Spice and Wolf volume 10

This is a return to form for the series. The Town of Strife two-parter was disappointing, and the first Side Colors was unusual (but definitely enjoyable!), and now we return to the good stuff. Here we have another economic problem for our two leads to puzzle out, and they puzzle it out themselves. In Town of Strife, they were oddly disconnected, like passive side-characters who didn't know what was truly going on. Here they are properly active.  

Also, more supernatural stuff. The old gods are involved in this problem that the Kingdom of Winfel is experiencing. And not only that, but it relates to Holo's homeland issue. She and Lawrence basically know where Yoitsu is by now, but this story approaches the subject from a different angle. It's very interesting. 

What we have here in this story is a three-way confrontation between Brondel Abbey, a very large landowner in Winfel as well as the chief producer of its biggest export, the king of Winfiel, and the Ruvik Alliance, which is a basically a conglomeration of trading companies. To give the reader a sense of the scale of this alliance of merchants, just one of its middle-managers, never mind its top rank, is equivalent to or greater than the head of the guild that Lawrence belongs to. Lawrence, Holo and Cole enter this confrontation seeking tales of wolf god bones.  What I find most interesting is how the trio goes about doing this.

Their plan is to use human connections. One cannot simply walk up to a Christian abbey and ask them if they're storing the bones of a pagan deity. That's not going to work. So they learn about the local situation and find someone who can assist them in discerning if the wolf god bones are real and present. Their two main resources here are Piaksy, a merchant working for the Ruvik Alliance, and Huskins, a very old shepherd working for the abbey. However much they want to confirm the truth of the wolf god bones, neither Lawrence nor Holo want to use the force of a living wolf god. 

That is what their relationship is like at this point. They recognize how much the other means to them, but that recognition is implicit.  It is not enough for them to stay together at this point. Lawrence feels that he needs to be of use to Holo in order to continue traveling with her. He is a merchant with a merchant's mindset, and so his narration is about providing for her. There is one powerful and sweet scene where he confides in Cole about how he enjoys being the one she relies on (Holo is, of course, eavesdropping, and arranged for the scene to take place, and Lawrence only realizes these two facts after the embarrassing words have left his mouth). 

 It is scenes like these that make the series so enjoyable. It is never just about the economic puzzle of the book, or about finding Yoitsu or interacting with the mythic or real presence of the old gods. It is a blend of those things with aspects of Lawrence and Holo's relationship. Piasky, for instance, is held up as a foil of Lawrence as a good man and a merchant, but better. Simultaneously, Lawrence feels admiration for Piasky and a certain anxiety because he feels that Piasky is an "objectively better" choice for Holo. Who, for her part, is indirect at best about her unending loyal to Lawrence. Then this comparison blends with something else. 

I'm looking forward to the next volume.

Trickster Eric Novels gives "Spice and Wolf volume 10" an A+

Click here for my next book review: A Certain Magical Index - light novel volume 2

Click here for my previous book review:  Sweetness and Lightning volume 2

Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

Sweetness and Lightning volume 2 (read for fun)

I'm starting with this series because it was recommended to me by an acquaintance. He said it was indeed a sweet series. I'm starting with this volume because it was the earliest that my local library had. So between the recommendation and the local library's collection, I am able to enjoy this series. 

It is a cooking manga in the Iyashikei genre. The frame narrative is single father Kohei Inuzuka learning how to cook with his young daughter Tsumugi and one of the students in his high school math class, Kotori Lida. Because of the Iyashikei genre, this situation is totally wholesome and innocent. The three of them take their time preparing a meal together and then they eat together once finished. That's the premise.

It is precious. 

Each chapter is a self-contained story, a handful of the meals that the trio prepare together. In one of them, Kohei is trying to find a way for his daughter to eat bell peppers, which she thinks are disgusting. The story doesn't go the way of "Green eggs and Ham". No, Kohei's first attempt ends up making Tsumugi cry because of how bitter his bell pepper dish tastes. The story goes into detail about how young children have sensitive taste buds, and so Kohei and Kotori work together for a solution. 

Another chapter is a Gyoza party, which is when friends get together, make "gyoza", and then eat it together. This appears to be something that real-life Japanese people do, because the author says that they did this with some friends in the afterword. Gyoza is a stuffed bread dish. One takes meat and/or vegetables and wraps them up in bread wrappers, which are then boiled/fried/baked etc. depending on the recipe. 

It is a light read. Light and sweet, like the title says. It's a good thing to read before bed to move into a relaxed state of mind prior to sleep. Unless, of course, the stories make you hungry. The food looks good. I'd like to try it at some point. 

Sweetness and Lightning volume 2 an A+

Click here for my next book review:  Spice and Wolf volume 10

Click here for my previous book review:  The Wee Free Men (read for fun)

Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

The Wee Free Men (read for fun)

One of the reviews compared this book to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don't understand that. Buffy never made a habit of carrying string everywhere. 

Tiffany is a sensible girl. She carries string because it has many uses on a farm in the Chalk. She knows many such useful bits of information because she is observant and willing to re-evaluate her current knowledge and understanding. These are traits that make her a potential witch, and the Chalk needs a new witch. 

You see, the Chalk needs a witch to look after it, kind of like a flock of sheep need a shepherd, and the previous witch is several years dead. Tiffany's grandmother used to look after the Chalk, and now it's Tiffany's turn. Her first task is to stop the Queen of the Fairies from invading her world, and also rescue her little brother from the Land of the Faerie. 

And no, at no point does she meet some handsome and charming fairy boy who is supposed to be her enemy. There is no romance subplot in this story. I think Mr. Pratchett parodies this, actually. More on that later. 

On the surface, this is a pretty standard fantasy-adventure novel. Our protagonist, Tiffany Aching, is going about life in the rural farming area known as the Chalk, and then she encounters trouble. It takes the form of a supernatural creature in the local river. The trouble escalates into more numerous and more dangerous creatures, ultimately leading Tiffany to enter the creatures' own world. She consults with a mentor, acquires supernatural aid, and then overcomes many challenges. Finally, she comes face-to-face with the ruler of the monsters in an epic showdown. Her adventure complete, she returns to her mundane farm life. 

This is the surface, what you would see if you used Second Sight. It fits the general conception of a fantasy novel, and so it appears to be such.  You see something different with First Sight. 

That's one of the things I like about this story. It is a reformulation of fantasy tropes, making them both familiar and new.  Other fantasy stories would say that Second Sight is a supernatural sight, for seeing ghosts and stuff. Tiffany even mentions this. No, in this story, "Second Sight" is more like a Weirdness Censor. It is what people don't see because it doesn't fit their worldview. First Sight is when you see the world (and yourself, that's important) as it really is, unencumbered by preconceptions.  This means that if a ghost is there, you will see it, and if there isn't any ghost, then you won't see it. This is a useful ability when dealing with Fair Folk, tricky creatures who work through illusions and dreams. 

That's another subject, dreams. Following one's dreams/believing in one's dreams is another common trope in fiction for young adults, such as fantasy novels.  Early on, Tiffany's mentor says that such talk is nonsense and harmful, because it is laziness. That rubbed me the wrong way, because it sounded like cynicism for the sake of a joke. This line was couched in a scene that portrayed teachers as vagrants and chicken-thieves, which made it seem all the more so. Except, this line of thinking is developed throughout the book. 

It's not that dreams, i.e. aspirations, are bad. No, it is that one has to know what one truly wants, as well as the implications and realities of that aspiration. Then one has to take the necessary steps, in reality, to achieve that aspiration. In other words, wishing on a star gets you nowhere, but /studying/ the star can get you somewhere, if your aspiration is to be an astronomer. 

Tiffany's little brother is a glutton for sweets. All he does is demands sweets from his parents and elder sister/ babysitter. When the Fairy Queen kidnaps him, she surrounds him with delicious sweets. This makes him miserable, because it is more sweets than he can eat. He ends up not eating any of them because he can't eat all of them at once. 

The Fairy Queen's realm is stuck in perpetual winter because the queen herself is upset. She had a domestic spat with the Fairy King, leading him to leave the world entirely for a different one. Then winter set in, and instead of dealing with it, she created a dream of summer to live in. And she's still upset. 

Tiffany's dream is to become a witch. She has her own preconceptions about what it means to be a witch, all kinds of magic and flying on broomsticks. All those things really do exist and are part of being a real witch. She meets several witches who can do those things, but being a witch in reality is not like being a witch in her dream. She has to adjust her expectations. There is this marvelous scene after all the supernatural adventure stuff is over, where one normally expects falling action and the protagonist accepting their normal mundane life (a-la the Blue Bird of Happiness). That's not what happens. Instead, we get something else. 

Tiffany accepts what is basically an offer of apprenticeship from a real witch. It will begin when she is a little older, so she can leave home without spooking her family. In the meantime, she goes back to her farm life, except with the understanding that "being a farmgirl" and "being a witch", are not too terribly different. After all, Tiffany's grandmother was a witch and a shepherdess and never made a distinction between the two roles.  Nobody ever thought she was a witch, just a wise and skilled old woman who worked hard and could solve problems. That is basically what a witch is supposed to be. 

One more thing about dreams. In your dreams, have you ever encountered monsters with flaming eyes and teeth like razor blades? Did you ever wonder how they could see with eyes made of fire, or how their razor teeth didn't cut open their own mouths? Evidently, that is exactly what happens when hellhounds leave the land of dreams and enter reality. 

Now for the romance parody. That is a great part of the story. It is funny stuff. 

There is a scene where Tiffany becomes the "kelda" for the Nac Mac Feegle (the Wee Free Men from the title). A "kelda" is the word for the leader of a clan of Nac Mac Feegle, who is also the mother of the clan, and is married to one of its members. Neither Tiffany nor any of the Feegles are happy about this, but it's the rule and so they have to obey it. In another fantasy story, this could be part of a set up for a romance arc (Marriage Before Romance). Instead, we get this funny scene of both sides repulsed by the idea, and Tiffany finding a loophole to make sure the actual marriage never happens. 

Also, she happens to find a lost baron's son in the Fairy's World. Would you expect him and Tiffany to work together, bond through danger and fall in love? He turns out to be useless, unconscious for most of the time, and kind of a prat. There isn't a hint of romance here.

Trickster Eric Novels gives "The Wee Free Men" an A+

P.S. Not-as-Big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-Bigger-than-Wee-Jock Jock is a famous name among the Nac Mac Feegles, and passed down through generations. 

 Click here for my next book review: Sweetness and Lightning

Click here for my previous book review: Reborn as a Vending Machine, Now I Wander the Dungeon. Volume 1

Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

Yashahime is someone's D&D campaign (a fan's theory)

Hello Internet! Today I'm going to explain why I think the Yashahime anime is based on someone's Dungeon and Dragons campaign. 

SPOILER ALERT! This is going to involve spoilers for the first season, so beware of that. SPOILER ALERT!

I finished watching season 1 of Yashahime this past week. It was good. It wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be, but that is a different subject. It is a related subject because it is what lead me to this fan theory, but I won't go further into that. 

The first season has kind of a strange start to it. First it uses In Media Res as a frame narrative for jumping back to the original cast of Inuyasha. Then it jumps forwards to the main characters of Yashahime, but not as they are in the first scene of the show. There isn't a series goal like in the original show, not even after a couple of episodes to set things up. In fact, the three half-demon princesses of the title refuse a quest from the Tree of Ages that could become such a series goal, and then they go off to slay random demons, and they may or may not even work together doing that much. 

It is directionless, few things have narrative build-up, and the three main characters all act on their own initiative instead of collaborating towards a larger group goal. That's when it hit me, this is a Dungeons and Dragons party!

There are three player characters, and all of them choose the same class, race, background etc. None of them wanted to change for party diversity, so their party consists entirely of half-demon magic knights who fight in melee. All of them choose to be descendants of this mega important lore character (Inu-no-Tashio/ The Great Dog General), so the dungeon master decides that they are all related to each other, but only the player for Towa likes this idea. Towa's player decides that her character and Setsuna are twin sisters, but Setsuna's player isn't eager to agree, so the dungeon master splits the difference and says that Towa and Setsuna ARE sisters and also says that Setsuna doesn't remember the time they were together. This way, both players can do their own roleplay the way they want. 

The dungeon master creates this epic campaign narrative where the three half-demon princesses work together to defeat an old foe of their grandfather, Kirinmaru, and chooses the Tree of Ages to deliver this quest to them. However, the players decide they're not interested. Towa is more interested in her own character quest (recovering Setsuna's memories), and Setsuna and Moroha want to do their demon slaying / bounty hunting roleplay. 

Thus, the dungeon master, not wanting to railroad the players, decides to give them what they want. First, DM creates a new quest giver in Juybei the corpse collector, who then tells them about demons causing trouble in the area. This leads to a bunch of one-shot sessions staring random demons, which the three player characters kill quickly and easily. In D&D 5E, random encounters and non-boss encounters only last a handful of rounds, after all, and these three players started at levels higher than first level, too. That's why they have so many abilities at the start of the campaign. 

Also, the demon bounty targets tend to evaporate or turn to ash when slain, so no bounty. No treasure and no loot. This is the dungeon master being sore over not getting to play out their epic quest. 

Then the dungeon master slips plot-relevant demons into the bounty hunting, the Four Perils who serve Kirinmaru. The one-shot quests then become tied into the original epic quest that the dungeon master planned. Then there's Homura, who fills in a necessary gap in the backstory for the Towa and Setsuna PCs. At that point, the players decide to humor the dungeon master and try the epic narrative. So they go back to the Tree of Ages, the original quest giver, but the dungeon master has already changed the prepared narrative so that the Tree of Ages isn't important anymore (at least right now). 

It is at this point that the players for Setsuna and Moroha complain to the dungeon master about the favoritism shown to Towa. They're all players so why is Towa's character arc getting so much more focus than them? The dungeon master explains that Towa's player gave her character a character arc, and they did not do the same for theirs. So, they work together to create something, which is introduced to the narrative in more one-shot sessions. 

Moroha gets the history that she trained with a wolf demon, and then gets a present-day duel with her former teacher, which the dungeon master ties into the main narrative via the Four Perils. 

Setsuna gets the history of the hidden half-demon village/orphanage where she was raised. She says that she regularly patrols the surrounding area to chase away demons.  At least, she patrols when she has time for it. This is a justification for why she hasn't done any patrolling before now in the story. 

Towa's player isn't happy about being excluded from both of these sessions/episodes, so the dungeon master frames the second one as an opportunity for Towa to bond with Setsuna. That pleases her. 

Finally, we come to the season 1 finale. The Towa and Setsuna players are finally onboard with the epic quest that the dungeon master wanted to do at the start, but Moroha's player isn't, so Towa and Setsuna get her onboard by saying they will place a bounty on Zero (Kirinmaru's sister) themselves. This leads to the epic fight that the DM has been planning since the Tree of Ages offered this quest. In gratitude, DM lets the players use higher level abilities by staging the fight on a Place of Power, the ruined mansion where their grandfather died. 

Finally, we come to Setsuna's death. The player for Setsuna has bonded with Towa's player enough to feel comfortable roleplaying the long-lost-sister angle, and acknowledges this in character. Towa's player is still committed to this idea, hasn't gotten bored of it, and so the dungeon master lends them a hand. He has a lore important NPC, Sesshoumaru, offer a chance at an unorthodox resurrection technique. 

Did this really happen? Is Yashahime based on someone's D&D campaign? Probably not. But it's fun to think about. By viewing the series through this lens, I could enjoy it more. 

What do you think? Does my theory make sense? Let me know in a comment. 

Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.