Sean Gaffney

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.

There are certain benefits to doing a series that is entirely devoted to gags. The expectations that you have as an artist are significantly different from, say, a shoujo title like the one Nozaki himself draws. What’s most important is the punchline. As a result, though, you can be free to use other standard manga tropes without worrying too much about what the fan or editorial reaction will be. Thus Nozaki-kun has any number of ‘pairings’ within its pages, which are used and abused for gag purposes and don’t need pesky things like development or depth. That’s for fans to write in their fanworks (and believe me, they do.)

Sakura’s crush on Nozaki is an excellent example of this. Its intensity never wavers, but the focus on it can change. In the first chapter of the volume, when Nozaki takes her out to examine clothing he can work into his series, and asks her bluntly to wear a sailor uniform so he can see how it looks on her, you wonder what she sees in this somewhat dense lunk. But then we get scenes such as the art class, where all the girls draw Mikoshiba in ridiculous fantasy poses they want their boyfriend to be in but Sakura has him posing as Nozaki drawing. Or when Miyako draws Nozaki in a giant tanuki costume in a vain effort to stop her insane editor’s demands, and Sakura is entranced by it, that you realize that no, she is not the sensible one here either.

If there is a sensible one in this manga, it may just be Hori, who also gets a chapter devoted to his bizarre relationship with his drama underclassman Kashima. Even though Nozaki is not particularly keeping his manga a secret, it has become one for most of the characters working on it. As a result, when Kashima catches Hori walking around with Nozaki’s manga, she thinks it’s because he really likes shoujo manga. This, bizarrely, leads to several pages with Kashima as the tsukkomi – as I said before, any of the main characters can be the setup or punchline depending on the joke. There’s also slightly less violence here, as we focus instead on Kashima’s adoration or her sempai contrasted with Hori’s complete inability to deal with her ‘prince’ antics.

And then there’s Wakamatsu and Seo, as the last of our main cast is introduced in this volume. While I love all the main ‘ships’ in Nozaki-kun, I will admit this one is my particular favorite, and it also revolves around secrets. Wakamatsu is a first-year basketball player who gets abused on the court by Seo, still being brought in to show the teams what not to do. Off the court, he’s become entranced by the singing of the school “Lorelei”, which helps him when he has trouble sleeping. The gag is twofold; 1) he doesn’t realize that Seo *is* Lorelei, and 2) he has no idea how to communicate his frustration to her, so resorts – as Kashima does – to reading shoujo manga for advice, which results in the funniest scene of the entire book, his rooftop “confession”, complete with oven mitts.

So misunderstandings galore are the fuel for this comedy. Nozaki doesn’t know Sakura loves him, Wakamatsu doesn’t know that Seo is his rival AND crush, and Kashima and Hori simply have no idea how the other one thinks at all. It works well, and I continue to giggle aloud as I read the series. Always a treat.

Also, there are still tanukis.

By Hirohiko Araki. Released in Japan as “Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz Media.

Because everything is so ridiculous all the time, it can sometimes be hard to remember how influential JoJo really was on the Weekly Shonen Jump era. Yes, JoJo has its predecessors as well – we’ve seen sink-or-swim training since the dawn of time – but most of the story and fight beats here are something you’d see in your average One Piece or Bleach. Indeed, I have to wonder if Aizen decided to carry out his evil plan after reading “It as me, Dio!” a few too many times. That said, One Piece and Bleach may go over the top a lot but they still can’t touch JoJo, where every single page is a dramatically shouted moment, and even the evil Nazis have retirony moments.

Joseph also needs his Speedwagon-esque sidekick, of course (made somewhat odd by Speedwagon actually being there at the start), and for that we have Caesar Zeppeli, who starts off as a typical Italian lothario who does not like Joseph at all, but they quickly bond when they have to battle the ancient villains who are trying to regain power or somesuch. There is a plot going on throughout the book, but it comes secondary at all times to the ridiculous poses, dialogue, and characters. Speaking of which, I was quite happy to see that Joseph and Caesar’s training mentor is female – Lisa Lisa, a young woman who does not let herself get lost in emotion (see what I did there?) when it comes to honing the pair’s hamon skills. I hope she survives, as she’s very cool.

There are still some moments of drama and horror – we’re near the start of World War II, so there’s a lot of Nazis running around, and they get the majority of the corpses in this volume. Mark, JoJo and Caesar’s young driver, is quickly marked for death the moment he shows us a locket with his girlfriend in it, and saying he’s about to propose is just icing on the cake. And a whole bunch of Nazis get their life energy drained out of them in a rather unsettling sequence. I would argue that the Nazi villains are perhaps not being treated as seriously as they should be, but that would imply that JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure should treat something seriously, and I can’t really get behind that.

The majority of the last half is taken up by JoJo battling one of the major villains, Esidisi (yeah, it went there. We also got Loggins and Messina in this volume as well), which shows off JoJo’s quick thinking and rashness. The best moment of the whole volume may be when JoJo’s trademark “you’re about to say this” schtick is used against him, a fact that I think wounds him more than any physical pain. In any case, this is just as overblown, manly and ridiculous as ever, and if you like Jump Manga you should enjoy it immensely.

By Bisco Hatori. Released in Japan as “Urakata!!” by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine LaLa. Released in North America by Viz.

It can be hard to find a balance between trying new things and doing what you know you do best. This is particularly true for manga authors, as they have a popular style or way of writing, and fans who get their new series expect more of the same, only different. As do editors. And Bisco Hatori has earned her reputation from the insanely popular series Ouran High School Host Club, which ran for almost 10 years. As a result, it’s not really a surprise that her new series, Behind the Scenes!!, also features a school club filled with eccentrics where the new character is dragged around and slowly learns what the people are really like.

The main difference is in the main character. Hatori no doubt wanted a contrast from the blunt, deadpan Haruhi of Ouran, who could get frustrated at the antics of those around her but was, for the most part, rather quiet and matter of fact. Ranmaru, on the other hand, is a new student from a fishing family who is trying to be shy and retiring, mostly due to his past school life where he ended up, for one reason or another, being the scapegoat. It’s left him with a low opinion of himself, which informs his character during the entire first volume. That said, when the chips are down he proves to be a wonderful improviser, something that the club he’s accidentally gotten involved with notes right away.

The club, on the other hand, is filled with extroverted eccentrics. They provide costumes, props and special effects for the college’s four varied film clubs, and the clubs are of course all egotistical impresarios, so they’re always changing things at the last minute. It is, unfortunately, the sort of club where the reader will need several volumes to get them all straight, with the exception of Ryuji, who is the manipulative but with a good heart sort who bullies Ranmaru into joining the club for his own good. There’s a nice balance shown between the various functions of the club and the need for last minute changes – as well as the pettiness of your typical director with a vision.

The drawback, of course, is that this all feels a bit more-of-the-same. As I said, that’s what readers and editors want, and it’s great to see more of Hatori’s standard humor, but there’s less room for experimentation, such as the sort we saw in her earlier series Millennium Snow. Nothing really surprises you, and the plot beats roll out exactly as you’d expect. There is, perhaps, less of the BL tease that was found all over Ouran, but given how much of it turned out to be simply tease, that’s likely not a bad thing. Fans of Bisco Hatori will enjoy this, but I would wait a volume or two before making judgment – I think it’s a slow burner, and so far it’s merely simmering.

By Gen Urobuchi, Type-Moon, and Shinjiro. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Dark Horse.

I find myself somewhat relieved that I am familiar with Fate/Stay Night, the original visual novel that this is a prequel to. Admittedly, it makes it hard to judge whether this work can stand on its own for someone who was unfamiliar with this world till they picked it up. My guess is that no, it would be hopelessly confusing, which is why I am relieved. This reads like a prequel everyone wants to see to the game/manga/anime they’ve already experienced, and so it delivers a lot of cool things, but the explanations are to a degree taken as read, or at least glossed over lightly in smug monologues. That said, it’s pretty good at delivering the cool things.

Fate/Stay Night’s manga was never finished here due to Tokyopop’s abandonment of their manga division, so I’m assuming most of the audience here is one that’s seen the various Fate anime versions. Including Fate/Zero, for that matter, which has also been an anime (which I haven’t seen) and which was originally a light novel (which I haven’t read, and isn’t licensed). This prequel takes place during the Fourth Grail War, and features the parents or relations of a great deal of the cast – Shirou’s adoptive father Kiritsugu, his wife Irisviel and their daughter Illya, Rin’s father (who is only briefly seen, and who Rin seems to have inherited her smugness from), and a young Kotomine Kirei, who has not yet been completely horrible but give him time. Thankfully, a few of the servants are the same ones we’ve seen before. Saber is still the King Arturia Saber we know and love, and Archer is Gilgamesh, as the original Fate had made clear.

It does shake up a few things, though. Kiritsugu and Emiya are meant to contrast, and they certainly do, with Kiritsugu’s adaptation of the “needs of the many” maxim meaning he tries to find the most happiness for others by killing those who get in its way – he realizes that you can’t simply save everyone, unlike Shirou later on. And Kotomine’s father seems to be pulling strings for the Church, which is as “unbiased” as ever. The most interesting part of the manga, however, is of the whiny, seemingly bullied Waver Velvet and his servant Rider. This Rider is not the Medusa we’re familiar with, though – it’s Alexander the Great, known here as Iskandar, and he is the main reason to get this volume, as he is awesome. You’d expect him to be contemptuous of his rather whiny master, and you’d be right, but he seems to be training Waver Velvet to be a better person instead of writing him off. They have a wonderful dynamic.

Saber doesn’t get as much to do here, though she does rock a fantastic bodyguard suit, and is as empathic as she was in the original. I like her conversations with Iris, who reveals she’s literally never left the castle where she lives until just now. I’m not sure how long Iris will last in this manga – Fate/Stay Night reminds us she’s dead, and even if it didn’t this prequel is written by Gen Urobuchi, who created Madoka Magica and Psycho Pass. But it has characters we wanted to see doing cool things, and the art is decent (the artist also does the Taboo Tattoo manga), and is definitely worth getting for fans of Fate.

By Kenjiro Hata. Released in Japan as “Hayate no Gotoku!” by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

One of the stranger running plots we’ve had in Hayate the Combat Butler has been 13-year-old Nagi’s insistence on being a brilliant manga artist, an insistence that is counterbalanced by her actual manga, which is strange to the point of incoherence. This mas mostly been played for humor, focusing on Hayate and Maria’s attempts to not tsukkomi Nagi when reading her stuff, and pretend that it’s totally going to sell. Here, though, Nagi’s manga becomes the point of this next arc, as she runs into a genuine manga artist – mostly through the machinations of Ayumu – and discovers what a leap forward it would take for her work to achieve what a professional artist’s does.

We briefly saw this artist several volumes ago, but now we get a name – Ashibashi-sensei – and we see what the life of a manga artist actually entails. This also includes an assistant, who turns out to be Azumamiya, one of the many minor characters who littered the early volumes and have now mostly been forgotten. He’s here to be annoyed that they’re doing this for Nagi at all. In any case, Ashibashi-sensei is clearly based on Hata’s former mentor Koji Kumeta, author of Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei. There’s not quite as much despair this time around, but we do get to see how totally exhausted a manga author can get, the dangers of procrastination, and most importantly, how Nagi’s work just isn’t cutting it.

Nagi can’t even bring herself to show it to him – she runs off devastated, having received actual criticism she’ll listen to for the first time ever, as opposed to people trying to be nice (Hayate, Maria), or people with the same warped worldview as she has (Isumi). This leads to a serious crisis of confidence, particularly since, when Nagi decides to simply concentrate on school work, she notices her grades are slipping as well (though she’s still in the Top 10). Nagi’s maturity, or lack thereof, has been a source of frustration for many of the Western fans of Hayate. Honestly, I suspect for those fans the solution is so eliminate her entirely – character development is not what they want. But it’s what they see here.

Luckily, Chiharu comes to the rescue, asking Nagi to help her sell doujinshi at a local event. This allows Hata to throw in a couple of chapters praising the idea of doujinshi (here clearly referring to original works, not the parodies and porn most people associate the word with), and allowing Nagi to get her groove back, mostly as she reads a dolphin-based manga that’s even screwier than hers is. I like the idea that “I can do better than THIS!” is a motivating factor. We also see what I believe is the author of that particular manga, though why she’s in disguise is something that is likely left for the next volume. Hayate the Combat Butler continues to be lots of fun, and it’s good to see Nagi finally growing.

By Eiichiro Oda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

I’m still a big fan of One Piece, but there’s no getting around it: this arc has dragged, and it shows. The chaos that is Dressrosa is starting to be harder and harder to follow, and while that’s clearly meant to mirror what’s going on with the actual participants, it doesn’t make things any easier. Half the Straw Hat crew have been absent for several volumes now. Oda’s constant scene shifting means we barely get to remind ourselves who’s fighting who before we move on to another location. Rebecca continues to be a thing to be protected, with even Nico Robin getting into the mix, much to my chagrin. Worst of all, a lot of things here, particularly the backstory, are things that have been done before and better in earlier volumes. One Piece is 77 volumes now, and I’m afraid it’s starting to repeat itself.

A good example of this is the entire flashback with Corazon and young Law. It’s supposed to be heartwrenching, and there are moments where you are truly horrified by how cynical and awful people in this world can be (I’m thinking of the hospitals Corazon visits to try to cure Law), but it’s hard not to be reminded of other backstories we’ve had before. Other backstories we see to explain silly characters are either too tragic for the silliness (why Senor Pink wears a baby bonnet) or reinforce negative behavior (literally everything about Baby 5, which may be the nadir of this arc). Again, this is the sort of thing that you’ll only see in a long-running series like this, especially one where the ‘tragic backstory’ part of the arc comes regularly like clockwork.

Some stuff worked better. Robin, Cavendish, and Bartolomeo were probably the funniest part of the volume. Robin is a Straw Hat, therefore Oda has exempted her from any romantic issues such as Baby 5 has. She’s therefore able to simply sit back and stare balefully at these two morons trying either to impress her. Cavendish’s multiple personalities come somewhat out of nowhere, but they lead to some amusing situations and don’t feel quite as repetitive as some of the other things we see here. Luffy’s concern about Bellamy, who is pretty much ready to throw away his own life at this point. Characters rarely die in One Piece, so I doubt Bellamy will, but the fact that Luffy is worried shows how desperate the situation is. Oh yes, and Doflamingo remains a thoroughly evil little snake.

There’s a few other things I could mention, such as Oda’s hilariously awful attempts at writing a tsundere character. But for the most part, I really want this arc to be over and the crew to move on. I want to see Nami and Sanji and Chopper and Brook again. I want Luffy to defeat Doflamingo so that I don’t have to keep staring at his face all the time. Most of all, I want something new. Dressrosa is filled with the angry ghosts of One Piece plots of old, and they’re merely pale shrouds of what we know Oda can really do.

By Katsuhisa Kigitsu. Released in Japan by Akita Shoten, serialized in the magazine Champion Red. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

This has been one of the long-awaited licenses, and it’s easy to see why with this first omnibus. Franken Fran is terrific. That said, one or two caveats. I feel, once again, Seven Seas’ rating is lower than it really should be. Also, this is absolutely not for anyone easily creeped out by body horror. Not for nothing has it been nicknamed ‘Squick: The Manga’. If you don’t like insects, gore, horrific scientific human/animal hybrids… again, not a manga for you. But if you have enjoyed the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, or yearn for a return to some of the weirder Black Jack stories, then Franken Fran is right up your alley.

As the cover might demonstrate, there is some theoretically salacious nudity. I say theoretically because every time you see a naked breast in this series, it’s immediately offset by something horrible happening to its owner. The premise is that there is a mad scientist known throughout the world for his incredible medical skills and ability to save anyone even after death. This is not his story – he’s absent. But he’s left behind his daughter Fran, who seems to be more ‘built’ than ‘conceived’, and she too has amazing medical skills and can do anything. The stories in Franken Fran, much like Black Jack (which the series admits it’s indebted to), involve people coming to Fran asking for operations, her performing these, and the unforeseen consequences that arise.

Because make no mistake about it, there are consequences. Unlike Black Jack, or even Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Fran has no real identifiable sense of morality beyond ‘life must be preserved at all costs’. Yes, even if it means that the person whose life has been saved is living on in agony as some kind of monstrous hybrid. They’re alive, so it’s OK, right? Fran also has a tendency to do things because she wants to see what will happen, which has led to a girl’s entire body being rebuilt so she can live as just a head, giving a man who is losing his sight eyes that can see ANYTHING, including other dimensional beings, and experimenting on cockroaches for the lulz, and then ending up taking their side after realizing she’s lost the war against them. Fran is usually impossible to understand.

She’s hilarious though. The reason that this series is so popular is not just the monstrous horror, but the combination of it with a truly black as pitch comedy. High school students get their every whim catered to by Fran (I want to be taller, I want bigger eyes, etc.) and the results are hysterical. A crime syndicate’s insane leader has to go up against his increasingly difficult to handle clones, and the chaos is glorious. And then there’s Kuho, the unfortunate detective who is misfortunate enough to be the only normal character in the series… or at last she is until Fran gets a hold of her. People suffer horribly in this book, and it’s funny. Trust me on this.

This omnibus gives us the first two Japanese volumes, ending with the introduction of Fran’s assassin sister Veronica, who looks to be psychotic and dangerous but turns out to be nothing next to Fran’s ‘hey, it’s for science’ mentality. In the meantime, if you enjoy any of the titles I mentioned above, or stuff like Dorohedoro, absolutely give Franken Fran a try. Don’t mind the salacious covers. This ran in Champion Red, which is only read by horrible people. They had to throw them a bone.

By Nobuaki Enoko and Takeshi Obata. Released in Japan as “Gakkyu Hotei” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz Media.

It can sometimes be difficult, particularly for a Western audience, to remember that Weekly Shonen Jump’s demographic remains young boys in Japan, with the ideal age between 8 and 13 years old. They know the reality of writing for children, which is kids want to read about other kids a few years older than they are, which is why the less fantasy-oriented Jump series feature a bunch of middle and high schoolers. (Speaking of which, when did Bleach last attend high school anyway?) But sometimes there is a series which does give us elementary schoolers, and we have that in School Judgment. There’s a catch, though – some of the students are lawyers, and what follows is, if not exactly a ipoff of the Ace Attorney franchise, at least highly influenced by it.

It becomes fairly clear a few pages into this series that you really have to leave your suspension of disbelief at the door. While true for most Jump series, the combination of 12-year-old lawyers, some of whom are also ex-convicts, and 4-year-old baby judges may make a few people at least raise an eyebrow. But it fits with the manga’s overall mood, which is over the top, a bit loud, and somehow both painfully earnest and deeply cynical at the same time. The main reason that it succeeds is the hero, Abaku, is *not* your standard Jump hero. In fact, he’s more like the cynical, grinning mentor who’s gradually won over by the shiny idealism of the normal hero. No idealism here – Abaku is obnoxious, superior, selfish, and acts refreshingly like a 12-year-old at times.

The cases we see and characters we meet are fairly standard shonen fare – the boy with the pudding bowl haircut is disliked by everyone, who knew? There’s scholastic rivalry, nascent crushes, and intense drama over whether or not to eat the classroom’s pet fish. In the midst of all this, we start to get a bit of a larger ongoing plot – Abaku clearly has a past, and may have at one point been imprisoned in Japan’s maximum security elementary school prison island. (I’m not making this up, you know.) He’s in that classroom for a reason. I was less impressed with the prosecuting attorney, Pine, who seems to be the standard “I pretend to be sweet but am secretly angry all the time” girl, destined to always lose to our heroes. I hope she gains depth in the next volume.

This is not terrific by any means – the mysteries are rather perfunctory, and I’m not sure I agree with using the Japanese word “ronpa” throughout instead of just translating it as “cross-examination” or somesuch. And the baby judges are a hideously stupid idea. Despite Obata’s usual excellent art, this reads like the work of a Jump newbie, and it will not surprise anyone to hear it only has 2 volumes to go. But it held my attention, and is ridiculous in a way that makes you smile wryly, rather than just want to put the book down. Worth a look.