#shirabi

Author: Asato Asato

Illustrator: Shirabi

Mecha Designer: I-IV

Label: Dengeki Bunko

Release Date: 10 February 2017

My Score: 5/5

English Release: Yen-Press is currently publishing this series in English.

I struggled to create a summary for this premise so I'll just use Yen-Press's for volume one: "The Republic of San Magnolia has long been under attack from the neighboring Giadian Empire's army of unmanned drones known as the Legion. After years of painstaking research, the Republic finally developed autonomous drones of their own, turning the one-sided struggle into a war without casualties-or at least, that's what the government claims. In truth, there is no such thing as a bloodless war. Beyond the fortified walls protecting the eighty-five Republic territories lies the "nonexistent" Eighty-Sixth Sector. The young men and women of this forsaken land are branded the Eighty-Six and, stripped of their humanity, pilot the "unmanned" weapons into battle..."

To build up from that summary: the volume focuses on Lena, an officer in San Magnolia, as she becomes in charge of the Spearhead squadron, a squadron of the Eighty-Six. In this squadron is a soldier known as the Undertaker and it's rumored that every handler for this squadron goes insane. Lena is more emphatic to the Eighty-Six than most people of the republic and the volume focuses on her confronting her own biases against the Eighty-Six, and her blossoming relationship with the members of the Spearhead squadron, particularly the undertaker himself, Shin.

I've been wanting to read this series for a long time, but I got scared because I'm not great at reading military fantasy in Japanese, and I heard this one is very difficult to read. The volume was heavily discounted on Bookwalker recently so I decided it was finally time to read it. Thankfully, it wasn't too bad. Yeah, I had a bit of a struggle following some of the battle scenes, but there aren't that many of them and the volume tends to focus more of the human drama then on the battles.

And that human drama element is very well written. I was so invested in the story and the characters, even as I knew how the story would turn out from watching the anime. I'm obviously not an expert, but I feel like this series is one of the better portrayals of fantasy racism in fiction. It shows how racism is systemic and that it is created by people in power wanting to keep their power. The volume does a great job at exploring that.

The prose was also really good, especially during the emotional moments. Honestly, I wasn't too interested in the Shin/Lena romance in the anime, but I understood the appeal here. It is pretty cute to see two people form a connection without ever seeing one another.

I did want to rewatch the anime for this review, but it adapts the volume across 11 episodes and I didn't have time to watch more than the first two. But I do think that it is a really good adaptation that builds on the strengths of the source material. The music is amazing (The Answer has been stuck in my head for the last week), and I appreciate that they added some anime original content, like episodes 10 and 11 (unless these end up being in volume 2 which I doubt). It expanded on the source material in meaningful ways and it's definitely worth the watch.

Author: Kyousuke Kamishiro

Illustrator: Shirabi

Label: MF Bunko J

Release Date: 25 August 2023

My Score: 2/5

In this volume Fio, Misaki's senpai, takes Misaki on as her assistant and takes him to an island. There, a billionaire will be unveiling the newest addition to his collection: Macbeth, the crime manifesto created by the Crime King himself, Misaki's grandfather.

Author: Kyousuke Kamishiro (Author of Tsurekano)

Illustrator: Shirabi (Illustrator of 86 and Ryuuou no Oshigoto)

Label: MF Bunko J

Release Date: 23 June 2023

My Score: 3/5

In a world where crime has risen, detective has become an increasingly popular profession. The story follows Misato, a teenage boy who is the grandson of the "Crime King", a notorious criminal who was taken down by the "Detective King". Due to a promise Misato made to his sister, he enrolls in a prestigious school dedicated to training potential detectives. There he meets Shia, the daughter of the Detective King, who has been training as a detective from a young age.

This was pretty good. It took me a while to get into, but the characters were likeable, it was easy to read, and the climax was really interesting. The climax features a deduction battle between detectives and it has some fun visual ideas in it. The story is told in a dual POV with some parts being told from Misato's POV, and some from Shia's POV, which I really like because it made Shia feel like a more well-rounded character and gave her more agency. I liked Shia a lot, actually. She's very prideful, and her inner thoughts when she's being praised are funny. She's also a secret game addict. She's a fun character. That goes for all of the other heroines too. Some of them get more screen time than others, but they're all pretty fun and memorable. As for Misato himself, he's okay. He's not bland and he's interesting enough to read about. I did get annoyed at how often his narration mentioned breasts, but I didn't have a whole lot of issues with him and I think he's a fine protagonist. As for the mysteries themselves, they're not the most interesting mysteries in the world, but they're simple enough for the reader to follow along and the deductions are easy to understand and ones that the reader could have made themselves. There's no ass-pulls with the deductions, which I appreciated.

As for who I'd recommend it for, if the idea of a detective high school sounds like a fun time to you, read it. I also get Youzitsu and Hidan no Aria vibes from it, so maybe check it out if you like those series. The deduction battles reminded me of games like Gyakuten Saiban and Danganronpa too.