Mitsuki The Executioner and Her Way of Life

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I think Mitsuki alive is just a joke from talentless nana, Nakajima & Mitsuki have some secret op ability, but Nakajima survived, maybe that's why some people talk about Mitsuki alive/dead. Well don't know, didn't read the novel

If you see this, can you give me some manga recommendation? Shoujo manga, female MC and without romance

Jun 17, 2022

Marinate1016

Recommended

Every season fans complain about getting the same generic isekai tropes over and over again. We finally get a show that breaks that mold and unfortunately still went under the radar because of not having an OP self insert male character and having a yuri ship.

Shokei shoujo, is actually one of the most unique isekai we’ve seen in recent memory. No overpowered MC, no harem, none of the usual cliches that cause people to write isekai off as all the same. Instead, you get two strong, independent female protags along with a really interesting world, cool magic concepts and some legit scary bad guys. ...

I really don’t know how this would have been a negative unless you A) didn’t read the synopsis of the show going into it or B) Wanted the same generic tropes that you complain about every season.

For me, I will always prefer a female protagonist especially in fantasy stories as they tend to be better written, actually capable of holding their own on their own merits and generally apart of better stories as there’s not a reliance on fan service or high school level jokes to enhance their character.

Story wise, Shokei Shoujo is peak isekai. The whole concept of Menou having to find a way to kill Akari while clearly gradually developing feelings for her is something I haven’t seen before. The characters are all unique and bring their own personalities to enhance the story, the world is very much alive and the lore of the universe is really well written. So many directions that this story can go in and as someone who just started reading the books, I can’t wait to find out.

Pacing is solid, animation is solid, voice acting is great and I have a particular love for the colour palette as well as eyes in this series. Everything is so bright and I love that in an anime. The show also has what is without a doubt for me, the OP of the season. A really beautiful bop from Mili.

Shokei shoujo was the show I looked most forward to every week, I fell in love with these characters and this world and generally had an awesome time watching. On to the LN’s. Shokei Shoujo gets 10 out of 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jun 17, 2022

Ionliosite2

Recommended

Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road is one of the isekais that come from the new batch of isekai series of this season, however, what made Shokein Shoujo no Virgin Road stand out to me? We’ll see about it. This review has spoilers, mostly in the character section.

The story seems your run-of-the-mil isekai series showing a male that is transported to another world, finding a cute girl and having an OP power, however that quickly changes showing us who the true MC is, and that one is the girl that we saw, Menou. We follow her in her travel to kill another girl named Akari, she ... also comes from another world but her powers make her very difficult to kill forcing Menou to find a way to kill her.

The series has some pretty good world building, the world in which the series occurs gets explored in multiple ways we are told the past and how the culture got to the point it is like why they all talk in Japanese, the reasons why they treat people from other world in the way they do, explanations of the locations they are in which helps in not everything looking the same. We get more than a superficial part of the world explained and there is even more that the anime didn’t get to cover.

The animation is actually pretty good, JC Staff really put effort into this, there are multiple fight scenes which look really good, especially the ones from episode 10 and beyond. The animation and art are pretty consistent through the show, the only nitpick I could make is that in episode 8 there were some reused frames, however even there it still looked nice outside of that, and the purpose of those frames was mostly comedic so not much is lost in there.

About the adaptation, it is actually a pretty faithful adaptation which makes sense since they were adapting only 2 volumes, some minor stuff and here were omitted. The only problem with things omitted is Momo’s backstory, it made her power look like it came almost out of nowhere for not having much information on it in the anime. Despite that, there is also something I liked about the added scenes, some of them give some more character interaction, however a scene in episode 7 where Manon is with the little girl and takes her to the Iron Maiden wasn’t there originally, it was a really good idea to add that scene to make a bigger surprise in a future episode than how it was in the novels.

With the characters we have our protagonist, Menou, unlike most isekais the MC of the series is actually a girl from the world that isn’t Japan, she is pretty calm, she has a determination to kill Lost Ones after her town got destroyed and spending a lot of time her her teacher Flare, she tries her best to kill them for no one else to have to commit those actions she does, despite that she is still has a warm side to her like even after killing Mitsuki she is still buried him, and actually we get to see with Momo how she can treat other people nicely outside of her work. As she travels with Akari she gets to open herself to her and start caring for her, she protects Akari from outsiders at any cost and feels bad for having to kill her but it is still something she has to do to protect her world, it is a self-character conflict that she has that mainly drives the story. Akari is actually an interesting one, we first see her as a very happy person that is suddenly very attracted to Menou despite just meeting her, as if it was fate that connected them, she can be bothersome in some stuff since she is always excited about stuff and is always drooling over Menou, however in episode 6 everything makes sense, we get to see that the usual Akari we see is not her actual personality and that she has traveled multiple times to try to save Menou, the Akari with memories is far more collected than the normal one although still somewhat inexpert in some stuff, she comes off as much more normal than the other and it start to makes sense that the other Akari enjoys so much her time with Menou and the reason why she is so determined to get killed by her. The interactions between Menou and Akari a lot of the time come from Akari being too excited over things or wanting to jump to what Menou is doing or calling her attention, it come with some funny moments, while it also can have some serious and nice moments about them, specially at their “dates” and in episode 6, stuff like that was pretty nice to see, their relationship actually seems more like a friendship.

Momo is the one that probably come out the weakest of the characters, specially because of the omitted part of her past, the reason why she never stands anyone aside from Menou is because she is a misanthrope, her “senpai” is the most important thing in the world for her and that’s why she wants to make Akari disappear as fast as possible, she is always following Menou even if she cannot be at her side helping her to solve some of the stuff that she cannot do alone. Ashuna is an interesting kind of princess; she doesn’t behaves herself like a normal one since she is a warrior too. She has her own motives, that while we don’t see that much in the beginning we get a little grasp in her conversation with Momo in episode 5 when she talks about having a sister. The interactions between Ashuna and Momo are really fun, so the multiple times when they are together can be amusing. We get to see that Ashuna really cares about Momo even if Momo calls her names and tries to push her to the side.

The opening is song is very good, a great work from Mili, I had to listen to add multiple times a day when it came out, the lyrics really fit with the series and the video tells you a lot of stuff that you would have some hard time guessing until you get there. The ending also is good, the song is nice and after a while I really started to like it, but the most important part to me is the video, I really like the video, it is artistic in the style and it makes you follow Akari understanding her travel.

It’s actually funny how this show got under my radar until one day I found a meme about it after the first episode aired and got interested on it. So finally, Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road is a very good series with an interesting premise and it has many mysteries, that while some weren’t solved due to the anime adapting only 2 volumes it still manages to surprise and entertain. I’ll definitely be waiting for a second season of this great series.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 17, 2022

KANLen09

Recommended

Etheric Connect: Scripture, 19:6 Invoke - Pure Concept of Knowledge [SB Creative's GA Bunko Awards Grand Prix winner, a.k.a this shit is great.]

If you have ever heard of SoftBank Creative's GA Bunko light novel label before, you would have known it for the one sole source material: DanMachi, which has already spawned 3 seasons and going for a 4th in the upcoming Summer 2022 season, all which've been adapted by J.C. Staff. Novelist Fujino Oomori's DanMachi is the label's acclaimed GA Bunko Grand Prix winner, the most recent up until today since its serialization in 2013. But that comes to a stop, for novelist Mato ... Sato, together with illustrator Nilitsu, have created the next step of that evolution by creating this work that has earned its place as the proceeding GA Bunko Grand Prix winner in 2019, A FULL 6 YEARS where DanMachi has been claiming that title ever since its inception. And if you know anything about awards like these in Japan, they tend to be held in very high regard, and an anime adaptation is almost guaranteed when there's enough source material to go around. Come this season, courtesy of J.C. Staff (which doesn't miss when it comes to highly-prized works like these), Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road a.k.a The Executioner and Her Way of Life has finally bared its fangs towards the small screen, and to say that the experience was mind-blowing is just cutting it short of the overall feel of the source material.

Isekai stories are a plentiful these days, so much so that this genre has already been awashed of the creativeness of many new authors trying to directly copy-paste other works that have been well established over the years, I'd say more than a decade and a half since SAO's inception that truly gave Isekai the much maligned and cursed genre that its known today that's backed by immense, growing popularity with each passing year. But have you ever heard of an Isekai where the entire setting is basically a reverse-Isekai, plus themes and nuances added for effect? I know I have not, and Virgin Road basically opened my eyes to your stereotypical Isekai trope that's subverted in a much more deep and impactful way that's not just mere simple background glitches of illusion for shock value, and the magic itself is utilized in such a way that is a total breath of fresh air.

The unimaginable power of Pure Concepts, and Isekai otherworlders called "Lost Ones" whom came from an alternate world known as Japan. These 2 ingredients make up the core premise of Virgin Road, where these Lost Ones would get Isekai-ed and build a new advanced civilization that brought forth Japanese influences into the fantasy world that prospered greatly. However, these Pure Concepts have a negating effect: with prolonged usage, the user will lose control of his/her powers, bringing disaster and calamity to the world, and this eventually gave rise to the fantasy world's legendary disasters, dubbed the Four Major Human Errors that resulted in the effect of these calamities: the Sword of Salt, which turned the whole Western continent into salt that is gradually melting into the sea; the Pandæmonium, a fog-like dead zone in the Southern archipelago where monsters regularly emerge from; the Mechanical Society, which controls the wild frontier in the East; and the Starhusk, which carved out the centre of the Northern continent and set it afloat. To prevent the disasters from raging another situation like these again, this causal effect has become the strictly forbidden taboo that's managed by the Faust (essentially the Church of the fantasy world), spawning Executioners that wield magical powers known as Ether and setting out to assassinate any Isekai otherworlders "Lost Ones" are still being summoned to this very day for fear of their uncontrolled powers. This is essentially Virgin Road's logical extension-cum-exaggerated approach to the Isekai genre, which other than coming off as a one-off shitpost, it's worldbuilding at its best and most finest.

And the story goes of one such Executioner by the name of Menou: a young priestess who specializes in hunting down and assassinating Lost Ones before they can become liable threats, being fully aware that they are innocents who have done nothing wrong, but her Executioner training dictating that they cannot be allowed to live, as their Pure Concepts will ultimately corrupt them if they're kept alive for long periods of time. And her task has led to this otherworlder by the name of Akari Tokito: a Lost One with the Pure Concept of Time, summoned by the Grisarika Kingdom's King Grisarika of the noble class, Noblesse. Just like other people who've been summoned from Japan, Akari is dumbfounded of her newly-known power, but isn't given enough time to experiment on her power because of Executioners like Menou having been trained to kill them within the first sighting of getting to know them, then to slowly invoke the assassination with none the wiser, no words questioned. But when Akari's Pure Concept of Time essentially reverses the ability to be physically assassinated, Menou fears for the worst, and has to find another way in order to be able to kill her, which Akari gladly agreed to, and thus, the duos's journey starts leaping through places and people to find an ideal place to commit the assassination, with both parties (Menou indefinitely, Akari definitely) conceding to the act.

Viewing this entire scenario through Menou at first glance, nothing seems out of the ordinary: a knife-wielding magecraft with full mastery of her ether. That's until you get to see the nuance of how she thinks and acts through every situation: she's groomed from young to be an Executioner because of what she has faced in her past. Remember the Sword of Salt incident that arose from the Lost Ones' Pure Concept powers bellowing out of control? Menou is a survivor of the harrowing incident, which left her soul "bleached" birthed that became the trauma to form the emotionless husk of a child ridden of her family, with no dream left to live by for a suicidal life. This trauma was relieved by none other than the legendary priestess by the name of Flare, known for her incredible skill in magecraft, as well as being the well-known top Executioner responsible for the assassinations of Lost Ones. Having seen the devastation of a lone child wandering across the vast space of a situation that Menou herself could've not overcome, Flare took her in as her apprentice, and Menou even called herself as Flare's "Flarette", her successor in the current day and age where Flare is nowhere to be found. So think of Menou as like Nana Hiiragi from Talentless Nana, though pulling this gambit off is what essentially kicks off the show proper.

The other question now raises to the Yuri aspect of the show, since Mato Sato's work is basically labelled as a Yuri (a.k.a girls' love) work through and through. Raising the bar first to the Lost One Akari Tokito, it's pretty much self-explanatory of her power with the Pure Concept of Time, and if you stripping the power aspect away, Akari is initially portrayed as rather clumsy and air-headed, but also kind and trusting, that lead her to easily trust Menou upon their first meeting as she believed that their encounter was fate. In retrospect, Akari has already used her power to invoke the Regression of Time, saving Menou from countless death instances, which circumstances that their meeting in the fantasy world purely comes down to fate and not the first as we're initially led to believe on the surface level. But remember when I said that the more that the user uses his/her own Pure Concept, he/she will lose control of their powers? This is exactly what happened to Akari, and in this case, resulted in the loss of her memories every time she regresses and leaving traces of deja vu for nothing more than just a passing resemblance for mystery. But, you can't mistake that other than fate, and to even anticipate the killing moment, it may sound insane from Akari's POV, but her character shows that her love and attachment to Menou is genuine, and this may be the first time that I'm hearing this that's similar to the ever-so-popular Christian jargon of "dying to self" for others' gain.

The next literate pink-haired Nana Hiiragi feel-alike is Momo, another Executioner priestess and Menou's personal aide to assist on missions ranging from reconnaissance to providing support in battles, wielding a wire saw as her weapon. Many may question the significance of the Yuri-ness from Momo to Menou, and this is supported by the fact that both were childhood friends, and the crush that sparked out of it from the hair ribbons that Menou gave to her. Yes, it may sound insignificant that something like a hair ribbon is all it takes for a hot-bodied love affection, but to Momo, this is all that she had of her memories with Menou, and I can definitely understand that this connection creates the reassurance that Menou will always be with her, even when they're physically apart. That, with Akari's inclusion in Menou's life, Momo's jealousy reaches far beyond the levels of the earth so much so to always grumble with Menou, that the latter always appreciates her presence, knowing fully well of the awfully close attachment. But just like a well-hidden enclosure of a yandere, Momo is a force to be reckoned with if she is unleashed of her powers, that love translates to a massive power draw that's equivalent to death unhinged, and you DO NOT want to anger this well-endowed girl, but pet her like an overly attached pet to calm her tits down.

The other characters do make their appearances and create their own diversions based on their characteristics, from the likes of the Grisarika Kingdom's warrior princess Ashuna Grisarika whom disregards her position as a princess to look for worthy opponents for battle, to yet another Lost One: Manon Libelle leading a liberated social class all in the disguise that in private, she is but only one of the four main antagonists in the overall story (that's covered in the anime so far). Adding the Church aspect of the Faust and Noblesse being at loggerheads with one another, and you have character and worldbuilding that's larger than life as the series grows to expose more infodump that is cohesive and doesn't feel like it's a waste of time. It's very good and worthy of the Grand Prix position that it won by its inherent strength of making everything connected, that not one single instance is a throwaway feature just for show.

Unsurprisingly, for such a valuable work like this, I'd thought that J.C. Staff would penchant the DanMachi staff team to work on this since this unironically links to a high-quality production given its stature, but since we already know at this point that DanMachi would come back next season, an entirely new staff team must be helmed for this stop-gap show of sorts. And for the notables, bringing in Isekai Bookworm assistant director Yoshiki Kawasaki for his directorial debut, veteran series composer Shougo Yasukawa, Hataraku Saibou a.k.a Cells at Work! chief animation director and character designer Keiko Tamaki, it already sounds like there is a seasoned crew of people whom regardless if they knew the extent of the LN's status, would still produce the finest quality that matches the exuberance of the source material in its grandiose. Some nice scenes, especially the high-octane action battles that are a sight to behold, while making this a wholly J.C. Staff work that's definitely the quality that we've come to know of the studio in shows (especially DanMachi), and this doesn't feel like the cheapness of other average shows that has recently been produced to mixed fanfare.

On the musical side, Mili's "Paper Bouquet" for the OP, other than the fact that it is sung entirely in English (which you can easily find the lyrics in Spotify), it is an excellent OP that embraces its visual spectacle, but I can't help that feeling that it doesn't sound as good as say, Goblin Slayer's ridonclous gore-rape fest of an OP that I still remember to this very day. It has the Mili "Seal of Quality" that's for sure that some people can appreciate, but I just find the song to be decent at best. On the other hand, I freaking love ChouCho's songs with the rawness of her vocal range that is precedent in 2017's "Imouto sae Ireba Ii." and 2020's "Majo no Tabitabi", and of the 2 ending songs sung this season (this one and the Maou Gakuin-inspired shitfest that is Murabito A), "Touka Serenade" is the next acclimation of ChouCho's angelic voice, paired with the dignified visuals that are just shades of artistic symbolisms placed between Menou and Akari's relationship. No doubt that in my mind, this ED is low-key certainly one of the best of the season in both music and visuals combined.

We should come to a consensus: since Japan has countless manga and novel awards like the Dengeki Novel Prize and GA Bunko Grand Prix, these works MUST be adapted into anime, and we SHOULD watch more of them to know of their individual acclaims in the Land of the Rising Sun. The only problem is that people like to profit off of no-name, average people pumping out average works just for quick bucks of cash cows, and this is the rare instance of getting works that have already won prestigious awards that's so great, in the same rhetoric that anime will spike up more sales of the source material. Hopefully this proves to be so, and if there is a Season 2 of this, I will gladly watch more of Virgin Road, because this is the lost art of creative and bold storytelling that so many new wannabe authors nowadays just miss the mark, or barely hung on to tried-and-true methods to try being different, when in actuality, they're one and the same.

Watch Virgin Road, it's a show where your virginity will not be lost in this journey for a compelling experience.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Is mitsuki alive in executioner and her way of life?

Who are the main characters in The Executioner and Her Way of Life?

Is Menou in love with Akari?

Who is the protagonist in the executioner?