Stuff i read this week
Beauty and the Feast Vol. 3
We’re beginning to learn more about Shuko’s past and dang I love this poor woman and I’m glad she’s healing and the chapter with her friends looking out for her are the best and why can’t a manga character cook me dinner? 10/10
Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter Vol. 8
What’s this?!? Lotte pulled another villainess isekai manga volume out of her ass?? Wow how does she do it?!? She can’t keep getting away with this!!
Anyways, this series is STILL incredibly good, i STILL want them to hurry up and kiss and i cant wait for the next volume to be release. The combat maid STILL rules forever i love her. 10/10 The cast pages at the front of every volume is getting crazy complicated
The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This Vol. 1-2
gosh just beautiful- it feels like 99% of yuri manga is about a budding relationship, taking painstaking amounts of time to get to a love confession - getting to that starting point and as soon as that happens, THATS IT end of serialization, that’s you 6 chapters HOW DARE YOU WANT MORE. it sucks! I wanna read about women in love, I wanna see stories about their home lives, their hopes, their dreams, their years. This is a little bit of all that, and it’s perfect. Wako and Ellie have been going out for two years and living together for one year at the start of this story and that so unusual and weird for a yuri manga I LOVE IT 100/10 super recommend
Failed Princess Vol. 2
Still a super frickin cute book! This volume is about coming to terms with jealousy, and its a real nice storyline for one of these school age yuri.
Doughnuts under a crescent moon vol. 3
Sad the next volume is the last. I really recommend this series, again because stuff about adult women in love just rules - just be warned it seems like volume 3 had a small print run and its REALLY hard to find anywhere. I eventually managed to get a copy on ebay... which came bundled with volume 1&2 T_T sometimes you just end up with duplicates.
No Longer Allowed In Another World Vol. 1
What if Zetsubou Sensei was hit by a truck and got isekai’ed? 10/10 good. I published a Isekai Death Report here
Though I Am an Inept Villainess: Tale of the Butterfly-Rat Body Swap in the Maiden Court Vol. 1
I love villainess?!? I really enjoyed watching Raven of the inner palace last anime season, so seeing a villainess story with a similar setting was an instant pickup. Turns out this is very very good! The main character and her ladies maid have a great chemistry together, I can’t wait to see how this evolves over time. Body swapping from a sick, frail (but loved) persona to a healthy, strong (but universally hated) one is a super interesting setting as well, this is genius space brain level trash I love it
The Savior's Book Café Story in Another World Vol. 1
Straight, but interesting. Dang i love isekai, and how they are all the same but different. “You have been summoned to a magical world! you MUST become a savior, a hero in this place! i shall grant you MASSIVE amounts of magical power and grant a wish” - okay thats all normal nothing weird here - “ehh that sounds like a hassle can i own a little café bookshop on the outskirts of a capital city and just kinda rest there and do nothing??” 11/10 PERFECT use of isekai powers LOVE IT for you girl please do exactly that. I think deep down, we have all just wanted to have a little café bookshop and no responsibility and massive amounts of magical energy. (no isekai death report for this title - she seems to just have been summoned)
The Apothecary Diaries Vol. 1
What a lovely little story! Maomao makes some wonderful disgusted faces at flirty men, which really speaks to me imo. She’s so cool
Also I’m quickly realizing that “weird girls solve problems in the inner court of a Chinese palace” is like - a manga/light novel genre now? Like “isekai but it’s a otome novel and the main character is the villainess” is a genre. Very cool looking forward to exploring the depths of this genre on the coming weeks and months
Bonus: Audio Books
Sword Art Online Vol. 8
i can never hate sword art. it sucks so much, but i sure do love this trash garbage. This volume is a bunch of short stories that take place all over the timeline - i think the short story anthologies are some of the better sword art light novels, when we just get to throw the characters into an interesting situation without thinking about the connective tissue of the story too hard... sword art is best when you dont think about it too hard! The audio books are still really well produced, deffo recommended if you want some daft background listening.
Reincarnated as the Last of my Kind Vol. 4
Somehow, this audio book is 6 hours long, and basically nothing happened... 8/10 its about as 'light' as a light novel could ever get, and i gotta respect that
stuff in the pile for next week
oh would you look at that there's more yuri... I may have solved my lack of Villainess stories with an amazon order.. maybe..
Books read this year: 57