Sean Gaffney

By Quin Rose and Mamenosuke Fujimaru, based on the game by Quin Rose. Released in Japan as “Clover no Kuni no Alice – Cheshire Neko to Waltz” by Ichijinsha. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

I was less than impressed with the first spinoff from the Alice books, Bloody Twins. This second one promises a much longer and more involved plotline – it’s 7+ volumes in Japan – and like the heart volumes has Alice bonding with a lot of people while clearly being romantically paired off with only one of them. Here it’s Boris, the Cheshire Cat of Alice’s dream world.

The premise, supposedly, of the ‘Clover’ world is that the player, playing Alice, did not actually pick anyone while playing the ‘Hearts’ game – which involved a love based on passion. So the world changes to the ‘Clover’ country, where Alice once again interacts with most of the cast she knows (Julius is gone, and I missed him), along with a few new characters, and tries to see if she can find a love based on ‘companionship’. The manga thus fairly unapologetically plots out one of the ‘routes’ you can take as Alice in the game.

What this means in terms of an actual manga plotline is that Alice is uprooted from her comfortable life at the amusement park (as I said, different world from the Hearts manga) and dumped into a lonely forest. Much of this first volume involves her fear and uncertainty at having her life turned upside down right after she decided to stay there and not return home to her sister. Luckily, she eventually finds Boris, and through a series of wacky situations, ends up staying at the Hatter’s place and getting a new job.

Like Bloody Twins, this manga is focused far more on the romance than the Hearts manga. Alice’s sister is mentioned once or twice, but the implication we get at the end of Hearts is never brought up. Instead, we get the Hatter, and the Twins, and above all Boris, all trying to get into Alice’s pants. I’d mentioned in Bloody Twins that there was a far more sexually suggestive air to the book, and that continues here – at one point the Hatter says ‘So maybe you’ll *stay* if I make you *come*’ and his implication is clear. Of course, this manga series – and the original games – were written for female fans, not male ones. As a result, the tendency to try to keep all the harem characters virgins so as not to offend male otaku is absent. Nothing actually happens here, but I would not be terribly surprised if Alice and Boris come together – so to speak – in the future.

This volume does tend to get a little aimless at times, and risks being as light and frothy as Bloody Twins was. The good thing, though, is that it’s not afraid to show how emotionally damaged all its cast is. Alice and Boris are both filled with doubts and unfulfilled needs, and can’t communicate well at all – part of Alice’s worries are that Boris doesn’t love her as much because he’s a cat deep down. Meanwhile, thankfully Peter White and Ace are both in this universe as well, and they’re as insane as ever – Peter is the worst stalker ever, and Ace always seems to be one step away from a mass murder spree. If the title can balance its romantic comedy elements with the discomfort at its heart, it should prove just as fun as the original.

By Aki. Released in Japan by Ichijinsha, serialized in the magazine Comic Zero-Sum. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Yen Press has occasionally taken a flyer on short series that they can release as omnibuses, things that are somewhat off the beaten path. Sometimes this works out well (Dragon Girl), sometimes not so well (Sasameke). Olympos, a josei series about a petulant god and his captive human, seems to fall somewhat between those two camps, though I am ultimately pleased to have read it.

After a very well-handled fakeout of an opening, where we get teased about who the actual protagonist is supposed to be, things settle down. Ganymede, who people may recall from mythology, has been taken from his life and brought to a beautiful yet empty ruin, where he lives in stasis and occasionally has cross words with the god who has orchestrated all this, Apollo. The rest of the omnibus features Ganymede’s interaction with these gods, and Apollo’s attempts to amuse himself, which ultimately end up telling us more about the latter than the former.

The art style used here is very pretty and shoujo-esque. Deliberately meant to evoke androgyny, I found myself throughout the series forgetting that I wasn’t dealing with two women here. Even Poseidon, who is supposed to be big, burly and the masculine ideal, has a face that is very female. Of course, gender doesn’t really matter here – there’s no actual romance, except for the false start with Heinz and his doomed love. Still, the feminine faces are another way of showing that we’re dealing mostly with gods rather than man.

Easily my favorite part of the story was one that did not involve Ganymede at all. Instead, we flashback to a time when Apollo saw a temple being built in his honor, and began to interact with the sacrifice that had been offered to him. He refused to accept her, so she essentially hung around until he did. Iris, the sacrifice, is portrayed as a bit of a bubblehead, but her sweet and earnest devotion is rather cute, and you enjoy seeing Apollo open up to her, even if this leads to an inevitable conclusion.

By contrast, the weak point in the volume is Ganymede, who at the time we meet him has mostly grown rather resigned and bitter about his fate. There’s nothing particularly wrong with his conversations with Apollo, which tend towards the philosophical in regarding the nature of man and gods, but he does not stand out the way that the other gods (and Iris) do. Ganymede may be the focus of the book, but the show is clearly Apollo’s to steal.

I always enjoy seeing Japan dealing with Western mythology, and this is pretty well done. There’s a lot to think about here, involving Apollo’s relationship with Artemis, Poseidon’s desperate attempts at social climbing, and Zeus hovering above all, as unknowable to the other gods as they are to mankind. I do wish that the author had found a better way to go about conveying these ideas besides having everyone sit around and blithely discuss it. Don’t get me wrong, the discussions can be fascinating, but the utter lack of forward movement – even in the end, the manga simply stops rather than reaching a climax – makes the whole thing rather dry and dull, a bit like a textbook of Ancient Greece.

By Hidekaz Himaruya. Released in Japan by Gentosha, originally serialized as an online webcomic. Released in North America by Tokyopop in association with Right Stuf, Inc.

For the first time in over a year, I get to review a new Tokyopop book. And naturally, it’s the third volume of Hetalia Axis Powers. It was a runaway bestseller, so it makes sense that it should come back. The translation for it had already been done, given it was scheduled to ship a mere month after TP initially went under. And, being one of the company’s few Gentosha books, I imagine the renegotiations were easier than with a company like Kadokawa or Akita, who might inquire about the 7-8 other abandoned titles that there is little interest in reviving.

The quality of the book itself is a huge improvement over the first two, at least production-wise. The paper is thicker and more durable, there are color pages, and it simply feels more ‘quality’ than the almost xeroxed feel of the first two volumes. As for Himaruya’s art, it’s always going to look a bit dashed off, as that’s just what he does, but it does look a bit clearer here than in prior books.

The series is less about World War II than ever before, but that’s absolutely fine. History buffs may like Hetalia, but in the end it’s not particularly written for them. It’s a goofy comedy starring a bunch of (mostly) guys who do dumb things around each other, and happen to be nations of the world. There’s a bit less reliance on stereotype here (though still a lot – don’t think it vanishes) as we have grown to know the characters and therefore the author can rely on simple character-based gags, such as tomboy Hungary not realizing that she’s a girl, or Japan’s crushing disappointment that Switzerland does not look like Heidi at all.

This is not to say that there aren’t plenty of historical strips, they’re just used as setup for the most part. Probably the best in the book is the analysis of the alliance between Poland and Lithuania in the 15th and 16th century, which also gives us a chance to see some actual action in the series, however brief, as the two nations battle against Prussia and Sweden (what an odd pairing. Are their fanfics? … yes, of course there are.) At times the history/gag comic balance can be upset a bit, but it’s mostly unintentional. When Prussia comes across an older Hungary lying beaten against a tree with clothes torn open, the unpleasant implication is that she was just raped by Turkey. While this is not entirely out of place given the actual history that happened between the two, it jars in a comic that mostly has a light touch with catastrophic world events.

There are a few new nations introduced here (including another rare female, Belgium), and some get a bit more development, such as the Nordics. But for the most part the main cast of 3 Axis and 5 Allies remain the focus, and they have lots of goofy times. Several of the gags fall flat, but the book reads quickly, and in the end you read it with a smile on your face more often than not. That said, this is only recommended to those very familiar with the series, and would be a wretched starting point for newbies. Let’s hope it sells well enough to get a Vol. 4… and perhaps inspire some other license rescues?

By Hajime Isayama. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

When the buzz for this series first started coming out, right about when it got the Kodansha manga award last year, I recall many people mocking Shueisha for turning it down. The author had shown the series to the editors of Weekly Shonen Jump, and was promptly told that the series was not Jump enough. So he turned around and sold it to Kodansha, and now it’s a bestseller. But they were absolutely right. This isn’t a Jump series at all. Leaving aside the basic horror of the premise, modern Jump simply isn’t this grim. Even Kodansha thought it was more suited to their monthly magazine than the flagship.

The series immediately knows that its strength are the titans themselves. They are huge, grotesque, and unknowable, even as the humans in the city desperately try to discover their weak points and flaws. Seeing likeable characters literally getting eaten by these things not only gives a feeling of desperation to the series, but helps you to side even more with our band of heroes who have vowed to destroy them – particularly the brother-sister team who keep the viewpoint.

Speaking of that, and this is a bit of a spoiler, apologies. I’m not at all sure, at the end of Vol. 1, how I feel about Eren. So-called decoy protagonists are nothing new in manga, and we’ve certainly seen folks we thought would be the hero getting mercilessly killed off right away before. But he doesn’t quite have the right *feel* of one of these, and I’m not sure the manga is ready to follow Mikasa and Armin for the rest of the series. I came out of the closing moments of the cliffhanger thinking along the lines of “…really? How are they going to walk back from that one?” Of course, if I prove to be wrong, it’s quite an impressive step to take. Especially given that the seemingly emotionless Mikasa seems more likely the sort to launch a roaring rampage of revenge after this.

If the series does have a downside, it’s the art when titans are *not* on the screen. There’s a fairly large cast filled with military types here, many of whom I presume will form our core cast. It’s a shame I had so much trouble telling them apart, then, and kept flicking to the montage introduction in the middle of the book to try to get them straight. There’s also some basic siege cliches in here – Eren’s fight with Jean is right out of the big book of war movies.

More to the point, I’d like a few more signs that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. This series is still ongoing, at 7+ volumes in Japan, and I really hope that we get a few more bright spots ahead. As if it ends up being the story of how a ragtag bunch of misfits go up against the enemy and slowly die one by one, the story will be fascinating, but far too downbeat for my taste. I hope the 2nd book can show a bit more optimism.

By Shimoku Kio. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Afternoon. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

This review is based on an advance uncorrected proof provided by the publisher, and does not reflect a review of a finished product.

It’s not all that much of a surprise that the Genshiken series has returned for more adventures of everyone’s favorite otaku club. The original series also slowly evolved over its nine volumes, seeing the club shed members and switch club presidents, even though the basic cast stayed the same. But now almost all that cast has graduated, so this sequel also has the challenge of introducing a whole bunch of new people and hoping that the reader will appreciate them in the same way they did when Ogiue joined.

Speaking of Ogiue, as the series starts she’s the new club president, not that there’s much of a club. It only has three people, partly as it seemingly duplicates other club’s interests, but mostly as it still has Kukichi. I have to say that while I appreciate his value as a comic foil, Kukichi’s utter creeptasticness still rubs me the wrong way, even in this new series. Luckily, as in the original series, he is used sparingly. This is partly because Kio-san also has another comic relief character to balance things out, Suzanna. Who is also creeptastic, particularly in her inability to speak in anything but old anime phrases, but at least doesn’t make me want to wash afterwards.

As for the new folks, there are two characters who get the bulk of the screen time, and I suspect they will start to force out Ogiue and Ohno just as those two slowly took over from Sasahara and company. Yajima is a poor artist but wants to be better at it, and seems to be filling the ‘we need at least one normal person in the club’ function that used to be Kasukabe’s, though Yajima at least is also an otaku. More interesting is Kenjiro Hata (I thought this might be a Hayate the Combat Butler joke, but it seems to be a coincidence), a character who I can’t really discuss without spoiling the first volume. It’s Hata I expect most Japanese fans will be glomming onto, though I’m not sure about Western fans.

For those wondering if this will resolve anything from the prior series, such as Madarame’s unrequited love… well, Madarame does show up throughout, despite having graduated, and he still seems to be hung up on Kasukabe. Whether that goes anywhere I suspect depends on how fast the new group of characters catches on. I am reminded of the K-On! series, which tried to have its came and eat it too by introducing some new girls for Asuka’s high school band while also following the four others to college. In the end, neither one caught on with readers. Genshiken has been doing this from the start, but we now have a bit more of a tonal shift. As the cast has gotten more and more female, the otaku obsessions have grown more and more BL. The series still runs in Afternoon, a magazine for young men, but I do suspect that the sequel over here may find a larger crossover BL-audience than the original did. (Though the original also had its female fans, of course.)

In the end, I enjoyed getting back to this series. It’s like visiting an old hangout and seeing what’s changed. Thankfully, there’s little melancholic ‘good old days’ here: things are the same as ever, just with a new cast. I look forward to seeing their awkward fits and starts of growing up. Which is, of course, the real plot of Genshiken: Awkwardness Is Magic.

By Quin Rose and Soumei Hoshino, based on the game by Quin Rose. Released in Japan as “Heart no Kuni no Alice ~Wonderful Wonder World~” by Mag Garden, serialized in the magazine Comic Blade Avarus. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I have a sad confession to make. You see… I forgot to spoil myself for the end of this manga. I know, it sounds unusual. After all, you are my faithful readers, and know me well. You know that I traditionally spoil myself rotten. And indeed, later on in this review I will be discussing ‘the big spoiler’, be warned. But when Tokyopop released Vol. 5 of this series, they hadn’t yet gone under, and there wasn’t as big a need to find out what was going on. Afterwards, well, I just forgot to. What this means, though, is that for once I came at an ending with no idea what would happen, and thus managed to be both surprised and pleased. Which is especially surprising given the ending’s hardly happy…

In a previous review of this series, I had noted that what I enjoyed most about it was that all of Alice’s choices for her ‘reverse harem’ were so broken. And even though there was a good deal of ‘and she changes them with her pure heart and friendship’ to it – this is still an adaptation of an otome game, after all – many of them stayed pleasantly psychotic and bloodthirsty anyway. Indeed, Ace was probably my favorite character, as he recognizes and is actively fighting against what Alice represents. There’s also some good backstory given throughout, especially regarding Blood Dupre, Vivaldi, and Eliot March. You get the sense that life actually happened before Alice arrived, which is hard to achieve in a setting like this.

I understand, having spoiled myself NOW, that fans of the games were a little annoyed at the opaqueness of the manga, especially towards the end. There’s apparently a whole lot left out about the nature of Peter White, etc. (Which doesn’t seem to bother me as much, mostly as I loathe Peter White. The manga apparently turned up the ‘jerk’ level on several characters, and he was the worst of them.) This is the nature of such adaptation, though, and I recall Higurashi fans being similarly annoyed with the anime. The question is whether one can get a gleaning of what actually happened from what the manga writer givens us. And I think the answer is yes, though it’s only a gleaning. (Apparently the manga writer didn’t understand the game’s ending.)

Here’s where I talk spoilers, by the way.

We’ve had Alice in Wonderland for most of the manga series, but occasionally she gets these pangs of conscience that she really should “wake up” and return to the real world, as her big sister is waiting for her. And as she interacts with the others, the vial she was given at the start fills up with liquid. When it’s full, she can return. And so she does, despite some misgivings, and others telling her not to, and those strange headaches she gets sometimes. And when she returns, she finds… well, actually, she doesn’t. Blood Dupre goes screaming off grumpily into the ‘real world’ after her and forces her to return. Having gotten approval to do this by Nightmare, who can now ‘Seal Off’ Alice’s memories again. And then we see her older sister in a coffin.

And suddenly the entire premise is thrown on its ear. Suddenly instead of ‘a teenage girl lands in a magical fantasy land where she must decide which hot guy she likes best’, it would seem that the land itself is attempting to prevent Alice from sinking into what is presumably hopeless despair in the real world, and that her sitting with her sister having tea and talking books is actually the dream. And that the vial which fills up as Alice interacts with the others is likely to be filling with ALICE’S feelings, not the guys falling for her. And we see why she gets so upset when all the others in Wonderland keep trying to murder each other (well, besides the usual reason anyone would).

So what we have here is a bunch of sociopathic clockwork people attempting to rise above their station and change themselves, even though that is completely impossible, and also help to heal the heart of a broken and damaged young woman devastated at a death in the family by sealing off her memory and keeping her in a fantasy world filled with blood and chaos. And that’s fantastic. Discomfiting, but fantastic. In short, this manga is more for Higurashi fans than for, say, Ouran fans. Highly recommended, and re-reading all 3 omnibuses in one stroke definitely helps as well.

By Ume Aoki. Released in Japan as “Hidamari Sketch” by Houbunsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Manga Time Kirara Carat. Released in North America by Yen Press.

As I have noted many times before, there are certain manga that I like *because* I can go into them and not be surprised. Most 4-koma style manga fall into that category, mostly as plot development, if any, is glacial. In the case of Ume Aoki’s Sunshine Sketch, I have a limited pallette I want to see. Will Sae and Hiro have not-quite-yuri moments? Will Miyako be extremely silly and weird? Will Yuno be adorable? And indeed I got all of these things while reading the 6th volume of this series. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that I did also get some character development, as well as a sense that Vol. 7 may be the final one (at least for our favorite third-years).

First off, it has to be said that Yoshinoya-sensei, the girls’ teacher, has never particularly been a favorite of mine. She’s there purely as comic relief, and the exhibitionist and boob jokes have always seemed vaguely out of place in a moe blob series like this. And indeed, we still get both of those here. But I was also pleased to see signs that she is a good teacher at heart, as well as a few strips showing her bonding with her own generation of friends. And her advice to Hiro at the end is spot on, seeing through all of Hiro’s stress right to what’s really going on, and soothing her while letting Hiro understand the solution has to come from her. It’s a nice thing to see.

Speaking of Hiro, I was rather surprised by the final collection of strips here, as I figured that if anyone was going to freak out about graduation and losing her best friend, it would be Sae. Hiro has always seemed to be the more mature and together one in our favorite pair. That said, the desire to have a beloved situation stay exactly the same is a well-known one. Hiro’s choice of career, as Sae notes, is an excellent one, and has been quietly signposted through the previous volumes. But most of all, there’s Sae’s reassurance that things will be OK, even if the two are separated that finally soothes Hiro and gives her resolve. They are a wonderful couple (except they aren’t a couple), and everyone around them knows it.

As for the rest, Nazuna has the cover with Yuno this time around, and I’m slowly getting used to her and Nori. She seems to be funniest when horrible things are happening to her, sad to say. As for the art style, well, it’s Volume 6. If readers disliked the art I’m sure they would have dropped it by now. I have noticed a lot less ‘squashed SD’ style in these latter panels, as the girls seem to be drawn more ‘normally’, presumably as Aoki has gained confidence in her work.

Sunshine Sketch 6 gives readers exactly what they want from this sort of series: more of what they like about it. And, as an added bonus, there’s some additional depth as well. An excellent quick read.