Sean Gaffney

By Reki Kawahara, abec, and Tamako Nakamura. Released in Japan in two separate volumes by ASCII Mediaworks, serialized in the magazine Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I have to admit that this one took me entirely by surprise. I wasn’t really expecting much when Yen announced this. “Oh no, we are trapped in a virtual reality game where we must fight or die” is something that has become almost as overdone as “oh no, what are these strange feelings I have for my older brother” in anime/manga, and watching people cut things with swords has never been my thing. I also don’t game. It’s also based off of a light novel series, and I was thus expecting the manga spinoff to be somewhat rushed (and indeed, it does feel rushed) and filled with fanservice (actually very little of this, save one “oh no, I accidentally fell into her breasts” scene that just made me sigh loudly). However, it was the relationship between the two leads that drew me in. Because it is a genuine relationship. Wasn’t this a harem manga?

Backing up a bit, the premise has 10,000 players in a new immersive fantasy game trapped by its sadistic creator, who wants them to get to the 100th level of the game. Oh yes, and if they die in the game, they die in real life. Our hero is Kirito, who was one of the game’s beta testers (but unaware this was going to happen), and is fairly cool and aloof to everyone he meets. Our heroine is Asuna, a nice girl with drive and purpose who wants to join forces with Kirito so they can finish this faster and finally go home. Clearly they are destined for each other, despite a rocky start. I wonder how many volumes it will take before they realize their true feel… oh, wait, OK, that was fast.

For all the flaws that occurred to me after I finished the volume, the thing I loved most was the relationship between Kirito and Asuna. There’s an immediate attraction, they both risk their lives for each other, and because there is a setting in the game for ‘let’s have sex’, they do so (non-explicitly) about halfway through the book. And then get married. And even briefly have an adopted kid, though it turns out this is more than it seems, and ends in tears for both of them. They’re just really likeable kids, and bring out the best in each other – Asuna is someone that Kirito desperately needed, particularly after his last attempt at working with others.

I’m not sure that this is the sort of relationship that will last when they end up back in the real world and aren’t dealing with adrenaline rushes and near death experiences. The volume ends with Kirito (sorry, Kazuto… damn fake names) awake in a hospital, resolving to find Asuna but it’s very open ended, and given the series is 13+ light novels in Japan, I expect it may not be as simple as it seems. I’ve also been told that future volumes of this series (or at least the anime adaptation thereof) are far more… contested, shall we say. And I will admit that Kirito does seem to have the scent of ‘boring invincible hero’ to him, though honestly, I’ve read Index/Railgun, and it’ll surprise me if anyone tops Touma. As for me, I am quite content with what I saw in this volume, and will be eagerly awaiting the light novel when it appears next month. Despite all the swords, this was sweet and romantic.

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

The high point of this volume for me was the flashback to Liz and Patti’s past, and how they met Kid. This was spoiled a bit by Soul Eater Not – which came out in Japan after this volume, but well before it here – but seeing Liz as an angry, cynical girl willing to take on the world as long as she and her sister find happiness – is striking given her current personality. The sequence of wordless panels showing the two of them working with Kid, realizing what an eccentric dork he is, and laughing at his obsessions is beautifully done, and leads to Liz realizing that Patti has gone from being merely crazed to genuinely being happy and cheerful. This causes her to have an emotional breakdown, as she realizes she may never get to thank Kid for everything he did for them. Luckily, Patti and Tsubaki are there to give out hugs.

This also ties in with what’s going on with Kid, as Liz in her Brooklyn days wished for everyone else to stop existing as long as there was just her and Patti, and Kid opened up their worldview. (This is not helping my obsession with this OT3 at all, let me tell you.) Now it’s Kid who wishes for that, longing for the symmetry of nothingness. His fight with Black*Star, though it has a few cool moves, really ends up being more Black*Star talking him down, reminding him that total annihilation is the easy way out, and that trying to create balance from what’s already there, twisted though it may be, is the duty of a true shinigami. Black*Star is uncomplicated – he wants power so he can protect and help everyone, not for any ‘take over the world’ style goal.

As for Maka and Soul, the end of their arc shows what happens to those who can’t let go of their anger, as we see Giriko literally tear himself – or herself – apart with all the rage that’s been building up inside.Maka and Soul are better than that, and can accept things and move on – which is why they’re able to get out of the Sloth chapter, where moving on is the last thing it wants anyone to do. And so all our heroes unite so that Kid, stepping up and taking the leadership role he has inherited, can finally battle Noah, who has been busy punishing all the teachers who are trying to battle him in our heroes’ place. (Poor bear guy! I’ll miss you!)

Last time we had Maka unable to really get Soul because she didn’t really like Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew (she should try some of the first Quintet, such as Relaxin’). This time we have Justin’s madness work its way out by way of Radiohead songs. Ohkubo loves to bring Western music references into Soul Eater, and this one is particularly jarring – it likely just sounds like mad gibberish if you don’t know the song, but for a Radiohead fans, “Fitter, Happier” is one of the creepier songs off OK Computer, done with a ‘computer-style’ vocoder vocal. It’s a song meant to seem deeply wrong and also a bit sad, something that applies well to Justin here, who has gone into full minion mode here, determined to resurrect the evil god (even called a Great Old One here, in case the Lovecraft refs weren’t obvious enough).

Summing up: Soul Eater. Still one of the best shonen manga out there. Go get it. And it’s out digitally in 2 weeks too!

By Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki. Released in Japan as “Shokugeki no Soma” by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

The initial reaction to a series is very important, even if it turns out later that it changes. And just like some people read one volume of a series and can’t get over the unlikeable characters, even knowing that their development is the purpose of the narrative, so sometimes I read the start of a new Jump series and am so appalled by a piece of fanservice that I debate whether I even want to continue. I am happy I did end up continuing for the most part, as once you get past the service this is a very good start to a comedic Jump cooking manga, with an engaging male lead. But were I in a bookstore browsing, I think I’d have hit that initial two-page spread and put it right back.

For those wondering what I’m talking about, the manga stars Soma, the boy pictured on the cover. He’s worked in his father’s small local restaurant his entire life, and has inherited his father’s ability to cook yummy food… along with his desire to experiment, even if that experiment turns out to be a taste disaster. And, like a lot of cooking/foodie manga out there, there are many shots of those eating reacting to the food that they taste in a metaphorical way. Indeed, this is not the first manga to have a girl taste something and imagine herself naked. But since the food Soma made is bad, and since the food Soma made has squid as its main ingredient, we get his childhood friend (who promptly vanishes from the narrative, by the way, despite being on the cover and getting a short story at the end) envisioning herself being tentacle raped by a squid.

This really put me off. I was assured by others on Twitter that the service dies down a bit as the series goes on, but we do get at least two other shots in this volume of women basically moaning in orgasm while being sexually assaulted by food, sometimes with bonus little SD-Somas gathered around them leering lasciviously. (The real life Soma, being a Jump hero, seems to have little interest in women.) It sets a tone for the series in general that I ended up disliking. (One might argue I read a lot of series with female nudity used constantly, particularly in Shonen Magazine. But those are generally ‘tee hee, look at the naked bodies in the bath/hot springs’. The reactions here all have a flavor of assault that simply discomfits me, even if it’s all meant to be reactions to food that’s in their head.)

And I wouldn’t have been so annoyed if the series itself had not been as good otherwise. As I said, Soma makes a great protagonist, being confident but not cocky, loving his food and taking offense at those who belittle it, and being generally nice even to the arrogant, haughty girl who seems to be the series’ main female lead (though that’s not certain yet; we do get another potential female lead towards the end, the polar opposite, of course). The food preparation looks fun and completely absurd, things you want in a cooking manga. The premise involves Soma attending an elite cooking school, and I’ve no doubt that much of this will involve class wars and “how dare you speak like that to one whose plate you are not worthy to lick clean”, etc. And that egg dish does sound fantastic. (There is a recipe, of course.)

So I’ll be continuing with the series, which is getting its digital release a few months before it hits print in August. But I still feel compelled to point out it has that unpleasant ‘fanservice assault’ element to it, so I’ll be reading it while keeping a wary eye out for more. Thus, cautiously recommended to fans of Jump comedies and hardcore foodie manga people.

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

It’s pretty easy to tell that this is a sequel to Negima right off the bat – Evangeline appears on Page 1, talking about the difficulties inherent in immortality. It’s the following page that’s the gut-punch for all those who were hoping that this new series would see a lot of the Negima cast making cameos throughout – a metaphorical shot of Eva and the Negima cast slowly parting from one another as she continues on a solitary journey (not even Chachazero?), it’s also Ken Akamatsu telling us that this is 80 years after Negima proper, and most of the girls we loved are now dead. Is this the world that the shippers fought and died for in the “who is Negi’s wife?” wars?

Luckily, this is not a grim ‘n gritty story of how the Negima cast dies over the years – at least not so far. No, it’s pure shonen adventure, a Akamatsu has resolved whatever the issues were with Kodansha that caused Negima to end so abruptly and has finally won what he’d been working towards for years – pure adventure, no harem comedy whatsoever. Now, this is not to say we won’t have a few love triangles or fanservice scenes down the road – there’s at least two bath scenes with naked people in this volume alone. But Negima was always held back, at least at first, by Kodansha demanding Akamatsu try to replicate Love Hina, and it’s good to see that this new series is not going to be doing the same.

By the way, I had mentioned Evangeline, and she is the exception to the dead cast list above, being an immortal vampire. Indeed, immortality is the point of this entire series, as our hero is a young man, Tota Konoe (note the last name), whose parents died in a war, who has no memories before he as twelve, and who Eva, under the guise of a schoolteacher, has been raising for the last two years. It’s quite a burden for a young man to bear, but luckily Tota is very much a traditional shonen hero, complete with nonsense about a man’s dreams. (I am pleased it’s immediately pointed out as the nonsense it is.) As for Eva, she goes by Yukihime now, and it’s striking how much she has mellowed out and gotten nicer. The Eva of Negima would never, ever have gotten as close to Tota as Yukihime has – or at least would keep up a facade of disinterest.

The other main character we meet here is Kuromaru, who is an intriguing Setsuna clone. Given this is a sequel to Negima, I’m not entirely sure how much of the character’s looks are down to the fact that Akamatsu can only draw a certain number of faces and how much of it is deliberate, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt here. Tota is not too far off from Kotaro, and earlier we met a young person who was a dead ringer for Shinobu from Love Hina (which took place in the same universe as Negima). Kuromaru not only looks exactly like what Setsuna and Asuna’s child would look like, but also appears to be from the Bird Tribe that Setsuna had so many difficulties with earlier… and Kuromaru is having similar difficulties. Possibly the most intriguing thing, however, is how Kuromaru’s gender is being withheld – not only from the cast but also the reader. It’s clearly being done on purpose, and I’m wondering what’s going on here. Is Kuromaru trans? Or genderless? If so, kudos to Ken, though I suspect that will just open up a lot more questions.

We wrap up UQ Holder with a statement of the premise, which is to find aliens, time travelers and espers… wait, wrong series. To find immortal being like Yukihime and Tota and make friends with them! Luckily Yukihime seems to have her own personal yakuza to help carry this off. UQ Holder is an excellent start for both Akamatsu fans and fans of shonen manga in general, and I have no doubt will be filled with adventure and heart.

(Also, my guess on Tota is that Konoka and Setsuna’s son (via Negi helping out, so to speak) and Kotaro and Natsumi’s daughter got married and had Tota. Because forget diamonds, ship wars are eternal.)

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

Having almost run out of Tanemura titles to release, Viz has gone back to the early days with this one and license rescued it from the clutches of CMX. And I’m very pleased that they did, because if you were to ask me to take only one Tanemura title with me to a desert island, this would be the one. Her first really big hit, Phantom Thief Jeanne is a magical girl manga that is not afraid to examine the core of darkness that lies at its heart – and yet still be a fun magical girl title for kids. Madoka Magica this is not.

The phantom thief subgenre of magical girls should be familiar to everyone by now – not only through Jeanne, but also via Saint Tail, which uses very similar stylings, and CLAMP School Detectives/Man of Many Faces, where Akira is the male version of this. Naturally, given the thief is a young girl, they are stealing FOR GOOD. Indeed, Maron Kusakabe, our heroine, is a descendant of Joan of Arc (hence the title), and the plot is set up as quite religious – she is using God’s Power to extract the evil from paintings, evil that is being used by Satan to gain human hearts. (This is definitely the French Joan of Arc – Shakespeare would stare in sheer horror at the myth of Joan Puzel today.)

It’s not just the religious themes that give this manga extra depth. Maron has more going on in her background than the usual chirpy magical girl. She’s living alone, her parents having split up and separately decided to leave for another country (suspicious), her magical familiar Finn dashes off her origin story in less than a page (suspicious… though it could just be I live in a post-Kyubey world), and while she does quickly fall for the boy destined to be her love interest (who is also a rival thief with a rival familiar), she absolutely does not want to deal with these feelings, her parents having convinced her that falling in love in a horrible thing to happen to someone. There’s a depth and solidity to Maron’s life that I really enjoyed here.

Of course, it’s not all sadness and broken homes. This is still a Ribon title. There’s lots of fun and silliness, mostly in the form of Maron’s best friend Miyako, whose father is a police officer and who is dedicated to capturing the thief who keeps stealing paintings (as always, the world itself is unaware of the supernatural part of things). There’s lots of love triangle shenanigans as well, with the shy kid in love with Maron leveling up due to demon possession, but amazingly staying leveled up afterwards and trying to become strong enough to court Maron properly. (He clearly doesn’t know what genre he’s in.)

Essentially, this takes the basic beats of the Phantom Thief genre and simply writes them really well. It’s paced well, the characterization is doled out at the right moments, and I can even get used to Tanemura’s trademark GIANT EYES. Anyone wanting to read this will find a cornucopia of details to enjoy, and it has excellent rereadability. Definitely worth buying, even if you already own the CMX version.

And, most importantly, the lead guy is a blond and the runner-up is a brunet! Do you know how little that happens in shoujo? More blond leads!

By Rumiko Takahashi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

(pre-review note #1: I use ‘Ryouga’ and ‘Ukyou’ when I romanize, though otherwise stick to Viz romanization. It’s a 90s fanfic writer quirk that I am unlikely to break the habit of, as I am stubborn.)

(pre-review note #2: Few comment on my reviews anyway, but just in case: please do not character bash in the comments, at all.)

It’s quite odd seeing reviews of the new Ranma 1/2 omnibus from people who haven’t read it before, as they talk about all the craziness that simply doesn’t register with me anymore. I am almost saturated with the first two volumes of Ranma contained here. Not only have I read it when Viz first released it in 32-page pamphlet comics, and then again as collected works, but so much Ranma fanfiction uses the same opening as a springboard for its own ideas (or lack thereof) that I can almost recite some of the dialogue. “And I’m better built to boot!” “She’s really a sweet girl, she’s just a violent maniac.” And so many others. So, in a sense, there’s no real way I can review this for a newbie. As such, this is more of a look at Ranma in retrospect, and will be liberally laced with spoilers. Short review for those who don’t want to read on: Ranma 1/2 is a lot of fun, and in these first two volumes you can see Takahashi shift her characters to where they are funniest.

For those who picked up the last iteration of Ranma, the scans used do look better – there’s still no color pages (there weren’t in the Japanese volumes either), but it’s not as dark and muddy as it once was. The translation is ‘spiffed up’ a bit, but is still essentially the same, so anyone who wants honorifics is out of luck. There’s a bubble order error on Page 1 (which everyone has noticed), but otherwise things seem well put together.

It’s worth noting that this was the new series Takahashi had in Shonen Sunday to replace her breakaway hit, Urusei Yatsura. For all that it repeatedly failed in North America, the manga was an instant classic in Japan, and I imagine there was some pressure on her to keep the comedy she did best while making things slightly different. Akane in these first couple of volumes is not all that far off from Shinobu Miyaki, Ataru’s long-suffering childhood friend and ex-girlfriend. Same general sweetness when not placed in stressful situations, same hair-trigger temper, same ability to beat up anyone who activates that hair-trigger temper. As such, it’s refreshing that Ranma is so different – at least at first. Sure, he shoots his mouth off without thinking, but he’s quite observant here, noticing people’s emotional states without commenting and playing off that. Most importantly, Ranma’s interest in scoring with women is zero, and this will not change for the next 18 omnibuses after this one. Ataru was a giant lech who wanted every cute girl in the universe. Ranma has issues dealing with girls, and tends to prefer fighting instead.

As for the others, Genma comes from a line of horrible Takahashi fathers that extends from Mr. Fujinami all the way to Rin-Ne’s horrible debt-ridden dad. Genma is obsessed with fighting and training, but is too dumb to listen when people tell him there’s a cursed spring ahead – though, to be fair, so is Ranma. He also tends to stay in his panda form almost as much as Ranma does his girl form, possibly for the same reason – he looks cuter that way. Meanwhile, Soun is something of a nonentity, and this will not change much either – his observation is the opposite of Ranma, as he is in the bath when P-chan leaps in and Ryouga leaps out, but presumably does not ever think “should I stop this man with a pig curse from sleeping with my innocent daughter every night?”.

Kasumi and Nabiki seem quite different at the start of the series. Nabiki is the ‘normal’ girl, who’s clearly OK with being engaged if the guy is cute, but is unwilling to put up with the guy being weird – which Ranma definitely is. Kasumi seems actually vexed at several points in Chapter One, and talks about how she prefers older men – clearly meant to hint at the start of her plot with Dr. Tofu that goes nowhere. As the volume moves on, though, we see the light bulb go off over Takahashi’s head as to how they’ll be handled in the future. With Nabiki it’s selling the photos to Kuno, something for which she is gleefully unapologetic. It’s the start of something big. And Kasumi gets to visit Dr. Tofu, but he’s so oblivious to anything and everything while she’s around that it’s obvious to anyone what she does to him – obvious to anyone but her. Kasumi’s breezy Yamato Nadesico-ness, and her tendency to think the best of everyone while missing the darker points, will become her standard character trait.

So far, the only supernatural aspect of Ranma we’ve seen is the curse itself, as opposed to Urusei Yatsura’s aliens bringing the excuse for any sort of plot whatsoever simply by virtue of being from another world. But that’s OK, as Ranma is far more focused on fighting. Not only are Ranma and Genma perfecting their own style of Japanese martial arts – which utilizes many different styles, most of which I suspect are ‘what looks really cool?’ – but we also get to see Akane’s kempo-influenced style (her family and Ranma’s supposedly have the same ‘anything goes’ background, but Akane has not been training around Asia for the last 10 years either) and Kuno’s kendo training with a wooden sword. Ranma is shown to be an excellent fighter, but is thankfully not perfect – he tends to underestimate his opponents, such as Kuno and Ryouga here, and ends up not giving his best effort till he’s already injured as a result.

Speaking of Kuno and Ryouga, let’s talk about them. Shutaro Mendou had his moments of complete idiocy, but could at heart behave like a normal person if pressed or girls were watching him. Tatewaki Kuno has no such normalcy filter, for reasons that we won’t find out for some time but are essentially similar to Ranma’s – “boy, my entire family is screwed up”. It’s worth noting that he and Nabiki interact purely by dint of being in the same class, and he even notes casually that he despises her at one point. Well, that’s one ship sunk. No one could possibly write Tatewaki/Nabiki after reading that. :) As for Ryouga, what most struck me wasn’t all of the anger he possesses – Ryouga is an out-of-control berserker here, with none of the sweetness and depression that will flesh him out later – but how much he looked like Ataru. It won’t be as obvious to those who haven’t seen the final few volumes of UY – Takahashi’s art evolved exponentially during that series – but put a bandana on Ataru by the end of UY and he’s basically Ryouga here. Ryouga, notably, DOES have a libido, but knows better than to do more than snuggle in Akane’s boobs as a pig – we don’t have a true lecherous pervert in the series. Yet.

I was amused at Ryouga not caring about Akane at all during the first fight – Ryouga tends to be focused only on fighting and revenge in this volume, and it’s only when Akane kisses his pig-form that he’s smitten – possibly as it’s the most affection he’s ever gotten from anyone. Ryouga’s sense of direction also comes up for the first time here, and it’s already exaggerated to its maximum – we see him at the Northern and Southern ends of Japan. As for P-chan, his arrival in the Tendo household sets up an obvious tension about how long it will be before his secret is revealed and Akane finds out who he is. The answer, of course, is never – this never comes up, likely as Takahashi knew it would require a response that would be too serious to cope with in the series.

Other characters we’re introduced to include Dr. Tofu, who’s an excellent doctor who’s useless once he sees Kasumi. This was once an amusing running gag, but seeing Tofu suffering the same effects when he sees a middle-school Kasumi show up with her elementary-school aged Akane feels horribly creepy now, and I won’t be sorry when he’s quietly phased out of the manga in a few more volumes. We also meet Kodachi, though she barely gets to appear before the omnibus ends. It’s still enough time to see that she’s a little bit crazy, and also tends to win her matches by crippling the opponent beforehand. As for her own family situation, it will have to wait till next time.

Lastly, it’s worth noting how well Ranma and Akane get along, despite the bickering and occasional misunderstandings. Usually everything is resolved in a chapter or so, and Ranma is not QUITE as thoughtless as he gets later on. They have common interests, and tend to work well when fighting together. Takahashi had gotten burned on UY when Lum became so popular she had to change the story to make her the lead girl, and though she came to approve of that, it wasn’t going to happen again. So here we get two whole volumes setting up how well Ranma and Akane go together, with the villains/rivals that we see so far mostly being comedic and/or focused entirely on revenge against Ranma for non-romance reasons. It will take a villain of a higher caliber to really create the first big rift between these two, one that will leave self-confidence and trust issues that never really get settled throughout the series. But Shampoo is in the next volume. For now, we’re introduced to Ranma Saotome and the craziness that surrounds him, and there’s a lot of it. If you’ve read Ranma, read it again. If you haven’t, go read it. And for God’s sake, please don’t take it seriously! That’s the WORST thing to do with this series! (looks up at backscroll, coughs a bit)