ASH: Hopefully less humidity.

SEAN: Viz Media have two debuts. Assassin’s Creed Shadows: Tales of Iga runs in Young Magazine Web, and is, well, a video game spinoff. For those who like ninjas.

cocoon is a one-shot josei historical manga that ran in Elegance Eve, and is based on the true story of the student nurses pressed into service during World War II.

MICHELLE: Ooh! That is very much my kind of thing.

ASH: This one’s been on my radar! Looking forward to reading it.

ANNA: This sounds cool!

SEAN: Also from Viz: Fool Night 9, Haikyu!! 3-in-1 9, Kingdom 8, Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. 13, Mission: Yozakura Family 23, One Piece 3-in-1 36, Rainbows After Storms 10, Seraph of the End 34, Steel of the Celestial Shadows 10, and Undead Unluck 25.

Tokyopop debuts Beneath the Falling Camellia Blooms (Koizome wa Ochiyuku Tsubaki no Shita de), a josei manga about a man tortured by the mysterious death of his parents getting a job caring for a young girl whose family may have been involved.

MICHELLE: Intriguing!

ASH: I am likewise intrigued.

ANNA: Me too!

SEAN: Also from Tokyopop: Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko! 3 (the final volume) and Touched by Twilight 2.

Titan Manga debut The One. Later On… (Sono Mono. Nochi ni…), based on an as-yet unlicensed light novel. A guy rejected by the hero’s party goes off to get stronger, and returns to find the girl he grew up with engaged to his tormentor. Time to go off and learn what else has changed in the world. This runs in Comic Earth Star.

ASH: I suspect a few things might be a little different at this point.

ANNA: Things are tough in Battle Arenas.

SEAN: Square Enix Manga gives us By the Grace of the Gods 14, Mechanical Buddy Universe 1.0 2, and Wash It All Away 8.

One danmei for Seven Seas, the third volume of Thrice Married to a Salted Fish.

Two manga debuts. Gladiator Battle Life (Teikoku Kizoku no Kentoushi Seikatsu) is a Young Animal Web series. A guy is determined to control his own fate in the Battle Arena, even if this means being a despicable person.

ASH: I’ve known people who have made worse life decisions.

SEAN: Wild Love: A BL Guide to the Animal Kingdom (Ikimono BL Zukan: Sekai wa XX ni Michiteiru) is a done-in-2 omnibus that ran in Pureri. If you love animals but wish they looked like hot guys who have lots of sexual tension and desire for each other, great news.

MICHELLE: Huh.

ASH: It’s filled with ecology trivia!… among other things.

SEAN: Seven Seas also has Aharen-san is Indecipherable 3-4, Berserk of Gluttony 14, Chainsmoker Cat 3, Fluffy Café in Another World 2, Get Married So I Can Curse Your Firstborn and Finally Be Free! 2, I’m the Heroic Knight of an Intergalactic Empire! 3, The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be Wife 7, Let Me See the Real You, Senpai! 3, This Is Screwed Up, but I Was Reincarnated as a GIRL in Another World! 19, and Too Many Losing Heroines! 5.

One Peace Books has a 2nd volume of Tamer: Trash-Tier to Top-Tier.

Kodansha has a big print debut next week: MARS 30th Anniversary. This classic shoujo manga, as Kodansha points out, was once as beloved as Nana, but has been out of print forever. Broken girl meets broken boy, in the best 90s shoujo tradition. This is coming out in 2-in-1 omnibuses, print only (Kodansha released it digitally in 2019) and hardcover, with new covers and a new translation.

MICHELLE: Nice! I still have my original editions, but this is tempting.

ASH: I’m so glad to see this series in print again!

ANNA: I have the original series too, it is so good. Great that this is coming back in print.

SEAN: Also in print: Nezumi’s First Love 4 and Parasyte Paperback Collection 7.

ASH: Parasyte is still one of my favorites.

SEAN: And for digital they have Blue Lock 38, I Have a Crush at Work 14, and My Home Hero 25.

No debuts for J-Novel Club. We do get, for light novels, The Boy Who Ruled the Monsters 6 (the final volume), Dahlia in Bloom 12, and The Diary of a Middle-Aged Sage’s Carefree Life in Another World 10.

And for manga there is The Eternal Fool’s Words of Wisdom 9 and The Water Magician 7.

Dark Horse Books have The Art of Star Wars: A New Hope–The Manga. Going back to the original storyboards, this is both a manga and an artbook, and a must for Star Wars fans.

Dark Horse Manga have the third and final volume of Adabana.

ASH: I should get around to reading this.

SEAN: Airship debuts The Confession Strategy (Kokuhakugeki), another angsty light novel from Yoru Sumino. A woman is getting married, but before she does, she wants her old friend, who she knows is in love with her, to confess and get rejected, so he can move on. So she plots to have this happen… and it goes as well as you’d expect.

MICHELLE: Hm.

ASH: Drama!

SEAN: Also in print: Magical Buffs: The Support Caster is Stronger Than He Realized! 2.

There’s one early digital debut: History of the Kingdom of Orcsen: How the Barbarian Orcish Nation Came to Burn Down the Peaceful Elfland (Orcsen Oukokushi: Yaban na Orc no Kuni wa, Ikanishite Heiwa na Elf no Kuni wo Yakiharau ni Itatta ka). The orcs and the elves are at war, and you’d expect the elves to be the good guys, but they’re doing ethnic cleansing of the dark elves. So one dark elf decides to join the orcs and get her revenge.

ASH: Good for her!

SEAN: Also in early digital: I Got Married to the Girl I Hate Most in Class 3 and A Tale of the Secret Saint ZERO 5.

And that’s it! Happy for a smaller week?

And then it all falls apart. The afterword of this series mentions that the author really wanted to do this sort of plot, which made me raise an eyebrow, and that they suspect no other author has taken a swerve like this, which I know isn’t true. They then tell us that the editor has asked that the next cover they want to see Evelyn smile, and encourage us with a “so you’d better buy this enough!” threat. Reader, they did not buy this enough, and this third and final volume came out in 2023, with Evelyn still not quite married. That said, unlike another series I read recently, everything is pretty wrapped up here. In fact, everything was pretty wrapped up in Book 2. The most painful thing about this book is that it’s unnecessary, flabby, and will do something for a laugh and then abandon it when exposition is needed. It’s not good.

Evelyn wakes up in a room with the other eleven supporting characters of this series, where they are told by a mysterious rabbit that they are going to be playing… a DEATH GAME! Evelyn, needless to say, finds this horrifying, especially when she’s told that a lot of people in the kingdom go missing every year, and it’s now assumed they’re killed off in this game. In the first game, they run a relay race against zombies, who bite Alex and Mary, who are theoretically now zombified… though it seems to be taking a long time. In the second death game, they’re divided into two teams of six to play “Wolves and Villagers”. Evelyn’s group is narrated by her, and Kira gets the narration for the other group. This allows everyone to play detective… some badly. But who’s really behind all this?

I appreciate that this series runs on Rule of Silly, but I do expect some consistency. We get an extended gag of Evelyn not getting the Wolves and Villagers rules as she’s too thick, but then near the end she’s able to rattle off all the various deductions she’s made with ease. I am generally not a fan of death games in general, so his was always going to be an uphill battle. But the relay race vs. zombies thing didn’t really make any sense, and only worked as a sort of way to force Mary to apologize to her sister without making it sound out of character. Evelyn is engaged to Theodore, and loves him, but really the only reason she’s not marrying Kira is his age – they have the far stronger bond. And the revelation of the culprit’s motivations just made me sigh, but at least it fit in with everything else in this series.

I don’t expect more of this. It was very silly but fun, then very silly and a lot less fun. Go read the author’s other series, which are far better.

Siiiiiiiigh. No, that’s not a sigh over the content of the book, it was quite good, and I enjoyed it very much. That was a sigh over the fact that it is, like a lot of this type of book, unreviewable. It’s a short story volume that serves as the final volume of a long-running series, so I’m not going to be selling it to anyone but folks who have read the other 20 books, who will buy it regardless of what I say. It’s micro-stories, so I can’t even do a nice summary of them that uses up 1/3 of my word count. But come on, they’re fine. They mostly seem to cover what happened just before or just after some of the more notable scenes in the series, and a few of them try to cover characters or relationships that weren’t delved into much before. Mostly, though, it’s one last round-up of the folks who you enjoyed reading about for nearly a decade. Machiavelli, thankfully, is absent.

The cover shows Souma with his eight wives, including the surprise final wife Juno. The wraparound story takes place about two decades or so after the final book, with Juno’s son and Aisha’s daughter going up north to go adventuring, which sadly gets immediately aborted when they run into jerks who insult their moms, meaning that beatdowns are coming… for the jerks. Luka is, much like Souma, a bit potato-ey, but like all his moms, he can kick eight kinds of ass… in fact, literally like his moms, that’s his power. Misha is an eight-year-old dark elf, meaning she’s old enough to see the world, despite the worries of her mom. And we also meet Shanti, adopted daughter of Mugal and Fumi (no, I don’t remember them either), who wants to battle now and is very pissed off Luka won’t do so. (She hasn’t gotten permission from her dad yet.) Oh yes, and Musashibo is there, and everyone knows who he is.

That takes up about 30 pages. The other 376 (!!) are the micro-stories. I have no idea if these are “bookstore exclusives” or what have you. I liked seeing more of Serina, who’s perfect for this sort of book: funny and didn’t really get a lot of screen time explaining why she fell so hard for Pancho. Likewise, there’s a series of stories showing Maria going round to visit the wives, not really getting their permission but more showing that she’s one of them now. Everyone likes each other in this. That may be its big weakness, of course. Since it covers nineteen books where we know what’s happened already, these stories are generally a bit boring. That said, who wants angst and drama at a time like this? This is heartwarming out the wazoo, the main women (it’s mostly driven by the women) are great, and it ends as it began, with Souma and Liscia riding a horse through town, only now he can ride, and she’s in front of him.

So yes, this is the final end, full stop, I’m sure there won’t be any more. Maybe. Bye, Realist Hero. You were far better than anything Eliezer Yudkowsky has come up with.

ANNA: I’m always happy to see more sports manga come out, but I’m very excited for the latest volume of Byakko Senki, so that’s my pick!

SEAN: Soccer manga has tended to go over my head (much like in my childhood), so I will pick the new volume of The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, with less soccer but twice the yuri. (If there is yuri in Aoashi I apologize.)

ASH: I don’t know if there is, but I’ll let you know when I find out! Aoashi is my pick this week, too. I also appreciate the omnibus format, particularly for sports manga, since even more can be packed into a single release.

If you recall, when I reviewed the first volume of this series, I pointed out that it being divided in two meant that the first half was mostly unrelentingly miserable, with good things only starting to happen in the second book. You can assume the same thing for this one, and if you want to leave this arc with your spirits high, you may want to wait for September for the other half. That said, fear not, this is still brilliantly written and compelling. And yay, Youko is back! Admittedly she’s not all that happy, but she’s in this one! As are two other main characters, also young women. This book is about growing up and learning about the world around you, and how closing yourself off to the world around you can lead to you being immature and disliked. Youko has learned this lesson, at least partly. The other two, not so much.

There are three interlocking plot threads, which I will streamline for ease of reviewing. 1) Youko is now Queen, but that has not magically solved everything. The people have had too many bad queens lately, and worry she’s just another one. They want a king. Also, her underlings are all conspiring against each other and taking advantage of her ignorance about this world. And Keiki, frankly, is being no help. She goes on a journey in disguise to learn about this world. 2) A hundred years ago, a girl in Japan sold as a slave falls off a cliff during a storm and ends up in the Twelve Kingdoms. After suffering at first, she becomes a servant to ex-king’s mistress Riyou… and suffers for much longer, mostly so she can speak the language. Now, though, she’s thrown out, and told she needs to learn to be less whiny and passive. 3) The king of Hou and his Queen are executed in a coup, and their daughter, Shoukei, is disguised and thrown into a shabby village in lieu of execution. She hates it, and hates being poor, but stays selfish through most of the book, till she meets a familiar face… to the reader, that is.

Not gonna lie, but Youko is easily the best thing in this, mostly as we only get a tiny bit of character development from Suzu and Shoukei, who will get most of theirs in the next book. (As a reminder for anime watchers, the high school kid who came with Youko in the anime doesn’t exist here.) She’s doing her best, but has never really been a politician, and people are running rings around her. Meanwhile, Keiki just sighs at her. I don’t blame her for running off. I did like Shoukei’s journey as well, though she’s easily the hardest to take for a good 4/5 of this volume. Meeting Rakushun is the best thing that happened to her, and she’s learning about life for non-princesses. As for Suzu, she’s very whiny and hard to like, and unfortunately her character development is also in the last fifth of the book. I’m sure she gets better.

The book ends with all three of these women converging in the same place, and I suspect the next one will have them meet up. I hope they get along. I suggest Youko not mention who she really is. In any case, essential as always.

It’s always hard, when you’re dealing with light novel series that have been adapted from webnovels, to tell whether a series is finished, on hiatus due to the author’s life getting in the way, dropped as the author started to write something else and got bored, or cancelled by the publisher. This seems to be mostly the third version: the author is certainly writing plenty of other series, while the webnovel of this series ends with the events of the second book (though confusingly the webnovel is split into three books) and various short stories. I wasn’t able to find the contents of this volume at the Narou site. And the author definitely says the series is finished in the afterword. As for why I’m filled with doubt? It resolves nothing. Not even an engagement or wedding. Just “meh”.

We open with a relatively content Olivia dividing hwer time between her successful jewelry shop in the capital and her family home and business a ways in the country. However, Olivia’s Magic Jewelers relies on Olivia’s anxiety as a plot mover, so we can’t have that. As a result, she’s asked to become a temporary researcher for the Magic Institute, which had been researching how to fly airships but recently had a Hindenburg-esque disaster, albeit with no loss of life, so they’re searching for an alternative. As Olivia has been in a creative rut recently owing to her desperate attempts to be as good as her genius father, she agrees, and finds herself paired off with easygoing Daisy and anxious but nice guy Robin. Despite the odd sneering from the obligatory noble girl, she’s doing well, and her magic powers seem to be fantastic – though not at her father’s level. So… what’s the catch?

I’m grumpy because this book doesn’t resolve anything, but I’m also grumpy as it makes use of one of my least favorite romantic plotlines, the “who are you going to believe, your loving boyfriend or the guy you work with who’s telling you your loving boyfriend is an elitist jerk?”. Now, this does make some sense in context – class remains built into this series, which is probably why Olivia and Elliot are still just going out here, and her “daughter of a baron, i.e. basically a commoner” status makes her susceptible to this sort of thing. And she’s always been a sad sack because of her abusive upbringing after her father died. Still: EURGH. The other issue is that the series seems to be shifting away from its premise, trying to turn Olivia into a genius scientist/inventor sort, and while there’s part of that in the previous two books, I miss the jewelry shop. I’m glad she said no. I did, however, really like Daisy, her co-worker and friend in the Institute, who is exactly the sort of girl to leap out of a plane to test if the magic “don’t crash” things work.

If you’ve read the first two books and want to know what happens, you can read this. But it’s not essential, and lacks the feel of a final volume. Alas.

I do enjoy this series, but it seems every book has something there to tick me off specifically. Last time it was the rape victim recovering by basically being told “get over yourself”. The issue with this book is not one unique to this series alone… in fact it’s in a large number of light novels… but it’s made more annoying because Lofus is in a constant state of rage, and thus it’s handled even worse. This series focuses on a noble kid with lots of power trying to escape his fate. He has met a few commoners, and he does not like them at all. “Know your place” is literally said at one point. And lest we think it’s just Lofus, the love interest from the first book is told that if she wants to get anywhere with Lofus, she’s got to be a noble, and perform great deeds to get there. I get that this genre invites this sort of thing, but don’t make it sound like a goal.

Picking up from where we left off at the end of the last book, Warm has been arrested for trying to save his father, who was arrested for pointing out the corruption of the corrupt but vital to the nobles merchant. Oh yes, and the captain of the sky pirates we met last time? Also arrested. So Lofus has to go rescue everyone, despite the fact that you sense he’d rather chew glass. He’s being egged on by Warm’s little sister, who is a cutie pie; by the mysterious white-haired girl from last time, who remains mysterious and white haired till suddenly she isn’t; and by the rest of the pirates, particularly Lilka, who has started acting very weird… and not in the “I am madly in love with Lofus” way that she was before. With all this going on, will Lofus still find the free time to do what he does best, be an asshole?

No fear there. I’m going to skip the flashy battles that are about half the book, because we know already I don’t care about those. There were some very effective scenes in this book. Most of Lilka’s subplot plays out here. As it turned out, she was indeed playing dumb in the second book, and is in a similar situation to Lofus. But while he’s a “I was reincarnated into this game” sort, she’s the “I am redoing my past life” sort. As such, a lot of her “I’m absolutely smitten with you” bullshit is a false front… though you get the sense not all of it is. I also likes the scenes with Lofus and Warm once he got over his annoying “why are you so weak I kill you” routine. Sometimes keeping an animal alive when they’re hurting is more painful than letting them go, and that’s a lesson Warm needs to learn. It’s done very well.

So will Lofus and his merry band really manage to cure Iz? Or will they get drawn into some other plot instead? If Iz dies, does she reincarnated into the Bofuri LNs? For fans of “villain” novels who like their villain extra pissed off.

Compared to the last volume, this one feels a lot more laid back and relaxed. Of course, that’s likely only because the Emperor isn’t in it. There’s still a lot going on. We’re in the middle of the Smallpox arc, after all. It’s deadly, it’s horribly, and a cure is still very elusive, though Maomao moves things along by enlisting the help of Kokuyou, the smiling wandering doctor who has facial scarring but also a heap of experience. Also, a noble family asks Maomao about a cursed jar, and that unearths a heaping helping of family… drama seems the wrong word. Family horror. Fortunately, the worst is avoided, at least for the victim. And for Jinshi, who every volume seems to have to try to finagle his way out of something that has as its result “and then he can never be with Maomao again”. Still, at least he knows Maomao does kinda like him, in her own “I try not to care unless I am literally at the end of my rope” way. Other couples need more help.

I’ve talked before about how I quite like Yao and En’en, Maomao’s kinda sorta friends and medical partners. Maomao does as well, but she also finds them exasperating. Fandom has a bit of a hate on for Yao, who is given several good canonical reasons to be very immature and then actually *is*! Gasp! (It’s totally because of that, and not because she’s fallen for the fandom’s chief hottie who isn’t Jinshi.) But even I admit she needs a talking to. More importantly, she needs to have En’en removed from her hip. En’en being gay for Yao has been quietly dialed back in the last few volumes, with it more being presented as a co-dependent big sis/mom thing, but it’s certainly the case that a Yao who has En’en doing everything for her is not going to get anywhere with either Lahan *or* her family. Which Yao understands. (En’en also does, but she’s in denial.) Good volume for them.

And then there’s our favorite couple who really, really really need to fuck but unfortunately autocorrect has ruined everything and all they do is duck. Lishu has shown up so infrequently since Book 6 that any appearance of her is welcome, but she and Basen are still at the “gosh, isn’t the weather nice” stage of things, and everybody else around them, particularly Maamei and Chue, are shouting “JUST BANG ALREADY!”. It’s pretty clear that the Emperor wouldn’t object to this. It’s also pretty clear that Basen has done more than enough to merit it, especially near the end of this book, where he once again saves Jinshi at the possible cost of his own life. (It’s fine, he can get rid of smallpox by pullups somehow.) The question is, did this current crisis and Basen’s quarantine afterwards actually get Lishu to leave the duck village? Can we actually get another fricking couple?

Maybe! Book 17? Book 17. Whenever that is. Not out in Japan. In any case, this book has Maomao in it, so it’s essential.

Airship has two ongoing print series: Heroine? Saint? No, I’m an All-Works Maid (And Proud of It)! 6 and Virgin Knight: I Became the Frontier Lord in a World Ruled by Women 3.

And for early digital we see The Condemned Villainess Goes Back in Time and Aims to Become the Ultimate Villain 8, My Girlfriend Cheated on Me, and Now My Flirty Underclassman Won’t Leave Me Alone 2, and Witch and Mercenary 6 Part 2.

Ghost Ship have a 2nd volume of Lilia’s Pregnancy Spells the World’s End and a 5th volume of She’s the Strongest Bride, But I’m Stronger in Night Battles.

J-Novel Club have a bunch of print. We get Ascendance of a Bookworm (manga) Arc 4 Part 4, Black Summoner 7, The Brilliant Healer’s New Life in the Shadows (manga) 4, Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill Omnibus 6, Invaders of the Rokujouma!? Collector’s Edition 14, Isekai Tensei: Recruited to Another World (manga) 6, My Quiet Blacksmith Life in Another World 7, My Quiet Blacksmith Life in Another World (manga) 3, and Reborn to Master the Blade 9.

ASH: That is a bunch! And some good stuff in there, too.

SEAN: Their digital calendar next week is light. We get Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon 12, Private Tutor to the Duke’s Daughter 20 and Scooped Up by an S-Rank Adventurer! 3.

No debuts for Kodansha Manga, but we get print volumes for The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity 13, Love Out on a Limb 2, A Kingdom of Quartz 5, Mobile Suit Gundam: THE ORIGIN Deluxe 6 (the final volume), OMORI 2, A Sign of Affection Omnibus 4, and Shugo Chara! Jewel Joker 2.

ASH: I really need to read more of Sign of Affection.

SEAN: And digital volumes are Giant Killing 55, My Wife is a Little Intimidating 14, Otherworldly Munchkin: Let’s Speedrun the Dungeon with Only 1 HP! 13, and WIND BREAKER 24.

One Peace Books has a 2nd volume of The B-Rank Adventurer with a Scary Face Becomes a Father for the Hero and His Friends.

ASH: I actually rather enjoyed the first volume.

SEAN: Seven Seas’s danmei volume is Silent Reading: Mo Du 3.

Seven Seas has two debuts. The Babe at My Back Has Her Eye on Me. I’m Done For (Ushiro no Seki no Gyaru ni Sukarete Shimatta. Mou Ore wa Dame Kamo Shirenai) runs in Comic Dengeki Daioh G. A gloomy otaku sort jumps into a ditch to rescue a beautiful classmate who fell into it. Now she’s talking with him all the time. Is kindness all it takes?

ASH: It certainly doesn’t hurt!

SEAN: Let’s Run an Inn on Dungeon Island! (In a World Ruled by Women) (Dungeon Tou de Yadoya wo Yarou! Souzou Mahou wo Moratta Ore no Hosoude Hanjouki) is a Comic Rex title coming out in omnibuses. Another overworked office worker dies. Another isekai’d guy has a fantastic new power. Another potato-kun protagonist tries to live a quiet life, but there’s just all these women!

MICHELLE: Snerk.

ANNA: Wow, why does this keep happening????

ASH: It is rather curious.

SEAN: They also have BL Game Rebirth: My New Life as the Hero’s Younger Brother 4, The Dangerous Convenience Store 7, Grim Night Tales 2, I Can’t Stand Being Your Childhood Friend 3 (the final volume), Night of the Living Cat 7, A Ninja and an Assassin Under One Roof 3, No God in Eden 4, Reincarnated as a Sword 17, and The Tale of a Little Alchemist Blessed by the Spirits 2.

Square Enix Manga has The Ice Guy and the Cool Girl 11, My Isekai Life 25, My Favorite VTuber Is Scary IRL 2, and Ragna Crimson 15.

SuBLime Manga debuts Bride of the Shark Clan (Samezoku e no Sasagemono), a BL manga from Moment. A guy is tired of sacrifices to the guy with shark attributes who’s really strong. But he’s really strong, and kind of nice… provided he doesn’t see blood.

ANNA: I wonder if he’ll see some blood.

ASH: I initially read that as the Snark Clan, but that’s a different sort of blood thirst.

SEAN: And they also have The World’s Greatest First Love 19.

Titan Manga have a big debut for sports manga fans. Aoashi is a soccer manga that ran for a decade, mostly in Big Comic Spirits. It also got an anime. Titan is releasing it in 3-in-1 omnibuses. A kid is destined to get into a really good high school for soccer… till he gets in a fight in his final middle school game and is blackballed. What now?

MICHELLE: Ooh.

ANNA: Nice, always happy to see more sports manga coming out.

ASH: Always!

SEAN: Titan also has Saint Seiya: Dark Wing 3.

Tokyopop debut Strobe in the Dark (Kurayami ni Strobe), a one-shot BL manga from Cab. A guy takes photos of his attractive and sporty childhood friend, while hiding his growing attraction.

No debuts for Viz, but we get Dandadan 19, Fly Me to the Moon 32, Fushigi Yûgi: Byakko Senki 4, Girl Crush 7, Kamudo 2, Kill Blue 7, Marriagetoxin 13, Minecraft: the Manga 6, Pokémon: Scarlet & Violet 5, Sakamoto Days 22, Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle 30, and Vagabond Definitive Edition 5.

MICHELLE: I’m always happy to see more Byakko Senki!

ANNA: Absolutely!!!!

SEAN: Yen On debuts Melody of the Boundary (Kyoukai no Melody), a one-shot that is in the favorite Yen On genre of “heartwarming tragedy”. Two musicians are poised to make their debut… then one dies in an accident. Three years later, his ghost appears to try to get his friend to love music again. This got an anime.

ASH: Music-related tragedy? Sounds like something I would read.

SEAN: Also from Yen On: Before the Tutorial Starts 4, Days with My Stepsister 7, Demon Lord 2099 5, Kusunoki’s Garden of Gods 4, The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady 9, New Game Plus After Defeating the Last Boss 2, Once Upon a Witch’s Death 3, The Only Thing I’d Do in a No-Boys-Allowed Game World 4, and Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Short Story Collection 5.

And Yen Press has Everyone’s Darling Has a Secret 4 and Pink & Habanero 5.

Yay, manga!

So the bad news is that this is still the last volume published for the moment. The good news is that, after a two-year break, the author has recently started writing more of the webnovel, so that may eventually change. Certainly absolutely nothing is resolved by the end of this book, so more of it would be welcome. As for the book itself, it continues to do what it wants to. If you like male power fantasies and are not too picky, it fills that need. Luke is a grumpy asshole who can’t help but get involved in his friend’s problems and have every girl in the series (except one, mercifully, this hasn’t turned into a cheating series yet) fall for him. What’s worse, his father has big plans for him… plans, I suspect, that Luke will very much not approve of. And there’s fanservice galore, of course. It also manages to, somehow, avoid being completely misogynist despite every love interest turning into a submissive masochist when they see Luke.

Note I said “completely” – the art still exists, and is pretty blatantly “Hope you like big tits”. In any case, after taming the ice dragon, Luke has to figure out what to do with… her? Yes, her, and while she stays in two forms in this book – big powerful scary dragon and cute fun-sized dragon – I suspect we’ll get a hot dragon woman soon enough. In a normal world, he’d be invited to the palace to be honored for this amazing feat. This is not a normal world, and his dad is pretty much openly trying to bring down the royal family by being much better at running a country than they are. As such, there’s a party being held where the second prince might drop by if he feels like it. (He does, though he’s not happy with what he finds.) But the author says this is Abel’s book, and… I guess? Abel definitely gets stronger, and suffers a lot, but it’s hard to pass someone like Luke.

Because I suspect readers of this series will want to know, yes, there’s an (offscreen) sex scene here, and Mia is now Luke’s lover as well as Alice. More to the point, it’s not just Abel – all of Luke’s lovers and potential lovers are desperate to remain useful to him, knowing he’s the sort to abandon anyone who isn’t, and so they push themselves desperately to become ludicrously powerful. Unfortunately, comparing themselves to Luke just leads to depression, as Mia finds out – she even gets a pep talk from Luke’s dad, who has to point out that she already can use multiple magic elements. Their desperation and co-dependency would be a bit sad and tragic if this series were not comedic and upbeat about it. The only despair in the book comes from Abel when he’s trying to rescue Lily, and even then most of this is just Abel hating himself, rather than actual danger. Luke, the most powerful man in the country, is usually depressed, and everyone around him seems to be getting that trait too.

We end in another country, with elf terrorists, and multiple invasions. Hopefully I remember all this by the time the fourth book comes out!