Sean Gaffney

By Girls Und Panzer Project and Ryohichi Saitaniya. Released in Japan by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

I wasn’t sure what to think of this title when I first saw it. It’s based off of an anime, though the fact that the story is by a ‘Prroject’ team clearly says they had multimedia franchise planned from the start. It’s also a moe manga about tanks, and I had assumed it would be similar to Strike Witches, a moe anime about fighter planes. This time, though, the girls are not anthropomorphic personifications, there’s no horribly gratuitous fanservice, and the cuteness actually welds itself into the story with no great effort. By the end of Volume 1, I was surprised to see how much I had enjoyed reading it.

This is not to say that the premise is not inherently RIDICULOUS. In fact, its very ridiculousness was one of the things that appealed to me before I read it. It takes place in a world much like ours except that, similar to flower arranging and tea ceremony, tank driving is a feminine art that all proper young ladies must know. Our heroines form a tank team at their high school and engage in mock combats, all the while extolling the virtues of tanks. If you can’t buy into this premise, this is definitely not the manga for you. It’s also not shy about its fetishing of tanks – there’s minimal fanservice of the girls here, but that’s possibly due to the long, lingering shots of treads and turret guns we see here – for once, we may have a moe manga where the cute girls doing cute things is just a spice.

I understand that the anime follows Miho, the shy but determined girl who seems to have some sort of tragic tank backstory. In the manga, however, she’s more of the cool and awesome sempai of the group. The manga’s viewpoint character is Yukari, who likes tanks a WHOOOOOLE lot, to the point where she’s alienated all of her old classmates. Thus she is over the moon to be attending a school where she can gush about tanks and not be shunned (though the others do think she goes a bit overboard). Yukari is fun, a loud, energetic tank otaku who gets to react a lot, just what you like in a typical cute heroine. The rest of the main cast includes Saori, who is on the lookout for cute boyfriends; Hana, who is the yamato nadesico of the group, and Mako, who seems to be combining the emotionless stoic and the odd weirdo into one cast member. I like her best, probably.

As I said before, what I think I like most about this manga adaptation is that it doesn’t do what I expected (note: this is Volume 1. Future volumes may make me eat my words). There are no long nude bath scenes, no one is groping everyone else’s boobs, no one trips and falls over all the time. It’s just girls and tanks, and mock battles (with hopefully mock ammo – it’s never made clear how injury is avoided). More to the point, the fact that it’s not focusing on the obvious lead character – Miho – gives it a sort of off-kilter perspective I enjoyed quite a bit. It may become more cliched later on, but for now, if you like a gonzo premise, girls being pretty awesome, and don’t mind a lot of tank warfare, this is a title for you.

By Hikaru Suruga and Gun Snark (Nitroplus). Released in Japan as “Shingeki no Kyojin Gaiden – Kuinaki Sentaku” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Aria. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Given what the fandom is like, both in the West and in Japan, a spinoff of Attack on Titan featuring Levi is possibly the most obvious moneymaker in the history of time itself. He’s the most popular character by a factor of two over everyone else, and his backstory has not been covered by the main manga itself (though that may be changing soon). Based on a visual novel that was released with one of the DVDs, this manga tells the story of how Levi came to join the survey corps, what his motivations may have been, and his complicated relationship with Erwin Smith, the other lead character shown here.

Not that those are the only two characters. Levi is shown to be living in the underground slums as we open this volume, surviving with the help of some purloined vertical maneuvering gear and two other friends. The friends are a lot of fun. Isabel is young, full of spunk and energy, and a tomboy that Levi probably sees as a younger sister type. Furlan is more sensible, and seems to be the one with the plan the three of them come up with – Levi is a bit too pinpoint obsessed to really be far-thinking. The three of them make a very good team, both before and after they join the survey team. That said, the narrative is telegraphing Isabel and Furlan’s deaths by the end of the next volume, so I will be VERY surprised if they both make it past Volume 2.

The other half of the narrative is Erwin and his political machinations, which is something that we already get plenty of in the main story, but it’s always nice to see. The Survey Corps is constantly in danger of being dissolved, so he has to resort to scurrilous means of getting what he wants (including blackmail and threats). His recruitment of Levi and his friends is important – he needs people not only talented enough to kill titans, but driven enough to kill them. Levi certainly qualifies – the final battle with the titan at the end of this book is riveting, and shows off how talented Levi and his friends are in comparison to everyone else.

You could argue that Levi is a little too perfect and awesome, and you’d be right – but given this is a title dedicated to showing him off, and it runs in the shoujo magazine Aria, what did you expect? (Yes, No Regrets is a shoujo title. Shelve it next to Kitchen Princess.) There’s not only a lot of fast, thrilling action but scenes such as Levi getting dressed up in his ‘cleaning clothes’, which serves no point except to have the reader go ‘kyaa!’. You just roll with it, and you’ll find it’s a lot of fun. For those looking for other cast members, you won’t find many – Hange is here, but she only appears a couple of times and has no lines. But that’s OK, as Levi and Erwin can carry this on their own.

For Attack on Titan fans, particularly those who like Levi, this is a must-buy. For anyone else, it’s worth a shot – the Titans themselves only pop up towards the end, and most of the volume is devoted to setting up the odd mentor relationship between Erwin and Levi. It should end with Volume 2, so I’m expecting a lot of bad things to happen next time.

By Ichihei Ishibumi, Zero Miyama, and Hiroji Mishima. Released in Japan by Fujimi Shobo, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dragon Age. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Given that the front cover of this new series features a cute young woman with bat wings, and the back cover features that woman plus another one hugging a slightly drooling young man, you can possibly guess not only the genre of this series, but also the plot. It’s your classic harem comedy, with lots of added fantasy this time, where the goal is to see how many different types of women you can have fall in love with the hero without any actual fornication occurring (as even Dragon Age would likely pass on that). So given that, what does High School DxD offer that separates it from Haganai, or Haruhi Suzumiya, or Zero’s Familiar, etc.?

Issei, our hero, seems fairly typical. He’s more at the lecherous end of the scale, constantly going on about breasts and talking about the fact that his dream is to one day have his own harem. Typical loser high schooler, which is why it’s something of a surprise to see him on a date with a gorgeous beauty as the story opens. Who then grows huge black bird wings and stabs him through the chest with a spear made of light, killing him dead. Luckily, he’s in the right series, as he manages to get resurrected and turned into a devil by Rias, the queen of the school and also, as it turns out, a devil. He’s now recruited to her team, along with several other stereotypes, in order to grant wishes for people in exchange for a price.

There’s a bit of discussion of Angels, Fallen Angels and Devils, and, as is typical with Japanese manga that discusses wars between Heaven and Hell, the narrative is firmly on the side of the devils. To be fair, our villains are all carefully chosen to be ‘Fallen’ – a Fallen Angel and an excommunicated exorcist – But I’m fairly certain that when the Angels themselves are introduced, we’ll be seeing them as the enemy as well. I was less impressed with the discussion of Sacred Gears, which is essentially the superpower that each devil has. Humans have them too, and it’s noted that all the really famous people through history are famous because of their Sacred Gear, rather than through, y’know, actual human effort. I’ve always disliked this school of thought, and didn’t like seeing it here.

There is a LOT of fanservice here, as you would expect. Rias is naked quite often through this volume, and does not appear to be remotely embarrassed about Issei seeing her naked body. We also have Akeno, a classic yamato nadesico type who turns out to be a sadist deep down (another common trait in hentai manga, and thus in this toned down harem variant), and Koneko, an Ayanami Rei clone. Interestingly, the last member of our team so far is Kiba, who is male, and reminds me of Koizumi Itsuki from Haruhi a whole hell of a lot, right down to Issei constantly denigrating him in his narration. I assume Kiba will NOT be joining Issei’s harem, though I could be surprised.

At the end of this volume, notably, Issei has not saved the day even once, and his power is shown to be so low that everyone boggles at it. This will change. It’s that sort of story. Not sure if we’ll add victim of the volume to the harem team (she’d fit right in, being a clumsy nun sort of character), but we will no doubt find out in the next volume. As for the series itself, it’s recommended to those who like harem fanservice series with a light fantasy tinge, though given the pages expended on worldbuilding here, the fantasy may be more important than I expect.

Also, I have no idea what the DxD is supposed to mean.

By Atsushi Ohkubo. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Shonen Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press.

So much of what has gotten me addicted to Soul Eater comes to a climax in this volume. The discussion of madness and knowledge, and how the two sometimes interact. The artstyle, which lends an air of disturbing surrealism to any actual depiction of madness on the page, from Crona’s twisted grins of despair to a ball of black poisonous concentrated insanity. And of course we have the culmination of Medusa and Crona’s relationship, which has always been shown to be awful, abusive and toxic, but in the final chapter is given even more nightmarish proportions, to a point where there seems to be only one solution to the whole thing. Killing.

Speaking of madness, though, I liked the battle between Justin and Tezca, particularly with Justin pounding on about faith in the Kishin, and Tezca wondering how strong a faith can be when it simply switches over to the next big powerful thing to fear/worship. There are a lot of terrifying things going on in the Soul Eater universe, so it’s understandable that one would want to ally oneself with the strongest even if it means sacrificing ideals. I’m not really sure Justin had any ideals to begin with, though – the confrontation loses something as it’s sort of obvious that Justin is never going to go back to the side of the heroes.

There is a scene with Sbhinigami and Kid where they argue about whether they should have gone into Baghdad to find the Kishin just because they knew there were anti-DWMA groups there, with Kid noting that they didn’t find anything, and Shinigami saying he was sure they’d find the Kishin there. I’ll just leave that here. Sometimes something is so blatant that even analyzing it would be overdone.

Maka and Soul get some nice stuff as well, with Soul managing to control the madness with in himself, but I want to talk more about Crona. Crona spends the first half of the book using black blood to destroy and drive insane anything that barrels into Crona’s path. Now in Russia, we see an entire city in the Ukraine where the populace are driven into madness and turn into a huge ball of madness. It’s especially chilling as it’s implied that those people can’t be brought back – that they are, essentially, dead. Like Justin, Crona’s last attempts at redemption seem to have come and gone. Unlike Justin, we still have some sympathy for Crona.

Let’s talk about the final chapter, ‘Just A Simple Story About Killing A Person’. It’s a two-hander between Crona and Medusa, who is at her most monstrous here. Crona’s backstory and childhood is every bit as bad as we feared, if not worse – from the stick-figure styled book about different ways to kill, to being starved to death unless Crona kills adorable baby bunnies, it’s all been designed to drive Crona to the very brink of madness, with Maka’s friendship being the only thing that ever held Crona back. And now Medusa needs to complete the descent, and does it in such a clever way, I almost have to admire her loathsome craftiness. She’s died in the series before, but I’m fairly certain that this time she’s died for good. But she got what she wanted – Crona is primed, ready to go, and completely insane.

As I said earlier, the art plays a major role in making this chapter as effective as it is – stick figures have never been so terrifying. And what’s more, it makes for a truly chilling cliffhanger. And next time, we start the final arc. An absolutely essential volume of Soul Eater. Even those who don’t read it should get it for the final chapter of the book.

By Arina Tanemura. Released in Japan as “Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Ribon. Released in North America by Viz.

When I reviewed the first volume of this Tanemura magical girl title, I noted that her parents splitting up and suddenly moving out of the country looked ‘suspicious’. Well, it turned out to be more prosaic, as in this volume Maron gets notice from her mother that they are indeed getting a divorce, something that sends her running away from everything for a while. I will admit, despite one of those “didn’t you see that they built this amusement part because they love you’ moments, these are still two parents who are not going to be winning awards anytime soon. They’re lucky that Maron has survived with only minor ‘screwed up’ tendencies. The rest of the volume continues to show off Jeanne’s skills as a phantom thief, as well as the author’s skill for giving a touch of darkness to the standard magical girl genre.

Speaking of families, this volume seems to focus on them quite a bit. First Chiaki’s father is possessed by one of the paintings, causing him to kidnap young women and store them in glass cages in his basement (something that really gives maximum creep factor, particularly as his father is such a weirdo to begin with). Then Miyako comes to Jeanne for help, despite their rivalry, and asks her to steal a painting that has corrupted her scientist brother, who is now turning to mad science (complete with “they laughed at me at the academy” overtones). This is all done with maximum threats of peril and also allows Jeanne to show off her skills at being clever, particularly in the first part where she uses the realistic android-like ‘dolls’ to her advantage to pull a switch.

Miyako also gets a side chapter going further into her motivation for chasing Jeanne. I have to say that she’s probably my favorite character in the series, and most of the time she seems to understands how Maron thinks better than she does. There is the small matter of her being unable to connect Maron to Jeanne, but that’s a standard trope of this genre, so I’m inclined to let it slide. (Honestly, given how things are playing out, I would not be surprised if Miyako had figured it out at some point and is just going along with it by now. Particularly when Jeanne is being far too knowledgeable about her brother.)

There is a lot less of the heaven vs. hell aspect in this particular book, with the exception of the final chapter, where Jeanne finds herself in a deathtrap without her transformation abilities or her familiar and has to power up through sheer force of will. This is referred to as “Holy Power”, and seems to delight Finn (who we see far less of this time around, which pleases me as she’s annoying). There is one line that really struck me, however, and I suspect it will be followed up on in the next volume. She’s thanking Chiaki for helping her as Sinbad, and notes “I didn’t know followers of the demon lord used a cross as well.” As she toddles off, Chiaki stares and goes “what is she talking about?” To me this suggests that we’re not looking at a simple battle between heaven and hell. I can’t wait to see more with the next volume.

By Nozomi Yanahara. Released in Japan by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Digital Manga Publishing.

In general, one of the more disliked traits in manga among Western fandom is the oblivious harem hero who cannot see the obvious crushes that all the girls have on him, and wonders why it is he’s so unpopular. I agree 100% that this can be aggravating, but I have to admit that I am so very happy that Harumi, the start of Takasugi-san’s Obento, is exactly like this. Because the longer he keeps trying to act like a father and close family member to Kururi and doesn’t notice her blushes and googly eyes whenever he’s around, the happier I am. Mostly as despite the threat of this happening, this is a very good manga, with Vol. 2 having lots of great moments.

I’d mentioned in Vol. 1’s review that Natsuki, the snarky girl who was introduced to be the class bully but actually formed a close friendship with Kururi, reminded me strongly in both looks and attitude of Shinobu from Hakusensha shoujo series Teru Teru x Shonen. That opinion is reinforced by my favorite chapter in the book, where they start a new year only to find that Kururi and Mitsuru, the two that she’d bonded with, are in another class, leaving her alone with all of her former friends and cronies, who are very bitter about Natsuki changing her affections to the quiet weird girl. And so the bully becomes the bullied. That’s not what I liked about the chapter. What I liked was the way Natsuki handled it, being totally aware of what was going on, and then taking the earliest opportunity to gain the upper hand and reassert her position. We do see a teacher talk about stepping in, which is good, but I enjoyed seeing Natsuki being empowered again all by herself.

It also helped that she used a bento to do so. This still is not quite a foodie manga, but food certainly plays a major role in it, with Harumi and Kururi constantly trying new things and enjoying seasonal treats – even if their cooking skills don’t necessarily match up with their intentions. This is true of Harumi in general, who continues to be very awkward with most social interaction, and has a tendency to not think about what others around him might be feeling before he decides on a course of action. This is, of course, part of why he’s still an oblivious harem protagonist. The author’s notes said she has fun with him beign a passive, sad guy. Kururi, on the other hand, is a full-blown introvert, and this is also shown very deftly in several chapters.

Finally, let’s go back to Kururi’s crush. It’s still there, and everyone but Harumi seems to be aware of it. I was very grateful for the expansion of Mitsuru’s role, as he’s not only an age and family-appropriate rival, but his bluntness about liking Kururi and reminding her of it – a lot – is refreshing. That said, that sort of guy often ends up on the losing side in these sorts of mangas. His older brother, who’s in Harumi’s workplace, is more a fan of passive-aggressive poking – his queries at Kosaka are clearly meant to force her to admit that she has a crush on Harumi, and since she doesn’t admit it he wants to go for it as well, but is not as self-confident as his younger sibling. Normally all these harem antics would be annoying, but here they are giving a hint that maybe the manga won’t end like we fear.

Despite that fear, I still greatly enjoy Takasugi-san’s Obento, which hits a lot of my buttons, and reminds me of the old CMX shoujo days, despite being a DMP seinen title. Recommended for heartwarming comedy with lots of food.

By Hidekaz Himaruya. Released in Japan by Gentosha, originally serialized as an online webcomic, then in Comic Birz. Released in North America by Tokyopop in association with Right Stuf, Inc.

I’ve generally enjoyed each volume of Hetalia I’ve read, and this new one is no exception. This is the first time, however, that I finished it with the feeling that the creator may have taken the concept as far as he can really go. After a brief resurgence last time, we already have less WWII than ever here, and while many would argue that’s a good thing it does sort of make the book feel a bit light. Discussion of tanks and battles has given way to discussions of customs and what the characters would look like as cats. It’s still fun, but something does seem missing here.

The Nordics are on the cover, and they also get most of the early and late pages in this volume. They’re not as well-defined as the other nations, however, with Denmark in particular finding it hard to separate himself from ‘Prussia’ clone every time I see him. I do think that focusing on Iceland’s self-consciousness was a good way to show off everyone at their best, though. A more interesting chapter is the one where Sealand tries to unite all the other micronations and make friends with them. This not only includes Wy, who we’d met before, but obscure places like Molossia and Hutt River.

We do get an African nation introduced as well, but oddly, we don’t know which country she is! Seychelles gets a visit from a fellow African nation, who seems to be landlocked, but that’s about all we can glean from her. I wonder if she’s meant to be a country like the Congo or Sudan, where Himaruya might want to err on the side of caution. (She can’t be Cameroon, we’ve seen him.)

As for the rest of the cast, most of the regulars get something to do, even if there’s little ongoing plot here, even from chapter to chapter. My favorite gags include Hungary trying to sing Prussia a lullaby (Gloomy Sunday, the famous depressing Hungarian song); Spain’s reaction on finding out he’s NOT getting the 2020 Olympics; Berlusconi being so appalling even Italy is ashamed to be talking about him (another ‘isn’t this supposed to be in World War II?’ moment); and of course seeing all the characters as cat personifications, which is not quite as adorable as it wants to be, but is still cute.

Still, at the end of the volume one wonders how much is really left in the tank. I know that we have more genderbending Hetalia coming our way soon, and the series still runs in Comic Birz, though it’s been far more irregular lately. But honestly, the original webcomic has the most obvious plotline to collect – the continuation of Buon San Valentino, and Germany possibly remembering his past – and has not adapted it at all beyond the first section. This could be partly as it’s more ‘obvious’ about its BL than we normally see in Hetalia, but it could just be that that story would lead to a natural ending, and I can’t see Hetalia ending anytime soon, given its cash-cow popularity. But where is it going from here?