This review will contain spoilers for the Astrea File novels, unusual 18 of Is It Faulty to Attempt to Opt Up Girls in a Dungeon?, and season 5 of the DanMachi anime.
I am now not definite that Fujino Ōmori ever intended for Lyu Leon’s background to be as significant as it is. In the early novels of the larger DanMachi sequence, the tragic tale of Astrea Familia’s fate feels treasure a stunning standard depressing backstory, an excuse for Lyu to be the unemotive elf woman in Bell’s potential harem. As the sequence has gone on and expanded, Astrea Familia has develop into integral to both the overarching station and to Lyu as a developing character. We now have considered her bear their loss in both the main sequence and in the three-volume Astrea File spinoff unusual sequence. We saw her leave Orario and return with Astrea in volume 18 of the main sequence. Nevertheless we didn’t know what happened in the interim. This book is here to change that and to personal in the gaps left by the opposite novels.
Taking place in the heart of volume 18 of Is It Faulty to Attempt to Opt Up Girls in a Dungeon? and the 2d half of the anime’s fifth season, this book follows Lyu to Zolingam, the far-away metropolis Astrea retreated to after the deaths of Alize and the others. Lyu has kind of known the place she was, or at least knew that Hermes knew, because he’s been conveying her letters to her goddess, but till Syr’s accurate identity was revealed, she wasn’t able to muster up the wherewithal to gawk her. Lyu lived as if she had been frozen in time, mild bearing the burden of her self-imposed guilt, failing to understand that that’s now not what Alize and the others wanted for her, or at least unable to pass past it regardless of knowing. Nevertheless when Freya bewitched Orario and declared a war game for love of Bell, something changed within Lyu. Omori by no means really overtly states what that is, but it absolutely appears logical that it was the dual lack of Syr and the fear of losing Bell that compelled her heart to start metaphorically beating again. The Lyu we would been seeing was one mild smarting from losing Adi seven years ago and her star sisters 5 years ago; although she started to wake up a miniature in the dungeon with Bell, here is the moment that really jolts her. Lyu is aware of what it feels treasure to lose all individuals you love. She understands to a diploma what Syr is thinking. Nevertheless she’ll also be damned if she lets Syr make the same mistake of wallowing in her pain treasure she did or if she lets Syr and Bell promenade with out a fight.
Of path, or now not it is far now not that easy. Lyu is afraid to return dwelling to her goddess for a variety of reasons, now not the least of which is that she’s apprehensive that Astrea may now not forgive her for sending her away. If we perceive at the Greek mythology associated with the goddess, that makes sense; Astrea was said to be regarded as one of, if now not the, last gods to are living in the mortal realm with humans prior to finding them too unpleasant to bear any longer. Lyu fears that her actions have performed exact that, and they put now not seem to be assuaged by discovering that Astrea has begun a unusual familia in Zolingam. If the goddess has Cecille, Iseline, Schau, and Uranda, why does she need Lyu anymore?
The greatest energy of this unusual is in seeing Lyu be vulnerable. She’s held herself so tightly for so prolonged that or now not it is a relief to gawk her let it all promenade, and here is really the primary time I’ve felt treasure Omori has successfully shown the adventurers as kids to the gods’ parent. Astrea is totally Lyu’s mother in this book, gently guiding and soothing Lyu whereas also carefully disciplining her and the opposite ladies, and that’s exactly what Lyu wanted. Astrea sees Lyu as her daughter, and she wants what’s handiest for her. In Astrea’s dwelling, Lyu is a miniature one struggling to develop up. While a lot of the main part of the book (or now not it is divided into three: “The Locus of the Stars,” “Lady in Twilight,” and “A Easy Second From 5 Years Ago”) is spent on Lyu learning to control her unusual diploma 5 and then diploma 6 body, the meat of the station is really about Astrea helping Lyu to pass forward emotionally.
Readers of unusual 18 and viewers of the anime’s fifth season will be mindful Lyu’s unusual energy, Astrea File, and the way it calls upon her fallen sisters. That’s great ample in itself, but Astrea helps Lyu to understand that her sisters have always been along with her. Lyu can access this energy once she understands that. It be now not her acceptance of their deaths, but acknowledgement of their continued presence in her heart, that creates it. Lyu wasn’t ready to inherit their justice prior to. She is now.
As you may have guessed, Familia Tale: Episode Lyu‘s 2d volume can’t be read as a standalone. While you arguably may read it with out Astrea File or the primary Episode Lyu unusual, you wish to have both read volume 18 of the main sequence or be latest on the anime. (And for the 2d story in the book, Astrea File IS required reading.) This depends heavily on understanding the tragedies in Lyu’s past, and it is genuinely moving; Omori admits to tearing up whereas writing it, and I can show, because the same thing happened to me reading it, especially “Lady in Twilight.” This volume also has my all-time favorite duvet for any Is It Faulty to Attempt to Opt Up Girls in a Dungeon? book, and nilitsu’s art is terribly stunning at some stage in.
If Lyu is your woman, you are probably already planning to read this, and it certainly solidifies her as regarded as one of many handiest characters in the franchise. Nevertheless even ought to you are now not in the sequence for her, this book adds to her character in ways that stand to enhance the story as a total, and I think or now not it is also regarded as one of Omori’s handiest-written novels to date. This does more than exact personal in a gap in the main storyline – it reveals Lyu and Astrea as we haven’t considered them prior to. That alone is value the value of admission.
