juliko25

I give this charming little sci-fi light novel...three medical reports out of five. (Regular rating: 73/100)

Light novels are really popular in Japan, and have been so since the early 2000s. But nowadays, other than a few exceptions, they've acquired a bit of a bad reputation for mostly being associated with poor quality series trapped in stale genres, the two most prominent being harem and, as of very recently, isekai stuff. Unless you really look hard enough, genuinely good light novels are hard to come by anymore. That said, I would never have even HEARD of Mia and the Forbidden Medicine Report if not for this review I found on Anime News Network. It didn't seem like any generic light novel focusing on a guy who either befriends a bunch of girls or goes into another world and befriends a bunch of girls. At first, I was disappointed to find that it was just an eBook, as I didn't want to buy it and then find that I didn't like it. But my curiosity got the better of me and I did buy it, deciding to take a chance on it, and I'm glad I did. But the first half of the light novel is very, VERY hard to get into if you know your anime/manga/light novel cliches by now.

In a magical land called Isea, a country girl, Mia Baumann, is on a mission. She has just been accepted into the prestigious Royal Academy, particularly in its pharmacology department, determined to study a disease called Demon Claw and create a medicine for it. Demon Claw, along with another illness called Angel Tears, has been ravaging the world for years, and no one seems to know why, despite the government's efforts to study the latter, and Demon Claw has been largely ignored. When she's told to work on a personal project throughout the course of the year, she's joined by Felix, a young nobleman, his childhood friend Mathias, a brusque mage in training, and Henrik, an aloof medical student. Together, they do all they can to study Demon Claw and its secrets despite all the opposition thrown at them from every direction.

Seriously, you guys have no idea how much I want to gush about this novel. The concept starts off cliche, but gets extremely interesting and intriguing when the second half rolls around, the two main characters are very likeable and fun to follow, and the tension is absolutely amazing. So why the low score? Unfortunately, you can blame it on the first half of the novel, which, I won't lie, starts off very, VERY cliche. Country girl goes to a school for rich people, nobody likes her at first, she befriends a bunch of pretty boys, earns the ire of the catty alpha bitch who hates her existence just because she hangs out with a boy she likes, she gets bullied by dumb kids, the main love interest's childhood friend is a stand-offish tsundere who's always putting him down, teachers are hard on Mia, she has a tragic past, so on and so forth. The story in the first half is painfully predictable, because any anime/manga/light novel fan worth their salt can spot so many of these cliches from a mile away, and it plays out similarly to many other stories that have also tackled these tropes. It'd be one thing if the novel did something with them, but in the beginning, they're played pretty straight.

Cliches can be done well, depending on the execution. Anyone can attest to that. However, the problem with this novel's take on it is the fact that it really amps up the melodrama, blowing things to proportions that are just plain ridiculous. When Mia gets to school, she reveals that she wants to do a project on Demon Claw, a disease everyone fears is fatal and contagious. When she explains her reasons to the class, everybody suddenly starts treating her like she's the next coming of Godzilla and scream and rave at her like the world is being invaded by aliens, forgoing any kind of common sense or rational thought. There is an in-story explanation for this, but their overly exaggerated reactions, along with the fact that Mia's backstory is just as tragic, with kids hating her even when she was young, compounded by the fact that this treatment continues even as the novel goes on, shows that the author is trying a little TOO hard to make the readers sympathize with Mia.

The characters wind up suffering from being written in a cliche fashion as well, and not in a good way. The only two characters who narrowly escape this, Mia and Felix, are thankfully very enjoyable characters, with their own strengths, flaws, and engaging personalities. Mia is smart, determined, and working feverishly to research a cure for her ill mother, and because of her bad experiences with people in the past, she feels like she can't trust others, but slowly she finds a group of friends who stand by her, even if they get off to a rough start. Felix, thankfully, avoids the trappings of the typical bishounen who instantly falls for Mia, and his reasons for doing so are much more poignant than most of his archetype, but I won't spoil it. He's honest, caring, and even impulsive in wanting to help Mia, and his intentions are always good, even if they annoy others around him. Unfortunately, the same praises I sing for Mia and Felix cannot be said for the other two main characters, Henrik and Mathias. Not gonna lie, I DID NOT like these two. Henrik was too cold and aloof for his own good, to the point of coming off as mean-spirited at times, and Mathias...hoo boy, I have a lot to say about him, none of it good! He's this annoying tsundere childhood friend of Felix's, but he never behaves like an actual friend to Felix. In his first scene alone, the first thing he does is complain endlessly about Felix, whining and bitching about him and calling him weak, worthless, and a burden he has to babysit. Uhhh...dude, that is NOT how you treat a person, much less someone who considers you a friend! What's worse is that he acts like this THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE BOOK! Why would Felix even want someone like him around, who constantly puts him down and shames him for being who he is, even over things that aren't his fault? If someone treated me like this, I'd give them the boot regardless of whether my parents assigned him as my bodyguard or not. Sorry, but Mathias is the big reason I can't rate this book higher. He annoys me every time he appears on the page, and Felix deserves way better than a guy like him. He's basically the guy version of an autism warrior mom who complains about how hard life is raising an autistic child, and we're supposed to like this guy? No way, no how. Also, Angelica, the girl who picks on Mia a lot, is little more than another alpha bitch character who gets no development or purpose in the story whatsoever.

The prose is fairly good, with concise descriptions that are a little beige, but still provide enough substance to make you picture the story's world in your head. That said, there were a lot of misspelled words, typos, and grammatical mistakes in the book. At one point, Angel Tears is called Demon Tears, some words are stuck together when they should be separated, and some sentences ended with question marks when they weren't needed. That's about all I can say in the actual writing department.

To my eternal relief, despite the rough start, Mia and the Forbidden Medicine Report picks up in chapters 7-8, and after that, it gets MASSIVELY good, with a genuinely awesome and amazing story revelation that blew me away. I won't spoil it for you, but the twist revealed in the story actually manages to save the book for me. The story plays out more like a science drama with an underlayer of mystery than a shoujo harem story, the 20th century steampunk setting is very intriguing, if a little underutilized, and the bits of worldbuilding we get, namely from characters explaining the history of Isea and the fact that their military prizes mages and their magic, is simply amazing. It's a shame this isn't a longer series, as a story like this with the setting that it has could really benefit from further exploration. And that's the final big flaw of this book: IT'S TOO DAMN SHORT!! I would absolutely love to read more of this and maybe learn more about Henrik, Mathias, the teachers, and other characters who appear and learn more about the world these characters live in.

The novel was first released as a digital eBook, but if you don't like digital books and want to read a physical edition, you're in luck! Cross Infinite World, the company that licensed this, just released a print edition of it, along with several other light novels, not even a few days ago, so it's ripe for buying! Authoress Fumi Yamamoto says in her afterword that she was inspired to write this novel based on current events about the lack of available drugs and treatments for people in less affluent parts of the world. She incorporates this theme into her steampunk story fluidly, raising our awareness without ever sounding preachy or too intense for the relatively light book. It's a shame this story isn't longer, because it could really benefit from a massive expansion and be a great series. But as a standalone story, this is still a very good book, even with a lot of flaws holding it back from being truly great. Check it out if you can.