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The Winter 2021 Light Novel Guide

by Rebecca Silverman,

Every season at this point is a good one for light novels. That holds doubly true if you're not sick of isekai, and I have to admit that, while I sometimes despair of it as a genre, I do still enjoy it. (I blame my childhood obsession with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Narnia.) What's interesting is that, although they're outside the scope of this Guide, we're starting to see Chinese and Korean equivalents get official English translations as well, with Yen On's Solo Leveling and Seven Seas' Airship line's upcoming release of a few Chinese novels, to say nothing of WordExcerpt's translations from both languages. There's also been a continual increase in female-oriented light novels being translated, and they're not all villainess stories – although as you can see from this article, those are still thriving! But we're also getting darker and more creative work, like the upcoming (in January) Sabikui Bisco, which takes place in a steampunk post-apocalyptic desert world, the recent release of Planet of the Orcs, which takes isekai to a couple of new(ish) places, and the very bizarre (but fun!) Endo and Kobayashi Live!. Add in more non-manga companies translating Japanese children's books like Temple Alley Summer and Kiki's Delivery Service and Pushkin Vertigo's releases of classic Japanese mystery novels, and it's really a good time to be reading the books that have and will inspire new seasons of anime and films. So jump in and look at this partial list of what's new and upcoming – but don't forget to look beyond it, because there's a lot out there to make novel readers happy.

November

Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte
Story by Suzu Enoshima, art by Eihi. J-Novel Club, $6.99 digital.


Synopsis: One day, Crown Prince Sieg hears the Voices of the Gods out of the blue. Apparently, his fiancée Lieselotte is a “tsun de rais” villainess destined to meet her demise...and her sharp tongue is just a way of covering up her embarrassment. The prince can hardly contain himself after discovering Lieselotte's adorable hidden side. Little does he know, the heavenly beings that bestowed this knowledge unto him are actually high schoolers! Can he use their divine prophecy (Let's Play commentary) to save his betrothed and avoid a Bad End?!

Rating:

I perhaps say this a lot, but it's always a wonderful treat when a story in a saturated genre does something a little bit different with its plot. Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte is a fun riff on the villainess novel theme: its eponymous villainess is not only a misunderstood tsundere, but she's not reborn or reincarnated or anything like that – she's actually IN the game. The story's schtick is that two Japanese high schoolers, Aoto Endo and Shihono Kobayashi, are major fans of the game and the character and wish that poor misunderstood Lieselotte had a chance with the prince…and one day something weird happens when they're playing. The game goes more or less on autoplay and Prince Sieg can hear them from inside the screen. Not that Sieg knows that they're playing a game; he thinks they're gods and that he's inherited his family's divine power to hear them. Endo and Kobayashi are even more weirded out, but like any good fan, they know that this is their moment to bring fanfiction to life, and they are 100% going to seize that. Why write fanfiction when you can just make it canon, right?

What follows is a story that's by turns sweet and very, very silly. In our world, Endo has been crushing hard on Kobayashi for quite some time, and the game is a way to spend time with her and maybe move their relationship forward. In the game, Sieg learns the concept of a tsundere (or “tsun de rais”) and discovers that it's absolutely his thing, and once he realizes that Lieselotte is one, he begins to find her astoundingly adorable. Meanwhile Fiene, the game's heroine, undergoes some major power ups and Endo and Kobayashi do their darndest to make sure that she ends up with their second favorite character, who dies in almost every route except his own. It's like a smorgasbord of potential happy endings that all of the characters are trying their best to bring about.

Of course, in order to get at least another volume out of the series, things can't be too easy, and Lieselotte isn't yet fully safe from the bad ends she's doomed to in most routes of the game. There's also the question of why Endo and Kobayashi can communicate with the game in the first place, and there may be some Inception-like game twists about what we're currently assuming is the real world. Strictly speaking, this would have been a very good single-volume work, because by the end things are feeling a bit stretched out. But it's still a very good time as it does something just a little bit outside the norm for a villainess story.

I Kept Pressing the 100-Million-Year Button and Came Out on Top
Story by Syuichi Tsukishima, art by Mokyu. Yen On, $8.99 digital, $15 paperback.


Synopsis: On the verge of flunking out of Grand Swordcraft Academy due to his total lack of talent, Allen Rodol's life goes from bad to worse when the class prodigy challenges him to a duel where it's win or face expulsion. However, the night before his hopeless bout, a mysterious hermit grants Allen a button that will give him one hundred million years to train in an alternate reality when pressed. Allen not only gladly accepts the offer but also goes back for seconds, thirds, tenths even! With over a billion years of straight practice under his belt, the world is about to see what the “Reject Swordsman” can really do!

Rating:

Strictly speaking, the title here is a bit misleading. Yes, protagonist Allen does push something called the “100 Million Year Button,” and it does help him to vastly improve his lackluster sword skills, but he doesn't “keep” pushing it; he presses it a grand total of twice and then the thing breaks. Granted, this is more than enough to make the point, which is that the button puts him in a time-out-of-time where he can train for the eponymous number of years while no time at all passes in the real world. Since Allen is very, very keen on improving his bladework, this is pretty much exactly what he's hoping for when a random old man calling himself the god of time hands him the button in the first place. And Allen has a pretty good reason to want to be a better swordsman, too – his single mother scrimped and saved to get him the tuition money for even an unimpressive sword school, and he desperately wants to make her investment worth it for her. So, when another student insults her to his face, Allen is furious – and even more invested in kicking the other guy's butt.

The problems arise when Allen, in the space of less than a chapter, spends two hundred million years training in the world provided by the button and instantly (in terms of the book) becomes super amazingly powerful. On the one hand, it's good that the training is pretty much glossed over, because that could have been excruciating to read about. But on the other, the stakes are incredibly low, because Allen is, in the space of a few pages, suddenly the strongest guy around (or at least one of them). While there are some stakes in the subsequent fights, particularly towards the end of the book, they never feel all that high. That Allen isn't entirely comfortable with his newfound celebrity is a good detail, but again, we know that he can pound his naysayers into the ground with ease, so it just doesn't feel all that tense.

Mostly this book reads as if it's trying to throw too many things into one story and doesn't have the time or interest in developing any of them. There's Allen's fancy magic sword training place, the fact that his family's hometown is definitely hiding something about it and the so-called god, the two swordswomen who are rapidly developing a thing for Allen, the fact that one of them loses a duel with him and is mandated to become his slave by the academy chairwoman with the suspect morals…it's a bit like Light Novel Bingo, complete with Allen walking in on Lia when she's changing for the hot spring in the men's changing room. It isn't a terrible book, but it definitely isn't trying to do anything creative or new with the light novel standards, and that more than anything damns the book with its lack of ambition.

Planet of the Orcs
Story by Himataro Zukanashi. Seven Seas, $8.99 digital, $14.99 paperback.


Synopsis: He was fifteen when he first became a hero, blasted to another world by an unknown entity. At the end of his harsh and hapless journey, the hero defeated the Demon King. Over the next ten years, he was sent off to different worlds, and every time, he saved them. Now, on his thirteenth world, the enemy is the orc race whose highly advanced civilization has forced humanity into a desperate struggle for survival. What's more, the orcs seem to have banded under a cunning leader. Has our hero finally met his match?

Rating:

Himataro Zukanashi might be an author who is aware that isekai has gotten very cookie-cutter lately, as Planet of the Orcs' first volume feels like an attempt to combat that. Not only is our nameless hero on his thirteenth otherworld, having been the hero of choice since he made an ill-advised wish when he was fifteen, but he might actually not be the hero this time around. That's a nagging feeling that grows the further you get into the book, and if it isn't subtly done, it's definitely enough to make the story feel different from many of its genre brethren. The hero knows that there's something off about this human versus orcs situation he's been summoned into; he just can't quite put his finger on any one reason why that is. The fact that the humans consistently underestimate the orcs' battle tactics is definitely one warning sign – sure, the humans have (feathered) dragons, but the orcs have guns and cannons, which certainly flies in the face of their assertions that orcs are just dumb beasts. That no one has bothered to realize that the orcs have a language is another oddity for the hero, as is the fact that everyone keeps going on and on about him being specifically a hero sent by God.

That does contribute to this being one of the darker isekai novels out there, although that's by no means a bad thing. It's fairly blood-free despite all of the deaths and battles, but the humans are just so off in their thinking that it seems like the hero is in for a much tougher time than he's had previously – and the idea that maybe he's not fighting on the “right” side this time. The ending certainly does its best to drive that idea home in an unsubtle but successful way, and the occasional sections from the orcs' point of view further reinforce that. The humans are clearly still in a Crusades-era society, but the orcs have schools (possibly even universities), advanced tactics and weaponry, and a more symbiotic relationship with their riding animals. All of this does a good job of making us wonder what the real story is, even as the hero does his best for the human side of the conflict – a decision that we're forced to think may end up backfiring on him. He may know that too, at least subconsciously, because he's begun having nightmares about his return from his first isekai experience, letting us know that on some level, he knows this world isn't going to end up being a good one, even if (or perhaps especially if) he wins.

There are no illustrations for this novel, but that's just as well. The imagery is still easily pictured and fairly vivid, and the story has real potential. It's a novel take on its genre, if nothing else, and that alone may make it worth giving the series a chance.

A Tale of the Secret Saint
Story by Tōma, art by Chibi. Seven Seas, $9.99 digital, $14.99 paperback.


Synopsis: Born into a long line of knights, Fia is determined to become a knight herself, just like all her siblings. But a brush with death awakens memories of her past life as a Saint–a woman who wields rare, powerful healing and protection magic–along with the ability to use that magic herself! The downside is that Fia also remembers her past life's untimely death, and the danger she will be in if anyone finds out what she really is. She vows to stay on her knighthood path and keep her powers a secret forever! But how can she resist using her newfound powers when they're just so useful?

Rating:

If A Tale of the Secret Saint has any one thing going for it, it's perhaps that, despite being a reincarnation story, it's not isekai. Fia, the heroine, is a spectacularly untalented young woman born into a family of knights, and despite her grit and determination to become a knight like her father, sister, and brothers, she in no way has the ability to pull it off. But that doesn't mean that she's totally hopeless: as she lies dying in the forest after having attempted to prove herself to her family, Fia suddenly starts flashing back to a life that's not her own – or at least, not the one she's just finished living. Instead she remembers her days as the greatest saint that the kingdom ever knew, the founding princess of the magic-wielding women now revered as “saints.” Only…it's definitely not the life portrayed in the history books. Rather than marrying a hero and more literally founding the ruling line, in her past life, Fia was betrayed by her brothers and died horribly at the hands of a particularly sadistic demon. And now that Fia has her memories back…

…there's no way in hell she's doing that shit again. Be a selfless princess who sacrifices everything for a bunch of ungrateful royals? No thank you. Besides, history has become so warped and current saints so stuck up and yet also powerless (compared to past Fia) that it just really doesn't seem worth it. Instead, Fia's going to keep her abilities a secret and keep going with her knight plan. After all, now she's got the skills to pull it off.

On paper, this sounds like a great story, and parts of it are a lot of fun. But in practice the book is hamstrung by the fact that Fia is not the sharpest tool in the shed and keeps nearly giving herself away because she's too dumb not to. The girl makes Katarina (of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom) look like a genius; if she's not overdoing her spells, she's sewing bluebird costumes to “disguise” the dragon she sort of accidentally made her familiar or getting drunk and practically telling everyone the truth. Her overinflated sense of her own intelligence would be funny if she wasn't so bad at pretty much everything. It's a shame, because Fia's past life absolutely gives her an excuse not to want to do things the same this time around, and the way that the mere idea of saints has become corrupt over the centuries is interesting. She's also building up a decent reverse harem of hot knights and princes, so this really isn't without its potential. It may live up to it yet if Fia can become a bit less of a burden on her own story in future volumes. But at this point the kindest thing I can say is that it has a good premise and cute illustrations.

Vampire Hunter D Omnibus
Story by Hideyuki Kikuchi, art by Yoshitaka Amano. Dark Horse, $11.99 digital, $19.99 paperback.


Synopsis: The aristocratic vampire lords known as the Nobles inherited our world, and with dark science and immortal patience made real the things that mortals had merely dreamed, whether voyaging to the distant stars, or conjuring monsters to roam the Earth. Yet the grand civilization of the Nobles has grown decadent, and as the terrorized remnants of humanity at last found the strength to rebel, their undying lords have been pushed back to the Frontier—the violent borderlands where humans still remain the prey of vampires, who for all their knowledge and power have never lost their obsession with our living flesh, blood...and souls!

In this bizarre and deadly far future the most dangerous thing of all is not a vampire, but the one who hunts them--the one who is half them--a dhampir, the unearthly beautiful wanderer known as D. The Vampire Hunter D Omnibus collects the first three novels in author Hideyuki Kikuchi's adventure horror series: Vampire Hunter D, Raiser of Gales, and Demon Deathchase. Illustrated by Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano, this book is only the beginning of a legend!

Rating:

This is a very opportune moment to get into the long-running Vampire Hunter D novels, because the sheer number of them can be very daunting. But with Dark Horse's reprint of the first three in this omnibus, it becomes rather more doable. At 640 pages, the omnibus covers a fair amount of story ground, much of which can admittedly feel like it's been devoted to worldbuilding. But I'd argue that Kikuchi's world is one that grows more fascinating the more depth you go into. It's clear from the start that this is a post-apocalyptic version of our reality, and the way that the author tracks how things got to this point, as well as the ways in which the original world may not have been just like ours, grows with each novel. In many ways the setting is just as much a character as D himself, and that's not necessarily an easy thing to do.

Of course, it helps that the book is practically dripping with atmosphere. Even if we discount Yoshitaka Amano's illustrations (which we really shouldn't; they're like beautiful little nightmares), the story's descriptions are florid and detailed, giving us a clear image of where the books take place. There is something very pulpy about the whole thing, thanks to both Kikuchi's writing style and the impressively melodramatic word choices of the translation (“ineffable eldritch aura” from the second book is my favorite phrase in here), but that largely serves the story. D's journey is one we recognize from any number of old pulp fiction genres, with westerns and hard-boiled mysteries feeling like two of the most prevalent. These are blended with the sensibility of old monster movies to create a unique world and story, where “steel horse” isn't a euphemism for motorcycle and demonic beings may be lurking in the ruined castles that dot the ruined Frontier landscape.

Naturally this means that the series won't work for everyone. It can feel melodramatic and most of the heroines feel like they, too, stepped out of the pages of a very outdated old pulp magazine. (Leila perhaps a bit less than Lina or Doris). Left Hand, the character who, as a friend commented, is the original “talk to the hand” character, can be a little annoying, or just plain weird at times. But this series is a classic for a reason, and if you haven't had the chance to pick it up before, now's a very good time.

December

Full Clearing Another World under a Goddess with Zero Believers
Story by Isle Osaki, art by Tam-U.
J-Novel Club, $6.99 digital.

Synopsis: Makoto Takatsuki is a normal high school student and a hardcore RPG player. However, “normal” goes out the window when his whole class is involved in a bus crash and whisked away to another world! Powerful gods rule this strange new land of magic and monsters, and every newcomer is blessed with strong stats and unique skills. Well, not quite. Makoto's stats turn out to be pathetic, and his skills are super weak compared to his classmates'...he's even stuck as an apprentice mage. Worse still, he's given only ten years to live! Luckily, Makoto soon meets a minor goddess named Noah, who appears in Makoto's dreams and asks him to become her first believer. With the help of Noah's blessings and a divine weapon, Makoto seeks to become strong enough to rescue his goddess from the dungeon where she's been trapped. By training hard and using his weak skills in unorthodox ways, Makoto proves that, even when playing on hardcore difficulty, an RPG player always makes it to the end!

Rating:

It almost feels mean to rate this title so low, because it doesn't necessarily do anything wrong. On the other hand, it also doesn't do anything that goes much beyond the genre standards, and when author Isle Osaki comments in their afterword that after reading many similar web novels they decided to try their hand at writing one, it makes perfect sense. This novel has the feel of the first try of an author who may very well move beyond the point where they currently are, but is currently still too hesitant to really try branching away from genre norms. The result is a perfectly serviceable isekai light novel wherein a high school boy and some of his classmates are whisked away to a fantasy world where everyone has game-like stats and he has to figure out how to survive.

Makoto at first appears to have a few handicaps. Like other similar protagonists, his stats are laughably low, especially when compared to other summoned classmates, who have “ultra” level skills or titles like “hero of light.” Makoto's biggest boon appears to be a skill called “RPG Player,” which, apart from being way too on the nose, allows him dialogue options (“Add Emily to Party Y/N?”) and the ability to view his surroundings as if playing a top-down RPG. Naturally all of his apparently low stats and skills are better than they at first appear, and before too long, Makoto has earned himself a decent reputation and a few party members, or rather, a party member and some adventurer friends. In part some of this is due to his gamer skills, but he's also managed to land the status of being the sole worshipper, or acolyte, of a goddess named Noah…who has the reputation of being an “evil god” based on actions relegated to mythology.

Noah is the most interesting element of this story. Makoto doesn't have much choice when she offers him her blessing, but as the book goes on and he learns more about the lore of his new world, he begins to wonder if maybe he hasn't thrown in his lot with someone he shouldn't have. He's bound to obey Noah's orders, and right now she's physically trapped in a particularly hard dungeon…which she wants him to free her from. She's almost certainly not evil and even if she is, Makoto's friend Fujiyan is quite powerful himself (and, in a nice bonus, absolutely thrilled to remain besties with Makoto), so he's probably not going to die horribly because of her. If nothing else, Noah feels like the best indicator that Osaki is going to mature into a better author than this volume otherwise suggests, and in the meantime, if you just want some good old-fashioned boilerplate isekai, this isn't terrible – it just isn't all that good, either.

Goodbye Otherworld, See You Tomorrow
Story by Kazamidori, art by Nimoshi. J-Novel Club, $6.99 digital.


Synopsis: The world he woke up in is long dead, dusted in ashen powder, and yet Keisuke still sees splashes of color as he travels through it. For the longest time, he's wandered alone across the deserted landscape, clinging to the hope that something—or someone—might be out there in the emptiness. When he finally stumbles across that someone, even more threads of color start to seep into the ashen world around them. This time, when Keisuke sets off down the road, someone sits beside him in the passenger seat. The first acquaintance he's ever made here, his first companion in this barren world. They're both traveling in search of something, and after searching alone for so long, maybe they'll have better luck working together? Their only lead is a witch who can answer any question—for a price. What will the two ask her, and what will she be able to tell them? More importantly, what will it cost them, and will they be willing to pay the price?

Rating:

It has been twenty-four hours since I finished reading this book, and I can't quite stop thinking about it. Goodbye Otherworld, I'll See You Tomorrow, on the surface, shouldn't be that sort of novel. It's yet another isekai title, it features a lone, vaguely unhappy hero traveling with a mildly enigmatic and prickly heroine, and elements of it, particularly the food descriptions, are overwritten. But the positives overwhelm the negatives upon reflection, and the premise is unique enough in its way that this becomes a lovely blend of the expected and the unexpected with a dollop of melancholy for good measure.

The story follows Keisuke, a high school boy who, while on his way to go camping, suddenly found himself summoned to another world. The problem? The world is dying, having recently gone through an apocalyptic event, and there's no one to tell Keisuke why he's there, much less to help him go back. A mysterious man in black helps him in events we never see in the text, and when we join Keisuke, he's been driving around the ruined world in a steam-powered car he calls The Kettle, surviving as best he can and thinking about not surviving any more. (This book does come with content warnings for suicide ideation.) When he meets a younger girl at an abandoned train station, things start to change for him. Nito, a half-elf, is also traveling, looking for the places her mother painted in her sketchbook, and the two join forces to navigate their new existence. Along the way they meet other survivors – a mechanic, an older couple, a witch – and each of them helps Keisuke and Nito to make sense of where they are and how they're living. It's a bit like Kino's Journey with the sensibility of Sunday Without God.

The world-building is also an integral part of the story, albeit in a mildly unexpected way. Nito being a half-elf and the use of mana stones to power the steam engines suggests a fantasy world, but the technology, which with the exception of computers and cellphones is very like our own, suggests science fiction. As Keisuke speaks with more older people, it begins to sound like this was once a fantasy world where dozens of people like Keisuke were routinely summoned to help clear labyrinths. But one of those Otherworlders introduced the concept of burning mana stones for electrical power, and the world slowly changed from magic-based to science-based – and that may have been the reason for the apocalyptic mana saturation event that ended everything. It's interesting to think about and suggests a darker side to the isekai genre than we often see, or at least darker in a different way.

This is a novel that sticks with you. It's slow-paced and doesn't seem like much at first, but when you're finished reading and sit back to think about it, there's plenty to sort through and consider.

Magical Explorer: Reborn as a Side Character in a Fantasy Dating Sim
Story by Iris, art by Noboru Kannatuki. Yen On, $12.99 paperback.


Synopsis: Reincarnated as a character in the legendary erotic game, “Magical Explorer,” it doesn't take long for our hero to discover that he's been designated the unlucky side-character rather than the game's lady- killer protagonist. Not to worry, though! Armed with his vast knowledge of the game (and a few cheats) he'll do whatever it takes to win the hearts of the game's heroines and emerge as the most accomplished student at the Sorcerer's Academy!

Rating:

If there's one thing that you can say about Magical Explorer, it's that it's fully aware of what it's doing. Opening with a dissection of all of the logic-defying norms of your basic eroge, the novel is invested in making sure that we know that author Iris is fully aware of how ludicrous plot developments will be. That lets us in on the joke while still paying homage to the game genre that the protagonist finds himself living in, and there's definitely something appealing about that. And let's face it, none of us play that kind of game for a realistic life simulation – it's all about the fantasy of the story, whether it's about building up your harem or picking just the right romantic interest.

That's something that Kousuke, the protagonist of the novel, is fully aware of, and he's simultaneously tickled and a little peeved to find himself suddenly in the world of one of his favorite eroge. He's happy for the obvious reasons, but that's dampened somewhat by the fact that he's not the hero – he's the hero's goofy best friend. You know the type: the one who exists as a foil to the hero to make sure that all of the capturable characters fall for him by showing how not like the best friend he is. Kousuke, however, isn't just going to sit back and let this happen; he quickly realizes that just because he's in the game doesn't mean that it has to function exactly like the game, because now it's a fully-formed reality. This naturally means that in this novel, which the author notes is basically a prologue to the main story, he begins to replace the hero with the girls, although the plot of the game hasn't started yet. To his credit, Kousuke does worry that he may be really screwing things up by doing this, but he's also not willing to just roll over and be the dorky sidekick, and it's kind of hard to blame him for that.

Because this is essentially a parody of eroge, the female characters aren't particularly well-developed, which is a shame, but then again, we know from page one where this book is heading. The fight scenes and magic explanations can be a bit on the overdone side, making them drag more than they ought to, but the illustrations – by the same artist who illustrates the Goblin Slayer novels – are very attractive, and if at times it looks really uncomfortable to be female in the story's world, well, once again: from the very first sentence, we know what we're getting into, and luckily, it does it decently well.

Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter
Story by Riku Nanano, art by cura. J-Novel Club, $6.99 digital.


Synopsis: After failing the final exam for his dream job at the royal court, promising young sorcerer Allen wants nothing more than to retreat to a simple life in the countryside. Unfortunately for him, he can't even afford the train fare! His only solution is to get a job, but his one lead is anything but modest—Duke Howard, one of the kingdom's most powerful nobles, needs a private tutor for his daughter Tina. Despite her academic brilliance, Tina is incapable of casting even a single spell. To make matters worse, entrance exams for the prestigious Royal Academy are fast approaching, and magical aptitude is mandatory! Can Allen use his unique brand of spellcasting to help Tina overcome her magical impairment, a mystery that not even the kingdom's finest sorcerers have been able to solve? And does her father, the duke, even want him to?

Rating:

This is a perfectly serviceable book that, fifteen minutes after reading it, I found myself at a loss to discuss or even summarize. That isn't intended to be a damning statement; after all, plenty of people would tell you that light novels are meant to be light and easy entertainment, examples of books that aren't notwithstanding. But this one almost certainly is intended to just be comfortable fantasy fluff, and in that I would say it succeeds. The story follows a young sorcerer, Allen (apparently the name for male protagonists this season in translated light novels), who has just failed his application to become a royal sorcerer. Since he's now at loose ends, his not-at-all-suspicious professor sends him to the far north to be the tutor to Tina, the younger daughter of a powerful duke. Tina wants desperately to attend the royal sorcerers' academy, but her father is, for some reason, just as desperately opposed to it – despite the fact that her older sister is already there. Allen, not being an idiot, immediately senses that something is up.

This volume doesn't give an answer as to why that is, but by the end Allen has a pretty good grasp of the situation. Tina, who has oodles of power but no real ability to use it to cast spells, may in fact be a throwback to the sorcerers of old, who could cast spells far beyond the reach of modern wizards. Since this would make her a potential threat to others – namely those in power – her father would rather keep her safely at home in the frigid north. But Tina's still a young teen or tween too naive to understand the implications of her abilities, and Allen, possibly sympathetic to her cause but possibly with ulterior motives himself, is inclined to come down on her side. The question of who Allen really is and why he failed the exam becomes increasingly pressing as he figures out more about Tina, especially since he's already involved with a very powerful fire mage named Lydia.

Unfortunately, none of this is quite as urgent as I'm making it sound, and the plot is interlarded with plenty of near-loli scenes of Tina and/or her maid Effie (who's the same age) crushing on Allen and trying to get him to do anime-approved things like pat them on the head. (It's such a condescending gesture. Why do anime girls love it so much?) It's a book with a decent plot languishing in a sea of cutesy tropes to the point where, while it's not bad, it's not all that good either. If you just need something to read without thinking too much, this would fit the bill.


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