Shockingly, somehow even emptier than last time.
Creative Staff
Story: Gakuto Mikumo
Illustrations: Manyako
Translation: Jeremiah Bourque
What They Say
A New Year on Itogami Island is right around the corner, and for Kojou and Yukina, that means cutting off their contacts and returning to the mainland for a top-secret rescue mission. Coincidentally, this also means zero contact between Yukina and the Lion King organization. Can the fearful duo see their mission through to the end, or will they be overwhelmed by an unexpected enemy?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
At the very start of this book, we get what is quite sadly probably the most interesting part of the book: Gajou fighting some random girls. It’s not much and it’s real short, but at least it feels like he has to use his wits a bit there. But then, we get back to Kojou… and virtually nothing happens for the rest of the volume. You see, the afterword to this book claims it was written with a “fugitive” theme in mind, which is a perfectly reasonable goal to strive towards. The heroes desperately on the run, trying to figure out what’s going on bit by bit while narrowly avoiding capture is a well-worn trope, but one that works perfectly well. But sadly, what we get here… is the characters just sort of wandering around aimlessly from spot to spot and being like “dang, we can’t contact our allies here,” getting a piece of information or two along the way but never being in any real danger.
To cover what actually happens, they find out something’s going on with Nagisa when Kojou can’t get in contact with her, and then Asagi’s poking around finds a worrying picture from her phone. Along the way, it becomes increasingly clear that the Lion King agency is involved, too. And Kiriha ends up joining them as an unlikely ally sort of character too… but the book doesn’t event really have any fun with it, and she’s just completely flat and uninteresting here, which feels like a huge waste. I mean, it shouldn’t feel boring when the heroes are striking up a tense allegiance with a former villain, but that’s just how it is here.
Anyway, aside from a brief little prelude to the actual fight of the book and the thing with Gajou from the start I suppose, we get pretty much nothing to speak of in the way of action until our heroes end up against Natsuki on page 130 out of 186, including the afterword. And even then, what we get is a pretty pathetic excuse for action, as I can easily sum it up by saying Kojou gets captured at the start, Yukina and Kiriha have a hard time because Natsuki’s generically strong, then Yukina shows off a hidden power and frees Kojou, at which point they force Natsuki to give up so that there’s no risk of him running wild and destroying the island in the process. It’s a super simplistic chain of events, lacking any big clever twists or turns or cool moves from the characters along the way.
But when another foe turns up in the aftermath with an even stronger ability, can they keep on pushing through, or are they doomed to fail at their mission?
In Summary
I’m quite frankly baffled at how poorly this volume is handled, and how completely and utterly lacking it is all around. I may have lodged similar complaints last, but that was because it was just going through the basic motions of a plot structure without really anything at all behind it. But this time… the characters virtually do nothing at all for around two-thirds of the book, and that’s as insanely dull and shallow as it sounds. To be blunt, I’m amazed this book made it through publishing, as I don’t think I’ve EVER seen a light novel so completely and utterly lacking in content before, making this quite the shameful display for an already weak series. Really, I don’t care if this is a cliffhanger (I have trouble imagining anyone caring to see what comes next anyway), this is absolutely the point to drop the series if you’re somehow hanging on, as it’s clearly completely and utterly out of fuel at this point.
Content Grade: D
Art Grade: N/A
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: January 22nd, 2019
MSRP: $14.00
