Hard as I tried to remain invested, I found this light novel on the boring side and just couldn't get behind any of the characters.

Make Up Your Mind! – Mint chocolate Vol. 2 Manga

Don’t Let The Past Get To You.


Mangaka: Orikasa, Mami
Publisher: Yen Press
Genre: Romance, School, Shoujo
Published: January 2021 - Ongoing

Despite the near-kiss and sleeping-together incidents, Nanami isn’t sure of Kyouhei’s romantic feelings toward her, and it is driving her insane! However, their parents are planning to go for a holiday this weekend. So this might be a perfect chance for Nanami to determine his feelings.


--- Spoilers Ahead ---

Discussion Time

Welcome back to another review for Mint Chocolate! We hope you enjoyed the first volume. If you didn’t read that one, we recommend you check that out before reading this review.

Back to the topic. We left off from the first volume with a cliffhanger that turns out to be a false alarm. The relationship between Nanami and Kyohei gets a little awkward as the story progresses. Yes, it is complicated due to their positions, but there is a lot of character development and drama in this volume compared to the previous.
Why You Should Read Mint Chocolate

1. What Am I to You?

This is the main theme of the series, where Nanami and Kyouhei have a crush on one another. But due to their parents remarried each other, they are now step-siblings. In this volume, we get to delve into their past and understand why they hesitate to take a step into those issues.

Kyouhei’s mother left them because she has an affair with another man. That manifests a deep distrust toward women and isn’t willing to start a romantic relationship with anyone except Nanami. However, he knows where he is at and prioritizes his father’s happiness instead of his own. Sometimes there are contradictions where the way he treats Nanami is something that siblings shouldn’t be doing, which confuses her even more and difficult to pinpoint his intentions.

2. Wholesome

Other than the complicated situations because of them being step-siblings, issues are bound to happen in life, and this time, it is about Christmas. Nanami is such a carefree and rational girl who can make anyone calm down most of the time. Her excitement for Christmas is a bipolar opposite to Kyouhei. Despite the differences, Kyouhei is willing to change himself to help her whenever he can, like a brother.


3. Drama

No matter where we go in a romance manga, there will always be drama. Because of the incidents in their own house, while the parents are away, they started to avoid each other. Mostly Kyouhei’s fault, you will understand the reasons when you read it. Both of them see and express each other’s problems to their own to one and only middle man Andou.

And you love to see a best friend being sharp and intuitive when it comes to problems. Andou knows his boundaries well even though a lot of people in their school find him unattractive. Overall, he helps both of them to reach a conclusion they’re searching for.

Why You Should Skip Mint Chocolate

1. One Long Season

The timeline of the entire volume is a celebration of Christmas, so the mangaka took a slow approach to the story and character progression. This isn’t the kind of manga that suits readers who prefer get to the point kind of progression. Instead, there are many things shown in the story to build a foundation and context for the characters to reach a conclusion or situations they are in.

Final Thoughts
Mint Chocolate is manga series that shows how Nanami and Kyouhei set their boundaries between siblings and have a romantic interest. At the same time, they took the safest approach to get to know each other under the pretense of being a “sibling,” which creates many questions within themselves of a proper way to handle this situation. But the relationship they have, treating each other like brother and sister, can sometimes be wholesome. The story progression and character development are relatively slow, but that may be fine for some readers. If you have read this volume, what are your thoughts on their relationships?

By. Nobodies17

Manga just isn't my thing. I've tried and tried and have yet to find one I enjoy. I somewhat enjoyed this one because it showed the strength of one girl against an executioner, but again--the artwork, the writing style, backwards reading--I just couldn't fully commit.

This was a really good read. The magic was quite cool and the mysteries that were incorporated were really good.

This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our library collection and will recommend it to students.

True Rating 3.5 stars

Though the concept on this one is quite interesting, I find that something got lost in translation with this one. I feel like the writing is too abrupt for my personal enjoyment. If this ever came to us as a manga, I would try it again.

For more of my thoughts, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5ZcsDxr-QA

Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of The Executioner and Her Way of Life in exchange for an honest review.

It turns out Light Novels are just not my genre and this is definitely going to be my last one. The writing style is just very blunt and fast which I recognize is not a problem in the actual writing and is likely just the downside to me approaching this as a westernized reader who grew up having the whole "show don't tell" thing ingrained in on my very soul, but this one just didn't work for me.

Abstracted from Okazu: http://okazu.yuricon.com/2021/03/01/the-executioner-…of-life-volume-1/


Menou is an Executioner. Her job is to find and kill the people who come to her world from somewhere else, the Lost Ones. They have to die, not because they are bad people, but because their abilities cause untold disaster. After surviving one such disaster, without memories, her home literally erased from the world, Menou trained with a legendary Executioner. Now she is striving to become the best, to protect her world...to kill the most people. So when Menou takes on the task to kill Akari, a Lost One with the ability to manipulate time, Menou knows she'll do whatever she has to to accomplish her task.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Vol. 1: Thus She is Reborn by Mato Sato, has some very good qualities and some not-so-good qualities. But as the days pass and I found myself thinking about what to say in this review, more that comes to mind is good. That said, this book gets off to a rough start. Being a light novel, the writing often focuses on the wrong things for too long, leaving out key elements that weren't breasts or stupid clothing. Translator Jenny McKeon does decent work with writing that clearly needed an editor on the Japanese side. This novel will be available in print and digital on March 9 from Yen Press and generally speaking, I think it was more good than bad.

On the good side - and deeply unusual for a light novel - this is some of the most detailed world-building I've seen in an non-Medieval Europe-esque fantasy light novel series, which makes it much more original than most. The magic theory in this book is also really solid. I quite like the Pure Concepts and the spellcasting here. Like the magic/science of the Locked Tomb series, the magical theory bore up under scrutiny. Characters here are interesting enough, especially when their backstories are filled in and possible future plot complications are implied.

The breast fetishizing and the lack of joy, while typical for a grimdark light novel make this a book that will appeal to a subset of readers.

If you enjoyed ROLL OVER AND DIE: I Will Fight With My Love and My Cursed Sword, I definitely think you will also enjoy Executioner, at the very least. If you thought ROLL OVER AND DIE was too gross for you, and/or had not nearly enough worldbuilding, then you might want to give this series a try; it's less gross and better built.

And, for those of you already into the series, an anime is on the way. A trailer is up, which mostly features face close-ups of the novel art for Shokei Shoujo no Ikiru Michi (Virgin Road) 「処刑少女の生きる道（バージンロード）」

Many thanks to Yen for the review copy. It was an interesting read.

The concept of this is really intriguing and the artwork-more please! But the story has left me super-confused. Something has just been lost in translation. I feel like this is a book 2 and I have missed some background information or something. Will I watch the anime that has been announced? I definitely will-if anything so it will explain the story to me a bit more thoroughly.

Ok, I had absolutely no idea what was going on the entire time I was reading this. I thought the concept sounded so cool but the execution left a lot to be desired. I feel this would have worked better in a visual medium, since there wasn't a lot of useable information in the writing to help me make sense of what was happening.

This is the first time I read a Japanese light novel. Unsurprisingly it really feels like reading an anime. The plot starts smack into the middle of action, dropping you into a crazy rich fantasy world without any explanations, lots of the typical cast of characters and let you unravel the threads to make sense of things and get your mind blown by some interesting ideas. This will no doubt fill a void in the adrenalin demanding teens. I admit I would have liked it better as a video game I think, a point and click would have been nice but I would have taken an RPG too, or maybe a manga. The lack of descriptions left the world a little stark and none existent. It was strange to me to have so much details put into the clothes of the characters and none about what they are doing as they talk. It packs quite a punch and is very dense for such a slim volume.

A interesting story about a young executioner who has to exterminate “the lost ones” before they bring about chaos. Menou meets Akari, who is a lost one but for some reason shes unkillable. Things pick up and on an adventure we go. The light novel contains really gorgeous artwork in it too!

**Thanks Netgalley and Yen Press for sending me an arc in exchange for a honest review**