The Fall 2023 Light Novel Guide

Back to the Battlefield

What's It About? 

The century-long war with demons was finally brought to a close by seven young heroes who slew the demon lord, routed the demon army, and ultimately led humanity to victory. The heroes then went their separate ways, and the land has been at peace for twenty-five long years...until now. Alan Granger, a former hero, enjoys a quiet life as a commander in the Royal Knights until the day he receives a report that shakes him to his core: the demon army has returned! He immediately knows what he must do—gather his old compatriots and face the demon army once again. But Alan and his friends are now all in their forties, while the demons are more powerful than ever. Do these veteran heroes have what it takes to leap back onto the battlefield and save the world a second time?

Back to the Battlefield: The Veteran Heroes Return to the Fray! has a story by Kiraku Kishima, with illustrations by peroshi. The English translation is by Vasileios Mousikidis, with editing by Nikita Greene. Published by J-Novel Club (September 11, 2023).

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

There is life after forty. That may seem obvious, but you'd never know it from light novels, the majority of which star kids in middle or high school, or maybe college-age protagonists. Back to the Battlefield, however, is about a group of legendary heroes who did their tour of duty twenty-five years before the start of the book and are now all in their late thirties or early forties, and that alone will be worth the price of admission for some readers. It's also a pretty good send-up of basic light novel tropes in the fantasy genre – the heroes range from the expected “Champion” and “Sage” to the kind of weird “Gadabout” to a plain old “Villager,” with a “Villainess” thrown in for good measure because you can't have too many of those. The heroes are called back up to serve once more when the demon lord they defeated has a resurrection (or something), but before they can get around to fighting him, they have to prove to the rest of the kingdom that they're still decent or better warriors.

The plot in this volume doesn't move particularly quickly. Most of the book is taken up with Alan the Champion and his companions proving to a corrupt special interest group that they're still up to the task. That alone is a decent statement on how people over twenty-five tend to be treated in Japanese pop culture (how many times have you seen someone call themselves “middle-aged” at twenty-eight or so in the manga?), but it also means that the majority of the book is just everyone strutting their stuff with very little actual battling the demon lord and his new soldiers. Some moments remind us why the heroes are still invested in the well-being of humans, one of which towards the beginning is genuinely upsetting, and a surprising-yet-eyeroll-worthy plot point at the eighty percent mark does serve a purpose but still feels lame. But this is just different enough, and the author's determination to write about older heroes makes this fun overall. If you're a long way from high school, this is worth checking out.