A boy approaches a girl sitting in the rain and offers her his umbrella. But these two aren’t quite strangers: they are next-door neighbors who attend the same high school. Mahiru, known around school as an “angel” for being practically perfect in every way, returns the favor of the umbrella by taking care of Amane… Read More First Impression: The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten
Kobayashi (girl) dragoons Endo (guy) into doing a Let’s Play of her favorite otome game for their school broadcasting club. The game has the standard setup: commoner Fiene attends the aristocratic magical academy and meets various cute guys. And then there’s Lieselotte, a rival character (“villainess”) who’s actually just a tsundere who is tragically incapable… Read More First Impression: Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte
Crafting confections from silver sugar is a sacred art first practiced by fairies but now accessible to humans too, and Anne is aiming to become a master of it, just like her late mother. As she sets out to compete for this title, jerkface village boy Jonas tries to stop her, but she brushes him… Read More First Impression: Sugar Apple Fairy Tale
In a setting inspired by early twentieth-century Europe, lies the impoverished state of North Ambria (pseudo-Russia). Some years ago, North Ambria went all Lot’s wife and people and stuff started turning to salt, greatly weakening the country and leading to revolution. Now, North Ambria’s economy is reliant on its jaegers, members of a mighty private… Read More First Impression: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel – Northern War
A family (?) of androids watches fireworks on a beach. Cut to elsewhere with the androids on beds and one making some cryptic comments about destiny and reuniting. Cut to a “commercial” segment that explains how, in the wake of global warming and a massive decrease in human population, androids are picking up the slack.… Read More First Impression: Technoroid Overmind
Welcome back to Text x Context, the new BtT feature that examines multiple light novels at the same time! Previously on Text x Context, we began a discussion of the first four volumes of the popular Haruhi Suzumiya series. We had so much to talk about with this thought-provoking story that we needed two posts… Read More The Text x Context of Haruhi Suzumiya, Part II
In something like an early modern European-ish kingdom, Elianna thinks she’s a fake fiancée, a placeholder for some future “real” one. For reasons she seriously doesn’t comprehend, the shiny Prince Christopher proposed to her several years ago, and she accepted because…it meant she could read more books. But from the outset, Elianna expected to be… Read More First Impression: Bibliophile Princess