Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Sean Gaffney

Girls’ Last Tour, Vol. 1

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By Tsukumizu. Released in Japan as “Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou” by Shinchosha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Kurage Bunch. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Amanda Haley.

As I read this manga, I kept wondering which of the many slice-of-life series starring young girls drawn in a moe style it reminded me of. I’d said on twitter that it was like a post-apocalyptic Yotsuba&!, but at times it also reminds me of Strawberry Marshmallow, Sunshine Sketch, and Non Non Biyori. The key thing that connects all of those titles is that they’re all slice-of-life – note that Girls’ Last tour doesn’t really remind me of other post-apocalyptic mangas where survivors wander the remains of the Earth. Because while that’s the gimmick here, it’s not what keeps people coming back to the title week after week. You come back to see Chito and Yuuri, the two leads, discuss reading, or find hot water so they can take a bath, or meet up with other survivors who help them get up to higher levels of the wasted world they drive their small, cute tank through. It’s… relaxing.

It’s never really made clear, at least not in this volume, exactly what happened to the world that the two girls are wandering through, and honestly it’s not all that important yet. All we know is that there are multiple levels, they are decaying and falling apart, and that for the first 2/3 of the book or so, the girls are the only two survivors we meet. Their concerns are basic: food, heat, shelter, and finding a way to get to a level where there might be more of all three. As you’d expect with a slice of life title, the girls have contrasting personalities. Chito is serious, studious, and does most of the thinking for the two; Yuuri is cheery, dazed, a bit of an idiot, and provides the muscle and shooting skills. And yes, they drive around in a tank and have guns, though we don’t really run into much of anything in this first volume that would require them. Unlike a lot of the slice-of-life seinen titles out recently, there’s not even any faux yuri tease in this – the girls are simply friends, with one perhaps finding the other one more aggravating than she’d like.

About 2/3 of the way through, they meet an older man who is trying to map out the desolate landscape they’re both exploring. Sadly, thanks to a malfunctioning elevator, his maps end up scattered to the four winds (this is even lampshaded right before it happens, with one of the girls talking about the poor design of the freight elevator they’re riding and how it needs railings). This also shows off that even if the girls can slide into moe sameness a bit (I still tend to forget their names), they both have a drive to explore more, to find out what’s beyond the next level, and they convince the understandably distraught mapmaker to do the same thing. Girls’ Last Tour is exploring a landscape quietly and peacefully with two cute young girls. It’s not just a slice-of-life moe manga, it’s trying to be the last slice-of-life moe manga you’d read before the end times cast the universe into heat death. And for the first volume, at least, that’s not too bad.

Manga the Week of 5/31

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SEAN: Believe it or not, under 20 releases is now a quiet week. Welcome to the Manga Boom, here’s your accordion. So what’s out next week?

J-Novel Club has an odd license. Despite being available to them, no one thought the company would license Invaders of the Rokujouma!? for two reasons: 1) It’s 23 volumes and counting in Japan, and 2) it already had a well-regarded fan translation of the first 22 volumes. But J-Novel has licensed that fan translation, is giving it an edit, and doing a fast release of the first three volumes of the series, with more to come monthly, apparently. As for the title itself, it’s a harem comedy, so moving on…

ASH: It’s probably not a series that I’ll ever pick up, but that’s an interesting publication history!

SEAN: Kodansha has more digital Del Rey rescues. Alive 16, Nodame Cantabile 20, and Yozakura Quartet 12.

…and I guess that Kodansha has Battle Angel Alita 1-3 out digitally too. I knew it was coming, but not so soon. This is the original BAA (as opposed to the Last Order reboot), with a new translation.

Their lone print release this week is the 60th volume of Fairy Tail, which should be wrapping up in Japan soon.

Kodansha also has new digital releases. Kasane is an award-winning work, and runs in the magazine Evening. It appears to be a dark thriller with lots of bullying and abuse overtones. But, magic lipstick!

Real Girl (3D Kanojo) is a shoujo/josei title from Dessert, involving a nerdy outcast type who ends up working with a cool beauty, the sort he hates, but gradually comes to realize that cool beauties are people too.

ANNA: I have mixed feelings about these digital releases, I’m so happy that more shoujo/josei is coming out, but having been burned before by the crash and burn of digital manga programs in the past, I’m concerned about some of these titles actually being finished. Also, it would be great to have some more josei print manga! Even with these handy reminders for the Manga Bookshelf team, I’m having a hard time keeping track of all the digital releases that I’m interested in.

MICHELLE: There certainly are a lot of them! That said, I will give these two new ones a try. And yay for more Nodame, as well!

ASH: I’m glad that these titles are being licensed at all, but I’d definitely like to see more of the released in print, too.

MJ: I share Anna’s concerns. I’m glad these are being released, but I’m still reeling from the loss of some JManga series I was really invested in (that have not, to my knowledge, been picked up by anyone else), and I admit I still mistrust digital.

SEAN: If it helps, the JManga title To All Corners of the World was rescued by Seven Seas and will be out in November in one (print) omnibus.

Seven Seas has a few new titles next week, starting with a (gasp!) novel, The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku, based on the seemingly unstoppable Vocaloid idol.

The manga debut is The High School Life of a Fudanshi (Fudanshi Koukou Seikatsu), a comedy title from Zero-Sum Online about a straight guy obsessed with BL, and his drive to find someone else to share his obsession with.

ASH: Knowing a few straight fudanshi myself, I’m rather curious to see how the series handles the topic.

MJ: Cautiously interested.

SEAN: And there’s a 5th volume of Shomin Sample, which must have run out of girls showing us their panties on the cover by now. (checks) Sadly, apparently not.

Vertical has the 8th Ninja Slayer, for all your Ninja needs.

They also have a light novel based on the Seven Deadly Sins manga, subtitled Seven Scars They Left Behind. Judging by that title, I wouldn’t expect a lot of laughs.

Yen Digital has some new volumes for us, as we get the 10th Aphorism, the 10th Crimson Prince, and the 10th Sekirei.

And while it’s not Vol. 10, Yen On does have the first four Sword Art Online novels now available digitally, for those obsessed with reading light novels on their phones (like me).

Are you taking a week off? Or getting something here?

Strike the Blood, Vol. 6

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By Gakuto Mikumo and Manyako. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jeremiah Bourque.

Sigh. And here we are again, blank screen. It’s you vs. me, as I try to fill you up with another 500 or so words about the latest volume of Strike the Blood. The goal, as always, is not to simply cut and paste from the previous five reviews. As always, this goal tends to be thwarted by the plot, characterization, and writing in Strike the Blood, whose cookie-cutter quality means that the same things happen over and over again. Let’s face it, the big surprise in this volume was that for once Kojou is not biting a different girl to gain more superpowers… though in an icky way, I suppose that his possessed younger sister may count. I’d prefer to think that it does not. Other than that, though, it’s business as usual at Strike the Blood, Inc.

Even the covers depress me, as you can’t even get the ‘new harem member gets the cover’ cliche that you do with most other series of this sort. No, Strike the Blood now has 16 volumes out in Japan, and it’s Yukinas all the way down. The ‘new girl’ this time, sort of, is Nina Adelard, an immortal alchemist with a tragic past that’s tied into Kanon’s own tragic past. She spends most of the book either occupying Asagi’s body or taking on her appearance, and I suspect her ending up as a “fairy-like” creature will allow her to take on a role in future books similar to a magical girl mascot. (It also reminds me of Index, as much of this series does, though for once I believe that Strike the Blood actually did this first.) The plot involves lots of alchemy and liquid metal, and a few guards end up dead in horrible ways, but aren’t dwelled on.

Asagi also ends up dead briefly, which might have had more impact if there was any chance that it would stick. We do get more concrete proof that as long as she’s on the island she’s effectively immortal. Unfortunately, with no computer problems to solve this time, Asagi is in full on “tsundere anime girl” mode, which means wacky cooking antics and exploding stoves. (Yukina, of course, is also in cliche mode, reacting any time Koujo even briefly pays attention to another attractive female.) Everyone else fills their function: Kanon is waifish and still somewhat broken, Natsuki flits around saving the day and being the cute loli teacher. and Yaze continues to get hints that he may one day be relevant to the plot without actually being so in this book.

And so as ever I’m left with saying the same thing. The writing is good, moves quickly, the fights are exciting. But this could be written by the Light Noveltron 3000. And there’s still no real sign of any developing main plot, anything that might carry over from book to book. Things are neatly wrapped up, and I suspect Book 7 will have another danger to the island that is also neatly wrapped up. Strike the Blood is, when you get down to it, Strike the Blood. It is shaped like itself, and can’t really be reviewed as anything but that.

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, Vol. 7

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By Izumi Tsubaki. Released in Japan as “Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun” by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the online magazine Gangan Online. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Leighann Harvey.

The danger of most comedy titles is that they aren’t funny all the time. Not every joke can land, and sometimes you find yourself merely smiling and them moving on to the next page. That’s why it’s satisfying when you come across a volume that has an even greater number of hits than misses. I won’t say every page is fall-down funny, but the seventh volume of Nozaki-kun has an even higher ratio of laughing out loud than its previous volumes, which says something given that this is one of two manga where I can’t read it on public transit as I do laugh out loud too much. (The other is Oresama Teacher, by the same author.) By now we know the characters so well that we can anticipate what’s going to happen, but that doesn’t make the jokes any less funny. And, as always with this title, everyone plays the straight man or funny man depending on the situation.

The first chapter is a good example, dealing with cell phones and how manga that runs for a long time finds technology moving beyond it. We get gags about the fickleness of shoujo heroines and Nozaki and Sakura’s general ignorance of modern tech themselves (they still have flip phones, and react to smartphone discussion with what can only be called “dull surprise”). You’d think the punchline to the chapter would be Nozaki’s deranged idea of having him and Sakura communicate using cans on a string, the ultimate in low tech. But then Sakura’s general adoration of Nozaki adds to the gags, as does the class reacting to her doing this while having her normal phone sitting on her desk. The capper is two random students jokingly testing the can-and-string phone… and falling in love. Amping up the ridiculous is one of Tsubaki’s strengths.

Elsewhere, we see Miyako going out with her friends drinking for once rather than working on her manga, which actually rebounds on her later when she comes close to missing a deadline. (It’s hilarious but also personally terrifying for her, as she worries that she’ll be given back to Maeno for editing as a punishment.) Seo/Waka shippers get a chapter that is a gift from God, as Wakamatsu, at the advice of his team (who are trying to defuse her in some way), tries confessing to Seo, only to find her reaction to be very un-Seo like. This is the one chapter that defies our expectations a bit, as we expect some sort of ‘non-romance’ reason for Seo running off and getting embarrassed by the whole thing, but no: it’s just that she apparently has difficulty with directness. It’s really, really adorable. Though not as adorable as Sakura “bullying” Nozaki so he can get manga ideas, and getting a bit too much into her role.

Humor is subjective, and I’m sure some people won’t even giggle at any of these. But I found this to be one of the most rewarding volumes of Nozaki-kun to date, and it’s always one of the first things I read when it comes out. Great stuff.

Not many tanukis this time, but they are well-deployed and caught me by surprise.

your name.

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By Makoto Shinkai. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

I’m coming at this novel from a somewhat unique perspective, I think, as I am one of the few people reading it who hasn’t already seen the movie first. In fact, the author states he initially wasn’t going to write a novel at all (novelization might be more accurate), feeling that it was a story he felt best told through the medium of the animated movie (in particular, the music used for it). But the novel kept niggling at him, and he finally buckled down and wrote it. It’s from the perspective of its two leads, Mitsuha and Taki, which gives an opportunity to better get inside their heads, but also means we only see scenes they’re involved in. So if people are asking me whether your name. is worth reading if you’ve seen the movie, I can’t tell you that. I can say that by the end of the book I was enjoying it enormously, and I’m very happy I read it.

That said, the book comes with a warning from me to my readers: if you are bothered by second-hand embarrassment in your reading, them parts of this book are going to be like crawling through glass. The main premise involves a bodyswap between a boy and a girl, so we already get the normal ‘I’m acting weird and everyone is puzzled’ scenes, but the kids are also teenagers, meaning there’s lots of weird body issues and teen crushes, leading to the most awkward date ever. That said, both kids are nice, and the contrast between the way-out countryside and the middle of Tokyo was a nice contrast. Mitsuha’s perspective takes up a lot of the beginning and near the end of the book, while Taki’s has most of the middle for obvious plot reasons.

There is romance as well, of course, though it’s done so subtly that it almost crept up on me. At one point during the aforementioned awkward date, Taki’s crush says she can tell he’s in love with someone else, and he’s honestly as puzzled as the reader is by this point. But as things snowball, you can see the depth of feelings grow deeper and deeper, and by the end of the book we are quite content to actually not see the final familial confrontation because we’ve gotten what we wanted. More surprisingly, and without wanting to spoil too much, the ending is not quite as bittersweet as some of Shinkai’s other works, even though it still remains somewhat ambiguous. I have a sneaking suspicion that this may be one of the reasons that this movie has been a bigger hit than any of his other movies – bittersweet is lovely, but doesn’t sell as well.

There are a few niggles – The book may be a bit TOO fast and short, for one. I’d also like to have seen more of Mitsuha vs. her father, and the side characters are not as developed as our leads. There’s also a side story volume coming out in the fall (by a different author) that may expand on this, as it apparently shows the story from other perspectives. But your name. is an emotional journey, and as the book goes on you’ll find yourself turning the pages faster and faster. I can’t speak for those who’ve seen the movie, but if you like romance with a touch of sci-fi, this is definitely worth a buy.

Pick of the Week: Many Options

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MICHELLE: While I am undoubtedly excited for the debut volumes of Descending Stories and Delicious in Dungeon, the second volume of The Full-Time Wife Escapist ended on such a terrific cliffhanger than I am most eager to get my (digital) hands on volume three!

SEAN: My pick is your name., the novel by Makoto Shinkai. Being the only person in the world who hasn’t seen the movie, I know nothing about it except that it was a huge phenomenon and will likely involve a boy and girl in some way. I’m hoping fro more sweet than bittersweet, but given it’s Shinkai, not expecting that.

KATE: The first volume of Descending Stories was solid but not swoon-worthy, so I’m going to make a pitch for Yen’s two big debuts: Delicious in Dungeon, a manga that promises to combine gustatory adventures with D&D action, and Girls’ Last Tour, a “post-apocalyptic slice-of-life” series (Sean’s words, not mine).

MJ: I’m with Sean this week. I did see your name. (and loved it, of course) but I’m pretty excited to read the novel that started it all. It’s an unusual order of things for Shinkai, and I’m really interested to see what (if anything) he did differently once he was making the movie.

ASH: Oh, there are so many great and interesting things being released! The second volume of Murcielago, the debuts of Delicious in Dungeon and Girls’ Last Tour, the continuation of Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun, and more. (It looks like Yen Press has it out for me this week; my wallet weeps for me.) My pick, however, goes to Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju which I’ve been eagerly anticipating ever since Kodansha Comics first announced its license.

ANNA: This is a really good week for manga! There are many great series coming out this week, but like Michelle I am most eagerly looking forward to the third volume of The Full-Time Wife Excapist, I’ve been enjoying this series very much and can’t wait to read the next installment in the series.

Bookshelf Briefs 5/22/17

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Ace of the Diamond, Vol. 3 | By Yuji Terajima | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Although the first years finally manage to score in their game against the upperclassmen, victory eludes them. Still, Eijun’s ability to fire up his teammates does not go unnoticed and his performance on the mound sees him promoted to the Junior Varsity squad. He’s not satisfied with the catcher he’s paired up with for practice, though. After attending the first game of the Kanto Tournament and seeing how much better a pitcher Furuya is, he accuses the morose catcher (Chris) of having given up on getting to Varsity, something he will never do. And then after he learns how completely wrong he was, he actually humbles himself and starts seriously trying to learn about baseball. Sniff! Our little shounen hothead is growing up! – Michelle Smith

Anonymous Noise, Vol. 2 | By Ryoko Fukuyama | Viz Media – I am probably liking this a lot more than I should, really. I am far too old to really be drawn in by teen angst, and there’s a lot of soap opera-ish stuff happening here. But I’m a sucker for untrained singers who make up for the lack of training through passion, mostly as it’s the sort of thing that in real life always sounds awful—but on the printed page it’s fine. Nino and Yuzu are drawn to each other in both healthy and unhealthy ways, and when we finally meet Momo again, he’s being just as unhealthy. These are three kids who have hit their teenage years with a whump, and drama is the watchword. But I dunno, something about the writing and characters makes me like this a lot. We’ll see how long it lasts. – Sean Gaffney

Bloom into You, Vol. 2 | By Nakatani Nio | Seven Seas – For parts of this volume, Bloom into You feels like a fairly standard yuri manga. There’s the part where a fellow student council member happens to see Touko and Yuu smooching, and the part where the vice-president clearly thinks she’s the only one Touko needs by her side. But towards the end of the volume, it veers once more into darker and more fascinating territory, as we learn that Touko is so driven to appear perfect due to family pressure to live on in the place of her amazing older sister who died seven years ago. She can’t bear for anyone to love either the real or the fake her, which is why she’s chosen Yuu, who ends up swearing never to fall in love with her even though she privately wishes she could. It’s nice to be reminded what turmoil lurks beneath the pleasant surface! – Michelle Smith

The Full-Time Wife Escapist, Vol. 2 | By Tsunami Umino | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – While there is still a lot of goofy charm in this title, mostly due to Mikuri’s imagination (we get a Les Miz takeoff here, as well as an enka number and some cheerleading chibis), the reality of the arrangement she’s entered into with Hiramasa is starting to fall apart at the seams. It’s really hard to pretend to be married, as there’s a lot of little details you can miss. Plus there’s also house-hunting (but do they really need one?), dental cavities (yes, she really does need a filling but what kind?), and Hiramasa’s growing feelings, which are… not really mirrored all that much by Mikuri, who sometimes seems almost asexual. We’ll see how well the marriage holds up in volume three, as there’s a nasty cliffhanger here. – Sean Gaffney

The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún, Vol. 2 | By Nagabe | Seven Seas – The Girl from the Other Side loses just a teensy bit of its luster in this volume by actually trying to provide, or at least hint at, some answers. When Teacher catches an Outsider touching Shiva, he protects her valiantly, over her own protestations. Later, though, they seek out the creature again because it had hinted that it knew the whereabouts of Shiva’s aunt. It doesn’t, but leads them to a giant lake where Teacher encounters a mysterious hole in the ground and hears the Outsiders’ perspective on why the humans are the source of the curse. He doesn’t know what to believe, and meanwhile examines Shiva daily for symptoms. Then those odious humans get involved again and another volume ends with Shiva in peril. This time, Teacher’s seemingly not in a position to protect her. Still bringing the love, sorrow, and loneliness! – Michelle Smith

Haikyu!!, Vol. 11 | By Haruichi Furudate | Viz Media – This volume consists of Karasuno High’s team failing over and over again, trying things that don’t quite work, and getting pissed off with each other. But that’s as it should be, because you can’t stay static if you want to make it to the next level. The author does a very good job of showing a team that’s on the cusp of being great, if they can just pull everything together. And we’re beginning to see it… but it’s not quite there. And this being training camp, they can get advice from other teams, showing off super secret special moves that allow Hinata and company to add new talents to their repertoire. The goal here is to combine volleyball talent and instinct with intelligence. I wonder what will happen next. – Sean Gaffney

Interviews with Monster Girls, Vol. 4 | By Petos | Kodansha Comics – The whole point of this series is to see Takahashi-sensei interact with his demi students and see how they tick, and a lot of this happens outside of the classroom, so the reader may be forgiven for thinking that there are only demis in the school. But there’s lot of normal kids as well, and the charge comes down that Takahashi is not paying enough attention to them. While this is true in a sense, it’s also true that the demis do need more attention than the other students in various ways. What’s more, the “normal” students realize that treating the demis as if they’re just normal students as well may not be the best way to go. The metaphor for disabilities doesn’t always work, but this is still interesting for monster girl fans. – Sean Gaffney

My Hero Academia, Vol. 8 | By Kohei Horikoshi | Viz Media – While Midoriya is the star of this series, it’s very much an ensemble show, and this volume gives us a chance to see the entire class show off their smarts—or not in some cases. Sometimes you have to get over jealousy and dislike, sometimes you need to regain the confidence you once lost, and sometimes you’ve got to rely on your instincts (as well as being in denial about your feelings for the hero). But of course Midoriya is the star, and so a lot of the back half of the volume goes to him, as he’s accosted by Shigaraki, who’s ironically even scarier when he takes the severed hand off his face. In the meantime, more training, more horrible situations designed to make a hero stronger. Also, Mineta is the worst, y’all. – Sean Gaffney

My Neighbor Seki, Vol. 9 | By Takuma Morishige | Vertical Comics – Seki is down to twice a year, but this is still a good solid volume, relying very much on the core plot of My Neighbor Seki—what is he doing this time, and how will Yoroi react? As with volume eight, there seem to be more examples of Seki’s games rebounding on him rather than making trouble for Youko. The best chapters see him working with transparent glue, taking the bear family for a helicopter ride gone horribly wrong, and getting so caught up in roleplaying that he loses himself in the role (twice). Best of all, Yoroi ends up at a sweets shop where Mrs. Seki works, and has to hide the increasingly desperate artwork apologizing for her son’s antics, showing that such tactics do run in the family. – Sean Gaffney

Tokyo Tarareba Girls, Vol. 3 | By Akiko Higashimura | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – This volume made me seriously consider giving up on Tokyo Tarareba Girls. Not because it is bad, but because the three main characters keep making such awful decisions. Koyuki finds out that her married boyfriend lied about being separated from his wife and failed to mention he had kids, but forgives him. Kaori knows she’s not even the only woman on the side for her ex, but she still comes when he calls. They’re both so desperate for someone to be nice to them that they’ll accept something that isn’t real. It’s so depressing! And then there’s Rinko, who botches a big assignment and makes a total lush of herself and UGH. They’re all making their own problems worse and it’s hard to watch. That said, I get creepy vibes from Rinko’s new boyfriend, so will at least have to check out volume four to see what his deal is. – Michelle Smith

I Saved Too Many Girls And Caused The Apocalypse, Vol. 3

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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 had made much in my review of the first volume of this being a parody of the harem genre, and also talked about the humor in it. Book 3 is sadly lacking in good humor (R is barely in it), and the parody aspect is also starting to slip a little too, as we meet our hero’s female counterpart and find that she’s luring him to the dark side. Not that he’s turning evil or anything. But Hibiki also gets caught up in stories, as the heroine, and one of her friends – OK, if we’re being honest, her only friend – was injured because of that and is now in a coma. So ‘the dark side’ in this case means the darkness of the soul, where you wind up pushing everyone away because you don’t want to see them get hurt. And she infects Rekka with this mindset, which is a problem, because the entire premise of the series is therefore at risk.

Fortunately, despite this volume being far more serious than the previous two, it holds up pretty well. The situations are still cliched, but having only one heroine to worry about much of the time streamlines things a bit, even as we still have to solve multiple promises. (Arguably the fox girl is a second heroine, despite Rekka’s cluelessness, but I’ll worry about that if she ever comes back). Rekka manages to overcomes his self-doubt, pushed along by a lack of confidence (something R lampshades, as she is wont to do). And the old heroines all get something to do. The scenes with Satsuki and Harissa are quite good, as thanks to Rekka pushing her away Satsuki has her own crisis of conscience. She’s known him the longest, after all. But Harissa is the ‘purest’ of the girls in terms of her love for Rekka, so she’s able to teach the valuable lesson this time, at least once she wakes up.

The big drawback to this volume, unfortunately, are its heroines. Hibiki is meant to be a female mirror of Rekka, and also show what he could be if he went down the wrong path. As such, she’s a bit of a mess, starting off strong but eventually just hanging off the villain’s arm waiting to be rescued. Also, it feels weird to have one tsundere a mere volume after the classic example of Tsumiki. Hibiki’s crush on Rekka simply doesn’t feel earned, not the way the other girls’ do. As for the other ‘heroines’ here, the fox girl is cute but basically frets constantly the entire book, and Meifa is a living reward who doesn’t even get to speak at the end of the book. I realize that it’s hard to create strong characters every time, but given the premise the author has made for himself, it’s something he’s going to have to muscle up and do.

So I’m a bit annoyed, but in the end turning more serious did not break the series, and there were several cool fight scenes. It looks as if Rekka has remembered the core to his series, which is ‘solve one girl’s problems using another girl’s talents’, and given Vol. 4 is back to three girls on the cover, he should be fine.

(Oh yes, and don’t use alien races as a metaphor for racism if your magic solution is “turn everyone white”. Just… don’t do that.)

Kitaro: The Great Tanuki War

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By Shigeru Mizuki. Released in Japan as “Gegege no Kitaro” by (among others) Kodansha, serialized in various magazines. Released in North America by Drawn & Quarterly. Translated by Zack Davisson.

The large majority of this book is made up of the title story, the first really huge epic tale we’ve seen from this collection of Kitaro stories by Drawn & Quarterly. And it’s a real pip, showing off the best qualities of Kitaro in the 1960s. He’s far more heroic here than he’s been in the past two books, but it’s a pretty thankless task, especially when he’s going up against shifty Japanese politicians. Honestly, you’d think he’d be used to dealing with them given that he’s best friends with Nezumi Otoko, who is in peak form here, always siding with whatever appears to be the winning side, and showing no moral qualms about throwing humanity under the bus. There’s also a larger role for Itta Momen, a yokai made up of flying cloth that I thought was meant to be toilet paper for the longest time.

The villains in this story are the titular Tanuki, who have featured in many Japanese folktales, though not usually as yokai per se. These are The 800 Tanuki of Shikoku, who are here to reclaim earth and take over. They’ve got many and varied ways of doing this, each of which seems to set a higher bar of “how on Earth will Japan get out of this one”? What’s worse, they really do a number on Kitaro, taking him out several times via various fatal traps – and I mean literally fatal, by the end of this story Kitaro has to regenerate from a baby for a month or so. It’s very much in the classic serial vein, which unfortunately means that the ending reads like “OK, wrap it up in this chapter” – it’s very sudden. But the grotesque ideas and imagery are pure Mizuki, and really stand out in this epic story, which also borrows from kaiju-style tales.

I was somewhat surprised by seeing the two-faced Japanese Prime Minister tell Kitaro that they will rely on him to save Japan just like Moshe Dayan saved Israel, till I realized that this was running in Shonen Magazine only two months or so after the Six Day War. You don’t think of Kitaro as referencing too many current events, but there are times it does, particularly when he gets involved in politics, as seen here. (Speaking of references, I was rather startled to see the Tanuki declare that they were going to have the Japanese woman serve them as maids – if only they’d been 30 years later they could have gone to a cafe instead!) The final two stories feel a bit like filler compared to the epic Tanuki war, but we do get to see a rare example of Nezumi Otoko coming out on top for once – it reminds me of the rare cartoons where Tom won over Jerry.

This is a very strong volume of Kitaro, though the reader should be prepared for bad things to happen to him – he spends some of the book as a literal puddle of liquid. As always, a must for fans of classic manga, as well as modern yokai readers who want to read something by the master.

Bluesteel Blasphemer, Vol. 1

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By Ichirou Sakaki and Tera Akai. Released in Japan by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by James Rushton and Kevin Steinbach.

If you’ve grown tired of novels where our hero is either transported to another world or dies and is reincarnated in another world, well, this is another one of those. There’s so many that you really need to figure out what it is about this particular one that makes it worth reading over the other 87,326 series released this year alone. In the case of Bluesteel Blasphemer, the answer may be its pedigree. This is not a case of a newbie writer who was putting his fiction on the web and got discovered by a publisher. Ichirou Sakaki has written such things as Scrapped Princess, Chaika the Coffin Princess, and Outbreak Company, which does feature a princess. And now we have one of his newer series, Bluesteel Blasphemer, which does not have princesses – at least not yet – but has a mayor’s daughter, a sacrificial victim, and a Rei Ayanami expy, because god knows we don’t have enough of those.

Our hero is Yukinari, a young man who is rescued from modern-day Japan, where he was dying in a fire that killed his older sister, and reincarnated in a cool body (with a few tricks up its sleeve) by a young alchemist who seems very similar to his older sister, and Dasa, her younger sister and the Rei clone I mentioned above. After stuff happens, he and Dasa are on the run through the backwaters of the country, and run across Berta, a beautiful young orphan about to be sacrificed to appease the local erdgod, which is a nasty piece of work. It’s not clear whether the sacrifices work or not, and the mayor’s daughter Fiona, who’s in charge while her father is in ill health, has her doubts as well, but hey: it’s tradition. Unfortunately, Yukinari and Dasa proceed to massacre tradition, and now have to deal with his being the assumed local erdgod replacement – as well as the unfortunate arrival of the local Inquisition, here to enslave the village into their religion.

There are pluses and minuses to this series. The pluses are the plot and the writing, which are both excellent. You can tell the author is far more experienced, as there’s no long introductory sequence like most isekai. Instead, we get the feeling we’re starting with Book 2, which gets a bit confusing but pays off in the long run. The action sequences, of which there are many, work fine, and the plot twists happen at just the right moment. On the down side, well, the characters are not nearly as good as the book being written around them. Yuknari is fairly faceless, Dara is, as I said, another in a long line of snarky deadpan barely legals, and Berta’s desire to serve Yukinari as the new replacement erdgod is rather disturbing, as she seems to be confusing love and worship in her head. Fiona was probably the best character of the lot. (Honestly, as the author himself admits in the afterword, the harem aspect seems totally tacked on and uninspired). Also, the two older sisters who both die to inspire the heroes… bleah. I bet they both had that dead mom sidetail, didn’t they?

So it’s a decent, but not stellar, debut for this series. I’m willing to give it another volume to draw me in more. That said, I’m rather glad it’s only 4 volumes total.

Chihayafuru, Vol. 2

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By Yuki Suetsugu. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Be Love. Released in North America digitally by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Ko Ransom.

I’d said in the last review that Chihayafuru is, in many ways, a sports manga. But this is not your average baseball or soccer title. Karuta is not really thought of as something that kids do these days, particularly once they enter high school, and especially if they’re good at other sports, which Chihaya is – everyone points out she should be on the track team. But Chihaya has a dream, and is very, very driven towards getting that dream, even if it means playing over and over without her two friends – we’re in high school now, and both have been away for years. Luckily, Taichi has returned, bringing his unspoken crush, his reluctance to get back into an “uncool” sport, and his ability to see flaws that Chihaya can’t see herself. Arata is another matter – not only does he still live far away, but he tells them in no uncertain terms that he isn’t playing karuta anymore.

The reason Arata abandoned karuta is not the most original one in the world – in fact it’s the most cliched part of the book – but it works anyway, especially as it helps to show off why Chihaya’s impulsiveness is not always a good thing. That said, it looks like it may work out in the end, which is good. Karuta is very much something that Chihaya associates with ‘having fun with friends’, and the group activity is the most exciting part about it. In fact, Chihaya’s enthusiasm is actually masking several issues – Taichi notes that her memorization at the start is still quite bad, and a new character who ends up joining the club, Ooe Kanada, who reminds her that the poems aren’t just there because they sound pretty – there’s meaning and depth behind each one. This is AMAZING to Chihaya, who is nice and sweet but her single minded determination means she can miss the obvious.

As for the Karuta itself, it’s actually still pretty exciting. I was not entirely certain whether Chihaya would win the match halfway through the book – in a series like this, the occasional loss is going to be inevitable, even if you promise that you’re going to win. I’m still somewhat amused at various antics going on during karuta that I would argue are fouls, but then I’m not a karuta player. It’s also a very old-fashioned game – it’s pretty obvious why the club is somewhat mocked, though honestly you get the sense it’s due to Chihaya’s overenthusiasm more than anything else. It’s also very clear why Kana thinks that they should be performing it in kimonos – a lot of karuta runs on aesthetic, and if you look the part it may help in other areas as well. As for any romance in the story, well, Taichi still has a crush on Chihaya, but that’s about it – she’s totally oblivious.

Chihayafuru may not be the most obvious josei series out there, but if you read it it will win you over on pure energy, just like its heroine.

Manga the Week of 5/24/17

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SEAN: Either you ride with the manga tide or you let it drown you. Looking at next week… blub blub blub.

MICHELLE: I thought this list was huge enough as it is!

SEAN: Dark Horse has a 2nd volume of Psycho Pass prequel Inspector Shinya Kogami.

J-Novel Club gives us a 3rd volume of Mixed Bathing in Another Dimension, which I still find much better than its title would suggest.

Kodansha has a pile, of course. In the Del Rey rescue category, we have Nodame Cantabile 19 (get ready for weekly releases of this), and Princess Resurrection 14.

MICHELLE: I continue to be asquee about Nodame. Looks like they’ll have the final volume out by the end of June!

ASH: Wow! I wasn’t expecting such a rigorous schedule for Nodame!

SEAN: Their debut is Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, a josei title from Itan magazine. Its anime was insanely popular, so I’m expecting good things.

MICHELLE: I’m definitely looking forward to this one!

ASH: As am I! It’s actually one of my most anticipated debuts for the year.

ANNA: Sounds great!

SEAN: The Full-Time Wife Escapist has a 3rd volume digitally, and I still want more of it.

MICHELLE: I still need to read 1-2!

ANNA: This is one series I’m actually not behind on reading!

SEAN: Hozuki’s Coolheadedness also has a new volume out digitally, its 2nd.

ASH: So many things I’m interested in are only being released digitally right now!

SEAN: Missions of Love 14 is here to make me grind my teeth but enjoy it anyway. It’s still a while away from an ending.

There is also a 3rd Peach Heaven out digitally.

The Seven Deadly Sins is almost old enough to drink with its 20th volume.

And Welcome to the Ballroom has a 5th book, no doubt starting the next arc.

And now for Seven Seas. First off, we have the 7th Golden Time manga, a good solid romantic dramedy.

Kase-san and Bento is the 2nd in the “Kase-san” series, and I would guess will involve bento lunches.

MICHELLE: That’s a good guess. The first one wasn’t profound or anything, but it was pleasant, so I reckon I’ll read this one, too.

ASH: I’ve been meaning to give the series a try for a while now, but there being a food theme does bump it up on the to-be-read list.

SEAN: And a 7th volume of sleepy slice of life Non Non Biyori.

Vertical gives us an 8th volume of Cardfight!! Vanguard, which seems to have gotten over whatever licensing issues had it on hold.

I’ve been forgetting about Boys Over Flowers Season 2, which Viz is still releasing digitally – the 5th volume is out next week.

MICHELLE: I wish I could love this as much as the original. Sadly, it hasn’t grabbed me.

ANNA: I liked the first couple volumes, but I agree, not as compelling as the original series.

MICHELLE: The Yoko Kamio series I *would* be excited about is Cat Street.

SEAN: The rest is Yen, but so much Yen. On the novel side, we get an 11th A Certain Magical Index, now on location in Italy.

Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody has a 2nd volume. I understand it is one of them newfangled trapped in another world thingummies.

The much delayed My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong As I Expected finally gets its 2nd novel, which may require me to reread the first to remind me what’s going on.

And a 4th volume of Overlord, this time focusing on some Lizardman Heroes who will no doubt be destroyed by our title antihero in some way.

Strike the Blood will have a 6th volume of eminently readable and totally uninspiring antics.

The big novel release this month is your name, whose lack of capital letters did not prevent it from becoming a huge movie. It’s complete in one volume, though a sequel is out later this fall.

MICHELLE: I’m a little wary of this, since I loved the movie so much. What if it taints my experience?

ASH: I’m interested in seeing how the novel reads. The manga adaptations of Shinkai’s works have generally been quite good, though.

SEAN: And there’s 3 more Spice & Wolf digital releases, 15-17, which I believe finishes the catch up.

In manga news, there’s a 5th Anne Happy, which wrings laughs out of misfortune. Well, chuckles at least.

Big Order has its second omnibus, as it continues to try to outdo Future Diary.

This isn’t manga, but I don’t care. Brave is out next week! From creator Svetlana Chmakova, it’s a semi-sequel to her hit Awkward, taking place in the same universe but focusing on new kids. It’s super good.

Following something like Brave with the 17th volume of BTOOOM!, a series still best known for its bomb-breast-bouncing scene, seems cruel.

The Case Study of Vanitas gets a 2nd volume. I understand there are vampires.

ASH: And pretty artwork, from what I hear.

SEAN: Corpse Party: Blood Covered must have killed its way through the cast, as this is the 5th and final omnibus. Not to worry, a sequel is out later this year.

Several exciting new debuts this week, starting with Delicious in Dungeon (Dungeon Meshi), a seinen series from Enterbrain’s Harta magazine that manages to combine dungeon crawls and a cooking manga.

MICHELLE: I am excite!

ASH: Same! I love the premise of the series so much. Granted, the few times that I’ve played tabletop rpgs, the groups had a tendency to put a lot of emphasis on food, both in the game and outside of it.

ANNA: Oh yeah, this sounds good!

SEAN: Dimension W has a 6th volume for those of you who enjoy the things Dimension W provides. (Can I get any vaguer?)

Girls’ Last Tour (Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou) is also debuting, coming from Shinchosha and one of its many Bunch magazines. It’s post-apocalyptic slife-of-life, and probably the closest to Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou anyone is going to get.

ASH: I’m very curious about this one, actually.

SEAN: Karneval has a 7th omnibus.

Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl has a 2nd volume, which seems fast but recall the first volume was delayed a month. In any case, yay!

MICHELLE: Forsooth!

Log Horizon: The West Wind Brigade has a 5th volume, and is one of the more enjoyable fluffy spinoffs out there.

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun remains a highlight every time it comes out, even with its 7th volume.

ASH: Yes! It is so consistently great! I love it so much!

SEAN: And if you want hyperviolent fanservicey trash (which I sort of like anyway), there’s a 2nd Murcielago.

ASH: Definitely not a series for everyone, but I liked the first volume, too.

SEAN: Re: Zero’s manga starts to adapt the 2nd novel with Chapter 2: A Week at the Mansion. Yes, folks, you’ll get your Rem here.

Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers has a 2nd volume of its manga adaptation as well.

We get the 3rd and final volume of Rose Guns Days Season 2. Worry not, fans, Season 3 is on the schedule. (Are there Rose Guns Days fans?)

Yen released this digitally ages ago, but it’s popular enough to get print now (the upcoming anime may have something to do with it). Enjoy The Royal Tutor!

ASH: Glad to see more digital titles released in print! I wanted to give this series a try when it was first licensed, and now I finally can.

SEAN: Spirits & Cat Ears has a 2nd volume, and while I wish we’d get more of the former and less of the latter I expect to be disappointed.

There is a 9th Trinity Seven.

Lastly, Black Butler fans will take interested in the 2nd Yana Toboso Artworks book, which is devoted to the series.

Keeping your head afloat? What are you getting?

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, Vol. 2

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By Dojyomaru and Fuyuyuki. Released in Japan by Overlap, Inc. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sean McCann.

This second volume of Realist Hero details a war fought on several fronts, and will no doubt delight those who enjoyed running campaigns in various roleplaying games. There are several ‘thinking outside the box’ moments that made me smile, most of which are lampshaded by excerpts from a future history book that show how the outside the box idea led to an idiom that is now in common use. And once again, I’m pleased w3ith how the cleverest ideas are not always left to Souma, the titular Realist Hero, and he’s occasionally allowed to be caught flat footed. That said, the thing that struck me the most about this second volume is that I was far more invested in the characterization than I was in the first volume, mostly due to one of the more subtle and unemotional nervous breakdowns I’ve seen.

(As a sidenote, if you’re going to have the cover of Vol. 2 feature the elf girl bodyguard, you might want to give her something to actually do in the book. Carla would have been more appropriate.)

Our king, Souma, may be a history expert who can map war scenarios onto old Japanese campaigns and spout Machiavelli with the best of them (though that thankfully happens less this time around), but he’s still a young man who grew up in modern Japan, and this whole King thing is wearing down at him. Interestingly, we never see this reflected in his own narration – it’s only when Liscia or one of the others is observing Souma that they note that something seems off about him. It’s also interesting to see how the polyamory is handled in this series – most of the other LNs I’ve seen with ‘multiple wives are legal’ scenarios mostly just have it as an excuse to not write jealousy, but Realist Hero looks into how its world handle this, and shows that the pecking order in such relationships is actually class-based more than anything else. It’s both amusing and disquieting to see Liscia pushing hard for Souma to take Carla as a secondary Queen, even showing off her hot body like a car dealer. Liscia and Carla are best friends who ended up on opposite sides in this war, and Liscia knows if Souma doesn’t marry Carla she’ll likely be executed.

The first book left several plotlines dangling for the second, and some of them are dealt with, though not all. Moreover, this second volume has quite a big open ending, as we don’t actually see what happens to Carla, her father, or any of the other nobles who rose up against Souma (bar the obvious cartoon villain nobles who get theirs at the end). Given the “realist” nature of this book, I’m not actually sure if Castor will be executed or not (Carla, being a young hot girl and friend to Liscia, I’m pretty sure is safe.) We get a few more details on the kingdoms and empires surrounding our Realist Hero’s kingdom, and are introduced to a few more potential future harem members. The series could go in any number of directions from here. The writing of Realist Hero is merely OK, and sometimes I suspect that what I’m seeing as subtle underplaying is actually just being dull, but I must admit that I want to know what happens next far more in this series than I do in other light novels.

(Also, more fantasy isekais need therapists.)

(Also also, did Liscia dramatically cut her hair just to stop me saying that she’s a duplicate of Red Saber?)

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Legend of the Piko Piko Middle School Students, Vol. 1

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By Yushi Kawata and Yukito. Released in Japan as “Shin Seiki Evangelion – Pikopiko Chuugakusei Densetsu” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Dark Horse Comics. Translated by Michael Gombos. Adapted by Carl Gustav Horn.

For the most part, if I have reviewed any of the endless Evangelion spinoffs at all, I’ve reviewed them as Briefs, mostly as for the most part it’s very difficult to try to work up 500+ words on the topic. The Evangelion manga is excellent, but its spinoffs and side stories have amounted to a creepy shoujo supernatural comic that barely felt like Eva at all (Campus Apocalypse), a Lowest Common Denominator romantic “comedy” (Shinji Ikari Raising Project), a mystery with BL overtones (Detective Diary), *another* lowest common denominator romantic comedy (Angelic Days, if anyone remembers it), and various gag anthologies. This new title is definitely on the “gag anthology” side, being a spinoff of one of the stories from the Evangelion Comic Tribute that was popular enough to get its own series.

In my review of the Comic Tribute anthology (which I guess I did give a full review to), I noted that the stories by these creators were the best part of the book, so it makes sense that they’d get a chance to add more wacky humor and dense references. The “plot” is mostly irrelevant, but essentially we see NERV trying to defeat the Angels by training gaming nerds to defeat them, and Shinji, Asuka and Rei are the three biggest. What follows is a string of gags, both visual and verbal, which range from average to quite good, though I don’t know that I laughed out loud. Characterization is, for the most part, exaggerations of the “fanon” view, so Shinji is a bit meek and overserious, Asuka’s angry all the time, Rei is stoic, and Kaworu is super gay. But above all else, there’s the boke/tsukkomi comedy we’ve come to expect from Japan, and everyone (well, OK, just Shinji and Asuka) are quick with the retorts.

Those with an observant eye may note that Carl Horn adapted this himself, and it’s very much an adaptation in the nature of his Excel Saga work, i.e. he takes the original and crafts it into something else. If you like overly literal translations, you’ll hate this, but for the most part it works out very well, especially as the original is there to help, being filled with fourth wall breaking, bizarre gaming references, and stupid running gags (it’s just a t-shirt!). Adapting manga that’s solely devoted to comedy can be tricky, but they do a good job. Of course, the drawback is that there is only comedy here – if you like Evangelion for literally anything other than gags, you’re wasting a purchase with this. But the comedy is finny, everyone is exaggerated but not totally loathsome (except Gendo, of course), and the fanservice is surprisingly minimal, something actually pointed out by the characters as they lament their lack of a beach episode. Piko Piko Middle School Students is here to crack dumb jokes and chew bubblegum, and they’ve run out of bubblegum.

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, Vol. 1

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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.

First of all, it is very hard for me to read this book and not have ‘Arifureta, gentille arifureta, Arifureta, je te plumerai.” in my head, so I want you all to have it there as well. Secondly, this book in many ways reads like Isekai Smartphone’s dark mirror. They’re both intensely serious attempts at the classic isekai, but while Smartphone is content to be light as air and coast along on the awesomeness of his hero and the goodwill of the reader, in the grim darkness of Arifureta there is only hatred and revenge. Except, of course, we never see the actual revenge that we expect, and the hatred mostly manifests itself as our hero getting impossibly overpowered and badass. It’s a teenage power fantasy, but it has not gone the way most of those types of fantasies go – at least not yet.

The first third of the book starts you off on the wrong foot, leading you to believe this will be a far more traditional isekai than it actually is. Our hero is Hajime, a normal high school student who happens to be bullied by the majority of the class, mostly because the cutest girl in the class, Shirasaki, has taken it upon herself to interact with him every day. This becomes seemingly irrelevant when the entire class is transported to another world, there to become heroes and fight for the sake of the new country they’re now in. All of the class has cool adventurer stats and awesome powers… except Hajime, whose stats are awful and who is basically a blacksmith. So he’s bullied AGAIN, physically and emotionally. Worse, Shirasaki is still interested in him. And so one day, when the class are fighting a horrible battle far above their skill level (which Hajime actually helps out with more than anyone else), one jealous classmate turns to murder and Hajime falls into the deepest, darkest depths of the dungeon.

So far so dull, but then the plot and the writing take a dive off a cliff, just like our hero. Hajime, due to the happenstance of various things I won’t bother to get into, ends up leveling up so much his stat level is ???, acquires innumerable powers, and uses his basic blacksmith stats so do amazing things, and also build lots of guns, because kids who get transported to another world tend to be gun nuts. This is the point of the book where the reader has to throw up their hands and just go with it, because it is absolutely overblown and ridiculous, and the prose verges on the hilarious. It also may be the best part of the book, because he shortly meets a vampire princess trapped in the dungeon with him, and after rescuing her the series (again) becomes far more predictable.

That said, I expected by the end of the novel that he would get back to the surface and get revenge on those who once wronged him. This doesn’t happen, though we do cut back to the surface occasionally to check in on the rest and show how Shirasaki was very, very much in love with dull ol’ Hajime. Instead, the last third of the book relies on long battle scenes (which are done pretty well) and the interaction between Hajime and Yue, which is done less well. Hajime has a tendency at times to act as tsukkomi to Yue, which is a shame as it makes him sound like Araragi from the Monogatari series, especially bad given Yue is a blonde loli vampire. Another surprise, and a warning of sorts: Hajime and Yue have sex, several times. It’s implied rather than shown, but it is worth noting, simply as that sort of thing rarely actually happens in isekai harems like this, and likely shows off its web novel roots. You will have to trot out the old “it’s OK as she’s really hundreds of years old, she just LOOKS nine” chestnut.

Arifureta was less terrible than I was expecting, but there are better isekais out there. I’d only recommend it to those who really like this sort of thing and don’t mind overpowered, overserious heroes.