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Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, Vol. 11

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By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by M.B. Hare.

Another light and fluffy volume, though we are given a hint of the next major villain as Ellelaura has a noble who hates her… and hates Yuna, albeit for different but related reasons. He’s clearly going to be an antagonist at some point, but is merely shown off here in order to provide SOME drama in a book that otherwise meanders even more than a volume of Kuma Bear normally does. As for Yuna, she’s still doing her best to be blase about everything, but it’s getting harder, especially when it gets shoved in her face by multiple people that all the things she’s done, such as the tunnel, or the various new dishes, or taking out an entire noble family, cause lots of problems for the King and other nobles afterward… problems that Yuna herself has remained blissfully unaware of. That said, despite her feeling a bit of guilt over this, I don’t expect ‘The Bear Becomes a Civil Servant” to be a subplot here. Yuna is who she is.

The main plot of this volume is that the Academy is having a school festival, and Shia would like Yuna to come. This ends up roping in Noa, Fina, and Shuri as well, with Yuna acting as their bodyguard. Which, of course, means she has to walk around in the bear suit, which embarrasses her more than usual this time around, as the festival feels very much like the ones she… did not go to back in Japan. Honestly, most of the second half of the book is Yuna getting it ground into her face how much she is NOT a normal teenage girl. Yuna helps Shia’s group by suggesting they make cotton candy, an unknown quantity in this land. She also meets Flora’s older sister Princess Teilia, who has been someone upset at the rest of the Royal Family for hearing all about this amazing bear girl but never meeting her.

If that doesn’t sound like a plot, that’s because it isn’t. I’m happy everyone gets to have fun, but the main drawback to this volume is that there just isn’t any conflict at all. Previous volumes had a contract between Yuna’s fluffy antics and some surprisingly dark storylines, but that does make this one seem a bit shallow. I also urge Fina’s parents and Yuna to do something about that girl’s self-esteem, as there’s “I am modest” and then there’s this. Even as Fina shows off how she’s the best monster butcher in the land (and yes, how to butcher a monster is a booth at the festival), she still acts as if she’s going to be thrown in the dungeon the moment she makes a wrong move. She needs some confidence.

We’ve only finished the first day of the festival, so I assume it will continue into the 12th volume. But before, that… yes, it’s 11.5, featuring short stories posted to the web, original short stories, designs form the artist, and more. So I guess we’ll leave Yuna is festival mode for a few more months.

Your Forma: Electronic Investigator Echika and Her Amicus Ex Machina

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By Mareho Kikuishi and Tsubata Nozaki. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Roman Lempert.

Possibly the most difficult type of book for me to review falls under the category of “excellent book that is nevertheless not for me”. I can recognize the worth in this title, and think a lot of people should check it out, especially if you like the darker side of light novels such as Eighty-Six (whose author recommends Your Forma). That said, this is going to be my only volume of this series, which very nicely wraps up as if it was a single book. (It was a contest winner, and those usually do.) First, its genre, however sci-fi its coating may be, is police procedural, which I usually do not vibe with. Secondly, one of the two leads annoyed me throughout the book. Now, that’s deliberate on the part of the author, and there’s a very good, realistic reason behind it. Nevertheless: annoyed. That said… damn, this was compelling, and I loved Echika, the brilliant but broken cop who keeps losing partners as they injure themselves trying to keep up with her amazing brain.

In an alternate version of our present everyone has Your Forma, which is basically a sort of VR overlay in their head. Unfortunately, that also leads to things like viruses that make the user see horrible blizzards and puts them into the hospital. Echika and her partner are diving into the minds of the infected to try to trace where it came from. Sadly, her partner passes out, as I noted above, when Echika is simply too fast for him. Since she has done this for several partners in a row, her chief is a bit tired of it, and partners her with an Amicus – which is to say an artificial human. The question of just how self-aware they are is very much up in the air, and Echika for one despises them, for reasons that seem to have something to do with her past. Can Harold prove his worth to her and turn this into a fun Caves of Steel-esque book? Or is there something more sinister going on?

First off, as I noted above, I know there are some people who will want to know this, so: Your Forma is indeed a cop book, and there are cops here who do questionable things, including our two leads. So YMMV there. Echika’s past is something that comes out little by little as the book goes on, and her cold, seemingly emotionless exterior is chipped away by Harold’s charming, sensitive… and manipulative questions, as he needs to break through her facade in order to get what he wants. Honestly, as a long-time reader of books with realistically human robots, the question of whether Harold was a “real” person was one I took as read, and I think as a reader we’re supposed to. This also means I’m allowed to think that he’s an asshole a lot of the time frequently to provoke Echika into a reaction. The fact that he’s very charming while doing this does not really change it.

I do recommend this book to fans of crime dramas or sci-fi. The world it carves out is excellent, the action and set pieces are also excellent, Echika is terrific.

Bookshelf Briefs 6/10/22

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Boys of the Dead | By Tomita Douji | Kuma – Enticed by the cleverness of the “Zom-BL” portmanteau, I bought this volume without really knowing anything about it. Almost immediately, I experienced buyer’s remorse, for Boys of the Dead is unremittingly bleak. I don’t just mean all the gore and violence and cannibalism—that’s Zombie 101—but rather the depravity and desperation. None of the couples has anything like a healthy relationship. In the first story, a victim of kidnapping and rape grows sympathetic to his abuser. In the second pair of stories, a guy digs up his zombified boyfriend and then procures human flesh for him to eat. And in the final chapters, a journalist encounters a pair of brothers in an incestuous relationship that ends gruesomely. For all my reservations, though, I must admit that reading Boys of the Dead was a unique experience and not one I’m likely to forget anytime soon. – Michelle Smith

A Bride’s Story, Vol. 13 | By Kaoru Mori | Yen Press – The twins are on the cover, and they do get a fun arc which shows us that they are settling in to being actual good wives while also not losing their chaotic energy. That said, it’s hard not to come out of this volume feeling extremely disappointed, as Smith and his fiancée are forced to abandon their return trip to see Amir and Karluk. The Russians are making headway into the area, bandits are everywhere, and in some instances poor and hungry villagers are taking to banditry to survive. It’s nowhere for an Englishman to take a young woman, no matter how good she is with horses, so they finally board a boat to India, presumably to return to England. And what of Amir? Well, that’s next time, I assume. – Sean Gaffney

Interviews with Monster Girls, Vol. 10 | By Petos | Kodansha Comics – The end of this volume seems to announce that the next book will be the final one in the series, so it’s no surprise that this one focuses on the two women who have gotten the most focus in the series: Machi and Sato. Machi’s plot does not involve her crush on her teacher—they all seem to have given up and are helping Sato get closer to him—but instead involves connecting her head with her body, if only for a day. She finds it an interesting experience, but ultimately is happy how she is. As for Takahashi and Sato, at long last, they both take that first step and admit they’ve fallen in love with each other. And with that, it really seems safe to wrap things up, which will be next time. Good stuff. – Sean Gaffney

Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 18 | By Tomohito Oda | Viz Media – The inevitable comedown after the awesomeness of the previous volume, mostly as Komi and Manbagi realize that just because they have vowed to both fight for Tadano’s love does not make them any better at actually confessing to Tadano. Komi comes closest near the end, but is stopped by the dreaded “random folks walking into the room.” Elsewhere, this volume reminds us just how large a cast this series now has, and that the author is pretty good at juggling it and still keeping us interested. Hell, even Yamai got to do something that did not immediately make me skip to a non-Yamai chapter, which may be a first. Unsurprisingly, it did not involve Komi. – Sean Gaffney

Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, Vol. 1 | By Nene Yukimori | Viz Media – This is an odd mix of Teasing Master Takagi-san with Komi Can’t Communicate. Our protagonist, Shiraishi, is one of those ‘kids with no presence’—even his teachers frequently mark him absent as they don’t notice he’s there. But he has one girl who notices—the titular Kubo, who keeps trying to get him to try new ways to stand out and actually attract attention. This also involves a lot of teasing, which is where Takagi comes into play. That said, these are high schoolers rather than middle schoolers, and Kubo is a lot thirstier than Takagi—the crush she has on Shiraishi is really obvious throughout the volume. If you’re looking for another volume in the “cute shonen romance” genre, this is a good choice. – Sean Gaffney

Medalist, Vol. 4 | By Tsurumaikada | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – I always feel like John the Baptist with this series, so here we go again: this was a stellar volume of Medalist. The art was amazing in showing off the speed and artistry of the skating, our heroine got to have some big achievements, and the coach got to demonstrate to everyone that he’s not just some failure but a brilliant skater in his own right. We also get another rival for the series in a boy who can’t even bring himself to put down any goals for the future as he’s so overwhelmed by a legacy, but fortunately he is shown the correct way through the power of shonen sports manga. I realize that Kuroko’s Basketball and Haikyu!! have more cool guys, but don’t sleep on Medalist; it’s a knockout. – Sean Gaffney

New Game!, Vol. 13 | By Shotaro Tokuno | Seven Seas – First off, answering my question from the previous brief, I do not think an “oh, they got married when the laws changed” in the afterward is QUITE what Kou and Rin fans were looking for. That said, in the end this isn’t a yuri series but a 4-koma about a game company, and it stays on that brand till the end. The book has one huge high point, which is Aoi winning her first “art competition” ever (this is even lampshaded), and forcing Hotaru to experience the agony of feeling second-best and envious for the first time. The rest is a series of wrapping up the game and moving offices pages. New Game! was a fun series, but like many 4-komas with all-female casts, I don’t think the author knew what to do with the yuri fanbase. – Sean Gaffney

Our Teachers Are Dating!, Vol. 4 | By Pikachi Ohi | Seven Seas – This is the final volume in the series, and there’s really only one way that it could have ended in these modern times, and that’s with a wedding. The proposal is cute. The wedding is lovely. The honeymoon is sexy. The conflict is minimal—Saki’s family is delighted with her choice, and the main worry there seems to be that her sister is one of those “interesting” cooks. Asuka’s is a bit more difficult—they want her to quit teaching and inherit the family business—not only is she staying a teacher but she’s marrying another woman! That said, there are no real long-term issues with them being a couple, because this is a series that runs on fluff. It may not be realistic, but who cares? – Sean Gaffney

The Manga Review, 6/10/22

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After Kentarou Miura passed away last year, fans feared that they would never see his long-running saga Berserk reach a proper conclusion. Then on June 7th, artist Kouji Mori announced that he would take the reins from his friend and complete the final story arc. Ryan Dinsdale reports that Mori pledged to “only write the episodes that Miura talked to me about. I will not flesh it out. I will not write episodes that I don’t remember clearly. I will only write the lines and stories that Miura described to me. Of course, it will not be perfect. Still, I think I can almost tell the story that Miura wanted to tell.” The Fantasia Arc/Elf Island Chapter will begin serialization in the June 24th issue of Young Animal magazine.

NEWS

Over at The Comics Journal, Ian Thomas interviews members of the United Workers of Seven Seas about their unionization effort. “At Seven Seas Entertainment we never received basic benefits such as healthcare or 401ks in the first place,” organizers note. “Even with the staff roster going from 10 full-time employees in 2018 to over 40 today, we are stretched to our limit trying to keep up with the volume of work. Like workers in every sector of the entertainment industry, we are burnt out, and unfulfilled promises of “imminent” benefits have worn thin.” [The Comics Journal]

Are you following the UW7S on Twitter? If not, you should; in addition to regular updates about their unionization efforts, they’re also posting great threads about the important work that other labor organizations do. [Twitter]

Brigid Alverson takes a closer look at the May 2022 NPD BookScan chart for the top 20 Adult Graphic Novels. [ICv2]

Kodansha Comics announced that it will be releasing a new edition of Princess Knight and a first edition of Bomba! [Anime News Network] 

Kodansha is also sponsoring a Humble Bundle that includes volumes of Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, Grand Blue Dreaming, Initial D. Peach Girl, Tokyo Revengers, and Until Your Bones Rot. All proceeds will benefit The Trevor Project, a non-profit that focuses on suicide prevention and crisis intervention for LGBTQ youth. [Humble Bundle]

New title alert: VIZ just began serializing Fusai Naba’s Aliens Area on its Shonen Jump website. [VIZ Media]

And speaking of Shonen Jump, Netflix just posted a sneak peek of its forthcoming live-action adaptation of One Piece. I’ll let you decide for yourself if this project looks good:

FEATURES, INTERVIEWS, AND PODCASTS

Shimada Kazushi profiles the late Abiko Motoo, who, with Hiroshi Fujimoto, created some of postwar Japan’s most popular manga under the pseudonym Fujiko Fujio. [Nippon]

In honor of Sailor Moon‘s thirtieth birthday, Christopher Chiu-Tabet begins an arc-by-arc exploration of the beloved series. [Multiversity Comics]

Tony Yao deconstructs a favorite storyline in Tokyo Revengers, using it to meditate on friendship, self-love, and vulnerability. [Drop-In to Manga]

The dynamic podcasting duo of Elliot and Andy compare notes on two popular romantic comedies: How Do We Relationship? and Ouran High School Host Club. [Screentone Club]

Mike Toole and Joey Weiser join the Manga Mavericks to discuss Akira Toriyama’s under-appreciated masterpiece Dr. Slump. [Manga Mavericks]

If you’ve been on the fence about reading Blue Giant, let the Mangaplainers persuade you to try this entertaining, engaging series about a young saxophonist’s quest to become the next John Coltrane. (Seriously, this series is great–something I almost never say about music manga!) [Mangasplaining]

Looking for a good read? Anna Williams recommends five underrated seinen manga. [CBR]

The folks at Yatta-Tachi just posted a comprehensive list of this month’s light novel and manga releases. [Yatta-Tachi]

Matthew Hill interviews Japanese artist Kyo Machiko about Essential: My #stayhome Diary 2021-2022. “Being a cartoonist is not an ‘Essential’ profession, but imagining, creating, talking to each other, and living an ordinary life are ‘Essential’ things that are essential to living like a human being,” she explains. “I chose the title because I have been thinking about this for a long time with the COVID-19 Disaster. Most people are not ‘Essential’ in their professions, but there is no such thing as a person who doesn’t need to be in this world. By depicting the ordinary lives of ordinary people in the city, I hope to convey the message that all people are indispensable to each other.” [The Comics Journal]

REVIEWS

At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson posts reviews of I Want to Be a Wall and the “weird but strangely attractive fantasy” The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again, Today. Erica Friedman praises the twisty plot of Summer Time Rendering. “Its 374 pages have enough twists to appeal to the most hard-core of suspense readers,” she notes. “It made me gasp out loud – more than once! – and kept me glued to the page right through the astonishing end of the volume.” TCJ contributor Leonel Sepúlveda looks at Hideshi Hino’s The Town of Pigs, praising Hino’s ability to create the “feeling of being trapped in a nightmare,” while the crew at Beneath the Tangles posts short reviews of Fangirl, Crimson Prince, Deadpool Samurai, and more.

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!, Vol. 1

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By Touko Amekawa and Wan*Hachipisu. Released in Japan as “Loop 7-kaime no Akuyaku Reijou wa, Moto Tekikoku de Jiyuukimama na Hanayome (Hitojichi) Seikatsu wo Mankitsusuru” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Julie Goniwich. Adapted by Aysha U. Farah.

The word ‘villainess’ has always had a loose definition to begin with, coming from a theoretical character in an otome game that never really existed, and usually being some variation on “mean girl”. Even that doesn’t really apply anymore. The villainess, for the most part, now seems to be any young woman who gets publicly shamed and has her engagement broken by a prince. We meet Rishe here, and there’s certainly no sign that she’s done anything wrong, but the script nevertheless plays out as we know it. Of course, as the title of the series implies, this is not her first rodeo. This has now happened to her SEVEN times. Perhaps she’s been reading a lot of villainess novels as well, and they’ve all blended together so much she keeps coming back to them. Amusingly, the “why” of the loop is irrelevant – it’s there to make her more awesome.

As noted above, Rishe Irmgard Weitzner is publicly shamed by her fiancee, who calls off their engagement to that he can marry Mary, a poor girl new to nobility. Having now done this SEVEN times, and knowing her parents will shortly be disowning her and barring her from the house, she tries to bolt back home to grab her things before this occurs. Unfortunately, she runs into Arnold, the Crown Prince of a different country, who had also been attending. He’s fascinated with her, mostly as she doesn’t seem to have any awe of him at all. Indeed, she wants nothing to do with him – every single time loop she’s lived to the age of twenty and died, and it’s either indirectly or directly because of him. This time, though, something new happens – he wants to marry her. Maybe, if she goes along with this, she can find out what makes him want to wage the war that keeps killing her…

I had a ball reading this. Rishe is definitely on the “smart” end of villainess protagonists, mostly as she’s lived 5 years of a different life seven times. First she was a merchant, then an apothecary, etc. She even disguised herself as a man to become a knight… but Arnold ran her through. In this particular loopy, Arnold seems, around her, to be the standard shoujo manga love interest. Unfortunately, he also seems to have a destructive streak about him, and Rishe can’t quite figure out what’s behind it. The antagonist of this book is his younger brother Theodore, who seems to be the stereotypical “evil sibling” but also turns out to have greater depths than anticipated. I also liked how many of the characters in the show who are seen to be “betraying” someone are doing so because they’re poor and desperate – this book is not afraid to show us the disparity in class.

At the end of this volume, Theodore may have resolved some of his issues but Rishe is still a long way from learning the truth about Arnold. I definitely look forward to more volumes of her finding out. Recommended for villainess fans, romance fans, and mystery fans.

Loner Life in Another World, Vol. 2

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By Shoji Goj and booota. Released in Japan as “Hitoribocchi no Isekai Kouryaku” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Eric Margolis. Adapted by Veles Svitlychny

It’s been almost a year since the first volume of this came out, and honestly I think I had forgotten how annoying Haruka’s narration can be. And trust me when I say that GOD, it is annoying. There’s only so much stream-of-consciousness you can take before you want someone to settle on a thought. That said, in this second volume, as a consequence of trying desperately to seek depth in this series, I am starting to notice a few things. Haruka’s blase discussion of how he effortlessly takes out every single monster disguises the fact that he pretty much immediately comes up with a very clever plan (based often on his Japanese memories) and executes it. We also see him refer to someone by their actual name. In the first volume it was because we were meant to know they were a Bad Guy. Here it’s for the opposite reason. Sorry, Class Rep, but there’s a new girl on the cover and she’s taken a lot of Haruka’s firsts. And he calls her, once or twice, by name.

After a few random chapters where Haruka tries to avoid getting lectured by the rest of the class, he winds up falling to the 100th floor of the dungeon by accident. (Unlike Arifureta, there are no classmates trying to kill him – indeed, all twenty girls in the class are clearly in love with him, especially Class Rep). There he meets and battles the Dungeon Emperor, a Dullahan, Lich AND Deathling whose stats are so high even Haruka can’t see them. That said, of course he defeats them anyway… and then accidentally used Servitude on her. Yes, her, the skeleton emperor is a girl, whose name is Angelica but who Haruka tends to call ‘Miss Glare Armor Rep’. Now the two of them have to fight their way UP through the dungeon, battling insanely powerful monsters, while the rest of his class tries to fight their way down to get to him.

Given that you see her as a pretty young girl on the cover, I kept waiting for the big moment when Haruka would find something that would magically give her body back. Instead, due to the fact that the POV is entirely from him and some textual/art trickery, it turns out that it had been happening right under our noses and we missed it. This was very clever. He also gets lucky with her at the end of the book, which also surprised me. I admit the servitude thing bothers me a bit, but it doesn’t seem to really influence Angelica all THAT much – the humor of half the book comes from his seeing Miss Glare Armor Rep staring at him with, he thinks, the same look he gets from the rest of the cast, but it’s really just her being in awe of him – and falling in love with him. That said, the rest of the cast (who are increasingly showing themselves to be, if not as eccentric as Haruka is, pretty damn eccentric) also are not glaring as hard as he thinks.

So yes, plowing through the narrative diarrhea is still worth it, and I must admit I wonder what’s going to happen next. The poor little town with a dangerous dungeon they were in is now a rich little town with a former dungeon. Will we see other cities now? Will this mean the town will stop having everyone carry around clubs? And will Haruka call anyone but Angelica by their actual name? The third volume may take as long to come out as the second did, but I’ll be reading it.

Manga the Week of 6/15/22

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SEAN: It’s Hurricane Season! Are you being rocked? Are you being racially profiled and imprisoned? Or are you reading manga?

Airship, in print, has the 5th Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter.

And in early digital they have Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation 17 and Reincarnated as a Dragon Hatchling 4.

Ghost Ship gives us DARLING in the FRANXX Vol. 3-4 and Do You Like Big Girls? 4.

J-Novel Club has new volumes. We get Ascendance of a Bookworm 19, Cooking with Wild Game 17, The Emperor’s Lady-in-Waiting Is Wanted as a Bride’s 4th manga volume, Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire ♀ 5, and Slayers 14.

ASH: I am so far behind, but yay Bookworm.

SEAN: Kaiten Books has, this week, the 2nd Welcome to the Outcast’s Restaurant! manga digitally. I missed it. Sorry!

ASH: Keeping track of all these releases is no easy feat!

SEAN: Kodansha has print volumes for BAKEMONOGATARI 14, Peach Boy Riverside 7, Penguin & House 3 (the final volume), Rent-A-Girlfriend 13, and Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku 6 (the final volume).

MICHELLE: I look forward to binging the conclusion of Wotakoi.

ASH: Same! I’ve really been enjoying the series.

SEAN: Debuting digitally is Golden Gold, a Morning Two series from the creator of Kokkoku: Moment by Moment. This is apparently a very weird supernatural horror-ish story that takes place on an island.

The other digital debut is Such a Treacherous Piano Sonata (Yo ni mo Fujitsu na Piano Sonata), a josei series from Be Love. A classical music manager has never really felt much for any men she’s dated… but then she sees a classical pianist and he arouses her interest… and other things. Can she guide his career and also find romance?

ASH: Music-related josei manga, you say?

ANNA: Hello!

SEAN: Also digital: The Fable 3, Giant Killing 31, Police in a Pod 13, This Vampire Won’t Give Up! 2, Tokyo Revengers 26, Watari-kun’s ****** Is about to Collapse 11, and Yamaguchi-kun Isn’t So Bad 6.

One Peace has the 18th manga volume of The Rising of the Shield Hero.

Seven Seas debuts the manga version of The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash (Saijaku Tamer wa Gomi Hiroi no Tabi wo Hajimemashita), based on a light novel which is coming later this year from Seven Seas. It runs in Comic Corona, and is about a tamer who no one wants to associate with, so, well, she picks up trash. And a slime. Don’t get this confused with the very similar Late-Start Tamer’s Laid-Back Life.

The other debut is X-Gender (Seibetsu X), from Kodansha’s Young Magazine the 3rd. Our protagonist is in their thirties, and realizes they are attracted to women… but also that they’re non-binary. Can they find romance?

ASH: Very curious about this one.

SEAN: They also have How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord 14, I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! 2, A Tale of the Secret Saint 3, and Yakuza Reincarnation 2.

Tokyopop has Puppy Love (Shippo no Koi), a BL one-shot from Gentosha’s snappily titled LOVE xxx BOYS pixiv. A corporate worker who is being exploited by his company finds happiness at a pet shop… and the worker there seems familiar. Could he have been a dog in his previous life?

MICHELLE: Ew.

SEAN: Udon has a sweet artbook for fans of the Fate franchise, Fate: Return to Avalon: Takashi Takeuchi Art Works.

ASH: Artbooks are nice.

SEAN: Viz’s debut is Marvel’s Secret Reverse, a team-up between Iron Man and Spider-Man, which I only mention here as it’s by the creator of Yu-Gi-Oh!.

There’s also Call of the Night 8, Deadpool Samurai 2, Komi Can’t Communicate 19, Rosen Blood 3, Sakamoto Days 2, and Yakuza Lover 5.

Yen Press debuts The Fiancee Chosen by the Ring (Yubiwa no Eranda Kon’yakusha), from Flos Comic. A young woman who only goes to engagement parties to look at the embroidery suddenly finds a ring thrown at her – by a knight. How does she deal with this?

And they have I’m the Hero, but the Demon Lord’s Also Me 4 (the final volume) and Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria 17.

Reading manga? Or still confused by my opening line? (don’t blame you…)

Private Tutor to the Duke’s Daughter: Guiding a Lost Saint with a Magical Revolution

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By Riku Nanano and cura. Released in Japan as “Koujo Denka no Kateikyoushi” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by William Varteresian.

It can be difficult to know when to step in. You see your friend is having issues and struggling. You want to help them. But they insist that they’re fine and they can handle it. You want to trust them… but then it’s too late and they’ve started to break. And you’ve got to play catch up. That’s basically what we see here, as Stella, whose lack of self-confidence was forecast in the previous volume, completely implodes in this one, running away from the school and collapsing in self-loathing. It’s not hard to see why – she’s surrounded by once-in-a-lifetime prodigies, and even her one other normal friend is now leaving the school for a cushy management job. Meanwhile, Stella works hard… but in series like these, hard work does not necessarily mean success. Allen knows how she feels… and honestly suffers from many of the same issues, though he hides it better. Can he help her recover?

This series continues to build on previous volumes nicely. They’re still trying to decode the encrypted diary, and have managed to work out all the love love romance entries, but not the ones that are actually relevant to them. We get to know Allen’s hapless friend Gil, who is involved in a battle for the Dukedom that he really doesn’t want. We also meet Gil’s bodyguard, who I have a sneaking suspicion will either be dying or needing to be rescued soon. Being unable to say anything because of magical contracts never works well. And of course we have people underestimating Allen… not least of whom is Allen himself. He regards the fact that he’s not a noble as an insurmountable mountain that he can’t cross, and that seems to be the main reason why he’s so cool with Lydia, who clearly is ready to marry him at the drop of a hat otherwise.

Allen’s a good teacher as well, which comes as a horrific surprise the the rather conservative teachers of the school, who find that the students who took his classes are already leagues ahead of what they should be learning. I really liked that he framed the big battle with Stella vs. Caren, Ellie and Tina as a learning experience, and we see how everyone – including Stella – has become just that much stronger afterwards. Of course, it’s not all training, as he also gets the chance to take Stella out for a date, which amuses him as the entire town is clearly enchanted with her and she notices this not at all. The subplot with Felicia was also good, though it did have a bit of the “let’s mention her breasts as often as possible” crap that comes with so many other light novels. She seems to have a good head on her shoulders – and she’s also joined the Allen harem.

I know there are folks who are annoyed at the harem aspect of this, given that Lydia and Allen clearly have a “inevitable” thing going on, but I doubt it’s going away anytime soon. This is quite a fun little series regardless.

Crazy Food Truck, Vol. 1

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Crazy Food Truck isn’t the worst manga I’ve read this year, but it’s one of the most disappointing, marred by lazy writing, paper-thin characterizations, and excessive fan service.

The most basic problem is that Crazy Food Truck reads more like a rough outline than a fully realized story. The premise is–if you’ll pardon the expression–half-baked: a gruff ex-soldier ekes out a living by operating a food truck in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. In scene after scene, Gordon laments the lack of paying customers, a joke that doesn’t square with the fact that he’s mounted a cannon on his truck to ward off the rogue military officers and exploitative creeps who inhabit this desert. Gordon’s cooking exploits aren’t particularly interesting or educational, either; the scenes of him drying squid meat or waxing poetic about mustard are executed in such a perfunctory way that they could have been lifted from almost any food manga.

Another issue is that Gordon is less a person than an archetype, a man with a secret military past who reluctantly helps people in need, always getting the upper hand in situations where he’s outmanned and outgunned. Early in chapter one, for example, he stumbles across a teenager in a sleeping bag. Arisa initially seems helpless and kind of dim, but turns out to be just as lethal as Gordon, with considerable martial arts skills and weapons expertise. Her bubble-headed observations and refusal to wear clothing grate on Gordon’s nerves, yet Gordon tolerates her child-like behavior, allowing her to tag along with him even after she eats all his food. (Surely that would be a bridge too far for a cook, no?) We never learn why Arisa is on the run from authorities, or why she acts like a six-year-old; she’s just a pin-up who pigs out with gusto. Fair enough, I guess, since this series ran in Monthly Comic @Bunch, but the infantilization of her character makes her exchanges with Gordon more icky than amusing, and gives us little insight into either character’s motivations.

Perhaps the most serious problem with Crazy Food Truck is Rokurou Ogaki’s lack of vision. A story this outlandish needs bold, individual artwork that matches the intensity and silliness of its central conceit, but Ogaki opts for a blandly synthetic approach that borrows liberally from better series. Each character seems to have been created by a different person: some are grotesquely cartoonish—the better to emphasize their villainy—while others look like they’ve escaped from Food Wars or Golden Kamuy. The backgrounds, too, lack panache, even when Ogaki teases the idea that the world was once a more lush place teeming with animals and people. In the absence of a distinctive, unifying style, the characters and objects look like they’ve been clipped out of different magazines and pasted into the panels.

It’s a shame that Crazy Food Truck is so indifferently executed, as I thought its Mad Max-meets-Food-Network premise sounded like fun. Alas, it’s the manga equivalent of a failed Iron Chef experiment, a mish-mash of ingredients don’t quite add up to a tasty dish. Not recommended.

CRAZY FOOD TRUCK, VOL. 1 • BY ROKUROU OGAKI • TRANSLATED BY AMANDA HALEY • ADAPTED BY JENNIFER LEBLANC • LETTERING BY E.K. WEAVER, JEANNIE LEE, SARA LINSLEY, AND JAMES GAUBATZ • VIZ MEDIA • RATED MATURE (NUDITY AND VIOLENCE) • 198 pp.

Pick of the Week: Alices, Gundams and Food

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SEAN: Given the recent kerfuffle regarding Seven Seas, it feels awkward to pick a title of theirs for Pick of the Week. But the union has said they are not asking readers to boycott at this time. So I will be picking The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This, because I love the author, love the content, and it is one of my most anticipated titles this year.

MICHELLE: I really disliked The Flowers of Evil, but Blood on the Tracks has won me over to appreciating Shuzo Oshimi. So, this week I’ll pick Welcome Back, Alice and hope that it’ll be great.

KATE: I have a love/hate relationship with Shuzo Oshimi’s work: I think he’s a terrific artist, but I sometimes find his works just too… pervy, maybe?, so I’m going to pass on Welcome Back, Alice for now. The title I’m most excited about is The Men Who Created Gundam, which looks like a fun version of DMP’s old Project X series–think Cup Noodle with jokes and hijinks.

ASH: As far as debuts go, Seven Seas and Denpa seem to have the market cornered for me as I’m interested in most (but not all) of those releases. That being said, I’m probably most excited for the newest volume of What Did You Eat Yesterday? to come out.

ANNA: I’m not sure how I missed The Men Who Created Gundam because it sounds like a hoot. That being said I’m not going to pass up the chance to pick the latest volume of Yona of the Dawn.