Sean Gaffney

Story by Ryukishi07; Art by Hinase Momoyama. Released in Japan as “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Minagoroshi-hen” by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine GFantasy. Released in North America by Yen Press.

And so we come to the end of the penultimate Higurashi arc, and – no surprise here – everyone is dead. And I do mean everyone, as this volume, having finally given away most of the secrets, goes into great detail how the “disaster” that wipes out the village actually occurs. Things are not particularly improved by Takano, who is waving her arms around during all this as if she’s a conductor, and has a final face that is perhaps the template for all “crazy Higurashi faces”. But let’s jump back a bit and see how we got here.

Rika and Hanyuu both feature on Yen’s chosen omnibus cover art (sorry, Takano, you just aren’t cute enough), with Rika having a resolved, determined face and Hanyuu looking depressed and dead inside. Most of this volume is showing us how Rika gets that determined, as getting the news about Tomitake’s death just seems to take all the fight out of her. Especially when she hears Oishii’s theories about who did it. A lot of fans have gotten on Rika’s case about being unable to figure out the killer, who seems really obvious in retrospect, and that she should have pieced it together after so many worlds in a row. Of course, as we see here, this is the first world where she’s not drugged up at the time of her execution. More to the point, she may have a hundred worlds of experience, but they’re the experience of a girl who only gets to about 12 years old. Rika has years, but not maturity, and it shows clearly here, when she resolves to hide everything from her friends so they don’t get killed.

That’s hardly going to work, however, given what happened with Satoko just a few days ago. Indeed, Satoko points this out to Rika directly, and Keiichi and the others make it clear that they’re not going to sit there and let Rika be sacrificed. We even have Rika quoting one of Bernkastel’s poems – usually reserved for the start and end of each arc, and indeed we get one at the end as well – which talks about who has a right to happiness. It’s easy to stand up against someone when it’s for the sake of others. When you do it for yourself, it can seem selfish, especially if it will put your friends in danger. Rika has to break through that barrier before she can accomplish anything.

We are – finally! – starting to get answers here, and indeed most of the pieces are together now. Not only is Takano the villain, but so are the “Wild Dog” bodyguards, who have always resembled a militia a bit too much for my taste. (I like how they are mook enough to have Keiichi and company take them out in order to rescue Rika, but not actually mook enough to have that last more than a few minutes – in the end, the kids lose.) And Hinamizawa Syndrome, the disease that causes the paranoia and killing impulses, is explained as well. This leads to why Rika keeps getting ritually slaughtered on an altar – Takano has gone mad and believes that if she kills the Queen Carrier, she’ll gain godlike powers.

And then there’s Hanyuu. We still don’t know much about her. She’s the incarnation of Oyashiro-sama, but strangely powerless, except for her ability to reset the worlds. She’s also even more worn down than Rika, and is also terrified that if she loses Rika this time she’ll be alone again… as she was for about a thousand years. Rena calls her out on this, as she too has the reoccurring theme of the Massacre arc – fighting back hurts too many people, it’s best not to have any hope. We’ve just proven how wrong this is, even if it did end badly. What’s more, we don’t really have much background on why the hell Takano is doing this, aside from “She’s insane”.

Luckily, we have one more arc – the longest yet, 8 volumes/4 omnibuses! – that should tell us about them, and will hopefully finally give us something that the characters and readers truly deserve after all this tragedy – a happy ending. Stay tuned for Vol. 1 of the awkwardly titled “Festival Accompanying” arc, where we meet a young girl named Miyoko Tanashi, and find out what makes her tick.

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

In the last volume of Sailor Moon, we had chapters each devoted to the development of a senshi, be it Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, or the Outers. That having been done, it’s time for an action-packed climax to the SuperS arc. Now, this can also be a drawback. Takeuchi’s battles do tend to have a certain sameness to them, and in many ways this is just another variation on “our light is purer than your dark”. So with that in mind, let me talk about all the other things that I loved about this volume.

First of all, the entire arc has been a look at the dreams and nightmares of the world, with the Dark Moon Circus dealing out both with impunity. We’re definitely on the nightmare end of the scale for this volume, with many grotesque, horrific images that look even better in Takuuchi’s long-limbed shoujo style. Seeing Usagi’s face melting off was what caused me to buy a copy of the manga in my comic store years ago (this was an older Japanese tankobon, I think), and it hits Venus and the rest of the senshi right where they live – the Princess is dead, they failed to protect her. (A flashback showing the very Sleeping Beauty-esque appearance of Nehelenia in the Silver Millennium only reinforces that – also, Venus and the others as chibi-Senshi are adorable.) Usagi, meanwhile, is caught in what seems an idealistic dream – she and Mamoru are the same age, and he makes her breakfast before they go to school together. But she immediately starts to see through it, even if regretfully – Mamoru was never that sicky sweet. It’s a childish Usagi dream, and she’s moved beyond that.

The other senshi mostly get to stand around and gape, but there are occasional moments of awesome. Venus and Uranus are the clear team leaders of their respective groups, and there’s a brief moment where we see they don’t really get along. We also see a magic mirror that needs to be broken, and after senshi attacks fail to do the job Jupiter goes with her Plan A – punch it really hard. (Who needs superpowers when you have MONSTER STRENGTH?) But the big winner here is Saturn, who is back, is around Chibi-Usa’s age, and is clearly the most savvy of the entire group – so much so that she and Chibi-Moon actually have to be banished from the plot for half the book (in another really creepy and well-drawn sequence where they’re imprisoned in shards of mirror). She confronts the Amazoness Quartet, abut can see them for who they really are – and almost manages to get them to remember before Nehelenia steps in and turns them into dull black orbs. (Also, she gets to do something in the volume on which she’s the cover star – a rarity for this re-released series.)

After Nehelenia is defeated (sorry, honey, no redemption for you here), we see everyone transformed into their ‘royalty’ dresses (we actually see it earlier as well, and it’s worth noting a couple of things. First, Serenity apparently has powers so vast that she can give her retinue prom formal gowns almost by default. Secondly, everyone gets white gowns bar Pluto and Saturn’s, which are black. I’d like to think there’s meaning to that beyond “breaking up the color scheme”), Saturn is still in her senshi outfit as she has another duty – have Serenity purify the orbs. And after she does so, we see the true forms of the Amazoness Quartet – the Asteroid Senshi, Chibi-Moon’s own inner retinue from the future. (This is actually not explained quite as well as I’d like, and is another weakness of this volume.) Add that to Helios, who is at last free to not be a giant magic horse and romance Chibi-Moon as himself – and one purpose of this arc is to give Chibi-Usa her own group to turn to in Crystal Tokyo that’s not simply her parents and guardians. She’s free to grow up.

For a volume that seems to be, on flip through, about half ‘senshi gape at encroaching darkness’ pictures over and over, there was a lot going on here. We’ve got two volumes of the main storyline to go, which will be the last arc, Stars. I’m especially looking forward to these as it’s the arc I re-read the least first time round, so I want to see what new insights I can find in it. (I also want a street date for the Takeuchi artbook – some of the title pages in this cry out for big color prints.) Still a can’t miss shoujo classic.

By CLAMP. Released in Japan by Shinshokan, serialized in the magazine Wings. Released in North America by Dark Horse Comics.

This is one of the big CLAMP series, the ones that first come to mind when you mention the creative team. It was their first really big hit (sorry, RG Veda), and when you read this first volume you can easily pick out why. Some manga are about the storyline and characters, some deal with building a world. But Tokyo Babylon is about building a mood, and it combines terrific artwork and a naive, somewhat somber hero to show us the world careening towards an inevitable apocalypse, one we’d see play out in the semi-sequel to this work, X.

I’ve made a habit of pointing out CLAMP’s shortcomings in their post-2000 works, so it’s important to note how much they get right here. The artwork alone is worth buying the volume for, with a cute/handsome cast, striking settings, and strong, confident action scenes. Each story is self-contained so far, and has a plot that we’ve seen in many series before – a young spiritualists deals with restless ghosts and helps them find eternal rest – but it doesn’t feel tired, thanks in no small part to keeping the cast small and nuanced. Subaru’s noble idealism shines off the page, and makes an excellent contrast with his sister Hokuto’s eccentric extrovert. and then there’s Seishiro…

Let’s face it, Seishiro’s got something going on. I’m not spoiling anything, it’s just signposted – Hokuto even notes how he keeps changing the subject. At the start of the book he seems to be the most shallow – a nice, always smiling guy who tries to give Subaru gentle, older-man to younger-man advice while making cute jokes about seducing him. But by the time we get to the end of this volume, it’s clear that there’s something dark and unpleasant underneath that, and that Subaru’s idealism is going to run into it with a giant crunch. Honestly, in a way I can sort of see it. Subaru’s shininess is *so* over the top that it’s hard not to look at him every day and want to try to break it just a little bit…

I’ve jokes before about the magazine that Tokyo Babylon ran in, Wings, which is a shoujo/josei/fantasy/BL-lite hybrid that essentially became its own genre. Dark Horse advertises the series as one of the first BL manga to come out over here, but the BL in it is quite mild. Hokuto and Seishiro constantly joke about his love for Subaru, but Subaru’s lack of response beyond the occasional blush means that things don’t really go very far. Honestly, Hokuto is the big reason that this title isn’t completely bleak and grim – she’s a spark of life that brightens every scene she appears in. This will become far more important in the second volume, believe you me.

Dark Horse has done a really nice omnibus here, based on the re-released version from Japan (in case you’re wondering where Hokuto’s side-story got off to – it’ll be in the next one). A little oversize, nice thick paper, it’s a quality release. I’m not certain how changed the translation is from the Tokyopop edition, but it’s likely worth exchanging your old copies for this one anyway. And for those who haven’t tried this series, you really should – it’s CLAMP at their mightiest.

By Pon Watanabe. Released in Japan as “Momoiro Shoten e Youkoso” by Media Factory. Released in North America digitally by Yen Press.

This was definitely one of the most intriguing announcements of SDCC, and I wondered what sort of title it would be like? How mature were we walking here? Was it plot-oriented, or just a slice-of-life gag comedy? Well, having now seen it, slice-of-life is definitely the road it travels down. If it weren’t for the sex talk, this would be almost a typical workplace gag manga. It’s just that here, the workplace sells pornography and sex toys as well as the regular used books, and the clientele it gets can be a little special.

There’s only one scene that I would call so questionable that I’d grab it away from the under-18s (where the bookstore staff goes to the shooting of a porn movie… the most explicit parts of which are drawn using cute cat mascots instead), but make no mistake about it, this book is about a sex shop, and every single chapter is filled with sex talk. Masturbatory aids, adult videos, exhibitionists, voyeurs, you name it, they’re all in here. The author, by the way, is also the narrator/star, but mostly serves to stand aside and make snarky comments – she doesn’t get involved in any of the activities.

Judging by Watanabe’s other two titles, she seems to specialize in slice-of-life gag works like this. It’s broken up into short 8-page chapters, which examine the lives of the owner and staff, the varied customers, and also gets quite philosophical at times. The general rule of thumb in this book seems to be that sexuality is good and nothing to hide provided that it’s not hurting other people. This seems to be an especially good moral to have in times like these, where propriety is seen as everything.

The title is also quite funny, in a mild “causes a smile” way usually, but sometimes the more risque humor made me jaw drop a bit. It’s mostly about the shop, its merchandise, and the customers, but the real world intrudes quite a bit – you see Watanabe having to bust middle school students pretending to be over 18, dealing with yakuza and undercover police (she wasn’t arrested, but had to give a statement – no uncensored porn, please!), and going on karaoke nights with her co-workers. She’s also a female, and quite tall, so there’s talk about how sex shop customers react at having to pay for things through her. And yes, her manga skills do come up once or twice, as she tries drawing things for the shop. We also see her naivite occasionally, such as when she tries to lure more females into the store, only to find that this depletes the much larger male customer base (as they feel even more uncomfortable).

Overall, it’s a cute little title. That said, I wouldn’t get it unless you like slice-of-life mild humor stories, sexual content or no. The style is very “superdeformed” and abstract, so there’s no real nudity or sexual situations. It simply is what it is, a cute title about a woman who manages a used bookstore that has a back room filled with sex stuff.

By Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and GAINAX. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Viz Media.

These volumes of Evangelion were coming out just as the TV series was finishing, so by now readers had a general idea where things were going to go. And so that allows Sadamoto to start to mix things up and change what we expect to see. There’s no radical alterations here, but some introductions are different, and one character’s fate is changed – for the worse.

Rei features on the cover, but really has very little to do in these three volumes. That said, her one major scene is quite good. Shinji is still angsting about his father, and how he hates him but knows he’d like that to change. Rei points out that being silent isn’t changing anything, and he should talk to his father. So he does! And he gets shut down cold, as it becomes clear that Gendo is never going to bond with Shinji in any parental way, or stop using him as a tool. (Ironically, telling Shinji to stop trying to get closer to him might be the nicest thing Gendo does for him.) Rei also realizes that for all that Gendo is supposedly closer to her, it’s merely a facade, and I think that bothers her, in her own Rei sort of way.

Of course, the majority of this omnibus is focused on the arrival of Asuka. As noted above, she gets a different and far cooler introduction to the story, taking out an Angel by herself and then beating up a group of street punks to save Shinji’s butt. That said, she’s as harsh and abrasive as ever – except around Kaji, of course. (Kaji shutting Asuka down towards the end of this volume is handled quite well – he clearly knows what is going on and has been ignoring the hell out of it, but Asuka stripping in front of him lets him know he can’t do that anymore. Actually, Kaji in general is handled really well in the manga.) Shinji’s scenes with Asuka are usually the funniest parts of the books, and they also get some sweet bonding moments, showing them starting to open up to each other a little bit.

Then there’s the last third of this omnibus. I wonder if Sadamoto had heard people talking about how the manga was a lighter, more optimistic take on the anime and said “Oh yeah? Well take this!” All of Vol. 6 is devoted to Toji being selected as the 4th pilot, and all that stems from that. And it’s horrible, in the best possible way. In particular, Hikari’s tsundere antics (genuine tsundere, as opposed to Asuka’s “I am at heart emotionally broken” tsundere) are simply impossible to read as anything but tragic, and the last scene of the volume is a perfect “OK, gonna go sob in the corner now” capper. I hated reading it, but it was handled in a fantastic way.

So with that cliffhanger, we’ve been shown that the happy fun times of Evangelion are over. How Shinji reacts to his role in all this – as well as what his father did – will no doubt take up part of the next book. In the meantime, if you never read this series, this oversize omnibus with color pages and detailed notes explaining the confusing backstory is a perfect introduction.

By Yukito Kishiro. Released originally in Japan as “Gunnm: Last Order” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Ultra Jump; currently owned by Kodansha and serialized in the magazine Evening. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

In the beginning, there was Gunnm, which ran in Shueisha’s Business Jump from 1990-1995, and told the story of Gally, a cyborg creation who was revived and had lots of awesome Rollerball-type adventures, killed bad guys, and battled the evil Desty Nova. Then in 1995 the series was wrapped up fast as the author was ill. Like “get your affairs in order” ill. Luckily, he got better, and 5 years later revived the series for new magazine Ultra Jump, retconning most of the last volume and restarting with Gally’s adventures in the sky. Viz Media licensed both series, renamed Gally to Alita, and released the first series as Battle Angela Alita and the second with the Last Order tag.

Then a few years ago, Shueisha was going to re-release the original Alita manga, but decided to remove the word “crazy” from the manga as it might upset the mentally ill. Kishiro was quite upset, and after a long, protracted battle, pulled his manga and moved to Kodansha, where it is currently running in Evening. Over here, the manga likewise leaped from Viz to Kodansha, who have started to put it out from where Viz left off (Vol. 16), but are also going back and re-releasing Last Order as large omnibuses, based off Kodansha’s bunko releases. The fate of the original series remains up in the air, but I suspect a re-release is unlikely.

Which is a shame, as I think the omnibus would read much better if people could refresh their memories of the original. Kodansha Comics puts a 2-page “what has gone before” at the start, but despite trying to make Last Order as newbie-friendly as possible, every time Alita starts wondering about Figure Four, or obsessing over Lou, the reader is left thinking that they missed the first 20 minutes of this movie. Admittedly, if they did re-release the original people might be reminded that some characters who originally got happy endings now are suffering much more gruesome fates. Speaking of Lou.

With all that said, this is a really entertaining read once you get past starting in the middle. Alita’s a cute, sullen heroine who the author makes sure not to take seriously at times. Desty Nova reappears as a crazy awesome mad scientist, still amoral but no longer bwa-ha-ha evil, and now apparently mentoring her. We meet a few of her cyborg duplicates, like Sechs, who is obsessed with “defeating the original”, and Elf and Swolf, who I think are just there to be cute and snarky. And there are new characters, all of whom are dealing with a world that really, really seems to hate everyone. It’s a good thing that there’s elements of humor sprinkled throughout, as otherwise this would be the most depressing thing ever written.

There are also a lot of action sequences, which are equally excellent. James Cameron wants to turn this into a movie, and it’s not hard to see why. Not only does the artist draw a lot of fights, but you can actually tell how the characters are moving in those fights – a rarity with manga writers. Alita is amazing, of course, but still manages to get her ass kicked several times – which, given she’s a cyborg, usually involves her getting ripped in half. Indeed, she spends a good chunk of this book as only a top half. In amongst this action, there’s a whole lot of worldbuilding (I admit I skipped the textual diagrams, and don’t think I missed much), and hammering home the basic theme of the entire series, which is “what does it mean to be human” and “what makes humans different from others?” Having dreams, having goals, believing in yourself – there’s shiny shonen manga ideals buried under all this dystopia.

The omnibus is huge – 670 pages – and padded out even more by two early short stories Kishiro wrote about a year before starting Gunnm. The first is the better of the two, about a man trying to build his own plane meeting an Angel-like creature who has wings but hasn’t really had the gumption to use them. The other story, about a giant tank the size of a mountain that destroys towns and tends to mind control those who try to stop it, is less good. That said, both do continue the basic themes here – strive to survive, maintain your humanity, even if you’re a cyborg, an Angel, or a demon, and don’t let others dictate your goals.

There’s a lot going on in this volume. I didn’t even mention the Martian Queen (who appears to be Orihime Inoue’s descendant), or the obviously evil Venusian guy offering everyone roast babies just to be a dick; or my desire to see this cross over with A Certain Magical Index. But the basics of the series are laid out here, and there are a number of directions the series could go. Lots of politics, lots of action. Unless the author somehow gets distracted by writing 100+ chapters of a fighting tournament or something, I think he can’t possibly lose here.