Sean Gaffney

By Ken Akamatsu. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Things are beginning to pick up a bit in this third volume of Love Hina. Yes, there is still a lot of Keitaro seeing people naked and Keitaro getting hit, but it’s far less than in the first few volumes. Akamatsu is finding he can indeed do things other than ecchi comedy, and is also starting to realize something important: he has no idea where to go with this once his heroes achieve their goal.

Yes, surprise, Keitaro, Naru and Mutsumi all make it into Todai in this collection. Admittedly, it takes 2/3 of the omnibus for this to happen, including a visit to another turtle-infested South Sea island. The reason for this being that Keitaro, convinced he failed, has run away. Except… he didn’t fail. He’s in… provided he submits his paperwork on time. This is what drives most of the comedy here, a fast-paced race against time chase with increasingly ludicrous situations. Something that should be very familiar to Negima readers. Yes, Ken can still bring the ecchi comedy, but the difference between this and the start of the series is the *pacing*. The first volume is glacial, and you only realize how much after seeing these volumes.

Speaking of realization, as I noted, Akamatsu has realized he does not really want Keitaro in college stories. This is what leads to the broken leg that keeps him sidelined most of the last third of the book. And kudos to Akamatsu for lampshading this heavily, given the amount of abuse he’s taken from Naru. Everyone jokes that they had thought he was immortal. Admittedly, making him physically vulnerable does undercut the ‘comedic sociopathy doesn’t hurt’ rules of this universe… I suppose I should be lucky he didn’t get the broken leg via a Naru punch. Anyway, getting back to my point, Keitaro as a hapless college student, worrying he and Naru are growing further apart is kinda boring. But Keitaro the competent archaeologist, using his bad luck for good rather than for evil? That works. Keitaro on the island is the most likeable we’ve ever seen him. (Akamatsu will go too far with this, but we aren’t quite there yet.)

On the romance front, Keitaro has at last confessed to Naru. Who takes her own sweet time in answering him, mostly as she’s just as bad as he is in most respects. This gets contrasted with Seta and Haruka, who not only turn out to have dated when they were students, but also have many similarities to the current Keitaro and Naru. In fact, Haruka’s enraged beating of Seta after embarrassing her one too many times could easily have been a typical Keitaro/Naru farce. It’s a really sweet chapter, though, and one hopes that they can resolve things soon… especially as our heroes seem to realize the parallels with their own situation.

Motoko and Shinobu also get some short arcs towards the end. Shinobu proves to be a fairly mediocre student, and most of her story is spent trying to teach her to study properly while showing off her crush on Keitaro. (Naru doesn’t help by still being in the ‘who likes that idiot?’ phase of her life.) And Motoko’s sister, Tsuruko shows up, supposedly to test Motoko’s allegiance to her sword art, but in reality to try to make her mature more and get over some of her worst hangups. Of course, this being Love Hina, Tsuruko goes about this via some tough love. This gives us an iconic image of Motoko dressed as a maid, determined to become the perfect feminine woman since she can’t please her sister by her sword mastery. The anime would take this and run with it, I seem to recall.

So things look almost ready to wrap up here. Keitaro and Naru aren’t together, but both know their feelings for each other. And they got into Todai. Looks as if this series is ready to wrap up. Of course, it’s not. There’s 2 more omnibuses to go. Join us next time when we introduce the second most controversial character in all of Love Hina (Naru being first, of course.)

By Magica Quartet and Hanokage. Released in Japan by Houbunsha, serialized in the magazine Manga Time Kirara Forward. Released in North America by Yen Press.

This is another in a series of media tie-in manga where I have not actually seen the original medium. With Haruhi Suzumiya’s manga I can at least tell you how the manga falls down when compared to the anime and light novels. And Higurashi is the interesting case where most fans agree the manga *is* better than the anime. Madoka Magica, though, is a big phenomenon, one I know through cultural osmosis more than anything else. And while this manga adaptation was perfectly pleasant and didn’t have anything hideously wrong with it (except maybe the usual art style problems), I came away from it with the desire to see the anime and see how it improved on the story. Which, admittedly, may be the reason for many media tie-in adaptations – to get you to seek out the anime/game/novel/toy.

The manga adaptation of this series ran in a seinen magazine for young men, Manga Time Kirara Forward (one of Houbunsha’s many ‘Manga Time’ variations, though unlike most other series that run there Madoka Magica is not a 4-koma). And indeed, despite the cute magical girl plot, young men seems to very much be its target audience. Not that there’s a huge amount of fanservice or adult situations – there isn’t, really. But a lot of this reads like how a male anime fan would want magical girl shows to work. Darker, more weaponized, with a lot less shining optimism. As for me, a person who loves his shining optimism, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Forming a contract to become a magical girl is presented as something you can’t turn back from, and the cliffhanger for this volume fills you with dread rather than inspiring you.

And then there’s Kyubey. As I said, cultural osmosis has led me to know several things about this work without actually seeing it, and Number One With A Bullet was that everyone hates Kyubey. Kyubey looks cute and adorable, like many mascots in similar shows, but his lack of real expression and determination to make magical girls give the whole thing an ominous undertone. Even if I didn’t know about him, I suspect I’d find him creepy.

Our heroine is a bright and shiny optimist in the Usagi mode, and she’s contrasted here with Homura, who is cynical, grumpy, and clearly has a horrific past we don’t know about yet. There’s a yuri fandom associated with this series, and it’s no surprise that these two are a big part of it. Homura is a girl with a mission, and that mission seems to be to stop Madoka becoming a magical girl. Well, so far so good… but with her best friend giving in, I’m not sure how long that’s going to hold up. As for Mami, well, she fills her function. And she does have one of the better lines in the book when she notes that “magical girls don’t always have to be allies”. That line more than anything else shows this is not a shoujo magical girl manga.

As I said at the start, this is pretty solid for the most part. The art is a bit generic (I really couldn’t tell they were designed by Ume Aoki of Sunshine Sketch fame, which I could when I saw the odd anime screencap), but the beats all seem to be there. If you are like me, and can deal with emotional wreckage better on the printed page than on the screen, then this may be the Madoka Magica for you. Anime fans, though, I suspect won’t find much here that’s new.

By Quin Rose and Mamenosuke Fujimaru, based on the game by Quin Rose. Released in Japan as “Clover no Kuni no Alice – Bloody Twins” by Ichijinsha, serialized in the magazine Comic Zero-Sum. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

I never did finish Alice in the Country of Hearts, for obvious reasons. Hopefully that will be remedied later this month by Yen Press. That said, it sold pretty well, so I was not surprised that various spinoffs were licensed. There’s certainly twenty million or so of them coming out in Japan right now. This first volume is complete in one, and focuses on the two cute twins, Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The manga (based on the game once more) posits that Alice did not choose a boyfriend in the “Hearts” game, so instead of a love via “passion” it goes for a love via “friendship.”

Unfortunately, there are a few problems with this approach. First of all, the Dee & Dum story takes up barely half the book, so it’s padded out with a few other short stories based on ‘what if Alice chose xxxxx?’ plotlines. Some of these could be interesting (the Vivaldi plotline in particular), but they’re too short to go anywhere. And since most Western readers will have only read the manga rather than played the game, some seem completely out of left field. Gowland? Really? He was barely in the original manga! The purpose of this is straight up ‘give a nice bone to fans of the game who won’t get to see their path animated’.

As for the main plotline, I was never really a big fan of the twins to begin with, but the main reason to read Alice and enjoy it, at least for me, was that this was a twisted, disturbing variation on an otome game. The reason Alice hadn’t chosen a boyfriend is that they all seemed to be psychotic. You can tell that they’re attempting the same thing here (the twins certainly butcher a lot of people), but whether it’s the different artist or something else the fact is it all comes off as too cute and light-hearted. And Alice falters as well, as requiring her to be in love reduces her to the usual shoujo cliches “he cannot love me the way I love him”, “how can I possibly choose between them”, etc. You know it’s bad when the ancillary character bio describes Ace as ‘more unstable’ in Clover World, but he actually seems genteel by comparison.

This ran in a magazine with a slightly older demographic than the original Hearts manga, and the situations are slightly more adult in nature, though mostly in the way of implication. Throughout the Dee & Dum story, everyone is joking about Alice loving both twins being “tough on a girl’s body”, and the Blood Dupre story has similar implications. It’s not actually too bad, but worth noting given that I think the original manga when released by Tokyopop may have had a younger audience.

There are a large number of sequels/side-stories still to go, but this wasn’t exactly a great place to start. At least it’s only one volume. Hopefully better things will come with Cheshire Cat Waltz, a 3-volume sequel featuring Boris.

By Bisco Hatori. Released in Japan as “Ouran Koukou Host Club” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine LaLa. Released in North America by Viz.

At long last, one of Viz’s most beloved shoujo series is coming to an end. We’ve had all the drama, we’ve had the love confession, so all that’s left is wrapping things up. Luckily, for the most part that means a return to the comedy that was one of the main reasons that fans loved this series. From Tamaki’s over-the-top reactions, to Haruhi’s deadpan remarks, to Kyoya’s smiling nastiness, there’s something for everyone here. And it’s all topped with a layer of sweetness that will give you cavities – but in a good way.

I should probably mention right now, though, that some BL fans of the series may end up being annoyed. Ouran has a huge BL fandom, as many reverse harem series tend to, and the artist enjoyed playing up to it – though always in a silly way. However, now that it’s the end of the series, she does little panels devoted to what happens to the cast when they grow up. A note to authors of books or manga with romantic entanglements – fans HATE this. Telling folks who love to write fanfiction that all of their romantic avenues are blocked by canon just grates. So when Ouran fans started off Vol. 18 by having Hunny married off to Reiko, I suspect the reaction was less “awww, so cute!” and more “Noooooo, he’s Mori’s!”. Be prepared for this throughout the book.

As for the book itself, I had wondered what Tamaki’s reaction to Haruhi’s confession would be like. It’s pretty much exactly as I predicted – which is what makes it fun, of course. Tamaki’s tendency to overdo everything, his naivete at basic day-to-day living and yet his mastery of reading other people are all on display here, and I think after 18 volumes we no longer worry about how he’ll function as an actual responsible adult. The same goes for Haruhi – the change in her over the course of the series has been astounding, and here we see her actually being openly affectionate with Tamaki.

The series proper ends about 2/3 through the volume, so we get two ‘side stories’ taking place after the series. The second is just 6 pages of our main couple being adorable, but the first is full-length, and focuses on Kyoya and his family issues. The author notes in comments that she wanted to leave Kyoya’s story open-ended as it would be very difficult to realistically wrap it up that fast – it will take years. So instead we have Kyoya being clever, but still not quite clever enough to think ahead of his father, which is his main goal. He also clashes with a woman from another family who’s being engaged to one of his brothers. Seeing their sharp, nasty barbs towards each other – all delivered, of course, with bright and happy smiles – made me happy. And of course the rest of the Host Club is there as well, making this probably the funniest chapter of the volume.

As with all harem series that deliver an actual ending, this is going to upset a few people. But I suspect the majority will be delighted. Ouran has been an over-the-top romantic comedy which, even if it got a bit melodramatic towards the end, never stopped delivering entertainment. It’s been worth the wait to have it fully come out here. v(I do wonder if Viz will license Hatori’s new work, The Bullshit Delusional Opera, when it comes out in Japan. It may need a title change.) Congratulations to Haruhi, Tamaki and the cast!

By Hiroshi Takashige and DOUBLE-S. Released in Japan as “Shi ga Futari wo Wakatsu made” in 2 separate volumes by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press.

It feels rather refreshing, after reading this first omnibus, to know that I will not have to be thinking of ways to praise the author’s fresh, original ideas. There’s nothing like that here. Not that this is a bad manga – it’s quite good – but it is an action-packed thriller with spectacle and excitement, not a densely plotted opaque mystery. Well, unless it surprises me later. That said, as I indicated, it’s startling how well this works anyway. This manga is a compulsive page-turner, with likeable, cool characters and lots of good action scenes that are (for once) relatively easy to follow.

The premise reads like the author stared surfing TV Tropes and writing stuff down. Our hero, Mamoru, a blind swordsman who is testing new technology that lets him a) see folks as wire frame-type contours, and b) cut them with a monofilament sword, is interrupted one day by a girl, Haruka, who can predict the future under the right conditions and has a lot of bad guys hoping to catch and dissect her to figure out why. He reluctantly helps her, and along the way they meet the organization he belongs to, a special task force composed of victims of terrorism who are not getting revenge. Together they will bring down an insane global conspiracy!

Again, if I read that synopsis of fanfiction.net, I’d be moving on without a second thought. But the creators make it work, mostly by not really giving anyone time to think about anything. This is an action manga, and things rarely stop for more than 5-10 pages without another firefight or sword battle breaking out. The lead is cool, handsome, morally ambiguous, and has a tortured past – winning qualities, every one. (I am unsurprised that this manga has a large female following.) His colleague Ryotaro is refreshingly normal, aside from his amazing tech savvy, and seems to handle the dual role of Mr. Exposition and Straight Man fairly well.

As for Haruka, well, so far she is the typical waif. I have the most misgivings about her, mostly due to the way this role has been handled in the past. I hope that she gets stronger and starts taking her own initiative (although props to her for escaping and seeking out Mamoru at the start). There’s also the whole “one day I’ll marry him” thing, which gets wrapped up in the actual title of the manga. Given she seems to be about 12, let’s hope that it continues to stay hypothetical. The artist doesn’t seem to draw in a very ‘moe’ style, which is a plus. On the other hand, he avoids panty shots and then points out in the afterword how he avoided panty shots, which is a minus. Sort of a ‘Don’t show, don’t tell’.

So despite being a collection of action cliches, this is a lot of fun. There’s a fair amount of violence, as you’d expect from a manga about terrorists who fight other terrorists, but it’s not overwhelming. It also has a good head on its shoulders, and even an occasional sense of humor. I think the word I’m looking for is solid. Yen has found good, solid entertainment here. Check it out.

By Shigeru Mizuki. Released in Japan as “Nonnonba to Ore” by Chikuma Shobo. Released in North America by Drawn & Quarterly.

It feels somewhat odd that after reading Nonnonba, a semi-autobiographic epic by the creator of Gegege no Kitaro, the man who is known worldwide for his amazing yokai tales and characterizations, that I found the yokai in it the least engaging part. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there are some spectacular spooks here. My favorite was probably Azuki-Haraki, who looks as if he had been drawn by guest artist Robert Crumb. But though there are yokai and supernatural elements throughout, the reason this is such a famous title – it’s gotten many accolades ever since its first publication in 1977 – has been its human characters, in particular Shigeru himself.

There are several main plotlines that flit through Shigeru’s life as he grows older in this volume. His flighty father’s continued schemes to chase his dream – and unemployment that inevitably follows. The young child gangs that roam the streets, which seem to be undecided as to how serious they are – especially after their new leader has Shigeru ostracized. His grandmother – the titular Nonnonba – moves back in with them after the death of her husband and is very much what you’d expect, dispensing good advice, acting as a nanny/doctor, and occasionally dealing out exposition on yokai.

One of the main things I noticed, though, was the series of girls approximately Shigeru’s age who arrive, seeming to be potential love interests, and then move on. At first this is sudden – “Oh, she died of the measles a week ago”, and you accept it as part of what being a child in 1930s Japan was like. Then we meet a sickly girl who enjoys Shigeru’s drawings, and given she has ‘doomed’ written all over her (if this were a Western comic she’d be dying of consumption), one can briefly raise an eyebrow. Then, in the last third of the book, we meet Miu, a young girl who is part of a ‘family’ moving into a haunted house – and can also sense nature and the supernatural in an almost psychic way. I was fairly sure she would die as well – the color pages at the start made me think they were all going to the land of the dead – but her fate is far more realistic, fitting in with the darker tone of the 2nd half of the book.

Still, the book itself is not depressing. Life is something that has to be accepted, in all its facets. Mizuki is an expert at capturing his childhood in a way unfettered by preciousness or overanalysis. There’s also a bit of eerie prescience here – Shigeru reforming the teen gangs to ‘pacifism’ is all very well and good, but I kept being reminded that this group of kids would be going off to war in a scant few years. This is probably why Shigeru the child has an emphasis on pacifism – and why the ostracized gang eventually joins him over the dictatorial leadership of the stronger Kappa (Kappa being a nickname, he’s not a yokai).

I wasn’t as blown away by this as I thought I would be – Gegege no Kitaro remains the title I want to see here the most – but it was a nice, solid autobiography, mixing reality and fantasy in such a way that each complements the other. There’s a lot of extremely flawed human beings here, including Shigeru, but the overall mood is one of nostalgia and remembrance.

By Toru Fujisawa. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Vertical.

After an action-packed 2nd volume of GTO, it’s time to take a breather and get back to some lighter stuff before we gear up for the next broken teen who Onizuka has to save. And hey, didn’t Shiratori-san say that there was someone else who worked at the White Swan? Who was even prettier than her? Could this possibly be the overture to… some romance?

Well, no. This is Eikichi Onizuka, so whenever romance rears its ugly head, he turns into the immature idiot that he is. (Yes, he’s also a heartwarming badass, but hey, facets.) First he tries his hand at seducing Shiratori-san via some red wine, which is a little creepy but it becomes clear that he’s not really going to follow through on it unless she’s awake and willing… okay, no, it’s creepy no matter what. Then when she falls asleep, he falls back on peeping on the other caretaker in the house, who we haven’t met before… or so we think. Much to his surprise and ours, the other caretaker turns out to be his old not-girlfriend Shinomi Fujisaki, who is, as you might imagine, displeased at Onizuka ogling her nude.

It’s great seeing Shinomi back in the storyline, as she makes a good love-interest contrast to Azusa Fuyutsuki from the GTO series proper. Whereas Azusa tends to be ‘he’s sort of a weirdo, but I can see the good heart inside of him’, Shinomi is very much in the ‘I’ve always seen the good heart, but WHY IS HE SUCH A FREAK’ school of lovers. As you might expect, Onizuka walking back into her life after disappearing years ago confuses the hell out of her, and she responds via violence in the best tsundere way. (Onizuka, who is very similar to her, responds by changing the subject and being over the top goofy, which we’ve already seen tends to be his way of avoiding serious issues.) I don’t expect much to be resolved here – this takes place during GTO proper, which didn’t resolve any romances – but it’s sweet to see them reunite.

As for the rest of the manga, we’ve resolved the parental problems that Miki had, and now that we know that she was merely the easiest ‘villain’ to take down, we know it’s only going to get worse. So we get a flashback to another resident of the White Swan, Ikuko, and her abusive mother, who was so bad social services had to step in. This is probably one of the best written parts of the entire volume, as it really gets into the ambiguous feelings kids have when their loved ones abuse them – and the stoic acceptance that it’s their fault for not being “good enough”. I’m not sure we’ll see more of Ikuko’s life later on, but I do hope that she manages to come to terms with her upbringing.

Then there’s Seiya, who would appear to be the next ‘project’ for Onizuka to fix. And once again, we see how Onizuka works – forcing the kids to ‘go too far’ in order to show them that deep down they really don’t want to take the final steps towards darkness. All of these manga – GTO, Shonan Jun’ai Gumi, and this spinoff – stem from the same genre of Japanese manga, which are about teenagers and family, and how much they feel abandoned and helpless. If Onizuka can help these kids reconnect emotionally, on any level, he’s going to do it. And it would appear that the fourth volume will be another action-filled one.