Tags: Action, Fantasy, Comedy, Yuri

Terakomari Lives a Shut-In’s Worst Nightmare.

Yen Press has been on a roll this month with several great new series, from Magical Revolution‘s yuri fantasy series to The Holy Grail of Eris’ splendid mystery drama. Releasing on the same date as the latter, Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess continues the company’s success with a refreshingly hilarious misunderstanding/slapstick comedy fantasy series about Terakomari, a shut-in vampire who is forced out of their comfort zone to command a group of battle-hungry vampires with more than their fair share of discipline issues.

Comedy really is this series’ strong suit. The author and the translators of the series have done a great job in keeping the comedy feeling fresh throughout the volume, which can sometimes become a problem in series where they’ve got to keep the same type of misunderstandings for long periods. I really do enjoy how they’ve managed to come up with so many different ways to keep the others close to her from finding out how weak and pathetic she truly is. This is a difficult task given just how many times the facade could have slipped, from the several duels with Yohann, trying to keep her command in order on the battlefield or ensuring her many, many adoring fans remain happy.

From the very beginning of the novel, the author’s great comedic style is evident. The first chapter’s opening scenes are a great way to tell whether this type of series and its comedy style is right for you as we’re greeted by a host of extremely quirky characters. Here, Terakomari is told that she’s been entered into the imperial army as one of the seven crimson lords at the rather forceful request of her overly loving father. This results in the hiring of a new maid Villhaze (Vill), she’s been hired specifically to help Komari and the challenges she faces as a new crimson lord. However, Vill is far from the most normal of people, she certainly has a strange sense of distance and isn’t shy in letting Komari know just how strong her feelings are for her. Komari and Vill have some of the best interactions in the volume, even when Vill is freaking Komari out with her “love,” they still make a great team and I often wonder at points whether Vill’s actions don’t in some small part act to relieve the tension for Komari and make her forget just how dangerous some the situations she finds herself in could be. Even the Empress who initiates the ceremony to become a crimson lord is not normal, doing some highly irregular acts that could definitely be considered arrestable offences. These types of interactions continue throughout the novel as the quirky cast of characters continue to grow, always putting the comedy on high and constantly keeping Komari on her toes.

Whilst comedy may be this series’ main genre, there are certainly quite a few serious moments in there too. Towards the end of the novel, the main antagonist is revealed to be Millicent Bluenight. She’s a member of the infamous terrorist group, Inverse Moon and also happens to be a familiar face to Komari as her school bully and the reason she shut herself up in her room for the past three years. This more serious aspect of the series comes with both its negatives and positives. To get the negative out of the way, this more serious tone doesn’t fit too well with the rest of the novel. Featuring a host of torture scenes and the real threat of death (considering the dark core this world is based around made it a thing of the past) feels like tonal whiplash. It certainly isn’t an egregious example of it, like some others I could mention however it still feels a little out of place.

On the positive side though, the interactions with Millicent bring answers to several important questions. They use this antagonism as a way to reveal Komari and Vill’s past together, giving a good reason as to why she’s so attached to Komari. It also gives us an answer as to why Komari can’t drink blood and why she’s so weak. As it turns out, Komari isn’t weak at all rather than the people around her have been keeping her weak and hypnotising her against blood because her power is so dangerous and utterly devastating. Komari is the holder of a core implosion ability known as Blood Curse and the best way to describe it would be if Mohg’s nihil ability and a rotten Miranda of the Blighted Bloom would be combined from Elden Ring. Unavoidable and overpowered. It’ll be interesting to see as the series develops whether Komari will ever actually be able to control this ability, although this might end one of the major comedy aspects of the series.

Finally, as I was talking about core implosions it would be remiss of me not to mention the strangely deep and thoughtful world-building the series provides. The series does well in explaining the deep history of the world and the mechanics of how it works from the methods to becoming the empress of the nation to exploring the dark core that keeps the world running and the many ways in which it could be subverted from core implosions to specialised cursed weapons that stop the dark core’s healing potential.

Overall, Vexations of a Shut-in Princess succeeds where many fail in creating a genuinely funny comedy series full of interesting, quirky characters and deep world-building. With all these great aspects going for it, it’s easy to see why this series has managed to keep going for eight volumes and I for one am looking forward to when the second one will come out in English.