It’s been three years since you looked at me, kicked me into hell and weren’t even sorry. In volume one, which I read in January and will not be going back to review, an internet denizen going by the nom de plume Peerless Cucumber found himself regrettably reincarnated in the very web novel which killed him (because he didn’t have enough sense to stop rage-reading). And, not simply reincarnated, but reincarnated as the villainous teacher, Shen Qingqiu, who threw the hero, Luo Binghe, into hell… and then got torn into thousands of pieces, very unpleasantly, when the hero managed to crawl out o ..read more

So, how many more ways can this series find to keep spinning its wheels rather than actually resolving the romantic tension? I have not and am not going to review volume four, as I read it a while ago and am not much interested in bothering to go back, but – suffice to say, while that volume resolved the matter of Izumi’s crush on Fujishiro, the latter continued to squirm and deny that her interest in Kurokawa is romantic. So, volume five, here we go – the more things change, the more they stay the same. Fujishiro’s feelings continue to burble in a direction one figures even a gal like her wo ..read more

Long time no see. Well, I’ve been gone a while from this. Combo of job being too hectic, personal life being too hectic, and some health issues. I’d been considering starting to write reviews again from roughly January or so, but nothing quite pushed me to do so, until I picked up this last week. I suppose, then, that’d be the short version of this review – I enjoyed this opening volume enough to dust off my blog and share that with others! But, it’s probably best to fully shake off the rust, right? The title sure is something, isn’t it? The titular reincarnated princess is Anisphia, nickname ..read more

Once again, I will shout from the rooftops that, despite the trashtastic title, this series is very sweet and not trashy at all, although I wouldn’t blame someone for not reading it in public with that title splashed across the cover. After the cliffhanger of volume two, Adachi finds himself playing temporary host to Kurosawa, a situation he’s not entirely sure he’s comfortable with given that he’s aware of Kurosawa’s affections. In a bid to set himself at ease, he impulsively invites their other colleague, Rokkaku, over for dinner… which backfires somewhat when Kurosawa gives into a flare of ..read more

She’s back! Fresh and triumphant off of student council elections, Mia is ready to rest on her laurels for a bit when duty comes calling – the academy city she previously set in motion is already floundering due to the scheming of the Greenmoons, one of the four most powerful aristocratic families of the empire. Ludwig thinks salvation may lie in recruiting his former teacher – but, doubting his own ability to persuade the man, Mia’s packed off to the forest to headhunt him instead. Will she ever get the rest she feels she so richly deserves? An invitation to a tropical cruise off of Ganudos ..read more

Too bad she doesn’t want to be one. Lyse Winslette is the orphaned daughter of a baron who works in the palace of the king of Olwen, a vassal state of the Razanate Empire. But Lyse has a secret – she’s actually the reincarnation of a knight of said empire, Qatora, a woman who died while protecting members of the imperial family. Although she misses Razanate badly, Lyse feels compelled to remain in Olwen because when she died she learned the secret of the Light of Origin, the power source that has enabled the empire to reign supreme in her world – and she fears for what the emperor would be wi ..read more

Going to stick to the manga instead for this one. As there isn’t any significant difference between this opening volume of the original light novel series and it’s manga adaptation, forgive me, but I’m going to engage in some self-plagiarism from a review of the manga: “Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter starts us out in a setting which is, by now, fairly familiar – our lead has been reborn into an otome game she’s been playing! But she’s the villainess! But whereas tales like My Next Life as a Villainness or Deathbound Duke’s Daughter drop our heroine into the game world early enough tha ..read more

Well… its fine. Ayako is the ninth daughter of the emperor of Konkoku… but she’s spent most of her life as the Umashi-no-Miya, the sacred cook for the god Kunimamori-no-Okami. In practice, this has meant living solely with her older sister, who serves as a living representative of the god. Alas, as much as she values this role, when the grand Wakoku, to which Konkoku is a vassal state, has a new emperor coronated, Ayako finds herself re-dubbed as Setsu Rimi and packed off to join the palace as a concubine. She’s helped by a kindly scholar, Shusei, when she arrives at the palace, but his is a ..read more

Worth a try for fans of political intrigue, or fans of female-led stories who are sick of reborn otome villainess tales. I am going to cheat a little and plagiarize a bit of my description of the first volume of the manga adaptation of these light novels, as there are really only so many ways I can manage to summarize the basics twice… Everything was going pretty well for Maomao, an apothecary in the pleasure district, up until the moment she was kidnapped and sold into service in the imperial palace. When the infant children of the emperor’s concubines begin to mysteriously sicken and die, M ..read more

Well, its fitting that I’d make my return with the latest volume of Girls Kingdom. Much as was the case in the second volume, in volume three Misaki is continuing to live the maid’s life largely unexamined, with only a scant moments of consideration given to her original goals of getting a good education so she can get a good office job. In a different series, this would be perhaps worrisome; in the world of Amanotsuka Academy for Girls, it really matters not, as the worst that could happen to a gal is… well, it doesn’t matter so much what the worst is, so much as that any trouble is easily c ..read more