#nilitsu

Today's KAITO module of the day is:

Author: Fujino Omori

Illustrator: Nilitsu

Label: GA Bunko

Release Date: 13 October 2023

My Score: 5/5

This volume is split into 3 short stories with the first one taking up most of the volume (a good 80% or more). This story fills in the blanks of Lyu's reunion with Astrea before the war game in volume 18 and it's really, really good. Seeing Astrea and Lyu reunite in person is fantastic itself but we also get to see Lyu trying to be a senpai to the new members of Astrea Familia. In particular, there's a blacksmith named Cecil who strongly resents Lyu for abandoning Astrea, and her character arc as a foil for Lyu's is a highlight of the short story. This short story was amazing and satisfying and it's one that I would love to see animated in the upcoming Danmachi V anime. It's probably my favourite story in the Familia Chronicle volumes so far.

The other two stories are much shorter and less relevant to the main plot. The second one features a sweet interaction between Ardee and Lyu. The third story features an event from 5 years ago in which Alise, Kaguya, and Lyra discuss Lyu's future. These stories are bittersweet, and while they aren't as good as the main one, they are definitely worth reading. I can see why they were included in the volume.

So with this volume, the 13 months of Danmachi volumes have officially concluded and it's been a blast. While I may not have read all the volumes in the month that they were released in, it's been great to have a steady stream of Danmachi content. There's been some top quality volumes and it's made me appreciate the Danmachi franchise more. All of the authors, illustrators, editors, and everyone else have done an amazing job this past year and I hope that everyone is able to take a well-deserved break now.

Canis: Dear Hatter vol. 2 by ZAKK

Kutsuna and his crew's showcase at New York Fashion Week was a huge success. While there, Ryou encounters an old friend of his -Chase- who informs him that the mob boss he thought was dead is still alive.

Hoping to face his past, Ryou decides to stay behind in America, meaning Katsuna would now be on the other side of the planet. On the outside, Katsuna seems perfectly calm on his own in Tokyo, but beneath the surface...

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card vol. 12 by CLAMP

Tick Tock, Tick Tock... Yuna D. Kaito can use magic to control time. Does Akiho know? Is she part of his schemes? Sakura isn’t sure, but her heart tells her to let Akiho come to her when she’s ready. Then things get even more complicated when she and Akiho get cast in the leading roles for the school play! Where will the twin Alices’ journeys take them now...?

The Executioner and Her Way of Life vol. 1 (manga) by Mato Sato, Ryo Mitsuya, nilitsu

The Lost Ones are strangers from another world, hailing from a place no one has ever heard of called “Japan.” These wanderers have been associated with catastrophes since many years ago and the solemn duty of exterminating them without remorse falls to Menou, a young Executioner. But when her mission is complicated by a Japanese girl named Akari who refuses to die, Menou embarks on a peculiar journey to find something that can slay even an immortal who insists on traveling with her would-be-killer!

Happy of the End vol. 1 by Ogeretsu Tanaka

Unrequited love, poverty and a series of bad choices leads a young man into homelessness. And once there his only way out may be to listen to a charming young man with a dark side.

Dazed and confused, Chihiro awakes on a pile of garbage with memories of wedding still fresh in his mind. When out of the blue a young man named Keito appears before him. Instantly, he then recalls the night he spent with this person. The booze! The hotel! The punch to his face!

Chihiro may not have a place to call home currently and Keito may not be a good person by any means, but maybe the two of them could be happy together.

She, Her Camera, and Her Seasons vol. 3 by Tsukiko (digital only)

"We're so close, but I feel so lonely..." It's the spring of Akari Miyama's last year of high school, and she's feeling constrained by her superficial friendships and stifling routine. That all changes when she meets Yuki Sendo, the cool beauty wielding a twin-lens reflex camera, and Akari's days begin to shine. But Akari starts to feel shaken by the deep bond between Yuki and her childhood friend Rintaro, and Yuki notices some mysterious emotions in Akari's photos... At Yuki's suggestion, Akari starts pretending to date Rintaro. But it's not long before her feelings start to waver, and the line between acting and actual dating starts to blur. The love triangle deepens as autumn turns to winter...

She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat vol. 1 by Sakaomi Yuzaki

Cooking is how Nomoto de-stresses, but one day, she finds herself making way more than she can eat by herself. And so, she invites her neighbor Kasuga, who also lives alone. What will come out of this impromptu dinner invitation...?

Yuri Espoir vol. 2 by Mai Naoi 

So I ordered this book series (6 books released and translated at time of posting) basically on a whim because it looked like a somewhat serious fantasy story with yuri. But it turned out to not be too bad an idea to act on that whim! I'm going to try not get too spoilery when I do my summary, but that is a little unavoidable, so I apologise in advance! That said, I am going to go into stuff of a spoilery nature at the end. And hopefully I remember everything well, as I only finished this series 2 weeks ago. To to sum up, The Executioner and Her Way of Life is about our protagonist, Menou! The world is your typical Isekai fantasy world with it's own (Kind of weird honestly) power system. Except unlike most isekai, our protagonist is a native resident of this world. She's an Executioner! (Duh..), who's main job is to hunt taboo entities, which largely consists of otherworlers! Yup! this world has a whole profession dedicated to taking out this OP isekai protagonists before they get to cause any trouble in this world. Which has happened on numerous occasions, being disasters leaving large portions of the world uninhabitable. When an otherworlder reaches this point they are called a "Human Error". Which honestly i think is a pretty cool term. Obviously, things are not quite as simple as "all otherworlders are bad guys, and our protagonist is a hero." She herself is constantly calling herself a villain. Not to mention that executioners are trained and employed by this world's leading religious church group, The Faust. That NEVER means good things in a fantasy setting.

So our main characters areeee; Menou, obviously. The self proclaimed pure, proper villainous priestess. her only real stand out quality is that she is a massive unwitting yuri magnet, that basically every female character in this series thinks is beautiful and some more subtly than others are always trying to come onto her. Beyond that she's a little bland. However without going into spoilers, that's not without reason. Momo. Menou's psycho girlfriend. Uh. I mean, Menou's extremely capable and eager assistant. A young girl who is basically a berserker with 0 skill but game breaking strength. Her only interest in the entire world is Menou. Which can be entertaining but sometimes gets repetitive. Ashuna, the knight princess. Who... for a paper thin fanservice reason of a deep love for the human body in peak form, basically always dresses in clothes that really don't cover much more than undies. She's kind of cool but at least by book 6, is as fairly one dimensional as Momo, in that she mostly just likes Momo. Akari. The otherworlder with powers revolving around time. Has literally no interest in the world besides Menou, who is trying to kill her, but is unable to because any time she doesn, her time powers activate automatically and revert her to a state where she was not dead. Her main role in this story is for Menou to get attached to her, becoming unwilling to kill her, and questioning her place in the world, or you could even say... Questioning her way of life? Ha! No that was bad. There areeee more characters but most aren't in it too long. The one exception is Pandæmonium. An all powerful full chaotic evil immortal little girl. She's super freaky, but fun to read. She's the one thing that makes me disappointed that i can't watch the anime anywhere. So things i like aree..... An interesting take on the isekai genre. A sort of villain protagonist. A cool antagonist in Pandaemonium. The occasional art pages by Nilitsu were pretty cool. Half an interesting power system. Why is spoilery though. Sort of yuri vibes. But that leads me tooooo Things i didn't like. Vague yuri vibes that don't really ever go anywhere. There's just lots of girls being all hot for Menou. It's pretty out of nowhere and unsatisfying because there's not even any romance to it, and it's entirely one-sided in every case. So it's kind of yuri bait. Again, the power system. Any time someone uses a spell, there's a load of weird fantasy jargon to read that means very little, and is kind of just space filler on the page, and i started to just skip over it because it was mind-numbing to read. And the whole power system with the earthen and astral vein feels very hand-wavey to me.

So a lot of what i did actually enjoy about this is kind of spoilery, so it might seem like i have more negative to say than positive, but i swear, i did enjoy it enough to buy volume 7 when it comes out!!! It wasn't like, mind blowing or genre changing, nor did it have particularly unique characters, but it is a good time. I'd give it a solid 7/10.

Now! I'm going to try something different here so i can talk a little about what actually happens, so FROM HERE ON IN, THERE WILL ABSOLUTELY BE MAJOR SPOILERS! Just this way i can go into more details about what i do and don't like. So i found the idea of pure concepts being basically added to the world's accessible skill list whenever an otherworlder gets to Human Error status. That's the part of this series' power system. That's very interesting. However with how many different abilities are used, it kind of makes it super iffy how many otherworlders were summoned and then made to lose themselves just so the world's skill list could be increased (yes, i am simplifying this process.) But it's even worse when you consider how many otherworlders are just immediately killed off after their pure concept is deemed worthless, despite them being summoned against their will. But I mean, that's kind of the point. The Faust be super shady. Anyway, definitely an interesting concept. Another thing i really liked was Pandæmoniumin general. Her whole concept of original sin is actually written as genuinely horrifying, like her ability to sacrifice herself to summon herself. So anytime she dies, she just bursts out of the old corpse. It extreme detail. Super gross, but super interesting. I love a villain who is bad for no big grand reason. She's basically driven by the need for entertainment. I like the idea of this. Very cool.

Now some stuff i didn't like. So i said before Menou's character is kinda bland. And they keep going on about how her whole existence was bleached white and all that. Which really makes the whole reveal that she was created by Ivory become more like a "Yeah duh" kind of reveal. Like as early as volume 2 of the LN, i had suspicions that she was at very least, ivory with amnesia. Which isn't that far off the mark.

Shokei Shojo no Virgin Road

Minami Kamekura High School Girls Cycling Club