Sean Gaffney

By Liar Soft. Released in Japan as “Okujou no Yurirei-san”. Released in North America by Mangagamer, also available on the Steam app.

In general I don’t review visual novels on this site, but I’d heard a lot about this one. First of all, it was hyped as being “uncensored” on Steam’s site, as if it was supposed to have a ton of porn in it. (Spoilers: there’s not much here TO censor.) Secondly, it was hyped as being a ‘yuri’ game that wasn’t marketed to the male otaku market – indeed, it reads a lot of the time as if it’s meant for female readers. But most importantly, it has strong plot and character development, is amusing and as realistic as you can get for a game starring two ghosts, and you just like it a lot.

The premise is that our heroine, Yuna, spends much of her time on the roof avoiding socialization due to a trauma from her past. While on the roof, though, she finds who ghosts (only she can see them), who are able to convince her through a mixture of politely asking and being excited about the whole thing (as well as a few veiled threats) to help the two of them hook up various female couples at the school. The goal is that when they hook up, they’ll get it on in the school itself. Since the ghosts can’t leave the campus, this is the only way they can really see how girls “do it”.

After typing that out, I realize that those who read me talking about a realistic, well-developed game are pointing and laughing by now. But it actually does a good job. Most of the cast get backstories that help make sense of their character and show why they have their various personality quirks. Two of the girls are already a couple before the series begins, and two of the girls, against all odds, don’t hook up with anyone. (It’s a very linear visual novel – you can’t make choices that really influence the game). As for the couples themselves, they’re not all the same types.

While the word ‘lesbian’ is not explicitly used, it’s made clear throughout that these are meant to be real relationships that last beyond high school. Some of the girls are thinking about their future plans as a couple, or how to explain things to their parents. One even explicitly says that she’s always been attracted to women, which helpfully avoids the “what is this strange feeling in my chest?” cliche, though we get that as well.

We get three types of ‘scenes’ we can read. The main one has a bear icon, and is Yuna going through her school life and attempting to make vague efforts to help the ghosts hook people up (though, by her own admission, her role is very passive) while also moving past her middle school trauma, embracing the fact that she’s really a take-charge leader sort, and finding her own love she was totally unaware of (it was under her nose all along! – the game is still filled with cliches, fear not). As the plot moves along, you get ‘cherry’ scenes, which are from the POV of the various other girls, showing us scenes that happens when Yuna isn’t there.

Speaking of which, several of those scenes involve sex. That said, though there is mild nudity (a few breasts) and some explicit terminology, anyone who buys this for the “good bits” will regret it immensely. As for the sex writing, it’s not horrible, but also not great – the post-coital pillow talk is usually more important.

After you complete the game’s main “plot”, you unlock various ‘apple’ marked scenes, and can unlock more by going back to the game and making the pointless choice you didn’t make before. (As I said, nothing affects the main plot, so you mostly just get briefly different dialogue). The ‘apple’ scenes are basically the same as the ‘cherry’ scenes, only they tend to involve spoilers – i.e., the characters reflect on things the reader was unaware of at the time. This can occasionally be harmful to the game itself – Hina gets most of her development in these apple scenes, as the game wanted her to be the stoic girl whose thoughts were a mystery to us. Which is fine, and she’s one of my favorites, but this led to her being undercharacterized for most of the game itself.

There are elements that don’t work. I mentioned Hina’s development already. Another character, Ano, has two conflicting sides that don’t always mesh very well together in the writing. There is also a teacher/student relationship, which is handled as well as can be expected, but I’d still rather have done without, especially as the teacher is the standard ‘looks like a little kid’ type. And of course, being a visual novel, you’d better be prepared for reading a whole lot of text, with repetitive music. The game is partially voiced, piping up for important scenes.

Overall, I’m pleased that I got this game, which ended up being better than I expected. The girls are all fairly intelligent, or at least idiotic in a fun, amusing way. The pairings all make sense. There’s a lot of content to justify its somewhat expensive price. And it treats its sexuality seriously, and has the girls thinking seriously about it. (Indeed, one of the two ‘unpaired’ girls, Nena, could easily be asexual and aromantic judging from the text.) If you’re curious about this sort of thing, it’s definitely recommended.

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

Seven volumes into UQ Holder, and again I’m asking the question I’ve wondered about since it started: who is this meant to be for, exactly? I don’t know how Japanese fans of Negima reacted when it came to its messy end, but the Western fans were appalled and angry, for the most part. And after seemingly destroying his own series due to an argument with the parent company (details will likely remain forever sketchy), Akamatsu has now leaped 80 years into the future, helpfully thus losing most of the main cast of Negima, and begun what seemed like a spiritual sequel but has now amounted to a direct sequel. And just as Negima was able to ditch some of the wacky comedy and naked fanservice of Love Hina in favor of fighting and battles, UQ Holder takes it further, and you can almost safely read this in public.

I know that there are readers of this series who have not read Negima, having picked up the series via Crunchyroll or Kodansha, and are purely interested in the new story and new generation of characters. This volume must be particularly frustrating to them, as almost all of it features old Negima cast members, old Negima plots that never got resolved, and teases of Negima characters long-dead doing badass things. As a Negima fan, I admit it’s nice to see Mana again, and even if it was just a tiny flashback, the idea of Ku Fei and Yue teaming up to win the Grand Magic Games tournament is both hilarious and awesome. And, of course, we have the major UQ Holder characters who *are* carryovers from Negima: Yukihime (aka Evangeline) and Fate.

This leads to what is probably the most interesting part of the volume, when touching an application for Tota to do the Grand Magic Games triggers a booby trap that shows them a vision of Negi, Nagi… and the Mage of the Beginning, who is delighted to see Evangeline again, and (it’s implied) Tota as well. The reason this is the most interesting part of the volume are Eva and Fate’s reactions, which are desperate and yearning, the most emotion we’ve seen from either of them this entire series. Eva’s love for both Negi and Nagi was a significant part of Negima, and now in UQ Holder it seems it hasn’t diminished.

Of course, this leads to what kickstarts the next arc, as after this she realizes (I assume, motives are murky) that Tota is in danger if he’s near her, and forbids him from fighting in the tournament, or even leaving headquarters. Needless to say, all this does is spur him on to try harder. And it also spurs the author on to work in more Negima references. Not only can Tota seemingly use Dark Magic Erebea, but he is revealed to literally be a clone of Negi, which will no doubt lead to some excellent soul-searching and character development on his end, but from a meta perspective is both hilarious and sad.

I enjoy UQ Holder for what it is, but then I’ve read Negima, and have gotten over my grudge. For anyone else trying this series, I imagine it must seem like the image of Negi we see in this volume: a cool image surrounded by the dark, binding tentacles that make up its past.

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

Attack on Titan has never really been a laugh riot to begin with, but you get the sense that the fun is over with this volume. There’s one last effort to have wacky survey corps times here, with Sasha going completely bugfuck over meat, and Eren and Jean having a nostalgic fistfight, but it feels a bit out of place and wrong, and just makes the reader realize that those times are probably gone for good. A feeling that only intensifies as the volume goes on and we reach Wall Maria, where Reiner and Bertholt (OK, mostly Reiner) as well as the Beast Titan await, luring our heroes into a trap that they’re mostly aware of and walking into willingly. I suspect the volume after this will be wall-to-wall action.

Meanwhile, the flashback with Instructor Shadis gives us the longest look yet we’ve had of Eren’s parents, and also discusses the mindset that the Survey Team needs to have to function properly, a mindset that some people (like Shadis himself) struggle and ultimately fail to find. Eren’s father Grisha is found outside the walls, and it’s implied came from even further outside. He’s able to find his calling in life, though, and it’s not the Survey Corps but medicine. As we see Shadis desperately attempting to prove that he’s special, that he’s better than everyone else and failing, we see Grisha fall in love, get married, have a family… and do scientific experiments on his children, of course, though this volume doesn’t get into that.

Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch has never really resonated with me, and Attack on Titan plays with the concept without choosing sides. Certainly we have characters throughout the series who seem to succeed with what appears to be a minimum of effort and looking cool while doing it – Mikasa, Levi – but Eren, who’s support to be the most special of them all, is seen constantly struggling and failing. He notes in this volume he’s not special – just the son of a special man. Shadis gives up command of the Survey Corps because he has a crisis of confidence and supposedly”realizes” that he’s not special while someone like Erwin is. But Hange, correctly in my opinions, calls that simple cowardice. Again, the ambiguity is discomfiting but appreciated.

Speaking of people struggling with being special, Armin has found that being the idea guy is not all it’s cracked up to be when time is running short and you can’t explain your ideas very well beyond “it’s a hunch”. Eren, Mikasa and Armin function best as a threesome because each one of them has something the other two lack, and I enjoyed the flashback to their youth as probably my favorite scene in the entire volume. Sadly, as I said, the volume ends with Reiner making his appearance, and even though he’s almost beheaded he isn’t quite, so I’m sure he’ll be back before you know it. Attack on Titan can be a struggle, but always makes you think and question why you’re making choices. That’s a big reason it sells as well as it does.

By Wataru Karasuma. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

Once you see something make it big, be it here or in Japan, you’re going to see variations on the same basic theme in the hopes that a company can get some of that sweet profit. Be it vampires, zombies, Alices, or whatever, the media are ready to give you something that’s essentially the same with a few palette swaps. Even better is if you can mash more than one genre together – you get the chance to try to court multiple markets. Enter Not Lives, whose cover screams out that its’ a date sim, complete with an actual dialogue box, but it also ends up being ‘person ends up in a game world’ as well as the ever popular ‘survival game’ genre. The result isn’t terrible, but it feels like a title where stuff is thrown at the wall to see what sticks.

Oddly, despite being the most obvious thanks to the cover, the datesim/high school romance part is the least developed of the bunch. Our hero, for a change, is rather extroverted and talkative, and also has a genius for making and marketing games of any kind, but is somewhat useless about matters of the heart – not realizing that his long-suffering childhood friend is in love with him, for instance. One day he accidentally gets a copy of a mysterious game called Not Lives, and when he tries to play it it loads itself into his chest rather than the CD drive, downloading him into a VR game where he’s playing a young woman. The catch being that the young woman actually exists, and is rather frustrated with this newbie losing in his very first game.

So far so cute, but the survival game aspect takes precedence as the series goes on, and we discovers the players are trapped in a rather nasty way. First time losers become ‘avatars’, i.e. somewhat less than human, and are forced to recruit other players. If the avatar then loses again… they’re ‘deleted’, which seems to involve severed body parts. Needless to say, things get a bit cutthroat, especially since it becomes apparent that some of the players/avatars can use game powers in the REAL world to, say, throw a bunch of thugs in front of a truck and kill them all. Our hero may be a genius gamer, but will he be able to level up and beat this game where the rules are still a bit vague? Especially once his avatar ends up transferring to his class, thus neatly taking us back to the datesim in the very end.

There’s nothing overtly wrong with this – there’s some fanservice, but honestly I was expecting worse, and the avatar, Kyouko, manages to be emotionally repressed without being a stoic robot. That said, nothing in it screamed that I absolutely had to get the next volume. It plays to folks who like “trapped in a game” (me), “survival game” (not me), and “dateim romance” (it depends). My main concern is the 2nd, as I worry that, like almost all survival game titles, we’ll be introduced to likeable, sympathetic people who will then meet horrible ends. Childhood friend, I’m very worried for your future…

By Satoko Kiyuduki. Released in Japan as “Hitsugi Katsugi no Kuro – Kaichu Tabi no Wa” by Houbunsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Manga Time Kirara. Released in North America by Yen Press.

It can at times be rather hard to believe that this mostly dark and surreal fantasy series can come from the same author as GA Art Design Class, a 4-koma series about the adventures of five girls in art college. But there are moments when the two series seem to connect more than you’d expect. Kiyuduki frequently believes in “show, don’t tell” in regards to not only her plot but also her characterization, leaving the reader to guess much of what’s going on; we sometimes see this with The Professor in GA. Likewise, Kisaragi’s surreal and sometimes unnerving dream sequences could easily fit into Kuro – indeed, Kisaragi and Kuro look similar enough that you could headcanon this as one long nightmare she’s having. Because it does feel more and more like a nightmare – Kuro’s not getting as many fluffy stories as it did back in Volume 1.

Part of the reason for that might be that this volume gives us a lot more background on the witch that has supposedly cursed Kuro – we see what may be a sort of origin story for her, and a story where we see her own journeys, which appropriately mirror Kuro’s. But I think it’s simply that almost all the stories in this volume deal with death and being unable or unwilling to move on. Three very different young women meet unfortunate ends but want to leave something behind. A balloon race seems to literally end up in heaven. Kuro, Nijuku and Sanju end up in a valley where perspective and illusions seem like an optional extra, and Kuo once again cannot let go of what she regards as the things that make her what she is – her hat and coffin. Even the happiest story in this volume involves a cursed painter whose subjects all seem to die right after they’re painted. Luckily, Kuro can’t seem to die, so that’s one problem solved.

The second half of the book gets even more chilling, at times almost seeming to descend into pure horror. Two sisters are offered a grim bargain by the Witch, and Kuro has to deal with the consequences, once again taking on someone else’s suffering into her own body. b The last story introduces us to what seems like another in Kuro’s long line of spunky female merchant girls she seems to run into, only to find that reality is murderously different. And this also gives us the reason for Kuro’s journey. Yes, she’s trying to seek death, but in order to do that, she has to take in life as well, because without life death is meaningless. It’s something that the witch doesn’t quite understand, and even Kuro isn’t really confident in her feelings till the end of this book. But it’s true, and also a reminder of the depth and quality of the stories in this volume. Anyone who likes dark, thoughtful fantasy should be reading this, no exceptions.

By Keiichi Arawi. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Vertical Comics.

I have a weakness for gag manga, as some of you may have noticed, and also a weakness for high school slice-of-life starring a bunch of quirky high school girls. It should be no surprise, therefore, to learn that I have been awaiting the release of Nichijou for some time. It was initially licensed by Bandai Entertainment about 5 years ago, but they folded their US manga division before it could even get a volume out. That said, the anime did appear over here, and was quite popular – in fact, arguably far more popular than it ended up being in Japan. And so Vertical, which has been dipping its toes into the surreal gag world with titles like My Neighbor Seki, now introduces us to a very unordinary manga.

Nichijou has quite a large ensemble cast, but for the most part is the adventures of five girls. Three of them, Yuuko, Mio, and Mai, are classmates at the local high school. Yuuko is peppy, somewhat dense, and very fond of attempting to make jokes that no one finds funny but her. Mio is the “normal” girl in the csat, but that’s only a matter of degrees, as we discover when she realizes her secret yaoi manga doodle is about to be discovered and becomes Superwoman. Mai is my personal favorite, a quite and shy girl who loves to bait and get reactions from Yuuko, I suspect as it’s the only way she can really show her feelings. There are apparently fans of Nichijou who dislike Mai for her gadfly nature, but these people are objectively wrong, so there’s no need to worry about them.

The other two main cast members are Nano, a robot girl who also attends class and her child genius inventor Professor, who’s a genius at making robots but an immature child in almost every other sense. Those familiar with the anime might be taken aback by Nano appearing in class right away – the anime decided to move all the stories with her in class to the second half of the series, the better to separate the ‘school’ and ‘Professor’s house’ segments of the show. We also meet a few other amusing minor characters here, like the farmer’s son who acts like a stereotypical rich boy, and the parody of tsunderes who can be seen literally blowing people’s brains out (though they’re fine a panel later – this is essentially a cartoon, in the Western Looney Tunes sense).

There’s not a lot to review in Nichijou beyond the gags, which I don’t want to spoil if you haven’t seen them. As with most manga of this sort, the humor can be found in facial reactions, and Arawi is very, very good at these – check out Chapter 9 for the best example. The girls are cute as well, but there is a blissful lack of fanservice that I also greatly appreciate, and there don’t seem to be any obvious romances besides the one-sided crushes Mio and the tsundere parody have. Nichijou is content to make jokes and be strange, and if it has to choose between being funny or being strange, it will pick the latter. If you like laughing, or if you like tilting your head and going “wuh?”, either way you’ll enjoy this.

By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On.

As I’ve said many times before, Log Horizon has a bit of a fandom war with a similar series, Sword Art Online. It’s something of a one-sided war, given that SAO has about 10 times the number of fans LH does, but being #2, Log Horizon fans try harder. And one thing that comes up in complaining about SAO is how Kirito is the sort of self-insert perfect hero type who always gets all the attention and the girls. This contrasts with Shiroe in Log Horizon… somewhat. Shiroe’s not a front-line combatant, being more of a general and tactician. And there are many girls in the series who seem totally uninterested in him. This is perhaps balanced by the events at the end of this book, in which he reveals that with a properly written contract, he appears to have the power to resurrect the dead and create life. Which is something Kirito could never do. (Isn’t it sad, Sachi?)

Of course, Shiroe’s role in this book is not as big as it has been, mostly as the cast continues to be fleshed out and expanded. On the cover we have Crusty and Reinesia, two similar characters who are able to project a veneer of serenity and competence even though they’d rather be doing something else. And, as we find in this book, both are able to supporess their lazy impulses when the need arises. Reinesia impressed me the most in this entire book, showing off impressive political acumen in cutting through all the red tape and ego tripping of the Council arguments and realizing what had to be done. And then she goes and does it, despite being forced to dress in a revealing Valkyrie costume “for morale reasons” and getting exposed to horrific battles (and, even more terrifying, Crusty loving those battles). I really hope to see more of her soon.

Meanwhile, we discover the terrible secret of Rundelhaus, though admittedly we don’t get the extensive background story I was expecting. He’s an NPC who desperately wants to be a hero, and has tried even harder than the others, despite the fact that the game itself won’t let him level up as much. So, naturally, he’s killed in combat, which leads to Shiroe doing what I said he did in the first paragraph. I had sort of hoped that this would lead to Isuzu finally treating him like a man instead of a big dog, but to no avail. Actually, shippers will be happy-yet-left-wanting with the ending, in which no less than four ships get teases but that’s about it. Also, I am amused that it became so obvious Akatsuki had done next to nothing since the first book that she actually whines about it here.

Log Horizon continues to do a very good job of building a world logically based on “what if we were trapped in a game” mechanics, with the plot of these two books being particularly clever, as it relies on the adventurers not doing something due to the crisis, and the consequences being horrible. I do wonder if we’ll ever see the original core trio battling together again, though. Perhaps next time.