Sean Gaffney

Story by Ryukishi07; Art by Kei Natsumi. Released in Japan in two and 1/2 separate volumes as “Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Banquet of the Golden Witch” by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Gangan Joker. Released in North America by Yen Press.

In general, I find that the Umineko manga does a bang-up job of adapting the original source. It can’t possibly have all the verbiage that the visual novels have, but it usually manages to include all the important points (something the anime adaptation was very good at avoiding), and it plays fair with the reader in regards to the mystery (something the anime didn’t even bother to try). Where the manga can truly stand up is when it dramatizes those moments in the VN where you really wish you could see more than just sprites on a screen, where you want some action and heartbreak.

Say what you will about Kei Natsumi’s love of exaggerated faces twisted to the extreme (Beatrice and Virgilia in the Golden Land comes to mind), she’s very good at laying out a page. There are lots of two-page spreads here designed to rivet the reader and keep them on the edge of their seats, the best of which is the moment when the fourth wall shatters. The last few Umineko ‘worlds’ have involved a meta world where Battler and Beatrice debate how things are being carried out while, on the island, the murders actually occur. The same thing is going on here, only Eva-Beatrice has ‘hijacked’ Beatrice’s game and is going around merrily torturing everyone.

Beatrice, at a low ebb after being yelled at by Battler for being uncaring and cruel, has been doing her best to stop the worst of these excesses, and when that fails she just straight up helps George and Jessica get a final moment with their loved ones, even at the cost of her life. It’s quite a character building moment for the Endless Witch, and Battler knows it. (Most of the shipping that exists in fandom started with this arc.) So, in the meta world, Beatrice asks if she’s redeemed herself enough to be Battler’s opponent. He notes she has, but that he’s not her opponent in this case… then reaches out, smashes into the island world, and grabs Eva-Beatrice by the scruff of her neck and drags her to him. It is *the* most badass moment in this volume, and beautifully handled.

(By the way, for those who enjoy being spoiled, Page 516 makes it clear that Kei Natsumi knows what’s really going on.)

Meanwhile, it becomes clear through most of this volume that Eva-Beatrice = Eva Ushiromiya, using the ‘witch’ identity to help commit murder. Why? DID YOU SEE ALL THAT GOLD? Some fans have trouble with ‘all that money’ as a motivating factor, to them, I recommend Higurashi, which is a lot more idealistic than this series. That said, some of the murders clearly are NOT the work of Eva, as her witch self points out to Battler – Eva couldn’t have killed Nanjo. In fact, none of them could have. So who did? Beatrice? Well, if Eva-Beatrice was Eva, then who is our Beatrice?

In the end, Battler (though he has improved greatly in his analysis) can’t get past this, and Beatrice sacrifices herself in order to stop Eva-Beatrice from winning the game. Thus they both end up in the Golden Land, which is essentially heaven. And it really points out all the difficulties with an idealized heaven that many people have if they look at it closely. In particular, Natsuhi and Eva hugging each other while despairing over their offspring marrying the servants is so horribly WRONG in every way you almost recoil at the change in their personalities. And sure enough, the Golden Land *is* false, a trap designed to make Battler accept witches. (How much Beatrice actually wants to go through with this trap is perhaps apparent in her faces right before she starts to cackle, which show someone desperately sad.)

Luckily, we have Ange coming to the rescue. Ignored in other arcs because she stayed home with a cold, almost forgotten by readers, Ange is older now and ready to kick Battler’s ass. And Beatrice’s as well, but most of this seems driven by a sense of jealousy and being left behind, which makes perfect sense. We do see the Ange of 1998 interacting with a dying Eva (who survived!), and she is at a point where she is the perfect pawn for Bernkastel to bring in to stop Beatrice. Of course, one wonders how much Bern is on anyone’s side…

By the end of this volume, I think even the most unspoiled should have a pretty good idea about the concept of Beatrice, if not the actual identity. And, just as Higurashi abandoned Keiichi in its 4th arc to focus on a new protagonist, so Umineko does the same, with Ange driving much of the next arc. Of course, that arc brings us full circle. At the start of this review, I raved about what a great manga adaptation can add to the source. With Alliance of the Golden Witch, we’ll find out what happens when a manga adaptation adds things you REALLY don’t want added to the source.

By Q Hayashida. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Ikki. Released in North America by Viz.

This volume of Dorohedoro is particularly good at showing off all the myriad reasons why it’s become one of the more addicting seinen manga out there. There are some amazingly violent fight scenes, some hysterical humor, a dose of complete insane weirdness, and some truly visceral horror – and not body horror this time around. I had wondered at first how long the series could keep its premise up, now I worry that with the series ending in Japan soon it won’t have time to tell me everything that I need to know.

Let’s start with the violence, which spirals out after En’s death. And En definitely appears to be dead this time, though there’s a suggestion they can reverse it if they find Judas’ Ear, who is missing. En’s people are somewhat gutted by this – even Noi, who notes that she hated En for forcing her into all of this, but still feels at a loss. As for Fujita, he’s absolutely devastated, having flashbacks and trauma from finding the body. Luckily, Shin knows that everything will be solved by finding the parties responsible and killing them. Finding the cross-eyes is the next step, and killing them mostly goes well, at least until the climax. Hayashida knows just how to choreograph fights, and also that her audience does not mind seeing splattered limbs.

Her audience also wants a healthy does of humor and weirdness, both of which dovetail nicely with the creation of a living En doll to try to lead them to the location of the real En, assuming he is alive. This involves baking a giant pizza, out of which the doll En them rises. If you can’t quite understand what I’m talking about, that’s because it makes no sense unless you see it. Any time Turkey appears things are odd, but this one takes the biscuit. We then get a very amusing chase scene, as the Doll En has a mind of its own and is not interested in letting Shin and Noi keep up with it. If you combine this with the ongoing humiliation of Natsuki (involving nudity this time, natch), we’ve got a lot of laughs in here.

But what I suspect folks will take away from this volume is the flashback that explains Nikaido’s past, who she’s so reluctant to do magic, and the horrors of time travel. Some lessons, particularly when you’re a child, need to be learned firsthand, and this is a particularly horrifying and bitter one for Nikaido, whose friend is lost forever thanks to her own folly about time magic. It contrasts with the cover art with Asu and a child Nikaido, with a blue sky and blooming flowers belie the serious contents within.

And so, in the end, we have something for everyone, a little bit of plot advancement, a lot of weird humor, and some terrifying existential terror. In other words, all the reasons to read Dorohedoro, encapsulated in one book. At least until the next volume, when I assume we’ll find more. We even see the gyoza fairy again!

By Yumi Unita. Released in Japan as “Usagi Drop” by Shodensha, serialized in the magazine Feel Young. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Yen Press very helpfully published an interview with Yumi Unita at the end of this final volume of Bunny Drop. In it she states that she had planned what happened in Bunny Drop from the start, and that she wanted to contrast it with the manga she was writing for rival publisher Takeshobo, Yoningurashi. A quick Google search led me to learn that Yoningurashi, aka The Four of Us, was a series about a couple raising two young children. And suddenly a lot of what happened in Bunny Drop makes more sense. Or more accurately, what didn’t happen.

See, I had expectations when I started reading Bunny Drop, before *those* spoilers came out. I expected what we got for the first four volumes, aka Daikichi’s learning how to be a parent and raising Rin in adorably heartwarming ways. But I also expected that he’d end up hooking up with Kouki’s mother, and that they’d raise Rin and Kouski as a family. Sure, I expected Rin and Kouki to hook up later in life, but honestly, I’ve been reading about ‘but we’re not really siblings’ love since the days of Marmalade Boy, so it didn’t really bother me.

Of course, we did not get that. Instead, Unita contrasted Bunny Drop with her other series by subverting every expectation we had. And I’ve got to hand it to her, it certainly worked, though in the end I’m still left with a feeling of massive frustration. This is not helped by the stories in this last volume, which go back and fill in some blanks from earlier in Rin’s life. We see heartwarming and amusing parenting as Daikichi tries to explain ‘why we don’t always kill bugs’ to young Rin. We get a tortuous ship teasing scene between Daikichi and Kouki’s mother after Kouki gets in an accident and Daikichi has to take care of things, where by the end you are screaming at the two of them to just kiss already. (Spoilers: they don’t.) We get some backstory explaining how Rin’s mother ended up with her manga assistant/lover, and how Kouki fell into delinquency (and then out of it) in middle school. Honestly, they’re all well-written and pretty fun.

And then we get a final story showing Rin and Daikichi, who have now been a couple for several months. And really, seriously, nothing has changed. I approve of Unita not showing us their sex life, but honestly without that you’re left wondering why any of this happened at all. (Things are not helped by adding a girl who not only Kouki but also the reader had forgotten, and seeing about hooking him up with her at the VERY last minute.) Unita noted that she tried to avoid Rin’s inner monologue in the ‘pre-timeskip’ period, and avoid Daikichi’s afterwards, but honestly all this has done is made us wonder about how any of this came about, particularly with Daikichi, whose love for Rin and desire to let her do this seems to come down to ‘well, OK, I guess.’

So in the end I liked individual parts of this story, but am very dissatisfied with how it came together as a whole. Particularly as there was a story that was being made really obvious and heartwarming that wasn’t told here. Now, part of that may be me as a reader projecting out on what wasn’t really intended, but given the general negative reception Bunny Drop has had post-timeskip, I don’t really think it’s just me. I’d suggest someone write some fixfics, but I’m not sure the series has enough of a fandom. In the end, Bunny Drop was an interesting, fascinating, and uniquely annoying series that amazingly I still think is worth reading anyway, provided your dentist doesn’t mind the loss of enamel you’ll have from grinding your teeth.

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen Press.

So I greatly enjoyed the manga omnibus of Sword Art Online, and said so in my earlier review. However, I had not actually read the novels or seen the anime, as I noted. Most folks who had said the manga was rushed and poorly paced. So I looked forward to reading the first Aincrad novel, and wondered how it would handle things and what new feelings I would get out of it.

The most obvious is that this is written in first person from the POV of our hero, Kirito. This is very common in Japanese novels, with Haruhi Suzumiya being another obvious example. It works particularly well with Kirito as he’s normally an aloof character to begin with, so this allows us to see how he frames things and deals with people. Kirito and Asuna are not Mary Sues (I’m trying to avoid using that term at all these days), but I will agree they are both hypercompetent to a degree that may annoy some readers who are used to modern-day flawed heroes. I grew up reading Heinlein, so this sort of characterization is no problem for me. Besides, Kirito’s narration shows he has a bit of PTSD after being in the game and dealing with his first guild, so it’s not all ‘showing off his awesomeness’ here.

Another thing that’s added is the description of the game world and gaming functionality itself. I’m not much of a gamer, so feared this would bore me, but it’s handled smoothly and fluidly, showing off how things work in Aincrad without seeming out of place – indeed, the book begins with Kirito giving Klein a tutorial. There’s discussion of eating and sleeping (necessary) and using the bathroom (not necessary), as well as those pesky ethics codes that can be turned off when you want to spend the night with the one you love. (By the way, the fact that these are on to begin with, and send out an alarm for sexual harassment, pleases me greatly, especially given the large male-to-female imbalance the game shows.)

Asuna doesn’t get any POV narration, but she’s expanded on as well. For one thing, it’s made quite apparent from the moment we meet her that she’s fallen for Kirito, and it only gets stronger the more they interact. I’ve been told that as the SAO novels go on, Kirito gains more women who fall for him (including his sister… oh, Japan…), but I’m not sure how far they’ll get, as Asuna is not the typical “Baka, who ever said that I loved you?” heroine, and seems very proactive and comfortable in her feelings for Kirito, even if actual physical intimacy makes her as nervous as we’d expect for a 17-year-old. Oh yes, I read the ‘Chapter 16.5′ that was removed from the series’ original web format when Japan made it into a physical book series (it’s not hard to track down). It’s not missed, the sex scenes weren’t well-written, but I did appreciate a discussion of the fact that a lot of gamers are underage (Kirito was 14 when the series began, and is 16 now), and how ‘removing the ethics setting’ would lead to a lot of problems down the road…

This volume ended sooner than I expected, but then I found that Vol. 2 will go back and fill in some blanks in Aincrad, including that Yui story I saw from the manga, before it moves on to Kirito and Asuna meeting up in the real world (we hope). I greatly look forward to it, this is still a terrific series, with a refreshingly non-ambiguous lead couple.

Story by Ryukishi07; Art by Karin Suzuragi. Released in Japan as “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Matsuribayashi-hen” by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Gangan Joker. Released in North America by Yen Press.

As I review this final volume of the main Higurashi series, it’s worth noting something: Ryukishi07 really, REALLY loves his shonen cliches. It’s something I’m sure I’ve said before, but to properly enjoy this volume you really have to buy into the fact that it is going to be totally ridiculous. A majority of this volume is a counterintelligence task force from Tokyo getting their asses kicked by a group of 12-17 year old teenagers.

The manga actually tones down the original source a bit – Mion brags about her leadership skills briefly, but the narration praising her to the skies is mercifully cut. Even so, the physical battle between her and Okonogi (who has elf ears just so you know he’s EVIL) should spell out how this has become an action movie. Everyone gets to do their thing – Keiichi beats up soldiers with his bat, Rena pounds ‘adowable’ guys with cute kitty buckets stuck to their heads, Satoko deals out horrible traps to Amakusa from Umineko’s manga (making a brief cameo here, possibly to remind us not to trust him in the other series) and Rika, her future finally secured, gets to pat people on the head.

There’s another team sent to deal with the clinic – they’re there to rescue Tomitake and move the comatose Satoshi somewhere else. Shion, by the way, does NOT get to be awesomely shonen like everyone else – possibly as repentance from her former villain status, she runs off half-cocked and gets captured. But then, she’s just found out that Satoshi is alive, and is not in the best of mindsets. I did like Rika forgiving her – in our eyes for the events of the Eye Opening Arc, but to Shion more of a general ‘you are a good person after all’ forgiveness.

Of course, there’s still Takano to deal with, but we’ve spent 6 volumes showing how she’s not so much an evil villain as a horribly broken PTSD-afflicted tragic villain. The scene at the start with Tomitake is one of the best in the book, where she says that after all this is over she’ll return to the orphanage to die – i.e., kill herself. Even more lucid Takano knows she’ll be killed once her usefulness is over. And she’s absolutely correct, as Okonogi, whose team is working for Nomura and not her, gives her a gun to blow her brains out with.

But she doesn’t want to die, so instead runs off to have a final confrontation with Hanyuu, who is her mirror in many ways – especially spelled out in this final scene, where Hanyuu also notes that after all this is over she plans to die, or at least return to her incorporeal state. It’s Rika who, pulling one last deus ex machina from her deck, stops time and stops the bullet Takano fires from hitting anyone. (She shows off the bullet afterwards, and it seems totally ridiculous, but I wonder if Rika simply grabbed a bullet casing and is using narrative structure to bend reality to her story? But that way lies Umineko…)

So in the end everyone lives, and we get a long epilogue showing the happy endings. Rika planning for her first post-June 1983 days. Mion mildly preparing for college, but still stuck on Keiichi and unable to get past his denseness. Rena in the same boat, but happier about it. Satoko learning cooking and awaiting her missing brother, Shion reading to him in hopes he’ll wake up. Even Takano, recovering in the clinic from Hinamizawa Syndrome, isn’t condemned, and Hanyuu wonders if she’ll be up and about telling everyone scary stories before long. (Optimistic, I suspect, Hanyuu. Have you discussed this with Rika?)

Two odd discordant notes in the happily ever after, by the way. Firt, we get the report done with the Tokyo Government, with edits by Nomura. She gets away with everything 100% here, and Ryukishi07 admitted in interviews that this was on purpose, as he wanted to show that not everything gets wrapped up in a big bow (likely why Satoshi doesn’t wake up either.) Second, we get the odd epilogue where an adult Rika meets a child Miyoko Tanashi, on the morning her parents are killed, and manipulates her into going with them. History is changed, though, and no one dies in the crash. No more Miyo Takano… which means many, many things change in the future. Where could this be leading?

If we see the Dice-Killing Arc, we may find out. In the meantime, this is an excellent (if at times ridiculous) conclusion to a series that proved to be far more than just “Lol killer lolis”, as I expected from opinions from anime fans. I really came to adore the franchise, and have since read the sound novels it was based on, and urge everyone to do the same (it’s out in English via Mangagamer, though beware when you buy – it’s their one non-porn title.) And if you enjoy Ryukishi07’s writing, there’s still more Umineko to go!

By Utako Yukihiro and Madoka Takadono. Released in Japan as “Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist” by Ichijinsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Zero Sum. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

It’s timely that Dictatorial Grimoire has just ended, because this series has a very similar feel to it. A young, somewhat serious man discovers that he has a larger role to play in the supernatural, and is attended by a somewhat smug older man who can explain the plot to him. The man in this case is William Twining, whose family business (I’m guessing tea, from the name) has just collapsed, leaving him struggling to figure out how to stay at his expensive English public school. Luckily, he stumbles across a magic circle that summons a Duke of Hell, which is having a bit of a succession crisis.

This is the sort of series that lies of dies by its protagonist, and luckily Devils and realist has a protagonist who is up to the job. William Twining is the Number One Reason to read this manga, as his humorless bullheaded approach to life is alternately his one saving grace and also completely hilarious. We sympathize with his inability to immediately accept that such things as Dukes of Hell and Goat Butlers exist (clearly he hasn’t read enough Umineko), but as the volume goes on and more and more supernatural things and people come into play, his denial starts to drive the humor as well as the plot. He can calmly explain to his friend what’s really going on, and then immediately denounce everything he just said with cries of “SCIENCE!”. I loved him.

I am less enamored with the rest of the volume. Dantalion, the Duke of Hell in question, is a lot less interesting, though it’s good that he doesn’t have the completely invulnerable aura of smug that so many of these characters do. (It’s there, it’s just not invulnerable.) William’s friend Isaac seems to be thrown into the mix merely as contrast, as he’s a magic user and believer in all sorts of occult things (naturally, this means he gets our heroes into trouble.) And far too much of the plot relies on people explaining the machinations of Hell and its elections to William, instead of them coming naturally from the plot. Honestly, I want to go back to Hell for a bit, rather than lurking around the school.

Still, there’s a good foundation to build on here. The cast can be pleasingly snarky, particularly William. There’s clearly something going on with his one remaining servant, Kevin, which I’m sure we’ll see in future volumes. There’s also lots of BL tease for those who are inclined. I’m not sure whether I really care who ends up being the new King of Hell (the Kings seem to be the Permanent Secretaries to Lucifer’s Prime Minister), but I do very much want to see William having to decide everything and finding it incredibly annoying. And saying so. At length. A good fantasy, recommended for fans of Black Butler, Dictatorial Grimoire, and the like.

By Kazuma Kamachi and Motoi Fuyukawa. Released in Japan as “Toaru Kagaku no Railgun” by ASCII Media Works, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

Last time I noted that Academy City was fostering an entire world of superheroes, and this new volume shows us how dark that world really is. Every time we’ve seen a science or research project in either Index (now licensed by Yen Press!) or Railgun, it’s been bad news for those being experimented on, those uncovering the conspiracy, and even random passersby. And now with this new volume we have two of the bigger ‘experiments’ meeting each other, as Misaka and Shokuhou reluctantly team up to try to save the sisters. Unfortunately, the sisters are not the endgame of our latest mad researcher villain, Misaka is – which means we once again get a really nasty cliffhanger.

It is not particularly a surprise that Shokuhou turns out to not be quite as evil as she seemed, but her similarities and differences with Misaka are fascinating nevertheless. They both grew up as lab rats and are now having to deal with the results of that, either a) through destruction (Misaka) or b) through manipulation (Shokuhou). Of course, growing up as a mind reader and manipulated the way she was, Shokuhou also ends up being VERY PARANOID INDEED, which is what drove most of her actions against Misaka in Vols. 7 and 8. She doesn’t want to deal with anyone whose mind she can’t get at. As for Misaka, once she finds out that there’s a different enemy behind all this she allies with Misaki, though there’s a halthy dose of mistrust on her end as well (leading to a wonderfully amusing scene where Misaka thinks she’s been betrayed only to find it’s just Shokuhou’s bad physical exertion.)

The rest of the cast get some nice things to do, bar Uiharu who is sadly just used as bait this time around. Kuroko gets to be badass with a wheelchair, one of the most dynamic shots of the entire volume. (I’m a little annoyed at her ‘I’m straight’ towards Misaka at one point (this is during her memory loss). Are we supposed to read this as her not being gay but just obsessed with Misaka? Either way it makes me grumpy, really, but then Kuroko’s character is problematic in general.) As for Saten, she gets to do some detective work and show off that being a Level 0 does not mean you are merely cannon fodder in this world. Oh yes, she also meets A Certain Protagonist for the first time…

I’m not sure how I feel about Touma showing up here, particularly as I suspect it will lead to Misaka being in peril and having to be saved by him (judging from the cliffhanger). Now admittedly the entire plot of Index can be summed up by “X in in peril, Touma saves them”, but this is Misaka’s series, and so far the only time she’s really had to rely on Touma bailing her out is during the Sisters arc, which was already canon in Index so couldn’t really be written around. We’ll see how well the manga carries it off, but I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot of Touma’s right hand in Vol. 10.

Another excellent volume, overall, though, with a pleasingly smug villain who it will be lovely to see get his eventually. Sadly, given we’ve caught up, we’ll have to wait till January to see what happens next. In the meantime, enjoy everyone fighting against the conspiracy (which, this being the Indexverse, is almost all true).