The Spring 2023 Light Novel Guide

Hollow Regalia

What's It About? 

Four years ago, a dragon filled the sky, the nation of Japan fell, and Japanese people around the world were wiped out. Yahiro, a survivor of the tragic event, works as a salvager who obtains Japanese artwork and artifacts for foreign buyers. Not many are willing or able to brave the ruins, which are crawling with monstrous beasts called Moujuu. But Yahiro's the best man for the task. After all, thanks to his regenerative abilities, he can't really die. He's approached about a job to search for the Kushinada, which is capable of controlling the Moujuu, but it will require delving into the most dangerous parts of the city. This is the story of a dragon girl and a dragon slayer.

Hollow Regalia is written by Gakuto Mikumo and illustrated by Miyuu, with English translation by Sergio Avila. Yen Press has released its first volume both digitally and physically for US$8.99 US$15.00 respectively.

Is It Worth Reading?

Kim Morrissy

Rating:

Heads up: this novel has an unintentionally hilarious opening. A mysterious meteor (later revealed to be a dragon) falls on Tokyo, causing monsters from another world to appear. So far, this is pretty typical stuff for a light novel. But as if that isn't enough devastation for Japan to deal with, world leaders are suddenly overcome with a homicidal fixation against the Japanese people, resulting in a massacre dubbed breathlessly as...the J-nocide.

It's a plot twist that could have come straight from Code Geass. However, the fact that this is the only part of the story that feels like it has any personality whatsoever is very concerning. Each subsequent page feels like a bombardment of painfully generic anime tropes, from the protagonist's edgy backstory to his hackneyed romance with the heroine. The monsters and powers are pulled from various world mythologies without much rhyme or reason, giving the distinct impression that they exist solely as an outlet for juvenile fantasy geekery. The stakes might be apocalyptic, but the villains are utterly cartoonish, sucking out any semblance of dramatic tension.

This novel is written by the same author as Strike the Blood, a series I have not read, which also has a reputation for feeling like a throwback mid-2000s chuuni fantasy anime. Depending on how much nostalgia you have for that era, you might find this novel mildly entertaining. However, I found it mostly tedious, despite getting some giggles out of the world's most half-baked genocide plot.

Rating:

From the author who brought us Strike the Blood, Hollow Regalia is the very definition of a 3.5 rating. It's slightly better than average with its unique, targeted post-apocalyptic setting and its observations about the prevalence of myths about maidens sacrificed to dragons in world folklore. However, it isn't above average because it's still stuck in many familiar, hoary light novel tropes and has a mildly confusing mix of those myths. To put it more simply: the book feels like it's more than what it is while you're reading it, but it doesn't stand well to post-reading scrutiny.

Kudos to Gakuto Mikumo for making a real attempt at breaking the mold. The story takes place in a world largely untouched except for Japan, where almost the entire population was eradicated, first by natural(ish) disasters and later by other world nations swooping in to finish the job. Known as the “J-nocide,” everyone's perfectly fine with blaming the advent of monsters known as Moujuu as the primary factor when the reality is much less neat and clean. Seventeen-year-old Yahito is one of the few remaining Japanese people, and he's only still around because he was somehow granted immortality as Lazarus. He scrapes by salvaging cultural artifacts while searching for his sister, something that is in no way what you at first think it is.

Things begin to pick up when he's bribed by a group of foreign nationals who claim to have information about his sister. They bring up the idea of dragon lore with the Germanic legend of Siegfried and Brynhildr, later linking it to the Japanese tale of Kushinada, Orochi, and Susanoo. These references grow increasingly mixed as the volume goes on, which is something of a folkloric nightmare as they are used almost interchangeably, but it is hard to argue that it is not a neat angle. The late-volume reveals are also pretty interesting, even if, after reading, they do not quite hold up to more in-depth thinking. But that's okay. As a surface-level adventure, this is pretty fun, and if twins Giuli and Rosetta and romantic interest Iroha are all kind of annoying, at least they are the same kind of annoying we've seen in countless series before. Read it when you need to turn off the world.