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Idol Dreams Vol. 6

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Idol Dreams Volume 6 by Arina Tanemura

Idol Dreams! The manga that I read compulsively but also dread a little bit every time I pick it up because I wonder in the back of my mind if something truly problematic is going to happen in this story of an emotionally stunted office lady who returns to her youth in the form of an idol singer with the aid of magic pills who then becomes romantically entangled with some of her teen contemporaries from the music world.

Idol Dreams 6

One of the reasons why I enjoy Tanemura so much is that she brings the melodrama in a way that few other manga creators can aspire to. In this volume alone, there’s a death, a pregnancy, and a wedding crisis. Few other series can hit these heights of melodrama in just six chapters. All of these things happen to friends of Chikage’s and it is interesting to see how she reacts as the people she is closest to suffer through some severe emotional trauma. The volume kicks off with an illness followed by a death in Hibiki’s family. Chikage in her Akari persona tries to support him as best she can, but the pressures of Hibiki’s idol career cause him to not take time off work because he doesn’t want to disappoint the fans who support him. He doesn’t have the luxury of taking time to grieve, and I wonder in some ways if his professionalism is a way for him to escape confronting tragedy.

In the adult side of her life, Chikage is way too invested in the success of Tokita and Hanami’s wedding. As I read this volume I was reflecting on the ways that Chikage has changed as a character, from having almost no emotional connection with other people, to now having far too much invested in seeing a particular relationship succeed. Part of this is due to the fact that she’s still repressing her own deeper emotions. There is a moment where she runs into Haru when she is actually able to relate to him as a potential friend without becoming flustered, which made me think that while she’s come pretty far in terms of becoming more self-possessed since her teen adventures. I left this volume wondering how Chikage is going to come out on the other side of these tragedies, but she’s shown enough personal growth that I’m hoping she continues to become stronger. Tanemura’s art is always best when she has an opportunity to be unabashedly girly, and the illustrations of many wedding dresses in this volume are a real treat, in addition to the dramatics of all the tear-stained faces.

Pick of the Week: Phantom Tales and Other Stories

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KATE: Last week’s INSANE manga haul has left me scarred: there was so much good stuff to choose from that I felt paralyzed when trying to choose one or two for our weekly round-up. This week, by contrast, I only have eyes for one series: Phantom Tales of the Night, which sounds a lot like Pet Shop of Horrors and has a pretty snazzy-looking cover to boot.

SEAN: I’ll go with a digital debut this week. Everything I’ve heard about Smile Down the Runway suggests it’s a josei title in shonen’s clothing, and apparently it has a terrific look at fashion and the struggle between doing what you love and earning a living. I want to take a look.

MICHELLE: There’s lots of Shojo Beat goodness, but for me this week is all about the sports boys. When Yowamushi Pedal is pitted against Haikyu!!, much as I love the former, I have to go with the volleyball kids. They’re just so dang endearing!

ASH: I certainly enjoy both Haikyu!! and Yowamushi Pedal, but I’m with Kate this week for my pick. I generally like horror manga, but I find shoujo horror particularly difficult to resist, so <Phantom Tales of the Night it is!

ANNA: There’s so much to choose from! I’m going to go with Daytime Shooting Star just because we don’t get much teacher-student romance shoujo here.

The Poe Clan, Vol. 1

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By Moto Hagio. Originally released in Japan as “Poe no Ichizoku” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Betsucomi. Released in North America by Fantagraphics. Translated by Rachel Thorn.

As with a lot of stories by Moto Hagio, it can be hard to describe how The Poe Clan works as a collected manga story because the reader has a tendency to get lost in the feel of it. Indeed, sometimes I got a bit too lost – the final story in the book, The Birds’ Nest, made me feel at times as if pages with important continuity had been removed to add to the impact. But of course the impact IS the point. This is especially clear in the first part of the book, which features the introduction of Edgar, his sister and Lost Lenore Marybelle, and Alan, the teenage boy who gets entangled in Edgar’s life and later becomes his companion. It actually reads like it was written after the later material (it may well have been – chronological publishing order is not required, especially in early manga collections) and has a lot more action and violence than the back half of the book, which relies on menace and mood. It’s hard to put down.

Oh yes, I haven’t mentioned, this is about a clan of vampires. Or vampirnellas, as they are referred to throughout the book. Edgar and Marybelle are adopted into the family, which tends to live its life on he run and trying to live like typical English aristocrats while not getting noticed. Unfortunately, Edgar is very good at getting noticed, being a gorgeous teenage boy and also having that brooding thing going on. His sister is also highly noticeable, but for the opposite reason – she is a ray of sunshine in everyone’s lives, causing even passing strangers to be mesmerized by her (or accidentally shoot her – you know how it is). Needless to say, her eventual fate, while not a surprise (with a cover like that, you aren’t expecting Edgar and Marybelle to have wacky adventures) hangs over the rest of the book, as well as most of Edgar’s actions. As for Alan, well, there are some homoerotic elements to their relationship, particularly in the final story, but Alan is so far not as good a character as the siblings.

The art is, as you’d expect, amazing. Flip to a random page and chances are you’ll find something that will have you staring. A possible exception to this are the ‘comedy’ elements of the final story, particularly the production of As You Like it, which has lots of goofy faces that help to alleviate the mood from the rest of the plot, which involves a seeming murder that may be a suicide and tortured young men in love. Much is made of the almost inhuman beauty of the vampirnellas, particularly Edgar, an no linework is spared in conveying that to the reader. This is absolutely a work you will want to keep on your shelf. (That said, the spine of my copy has “The Poe Clan” written from bottom to top, which contrasts sharply with most books in my collection, so use caution when shelving.)

The second and final volume of this series hasn’t been scheduled yet by Fantagraphics, but I hope to see it sometime next year. If only for more shots of brooding boys and gentle girls.

A Barrage of Buffy

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Because I am a great big geek, one of my personal goals is to read all of the novels inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is the second in a series of posts collecting relatively short reviews of these books. All of the following are set during the show’s third season.

Obsidian Fate by Diana G. Gallagher
obsidian_fateIn 1520, a Spaniard conveying stolen Aztec treasure to a secret hiding place was killed by a mudslide while holding a particular obsidian mirror. Now, his remains have been found in an archaeological dig in Sunnydale. It turns out that the mirror contains the essence of the Aztec god of night, Tezcatlipoca, who quickly makes a graduate student working on the dig his High Priestess and adopts a jaguar form to prowl around and do some chomps. The gang must prevent his brainwashed followers from offering enough human sacrifices to empower Tezcatlipoca to banish the sun forever.

There were definitely things I liked about Obsidian Fate. I liked that Buffy is worrying about her friends leaving for distant universities and colleges and trying to figure out what she herself is going to do. I liked that Angel has begun to think about moving away to let Buffy live her life. I liked that Giles is still grieving Jenny. A lot of the characterization and dialogue was good—especially Oz, which is pretty difficult to do. Surprisingly, Kendra and Faith both get a mention, though the latter is nowhere to be seen (and this is all set before she goes bad). No Wesley at all. It’s also really neat that the Mayor and Mr. Trick are facilitating Tezcatlipoca’s rise!

But oh man, so many descriptions of temples and stones and boulders and pillars. It’s very tedious. Also, one of their fellow students has become temporary host to part of Tezcatlipoca’s essence and plans to sexually assault Willow prior to sacrificing her. Nobody, besides Oz, seems to be quite as pissed off about this as they should be. Lastly, a subplot about how one of Buffy’s prophetic dreams showed Angel’s demise offers zero suspense. Still, their reunion on the final page does produce a genuinely cute moment.

Is this one worth a read? Eh, it could be worse.

Power of Persuasion by Elizabeth Massie
power_persuasionThis was a bit of a clunker, I’m afraid. The awkward teen daughter of a culinarily disinclined restaurant owner grows fed up with catering to her incompetent father’s whims and, by chanting supplications whilst surrounded by random items from the restaurant’s pantry, somehow successfully summons a Greek goddess and her two muse daughters to help her change things. They proceed to compel a lot of female students (including Willow) to join their “womyn power” crusade, which mostly involves campaigning for girls to have the right to try out for the vacancies on boys’ teams that arise when male athletes keep turning up dead.

Many of these Buffy media tie-in novels have similarly mediocre plots, but are usually made more tolerable by the author having the ability to capture how characters speak and interact. Not so much here, unfortunately. I appreciated that with Willow, Giles, and Xander falling under the sway of the villains and Angel out of town, Buffy had to rely on Cordelia and Oz to help her. But, while Cordelia’s scenes were fine, much of Oz’s dialogue and demeanor seemed wrong to me. Also, some weird abilities are ascribed to vampires, like one scene where a struggling vamp leaves scorch marks where her heels have dug into the earth.

I suppose the best praise I can muster is, “It’s pretty lame, but at least it’s short.”

Prime Evil by Diana G. Gallagher
prime_evilSeldom have I read a book so starkly divided between enjoyable parts and excruciating parts!

Set after “Doppelgangland,” the plot of Prime Evil involves a witch attuned to “primal magick” who was first born 19,000 years ago and who keeps being reincarnated and gathering sacrificial followers in an attempt to access “the source.” Her current identity is Crystal Gordon, a new history teacher at Sunnydale High, and her latest crop of doomed devotees is composed entirely of students. Obviously, it’s the Scooby Gang’s job to stop her.

First, the good. Most of the scenes with the main characters are fun, with dialogue that I could easily hear in the actors’ voices. Anya and Joyce have significant roles, and there was notable awkwardness between the latter and Giles. Although this was presumably the result of their dalliance in “Band Candy,” I liked that the explanation wasn’t explicitly stated. I thought it was interesting that Crystal tempts Willow to join her disciples by promising a cure for Oz, and I did have to snicker at a scene in which Angel, for the sake of expedience in getting to safety, has to sling Xander over his shoulder.

The bad, however, cannot be denied. There are many tedious flashbacks to Crystal’s past incarnations and these quickly became literally groan-inducing. In addition, the theoretically climactic magical battle at the end is full of prose like “The great source-river of wild magick coursed in violent abandon through the orbits of comets so ancient and distant they had never been warmed by the sun” and succeeded only in making me profoundly sleepy.

In summation… zzz.

Resurrecting Ravana by Ray Garton
resurrecting_ravanaA rash of cattle mutilations has the Scooby Gang suspecting hellhound activity, but when several people turn up eaten, after each has spontaneously killed their dearest friend, it’s clear something else is up. There’s more of a mystery here than these books generally offer, with a plot that features Hindu gods, an elderly collector of magical artifacts, his lonely granddaughter, and a certain statue that can resurrect a deity who will reward one richly for this service (and whose minions will kill everyone else).

Along the way, a new guidance counselor of Indian descent is introduced (replacing the guy who got killed in “Beauty and the Beasts”). At first, I thought this was going to be another one of those “Willow falls under the sway of a new female staff/faculty member who is secretly evil” storylines, but, refreshingly, that did not turn out to be the case. Willow just talks to her about problems with her relationship with Buffy, which come to a head in a couple of full-on brawls in the library. It takes a really long time for anyone to put together that their situation parallels the murders/devourings happening elsewhere in town, but it does lead to a nice final moment for the book.

Characterization is spotty. Pretty much each character has a moment that feels especially right as well as one that feels especially wrong. Xander and Cordelia’s bickering is even nastier than usual, and it’s never outright said that they’re being affected by the same creatures who manipulated Buffy and Willow. That said, I did enjoy all of Buffy’s interactions with her mother, particularly a late-night trip to Denny’s. All in all, Resurrecting Ravana wasn’t bad!

Return to Chaos by Craig Shaw Gardner
return_chaosReturn to Chaos is a bit different from most of the other Buffy tie-in books I’ve read. Instead of a new big villain coming to town, the plot is mostly about some new allies coming to town. A quartet of Druids, specifically, consisting of an older guy named George and his three nephews, one of whom develops feelings for Buffy. George wants to enlists the Slayer’s help in performing a spell on the Hellmouth that will supposedly prevent bad things from crossing over, but he’s really vague about his plans, and it soon becomes evident that he isn’t in his right mind. The nephews genuinely are allies, though, which is kind of refreshing.

This book was written in 1998, and it seems that the author was not privy to much that was going to happen in season three. A couple of vague references are made to Angel coming back, and about Buffy trying to move on romantically, but Xander and Cordelia are still very much together as a couple. That would put this somewhere between “Beauty and the Beasts” (episode four) and “Lover’s Walk” (episode eight), except that it is very clearly spring and we know that “Amends” (episode ten) is Christmas. Oopsies. There are a couple of other small errors, too, concerning Buffy’s eye color and Giles’ glasses.

This is another book in which there’s more of Oz than I’d been expecting. Some of his scenes and thoughts are okay, and I appreciated that the author wrote a teensy bit about Oz’s family, but at other times he just seems far too verbose. (This, combined with the errors mentioned above, makes me wonder just how familiar the author was with these characters.) Cordelia has a subplot of her own, as well, in which she falls under the thrall of a former rival turned vampire. The Druids recognize that the vampire is using a “mastery” spell, which is likened to the power Drusilla exhibited when she was able to kill Kendra so easily. I thought that was kind of neat.

In the end, despite some flaws, it turned out to be pretty decent.

Revenant by Mel Odom
revenantIn 1853, 35 Chinese laborers were killed in a mine cave-in on a site owned by some of Sunnydale’s forefathers. The incident was covered up and families were unable to provide their loved ones with a proper burial. Now, the unquiet spirits of those men want vengeance on the owners’ descendants and have managed to communicate with the troubled brother of one of Willow’s friends, who enlists her help. Honestly, this plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but there’s a rich importer involved (who’s receiving help from the mayor) and chanting and statues and dragons and warehouses what go boom and demons that turn into goop.

Sometimes, Odom has a bit of trouble with characterization—Oz’s dialogue often doesn’t feel quite right, and sometimes Buffy comes off as vapid, like an early scene where she’s worried about her hair while Willow is running for her life—but other scenes are spot-on. I particularly liked a moment where Giles is forced to hotwire a truck (“I was not always a good boy”) and the final scene wherein Xander attempts to parlay his latest romantic disappointment into Buffy’s half of a Twinkie they’re sharing. Odom also incorporates and elaborates on some of the issues characters are worrying about at this point in the show: Buffy ponders her future with Angel, Xander dreads being left behind after graduation, and Cordelia seeks to avoid trouble at home by helping with research. The action scenes are easy to envision, as well.

Unlike most other books set during this season, the brief Xander/Willow fling and its fallout are acknowledged. Like the others, neither Faith nor Wesley is mentioned, and the former’s absence is particularly glaring, given the evident difficulty of the big battle. Still, Revenant ended up being a pleasant surprise.

So I’m a Spider, So What?, Vol. 6

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By Okina Baba and Tsukasa Kiryu. Released in Japan as “Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?” by Fujimi Shobo. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

Alas, for those who want to know what happened after the cliffhanger on the “hero” side of these books, you’re still going to have to wait. The sixth volume takes place entirely in the “past” part of the books, showing our spider heroine, Ariel, Sophia and Merazophis mostly going from town to town and bonding, while at the same time the world recovers from the battle that happened in the fifth book. The non-Spider parts of the narrative bounce between Sophia, who may be a vampire baby but is also a reincarnation, so we get her thoughts on everything that’s going on, and Ronandt, the elder mage who honestly spends most of the book as ridiculous comic relief till he finally snaps out of it. There is one big battle near the end, featuring a much better Giant Spider Invasion than the one we saw on MST3K, but for the most part this book is far more introspective than previous volumes. There’s barely any stat listings!

I am at last allowed to talk about the spider heroine while using a name. Ariel names her White, fitting her appearance. This is in fact something of a power play, as naming something works the way it does in a lot of high fantasy, but it doesn’t have much effect on White as she’s already ridiculously powerful. Indeed, after Ariel figures out exactly HOW White is able to continue to be immortal, she reluctantly concludes that she HAS to ally with her, as not doing so could be disastrous. As for White herself, her thought processes are still “teenager with no real moral or ethical sense’, who’s able to cheerfully force a baby to march through the forest in order to build up their stats. That said, she’s definitely better off being influenced by Ariel, as we find when she has to confront her parallel minds, who have gone rogue and decided to destroy all of humanity. Thus we get the one battle of the book, as it’s spider vs. spider.

Ronandt, as I said, is still reeling from his first encounter with White, and unfortunately proceeds to learn exactly the wrong lesson from it, which is to try to study the spiders in the labyrinth to see how they grow stronger. The humor here has a dark edge to it, as while it’s somewhat amusing to see Ronandt run around nude and be treated as creepy by anyone who sees him, it also reminds the reader that White is a SPIDER, and that the ways that she gets stronger are not human ways. Nor should they be. This leads to a rare heartwarming moment in this mostly cynical book, where he realizes why he became a mage in the first place and goes out to stop the spider invasion even though he knows it will mean his death. (Fortunately, White gets there first.) I also liked him bonding with Julius, here a young and emotionally broken hero rather than the confident (and dead) older brother figure we meet later.

There’s some other good stuff here, such as the confrontation with the Pontiff who runs the world’s largest religion, or Sophia’s reflection on her past life (she was the stereotypical bullied nerd) and why she hates White so much (White was sort of like Komi in that her paralyzing inability to communicate came off as cool beauty.) It’s enough to make this volume very good indeed, even though I wish we’d checked back to the future with the other reincarnated cast.

Shortcake Cake Vol. 5

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Shortcake Cake Volume 5 by suu Morishita

I feel the need to preface this review by noting that there is absolutely no Rei content in this volume, for those readers who might have been hoping for that. What this volume does feature is plenty of internal anguish and teenagers just being weird in endearing ways. There’s something about the way that Morishita is skillfully navigating some familiar shoujo tropes that has me full of suspense about what happens next instead of rolling my eyes at the potential love quadrangle that is slowly being explored.

The volume opens with Ten still trying to sort out her feelings, as her feelings for Riku have grown only after she turned him down. Meanwhile, Chiaki lurks in the background, doing his best impersonation of a second lead guy from a Korean drama, as he makes veiled references about a girl he likes to Ten, with her not realizing he is actually talking about her. There’s some great paneling in the opening pages of the manga, when Ten is thinking about her and Riku living in the same house, the illustrations of them silently looking at each other interspersed with the everyday interiors of the boarding house underscore her quiet contemplation and awkward feelings about the whole situation. Ten continues to just be adorable all around, as she starts acting incredibly awkward around Riku and boisterously slaps Chiaki on the back and tells him not to give up on his mysterious crush.

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The part of this volume that I absolutely loved was when Chiaki comes up with a bizarre excuse to go on an outing with Riku, in an attempt to smooth over any issues with them both liking the same girl. They go on a random shopping trip, followed by some bookstore browsing and debating about UFO machine strategy. It really underscored how socially awkward Chiaki is, and if if I wasn’t rooting for him do to my general tendency to fall for second lead guys, the fact that he quotes from Anne of Green Gables in this volume was extra adorable. I’m enjoying the slow pacing of this series, and definitely recommend it if you are looking for a high school romance with more depth than the typical shoujo series.

Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 2

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By Tomohito Oda. Originally released in Japan as “Komi-san wa Komyushou Desu” by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by John Werry.

I had honestly expected that Komi, like most manga I review, would get a Vol. 1 review and then go to the Bookshelf Briefs pile. Then those four chapters happened. In the aftermath of those, I got a number of folks reassuring me that this is as bad as it gets and that I won’t have another plot quite like this, which OK. All manga have growing pains, and if I read and supported Teru Teru x Shonen I can move past this. But Christ on a bike. In any case, let’s first discuss all the OTHER chapters in the book, which are cute and advance the premise. Komi tries ramen, Komi goes clothes shopping for the first time, Komi and Tadano share an umbrella in a moment that would be really shippy if I thought the series was going to move in that direction, which I don’t. It continues to build on the strong premise at the start, has some really funny gags, introduces two new “eccentric” characters who are not literal criminals… OK, yeah, let’s talk Ren Yamai.

Here’s me in the review of Vol. 1: Likewise one of the minor characters in this book, Yamai, reads like a worryingly stereotypical psycho lesbian, and I really hope it doesn’t go down that road. Well, I was right to worry. The four chapters named “Ren” focus on Yamai, her obsession over Komi, and her realization that Tadano is in the way. She proceeds to kidnap Tadano and leave him tied in a chair in her bedroom while she goes to school to get closer to Komi. Later, after inviting Komi to her house (?!?!), she hides Tadano in the closet, then after he is found breaks down and confesses “I did it for you!” My teeth ground, my toes curled. The series wants to be funny overall, hence why Yamai actually invites Komi to her home like a numbskull – but she’s literally kidnapped and threatened Tadano – and still does after “apologizing”. It’s absolutely dire.

The really frustrating thing is that these four chapters also contain the BEST part of the book, which is Komi’s reaction to all of this. After discovering Tadano and hearing Yamai’s “explanation” for what happened, Komi’s “I decide who’s my friend” is a punch the air moment. Likewise the chapter afterwards, where Komi feels guilty for being the “cause” of all this, and tries to break off with Tadano only to have her own words turned back at her, is incredibly sweet and caring, and it would ALMOST be worth all the previous garbage if Yamai’s apology wasn’t an excuse to having her join the cast herd. She gets no real punishment for her actions, and seemingly integrates with the rest of Komi’s friends afterwards, with only one or two token “lol obsessed with Komi” jokes for the rest of the book. Honestly, she needed to leave the school and never be seen again.

So yeah, it’s one of THOSE volumes. You can’t even advise readers to just skip it, as the stuff with Komi and Tadano is the best part of the volume. You just have to read it while screaming and cursing. Not a good look for a lighthearted, heartwarming comedy about making friends.

Go With the Clouds: North by Northwest, Vols. 1-2

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I’ve never used the word “shambolic” in a review before, but that was the first adjective that came to mind as I read Go With the Clouds: North by Northwest, a handsomely illustrated series that can’t decide if it’s a murder mystery, a coming-of-age story, an Icelandic travel brochure, or a Knight Rider episode. Go With the Clouds’ abrupt tonal shifts and plot twists left me scratching my head, but I was never bored or disappointed by Aki Irie’s narrative choices; if anything, the messy weirdness of the first volume was ingratiating, a reminder that sometimes the most interesting storytellers aren’t particularly disciplined.

The first volume is a bumpy ride, lurching from one idea to the next without warning. In the first five chapters alone, we learn that seventeen-year-old protagonist Kei Miyama is a detective-for-hire; has a younger sibling named Michitaka who’s the chief suspect in a double homicide; and can hear his car’s thoughts. (As befits a story set in Iceland, Kei’s car is very moody.) Though volume one ends with a dramatic confrontation over Michitaka, volume two barely acknowledges the murder investigation, focusing instead on a visit from Kei’s childhood friend Kiyoshi. The two spend an agreeable week touring the Icelandic countryside by car, visiting geysers, gawking at cliffs and waterfalls, and taking pictures. Michitaka makes the briefest of cameos, but is otherwise absent from volume two—a strange choice, given how urgent his storyline seemed in volume one.

Normally, this kind of narrative sloppiness if a turn-off for me, but Irie rewards the patient reader with complex characters, interesting bits of Icelandic lore, and—best of all—breathtaking artwork that captures the starkly beautiful landscape of the Golden Circle. Her linework is crisp and her use of tone sparing; in her most striking panels, we have a sense of how empty the Icelandic countryside really is thanks to her judicious use of white space. At the same time, however, she excels at detail work, giving the reader an intimate look at houses, cafes, churches, and—yes—car interiors. That same attention to detail extends to her character designs, which are an elegant blend of naturalism and stylization; you’d be forgiven for thinking that Kei looks more like a movie star than a moody teenager.

Her characterizations are likewise thoughtful. Kei, for example, isn’t defined solely by his gift; instead, it’s just a small facet of his personality that helps shed light on how attuned he is to his surroundings. The same is true for Kei’s grandfather, who’s initially portrayed as a stubborn curmudgeon but turns out to be more perceptive than his blustery persona might suggest, especially after Michitaka enters the picture. While several seemingly important characters are still in an embryonic stage of development—most notably Kei’s imperious neighbor Lilja—Irie’s ability to depict people in all their idiosyncrasies makes me confident that the supporting cast will be more fleshed out in future volumes.

I’d be the first to admit that the series’ pacing and narrative detours won’t be everyone’s cup of tea; I was initially put off by Kei’s one-sided conversations with his trusty jalopy, and frustrated by the sudden appearance—and equally sudden disappearance—of a Japanese investigator who is convinced of Michitaka’s guilt. By the end of volume one, however, I didn’t care; I felt that Go With the Clouds had transported me somewhere I hadn’t been before—in real life or my imagination—and was eager for another installment of Kei’s saga. Recommended.

GO WITH THE CLOUDS, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, VOLS. 1-2 • ART AND STORY BY AKI IRIE • VERTICAL COMICS • NO RATING

I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse, Vol. 15

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By Namekojirushi and Nao Watanuki. Released in Japan as “Ore ga Heroine o Tasukesugite Sekai ga Little Mokushiroku!?” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Mana Z.

Honestly, I think this would have been a much stronger book if combined with the equally short Vol. 14. I get that this series has never really had long volumes, but as with the previous one, by the time you get into the meat of this book it’s over. Fortunately the meat of the book is pretty good. Rekka, L, and the Doctor (no, still not that one) arrive in the future to try to track down the missing heroines. Unfortunately, Rekka’s mere presence causes war to break out. Speaking of which, we finally find out what caused the big war in the first place – no prizes for guessing who got the ball rolling – and hear a little bit about future Rekka, though he remains resolutely absent. (Given the series’ tendency towards parody at times – that’s what it started as, after all – I would not be surprised if Future Rekka is the Big Bad.) Fortunately, Rekka also has some future heroines who will listen to him, even if he’s not their Rekka.

While there are various things done to try to mess up Rekka’s sense of how far this is into the future, most of the girls look to be about 7-10 years older than they were in the main series. Some are almost exactly the same (Satsuki, staying on brand with the childhood friend type, and Lea, who has literally hidden herself away to avoid all this). Some are All Grown Up, in the trope sense of the word, as Harissa has gained confidence and Fam is now a Pirate Queen. The majority don’t show up at all, and the afterword has the author lamenting the fact that he wants the final book to have all the heroines get a role but has no idea how to do this. And then there’s Iris, who in her grief and anger started all this (raise your hand, who’s surprised? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?) Fortunately, like almost all the future heroines, a hug from Rekka is all it takes to dispell most of the incipient problems. They are in love with him, after all.

As for the actual heroines that were kidnapped, we catch up with them at the end – well, some of them. The enemy has brainwashed those with the most combat power to take out our heroes. The enemy is on the cover there, and at first I wondered if it was Hibiki, but no, the answer is in fact even more obvious than that. The enemy also has managed to brainwash R, which leads to what would be an epic confrontation if it didn’t last all of half a page. I suspect the artist drew the cool color page but the author ran out of time, and so the solution is “a punch in the face fixes everything!”, which feels like a big disappointment. That said, the majority of the book is pretty fun, keeping things moving and taking Rekka back to his roots, as he has to think up clever schemes constantly in order to advance.

Now that we’ve revealed the supposed mastermind behind this – and found they may not be as mastermindy as we thought – what’s going to happen in the 16th and final volume? Will Rekka save the day? (Likely.) Will Rekka choose a girl? (Unlikely.) I look forward to finding out.

Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits, Vols. 4 and 5

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Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits Volumes 4 and 5 by Waco Ioka, Midori Yuma and Laruha

I feel like now Kakuriyo has settled into a reliable rhythm for the reader, with each volume blending elements of food preparation and consumption and showcasing supernatural entities with some hints at the ongoing mystery surrounding Aoi’s grandfather and his relationship with the spirit world.

One of the reasons why I enjoy this manga is because it blends in very mundane concerns with a supernatural setting. This was particularly on display in volume 4 when Aoi needs to take into consideration vital aspects of business administration in her attempt to launch a cafe in a slightly inconvenient corner of the Tenjin-ya Inn. Aoi treats everyone who has been helping her get the cafe ready for opening to rice balls with individualized flavors that appeal to their unique personalities. When Aoi ventures out with Odanna to the local markets and gets a clue about a mask she remembers an ayakashi wearing who helped her a long time ago. Aoi is still running into resistance from other members of the Tenjin-ya staff, but she finds some ways of winning over new customers by creating special bento boxes for a sequestered writer. I do still sometimes wish the art for Kakuriyo was a little more elaborately detailed or creative, but I’m happy to see some unsettling ayakashi character designs such as a three-eyed woman with a snarky three-eyed baby, or the no-face handmaidens who always show up to give Aoi a makeover.

The fifth volume opens with Aoi sharing a quiet moment with Odanna, as she follows him out to his mountain retreat and learns about a new delicacy – fire chicken eggs cooked in a hot spring. Aoi also gets a new clue about the white-masked ayakashi from her past and an impactful endorsement from the badger demon novelist. Business starts to look up a little bit after Aoi also gets a visit from a fortune spirit who loves red bean paste desserts. I found myself really enjoying the way this manga is paced, with Aoi slowly finding out more about the strange world she’s been transported to, and her low key ways of getting to know ayakashi through preparing simple dishes with their unique needs in mind. Five volumes into the series, it is much more satisfying as a food manga, with the food preparation showcased in at least a page or two instead of being skipped over.