. Botan and Ibuki’s confession is “let’s stop being friends”. Chin-lan’s gorgeous plea to Kanade ends with “won’t you come out to the sea with me?” The final episode’s climax ends in mutually pierced ears as a metaphor for a first time. The metaphor is the issue – I did see some people complaining that without a kiss of explicit “we’re gay lovers!”, it didn’t quite count as much. To that, I say stuff and nonsense.

The cast can very easily be divided into three parts: the ones everyone loves to one degree or another (Botan, Kanade, and Chin-lan), the two forgotten underdogs (Akane and Yaeka, also the only ones who are clearly already a couple from the start), and Ibuki. Ibuki has a lot going against her. She’s the cause of the brief romantic rivalry that makes Kanade sad, and her rejection of Kanade, because it’s couched in the same vague style that the rest of the series is, is felt to be unclear and mean. Her past trauma (she was drinking at a mixer and could not stop hiccupping, leading to a senpai she admired calling her annoying) affects her deeply, to the point that it’s ruined her life before Botan shows up, and brings her to tears just remembering it. A lot of folks felt that this was not enough to justify her anguish, and I saw “get over it” quite a few times. To be fair, she does. With the help of Botan she becomes, by the end of the series, filled with joy and hope for the future.

Botan started out as everyone’s favorite, especially with her “I want to make that tongue of yours mine!” line, but as the series went on and Botan fell in love with Ibuki more, we started to see a transformation. Just as Botan Kamiina Fully Blossoms When Drunk, it turns out that when she’s relatively sober, she is as doubtful as every other person in love for the first time. Especially since, as she states incessantly in the last two episodes, her relationship with Ibuki revolves around alcohol. Botan misses what we’ve already seen with Ibuki, which is that alcohol is no longer her crutch but now her hobby, which means she gleefully wants to share it with the woman she loves, just like Kanade and films like Wild Strawberries. Botan, on the other hand, wants more. Since they’re “no longer friends”, why is everything the same? Her raw desire in the last episode is startling, though I also appreciated she knew when to stop and listen when Ibuki explained what was going on.

Kanade was everyone’s favorite from about Episode 2 onward, and especially with Episodes 4 and 5, mostly as she was a failure pile in a sadness bowl. A tall, beautiful older woman who smokes and deliberately styles herself as cool, in reality Kanade can’t work up the courage to confess to the girl she likes and watches every moment of Botan seducing Ibuki, cringing all the way. Botan, of course, gets this – she even helps Kanade to pull off the best confession possible, though it’s one Ibuki will obliquely reject. Fortunately for Kanade, she wins the entire anime by getting Chin-lan, everyone’s favorite from Episode 6 till the end. Dubbed the “yuri bomb”, Chin-lan was from Taiwan, and when she arrived she immediately figured out the relationships in the dorm and noticed that there was one woman not taken. She spent the rest of the series defying the anime itself. While everyone else avoided directness or used a metaphor, Chin-lan would say “I love you”. Multiple times. In many ways, her journey with Kanade is even more exciting than the main one.

As for Akane and Yaeka, as I noted, they seem to be a couple from the start. Akane’s a musician who really likes music, but wants to love it, wants to be obsessed with it – and that’s not something she thinks she can do at college. She hasn’t told Yaeka, who is a pint-sized grumpy girl who has more common sense than the other five, possibly as she knows what the response will be. Unfortunately, this is left open at the end of the series, and I think it’s the main plot of the next volume, leaving the two of them unexplored to a large degree, which is a big flaw of the series. Fortunately, they have their ending cards. The endings of this series become legendary, filling in the tragic gay backstories of the entire cast (except, very notably, for Botan, whose backstory remains unknown). We see Kanade’s smoking habit came from a previous crush on an older girl. We see Akane’s old band getting famous without her. We see Yaeka’s budding ballet career cut short. We see Ibuki’s high school yearning. And we see Chin-lan’s sister’s marriage to another women, which explains so much about Chin-lan’s motivation. They’re amazing.

Speaking of the anime, it was a bit startling when the second episode was in a different artistic style than the first, but that was nothing compared to episode 3. The entire episode was animated by one person – storyboards, key animation, inbetweening, everything. And its style was deliberately old-school and scratchy, reminding me very much of series like Hidamari Sketch. It fit with part of the episode, as Akane shows off her old-school LP collection to Botan, and they listed to Radiohead’s Kid A – well, no, they don’t, music rights, but they listen to BGM while we see the cover of Kid A. The analogness of the experience fits with the animation style. That said, I suspect this may have been one experiment too far – the rest of the series was more content to experiment with camera angles (5), musical score and songs (8), and SHAFT-style Monogatari Series homages (11) rather than make the girls look TOO different – though we saw Botan with dead cat eyes again, as well as Yaeka’s fanged exit on Akane’s arm.

One last thing about the anime and manga both – this series is Pretentious with a capital P, and if that bugs you, you should flee for your life. It’s the sort of show that needs annotations, from Akane’s record collection, to Kanade’s string of art school directors (her final romantic gesture in Episode 2 is a postcard book by Wim Wenders – again, the “I love you” in this series is not said out loud by anyone but Chin-lan, instead it’s made through “please immerse yourself in my hyperfixation”), to the endless alcohol brands consumed by the entire cast. Like Super Cub, I don’t think this was explicitly underwritten by any brewery or corporation, but I think they were, much like Super Cub, quite happy for the free publicity. The 10th episode’s hilarious after-credits scene features 100 Years of Solitude and Eric Dolphy, and both Chin-lan and Akane, respectively, are stunned that those aren’t common knowledge to everyone. Even Botan is giving everyone lectures on perfume brands.

I’m not sure this will ever get a Season 2 – I don’t think it quite has the needed manga material to cover it – and I will also be shocked if we see a Blu-Ray over in North America. For me, though, this entire spring season with Botan has been a delight. If you take the series too seriously, get too invested in the interiority of Ibuki and what she’s doing to herself, or Kanade’s cursed love life, I think it would be quite unwatchable. But I think just accepting this is how things go in this world, you open yourself up to some truly lovely dialogue, and some amazing animation experimentation. The fact that it happened on a yuri anime, a genre that far too often has an aura of “well, this is fine, I guess” low budget dullness to it, makes it even more compelling for me. The final shots of the ED of Episode 12 show Botan and Ibuki, still a couple and now seemingly running the dorm together, welcoming a very tall and very small pair to the dorm for the first time. I hope one day we see their own inevitable love story.

ASH: July is so close and yet so far away.

SEAN: Tokyopop has the 7th and final volume of Our Not-So-Lonely Planet Travel Guide.

Titan Manga debuts Geniearth, a Weekly Shonen Champion title. A new genetic mutation leads those with it to declare themselves the homo superior and demand everyone else make way. Can one of the “old humans” save the day?

MICHELLE: I saw what you did there.

ASH: Oh, ho!

SEAN: Seven Seas has some danmei. The third volume of Mistakenly Saving the Villain and the second and final volume of Twin Jades of Jiangdong.

Seven Seas has some debuts. Al the Adventurer: That Magic Shouldn’t Work! (Boukensha Al: Aitsu no Mahou wa Okashii) is a manga based on a light novel which… well, see below. It runs in Comic Corona. A boy is rescued from a kidnapping my his grandfather’s magic, and devotes himself to leaning it. But… did he learn it properly? Or is he using magic in a completely bizarre way?

ASH: I read that as A.I. at first, but that’s a different series.

SEAN: How to Survive as a Maid in a Horror Game (Gongpo Game Maid-ro Saranamgi) is a Korean manhwa/webtoon. A game has you control a devil who has to kill as many people as possible. Then one day a grumpy player goes to sleep… and wakes up in the game as the devil’s maid! Can she survive being the first victim?

ASH: I feel like there may be a chance.

SEAN: Remnant: The Beastmen Omegaverse Saga (Remnant: Kemonohito Omegaverse) is an Omegaverse title about twin siblings who are both omegas. That said, it’s an omegaverse title, you know who’s getting the focus. When his sister goes into heat, our hero discovers that the omegaverse… is corrupt! Only an aloof, uncaring alpha can save them now!

Also from Seven Seas: Black Night Parade 10, Chronicles of an Aristocrat Reborn in Another World 14, He Craves to be Teased by His Favorite ASMR Streamer 2, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! 12, Reborn as a Barrier Master 9, A Stepmother’s ‏Märchen 6, and The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary 5.

Mahjong Pros debuts Vermilion Stella: Illustrated Memoir of Arisa Date. This is another autobiography of a woman mahjong player. However, all their books I mentioned in April and May are now scheduled for July. So take with a massive grain of salt.

ASH: I’m here for the mahjong manga whenever it is they’re actually released.

SEAN: Kodansha Manga’s debut is What If I Said, “I Love You”? (Ore ga Sukitte Ittara Dou Suru?), a BL title from Honey Milk. Two boys are childhood friends, but when one realizes his feelings are turning romantic, he starts pulling away, and by high school the two are almost strangers.

MICHELLE: Hm.

ASH: I feel like I’ve heard good things about this one, but I can’t quite recall.

SEAN: Also in print: Blue Lock Omnibus 3, Cells at Work! Lady 3, Fall In Love, You False Angels 5, How to Treat a Lady Knight Right 2, I Have a Crush at Work 4, and Nina the Starry Bride 16.

Digitally we see Anyway, I’m Falling in Love with You 13, I Left my A-Rank Party to Help My Former Students Reach the Dungeon Depths! 8, and Saint Young Men 22.

Kodama has Baki the Grappler Perfect Edition 19 and 20 and Smile! 4.

ASH: I really need to check out Kodama’s releases.

SEAN: J-Novel Club has light novels, and manga. The light novels are An Archdemon’s Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride 21, I’m a Noble on the Brink of Ruin, So I Might as Well Try Mastering Magic 10, Looks like a Job for a Maid! The Tales of a Dismissed Supermaid 3, Now I’m a Demon Lord! Happily Ever After with Monster Girls in My Dungeon 16, and Pens Down, Swords Up: Throw Your Studies to the Wind 6.

And for manga we get Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 3 Vol. 6 and A Livid Lady’s Guide to Getting Even 8.

Hanashi Media has several light novels, including two debuts. Reincarnated as a Poor Farmer in Another World: I’ll Use My Modern Knowledge to Build My Own Kingdom (Isekai no Binbou Nouka ni Tenseishita node, Renga wo Tsukutte Shiro wo Tateru Koto ni Shimashita) is a “title is the plot” book.

ASH: I don’t read much isekai, but I have been known to enjoy farming manga.

SEAN: Reincarnated Onmyoji: Empowered by the King of Hell, I’ll Never Return to the Underworld (Tensei Onmyouji Kamo Kazuki: Nido to Jigoku wa Gomen nano de, Enma-daiou no Shinki de Musoushimasu) is the other one. A young man is accidentally sent to hell, and has to purify his soul of corruption. He soon attracts female demons who love corruption.

ASH: That could present a problem.

SEAN: Also from Hanashi Media: The Fruit of Evolution 13, GATE: Thus, the JSDF Fought There 1-B, and Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy 17.

Ghost Ship has Parallel Paradise 26.

Cross Infinite World has Breaking Up Was the Plan, the Duke Falling For the Villainess Was Not! 3 and Love & Magic Academy: Who Cares about the Heroine and Villainess? I Want to Be the Strongest in this Otome Game World 3.

Two print titles from Airship: Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Deluxe Edition 2 and ROLL OVER AND DIE: I Will Fight for an Ordinary Life with My Love and Cursed Sword! 6.

Airship has a digital-only debut. Al the Adventurer: That Magic Shouldn’t Work! (Boukensha Al: Aitsu no Mahou wa Okashii). See above for the synopsis.

In early digital, we see The Case Files of Jeweler Richard 12 and Reincarnated Into a Game as the Hero’s Friend 7-1.

Very odd set of books. What are you getting?

I like Karen, I really do, but there are times when she does things that annoy me. Or rather, that she doesn’t do things. This book doubles down on its Lubeck, and makes it very clear that a) he is a terrible person and obsessive to a disturbing degree, and b) it will be very, very hard to escape having to marry him unless she does something drastic. I had assumed, once Lubeck made this clear, that she would finally bite the bullet and see if Reinald can help out by, say, getting engaged to her again. But no, she still doesn’t want to involve him in that way, still thinks her feelings are one-sided, and still tends to regard herself as “that plain nobody” even as she now has magically white hair and everyone in the world wants to have her on their side. As a result of this, I’m fairly sure we’ll get more Lubeck in the next book… assuming Karen survives.

No, Ern has not been resurrected, not really. The girl on the cover is Luca, who essentially starts acting like a familiar for Karen. Which is sorely needed, as it turns out that the best way to free Six from the box is to sort of connect him to Karen via a magic funnel. The trouble with this is Karen’s magical power is absolutely minimal, so everyone expects it might be a bit difficult. Actually, the opposite. It’s super easy. Which ends up being even more terrible, as suddenly Karen can use magic, but it gives her nosebleeds and the usual “I am overloading my brain” symptoms. Elsewhere, she meets up with Wilhelmina, who admits that she and Arno are an item, and also asks Karen to join her side, pointing out Reinald is the Napoleon type who won’t stop till he conquers the world. Little realizing that Karen not only knows that, but is helping him along.

The series started, in case folks have forgotten, with Karen trying to figure out the best way to escape from all her trials and tribulations so that she can live the life she wants, able to go from country to country and free from restraints. In this book, she officially admits that will never happen, and that like it or not, she is tied too tightly to the issues of the Empire and its people. No slow life for you, young lady! Unfortunately, this does mean that she probably needs to do something about Reinald, who is being sent off to another country to solve an impossible to solve problem at the same time that the Emperor has decided which child he’s aligning with, and it’s not Reinald. I think Karen knows instinctively she’s chosen the “wrong” side, or at least the more difficult side, but she’s going to have to be a lot less passive in future if she wants to get what she needs… or just survive. Fortunately, Six is sending her on a journey that will surely be safe and fun!

Two more books to go, which means four more book in this release. Will Karen and Reinald manage to unite the Empire? Will Karen manage to implement gun control? Will Karen immediately get captured the moment the fifth book starts? One of those is more likely than the others.

Well, here we are back in the past again, with six-year-old Serafina. We’re still quite a few years away from her death, but the series has been teasing that it’s going to get dark, and this book continues that trend… though in an odd way. We open with an ominous scene of a demon waking and finding someone who smells “quite delicious”. No prizes for guessing who that is… and then we have the entire rest of the book, with the demon’s actual meeting with Serafina coming right at the end, in order to provide the cliffhanger ending. In between that… well, in between that is a typical Secret Saint ZERO volume. Serafina is cute and ludicrously powerful. The knights are all weirdos. Sirius is deeply in love with a six-year-old girl but in a pure, non-sexual way. The same old “this is good but Japan, why you gotta do this?” sort of stuff.

A meteor has fallen, and thus everyone is predicting terrible things. Serafina wonders why portents always have to be bad, and wishes we’d have dire portents of cake and meat raising from the sky. (The portents, unfortunately, are correct in this case – but not immediately). She then finds out that the knights have opened a “knight cafe” for the month… which is basically a butler cafe, with the hunky knights catering to young women. And at night it becomes a knight bar, which is basically the same only sexier, as they open up a swimming pool and the knights dive into it for fruit and other ingredients. Serafina wants to see them… so Sirius comes along. In disguise. That’ll go well. Elsewhere, she goes to a show and accidentally gets proposed to, she plays a game of straw millionaire which reminds us she has no concept of what is normal, and Ludo rescues a child who I’m sure will be more relevant in the next volume, as they sure aren’t here.

There’s an interesting bit near the end of the book, where Serafina meets the spirit of wind, who has come to see her after he found out she speaks spirit languages. This leads to a bit of conflict with Seven, who we’ve always seen as a cute, child-like spirit… and it’s now very clear that Seven is staying that way deliberately, and does not want to grow up. Serafina brushes off Seven’s worries, saying she only wants to be contracted with him no matter his apparent age, but to the reader, choosing not to grow up makes me immediately think of Peter Pan. It’s not really a good thing. It also reminds me that, unlike the main series, this spinoff has, theoretically, a shorter shelf life. How many cute mini-stories can the author wring out before they’re forced to have Serafina grow to her teenage years and face her cruel destiny?

As ever, for fans of the series, but it does remind me, kind of like Kuma Bear does, what a juggling act it can be balancing “adorable children” and “this world is kinda dark”.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Vol. 14 | By Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe | Viz Media – This is still setup for what is going to be an epic battle, but I will admit that I feel it is adding a few many new characters all at once. We get a whole bunch of bad guys here, each with their own eccentricities, and some more likeable than others. We get to see Fern be utterly badass, and we get to see Stark have bad things happen to him and have the stamina of several oxes. But the big news is the return of Sein! He’s here; he’s still looking for his friend; and I have a sneaking suspicion he may find said friend before the end of this arc. That said, I’m not sure whether the series is the sort that can kill off one of its main supporting characters, so we will have to see if the mass assassination attempt really gets going. It’s Frieren. You know it’s good. – Sean Gaffney

Hitting Rewind with You, Vol. 1 | By Hanamaru Kira | Kodansha Manga – There’s been quite a few “I wish I could go back and redo my crappy teenage years,” but most of them tend to star guys and involve time travel. Here we see Wakaba regret her introverted bookish school days, so she takes advantage of Halloween to wear her old uniform… and runs into a hot high school student! At this point the savvy shoujo reader is ready to say “uh oh,” but no fear, as he’s also in his uniform despite being in college, because he was helping a cosplay group that then cancelled on him. The two of them start to date but can’t let go of the uniform thing… though that may also be because Wakaba doesn’t actually realize that the two of them are dating, as she suffers from classic “shoujo heroine” syndrome. This wasn’t lights-out amazing, but was cute and fun. – Sean Gaffney

Medalist, Vol. 13 | By Tsurumaikada | Kodansha Manga – Inori, in this series, has had moments where she’s lost to others, and times when she’s almost but not quite won it all. But she hasn’t really had a complete disaster of a day like she does here… one so bad it means she doesn’t get to compete on Day Two, she’s just done. Unfortunately, this reminds us that all the intensity that we’ve seen middle school Inori have can also work against her, as when she sees Hikaru she has a total breakdown, and when she sees Tsukasa she has a raging, screaming fit. Hikaru shows her that there’s still someone to chase and that she’s not abandoning Inori as a rival, while Tsukasa shares his past and tries to show her that “what do you do if disaster strikes” is also a skill a skater needs to learn. I love this series so much. It’s amazing every time. – Sean Gaffney

Rock Is a Lady’s Modesty, Vol. 2 | By Hiroshi Fukuda | Yen Press – This second volume introduces the other two main characters, and while I love Tina and her struggles, Tamaki is definitely the one with the stronger impact—trying to lure Otoha away, disparaging Lilisa’s guitar, and saying (rightly) that Tina’s lack of ability makes her someone they can’t work with. The good news for Lilisa is that we also get the front half of this volume, featuring the Battle of the Bands, where the two of them unleash the power of rock in order to inspire a rather lackadaisical concert band and also show up an arrogant singer with delusions of grandeur. Those middle fingers have never felt more right. That said, Lilisa is going to struggle a lot more before she gets her ideal guitar heroics going, so let’s hope the battle of the bands goes well. Great stuff. – Sean Gaffney

Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 13 | By Kamome Shirahama | Kodansha Comics – Another series where it’s been a year and change since the last one. Fortunately, Coco realizes this and is utterly awesome in this book, joining with the others to come up with a brilliant plan. Unfortunately, she also runs afoul of the Knight dude who wanted to wipe her memory way back when, and he still wants to do it… and wipe everyone else’s memory as well. This guy has issues, as everyone else seems to realize, and it can be painful to see. It can also be painful to see Coco’s plan run up against the scientific method, as it turns out that the leech is also very clever and is not going to give them time to carry out this plan. Fortunately, Agott and Coco are the baby lesbian power couple (not canonical), and they’re here to SAVE THE WORLD! Next book. – Sean Gaffney

Yotsuba&!, Vol. 16 | By Kiyohiko Azuma | Yen Press – Five. Freaking. Years. Even by Yotsuba&! standards, that’s a bit ridiculous. The biggest reason to be excited about the book is near the end, but before that, we continue to see Yotsuba’s dad reflect that she actually will be doing things like going to school and growing up soon. (Soon, but not yet. No worries, fans of her being five years old.) There’s also a heaping helping of Yanda, as he and Yotsuba have to get along or else her dad will abort their mountain climbing. But most importantly… it’s Osaka! From Azumanga Daioh! And she’s Ema and Miura’s teacher, and just as flaky as she’s always been, though I get the sense she’s a pretty good teacher overall. It was wonderful to see her, and I hope she shows up again. Whenever the next book is. – Sean Gaffney

Yotsuba&!, Vol. 16 | By Hiyohiko Azuma | Yen Press – It had been almost eight years since I had read a volume of Yotsuba&!. In that time, I had forgotten just how delightful it really is. In volume sixteen, there is a lot of emphasis on Yotsuba starting school soon and Koiwai being encouraged to do fun things with her while she still has this much free time. As a result, most of this volume is about hiking Mount Takao. One particular element about this series that I love and had forgotten about is the scene-setting panels. I love panels of apartment facades, the reflection of an electric pole in a building’s windows, a plump bird on a tree, a trio of little girls riding their bikes down the street… Reading this reminded me anew what a joy this series is and finishing it left me bereft because how many years ‘til the next one? – Michelle Smith

SEAN: I have heard *very* good things about Set Sail: The Art and Making of One Piece, and the live-action series really is incredible, so that’s my pick this week.

ASH: I’m with Michelle this week, although I’m going to flip the order around. I’m definitely intrigued by Whoever You Are, I Love You, but I love that we’re getting the full range of Gengoroh Tagame’s work in English and that I’ll be able to recommend Fish and Water to a wider audience than I would some of his other manga.

KATE: One order of Fish and Water for me, please!

ANNA: I’m most likely to check out Whoever You Are, I Love You, so that’s my pick!