A refreshing, wonderful and entertaining light novel.
For all of you who are fed up of fantasy or school’s setting, give a try to this novel!

Ok, for starters. I found this light novel for pure chance almost a year ago. I was starting to read light novels, and the theme sure piqued my interest instantaneously: spy girls. Just that was enough to buy me. And, wow, I never expected it to be that good. I literally love all the things, from the characters to the prose.

So, what is Spy Room? To give you a quick summary, seven girls were reunited to form a special team of spies, and the objective of this group was to conclude an Impassable Mission, in other words, a mission with 99% chance of failure. And the interesting thing is that all of the girls were close to drop out of their institutional facilities. So how are they going to conclude this mission? And then the story goes.

Got interested? If yes, you can go immediately and read, or you can read my review, which I will just talk about things I like, WITHOUT spoilers. You can rest assured.

Why do I like this series?

First, it would be, obviously, the theme/setting. Spies. I love spies. I love 007, and Cold War. Oh man, I really loved studying Cold War, with all the spies, the devices and strategies. And so, after entering in the anime world, wondered: where are the spies animes/mangas/LNs? I just watched Princess Principal (go watch, an amazing anime). After this, I read Spy x Family, but it was just comedy; not actual espionage. And then I came across Spy Room. Summing up, it was love at first sight.

And then I read. And holy crap, the volume 1 was AWESOME. Incredibly well-written, with loveable characters and an insane storytelling, which contributed directly with the plot. Do you know, when you read something, that the author may has been diverting your attention? It is in the same level. It was deliberate, and it was incredible seeing the structure crumbling apart as you read more and more. Truly amazing! It has, probably, one of the most amazing plot twists I have ever seen!

After vol 1, vol 2 and 3 were equally amazing. And vol 4 ended the first season of Spy Room with an awesome volume.

Now, talking about things more specifically.

Continuing about the theme, it is espionage. And, for me, the best work of espionage I have ever seen on a Japanese media. I have yet to read a few more of it, but Spy Room sure is amazing.

It delves on devices and themes spies face, such as friendship or resolution with the mission. No only that, it shows us the steps of espionage, that is gathering intel, gathering information about everything, and then strike.

Not gonna lie, it has a bit of shonen present there. The girls have “powers”, which doesn’t exist in the real world. But it does not affect the plot significatively. They are not Deus Ex-Machina, so I don’t see a problem. On the contrary, it is really amazing how each one of them uses their power.

Now, since we are talking about them, let’s talk about characters.

Oh man, I love the girls from Spy Room. Each one of them. Sure, I have my preferences, but all of them are really loveable and entertaining to read.

And not only that, they are well-written. Each one of them has their own struggles and inner conflicts, and Takemachi develops them in a really good way. I was surprised to see Tia’s development, for example. I didn’t expect that!

And it goes on. All of them will get their development, in one way or another. My favourite is Tia. Oh man I so fucking love her. But I love all the others. Annette and Elna are sooooo cute.

Ok, enough of characters. Let’s talk about worldbuilding.

Honestly speaking, I found it a bit lacking. It is not bad by all means, but I think that we needed a bit more of geographic context to understand better the world and the threats. Albeit we do have a good explanation on the Empire, the rest of the world are a bit too vague in my opinion.

On the other hand, the description of the Republic of Deen is good. And when there is the comparison between it and The Federal State of Musaia, we see that it was really well-done.

Not only the descriptions were accurately and distinctive, the reaction of the characters posed a really heavy weight on it. For a quick example, they didn’t know what was a metro haha.

The last thing is the prose, storytelling and these kinds of things.

I would be lying if I said that it is not one the charms of this light novel. The prose was somewhat nice, not that great nor something to ramble a lot about it, but I will have to talk about the storytelling.

When something has a really good storytelling, you will know. It is not something that can pass unseen. And that is what happened with Spy Room.

The structure of Spy Room is amazing. I already talked about it a bit ago, but volume 1 was incredible, largely thanks to the storytelling. It dictated the pacing and understanding of the story, and when you finish, you will be “Oh, so that’s what it was about.”, and something “click” on your head. So you go check if you didn’t miss something, and you definitely missed, but is passed unnoticed. And that’s the time when you realize how good it was. Can’t talk too much because it is a huge spoiler, but go read it :)

Volume 4, too, had an insane structure. Vols 2 and 3 were not that remarkable, but they used the structure/storytelling on a different way, which is obviously a spoiler, so no comment.

Ops, sorry, forgot something. The illustrations! This is pretty important for light novels, so I will put some here, and be surprised, Tomari has a great art, that fits really well with Spy Room!

And that’s it! I think I already talked a bit too much, as always. So, final thoughts!!
If you want a refreshing and enjoyable light novel, with a light read and good content, Spy Room is perfect for you! The characters are great, the pacing is good, the plot and storytelling are amazing, and the theme is what really shines!

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With the latest James Bond movie No Time to Die finally being released, many of us are starting to think about stories featuring spies. To capitalise on this trend, Yen Press have brought the light novel series Spy Classroom to the West, but does it deliver an interesting read? Let’s find out!

The story is set in a world where a devastating military conflict between countries has left millions of innocent people dead. Eventually, a peace treaty was signed but behind the scenes a new war is brewing – one fought between spies. One such spy is Klaus who is tasked with completing an Impossible Mission. There is more than a 90% chance of failure and the world-class team he belongs to already tried and lost their lives for it (Klaus only survived due to not being with them) but the fate of the world rests on someone being able to complete it.

Before he can take on the Impossible Mission, Klaus must first recruit a new team but the members he selects are all spies with no practical experience and on the verge of dropping out of their respective spy schools! One of the spies selected is our protagonist, Lily, who’s overjoyed to be given a mission and escape the confounds of school. However, once she and the other girls whom Klaus has selected have met their new leader, they begin to fear for their lives. Klaus is supposed to be giving them training to help them survive on their mission but, perhaps because he’s a genius, Klaus is hopeless when it comes to teaching.

Klaus quickly gives up on the idea of teaching and instead instructs Lily and the others to fight him. After all, If they can defeat him in combat, then they’ll be more than ready to take on the Impossible Mission! This naturally leads to many failures for the girls, but each defeat serves as a learning experience and brings them closer together, if nothing else.

As you may suspect from my write-up so far, most of Spy Classroom Volume 1 is focused on Lily and the others trying to defeat Klaus. Through these scenes, we slowly get to understand why Klaus chose these spies for his team and it’s largely because they’re all extremely skilled in one area. Lily, for example, can send out poison from her body to immobilise enemies, while she herself is immune to poisons. Another of the team called Erna can ‘smell’ misfortune and lead her enemies straight into unfortunate accidents. With all their talents combined, they could become an even stronger team than the one Klaus used to belong to.

Although the majority of the book is spent on training the girls, this volume does also see them take on the Impossible Mission so we’re not left hanging to see how that will resolve. The volume as a whole doesn’t serve all that well as a one-shot, given its clear that future instalments will focus on some of the other girls and flesh them out, but I do find myself grateful that Takemachi got the Impossible Mission plotline over and done with, rather than stringing the readers along.

This is Takemachi’s debut work and was the winner of the 32nd Fantasia Taisho awards. Reading through it, you can certainly see how it won the judges over, given its charming cast and interesting idea. It might not be the best spy thriller out there (at least not yet), but there is a lot to be said for how interesting a story can be about a bunch of seemingly useless characters becoming some of the best in the world. I also appreciate that, despite how many girls are around Klaus, this doesn’t present itself as a harem situation and even if one or two of the cast develop feelings for him later on, I think it’ll at least feel natural.

The other thing Takemachi has in their favour is that Spy Classroom is one of the only spy-focused light novels on the market right now. Lately, we’ve seen a trend involving stories about assassins, but those usually also double as isekai stories which this refreshingly isn’t.

I think Volume 1 serves as a solid foundation on which to build on going forward. Now that Klaus has trained the girls and established the team, it means the next book should be more focused on whatever mission they embark on and I’m certainly looking forward to seeing how that unfolds. If nothing else, this series is fun and it never strays into being unbelievable within the world Takemachi has created.

As previously mentioned, Spy Classroom Volume 1 comes to the West thanks to Yen Press and has been translated by Nathaniel Thrasher. The translation reads well with no issues to note. Illustrations for the series are handled by Tomari (My Friend’s Little Sister Has It In for Me! and There’s No Way a Side Character Like Me Could Be Popular, Right?) and they’re fairly underwhelming, given the decision to focus on closeups of the girls. The colour page at the front is the most memorable since it’s a fold-out illustration showcasing all of the cast along with their codenames.

The series is ongoing in Japan with 6 volumes and there is also a manga adaptation, which Yen Press will start releasing in January. Volume 2 of the light novel series is scheduled for an English release in January as well.

Overall, Spy Classroom brings something new to the English light novel market and proves to be a delightful read. It may not be the best spy book out there nor the best light novel, but it’s a lot of fun to read and I think that’s more than enough to captivate readers for this first instalment.

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