@Daniel-Perez-Apreza-fymrbja said in Moon Blossom Asura Vol. 2 Discussion!:

any idea of when is the next update?

Volume 3 doesn't come out in Japan until January 10th, 2024, so probably some point after that.

@Jon-Mitchell said in The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects Vol. 1 Discussion!:

the 'creeper rule' (probably has other names but that's the one I know)=
age of younger partner must be greater than or equal to 1/2 the elder partner's age plus seven , any younger than that and the elder partner is being a creep

I love your "creeper rule"'s history. That it originally described that the ideal age of a bride was half the groom's age plus seven. But in modern times it's morphed into the opposite.

It isn't creepy or ick-inducing to me at all; my parents broke it.... because my mom was looking for an experienced older man with kids who would stay at home and raise their kids while she pursued her own career, lol. Rules are made to be broken, as long as you understand why they're rules.

In this case, Alna's hardly dependent on Diaz for his wealth or social status, and I can't imagine him being able to manipulate her with experience. Rather he's pretty dependent on her for anything other than dispensing violence and doing manual labor.

Silly, funny, hearwarming, and also silly. Takes the story in a lot of unexpected directions, with a lot more side characters than the first volume has. (Alas, almost no appearances from my favourite delivery person.) Main duo pretty overpowered, except when it comes to matter of love, where they're adorably awkward. It's still a very light entertainment but it's unexpectedly satisfying to read.

Did I mention it's often silly? There's not many stories where a seven years old girl being a top delinquent at an academy would be as unremarkable as it is here.

Better than a lot of romance in one aspect. Since Allen's employing, mentoring and protecting Charlotte, there's an imbalance to any potential relationship, and I love that the book stopped and spelled that out, on more than one opportunity, and that Allen seriously put his feelings aside until Charlotte herself mentioned she wouldn't mind. Kudos!

This was interesting. I hope it's a short series, maybe two or three books max. It wouldn't be as funny to me if it was longer than that.

This volume has some "first major arc ended, what now" vibes, but it's not a big drop. It still has a lot of chuckle-worthy moments, a cast full of rather eccentric personalities without getting one-note, and a pleasant atmosphere that's not quite slow life but not a full adventure mode either.

What always makes me happy is the way our cast could be overpowered without letting that become their personality. Sara in particular is ridiculous, but her motivations come from caring about others, both her close ones and people in general. And even though she could be the badassest hunter that ever badassed, she doesn't like killing so she doesn't. I really like her as a protagonist.

This volume ends with our cast having left the previous plot mostly behind, and somewhat aimless. It's not bad to have a lighter volume, but I hope the action and drama picks up a bit for the next part. There were seeds of it throughout the volume - the distant nobles plotting, the not-so-distant nobles being annoying and dangerous, the incompetent guildmaster - but a lot of it got left behind unresolved, without being obvious if it's going to be relevant ever again, so there could be a lot of foreshadowing, or a lot of filler, depending on where the next volume goes.

Favourite part: Sara's meeting with the mountain wolves was the best illustration I've seen in quite a while. Of course, it wouldn't be nearly as effective if the books didn't spend so much time setting it up...

Favourite quote: "Anyway, first you say I'm a child, then you say I'm just a girl, but as soon as you realize I'm worth something in a fight, you try to order me to do the impossible. That's what's so gross about you." - Sara, laying a verbal smackdown on a very deserving target

@Travis-Butler said in Knight's & Magic Vol. 2 Discussion!:

@endoftheline said in Knight's & Magic Vol. 2 Discussion!:

and I guess that also means students who enter the academy are effectively conscripted into a dual enrollment with his knight order.

I… don’t think so?

The way I read that part, it’s the current students who go into the knight order - the ones who already worked with him and built the knights. That was the point.

New students wouldn’t have that bond, so no reason to include them.

Yeah I think so too, no idea how big normal knight orders are, but if everyone in the school was conscripted, I don't think that would fit the definition of a small order.

Well, the 2nd one's out now and it's titled "Aftermath", as well as the series now being marked as completed. So, probably more of just a wrap-up volume for what came after the main events finished. I'll give it a read.

Can't be bothered going to each of their forum topics to make a comment but DRE series had a busy week so looks like we'll be getting Stuck in a Time Loop 3 (final) & Jeanette the Genius 2 soon as well, on top of Blade & Bastard 3 which we got here immediately.

This one kicks off with an intriguing situation. Viola's stuck in an engagement with a guy who's just short of being hostile to her, but who won't dissolve the engagement. When she gets knocked out in an accident, she realizes it's a chance! She's going to pretend she's amnesiac, remembering nothing and useless as a partner, to get their families to call off the engagement. Except that when her fiancé learns of her amnesia, he turns into a completely different person, and starts making up complete lies about what their relationship was like. Just what is going on?

However, this pretty promising opening gets buried under a pile of total blandness. Nothing really stands out - not the characters, not the situations, and not the resolution either. For instance, the heroine: I don't think we learn a single thing she's actually good at over the course of the book. We learn about stuff she's terrible at, like cooking, baking or embroidery, we see her do some hobbies like reading, but we never see her being actually capable at, well, anything. She doesn't have any job or a responsibility, she doesn't even go to tea parties or soirées. Beyond talking to her fiancé, talking about her fiancé, or thinking about her fiancé, she doesn't have anything in her life. "Cute" is probably the most specific positive quality anybody attributes to her in the whole book. So utterly bland.

By the way, I'm starting to suspect there must be some kind of rule to light novel romance that gets strictly enforced by the light novel police. What the rule most likely says is that anybody who understands a situation the protagonist doesn't must keep a total silence about it, for reasons. Only once the protagonist goes through all the work needed to figure out the situation for themselves are others allowed to reveal they actually knew all along. And that's how you get people letting their friends struggle through a decade of misunderstanding instead of, you know, dropping a hint or two.
Sigh.

The final volume has at last gotten a Japanese release date of January 2024.

When I started reading the first volume, I would never have guessed, but by now it's evolved into a full blown farce, everybody is an idiot and the titular villainess twice as much, and things are so out of hand that Yumiella's own guards have instructions to run away from her on sight so as not to give her ideas like powerlevelling them all up.

It's not absurdly overpowered in quite the same way as Misfit of Demon King Academy is, but I feel like it's the closest title out there. Villainess' own brand of absurd is less about breaking the laws of logic and nature, and more about Yumiella bringing her JRPG-thinking into situations where it doesn't apply, or at least doesn't help, and never managing to praise herself without contradicting herself in the very next sentence. She's causing only slightly less trouble than she solves, and describing her as a force of nature seems like something those around her would do a lot.

There's definitely not a lot of depth, and it consistently chooses jokes over, well, consistency. I'm not getting tired of it quite yet, but both the style and the characters are completely different from where the whole series started.

Favourite part: The great evil god Kugelschreiber (working title)

This is the one series out of J-Novel Club offerings that gets teenage love right*, in my opinion. It's not about proud declarations, love wars, harems, and people being surprised by the most obvious things; it's about all the uncertainty and worries and honest misunderstandings and things you want but can't bring yourself to do, and getting what you want but realizing you never knew what you're actually getting, and so much insecurity and pain and awkwardness you can barely fit it into one heart.

*) Step Exes is close, though.

And even though you might argue Haibara is missing some very obvious clues, it doesn't feel forced to me; that's just the way things are, with nobody understanding their own heart, and things somehow getting a lot more confusing and difficult when they involve you.

This volume ends on a very sharp cut. Not quite a cliffhanger, rather the sort of moment where it slowly dawns on you just what all the implications of what you've just learned are; and I honestly have no idea where the story goes from there. Probably a pretty dark place, though.

@LemonMochi said in Haibara's Teenage New Game+ Vol. 5 Discussion!:

Haibara is a sports novel.

They got me interested in the match even though I didn't even know what a layup is.

@Lex said in Haibara's Teenage New Game+ Vol. 5 Discussion!:

So next book might be about bullying, then?

I suspect it will. And it's probably not going to be very lighthearted, either way.

@George-Wang-a98vag7 Ah, but Carol is in the Knight program! Though being serious, the fact that he and Carol just returned from a campaign as heroes means they're likely to be forced into marriage even if they weren't sleeping together. And while Carol may genuinely not be sure about marrying him just yet, she also clearly has no intention of ending the relationship any time soon.

I imagine the first expedition didn't find the Caribbean isles because they were farther away than expected. With the change in the Earth's axis, this is either a Tanya-type parallel world with slight geographical differences, or far into the future where the Atlantic ocean has expanded.

Volume 5 (Premium Edition): 4 Bonus Short Stories Brawl Qualifiers Glenn Walker's Round 2 I Want a Pet Aim for the Top of the Academy, Part 5

My impressions:
Despite being so over the top all the time, it's not losing its charm. Maybe it's even getting better at keeping a straight face while being utterly absurd. Which is why you get a school education that opens with "as part of the first lesson, you will be dying, preferably two or three times each" and you just know this is going to be a wild ride again...

What I love about the series is how the villains aren't the people with the craziest plans, or those who endanger the world around them - that's all par of the course. The villains are consistently the people who think of others as lesser beings, as somebody beneath them, as just tools to be used and not as real people - in short, nazis. And Anos not just defeats them, but also always undoes their plans and helps those they endangered. After all, just because he's overpowered doesn't mean he can't be kind, and vice versa.

There's a lot of plot threads (and threats) going off at the same time in this volume, and a lot of people getting involved. Which is the second thing I love about the series - while Anos is overpowered, he doesn't fight alone, and he doesn't win alone. There's always an opportunity (and space on the pages of the book) for others to have their heroic moments, big or small, to fight and win the battles that are important to them, to sacrifice and learn and give their best and grow. Even the very side characters, like the fangirl union or all the humans in this volume, get to shine.

While Eldmed, the bombastic villain turned equally bombastic teacher, is a delight, the best character around this time is definitely Emilia. She's been appearing in the books from the very start, and has probably changed the most from her first appearance. And I love that it wasn't easy for her - it's not just that she was defeated and proven wrong, but she's struggled with her past and present identity, with her guilt, with the resentment towards Anos, and she's a wonderfully deep character who often manages to be good and bad at the same time. Some of her scenes in this volume made me really tear up, both some of the quiet moments, and the plot where all the side characters are heroes of their own fight.

Favourite moment: Hard to say. Lay and Shin talking things out by fighting with Anos serving as a translator to actual human speech was great, but so was Emilia and Anosh talking over canned food. It's hard to beat Emilia and the students fighting the dragons, though.

@Shaun__ Spreading out the release of a work helps foster deeper discussions and more invested fans. Animation fans are relatively familiar with this phenomenon.

Will, there's only one reason she would complain about not being able to make an echo. Just keep up the good work in spreading her faith, and maybe Gus can get those grandchildren after all.