Well, at least last volume didn’t suck. This one, though…
Creative Staff
Story: Yuu Miyazaki
Illustrations: okiura
Translation: Melissa Tanaka
What They Say
At long last, the Phoenix Festa is over, and Julis invites Ayato to visit her home of Lieseltania. But as the king throws lavish parades and parties in their honor, Ayato comes to understand Julis’s concerns for her country. Meanwhile, the Witch of Solitary Venom sets her sights on the pair…!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
So, to start off with, the very first thing we get is some teasing regarding Claudia’s plot… which doesn’t actually come to fruition this volume outside of such very vague hints. But equally as much stress is put on making sure the fanservice is jammed in there, both in the text and the big old image of her in minimal clothing! Oh yeah, and speaking of such things, the color images at the start? There’s one other image of the girls in dresses, but almost all of that space at the start of the book is dedicated to a damn pinup style spread of Saya that’s even more embarrassingly over the top in its fanservice, to such a degree that it’s just barely not porn. Which, by the way, doesn’t even match the damn scene it’s supposed to come from, as the details don’t fit right at all! It’s just especially crass and cheap, and frustrating when all this pandering means we don’t even get so much as a single damn image of most of the new characters introduced in this volume!
Anyway, the main plot this time around is that everyone is invited by Julis’s brother to their home country of Lieseltania. And this is the ONE bit of credit I’ll give the volume: the situation with the nation is actually kind of interesting. It does get some room to breathe, too, so I feel like I get more about Julis’s background and her family than I did coming in. So when it’s focused on the politics, it’s actually decent. Sadly, though… this all gets infused with the most generic and flat of all harem antics. Like, it’s just so shallow and empty, and does anyone really get ANYTHING out of interactions like “oh no, Sylvia called when the other girls are around, and that makes them feel jealous!”? Which, by the way, is most of what we get when the group goes to Saya’s house along the way. Like, we have Ayato visiting the home of his childhood friend, deeply tied to his past, and her damn dad is like a hologram or something because of an accident… and the focus is largely on generic tropey romantic antics that are so played out it isn’t even funny. Oh, and for added “fun,” Kirin has clearly been wholly rolled into the harem and is treated as such, with awkward sexualization and a heavy focus on her crush on Ayato, and is treated like just one of the girls… but she’s still goddamn 13 years old. So yes, that remains incredibly creepy and awkward.
And hell, we do get a bit of action this time around, in theory, in that there’s a guy who essentially summons mythological beasts to try to take out our heroes. But then, their first battle has the main cast caught off guard and unarmed… and they STILL easily win. And that just completely defangs the threat entirely. Like, obviously the main characters aren’t going to be killed by this assassin, but when you have him so thoroughly beaten right from the start, it removes any and all sense of danger. The book may not treat him as such, but it essentially makes him a pathetic joke.
There are some other elements like some foreshadowing of the Witch of Solitary Venom, but it’s so empty that it’s just more vague teasing than anything else. So instead, we’re just kind of left to wallow in the crappiest elements of the book.
In Summary
Last time around, the series finally managed something decent for once with the big climax of that arc. It seems sadly, though, that was indeed limited to that book, as this time around, we’re right back into crap city. There’s a SHRED of something interesting still at least, in that the politics of Julis’s country are kind of intriguing and do get some play. As a result, I wouldn’t say it’s entirely hot garbage… but it still mostly is. For example, the generic tropey harem fanservice crap is all throughout the volume, dragging things thoroughly. And I say that not because it’s sexualized, but because it’s done so poorly and cheaply that it’s just running through the most tired, worn-out of motions, not doing anything even vaguely interesting or amusing in the slightest. Oh, and it still involves a freaking 13 year old girl, which is just plain creepy. And the frustrating thing is… there ARE interesting plot points that could be developed, but instead they’re just brushed aside and barely touched on in order to jam in more shoddily done fanservice! And hell, even with the action, it IS there to some degree, but the whole setup with the villain is so poorly handle that the book kills its own tension from the very start! So while I think there could have been a solid book somewhere in this structure and basic plot outline, it got so buried in crap and poor writing that what we got instead was just straight up garbage.
Content Grade: C
Art Grade: N/A
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: April 24th, 2018
MSRP: $14.00
