Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Sean Gaffney

Durarara!!, Vol. 9

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By Ryohgo Narita and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

I may have mentioned in previous books that I don’t like Orihara Izaya, who is as close as DRRR!! gets to a main antagonist. At this point, I should be writing “Admittedly, he’s not meant to be likeable”, but this is the 9th DRRR!! novel, the first anime had already aired, and Narita is well aware that his fanbase consists of a whooooooooole lot of Shizaya fans. As such, this book is an attempt to give Izaya the closest thing he can get to a sympathetic backstory, as well as flesh out his relationship with Shinra. It’s more successful in the second than the first, in my opinion. Izaya at one point thinks of himself as Shinra as complete opposites, and I can see why. Izaya proclaims he loves all humanity (except Shizuo), but this all-encompassing love does not extend itself to individual humans per se. As for Shinra, he only loves one non-human, and has no use for anyone else. If you like deeply broken twisted viewpoints, Narita is here for you.

The cover features a heaping help of Oriharas, as we also see Izaya’s twin sisters, who provide fanservice for the cover (well, Kururi does), and also have the largest role they’ve had in the books since their debut. We get their origin, so to speak, which (unsurprisingly) turns out to be related to Izaya making a cruel and nasty comment. That said, I was far more amused seeing the two of them flirt with Aoba. Aoba’s function in the story so far has been to sort of be an Izaya-lite, leading Mikado into a path towards darkness. But, as he finds, he’s rather crap at being Izaya (who he dislikes anyway), and Mikado is able to walk the dark path without any help from him. As such, it’s much more fun seeing him as an average high school freshman dealing with two girls coming on far too strong for him. He’s living every teenage boy’s dream, but somehow is more unnerved than anything else.

Mikado is actually absent from this book for the most part, though the ending suggests that this will change for Book 10. The main plot is Izaya supposedly getting kidnapped and worked over by an underground gambling ring led by a sadistic woman named Earthworm. If you read that sentence and thought “yeah right, like Izaya would be kidnapped and worked over”, you’re wrong and yet correct, in that he proves to be in total control the entire time. His hot pot partygoers have also turned into his own personal goon squad, either beating people with martial arts, breaking their digits with hammers, or just using Saika to take possession of them – no, not Anri, but another Saika user we’ve seen before. Add in a group fronting illegal drugs, and you’ve got the usual recipe for DRRR!! chaos.

That said, for all that Izaya fans will love this, this volume felt like one of those that is marking time. This is not at all uncommon with DRRR!!, and frustrated anime fans as well, as it can sometimes take a while for all the plot hammers to fire. Still, I’m sure we’re introduced to some nice payoffs down the road here. As for me? It was a good book, but needed less Izaya being Izaya.

Manga the Week of 4/4/18

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SEAN: April showers bring manga. Lots and lots of manga.

But first, some light novels, as J-Novel Club has four new titles out next week. We see the 8th Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, the 11th Invaders of the Rokujouma!?, and a 5th If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord.

And if that last title wasn’t long enough for you, we see the debut of Me, a Genius? I Was Reborn into Another World and I Think They’ve Got the Wrong Idea!. As you might guess, we’re dealing with someone reincarnated with his old memories. That said, for once this isn’t a fantasy RPG world.

Kodansha has a lot of stuff. Digitally we see new Ace of the Diamond (10), Chihayafuru (10), Pumpkin Scissors (20), and Yozakura Quartet (21). Those last two have finally caught up with Japan, so I will remove them from the “Del Rey rescue” category and make them full-fledged.

MICHELLE: Predictably, I am happy about those first two!

ANNA: Maybe I’ll start getting caught up on Chihayafuru over the weekend!

SEAN: In print, we see a 13th Attack on Titan: Before the Fall (man, the Fall sure does take forever, doesn’t it?), the 3rd Battle Angel Alita: Deluxe Edition, a 9th Fire Force, and an 8th Princess Jellyfish omnibus.

ASH: I only recently started reading the original Battle Angel Alita series (previously, I’d only read some of Last Order) and I finally understand what the big deal is. Also, hooray Princess Jellyfish!

MICHELLE: It’s hard to believe Princess Jellyfish will be wrapping up soon.

ANNA: Also need to get caught up on this, still delighted it is coming out.

SEAN: Seven Seas has a number of their ongoing titles out next week. A Centaur’s Life 14 will continue to be about politics, racism, and the nature of warfare when it’s not about monster girl toddlers getting into trouble. There’s also Absolute Duo 3, Dreamin’ Sun 6, Not Lives 8, and The Testament of Sister New Devil STORM! 3.

For yuri fans, you may recall when Seven Seas, in the pre-light novel boom, put out the Strawberry Panic novels, which promptly sank like a stone. Fortunately, we now get the chance to read them digitally, and the first is out next week. Check them out, they’re hilarious… I mean, totally serious about their yuri.

ASH: I rather enjoyed the Strawberry Panic light novels! They’re utterly ridiculous and marvelously melodramatic, but highly entertaining.

SEAN: Vertical debuts another title from the creator of Yuri on Ice. Moteki is a seinen series about a man who had no luck with romance, but then all of a sudden he has girls coming out of the woodwork. I actually have copies of this in Japanese, as it intrigued me when it came out back in 2008. It ran in Kodansha’s Evening magazine, is going to be in two large omnibuses, and is better than it sounds.

ASH: I’ll definitely be picking this one up.

MICHELLE: Woot!

ANNA: Me too!

SEAN: So much Viz. SO MUCH VIZ. Including the final volume of Assassination Classroom, the 21st. Remember when this series was never, ever going to be licensed over here due to the concept? I’m so happy it was.

Also in Shonen titles, we see 7th Garden 8, Food Wars! 23, Haikyu!! 22, Kuroko’s Basketball 2-in-1 11, My Hero Academia 12, Naruto’s 22nd 3-in-1, Platinum End 5, The Promised Neverland 3, a 6th Rurouni Kenshin 3-in-1, and Seraph of the End 14. That’s a lot of really good shonen titles.

ASH: It’s true!

MICHELLE: It very much is! I have been working on getting caught up on My Hero Academia, too, and now totally see what the fuss was all about.

MJ: I’m really behind on Platinum End and need to catch up to see if I still like it. Signed, nervous Obata fan.

SEAN: But we’re not forgetting shoujo. The debut is Kenka Bancho Otome: Love’s Battle Royale, a Hana to Yume series based on an idea, oddly enough, by the creator of Dangan Ronpa. Given its source magazine, I’m expecting a lot less killing. Also, I’m a sucker for anything with Bancho in the title.

ASH: I do love a good series about delinquents and girl gang leaders.

MICHELLE: This looks pretty fun!

ANNA: Yes!

MJ: I could get into this.

SEAN: Also in shoujo we get the 2nd Takane & Hana, a 5th Water Dragon’s Bride, and the 11th Yona of the Dawn. Any one of those could be a pick of the week.

ASH: This is also true!

MICHELLE: Verily! This is a seriously good week!

ANNA: So amazing!

SEAN: So what are you picking?

Perfect World, Vol. 1

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By Rie Aruga. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Kiss. Released in North America digitally by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Rachel Murakawa.

We’ve been getting a giant pile of digital-only titles for the last several months, and it can be very difficult to keep up. But the benefit is that we’re getting titles that would not normally get the time of day over here. A good example is this manga which runs in Kodansha’s josei magazine Kiss, involving a young woman who runs into her old high school crush, who’s now in a wheelchair after an accident. Five years ago this is probably the sort of title that I would be tweeting about and saying “see, this sort of thing is what they should be putting out!”. And now they are. And for the most part it’s a good decision, as this is an excellent, thoughtful and romantic manga. The female lead is perhaps a bit too idealized, but when you’re writing a josei romance for young woman about the same age as the heroine, you’re going to accept that.

Kawana is an aspiring interior decorator. One day at a business lunch she runs into Ayukawa, who is an architect from the firm they’re doing business with. He was her old high school crush, and a fantastic basketball player. Much to her surprise, he’s now in a wheelchair. As they begin to work together on projects and reconnect, she starts to realize the problems that need to be overcome for Ayukawa in day-to-day life, as well as the casual denial of ease of access that a lot of other folks who use wheelchairs have. The other problem is that she’s falling for him all over again, and while he’s nice and pleasant enough he’s putting up quite a wall preventing things from going any further, telling her one or two things about his life now (such as incontinence) that might make her pull back. I’m not even sure he does this consciously. But, of course, she is made of sterner stuff.

As I noted above, Kawana is a sweet and likeable heroine, but I sometimes found her going a bit above and beyond – after seeing Ayukawa and his ex-girlfriend have a bittersweet discussion about her upcoming wedding to someone else, she immediately whisks him off to the wedding anyway, because he needs closure. I don’t doubt he does, but this felt a bit rude. For the most part, though, the manga does an excellent job of balancing out the cute romance between the two leads and showing the daily life of a paraplegic, with all the difficulty that this entails, including a higher risk of kidney issues, and bedsores that you don’t notice until they get infected. We also see them interacting with a teenager, who was also a basketball player who now has to be in a wheelchair (and who also has a nice, patient girlfriend) so that Ayukawa can show off a wheelchair basketball league and tell the teen (and the reader) that there is still fun to be had.

The book had a larger number of endnotes to it, with more explanation of things that “manga fans” would already know. I suspect Kodansha knows this might sell well to an outside audience who doesn’t normally read manga. I agree. It’s not perfect, but I am absolutely ready to read more about this world.

I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse, Vol. 7

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By Namekojirushi and Nao Watanuki. Released in Japan as “Ore ga Heroine o Tasukesugite Sekai ga Little Mokushiroku!?” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Adam Lensenmayer.

I was somewhat taken by surprise by the ending to this volume, as I kept reading and thinking “shouldn’t things be wrapping up soon?” It wasn’t until I got right near the end that I realized this would be Little Apocalypse’s first two-parter, something that should have been mnre obvious given this book features four heroines but only two of them are on the cover. It might be frustrating to wait till the 8th book too, as this volume actually ended up being one of the strongest in the series to date. The author has realized there’s only so far he can go with parody, and has moved on to deconstruction, which is a far richer vein. He’s also gotten better at juggling the heroines – sure, some are still missing or deliberately left out, but the balance we get here shows he’s thinking “who needs more attention?”, so Harissa gets a larger role here, as does Tsumiki. The series is beginning to mature… as much as a series like this can.

As I said, we stack up four different heroines in this book, and they are of a wide variety: an idol singer who’s getting tired of the grind; a psychic (which is a much broader term in Japan than it is here) on the run from a yakuza-like psychic gang; a (seeming) former hero sealed in the depths of an alien dungeon; and a sylpheed (wind fairy) dealing with a zombie infestation. It’s a tall order even for someone like Rekka. Fortunately, his current harem is not at war with each other (that’s supposedly in the future), and he is thus able to use them as sort of a mobile army. Thus, he and a team of girls go off to try to solve one issue, and Hibiki and another group try to work on the psychic problem. I really liked this, and enjoy that (for the most part) there’s not really much rivalry between the girls when serious events are happening. We also get lampshaded how weird everyone is when Rekka explains who he is to the idol and is surprised she DOESN’T know about magic.

The other highlight of the book is a bit of a spoiler, but I want to discuss it anyway: what happens when Rekka fails? And how do we define failure? The sylpheed rejects Rekka because her sister (who we saw in the prologue) is already dead – she died before Rekka even arrived in her world. As R points out, that doesn’t mean that the story is over, and Rekka is working on another aspect of it by trying to fix the zombie thing. But Rekka fixing the stories usually ends with everyone happy (and happily in love with Rekka), and that doesn’t seem like it’s going to work out this time around. Now yes, I am very familiar with the genre, and would not be too surprised if a magical sister-saving solution popped up in Book 8. But it’s still a good question to ask: what if Rekka fails? Can he deal with the aftermath of NOT saving someone’s story?

The book ends with everyone in trouble, and we’ve got to wait a bit till the next one. But Little Apocalypse in general has been qa quick, light, fluffy read. It’s nice to see it gain a bit of added depth.

New Game!, Vol. 1

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By Shotaro Tokuno. Released in Japan by Houbunsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Manga Time Kirara Carat. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jenny McKeon. Adapted by Jamal Joseph, Jr.

I have joked before about the tendency of trends in the Japanese manga and light novel industry, and over here in North America as well. The piles of vampire manga, the buttloads of zombie manga, the oddly weird Alice in Wonderland deconstruction mangas, etc. But one that has been around forever, and likely will be long into the future, is “a group of cute girls do cute and funny stuff in a 4-koma”, aka the Azumanga Daioh clone. The series are of various types – mostly in school, but some (like this one) in a workplace, and sometimes there may be a token man. But for the most part, that describes an endless number of series that have essentially the same premise and audience, and generally also succeed about the same way – “that was cute”. They also sometimes have yuri subtext, though that isn’t a requirement. It even has its own magazine devoted to the genre, Manga Time Kirara Carat. And now we have New Game!.

New Game! stars Chiyo-chan… sorry, Aoba, who looks like she’s a 7th grader but has actually graduated high school and headed into the workforce – in this case, a game company, where she’s starting off designing characters. The rest of the team consists of Kou, the “ladette” sort of woman who’s the main character designer; Rin, the art director and team mom who seems to have an unrequited crush on Kou; Hifumi (character design), who is painfully shy but also rather cute (and apparently a heavy drinker); Yun (also character design), who I didn’t get much of an impression of except she has a heavy accent; and Hajime (motion), who seems overearnest and a bit hyperactive. The bulk of the first volume shows us Aoba fitting into the team, learning how they do things, and designing background NPCs for the fantasy RPG they’re working on.

New Game! is cute. I enjoyed it as I read it. That said, a lot of the actual humor has difficulty sticking in your head after you move on. The one joke I recall is also, oddly, the most out of character, when Kou amuses herself by having Aoba finish the design of a character that’s clearly based on herself (which Aoba doesn’t realize), who is an NPC who’s there to start the plot and then get killed, much to Aoba’s horror. Apart from that, there’s a few workplace gags that touch on the insane hours these jobs entail, and some character development showing Aoba settling in but still being somewhat hapless. As I noted above, Rin seems to have a crush on Kou, and this occasionally comes up, mostly when she’s frustrated that Kou isn’t picking up on it. It’s all standard stuff, but I did find it quite enjoyable. I will note that, once again, the decision to translate a heavy Kansai (I’m assuming) accent as something out of the ordinary doesn’t always work well. Yun saying “Wot’s all this, then?” and calling someone a “tosser” took me right out of the manga and made me notice the effort, which it shouldn’t.

Despite having forgotten much of the manga a few minutes after reading it, I was pleasantly amused enough that I’ll get the next book. If you enjoy cute girls doing cute things with no plot to speak of, New Game! is an easy buy.

Pick of the Week: Manga a Go Go!

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SEAN: I’m torn this week between Seven Seas’ release of Cutey Honey a Go Go!, an updated manga featuring the classic leads as adults instead of schoolgirls, and Vertical’s release of CITY, the new comedy manga from the creator of Nichijou. If pressed, I will pick Cutey Honey, but I’m going to be getting both.

MICHELLE: I’m not super excited about anything, but I do enjoy Waiting for Spring, so I’ll go with that.

KATE: If you drew a Venn diagram of my taste in manga and Sean’s, the overlapping region would include both of his picks for March 27th. The end is nigh?

ASH: Hahaha! It’s not nearly as uncommon for Sean and I to be interested in the same manga, so it’s perhaps not too surprising that Cutey Honey a Go Go! is the release that’s caught most of my attention this week.

ANNA: There aren’t many series coming out this week that really appeal to me, but I have to say I am most intrigued by Cutey Honey a Go Go!, so that’s my pick.

Bookshelf Briefs 3/26/18

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Blue Morning, Vol. 7 | By Shoko Hidaka | SuBLime – Encouraged by Akihito to pursue his own individual ambitions for once, Katsuragi becomes determined to save the workers at the spinning mill he briefly had charge of, and most of this volume depicts his plans to wrest control of the mill from a powerful ally without jeoparding said ally’s support of Akihito. It’s interesting, but of course the most important thing is Katsuragi finding something he really wants to do that does not involve serving the Kuze family. After a volume that’s 95% chaste, he finally travels to the remote villa where Akihito is recuperating and, okay, yes, they totally get it on. It’s not just smut, though; there is so much love between these men. Mutual respect, the sincere wish for other to find happiness and fulfillment… Blue Morning continues to be something special. – Michelle Smith

DNA Doesn’t Tell Us, Vol. 1 | By Mintarou | Seven Seas – Now that Monster Girls have become the new trend, it’s perhaps inevitable that we’ll get Animal Girls along with it. And so we get this series, which has animals spontaneously turning into human girls for no real reason. (Yes, always girls.) They’re still basically animals, though, so they go to a school to learn how to be human. This first volume follows the “tame” animals through the eyes of Youko, a Bighorn Sheep who is a bit more together and sensible than the rest of her goofy classmates. This edges towards the ‘fanservicey’ edge of the spectrum, but is essentially harmless, and didn’t really bother me too much. That said, I’d only recommend it to fans of animal girls—there’s nothing beyond that. – Sean Gaffney

Dragon Half, Vol. 1 | By Ryusuke Mita | Seven Seas – Before reading the first Dragon Half omnibus, I only knew the series by name, mostly due to the fans of the anime adaptation from the early 1990s. The manga itself was originally serialized between 1988 and 1994. Dragon Half is a ridiculous, absurd, and incredibly silly blast from the past. As a gag manga heavily inspired by fantasy and role-playing games, the series has its fair share of powerful, scantily clad women, including the titular half-dragon Mink. The daughter of a red dragon and a famous swordsman, Mink is on a quest to become human so that she can win the love of the dragonslayer (and teen idol), Dick Saucer. While I was amused from the very beginning, it wasn’t until about halfway through the omnibus that Mita’s sense of humor really started to click with me. The comedy can be a little hit-or-miss, but at it’s best, Dragon Half is hilarious. – Ash Brown

The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún, Vol. 4 | By Nagabe | Seven Seas – There are many scenes in this volume of The Girl from the Other Side that elicit a pang of empathy. There’s Shiva, feeling so bad for lying to Auntie about having been touched by an Outsider. There’s Auntie, gradually losing her memory of her humanity and revealing to Teacher that the worst part about the curse is that after it fully takes hold the afflicted can’t die, putting a new spin on humans killing those who are only suspected of having been exposed. And there’s Teacher, watching Shiva and Auntie together and concluding that the girl no longer needs him, that it’d make no difference if he was around or not, and that perhaps he’s harming her by trying to keep her close. At least Shiva has other ideas about that, but it’s hard to see how a happy ending is going to be possible for this story. – Michelle Smith

Horimiya, Vol. 10 | By Hero and Daisuke Hagiwara | Yen Press – We don’t seem any closer to wrapping up, but there is a bit more forward progress here, though anyone expecting a straightforward answer to last volume’s proposal may be disappointed. Instead, the reader can enjoy seeing the over-serious Sengoku dealing with the pangs of love, and his conversation with Remi is also something of a proposal in a way, spoken through the plots of books. I enjoyed it. There’s also a nice helping of humor here, as we see Sengoku’s dad was friends with the Horis—and is not fond of that fact. We also see Hori’s dad with his hair up, and I straight up did not recognize him at first. We seem to be back on an upswing, and I’m looking forward to more. – Sean Gaffney

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Four-Panel Comic: Days of Goddess | By Masaya Takamura and Fujino Omori | Yen Press – These sorts of spinoffs are all over the place in Japan, but we rarely see them over here. It’s exactly what you’d expect—the DanMachi story told as 4-koma gags with the cast in superdeformed mode. Since it’s “Days of Goddess,” we follow Hestia more than Bell, as she struggles to get by despite only having one follower. It’s sort of nostalgic given how far the series has come since then. The other early cast members appear as well, though given Ais’ running gag of always eating, you’ll wonder if the author confused her with Saber. There’s another volume in the fall—twice a year seems about right for this cute and funny spinoff. – Sean Gaffney

Kemono Friends: Welcome to Japari Park!| By Fly and Kemono Friends Project | Yen Press – Sadly, this is one of those series where the real-life travails of the franchise prove to be far more interesting than the manga that came out of it. Based on an unsuccessful mobile game that got an anime that was VERY successful… until it blew up… the manga concerns a young woman named Nene, who is hired to essentially be a zookeeper for various young animal girls who are able to talk to humans and are basically eccentric young women with animal characteristics. Cute ensues. This volume contains both volumes of the original series, and as such wears out its welcome quite fast—series this fluffy should not be omnibuses. If you really like Kemono Friends, get this. – Sean Gaffney

Land of the Lustrous, Vol. 5 | By Haruko Ichikawa | Kodansha Comics – Although the narrative as a whole remains somewhat ambiguous, Land of the Lustrous continues to be one of the most visually striking series currently being released in English. With world-building and character introductions happening in fits and starts, the manga tends to favor mood and style over an obvious, logical narrative, but the melancholic atmosphere that Ichikawa has created with the manga is a compelling one. There is an intensity of emotion that makes it feel as though the gems’ psyches are as precariously close to shattering as their physical manifestations. Phos, the manga’s lead, has suffered immense trauma over the course of the series and has transformed dramatically as a result. However, as more is revealed about the characters and world, it becomes clear that Phos isn’t the only one hiding both secrets and pain. I’m still incredibly intrigued by Land of the Lustrous. – Ash Brown

Nameless Asterism, Vol. 1 | By Kina Kobayashi | Seven Seas – The premise of this sweet but deliberately frustrating series is that all of the main cast are in unrequited love with someone else in the main cast, and none of it ever goes anywhere. As such, it can be a bit teeth-grinding to see everyone confess over and over in their head but not do anything. A lot of the unrequited relationships are between girls, which explains some of the angst—indeed, one of the girls who goes on about all the boys she dates and talks about how that’s “normal, right” is possibly in the most transparent closet I’ve ever seen in any media. It’s decently written, and the kids are all likeable, but I have to admit that the volume did not really do anything for me. Still, if you like frustrating yuri. – Sean Gaffney

The Young Master’s Revenge, Vol. 1 | By Meca Tanaka| Viz Media – An unfortunate trend of most Meca Tanaka series that I read is that I enjoy them while also having very little to say about them, and that’s the case here. The premise is also remarkably similar to Masamune-kun’s Revenge, another series licensed over here, but fortunately the core audience are almost total opposites. Our hero was traumatized by an unthinking childhood friend when he was a kid. He returns, as a gorgeous rich teen, to make her fall for him and then dump her, as a somewhat petty revenge. Sadly, she’s no longer rich. Also sadly, she’s cute, plucky and adorable, and he rapidly finds himself falling for her for real. This fits the Shojo Beat line admirably, though I wasn’t wowed. – Sean Gaffney

Obsessions of an Otome Gamer: Elementary School Years

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By Natsu and Shoyu. Released in Japan as “Ongaku de Otome wa Sukuenai” by the author on the Syosetu website. Released in North America digitally by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Charis Messier.

I’d never really read a Cross Infinite World novel before now. They specialize in both novels geared towards young women and also going directly through the author, i.e. most of the books published were published on the Syosetsu original fiction website, or various equivalents, rather than going through a publisher. (That said, the author has had published work as well.) But nothing had really caught my attention until the announcement of this series. I love visual novel-style storytelling, and I love classical music, so I was delighted to see the two combined. As I started to read the book, I was expecting things to be very light and fluffy, with the occasional warped sense of humor. I was surprised at several plot and character choices the book made, though. I was even more surprised by a plot twist that I will do my best not to spoil (yes, really) about one-third in. And I was not surprised but a bit taken aback by the length. This book is HUGE.

One thing that surprised me was the decision to have the entire book take place when our reincarnated heroine, Mashiro, is between the ages of seven and twelve, something that I blame on the light and hard to read font on the front cover, which meant I missed the subtitle. She’s the reincarnation of Rika, a young woman who was obsessed with an insanely difficult otome game called Hear My Heart, where you not only had to make the right romantic choices with regards to the two guys (one outgoing and arrogant, one sullen and introverted), but you also had to compose music – and if the music wasn’t good enough, you failed. That’s a high bar to clear. She then sees a poster advertising a remake of the game… and falls into an open manhole and dies. (This would be the warped sense of humor I mentioned above.) As Mashiro, she recalls her previous life when she’s seven years old and just your average elementary school girl who folds origami of Angkor Wat in her spare time. Now she’s in the game world, and has met Kou and Sou, the two heroes, as young boys. But is the game world what she really wants from life?

While Mashiro is eighteen years old in her head (at times – it’s lampshaded that this isn’t consistent, and is actually an important plot point), she and the two boys are young kids, and despite the occasional schoolkid flirtation, the book maintains those boundaries. Of course, this doesn’t mean we don’t get a heartfelt confession or two, but you may relax and not have to worry about kiddie makeouts. There’s also a heavy emphasis on classical music and piano, as Mashiro burns with a sudden desire to learn the piano, at first because she wants to meet the guy she liked from the game, but her love rapidly becomes genuine and all-consuming. The book helpfully tells us the names of the pieces she’s working on, and you could make an excellent Spotify playlist if you liked. Mashiro is a prodigy, though she may not be aware of it. And there’s also that spoiler, which revolves around her best friend Kon, who is Kou’s sister – and also reincarnated into this world from a previous one. Mashiro only has memories of the first version of the game. Kon played the remake, but not all of it. Is she really what she seems? And can Mashiro really avoid being a heroine?

The writing and plotting can get immensely wordy at times – I understand this was actually edited down from the original text, but it’s still super long, about twice the size of your average light novel. That said, I never found myself counting pages till it was over. Mashiro is a fun heroine, savvy when needed, clueless also when needed. There’s also a surprisingly deep look at how reincarnation into another world would work when you retain some of your own memories. The book ends with Mashiro graduating and moving on to Middle School, which I imagine will take up Book 2 of the series. If you’re looking for a nice romantic book with hidden depths, or love shoujo and visual novels, this is a fantastic read.

Dragon Half, Vol. 1

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By Ryusuke Mita. Released in Japan as two separate volumes by Fujimi Shobo, serialized in the magazine Dragon Magazine. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Andrew Cunningham. Adapted by David Lumsdom.

In another world, this sort of title would have been licensed around the time it came out, back in the late 1980s/mid-1990s, when its art style and sort of humor were far more common and appreciated, and the anime had become a cult classic due to its over the top humor and pacing. Of course, back in 1994 or so when the Dragon Half OAVs came out, and the manga had just finished its run, the “manga scene” did not really exist as such – we’re talking a time when Mai the Psychic Girl was the hot thing, and Ranma 1/2 was still in 32-page pamphlet form. Still, what goes around comes around, and a lot of the cliches that were ripe for mocking in the late 80s RPG/fantasy scene are still ripe for mocking. And thus, despite artstyle and personalities that remind me a bit of Urusei Yatsura, Dragon Half manages to be a heck of a lot of fun, which is surprising given that humor titles tend to wear out faster in omnibus format.

I must say, the cover does the title no favors – Mink is a lot more dynamic than the passive little girl figure we see there. She’s the daughter of a human adventurer and a dragon, who can helpfully turn human when she wants to. As such, Mink has certain advantages like super strength and flight, but also has teenage girl obsessions, such as the teen idol (and also adventurer) Dick Saucer. (Yes, he’s named Dick Saucer in Japanese.) Unfortunately, Mink is half-dragon, and Dick is dedicated to killing dragons. Poor Mink! Can her feelings ever get through to him? Well, no, but nobody really cares, because the plot is just an excuse for Mink and her two friends (the airhead “bi-curious” Lufa and the childish always-armored Pia) to go around having adventures and making fun of everything that 80s RPGs and bad fantasy novels had to offer.

Everything in Dragon Half is subservient to the humor – and there are a lot of laughs, all of the “broad comedy” variety. If you’re looking for subtlety, look elsewhere, but if people getting hit with rocks is your thing, you’re in the right place. Surprisingly, Mink ends up being the “straight man” for much of the volume, using her semi-superpowers to bail her foolish friend out of trouble (yes, friend – Pia usually just goes along with things, but Rufa is actively harmful most of the time). She’s be in danger if the villains were any threat at all, but from the evil princess who’s really a slime in disguise to the soldier who brags that the tiny size of his brain is an advantage, Mink can usually do pretty well for herself. Towards the end of the volume (as the author notes) there are one or two stories that actually have a semi-serious tone, but fortunately they fit in pretty well, and more jokes are just around the corner.

This is the first of three omnibuses schedules, and is filled to the brim with extras such as color pages, promotional artwork, and author commentary. It’s a good title if you like humor, a great title if you enjoy mocking old-school games, and essential if you’re nostalgic for the late 80s-early 90s style of manga art and characterization.

Twinkle Stars, Vol. 5

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By Natsuki Takaya. Released in Japan as three separate volumes by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Sheldon Drzka.

Endings are important, and often affect how we view the rest of the work in retrospect. Which is sometimes annoying. If you love fourth fifths of a thing, but it doesn’t stick the ending, can you really say that the whole is a failure? No, of course not. The journey to get there was spectacular. But you can say that the ending makes the series a disappointment. And I am sad to say that I felt the ending to Twinkle Stars made the series as a whole a disappointment. This is not to say I did not enjoy myself as I read it. Indeed, the first third of this omnibus was wonderful, featuring Chihiro and Sakuya finally bonding and going out on sort of dates and getting beyond all the past trauma of their lives to admit their love is wonderful. And then you hear “Sakura woke up”, and everything falls apart.

And yes, I am aware that falling apart is exactly the author’s intention. Indeed, a lot of the following volume is also excellent, showing the poignant agony of Chihiro giving up everything in order to be with Sakura, and Sakuya’s horrible pain, which she manages to work through, because she’s stronger now, thanks, in part, to Chihiro. The reactions of the others are also pretty much on point and in character. For Kanade, it’s the sympathetic ear of an adult. For Hijiri, it’s a punch, because she is the reader right now. So much of this depends on the reader being just as angry at Chihiro as the rest of the cast is, even if they don’t always show it as blatantly. The problem is that Sakura’s past was not as large a part of the story as the author intended. Indeed, I forgot she existed for volumes at a time.

That said, the good outweighs the bad for me with this final plot twist, and the emotions are well conveyed. The problem is the resolution, which feels very much like “you have this many pages to wrap everything up”. Takaya says this wasn’t the case – in fact, she says she went a volume over what she planned – but Chihiro’s revelation to Sakura as the manga draws to a close – that he’s still in love with Sakuya, and is there to make sure that Sakura gets better and nothing else. Which… would be fine, if he hadn’t kept that fact from everyone else, over the course of several years that the series timeskips forward to. Sakura, to be fair, does seem like she’ll fall apart if he’s away from her, and even after several years still seems fragile when she and Sakuya finally meet (she also still continues to use third-person when she speaks about herself, a “cutesy” Japanese thing that translates badly to English, in my opinion).

And so in the end our main couple don’t have time for much more than a reunion and tears before we hit the end. It’s very… unsatisfying. That said, before that, we had some excellent Takaya storytelling, and I’d say this is my second favorite story of hers. And let’s face it, I definitely prefer this to the trainwreck that is Fruits Basket Another, but I’ll save that rant for when it comes out in the summer. If you’ve been enjoying Twinkle Stars, there’s no reason not to get this final volume, even if I found the ending less than it could have been.

The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar, Vol. 1

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By Seiichi Takayama and Yukisan. Released in Japan as “Hyakuren no Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Amber Tamosaitis.

I think we may finally have hit saturation point where I have simply read too many isekai books in a row. This is not surprising, given that I doubt the average light novel company expeects a reader to try to keep up with ALL the titles they put out. Still, it’s hard not to feel a certain jaded malaise as one reads Master of Ragnarok. I was having particular difficulty not comparing it to other series that came out after it in Japan but before it over here in North America. Not that I think Ragnarok has been influential in any way. But it’s hard not to see “isekai guy struggles with how to properly run a kingdom” and not think of Realist Hero, just as it’s hard not to see him save the day with his smartphone and not think of… well,Smartphone. That said, both of those titles try to subvert the norm in at least one or two ways, while Ragnarok is quite happy to play it straight.

(Also, parenthetically, what is it with Japanese isekai and the throne room pose? Almost always, it shows the hero looking satisfied and smug when in the actual book itself he’s nothing of the sort – that’s the case here as well. I just wonder how it got so popular. Robert E. Howard? John Norman?)

Our hero, Yuuto, goes to visit a shrine with his childhood friend and not-quite-girlfriend Mitsuki and, due to a superstition gone horribly wrong, ends up summoned to another world. What happens next… is quickly elided, as we timeskip forward to see he has already gained the trust of most of the kingdom and rules over them all. Admittedly a somewhat odd way to handle thing, but I suppose the author did not want to get bogged down in the “introductory” scenes that plague a lot of isekai. It also helpfully allows him to skip a lot of character development. Now he’s leading his clan into battle with the help of his buxom and intelligent female advisor, who wants to get into his pants; his devoted bodyguard, who we briefly see was cool to him when he first arrived but somehow is now his most loyal fan; a tsundere engineer (no, really, that’s about it); and the princess of the clan he just conquered, who slowly begins to realize how awesome he is.

How is he so awesome? Well, he still gets smartphone reception – somehow – near the mirrors where he was summoned from. He can’t go back, but can talk to the childhood friend, who he now realizes he was in love with (hence the rest of the harem isn’t getting anywhere, at least not now) and he can also download books to his not-Kindle. Thus he saves the world and rules the kingdom by applying modern warfare and concepts to this dark ages-ish period. As I said earlier, if you saw “In Another World With My Smartphone”, just the title, and wondered what the hero would be doing with his smartphone, this is what you’d come up with. Likewise, if you heard about Realist Hero without seeing it, you’d imagine him fighting a lot more battles as a general (as Yuuto does here) and not quite as many civics lessons (though both heroes are fond of, sigh, Machiavelli’s The Prince.)

This isn’t poorly written, and no one’s all that aggravating. It has 14+ volumes in Japan, and apparently an anime is coming soon, so it has fans. But usually I can at least summon something that makes this stand out from the pack and makes a reader want to continue. That’s not happening here. This IS the pack. If someone asks “what’s an isekai?”, this is an ideal book to give them. But have them branch out afterwards to more compelling titles and concepts.

Manga the Week of 3/28/18

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SEAN: Stuff. Lots of stuff. Endless stuff. What stuff? Well…

Dark Horse gives us a 9th volume of Blood Blockade Battlefront.

ASH: Looks like the entire series might actually be released at this point!

SEAN: Ghost Ship has a 3rd omnibus of To-Love-Ru, featuring Vols. 5-6.

J-Novel Club has, after a brief hiatus, new volumes for Demon King Daimaou (4) and I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse (7).

Kodansha Digital has a new release, Liar x Liar. It’s a shoujo manga from Dessert, about a girl who pretends to be someone else to hide her identity from her stepbrother… then begins dating him? I think I will pass.

MICHELLE: Yeeeeeah.

ANNA: There’s a lot of other Kodansha Digital manga that I would get caught up on before trying this.

SEAN: They’ve also got ongoing volumes. Beauty Bunny 4, Domestic Girlfriend 16, Drowning Love 8, Kounodori: Dr. Stork 8, My Boyfriend in Orange 4, My Brother the Shut-In 3, and Until Your Bones Rot 5.

And if you like print, there’s a 5th volume of Waiting for Spring.

MICHELLE: Yay! And no easily dupable stepbrothers in sight.

ASH: I do in fact like print! And I’ve been enjoying Waiting for Spring, too.

SEAN: Seven Seas has Cutie Honey a Go-Go!, a recent variation on the classic Go Nagai manga (which Seven Seas will also be releasing later in the year). I’ve actually heard good things about this variation, so am looking forward to it.

ASH: As have I, and as am I.

ANNA: Interesting….

SEAN: They’re also debuting New Game! This is about a young graduate who looks middle-school aged and her adventures at a game company. It’s a 4-koma, and runs in Houbunsha’s Manga Time Kirara Carat. It had an anime.

And we also get Soul Liquid Chambers. Zombies, nudity, blood and gore, fanservice, and it runs in Shonen Gahosha’s Young King Ours GH, home of many other titles with ‘ecchi’ in their descriptions. I… think I will pass. Again.

MICHELLE: Same.

SEAN: In terms of ongoing series, Seven Seas has Devils and Realist 14, Shomin Sample 8, and There’s a Demon Lord on the Floor 5. And Don’t Meddle with My Daughter comes to an end with its third volume.

Vertical debuts CITY, a new series from the creator of Nichijou. I look forward to seeing if it’s still very funny and strange, or slightly more normal.

Vertical also has a Seven Deadly Sins novel, Seven-Colored Recollections, which seems to be a short story collection.

Yen Press, of course, has stuff. There’s new digital volumes. Crimson Prince 15, Kuzumi-kun, Can’t You Read the Room? 5, and Sekirei 15.

Yen On also gives us the remainder of Kieli digitally, with Vols. 6-9. This completes that series.

Yen On has no debuts this month, but we do see Durarara!! 9, The Irregular at Magic High School 7, Magical Girl Raising Project 3, Re: Zero EX 2 (the last volume to date of this side-series), The Saga of Tanya the Evil 2 (which is EVEN LONGER than the first), So I’m a Spider, So What? 2, and the 19th Spice & Wolf. That’s a lot of light novel.

ASH: That it is! I’m not following as many series as I once was, but I’m very happy that so much is being translated.

SEAN: There are also a few manga out, though a lot of March’s releases were pushed back to mid-April. Forbidden Scrollery (aka the Touhou manga) has a 2nd volume, Graineliers has its 2nd book, Horimiya has its 10th volume, and there’s a 15th Spice & Wolf manga.

MICHELLE: Yay for Horimiya. Despite the endless stuff, looks like I only really like two titles this week.

ASH: I’m interested in seeing how Graineliers develops; the first volume was a little uneven, but had potential.

SEAN: And we have a debut: Laid-Back Camp (Yurukyan △). It’s also a Houbunsha title, from Manga Time Kirara Forward, about girls who camp. It also has an anime. I believe the symbol in the Japanese title is meant to be a tent. Which should tell you what level we’re going for here. The level of CUTE.

ASH: I suspect this won’t be The Summit of the Gods, but I do like camping enough to give the series a try!

SEAN: Does this whet your appetite? Are you starving for titles now?

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, Vol. 5

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By Ryo Shirakome and Takayaki. Released in Japan as “Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou” by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen.

After a few volumes of pretending to be your standard “reader surrogate gains immense powers and a wide variety of women” isekai story, Arifureta has settled down as it finally realizes the type of story it wants to tell, which is a messianic narrative. I’m not actually being facetious here, we have seen seeds of this before, but they come to full flower here. Hajime is here to save the world by being badass at it. Those who believe will be rewarded, those who do not believe will get their asses kicked. We see one of his believers doubt herself in this volume, and Hajime makes it very clear that this is no easy task – believe in him and stop stewing in self-hatred, or get out. Needless to say, we know which choice she makes. We also see Hajime go up against the powerful Church, which regards him as a heretic, and a demon who may as well be filling in for Lucifer. Subtle this ain’t.

Shizuka’s on the cover, but doesn’t appear much, though we do see her bonding with the princess of the royal family, who I had honestly forgotten. Most of the book is taken up with Hajime getting Myu back home, which also involves conquering not one but TWO of the remaining dungeons. Kaori is left behind for one of them as support, which seems quite sensible given that this is the MAGMA DUNGEON, but she comes along on the water dungeon crawl, which leads to her crisis of faith I mentioned above. Said crisis of faith is resolved by Hajime showing that he cares about her by threatening an entity that’s possessed her – indeed, most of the harem’s self-esteem issues are resolved by simply having the undemonstrative Hajime pat their head or vow to protect them or somesuch. In all honestly, as Hajime notes, he’ll basically do whatever they say, but I suspect the typical “I hate OP harem guys” fan won’t mind as Hajime is stoic rather than friendly.

We get a lot more background on the past of the world Hajime and company have been brought to here, and find that if we’re headed for a massive Holy War, it won’t be the first. I suspect the next volume will have Hajime’s group divert their plans to save Aiko, who is being imprisoned and tortured for believing in Hajime. No, really. As I said, if you don’t accept this as a messianic narrative, it may be hard to get past its inherent ridiculousness. Oh yes, we also meet Myu’s mother, who the author admits is straight up a ripoff of Alicia from Aria, and who clearly would be quite happy to be an addition to Hajime’s harem, though I’m not sure it will actually happen. It would be nice to have an “ara, ara” sort in the harem. In any case, the next volume will be as action-packed as this one, I imagine, thoguh knowing Hajime, he is unlikely to be crucified and die for anyone’s sins. Recommended for fans of ridiculously overpowered guys and the women who adore them.

Also, “Fish-san was a fishmancer.” I’ll just leave that there.

Sweet Blue Flowers, Omnibus 3

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By Takako Shimura. Released in Japan as “Aoi Hana” by Ohta Shuppan, serialized in the magazine Manga Erotics F. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by John Werry.

Everyone wants to read about the awkward pangs of unrequited love. Will they feel the same way? Will they hate me? Will this destroy our friendship? But it has to be said, and Sweet Blue Flowers does a very good job at conveying this, the issues don’t magically go away after you’ve started dating. Admittedly Akira’s acquiescence is somewhat lukewarm, which is no doubt why Fumi is feeling this way. But let’s face it, Fumi is the sort of person to overthink things anyway, and these sorts of worries DO stick around. Communication does not necessarily become easier when you’ve confessed. In many ways it’s harder. And of course if you want to keep dating, you have to keep yourself interesting and fun, because what if your partner gets bored with the real you? Sweet Blue Flowers may not be getting any closer to resolution of its main romance, but it certainly knows how to convey its painful emotions.

Sweet Blue Flowers does feature an awful lot of relationships between girls, but unlike some other series of this ilk, they aren’t every single relationship. There are men in this world. Indeed, sometimes the reader thinks that the man is the better choice – Ko breaks up with Kyoko here, and you can’t blame him, but I honestly do hope that she gets it together and gets back together with him, as he’s a good guy, and her pining away is not getting her anywhere. It’s weird to feel this way in a yuri manga, where the nature of fandom tends to regard any man who might get in the way of a relationship between two women as evil. We also have different types of relationships here – Akira and Fumi start to date, but it’s very vague, and you get the sense they’re doing it so that Akira can figure things out more than anything else. Some of the girls in the school are clearly in an “akogare” situation that they’re going to grow out of, but some are not – one of the minor characters outright says she’s a lesbian, and Akira’s teacher is in a happy relationship with another woman. This isn’t just yuri’s classic “Story A“. (Well, OK, sometimes it is.)

Sweet Blue Flowers, of course, also has the same issues that it’s had before. Shimura’s character designs are too damn similar, and I find myself struggling to tell some of the girls apart, which makes it harder for me to remember the plotlines. Akira and Fumi’s teenage passion and fears are endearing but also exhausting, especially given this is an omnibus of two separate volumes. And I have to confess, I don’t like Yasuko all that much, and was irritated when she showed up again. Her going to England really helped this series find its feet. That said, this is still a very good volume, and since I believe it ends with the fourth book, there’s no reason for you not to get it so that you can wallow in panga of young love once more.

Bookshelf Briefs 3/19/18

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Anonymous Noise, Vol. 7 | By Ryoko Fukuyama | Viz Media – To answer the question I posed in my last brief, apparently this will be running a little longer, as the cliffhanger indicates we’re starting up a new subplot. That said, as the end of an “arc” this wasn’t bad, though I admit that I always take more notice when the focus is on Nino and Yuzu—I honestly want Ayumi’s domestic angst drama to end as quickly as possibly, as it’s annoying me. Still, Nino and Yuzu are both fantastic here, and the art gives us lots of fantastic screams. Both are now ready to expand their horizons, which for Yuzu may mean getting past a few psychological blocks. I’m still happy to let this play out, though I do hope it wraps up in a few more volumes. – Sean Gaffney

Astra: Lost in Space, Vol. 2 | By Kenta Shinohara | Viz Media – The cast is advised to forget about who the traitor is among them for the moment, and I think the reader is meant to as well—the pacing of the main plot in this series can be awkward, and you get the sense things are being walked back. Things get a bit more interesting when we’re exploring more bizarre alien worlds, which can be both amazing and deadly. We also get some development of our shyest, most introverted crew member, who has a ball of self-worth issues and a voice like an angel. (The two are connected, as you might guess.) And there’s also some hints of romance. This is solid, but not great, and you get the sense the author is starting to realize this is not going to be the next One Piece. – Sean Gaffney

Barakamon, Vol. 15 | By Satsuki Yoshino | Yen Press – Handa is a good guy, but he’s impulsive and doesn’t think things through, such as the fact that his dad had been paying his rent up till now, or that he’s charging an exorbitant fee to get island folks to learn calligraphy. He needs someone like Kawafuji, who is angry and contrary and guides Handa along every step of the way even as it goes against the reason he came there in the first place. They make great friends, even if Kawafuji seems more like a minder at times. When Handa actually starts trying to teach the kids, he’s awkward at first, but you gradually realize that he’s going to be quite good at this. As for whether he can make enough money doing it, well… – Sean Gaffney

Beasts of Abigaile, Vol. 3 | By Spica Aoki| Seven Seas – Poor Eva, in the end she doesn’t have it in her to be the chief Evil Girl in the series, being more of a jealous little sister who wants her brother a bit too much. So we need to introduce the new Evil Girl in Angelica, the Student Council President, daughter of the warden, and all-around manipulative… well, you know. Nina, of course, is not all that easily manipulated, being that she wears her heart on her sleeve so much she’s willing to risk death just to pick some flowers on the side of a cliff. Luckily, that’s why drugs were invented, just to keep folks like Nina docile. This is a total potboiler, but fun. – Sean Gaffney

Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 4 | By Ryoko Kui | Yen Press – I love the mix of food, fantasy, and humor in Delicious in Dungeon and have been enjoying the series a great deal. However, while the ingredients are the same, the exact proportions of the mix has changed somewhat with the fourth volume. Food is still an important element, and the manga’s terrific comedic moments continue to be a staple, but the story has taken a significantly darker, more serious turn–the series’ intrepid adventurers must now face off with the red dragon they’ve been hunting down from the very beginning. It’s an intense battle brilliantly executed by Kui who demands both sacrifices and clever thinking from the manga’s quirky yet endearing cast. This easily could have been the series’ grand finale, but there’s more to come; I’m intensely curious to see where the manga, and its frequently unexpected cuisine, goes from here. – Ash Brown

Frau Faust, Vol. 4 | By Kore Yamazaki | Kodansha Comics – You get the sense, reading this volume of Frau Faust, that Johanna is the sort of protagonist who has the magical ability to have good friends die around her so that she can suffer and also deal out justice and a good moral lesson. Which means that this series is not exactly filled with fun and games, but the title might have been a clue that wasn’t going to happen. Johanna’s undying nature is unhelpful here, as she spends half the book being gruesomely tortured on behalf of the evil nun in charge of hating demons—except, of course, the ones she can use for her own benefit. Still greatly enjoying Frau Faust, but you need to realize going in the premise is “everything is awful and everything hurts.” – Sean Gaffney

Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale, Vol. 1 | By Kikori Morino | Seven Seas – I almost passed up on Giant Spider & Me, but as soon as I learned that it was in part a food manga, I couldn’t resist giving the first volume a try. One day, Nagi, a young woman largely living on her own in the mountains, encounters a strange but intelligent creature in the woods that looks an awful lot like a giant spider. It ultimately follows her home, essentially becoming Nagi’s pet and guard animal, but more importantly her companion against loneliness (even if food is their most successful means of communication). The worldbuilding is a little vague at this point which can be frustrating, and Morino’s artwork isn’t always consistent when it comes to scale, but as a whole Giant Spider & Me is charming and surprisingly sweet. I was delighted by the first volume, so I’ll certainly be picking up more of the series. – Ash Brown

The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún, Vol. 4 | By Nagabe| Seven Seas – If you’re still comparing this with The Ancient Magus’ Bride, I can see why, but this series seems to be turning down a far darker alley. Teacher has decided that things will be best if he, Shiva and her aunt all live together. but just because the aunt is now cursed does not mean that she’s ready to trust and forgive the teacher—quite the opposite,. There is a stereotypical cooking scene where everything goes wrong and the three end up covered in white flour that is simply brutally jarring in terms of tone—it helps put the rest of the book in stark relief. Meanwhile, the main mystery for this series is “what is Shiva’s deal?”, and I hope we find out more about that next time. – Sean Gaffney

Lovesick Ellie, Vol. 4 | By Fujimomo | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – My least favorite attribute of Ellie’s personality is how her fantasy life blinds her to the reality of certain things, like… if you fail your final exams, you’re going to have to take remedial classes during winter break. Of course, the angst over missing Christmas with Akira and not recognizing that he has been looking forward to it just as much as she was eventually leads to a really sweet moment (and smooch!) so I guess we have to suffer through some “derp” stuff to get to the good stuff. Meanwhile, Ellie seems to have made a couple of new friends in class thanks to her ping pong prowess (yes, really); we get to know Sara’s second-year protector, Takagi, a little better; and a boy in Ellie’s remedial class seems to be the one commenting on her Twitter fantasies. Not groundbreaking shoujo, but I enjoy it. – Michelle Smith

One-Punch Man, Vol. 13 | By ONE and Yusuke Murata | Viz Media – Last time I said the tournament was the least interesting part of the volume, this time the opposite is true. Saitama’s fight with Suiryu is not only filled with a lot of fantastic and ludicrous action, but also helps once again to define what Saitama’s ideas of being a hero and being strong are compared to other people—and why he’s the title character. That said, he learns the wrong lesson from the battle—but that’s why One-Punch Man remains very funny. Of course, things aren’t all fun and games, and I worry that we may lose some innocent bystanders in this ongoing war between heroes and monsters—especially as Saitama is running away and may not be able to help. – Sean Gaffney

One-Punch Man, Vol. 13 | By ONE and Yusuke Murata | VIZ Media – You know you’re middle-aged when you’re watching heroes battle a giant octopus and you keep thinking about how massive and costly the cleanup will be from all the damage! At least we learn more about the source for all these monsters, and that Saitama will probably be facing them soon, since they invade the martial arts tournament at the end of the volume. The tourney was quite entertaining this time, as Saitama faces the one guy (who could be called One-Kick Man, based on his previous bouts) who he thought could give him a challenge, only to realize once again that it’s not the case. Still, I enjoyed their fight and hope that Saitama will now get back to the hero game. Also, I missed Genos! Thankfully, the wait for the next volume is not as long this time. – Michelle Smith

Skip Beat!, Vol. 40 | By Yoshiki Nakamura | Viz Media – The cover to this volume is adorable—Kyoko just wants to act together with Kanae SO MUCH, and you can hope that she will get her wish someday, though the cliffhanger implies it may be a lot more difficult than the usual “audition.” Fortunately she has Yashiro in her corner, who is acting as a temporary manager for her, and reminds the reader once again that when it comes to “manager” activities, he is essentially superhuman. More seriously, we meet an old rival in this volume and, like Kyoko, our jaw drops when we finally realize who she is. I will admit that I was more interested in Kyoko’s swordfighting and rhythmic gymnastics training than I was anything with Erika. That does not change the fact that Skip Beat remains essential.-Sean Gaffney

UQ Holder, Vol. 13 | By Ken Akamatsu | Kodansha Comics – I have to admit, I have no idea how time, dreamscapes, or indeed any aspect of magic work in Akamatsu’s universe, and I suspect neither does he, as we’re in a dreamscape that is also the past, except we also get the rest of the main UQ Holder heroines here as mind-controlled darkness versions of themselves, before EVERYONE is saved by Asuna showing up with her big-ass sword, something so unbelievable even Eva has to say she doesn’t think she’s the real Asuna. She certainly acts like her, though, and is ready to help Touta and company battle against the evil Negi and his evil sentai team. This is exciting when you read it, but logic and proportion have fallen softly dead a long time ago. – Sean Gaffney