This series, as well as the main one it’s spun off from, really requires the reader to remember who everyone is, which is tricky as there are eleventy billion characters in it. So you either get a spreadsheet going or you hope that the series comes out every three months like it used to. Well, bad news and good news on that front. The bad news is that it’s been a year since the last Sword Oratoria, and even worse, that was a prequel. The good news is that Japan had a “year of Danmachi” a while back, with books galore, and we are starting to see the output of all that over here. We had the main series volume two months ago, which ended with the same cliffhanger we see here, only from Bell’s side. And now we get to find out what led to that cliffhanger… well, after half a volume of comparative fluff. The author has to save the pain for the end.

Loki Familia are headed back into the Dungeon, down to the 60th floor to take care of the plot that’s been driving this spinoff once and for all. They know that they’re plenty strong, but are they strong ENOUGH? So they grab Tsubaki, and a powerful healer, and even some Freya Familia folks who reluctantly come along, mostly to protect Riveria. Notably absent is Bell, who they want to take along but the plot of the main Book 20 will explain why he doesn’t. They head on down, and the second half of the book is basically pure horror – and I mean that literally. There’s spider monsters who do some nasty things to two of the party members, there’s souls trapped in anguish, there’s souls fractured into multiple pieces. And there’s the corrupted spirit, who has one goal and one goal only: Aiz.

This series has ping-ponged back and forth with its central character. Lefiya was so much a parallel to Bell that it was hard for the author to resist. The Big Three of the Loki Familia all get to be very cool. And frankly it’s more fun to write the comedic, air-headed side of Aiz, which works better when she’s not the focus. But this spinoff is meant to be about her, and so when the big danger comes Aiz is the one who has to take the brunt of it. Along with, well, most everyone else. And that leaves, oddly, Raul. He’s been a supporting presence throughout this series, being the guy who’s always scared – of adventuring, of expectations, of confessing to his best friend – and now that cowardice is his best weapon… and I hope that everyone eventually realizes that, because boy, everyone in Orario really really hates him right about now.

So yeah, things are VERY VERY bad right now. Fortunately, the next book in the main series should help, and it’s out in 5 months. Also fortunately, the spinoffs keep coming! Did you enjoy Astraea Record? Did you wish there were more novelizations of that game? Do you like the Bell/Lefiya crack pairing but wish it was also incest? Great news on all counts! See you in a month.

I wasn’t expecting a second volume of these short stories, and it’s interesting to see what we get. Frieren is the obvious one who gets a story devoted to her in both books – it’s her series, after all – but Fern and Stark only appear briefly at the end of that story, and are not otherwise in this book. And while I’d love to get more of Methode, she too only has a small supporting role here. Still, there are a few things the author can do. The stories involving Ubel and Serie are clearly heavy hitters, ones that will automatically get in readers who just like them – especially Ubel. But the other thing the author can do is pick out a very minor character and flesh them out as they know the manga creators won’t be doing that. We get that here as well, and the results are heartwarming and horrific, respectively. Horrific in the horror way, not in the bad way. Frieren still has demons.

As with the first volume, we get five stories. 1) The receptionist for the Magic Exams, whose name apparently is Uhu, is asked to deliver something to Serie, and along the way asks everyone else connected with the exams why the world needs strong mages, and what that even means; 2) Ubel, after killing her exam proctor, leaves the city for a bit until they cool off, and comes across a kidnapped young boy who wants to be a mage; 3) That really upbeat demon girl we saw in the Divine Revolte arc doesn’t get a name, but they get a backstory, and this is it. It involves impersonating humans and killing humans; 4) We see Frieren, before she left her village, bored and at a loss for what to do with her life. She gets advice from other elves around her, who all have hyperfixations of some kind; 5) Serie trains a young Flamme, but the two of them, get in a fight over who should be learning magic.

There aren’t really any bad stories in this book, though the demon girl one was so grim I didn’t really enjoy it. The first one plays with Uhu’s role as “faceless minor character”, with the running gag that almost no one can remember her name – except, notably, Serie. Ubel’s story was fun, and reminds us that while she’s amoral and quick to kill, she’s not evil or psychopathic – and she also knows mages need to be able to kill in this world. Frieren’s story is sweet and touching until it gets tragic and we are reminded why Frieren bothered to start traveling in the first place… till it rolls around to heartwarming again at the end. The best story is the final one, as Serie gradually realizes she’s become a mom, and is not really sure how to deal with it. Flamme breaking off with her is handled well, and leads to my favorite bit of the book. “Attacking me out of nowhere, eh? How barbaric. Don’t you even know how to have a conversation?” “I’m afraid you only taught me how to use magic.”

As with the first book, don’t read this if you’re not caught up on the manga. But if you are, this is well worth the buy.

SEAN: I found the description of Fan/Girl X Call/Boy pretty cute, and it runs in Morning Two, which always has my attention. I’ll go with that this week.

ASH: It’s not exactly manga, but I am immensely curious about the new Horror Picture Book series from Viz. The creators involved in the various installments are anything but unknown; it should be interesting to see the different context for their work.

ANNA: Since the last volume of the Red River reprint is coming out this week, I want to pick that to highlight a great series. I hope some other early translated manga gets back in print again!

Reign of the Seven Spellblades is one of those rare light novel series that has, if not a huge fan wiki, at least a relatively up to date wiki, which is very useful when you have dramatic tragic deaths and you cannot actually remember who these people are. At one point I paused, looked up a name, went “ah, right, from Book 8!”, and moved on. That said, this is the final volume of the big Kimberly invasion arc, and we’re fifteen books is, so the author is finally killing off, permanently, actual people who have been around a long while and who we care about. I’ll get into the details of that a bit below, so spoiler warning. But I also need to emphasize that, even though this is a book filled with war, death and grieving, it never quite hits despair, and the overall theme is triumph, even if it’s at a painful cost. This book is optimistic. Well, as optimistic that a book about a boy killing off all the faculty can be.

Summarizing this is hard, as it’s mostly 250 pages of fight goes one way, then the other way. Bad guys die tragically. A few good guys die tragically. A lot of people we’ve never heard of die tragically. We also do find out why the bad guys are doing this, or at least why they’re saying they are. And we get some flashbacks that remind me that, much as I’m enjoying our main cast working their way through magic college, all their parents did the same thing a generation before, and they were all equally eccentric/bonkers. (The book is mostly serious, but the funniest bit has the students asking Katie if she’s all right and then having to clarify they mean “not possessed or consumed, we know you’re completely bananas”). In the end, the school is saved… just barely.

So, first of all, none of the six main characters die. (I have to be careful not to say “main six” because I know one day I’ll mistype it and this will become My Little Pony.) Katie, aside from the comedy bit I mention above, is entirely absent. Chela is mostly there to be support, the author clearly didn’t have anything for her to do. Nanao too is mostly absent aside from the very end. But if you like Oliver, Pete, and Guy you’re gonna be happy. Certainly happier than they are. Rita Appleton has been around since the 4th book and her crush on Guy has been around almost as long, and she gets to do what a lot of teenage girls with a crush would fantasize about, die to save her beloved. Richard Andrews has been around since the very start, the definition of the “arrogant rival guy turned reluctant ally turned reliable ally”, and it’s that reliability, as well as compassion, that leads to him saving Oliver, Nanao and Chela. Now a few characters I was sure would die somehow did not (there is more than one teacher given a backstory that is literally “I want to die”, and yet…), but this victory came at a cost. Still, it was damn cool as a fictional story.

Next time I assume we will be back to Oliver’s vengeance… whenever next time is. The 15th book came out in Japan over a year ago, and the series is now caught up. We wait for the author, and remember the fallen.

My friend Erica Friedman has talked before about an annoying characteristic of many light novels, manga and anime, which is the “emotional torment of children for plot purposes”. It’s relatively easy to win over the reader by doing this, and lets the main characters being abused be sympathetic – you really want them to have a nice blanket and a hot cup of cocoa. But as the author said in the afterword to Book 6, that is just not happening in Agents of the Four Seasons. These kids (and we’re introduced to more kids in this new book, all of whom are in some way, shape, or form broken by the adults they trust and by their peers) are broken down, beaten, and occasionally killed and resurrected – and this includes their guardians, who are either also children or in their late teens at most. The narrative says that while sometimes the abusers will be brought to justice, there will always be new ones ready to manipulate you, and the only thing you can do is get mentally stronger to withstand it all and grasp what happiness you can. Kinda depressing.

We pick up where we left off last time, with Jude seemingly betraying his agent and forcing Nadeshiko to make an impossible decision on who gets to live and who gets to die. The way Nadeshiko handles this will surprise no one, but it does lead to her and Liam ending up kidnapped – this makes how many times Nadeshiko has been kidnapped? – and everyone else having to try to track them down. After she wakes up, Jude explains what’s going on – turns out that not-America is using the Agents as a cash cow in order to line the pockets of the rich and powerful, which is technically a spoiler but is so thuddingly obvious that I am happy just mentioning it here. Jude wants to expose the man in charge of it all, and this kidnapping attempt was the best way to do it. Unfortunately for Jude, he doesn’t bother to explain this to Liam.

On the bright side, this is very well written. The thriller and action aspects are impeccably done, and you want to keep turning the pages as fast as you can. Nadeshiko’s powers, when they are inevitably explained as being different from what everyone thought, make a lot of the book lighter than expected… but look, that’s only a matter of degree. It is astonishing how literally EVERYONE in this series hates themselves with a passion. Even the arrogant, obnoxious Agent of Winter that not-America has proves to be an insecure child who is deeply upset that her mentor turns out to be a bad guy, and whose attempts at “making friends” with their agent of Spring have traumatized the other girl. Rindo and Nadeshiko are the highlight of this, and past, present and future collide to let us see a confession that we don’t really want but is inevitable anyway. I’ve joked before about how this book is Codependency: The Light Novel, but it’s no joke here – everyone knows the relationships between Agents and their Guards are totally fucked up, and yet they can’t do anything about it except say “that’s the way it is, I guess”.

The next book in the series is not scheduled in North America yet, and that’s probably for the best, because I’m exhausted. If you love the emotional torment of children for plot purposes, this will be like catnip for you. For everyone else, just endure, like the cast has to.

While I’ve very much enjoyed this series, each of the previous four volumes has explored topics related to replicas in some way. What are replicas, why do people have replicas, can replicas fall in love (title drop), and what happens when a human with a replica dies. This led us to the climax of the fourth book, which was about what happens if a replica dies… except no, it did not work out that way, because in the interim Sunao decided to get her life together, move beyond the need for having a replica, and finally grant Nao autonomy so that she could be with the one she loved. The problem, of course, is that the books were mostly written from Nao’s perspective, and so there was a gap of “what actually happened here?” left to be filled. It was fine for the climax of the “main” series, because really all that was waiting for was a dramatic run and love confession, but I’m glad we get to see what happened before: Sunao’s path to loving herself.

The subtitle of this volume is “Side: Original”, and that’s exactly what we get here. We start with Nao’s declaration to Sunao that she’s going back inside her, and just like the reader, Sunao knew that’s exactly what would happen. Fortunately, Sunao decides to simply make Nao vanish rather than fully integrate her into herself. Unfortunately, that means Sunao has to negotiate the rest of her time in high school without a safety valve or a way out, and it’s hard, given that Sunao regards herself as a bad person and thinks no one else could like her. Despite this, over the course of the book, she learns to stand up for herself over her former friends turned bullies, learns to stand up for others, and learns to give support when it’s needed but only the support that’s needed. And she even gets her own love story, with a somewhat unexpected person.

This volume was a lot simpler to read in many ways – replicas barely come up – but that doesn’t mean it was less affecting. Sunao’s POV is suffocating a great deal of the time, especially in the middle of the book when everything seems to be going wrong, and watching her deflect and avoid those problems was not only painful to read but honestly felt a bit TOO familiar. I wondered if she would avoid Ricchan entirely the whole book, regarding it as “she’s Nao’s friend now”, but honestly it ended up being that most of the entire incident in childhood that led to their falling out turned out to be something that Sunao just wasn’t emotionally mature enough to connect the dots on. She gains that emotional maturity here, in a number of really good scenes, and it all leads to a confession that she’s very reluctant to hear, and instinctively wants to reject, simply as she cannot come to terms with why anyone would feel like that about HER. (It’s very important, by the way, that her love interest has, without knowing about replicas, definitely fallen for Sunao and not Nao.)

There’s one last volume, apparently short stories. This feels like the big finale, though. A must read for fans of the series, especially those who watched the anime try to speedrun events as anime often does.

Oh god, store exclusive stories. Let’s try to break it down here: 1) Alya gets hit on and stalks Masachika; 2) Yuki buys otaku merch and stalks Masachika; 3) Touya and Chisaki are super in love, Part 1; 4) Test of courage; 5) Alya is tricked into wearing a sexy cat costume; 6) Touya and Chisaki are super in love, Part 2; 7) Alya and Masachika go to a fancy dessert place; 8) Yuki briefly feels guilty for manipulating Alya; 9) Alya is tricked into wearing a sexy maid costume; 10) Masachika goes on amusement park rides with Nonoa and deals with her personality; 11) Touya and Chisaki are super in love, Part 3; 12) Watermelon splitting; 13) Alya is tricked into wearing a sexy Chinese dress; 14) Alya and Ayano recover from the spicy food debacle; 15) Touya and Chisaki are super in love, Part 4; 16) Maria eats a lot; 17) Alya, under hypnosis, is tricked into wearing a sexy bunny girl costume; 18) Masachika buys priceless antiques but doesn’t realize it; 19) Yuki and Ayano have a water fight; 20) Touya and Chisaki are super in love, part 5; 21) Alya is tricked into wearing a sexy gothic lolita costume; 22) Alya, Masachika and Yuki get a fortune reading; 23) Touya and Chisaki are super in love, Part 6; 24) Alya is tricked into wearing a sexy Arabian dancer outfit; 25) Ayano discovers josei maid porn; 26) Chisaki destroys everyone in the athletics competition; 27) Maria is tricked into wearing a sexy bunny girl costume; 27) An anime store employee rants at the cast in his thoughts; 28) The cast play a word game; 29) Masachika dreams about Alya in a sexy succubus costume.

As you may have gathered from the brief descriptions of all of those, a large part of this collection is dedicated to getting Alya into sexy outfits; The art inside the book… and outside the book… is almost entirely devoted to each of the sexy outfits I mentioned above. This series knows its audience, and it’s folks who like big-breasted Russian girls. Though, to be fair, their magnificent asses are also mentioned quite a bit. Yes, I know it feels a bit crass to bring it up in a review, but this is a short story collection, so we can’t develop the characters or have much drama at all. What we’re left with is Alya being a bit tsundere, Yuki and Masachika being otaku-brained, and… well, there are the student council president and vice-president. Who are indeed cute and in love, but the bulk of the gimmicks in the stories are “Chisaki is very, very, very strong”.

That said, there are two original short stories for this collection at the end. In the shorter one, Elena, having a breakdown because people want to live their own lives rather than dedicate them to music, demands they all go to a cat cafe. We get to see how the cats treat the bulk of the cast (they all have trouble, especially Chisaki and Maria) and we get to see the cat version of Alya, who promptly gets into a… erm, catfight… with the real Alya. The second story has the cast, trying to prepare for the athletics festival, going to a hotel pool rented out by the rich Sumire, to see if practicing in a pool might be less exhausting. As you might guess, this is an excuse for some of the most blatant fanservice in the book, including Masachika almost drowning because every time he comes up for air he slams his face into Alya’s crotch by accident. It ends with a heartwarming moment, but again, we’re here for the service.

If you enjoy the Alya series, you’ll enjoy this. If you’re trying to save money, though, there’s nothing here that I think will come up again in later books, unlike Vol. 4.5.

ASH: I won’t complain too much.

SEAN: Debuting from Viz in a 2-in-1 omnibus is The Apothecary Diaries: Maomao’s Notes on the Inner Palace (Kusuriya no Hitorigoto: Maomao no Koukyuu Nazotoki Techou). Apothecary Diaries has two manga series, one in Big Gangan (the one Square Enix is putting out), and this one from Sunday GX. This one has been called “too straightforward”, the Gangan one supposedly omits some stuff. Why not get both? Also, does this count as a cat manga?

ASH: You know, it just might.

SEAN: Viz Media also debuts two Horror Picture Books, 32-page books starring children but not for them, this is more teen. Is It There Or Not? is from the creator of The Summer of the Ubume, and Looking at Me has art by Junji Ito.

ASH: Well, this both seem to be for me to read.

SEAN: Speaking of horror, Viz has Witching Hour (Ushimitsu Gao), from Champion Cross. A wife finds her husband unimpressive in bed, but fortunately a ghost can give her just what she’s looking for. This one has an explicit content warning, and not for the horror.

ASH: Oh, my!

SEAN: Lastly, have you not been reading Yona of the Dawn (Akatsuki no Yona)? Christ, why not? Get the new 3-in-1 out this week.

MICHELLE: I am so far behind!

ANNA: I’m behind too, contemplating starting over again from the first volume.

ASH: Always worth a re-read.

SEAN: Also from Viz: The Climber 7, Kingdom 12, Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. 15, Record of Ragnarök 20, Red River 4-in-1 9 (the final volume), Ultraman 22, and Undead Unluck 27 (the final volume).

ASH: I really need to get around to reading The Climber.

Tokyopop has another deluxe hardcover. Touch Within the Abyss Deluxe Edition (Kimi no Yoru ni Fureru) is another from RED title. An assassin’s failure to kill his target leads to tragedy. Years later, can he recover?

Tokyopop also has a 5th volume of Eternal Covenant and a 2nd omnibus of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, with Vol. 4-6.

Steamship debuts Flirting with my Bear-like Boyfriend (Ichaicha Shiyou yo, Kumakei Kareshi-kun). It’s a josei manga from TL Screamo, the het version of BL Screamo. A small girl and a big guy. Big in every sense of the word, as she makes sure to tell us. This has 2 volumes in 1.

ASH: It’s bigger that way.

SEAN: Square Enix Manga gives us My Dress-Up Darling XOXO!, a comedy oneshot that is basically “what if we took this manga but made it WACKIER?”.

ASH: I really enjoyed what I read of the original series.

SEAN: They’ve also got Dragon Quest: The Mark of Erdrick 5, Otherside Picnic 15, and Wash It All Away 10.

Seven Seas danmei, we get Three Hundred Years of Longing: Bu Jian Shang Xian San Bai Nian 4 (the final volume) and Thrice Married to a Salted Fish 4 (also the final volume).

One debut from Seven Seas. Crow Hill: Don’t Be Shy!! – The Complete BL Manga Collection (Karasugaoka Don’t be shy!!) is a 2-in-1 omnibus about two gang leaders who theoretically are arch-enemies, but note the BL. It ran In Kachi Comi.

ASH: This sounds like one I would enjoy.

SEAN: Also from Seven Seas: 100 Ghost Stories That Will Lead to My Own Death 6, Ghost and Witch 3, Gladiator Battle Life 2 (the final volume), How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord 25, No Longer Allowed In Another World 12, and Reincarnated as a Dragon Hatchling 9.

One Peace Books has a third volume of The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible.

Kodansha Manga has a print debut, Fan/Girl X Call/Boy (Deriwo no Oshigoto), a seinen manga from Morning Two. A shut-in otaku woman hires a male sex worker, but when she accidentally shows the erotic game she was playing when he’s there, she finds he’s a fan of the same game! Maybe instead of a sexual encounter she’s not ready for anyway, they could bond?

ASH: And that sounds like it could be potentially endearing?

SEAN: Also in print: Blue Lock 35, The Darwin Incident 10, Drifting Dragons 18, How to Grill Our Love 2, MF Ghost 9, Senpai Is an Otokonoko: My Crossdressing Classmate 8, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Trinity in Tempest 12, and Wave, Listen to Me! 12.

MICHELLE: Ooh, a new Wave!

ANNA: One day I will read Wave!, I have a few volumes stockpiled.

ASH: Same!

SEAN: Digitally we have A Couple of Cuckoos 31 and Medaka Kuroiwa is Impervious to My Charms 24.

A quiet week for J-Novel Club. For light novels they have The Bladesmith’s Enchanted Weapons 6 and Disowned but Not Disheartened! Life Is Good with Overpowered Magic 4.

And for manga there is The Accursed Chef and His Pair of Furry Foodies 2, Ascendance of a Bookworm Arc 2 12, and Safe & Sound in the Arms of an Elite Knight 7.

Ize Press debut Reunion. Seven years ago a young man impersonated a dead girl to fool a man on his deathbed. Another man attempted to expose him. Seven years later, they reunite. This is the Korean version of BL whose word I don’t know.

ASH: That is quite the premise!

SEAN: Also from Ize Press: Finding Camellia 9. I Tamed My Ex-Husband’s Mad Dog 8, Not-Sew-Wicked Stepmom 10, Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint 12, The Remarried Empress 11, Semantic Error (the novel) 3, Solo Leveling: Ragnarok 2, Tomb Raider King 16, and The World After the Fall 15. Some of those are probably final volumes, but it’s almost impossible to tell with webtoon releases.

Inklore has a 4th volume of Wet Sand.

Hanashi Media has one debut. I Was Reborn as a Refugee Girl, So I’m Working Toward Citizenship from Scratch (Tensei Nanmin Shoujo wa Shiminken wo 0 kara Mezashite Hatarakimasu!) is another “reincarnated into a terrible, terrible life” sort of book, but I’m sure it gets better.

ASH: One would hope! That sounds rough.

SEAN: Ghost Ship has an 11th volume of Please Go Home, Miss Akutsu!.

Dark Horse Manga give us Lone Wolf and Cub Deluxe Edition 3.

ASH: An excellent edition of an excellent manga.

SEAN: Airship has new print volumes. Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord: Production Magic Turns a Nameless Village into the Strongest Fortified City 8 and Loner Life in Another World 15.

And digitally we see History of the Kingdom of Orcsen: How the Barbarian Orcish Nation Came to Burn Down the Peaceful Elfland 2, I Like Villains, so I Reincarnated as One 3, and Magic Maker: How to Create Magic in Another World 3 (the final volume).

The calm before the storm. What manga are you getting?

I’ve enjoyed Bofuri over the years, but as I hit the end of this volume, and realized that the next book would be the final one in the main series (yes, of course there are after stories), I could not help but think “thank God”. This is a classic example of a series that just went on far too long. In this penultimate volume, the author is not about to introduce any fun new characters, or give Maple a weird new skill. The series has also shifted away from its “look at what Maple’s doing now” sense of humor, and while I do like seeing Maple using strategy and not just relying on vibes, it also means it’s not really funny any more. As a result, what we’re mostly left with is what this series has been about from the start: reading someone else’s game logs, and watching them fight. Even worse, the fights are all pretty anticlimactic. No one’s really giving Maple trouble any more.

Sally is on the cover, looking like she’s auditioning for Made in Abyss. The book is more about her than Maple, as she tries and fails to work up the nerve to ask Maple to marry her… er, sorry, to ask Maple for a 1-on-1 fight. They’re all going through the 10th floor, which has aspects of the other floors, in order to be able to fight the demon lord. They’re fun dungeon battles with tough bosses, there’s fun dungeon battles with tricky puzzles, there’s teaming up with other groups to help them clear tough areas with the power of Maple and Sally simply being really, really good, and there’s the dreaded 6th floor battles, where Sally must try to overcome her fears. By the end, everyone’s now ready to take on the Demon Lord, with the help of Mii and her friends and Frederica and her friends. The developers are sure the Demon Lord is not something anyone can take out on their first try. I suspect Book 19 will prove them wrong.

In terms of things I can actually review, there are two. The first is the series’ longest running gag that isn’t Maple acquiring new powers, namely Sally’s fear of ghosts. Give the nature of this floor, it was inevitable that they’d need Sally to get past this. She doesn’t, but she’s actually pretty clever in how she manages to battle enemies while at the same time remaining utterly terrified. And then there’s Sally’s request of Maple, which she STILL isn’t able to spit out. Maple clearly knows Sally wants to say something but is never going to push, so it lies there, and you just get more irritated with her. (Maple has the patience of a saint.) Maple, meanwhile, when asked by Sally what she wants to do for some downtime activities, takes Sally to a secret cafe where they have a repeat of the food dates they’ve had in the past. This is never going to be explicitly yuri, but the best part of it has actually become the implicit yuri. It’s why I read the series now.

The demon lord is set up as the focus of the final volume, but come on, we know Sally will eventually ask for that PvP match with Maple, and that’s gonna be the big end. Who will win? Will it have a kiss? (No.) One thing’s for sure, next volume will sound like a game log most of the time.

I really enjoyed reading this book, but if it has one big flaw it’s that it cannot settle down with one genre. And unlike, say, Sasaki and Peeps, I’m not sure how deliberate it is – it just feels unfocused. Judging by the cover and blurb, I was expecting the story of a plucky and adorable orphan winning the hearts of everyone she encounters. And it definitely is that. But it’s also the story of a reincarnated Japanese woman who wakes up in a middle-ages sort of monarchy and gradually introduces new foods while also winning over the monsters of this world with her powerful magic. And it’s also the story of a child left for dead who has tremendous PTSD about the whole thing and keeps getting triggered over and over again, either accidentally or on purpose. It’s about how sometimes abuse through neglect cannot simply be waved away or fixed. Still, if you can handle the ping-ponging, it’s a compelling read.

A Japanese woman, who passed away due to a car accident, wakes up in a deserted storeroom as a two-year-old dying of starvation and thirst. Not great. She manages to stagger to a kitchen and is found by the cooks, and it turns out that she’s in the royal castle. In fact, it turns out that her connection to royalty is a lot more intricate and filled with secret plans than anyone realizes. For Chihiro, though, all she wants to do is quietly live her life, eat nice food, and maybe try to find sweets, as this world lacks sugar or honey. Well, it has honey, but in the forest, and there are bees. Pshaw! Who’s afraid of some bees? Well, when she manages to get a mysterious stranger to take her to the forest, it turns out you’re afraid of bees if they’re the size of a human and feed on magic. Good thing that, as it turns out, Chihiro has TONS of magic…

Chihiro is absolutely the best reason to read this. A lot of these “I’m two years old but have my adult memories” series feature the main character trying their best to act like a kid and failing. Chihiro doesn’t even try, she’s like one of the kids in Full House. A scene early on just made me throw up my hands and realize the author was writing this on vibe, where she not only figures out how the commoners are getting their sums wrong, but asks the nobles to forgive them as it’s not the expected “we’re corrupt” but just “we suck at math”. There is an occasional hand wave towards people realizing that a girl as young as her cannot POSSIBLY be doing everything she is (she’s doing perfect embroidery, coming up with new recipes, etc. At two years old), but every time that happens the person ends up thinking “well, whatever, she’s so cute I don’t actually care to investigate this”. As for the conspiracy that led to all this happening in the first place, it never really gets resolved beyond “yeah, those evil maids did this and then vanished”.

Basically, this book is a mess. But it’s a fun mess, and I had a great time reading it. I want more.