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Pick of the Week: Classic and Modern

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MICHELLE: Part of me really wants to pick Marmalade Boy here, as it’s one of the first manga I ever read and I have tremendous nostalgic feelings about it. However, I do realize that some aspects of it were decidedly not great. So, instead, I will go with the second volume of Usotoki Rhetoric since the first was absolutely delightful!

SEAN: I agree with Michelle regarding Marmalade Boy, though I will of course be reading it, because who doesn’t want to relive their old problematic media? That said, my pick this week is The Girl That Can’t Get a Girlfriend, about one woman’s search for the butch of her dreams.

ANNA: I’m going to choose chaos this week and pick Marmalade Boy!

KATE: Break of Dawn sounds like it’s just my speed, so that’s my pick.

ASH: Break of Dawn seems like an obvious pick for me, too, but this week I’m going to choose the print debut of Raven of the Inner Palace. I’ve heard great things about the series as a whole and the cover artwork for the first volume is stunning.

Harlequin Manga: Valentines, Revenge, and Secrets

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Sometimes when reading one wants the equivalent of a decadent Sacher-Torte and other times one might want is a Ho Ho Snack Cake. Is Harlequin manga good? Could the question essentially be meaningless? Sometimes the combination of hackneyed plot tropes and rushed manga adaptations comes together to produce something extraordinary, although most of the time I tend to find it adequate and that’s ok! Sometimes you just want to eat a Ho Ho or read a Harlequin manga. There’s fortunately plenty of selection available on Kindle Unlimited and here are three that I’ve read recently in honor of Valentine’s Day:

Valentine Vendetta by Sharon Kendrick and Miho Tomoi

Valentine Vendetta is the story of a successful party planner named Fran Fisher. Her alcoholic friend Rosie claimed to have been callously used for sex by Sam Lockhart. Rosie wants to be smuggled into a party that Fran is planning so she can confront this terrible womanizer. When Fran shows up at Sam’s house she’s a bit surprised that he’s living in a mansion in the country as a literary agent. Even more mysterious is the fact that Sam is sporting some unconvincing stubble in the first few panels that introduce him, but then he leaves Fran to take a call and comes back clean-shaven. Was he really taking a phone call? What happened with his beard? I honestly spent most of this manga speculating about stubble and wondering when it was coming back only for that mystery to remain unresolved. Sam drives Fran to the train station, and she’s immediately attracted to the messy state of the backseat of his car, it doesn’t match up with the playboy image she has in her head.
Fran just learns how wrong her assumptions were when Rosie and a pack of other women show up and cause a scene at Sam’s Valentine’s Party, and it turns out that they are all upset because they were essentially stalking him! Fran’s put her party planning business on the line for some extremely questionable reasons! Sam however keeps popping up in Fran’s life, she learns more about him and his family and eventually falling in love with him! Miho Tomoi’s adaptation is clear and easy to follow, but I would have appreciated a bit more visual interest, just because the plotline of this title was fairly bland. I wanted more vendettas!

Valentine Vendetta

Alexei’s Passionate Revenge by Helen Bianchin and Yu Mahara

After being a bit let down by Valentine Vendetta, I was hoping for more dramatic plot twists in Alexi’s Passionate Revenge. Revenge doesn’t work when it is too dispassionate, does it? This volume kicks off with Natalya Montgomery being blackmailed into working for the CEO who bought out her father’s company who happens to be her ex-boyfriend Alexi. Now Natalia is stuck being Alexi’s personal assistant unless she wants the secret of her father’s affairs to be released to the media. The plot of this story proceeds in a lovely smorgasbord of tropes including parental alienation, a pregnancy scare, a private villa in New Zealand, a gay best friend, and even more complications that ensured just because Alexi and Natalia had actually managed to have a conversation about their feelings before engaging in blackmail-based business practices. The character designs and illustrations for Alexi’s Passionate Revenge were a bit blocky, and not as delicate as I would have liked, although it was all adept enough. One thing I’m not a fan of is that the revenge in this story was pretty one-sided. Where’s Natalya’s revenge? I hope that she’s planning on something in the future but I won’t count on it.

Alexi's Passionate Revenge


Her Secret Valentine by Helen Brooks and Akemi Maki

This manga has more of the old school quality to the art that I enjoy in Harlequin manga adaptations, although even that isn’t enough to save it from a rather lackluster story with little dramatic tension. Everyone’s eyelashes are three inches long and the heroine has starry eyes all the time. In my mind, this makes up for a certain lack of detail in the backgrounds. Ward Ryan is a widower with a young daughter. Jeanie is his colleague at a law firm who has been crushing on him for years. Ward discovers her crying with frustration about her crush at the office one day and invites him home for dinner. He’s assumes that she’s crying over a man, and says that Jeanie’s imaginary boyfriend is no good for her! Jeanie helps out at Ward’s daughter’s birthday party and they grow closer, while Ward becomes more and more upset that Jeanie’s man doesn’t appreciate her. It is fairly amusing to constantly hear Ward bashing himself to Jeanie. Eventually Jeanie decides that she can’t keep nurturing her crush and quits the law firm, and Ward decides to start pursuing her. Really, there wasn’t very much dramatic tension in this story, and the curly eyelashes didn’t make up for it.

Her Secret Valentine

I would say that out of the three of these volumes, Alexi’s Passionate Revenge was probably the best example of the genre, there were enough inexplicable and yet entirely predictable plot twists to satisfy most Harlequin manga connoisseurs. Now that I’ve revived my Harlequin manga habit, I will continue my quest to find the perfect example of insane plot points and rose-petal filled art.

The Ideal Sponger Life, Vol. 10

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By Tsunehiko Watanabe and Jyuu Ayakura. Released in Japan as “Risou no Himo Seikatsu” by Hero Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by MPT.

Gonna be honest, I have not warmed to Lucretia yet. Frankly, I’d be happier with Bona as a 2nd concubine, as the two of them could nerd out together. That said, after getting Lucretia’s backstory here, we certainly see why she’s so desperate to seduce Zenjiro and get into his good graces. Unfortunately, we know our hero better than she does, so she keeps striking out over and over here. It takes Freya spelling it out for Lucretia to get her to change her approach: any attempts to make Zenjiro fall in love with anyone but Aura are doomed to fail. Accept this is a purely political negotiation. She’s in a much stronger position there, especially when her family offers Freya something that, as she herself narrates, she would kill for. But in terms of audience appeal… I think I’m not alone in not really warming to her, and so she’s going to have to work harder in the next few books. But at least now she’ll BE in the next few books, even if she’s still on the outside looking in.

After their error in the last volume, the King and heir to the throne of the Twin Kingdoms are trying to get back into Zenjirou’s good graces, which is unfortunate because he’s still really pissed off. That said, he knows when he can afford to be emotionally furious and when he cannot. Getting a healer is easier, as he negotiates with the Pope there, and it goes very well. A bit too well, in fact. He’s then asked by Freya, who is slowly drying up in the Southern climate, if she can go with him to the Kingdoms to negotiate on behalf of her own nation. This proves to be OK with the Twin Kingdoms as well, who are absolutely delighted to be negotiating with Uppasala. Unnervingly so. What is really going on here?

What’s going on is that the series is now popular enough that things can be planned out for a long-runner, which means we’re setting up plots here for a payoff several books down the road. Honestly, I’m amazed Freya was able to keep her cool as much as she did given the tool they gave her is basically exactly what a nation sailing on a long dangerous voyage would most desperately desire. And then there’s Francesco, still essentially this world’s equivalent of a mad scientist, and trying to invent something that would lead to complete upheaval of the world as everyone knows it. This makes everyone unhappy, but as Zenjirou notes it also may be something that can’t be avoided, so it might be best to control the metaphorical explosion when it happens than to be caught up in it. It might lead to war. The Twin Kingdoms certainly think so.

But yes, Lucretia may be on the cover, and Aura may still be the one Zenjirou loves, but frankly Freya is still the most interesting heroine in these books. I loves her joy when Aura offered her a dress as a gift (which implies she accepts her as Zenjirou’s concubine), which very rightly also got interior art. Given that the next arc will involve Freya’s return home, the author may agree with me.

Fushi no Kami: Rebuilding Civilization Starts with a Village, Vol. 7

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By Mizuumi Amakawa and Mai Okuma. Released in Japan as “Fushi no Kami: Henkyou kara Hajimeru Bunmei Saiseiki” by Overlap. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Jade Willis.

I would like to take this point to mock those reviewers who suggested that this was not going to end up with Ash having more than one wife. If I could quote one of those foolish reviews, one… let me check my notes here… Sean Gaffney, he said in the review of the sixth volume “I’m pretty sure this is not a polycule sort of book.” And yet here we are, and the outcome of the 7th book is so little in doubt that I’m even spoiling it in this opening paragraph. There are no more battles with demons or werewolves here, and the only new ridiculous tech is the finished airplane at last. No, this entire book is about politics, about the fact that Ash and the frontier territories have gotten far too powerful for the royal family’s comfort, and how they can get Alicia away from the royal family and back to her rightful place next to Ash and Maika. The cover art tells you how this turns out.

After the events of the previous book, refugees are flowing into Sacula, and everyone has their hands full trying to find ways to not have them dying in the streets or turning into bandits to stay alive. Towards that end, they have asked for help from the central territories and the royal family. Unfortunately, the king is ambivalent and also weak, and the crown prince is completely hostile. Fortunately they have Alicia, who gets the help of the Church to send much needed supplies. Unfortunately, she’s proving far too popular, so much so that even though she doesn’t want the throne, some nobles want her to take it anyway. As a result, she’s locked away in the palace. Ash is going to have to find a way to rescue her.

I find it amusing, given how Ash has gone out of his way to avoid taking credit for the many things that he’s spearheaded over the years, that the solution to his problems here is to cash in on all those things, admit they WERE all his doing, and get royal recognition (which essentially comes with an “I get whatever I ask for” coupon). As for the two wives thing, it’s pretty clear from the start that Maika is absolutely fine with this, and as a matter of fact might be more annoyed if Ash didn’t make that the solution. She and Alicia have been close ever since Alicia’s days as “Arthur”, and I can definitely see the two of them teaming up on him in the future. We don’t get a wedding, because in the end it’s the civilization that’s more important than the romance – the real climax of the book is the working plane, not Alicia declaring she loves Ash.

This is the final volume in the series, and a quick epilogue puts a definitive capper on things. It’s just about the right length, and I enjoyed this far more than I was expecting. Please enjoy this ridiculous boy becoming a ridiculous man.

Bookshelf Briefs 2/10/23

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Blue Box, Vol. 2 | By Kouji Miura | VIZ Media – Blue Box continues to strike a great balance between being a sports manga and being a romance. In this volume, Taiki is paired with Haryu-sempai for doubles and they end up doing well enough together and separately at the prefectural qualifiers to advance in their journey to nationals. Haryu has a manipulative side, but he also makes a point of complimenting Taiki’s work ethic and overall potential in Chinatsu’s presence. Taiki’s other friends do their part to help his romantic prospects, as well. His friend Hina, in particular, is emerging to be my favorite character, as she’s doing her best to root for him, but the more it seems like he and Chinatsu could really have something special, the lonelier she feels. She’s on her own journey to nationals, and I hope we see more of that going forward! – Michelle Smith

The Fox and the Little Tanuki, Vol. 1 | By Mi Tagawa | Tokyopop – It’s not hard to see why Tokyopop licensed this charming, kid-friendly title; though it isn’t a Disney property, it has a lot in common with Bambi and The Fox and the Hound, right down to its button-cute cast of talking animals. The story focuses on the improbable relationship between Senzou, an ancient fox demon, and Manpachi, a baby tanuki, who—natch—are temperamental opposites. Though it’s not hard for an adult to see how their dynamic will evolve over time, the story offers enough twists and tear-jerking moments to keep readers invested in this oddball relationship, especially as Manpachi struggles with the realization that his birth family has rejected him for being different. The illustrations are another plus, as artist Mi Tagawa has a flair for drawing expressive animal faces; I dare you not to sniffle when Manpachi pines for his mother. – Katherine Dacey

Hello, Melancholic!, Vol. 3 | By Yayoi Ohsawa | Seven Seas – In this final volume, Minato and Hibiki officially become a couple, but not before Hibiki pushes Minato into checking out a civic brass band that has attempted to recruit her, resulting in a bit of a squabble. Minato’s gotten better at being open about her feelings, but now it’s Hibiki’s turn to stop trying to steer Minato in the direction she’d like their relationship to go and just be honest herself. After this breakthrough, it’s a whirlwind, as Hibiki graduates, Minato’s third year happens off camera, and then they reunite at college. This series has been cute and pleasant throughout but I’m a little dazed and confused that it’s over so soon, particularly with the Sakiko and Chika relationship, which featured so prominently in volume two, still in its uncertain state. Oh well. Still recommended. – Michelle Smith

Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, Vol. 5 | By Nene Yukimori | Viz Media – Shiraishi is coming along. Slowly. That said, his face is still just a blank most of the time, because that’s what his character is, so there’s no denying that it’s more fun watching Kubo’s expressions. Whether she’s panicking imagining that another girl might possibly hang out with Shiraishi, or deeply traumatized when Shiraishi, in the mall with his brother, sees her buying a sexy bra. She also meets his mom, who clearly seems to love her, and we all know that it’s only the series’ popularity that is preventing them from hooking up. Heck, the series even has an anime currently running… except it’s been pushed back to April due to COVID-19. Luckily, we still have the manga. – Sean Gaffney

Toradora! Vol. 10 | By Yuyuko Takemiya and Zekkyo | Published by Seven Seas – Well, it’s been two and a half years, clearly it’s time for the next volume of the slowest-releasing adaptation ever. We are deeply in the ‘dramatic’ part of the series, with humor kept to a minimum, though there is at least some, as everyone tries to hide in the closet to avoid Ami and Minori’s confrontation. I feel bad for Ami here, who does not really have any problem-solving settings beyond “be a bitch till the problem is solved,” and that’s just not going to work here. As for Taiga and Ryuuji, he at least now knows she loves him, but has no emotional capacity to deal with it, and should be worried more about college, and how to afford it. Come on, just read the LNs. Don’t wait three more years. – Sean Gaffney

The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This, Vol. 2 | By Takashi Ikeda| Seven Seas – There’s not a lot of what you’d call forward movement here—this is a vibe manga. We do see Wako getting a decent-sized voice acting role, and the scenes where she tries to do publicity and not freak out or screw up are fun. She also meets her co-stars, who are in a fake relationship, which interests Wako greatly, given that she’s in a real relationship with Ellie. Ellie, meanwhile, has some lunch/dinner talks with another friend of hers who is clearly massively crushing on her but unwilling to do something about it given that Ellie is happy. Ellie even finds her neighbor is a huge fan of her work… her BL doujinshi work, that is. This is so relaxed and fun to read. I love it. – Sean Gaffney

Blood on the Tracks, Vols. 1-5

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One part Mommie Dearest, one part Kids, Blood on the Tracks is an unsettling depiction of the toxic parent-child relationship between Seiko, an overbearing mother, and Seiichi, her thirteen-year-old son.

The first volume is an artful tease, frankly portraying Seiko’s controlling behavior while encouraging the reader to see it through her obedient son’s eyes: as an expression of parental love. Oshimi hints that Seiko’s attachment to Seiichi goes beyond a simple desire to protect him, but it isn’t until a fateful hiking trip that Seiko’s true ability to manipulate and terrorize Seichii is revealed. In the aftermath of the trip, Seiichi begins to question his earliest childhood memories, and forms a connection with his classmate Yuko, another teen caught in a toxic parent-child relationship. The teens’ effort to break free of abuse, however, is thwarted by their age and by Seiichi’s deep-seated guilt about running away from home; the final page of volume five shows Seiichi abandoning Yuko under a highway overpass to search for his mother, rain and tears streaming down his face.

I’d be the first to admit that Blood on the Tracks is a potent reminder of just how good an artist Oshimi is. No matter what genre he’s working in, he does a superb job of creating fully embodied characters whose facial expressions, gaits, and vocal tics reflect their lived experiences; we can see how socially and emotionally stunted Seiichi is from the way he slouches and stands on the fringes of his friend group at school, and from his difficulty making eye contact with other people. Even more striking is how fluidly Oshimi segues from crisp naturalism to abstraction, using the latter as a way of representing how feelings manifest not as fully formed thoughts but as vivid, unsettling images that intrude on everyday life. Oshimi’s expressive linework and creative use of perspective give these sequences a visceral authenticity that would be almost impossible to achieve with language. 

In this scene, for example, Oshimi shows us the turning point in Seiko’s relationship with his mother. The first image in the sequence offers a fleeting glimpse of Seiko as Seiichi used to see her: as a beautiful young woman who devoted her life to protecting her son from harm. The second and third images in the sequence, however, reveal how Seiichi now sees her: as a terrifying stranger, a point reinforced by his wide-eyed stare and the faint smirk on Seiko’s lips. Oshimi sharply contrasts the beauty of the setting with the horror of what just transpired, creating a visual analog for Seiichi’s shock at learning who his mother really is.

The stumbling block—for me, at least—is that Oshimi’s stories always veer into the uncomfortable terrain of transgressive behavior and power dynamics. His characters exhibit such destructive, sadistic tendencies that his work often leaves me feeling queasy, not least because so many of his protagonists are teenagers. Maybe that’s the point: we can’t understand what it’s like to live with a pathologically selfish person unless Oshimi uses jump scares and creepy close-ups to make us feel the same sense of apprehension that Seiichi does. Yet there’s something distressing about making entertainment out of this material, however convincing his portrayal of Seiko’s pathology may be; I couldn’t shake the feeling that watching Seiko squeeze the life out of her son was a kind of emotional torture porn. I threw in the towel with volume five, but your mileage may vary.

BLOOD ON THE TRACKS, VOLS. 1-5 • BY SHUZO OSHIMI • TRANSLATED BY DANIEL KOMEN • VERTICAL

The Manga Review: Before Chainsaw Man

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The January 2023 NPD Bookscan numbers are in, and Tatsuki Fujimoto is king! He claimed twelve of the top twenty spots on last month’s Adult Graphic Novel list, with eleven volumes of Chainsaw Man and the first installment of Tatsuki Fujimoto Before Chainsaw Man. January was a good month for other VIZ properties as well, with volumes of Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, Kaiju No. 8, One Piece, and Spy x Family charting; Dark Horse’s new deluxe edition of Berserk was the the only other series to make the cut. On NPD’s Author Graphic Novel list, webtoons and manhwa made a strong showing with volumes of Killing Stalking, My Gently Raised Beast, The Remarried Empress, Solo Leveling, and Villains Are Destined to Die.

NEWS…

Congratulations to Erica Friedman, who recently reached a major milestone: her 5,000th article at Okazu! To mark the occasion, she shared the results of her recent Global Yuri Fandom Survey, and offered insight into how the survey was designed. [Okazu]

Brigid Alverson has the low-down on VIZ’s fall line-up, which includes gag manga, more Junji Ito, and Ai Yazawa’s Neighborhood Stories. [ICv2]

Have you completed the February Seven Seas Reader Survey yet? [Seven Seas]

The crack team at Yatta-Tachi have compiled a comprehensive list of all the manga and light novels scheduled for a February release. [Yatta-Tachi]

Good news for oenophiles: Kodansha has just made all 44 volumes of The Drops of God more widely available. You may remember that Vertical published a few volumes in 2011, leaving the series incomplete. Then in 2020, Kodansha teamed up with comiXology to make the entire series accessible through Amazon. The story is now available in a much wider array of digital formats, from Apple Books to Kobo and nook. [The Fandom Post]

…AND VIEWS

One of the best things I read this week was Carrie McClain’s Love Letter to Josei Manga, a personal reflection on how she discovered—and fell in love with—manga for older female readers. If you still have dog-eared copies of Suppli or Tramps Like Us lurking on your bookshelf, this post is for you. [Black Nerd Problems]

Arpad Okay revisits Shiro Masume’s Ghost in the Shell, explaining why it remains a cyberpunk classic almost 30 years after it was first translated into English. [The Beat]

The staff at WWAC compile a list of their favorite indie-press comics of 2022. [WWAC]

Kristin sifts through all the various manga editions of Tokyo Ghoul, offering readers practical advice about how to assemble a complete set without breaking the bank. [Anime Collective]

For anyone curious about the history of manhwa, William Schwartz’s in-depth essay on Lee Hyun-see’s Alien Baseball Team is essential reading. “The sheer eccentricity of these constantly shifting genre tones underlies much of the comic’s appeal – and also its influence,” he notes. “Anyone familiar with modern South Korean cultural content has probably experienced the same form of whiplash. International hits like Parasite and Squid Game have been big mainstream examples of much the same blended storytelling, which has been the calling card of South Korean media since the first Korean Wave back in the late ’90s.” [The Comics Journal]

LISTENING IN: PODCASTS

Looking for a great anime podcast? Check out this brief but well-curated list compiled by the folks at Audible. [Audible]

To celebrate their second anniversary, the OverMangaCast gang host a lively discussion of The Promised Neverland. [OverMangaCast]

The Mangasplainers dedicate their latest episode to Riyoko Ikeda’s shojo classic The Rose of Versailles. [Mangasplaining]

In the first of a two-part series, the Manga Machinations team revisit Akiko Higashimura’s autobiographical series Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey. [Manga Machinations]

Marian, Sakaki, and VLord discuss the first volume of Alice in Borderland, a sci-fi thriller that sounds a little like Battle Royale and Squid Game. [Saturday Night Shoggy]

On the most recent episode of Shojo & Tell, Ashley is joined by fellow podcasters Giana and Chika (Shoujo Sundae) for an in-depth discussion of Yuu Watase’s Alice 19th. [Shojo & Tell]

The Trash Manga Friends unite for a lively conversation about A Couple of Cuckoos, a romantic comedy in which “two kids swapped at birth are forcibly engaged and made to live together.” [Trash Manga Friends]

REVIEWS

Over at Anime News Network, Rebecca Silverman offers a glowing appraisal of Is Love the Answer?, a book exploring one young woman’s efforts to come to terms with her sexual orientation. The book “doesn’t offer any clear-cut answers, nor does it settle all of its characters into a comfortable happily ever after,” Silverman notes. “But what it does do is teach the questions to ask and stress that it’s okay if you don’t come up with a definitive answer, now or ever. There is no such thing that’s “normal.” There’s only who you are, and whoever that is, it’s perfectly fine.”

New and Noteworthy

Complete and Ongoing Series

Manga the Week of 2/15/23

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SEAN: It’s Valentine’s Day, or Galentine’s Day, or whatever you might celebrate. What manga do we have?

We’re still in a kinder, gentler time when Yen Press no longer has sliding release dates, so we start with Viz. Their debut is the one shot The Girl That Can’t Get a Girlfriend (Kanojo ga Denai Onna), which ran online on various services like Tapas and pixiv, and which Viz is publishing as a collected volume. It’s an autobiographical story of love, and what to do when that love does not work out.

ASH: I’ve been curious about this one since I first heard about it.

MJ: I hadn’t heard about it, but it does sound interesting!

SEAN: Viz also has The Hunters Guild: Red Hood 2, Komi Can’t Communicate 23, Radiant 16, Sakamoto Days 6, and Splatoon 16.

Tokyopop debuts Confessions of a Shy Baker (Futari de Okashi na Kyuujitsu o) which runs in the amusingly named magazine Flat Heros. A real estate agency owner worries that advertising the agency as LGBT-friendly might out him. Fortunately, he bakes, so there are always sweets.

ASH: I generally avoid Tokyo these days, but I am seriously tempted by some of these titles.

MJ: Must… stay… strong..

SEAN: They’ve also got Formerly, the Fallen Daughter of the Duke 3.

SuBLime has a debut. Megumi & Tsugumi (Megumi to Tsugumi) runs in Qpa. It’s an Omegaverse story, so the plot is basically all about that sort of thing.

Also from SuBLime, Candy Color Paradox 6.

ASH: Though I’m a little behind, I have been enjoying this series.

SEAN: Square Enix has My Isekai Life: I Gained a Second Character Class and Became the Strongest Sage in the World! 5 and Tokyo Aliens 2.

Seven Seas gives us two debuts. Gap Papa: Daddy at Work and at Home (Shokuba to Jitaku de Gap no Aru Papa) is a Kadokawa title based on a webcomic. It’s about a cool, distant work colleague who turns into a sweet and doting husband and father at home. The Gap is as in “gap moe”.

MICHELLE: Hm. Possibly cute!

ASH: Awkward title, but promising premise.

SEAN: The other debut is Marmalade Boy: Collector’s Edition. Originally running in Ribon in the early 1990s, getting a very popular TV anime, and then getting a Tokyopop release in 2002, it’s getting a deluxe reissue here, with color pages and a new translation. Miki is horrified to find her parents are swapping spouses with another couple! And they’re all living together! And her new stepbrother Yuu, is such a jerk! Voted “most likely to read badly in retrospect” by old-school manga fans. Don’t mention Namura.

MICHELLE: It’s been 20 years since I read Marmalade Boy so I’m really looking forward to revisiting it. I hope I won’t be too horrified.

ANNA: Ha, I still have my old edition of Marmalade Boy, maybe I’ll check out the new version.

ASH: I somehow haven’t actually read this series yet, although I definitely know about it!

MJ: I also still have my old editions of Marmalade Boy, and I’ll probably leave it at that.

SEAN: Also from Seven Seas: CANDY AND CIGARETTES 3, Correspondence from the End of the Universe 2, Monologue Woven For You 3 (the final volume), and The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior 3 (the final manga volume).

One Peace Books has a 2nd volume of Usotoki Rhetoric.

MICHELLE: Yay! I really liked the first volume.

ASH: As did I! Really looking forward to reading more.

SEAN: Kodansha has a print debut, a 528-page done-in-one collection. Break of Dawn (Bokura no Yoake) ran in Afternoon, and it’s by the author of Alice & Zoroku. A young boy watches everyone else in the country be obsessed with a comet, but he’s found something even more out of this world.

ASH: This seems like something I would be interested in (and as a single volume, might actually have a chance of reading in a timely fashion).

SEAN: Also in print: Drifting Dragons 12, The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World 4, Parasyte Full Color Collection 2, Phantom of the Idol 4, Real Account 18-20, and Wandance 4.

MICHELLE: I’ve already fallen behind on Wandance.

SEAN: While digitally we see The Fable 11, Fungus and Iron 2, Gang King 2, Giant Killing 35, The Girl, the Shovel, and the Evil Eye 4, Girlfriend, Girlfriend 12, Island in a Puddle 5 (the final volume), A Kiss with a Cat 5, Police in a Pod 21, Rent-A-Girlfriend 17, Tokyo Revengers 29, and The Witch and the Beast 10.

Kaiten Books has the 8th manga volume of Loner Life in Another World out digitally.

J-Novel Club has some print titles. We see the debut of Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles, the manga version, which runs in Comic Fire. We also get I Shall Survive Using Potions! manga volume 9, Infinite Dendrogram 17, and The Unwanted Undead Adventurer 9.

Digitally they’ve got Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon: My Trusted Companions Tried to Kill Me, But Thanks to the Gift of an Unlimited Gacha I Got LVL 9999 Friends and Am Out For Revenge on My Former Party Members and the World 2, Black Summoner’s 10th manga volume, Death’s Daughter and the Ebony Blade 3, The Mythical Hero’s Otherworld Chronicles 2, and Reincarnated as an Apple: This Forbidden Fruit Is Forever Unblemished! 2 (the final volume).

Lastly, Airship has the print debut of Raven of the Inner Palace, which was excellent.

ASH: I really ought to pick this one up now that it’s in print!

SEAN: And we get early digital for I’m the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire! 4 and Though I Am an Inept Villainess: Tale of the Butterfly-Rat Body Swap in the Maiden Court 3.

What manga are you grateful for?

The Abandoned Heiress Gets Rich with Alchemy and Scores an Enemy General!, Vol. 1

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By Miyako Tsukahara and Satsuki Sheena. Released in Japan as “Suterare Reijō wa Renkinjutsu-shi ni Narimashita. Kaseida Okane de moto Tekikoku no Shō o Kōnyū Shimasu” by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by piyo.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book try to get the reader to abandon it and walk away quite as much as the start of this book. First off, and this is less the fault of the author than the fact that English-speaking fans are VERY tired of this by now, the very first chapter is called “The Abandoned Heiress Purchases a Slave Swordsman”. Those of you following the Sugar Apple Fairy Tale anime will know how this goes, but it’s still a side-eye moment. Things are not improved by the two leads snarking at each other egregiously for the first 40 or so pages – indeed, Chloe’s banter feels very forced and unnatural. Then, as you read on, you realize that this is not a fault with the writing but a fault with Chloe, and things get a lot more interesting. It’s not a must-read, but by the end of the book I was perfectly satisfied.

Chloe is an alchemist, and she’s just purchased Julius so he can help her kill monsters, which will get her materials so that she can do more alchemy and make more money. Both have tragic pasts. Chloe was a duke’s daughter, but when her stepsister arrived she became the unfavorite, and then when her father was accused of crimes and executed, she was thrown out onto the street. Julius, meanwhile, was a general for another country, and as part of the peace agreements was sold to the enemy and forced to fight in an arena for three years. Chloe responds to all this by keeping up an optimistic, cheery front that hides a very fragile young woman, while Julius has simply given up on life altogether. Fortunately, both are very good for each other, and they’ll have to rely on each other more as it turns out that Chloe’s past is still very much in the present.

This is the first of a series of books Cross Infinite World licensed from PASH!, best known here for the Kuma Bear novels, and it’s not a bad choice. I enjoy unreliable narrators, so seeing Chloe’s chipper yet slightly fake running monologue and constant praising of herself made me look for something more, and I was rewarded. Julius, meanwhile, is a jerk to Chloe at first, in the best shoujo manga tradition, but, like the better shoujo manga with that trend, he gets better. The book is very much a ‘game’ fantasy in the way that monsters, when they die, happen to drop labeled items you can use in alchemy, but honestly, that’s par for the course now. Its biggest flaw may be that it’s a stand-alone – there’s hints of Chloe’s alchemy mentor that go nowhere, and the eventual bad guy doing all this gets away and things stay unresolved. So in terms of plot it’s not great. But in terms of romance it’s absolutely fine.

That said, there does appear to be a second book in the series due out in Japan in March. Till then, if you like disgraced heroines falling for hot guys with sharp tongues, this is a good choice.

Mixed Bathing in Another Dimension: Heavenly Bath of the Seven Goddess Sisters

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By Nagaharu Hibihana and Masakage Hagiya. Released in Japan as “Isekai Konyoku Monogatari” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sophie Guo.

I was going to make several jokes about the lengthy wait for this final volume of Mixed Bathing in Another Dimension, but it turns out I made them all in my previous review, which also had a lengthy delay between volumes. Not nearly as long as this one, though. The last time this series came out was pre-COVID. Fortunately, this is the final volume, so we won’t have to worry about it anymore. As for the book itself, it has all the strengths and weaknesses of the rest of the series. I’ve always liked this more than it probably deserves, and that remains the case. But the book is, like its hero, just so goshdang earnest that it’s hard to dislike. There are really no surprises here, no last-minute twists. There are also (thankfully) no new women added to the bath pile, which is good, because as I noted in my previous book, I’ve long since forgotten who is who, with the exception of the tiny cast list at the start.

We pick up where we left off, which is annoying as I did not remember where we left off. But basically one of the summoned heroes, Nakahana, has turned evil and is using her gift, which is essentially “sleeplearning”, to brainwash people and have her own little army of handsome men. Fortunately, Haruno’s powers can dispel this gift, but it’s a one-by-one process, so it won’t be that easy. They’ve got to infiltrate a castle, steal the king, and then go to war with a brainwashed army. And try not to kill anyone, because most of the army is brainwashed, not evil. And then there’s the actual task that Touya has to do, which is to rebuild Hades and set up a massive temple with shrines to all six goddesses… which will allow most of them to once again reappear in this world. Fortunately, y’know, he has a bath.

On the minus side, Touya’s narration still tends to sound like he’s reading us his shopping list sometimes, and the book also can’t stop going on about “ripe melons” and “obscene tits” until your eyes get damaged from rolling them back. And everyone’s just so NICE. On the pus side, that’s because, in the end, this is a found family title rather than a harem romance. There’s no romantic resolution here, though you get the sense that eventually he’ll end up with several women. But it’s irrelevant, their bonds as family and friends are more important. Also, I appreciated how the book used its OP heroes. Touya and Haruno are both ludicrously overpowered… and so the book comes up with actual obstacles that stop them simply being OP, and forces them to strategize and think. And, as with previous books, the women all do a lot here, particularly Haruno, who gets badass interior art (unbrainwashing four knights with karate chops to the head) and comedy/sexy interior art (where she accidentally shows Touya her naked body while trying to meditate).

So yeah, still not recommending this to anyone but fans who don’t mind a breast fetish. But leaving that aside, this remains a flawed but pleasant series, with a very likeable cast, and I’m glad it finally got released.