Yuka Tachibana

Had to finish this before I got further in the anime - if I had to guess the anime will finish this volume (as of ep 8, we were only one chapter from the end of the book) as the season will only be 12 eps and I can see the aftermath of the Western Forest event taking an episode, the events with the King taking one or two and then the final tea party taking an ep.

Anyhow - everything ramps up in this volume as the pieces are set for Sei to no longer hide at the Research Institute (how she thought she could...)

I have to say that reading this in conjunction with watching the anime has been fun. While there are asides in novel, they focus on the "men" of Sei's life trying to keep her life simple and quiet. The anime devoted an entire EPISODE to showing us what its been like for Aira as well as numerous scenes of Prince Kyle being a bit more...sympathetic. Sort of. His reasoning for being an ass in the anime makes a lot of sense and even makes him seem much cleverer then he appears, which we don't see in the novel.

The novel however excels at getting across Sei's resourceful and quick thinking. We're in Sei's head for the most part so we see her draw the connections and hear her dry commentary about everything going on.

We also get a little bit of romantic push between her and Albert? Even the author acknowledges she wanted more lovey-dovey closeness but the book didn't allow for it (so instead we get more! mwaha)

Drewes (Yuri) is hella scary though so if he could tone it back...slightly... I'd be grateful. So would Sei.

In all looking forward to the next adventure Sei finds herself in!… (plus d'informations)

This volume takes place a year after the beginning of the series. Sei is still working on becoming comfortable with her status as the Saint (and in fact still thinks that no one is really sure that she's the Saint, because she's a bit dense in that respect), but she's finally ready to start traveling to problem areas with the palace knights. The first place she and the Third Order knights are being sent is Klausner's Domain, which is sometimes referred to as the alchemist's holy land due to its focus on herb production and potion making. The problem: although Sei used Holy Magic in the previous book to dispel the Miasma in the woods near the palace, she still has no idea how she did it. There's no guarantee that she'll be able to help Klausner's Domain.

I can't really say that this series is good - the text is occasionally repetitive, the world-building is poorly thought out, and the author pays too much attention to individual events and not enough attention to developing the characters. Still, it makes for enjoyable and low-stress reading. Nothing really bad ever happens, and the characters are generally focused on supporting Sei (or Aira, when she was on-page more). It's nice.

Unfortunately, the world-building and character issues were a fairly big problem in this volume. I'm guessing that's why a good chunk of content was cut out when it was adapted for the anime.

The whole "people in this world don't season their food" detail came back with a vengeance. There were long sections devoted to the food at Klausner's Domain. They'd adopted the palace's new craze for cooking with herbs, so the food was more enjoyable than Sei expected, but for some reason the cooks weren't creative enough to do more than stick to a couple types of foods. Sei is apparently the only person in possession of any sort of cooking creativity, and so there was a long scene in which she taught people how to make pasta. Never mind that people in another country in this world eat noodles - although cooks in this kingdom had heard of them, they'd never tried to make them before.

The more Tachibana brings up the cooking thing, the more chances I have to poke holes in it. I hate it, because it's such a glaringly awful problem in an otherwise okay series. This particular book got me to thinking about the past Saints. Most of them were born in that world, but at least one, probably more, were summoned by the same ritual that brought Aira and Sei there. Even if no one born in this world had any cooking creativity, surely one of the past summoned Saints would have done the same thing as Sei and introduced a few recipes. Why did none of those recipes stick around? Yes, texts by and about the past Saints were destroyed, but things like recipes and cooking and seasoning techniques would find other ways to survive.

There was technically some progress in Sei and Albert's romance, but it continues to be underwhelming. In all or most of the author afterwords, Tachibana has lamented the slow pace of the romance, blaming it on Sei's lack of romantic experience or the need to fit in other events. However, at this point I'm going to argue that the romance is progressing so slowly because Tachibana has barely spent any time fleshing Albert and Sei out, so their relationship simply isn't interesting enough to write about. Sei has gone from being a workaholic in our world to being a workaholic in her new world - the only difference seems to be that she actually enjoys this work.

And Sei at least has something like a personal life - I could list multiple people she enjoys talking to and spending time with. Albert, on the other hand, is a mystery. He's been friends with Johan since they were kids, and he works at least as much as Sei does. He has a reputation for being cold, not that we ever see that on-page. Other than that, I know nothing about him. Does he have hobbies or goals? Does he ever spend time with Erhart, his brother? What does he do when he isn't working or training?

Despite my complaints, like I said, I'm still enjoying this series. I plan to read the next volume once it's available.

Extras:

Three full-color illustrations (textless cover art, the back cover illustration used as a character profile section, and Leonhardt's introduction), a two-page "story thus far" summary, black and white illustrations throughout, and an afterword by the author.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)… (plus d'informations)

Yuri Drewes, the grand magus who initially summoned Sei and Aira to this world, has awakened from his coma and now wants to perform an Appraisal upon both of them. Sei is less than thrilled - despite her saint-level display of powers in the previous volume, she still hopes to live a quiet and relatively anonymous life.

Although the results are inconclusive (sort of), several things are now coming to a head. From the start, Prince Kyle never even acknowledged Sei's existence, much less her possible status as the Saint. Since then, Aira's abilities have grown at an amazing rate, but she hasn't done nearly as much that might indicate that she's the Saint as Sei has. Also, while Yuri technically hasn't confirmed that Sei is the Saint, her abilities have intrigued him, and he's not the kind of person to let interesting new magic pass him by. One way or another, Sei will have to further explore her Holy Magic, even if she isn't yet ready to admit that she's the Saint.

I'll start by saying that this wasn't a good book. However, I enjoyed it anyway. It just makes me cry a little, thinking about how much better it could have been.

From the start, this has read like a wish fulfillment sort of series. Sei was an exhausted office worker who rarely had time to relax. She was summoned to a new world in which she was snubbed by the prince for not being as cute as Aira, a teenager, but then everyone else practically fell over themselves to make her happy, arranging work for her that she enjoyed and shielding her from anyone or anything that might bother her or make her uncomfortable. Everyone she encountered (except Prince Kyle) loved her, and she easily adjusted to being in this new world. Albert, a polite and handsome knight, behaved warmly towards her even though he was normally cold to other women.

Like many other current light novel series, the author doesn't bother too much with descriptions, is overly reliant on summarizing events rather than showing them, and doesn't spend much time considering how her characters would react if they were real people. I found some of this more noticeable in this volume than in the first one, probably because I just watched the anime a week ago. While the anime definitely had its problems, there were several things it did better than the novels.

One specific thing that stood out to me was Aira's reaction to finding out that she'd likely never see her parents again. In the anime, tears began streaming down her face and then she broke into sobs. Prince Kyle, shocked into remembering that he was dealing with an actual human being, rushed to her side and tried to comfort her. She cried herself to sleep that night. It provided an excellent foundation for Prince Kyle's later behavior, as he did everything he could to ensure that Aira could be happy in his world and find a place for herself.

By contrast, in the book Aira cried a single tear. This so moved Prince Kyle that it provided the motivation for all his later actions. He was a much better character in the anime, and it was disappointing to see how badly Tachibana bungled things with him. Then there was Aira - the single tear thing was stupid, but I did like the way Tachibana presented Aira as a weak person who was used to others (first her parents, and then Prince Kyle and his friends) making her decisions for her. I thought she might turn out to be even more interesting in the book than in the anime - a storyline about her personal growth in this new world would have been fun. Instead, Tachibana did absolutely nothing with any of that. It was incredibly frustrating.

Speaking of things Tachibana didn't follow through on: Sei and Albert's romance. They had some great scenes in the first book, and I happen to know from the anime that Sei's feelings for Albert will prove to be an important part of the story. Too bad that Albert's such a cardboard character in the books, and barely even present in this one. Tachibana should have spent more of this book fleshing him out and creating a stronger foundation for their romance and, instead, readers got a dancing scene and Albert briefly escorting Sei, and that was pretty much it. I hate to say this, but Albert is as bland as any of the interchangeable cute girls with a single quirk found in your average harem romance series.

The writing was repetitive, sometimes telling readers information that had just been stated one paragraph prior. Also, Tachibana can't write action scenes well at all, so I'm hoping there are fewer of those in future volumes. This was quick and easy reading, and there weren't any sentences that were so badly written I had to pause to figure out what they meant, but I still can't honestly say this was well-written.

And yet I enjoyed this anyway and am looking forward to reading the next book. It's light and low-stress reading - nothing truly bad ever happens and, for now at least, the wish fulfillment aspects work for me. We'll see how long it can manage to hold my interest.

Extras:

Three full-color illustrations (the cover image, the back cover image, and a character page featuring Albert, Erhart, Sei, and Yuri), black and white illustrations throughout, and a 5-page afterword by the author. The afterword made me wince a bit - it laid out Tachibana's thought processes and reasoning for the book's different Acts, and it was clear that she'd hoped to get the story to a particular point (for example, a more solid romance between Sei and Albert) but wasn't able to manage it.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)… (plus d'informations)

Sei comes home after another extremely long day at work, only to find herself suddenly transported to a new world. In that new world, a magical miasma has a tendency to gather near places where people live, producing deadly monsters. Knights and mercenaries are usually able to keep the monsters in check, but every once in a while the miasma produces too many monsters to handle. When that happens, a Saint is often found somewhere in the world, but on rare occasions a summoning ritual must be conducted. That ritual is what brings Sei to this world...as well as a second person, a 15-year-old girl named Aira.

Moments after the summoning ritual, Prince Kyle swoops in and takes Aira away, declaring her to be the new Saint. Sei, annoyed, asks if she can go home, but it seems that's impossible. With nothing else to fill her time, Sei's amateur interest in herbs soon lands her a job at the Research Institute of Medicinal Flora. She becomes determined to live as normal a life as possible while she keeps an eye out for a way to go home, but her curiosity gets the better of her, and it isn't long before she's making enormous amounts of magical potions and learning magical spells and how to enchant gems.

This was a surprise: a light novel that I liked more than its manga adaptation. Granted, I've only read one volume of the manga, which only covered the first half of this novel, but still.

Like many isekai light novels, the writing and overall flow had some issues, the fantasy world had bizarre knowledge gaps that didn't make sense (the people in this world don't season or flavor their food with anything other than salt and vinegar, WTF), and the protagonist was pure wish fulfillment (overpowered, beloved by nearly everyone, yet humble). Although the text was mostly first-person from Sei's POV, whenever the author wanted to infodump about the world's political situation, there'd be a third-person scene in which characters sat around and chatted with each other. That said, the book was very readable. I had fun with it and basically flew through it in a day.

The characters were overall more likeable, or at least more sympathetic, in the light novel than in the manga. Although Prince Kyle's complete lack of acknowledgement of her annoyed Sei, that annoyance didn't spill over onto Aira - she was clearly still rooting for the girl, both because she didn't want to have to take on the responsibilities of the Saint herself and also because, well, Aira was only 15. I don't think the manga ever mentioned just how young she was, and I'm really hoping Sei and Aira end up getting along and becoming friends when they finally get a chance to talk to each other. I'm not holding my breath on that one, though, since characters like Liz kept painting her as a manipulative fiance-stealer.

Even Prince Kyle was a tiny bit more sympathetic in the novel, despite only having one brief on-page appearance. He made an enormous mistake by instantly favoring Aira over Sei, but his behavior was partly spurred by insecurity caused by the current political situation. Although he was the Crown Prince by virtue of having been born first, the second-born prince was more talented than him and had several factions that would support him if he tried to take power. He didn't seem interested in doing that, but it didn't stop Prince Kyle from feeling like he had something to prove.

Sei is definitely "tired and overworked female employee" wish fulfillment. In her old life, her every waking moment was devoted to either work or commuting to and from work, and her few hobbies (herbology, aromatherapy, making soaps and lotions) were centered around her desperate efforts at maximizing what little self-care time she had available. She was so exhausted when the summoning spell transported her that everyone initially assumed she was sickly. In her new life, she actually has free time and a small group of people doing their best to see to it that she's happy and occasionally spends time relaxing. She's also more beautiful (magical lotions!) and manages to stumble across a hot boyfriend (who takes her on a first date that she doesn't realize is a date, lol).

The one issue: she's such a workaholic that she doesn't really know how to relax. Since her new job involves some of the same things she used to do as a hobby, it doesn't feel like work...which is how she rationalizes becoming a potion-making machine and spending her free time reading about magic and potions. I'm interested to see how (and whether) Tachibana ends up addressing this - it seems like it would be very easy for unscrupulous characters to force Sei to work as long and as hard as her Japanese employer used to, simply by guilt-tripping her over all the good she could/should be doing as the Saint.

On the face of things, the romance aspect wasn't really any different in the novel than in the manga - in both versions, readers don't learn much about either Sei or Albert except their basic personalities and that they don't seem to do much except work. However, I found I enjoyed the romance a lot more in the novel than in the manga. Sei's obliviousness was more amusing and believable, and their date and the gift-giving that came after (which I expect volume 2 of the manga will be covering) was fun and sweet.

Since I thought the manga was so-so, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. Considering Sei's actions at the end of this volume, the story could shift considerably in Volume 2, and I have no idea if it'll go in a direction that will work for me. Even so, I decided to take a risk and order the next couple volumes. Crossing my fingers that this ends up being one of the very rare light novel series I can enjoy for more than a couple volumes.

Extras:

A few full-color illustrations (the image on the cover, character illustrations for Sei, Jude, and Albert, and an image from a scene near the end of the book), black-and-white illustrations throughout, and a brief afterword by the author.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)… (plus d'informations)