belfry

Posted by Sean Gaffney

https://suitablefortreatment.mangabookshelf.com/2025/09/01/babel-the-end-of-the-journey-to-restore-language/

http://27.18352

By Kuji Furumiya and Haruyuki Morisawa. Released in Japan as “Babel III: Torikago Yori Izuru Youki” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Amelia Imogen.

The final volume of this series delves deeply into the question of what drives humanity to succeed. In the past of this world, humanity was pushed to the brink, and feared powerful witches. These days there are no more witches, and things are relatively peaceful. But will humans make the same mistakes they made before, just because they don’t remember what it’s like to life in fear and thus innovate? If you’re nodding along to this, congratulations, you agree with the villain of this book. If you’re staring and wondering what the hell this teenage history logic is, you’re a lot more like Shizuku, who has to try to deal with this while also finding a way to return home and also deal with the fact that – as we’ve occasionally noticed since the very first book when she looked at that forbidden tome – there’s something a bit off with her. Fortunately, she has Erik by her side this time, as opposed to written out by the author.

Shizuku continues to work on her language learning aids, but there’s a new problem. Some of the kids at the castle, after hanging around the older children, regain the innate language abilities. Does this mean the thesis that she and Erik have been so carefully working on is completely wrong? That said, she has other things to worry about. She’s apparently staying up for hours at night reading the blue-covered book she has, though she never remembers doing this. A neighboring country invites her there as they want that book, and are… well, not willing to kill her, but willing to hide her body if she gets killed by something else. Worst of all, a witch has appeared and recreated a very familiar witch’s tower (well, familiar if you read Unnamed Memory), and wants people to challenge it. And she’s also going around slaughtering women and stealing their souls. That’s bad.

I have to admit, I enjoyed this series more for the plot and worldbuilding than the characterization. Shizuku and Erik’s relationship can best be described as “kinda nice”. She and Ortea (and, for that matter, she and Lars) had a much more interesting back and forth. I also note that she only says “I love you” to Ortea in this book. But no, dull love prevails. Ah well. This also sort of gives away that she does not return to Japan, though if any reader is surprised by that they must not read many series like this. The best part of the book is what is actually up with Shizuku, and how they manage to use it to save the day. That said, while I would not call her behavior suicide ideation, we do get a lot of “I must sacrifice myself to save everyone” and she jumps off a very high building – again – with worse consequences this time. You can see why Lars finds her frustrating.

There’s a sequel to Unnamed Memory that is apparently also a sequel to this, but I’ve no idea if it will be licensed given the UM anime was a dud over here. Fans of the author will enjoy this.

https://suitablefortreatment.mangabookshelf.com/2025/09/01/babel-the-end-of-the-journey-to-restore-language/

http://27.18352