Sean Gaffney

By Satoshi Kon. Released in Japan as “Kaikisen” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Young Magazine. Released in North America by Vertical.

I must admit, I’ve never really been into Satoshi Kon’s directing work. I saw Perfect Blue years ago, but never got around to his other movies. I do know that many of them are considered works of art by anime fandom, though, so it was intriguing to see this title licensed, a manga that he wrote before he did any of the titles he’s now famous for. I liked what I read, too. This is a solid, mellow, and sometimes preachy story of a young man growing up by the sea in a small town, having to deal with progress, tradition, friendships becoming romance, and mermaids. Most of us have dealt with the same things. Well, maybe not that last one.

The story is quite simple, and fits very well in this single volume release. Yosuke comes from a long line of priests, whose job it is to care for a mermaid egg – and return it to the sea every 60 years, as part of a pact to keep the sea filled with life and healthy. His father is a modernist, and thinks that they could also raise some money with the publicity of this egg. His grandfather is a staunch traditionalist. Yosuke, meanwhile, seems to fall in between the two camps – much like the rest of his life, where as a teen getting ready for exams he can’t quite decide if he wants to escape his hometown or not. This is not helped by the return of Nami, an old friend who had gone to the big city, and who has an obvious bond with Yosuke.

I really liked the way this manga kept a balance between everything it’s trying to do. There’s lots of reflective, quiet scenes, but there’s also several exciting action pieces and a big chase climax. Yosuke can be reserved, but he’s not repressed or anything, he’s just a normal kid who is dealing with a lot right now. I loved the not-quite-romance with Nami, which has just the right touch, and his relationship with his little sister also rang true. Essentially, despite this title involving mermaids, the fact that your suspension of disbelief never comes into play is the most praiseworthy thing.

It’s not perfect, of course – something I’m sure Kon would be the first to acknowledge. The lead villain comes from a stock template of ruthless businessmen who will get what they want without thought of the little people or environment that get trampled underfoot. I suspect Kon didn’t want to end this volume with anyone actually being killed, but that makes the villain’s conversion – oh, I’ve seen what really lives in the sea, and it has made me a better person – the one thing here that’s really hard to swallow. The ending also does seem a bit rushed, for all of its excitement.

But those are just quibbles. Tropic of the Sea is simply evocative, and makes the reader want to walk out along the beach at night and smell the salt water. It’s no surprise that the creator went on to big things.

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

It’s been a long time since I last did a full review of Fairy Tail. In fact, the last time I did the blurb above said “released by Del Rey”. But this is a pivotal volume of the series, for many reasons. It also suffers from the same problem that has plagued the series since it began, one that many fans, particularly in the West, have trouble getting past: it feels like a One Piece ripoff. What’s most interesting about this volume is that Mashima, who surely must have heard this about five thousand times, goes ahead and duplicates one of One Piece’s most famous moves… but with a slight twist. He is embracing the One Piece-ness of his manga.

But before we get to that, let’s take a quick look at Gildarts and Cana. I’ve always liked Gildarts, who is a great way of showing that goofy grinning shonen boys grow up to become goofy grinning shonen men. This shows in Cana’s confession to him about her parentage, where he can’t resist making jokes about it, till he realizes that this is exactly what she doesn’t need right now. After that, it’s all heartwarming. It also ties in tragically with the end of the volume, where Lucy has to deal with the death of her own estranged father, who she discovers wanted to make amends with her. Lucy’s emotions, where she’s sort of at a loss and vaguely sad at first, are handled in a mature and understandable way.

This brings us to the timeskip. Yes, a timeskip, just like One Piece. This one is a full seven years, though. What makes this one interesting – and divisive – is that in those seven years our heroes were held in a sort of stasis bubble of magic, so that the outside world has aged but they haven’t. This was quite upsetting to many fans, who wanted to see older, non-teenage versions of their heroes start beating things up. But Mashima defends his choice, and I see his point. Fairy Tail as a guild has spent 30 volumes building itself up from a minor laughingstock of a guild to the very best in the land… and now everything is right back to where it started, with our heroes having to climb up once more.

This does lead to a few issues. Most of the main cast whose faces we see a lot were on the island, so for a while when we’re back at Fairy Tail 7 years later we’re following some characters that we haven’t really focused on since Volume 1, like Romeo. It’s meant to be heartbreaking, but lacks the emotional resonance simply as we haven’t seen any of these people enough to feel their frustration. Fairy Tail’s cast is huge, but Mashima sometimes expects us to have an encyclopedic knowledge of it.

So Fairy Tail has done a timeskip, and honestly there’s really only a few shonen cliches it hasn’t gone through yet. I’m not quite sure what could be left to go over in the next volume… oh hey, did someone say tournament arc?

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

(please continue to avoid spoilers in comments)

We all knew a volume like this was coming. Despite the mass deaths and danger, things had simply been going too well for our heroes recently. There were heartwarming moments, and points where you marveled at the awesomeness of humanity. That clearly cannot last. And so you have Attack on Titan 7, which, yes, also gives you heartwarming and reaffirming love for humanity, but then brutally stomps all over it and tears it to shreds while laughing in your face.

So yeah, it really didn’t bode well that Levi’s team, for all their backstory and character building, never had biographies at the front of the book. Much of this book (and indeed the series in general) is about the mindset of a soldier, and how you can commit to actions that seem stupid or that you may not believe in. I’ll give Special Ops this, they were decisive and trying to stop the Female Titan. And, in the end, they weren’t good enough and were brutally murdered. This doesn’t mean it was a bad decision, or that they didn’t die like heroes. It’s just a function of life in this book, and how horrible the situation is with the Titans. Things are really bad, and sometimes you make a firm decision that leads to an ignoble death.

Speaking of the Female Titan, as Armin has already noted, she’s definitely one of a special group of Titans that are intelligent and crafty, and it shows throughout the entire book. Even when Erwin has her cornered, she’s still able to think of a way out. And her fight with Eren and Mikasa is not only epic but gives us some stunning motivation on what the Titans are trying to achieve; when given an opportunity to kill Eren, she doesn’t, but tries to kidnap him instead. Eren, presumably as he’s also a Titan, is useful to them in some way. Chilling, really.

I do sort of wonder what it will take to get Levi to break, or if he ever will. He’s the most popular character in the series in Japan, and rapidly taking that position over here as well, but there’s only so far stoic can take you. Will he continue to suffer nobly and look off into the middle distance? If nothing else, he makes a very good contrast to hotheads Eren and Mikasa.

But it’s all about the final scene, which simply makes you want to cry. Eren waking up to see everyone re-entering the city. The jeers of the adults, and the cheers of the little children. Petra’s dad, running to Levi, asking him to give her something, and Levi’s stoic non-response. And the final narration, noting that they’re all basically under arrest, Eren’s going to be turned over (presumably to be tortured and executed), and Erwin and company may be in a lot of trouble all around. It’s a horrible place to leave a cliffhanger. And so naturally here is where it is.

But hey, from here things can only get better… right?

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

It’s worth noting, when reading this volume of One Piece, how much fun Oda is clearly having writing every single chapter. His simple joy in drawing all this crazy stuff comes out from the page and just overflows into your brain. Be it giant slime monsters clearly based off of video games in his youth, the bodyswap continuing to humiliate Nami and Sanji (and ending at just about the right time so it doesn’t get old), or even our heroes happily commenting on how Luffy and Smoker are locked up in another seastone cage again, just like Alabasta! (Bonus points for it being Robin commenting, who was a villain at that point.) This manga is what happy feels like.

Of course, it’s not all fun and games – or rather, the fun and games continues to be contrasted with the atrocities that Caesar Clown is committing. Drug addict giant toddlers, poison gas corpses that look like something out of Edvard Munch, and Luffy getting completely punked in his first fight with Caesar, despite his supposed poison immunity… this is not simply a walk in the park the way other arcs have felt. We even have yet another mole for the bad guy who’s a Vice-Admiral with the Marines (and, Oda-style, has a hamburger affixed to his cheek. As he forgot it was there.)

We also see Kidd and some of the other Supernovas meeting to discuss Caesar Clown’s offer, and it reminds me of something that Oda has been showing us again and again: anyone with power in this world is highly likely to be evil or insane. Luffy and company are one of the few non-evil pirate crews, and, fittingly, Smoker and Tashigi’s group are one of the few non-evil Marine crews. When you live in a world like One Piece’s, with so much raw power out there to abuse, you run into people who will do all they can to hold onto it.

Luckily, our heroes are strong, and can’t be kept down for long. Everyone has their own bodies again, and Kin’emon, the samurai, has his full body back (and is really quite tall now). What’s more, Luffy and Law have formed an alliance! I suspect that Law will rapidly come to regret allying himself with Luffy and company, which to a certain degree involves throwing your self-image out the window and giving in to the goofy. I am amused that once again Luffy says, when being informed of a plan, “Yeah, OK, I got it”, and then merrily go off to punch things again. It’s not something anyone can stop at this point.

If there’s something that feels slightly dissatisfying here, it’s that Caesar Clown doesn’t feel like a big bad. He’s pretty scummy, and I’ll enjoy seeing him defeated, but the revelation that there’s someone behind him who’s the real mastermind makes a lot more sense, and as a reader, I’d really like to leap ahead to that battle. Till then, though, One Piece continues to go where it wants to with unlimited joy.

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.

This volume, and the two that follow it, are for me the high point of the entire run of Hayate the Combat Butler. Hata has a tendency to get sidetracked and lost in comedy asides, to the point where he’s started to parody his tendency to do so. Also, it’s becoming quite clear that someone is telling him that he has to keep the series going and can’t wrap things up. But that’s in Japan. Here, we’re finally getting to the good stuff. All the slow character development, glacial plot points, and G*ndam references lead to this confrontation in Greece.

For all that Hayate is a wacky harem comedy, it has some dark tones at its core. Mostly it’s been about the horrible parents of Hayate, Wataru and Hina, and the absent/dead parents of Nagi and Athena. But there’s also been a sense of aiming for your dream and failing that’s come up several times with Hina’s alcoholic sister Yukiji. She’s in Italy because the teacher (and old high-school friend) who has a crush on her is trying to make grand gestures so that he doesn’t have to actually confess. After a chapter of misunderstandings and beatings, the now drunken teacher wonders out loud how the cool, guitar-playing Yukiji turned into the lazy, shiftless, aimless young woman we all know. And the answer is that life happens. It’s why people make wishes, and dream of fairy stories. And create magical luck stones, for that matter.

Speaking of which, we finally get the confrontation we’ve waited 10 years for… well OK, four volumes. Hayate sees Athena, and calls out to her. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know who he is. Or at least pretends she doesn’t know – as a very cute aftershot tells us, she is quite aware of Hayate but has some longer game, which involves that stone. The last volume gave us a few minor villains trying to get their hands on the stone, but now we move on to the more dangerous players. 16-year-old Athena looks like a dark queen, what with her black dress and princess curls (and healthy bust – clearly larger than any of the other girls in Hayate’s wannabe harem). We can only hope that she sides with her feelings over her need for that stone.

And so, having started the volume with Yukiji noting that sometimes things don’t work out, and dreams don’t come true, we end with the dinner date between Hayate and Hinagiku, who is determined to confess. Of course, Hina is mistakenly thinking that Hayate hates her because of her tsundere antics. And Hayate has worked out that Athena was lying, and is wondering what to do now and why meeting Athena is affecting him so much. So the dinner date is a masterpiece of distraction. Tragically, the two characters have revelations exactly at the WRONG time. Hina finally mans up her courage and starts to confess. And Hayate finally puts two and two together and realizes why he’s so devastated by Athena’s disfavor, and why he wants desperately to apologize: he loves her.

It’s an epic cliffhanger, to be sure. Hata certainly thought so, as Vols. 23 and 24 came out in Japan the same day. Sadly, that won’t happen here, where Hayate simply doesn’t have the sales. So we’ll have to check back in another six months to see how Hayate’s admission affects Hina, and whether it spurs him to return to Athena. The tension only gets higher from here.

By Naoko Takeuchi. Released in Japan as “Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Run Run. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

There’s an important thing to keep in mind when reading this first of two collections of short stories that were interspersed throughout the series’ run: they didn’t run in Nakayoshi. They ran in a sister magazine, run Run, which was also home to Sailor V. Run Run no longer exists today, but I seem to recall when it was around that its core audience was girls about 2-3 years younger than the usual Nakayoshi audience. And that’s not even getting into the fact that these are quick side-stories Naoko dashed off in between chapters, so are naturally going to be a bit more comedic and fluffy than the core plotline.

If all of this sounds a bit defensive, well, let’s just say that ‘light and frothy’ doesn’t begin to describe this volume of Sailor Moon extras, most of which are very silly and not exactly lending themselves to deeper analysis. Four of the stories star Chibi-Usa and her friends (with occasional rescues from Sailors Moon and V), while three others detail the struggles of the Inners to pass high school exams. The first one is around the R continuity (Chibi-Usa has just arrived, and is meeting her very busty friend Momo… Ranma fans will immediately be reminded of Shampoo), but most of the stories take place around the SuperS continuity – indeed, a few of them were adapted into the SuperS anime – with the final one seeming to be around Stars, given it has Hotaru.

This is not to say I did not 100% enjoy these stories, as I did. I like Naoko’s style of blatant humor, and she has a knack for amusing caricature faces. The Chibi-Usa stories at the beginning are pure fun for kids, with the kids getting into danger and having to transform to get themselves out of it. The story at the end is slightly longer and attempts to have more depth, but there’s only so far you can go when you find out that Naru’s sister is not only a kogal but is also named Naruru. It’s good to know that Japan has horrible naming sense as well. (Also, kudos to Mari Morimoto for the translation of this chapter, which was filled with topical Japanese slang that Chibi-Usa and Hotaru pointed out and lampshaded throughout, thus making it virtually unadaptable. A very nice job.)

My favorite part of the book, I will admit, are the three stories focusing on the Inners. Makoto’s is probably the weakest, but we do get some amusing scenes of her procrastination through cooking and housework, and also hear about her late parents for what may be the only time in the manga OR anime canon. (They’re killed in a plane crash when Makoto was a little girl, which is used here as both an amusing gag and to have Mako gain sympathy points from her friends.) Ami’s First Love is probably the best written of the three, and it’s no surprise that the anime adapted this into a short film for theaters. Ami can be very tightly wound, so seeing her coming unglued at finding a student who’s just as perfect in studying as she is is hilarious, particularly when she gets so upset by this she seems to make herself ill.

And then there’s Rei and Minako. I’ve discussed how much I love this chapter before, silly as it is, and that hasn’t changed. The manga version of Rei – cool, collection, a bit ‘ice queen’ – is in such contrast to Minako’s extrovert that it makes sense that she’d want to see what Rei’s life at school is like – and yes, she’d want to ask if Rei farted. I think that Minako regards Rei as a bit too perfect, and this is just her own tactless way of trying to reassure herself that Rei is human after all. Of course, all that her visit to Rei’s perfect Catholic school ends up doing is tweaking Minako’s own insecurities – and that leads to Rei seeming genuinely upset at Minako getting angry, showing she *isn’t* the perfect ice princess. Rei is likely very lonely at that school where she only has admirers, and just can’t express her friendships in the way that Minako wants her to. Still, they manage to bond by… well, Rei being possessed and trying to kiss Minako. And afterwards being crankier than ever. But Minako’s feeling good again, and that’s what’s important. Bless these children.

So if the Sailor Moon series was a full-course meal, then this is dessert. Don’t go into it expecting anything more than delicious sweets that are easy on the eyes but not all that good for you, and you should be fine. Also, Rei has never farted. She is better than all of us.

By Tomu Ohmi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Petit Comic. Released in North America by Viz.

I often joke when discussing licenses that the thing most companies tend to look for is “does this manga have vampires in it? And are they hot??”. But of course in general there has to be more substance to it than that. We need smart, compelling characters, we need some intriguing backstory, and of course we do need some nice seductive romance. With Midnight Secretary we get two out of the three, and I suspect the intriguing backstory will come in future volumes as this develops more of a plot.

Kaya is a young woman living with her mother who is highly skilled but has one big problem (at least it’s a problem to her): she has a face that makes her look far too young. So, in order to get the secretarial work that she’s so good at, she does her hair up in a tight bun and wears glasses, looking very much like the cliche of what we think good secretaries should be. Like most Petit Comic heroines I’ve read about, her family has fallen on hard times, and her father has passed away from being incompetent… um, from stress. Luckily, she has a new job as secretary to the company director. Unluckily, he’s a womanizer, arrogant, and unimpressed with her looks. Oh yes, and he’s a vampire.

I am pleased that we get the reveal to this right off the bat, and that, after a bit of soul searching (and some blackmail on Kyohei’s part) she manages to file “vampire” under “things I have to manage in my boss’ day”. Indeed, Kaya takes her job very seriously indeed, and once she accepts what Kyohei is, she’s quick to research everything about vampires (most of which, amusingly, is wrong) and try to deal with the issues. And yes, sometimes that involves his sucking her blood, but only in emergencies. And it’s totally not one of the most erotic experiences she’s ever had, nope.

Kyohei’s brother is the executive director, and Kaya notes he isn’t a vampire, something I was prepared to have be wrong but no, it appears that is the case. It’s amusing to me that most of the drama in this fist volume comes less from Kyohei’s vampiric tendencies and more from the corporate intrigue. Kaya is far more valuable to him for her smarts and her spying ability than as a free meal ticket. Of course, he does eventually get her hair down and glasses off, and we start to see the smoldering passion that will no doubt justify this series’ 7-volume length. Indeed, by the end of Vol. 1 Kyohei is finding that other women’s blood just doesn’t do it for him, and he adds ‘blood for me’ to the endless list of Kaya’s tasks.

This is a fun series, with a more capable heroine than I’m used to seeing in this type of title. I wonder if we’ll get more of Kyohei’s vampire backstory as the series goes on, or if it will stick to corporate intrigue. And of course how these two will fall deeper in love. It’s another spicy romantic josei series from Shojo Beat. Fans of romance and the supernatural will snap it up.