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Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?, Vol. 3

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By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Shobo. Released in North America digitally by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

Since the last volume of this series came out in North America, the anime has started, and as such the series is even more well-known than it was before. Unlike some other Summer 2019 debuts I could mention (coughArifuretacough), the anime of Do You Love Your Mom? does not seem to have annoyed anyone who’s not already annoyed with the premise in the first place. I have been seeing a lot more criticism of Masato, though, and this isn’t a surprise. Indeed, it’s called out by the villain in this book. Shouldn’t he be the hero? Shouldn’t he get to do a cool thing once in a while? Shouldn’t Wise and Medhi be falling for him/competing for him? The answer, of course, is no, becausde the whole point of the series is that it isn’t that. This is a series where the mom takes over. That’s the PLOT. Masato’s journey, if anything, is to get on with him mom.

It’s a journey that may take a while – the entire series, in fact. Now, compared to everyone else in the series, Masato and his mother have a warm, loving relationship. But it’s clear that “my mom is embarrassing” is combining with “my mom is stealing my spotlight” to make for a very frustrated young man. In this book, he and his party reach a 100-floor tower with lots of monsters. A standard dungeon crawl. But there’s not much of that. Instead they take over an inn and fix it up, try to stop a bunch of thugs from blowing up the town, and (of course) deal with a whole bunch of NPC moms and their overly mom traits. The author in the afterword has to spell out that while these are stereotypical moms in every way, they’re not meant to be MEAN characterizations. The book is on Team Mom. Which is why the villain, a clumsy and rather airheaded women who wants to abolish all mothers, is as lame as she is. Well, that plus it’s funny.

As for the core cast, they’re much the same. Wise and Medhi sniping at each other can be funny, and I’m somewhat relieved that the sniping is not as one-sided as I feared it would be. As for Porta… yeah, there’s that implication towards the end. Porta being a sleeper agent for the bad guys is pretty much my number one theory right now, and the villain in this book does nothing to dissuade it. After all, we still know absolutely nothing about her own situation (is she even a PC?), and it would not surprise me if she winds up evil. That said, you know Mamako will just hug the evil out of her. Suspense is not the name of the game here, nor is adventuring and fantasy. The name of the game is watching Mom smother her boy with love while being ludicrously over the top – be it in killing monsters or in washing clothes.

I suspect the anime will end with this volume, and it’s a decent ending place given each book is mostly self-contained. Fans of Mamako will enjoy her being more Mamako than ever, and there’s lots of silly fun to be had here.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, Vol. 9

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By Dojyomaru and Fuyuyuki. Released in Japan by Overlap, Inc. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sean McCann.

While Souma is the focus of these books, he’s not the only ruler in town. We’ve seen some of them taken into his orbit, like Kuu. Some are allied with him but for their own reasons are separate, such as the Empress Maria (who I still say may eventually get into the Souma wife battalion eventually but not just yet). Some, like the Chima leader we meet in this book, are there to make deals using their popular and talented children as bargaining chips and marriage pawns. And then there’s Fuuga Haan, the leader of Malmkhitan, who by his sheer presence, inspirational qualities, and sheer power is the most terrifying of all. He’s compared to Oda Nobunaga and Napoleon in terms of the sort of leader who sets out to conquer. Which is not good news for Souma, who is not that sort of leader at all. Fortunately, Fuuga is on Souma’s side. For now. Fortunately, we also have Ichiha, the youngest child of the Chima ruler, who has a talent that no one recognizes. We know Souma loves those types.

That’s Fuuga Haan on the cover, by the way. No, he’s there in the background, lurking like a Kirito in a Kirito-less book. In the foreground is his little sister Yuriga, who is introduced to us when Tomoe, who has come a long way from her shy little sister days of the early books, goes exploring in the Chima castle. There she runs into Ichiha, who she discovers is not only an excellent artist for his age but is also classifying the monsters into types and seeing what they have in common. Needless to say, Souma LOVES this. No, he’s not taking Ichiha as a spouse, Ichiha being a 10-year-old boy, but he was already going to be sending Tomoe to school, so Ichiha (otherwise useless to the Chima dynasty) gets to come along. But wait, you ask, what does the little sister to Fuuga Haan do? She’s there to be a tsundere. That’s… really it. But she’s also going to the school, and given how obsessed the author is with pairings, I would not be surprised to see her, Ichiha and Tomoe hooking up when they’re of age.

Yuriga is not the only little sister we get in this volume. The main plot of the book takes up about 2/3 of it, the rest being short stories set away from Chima. We get to meet Maria and Jeanne’s younger sister Trill, who should be romanized as Drill, I expect, except it would be one cutesy name too many. Trill is a mad scientist who’s obsessed with inventing new things and blowing holes in the castle by accident, not in that order. Naturally, she too gets packed off to Souma’s kingdom of babysitters, where she can be apprenticed to Genia, their own resident mad scientist, and do mad science together. Which in this case involves building a drill. Which means they need Kuu’s not-quite-girlfriend for the steel. Realist Hero is very good at interconnecting the huge cast it has, which is good as it makes it slightly easier to remember them.

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention: Souma and Liscia’s twins are born, a boy and a girl. Also, motherhood as converted Saber Red into Saber Lily. Now that the mother and children are healthy, there’s nothing stopping the wedding, which I suspect will happen next volume. It should be fun, as this volume was.

Secretly, I’ve Been Suffering About Being Sexless

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By Togame. Released in Japan as “Jitsu wa Watashi Sexless de Nayandemashita” by Media Factory, serialized in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Alexandra McCullough-Garcia.

I will admit, this wasn’t quite what I expected when I heard about the license and saw the title. It is certainly a biographical manga about the author and her struggles, but I was thinking it would be more like My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, a lot more directly at the reader and deeply serious. But of course, this ran in Comic Flapper, not on Pixiv or another online site. As a result, it feels far less autobiographical, and honestly aside from a couple of references to Togame drawing manga within the book, and of course using her own name for the heroine, you’d never really know this was about her. It’s the story of a young newly married couple, and the fact that she wants to do it but he doesn’t. Of course, the common “plotline”, both in Western and Japanese works, is that the opposite is the case. Everyone knows that men are always horny and women get “headaches”. But is that really the case?

As I said earlier, this is a lot more comedic than I was expecting. Togame’s reactions are frequently over the top and overdramatic, and she also tends to fantasize about imaginary situations where either her husband or someone else satisfies her desires. (Indeed, it can be very hard to tell when the reality ends and her fantasy begins, and I felt sometimes that she was finally succeeding only to be shown a panel where she admits it was in her head.) She thinks when desperate about cheating, and goes out to drink with another guy at some point, but in the end does not have an affair and clearly loves her husband. She’s just… really frustrated. Things are not helped by the fact that she’s apparently “tiny and fairy-like”, and that said husband thinks of her more as cute than sexy, though she does have a generous bosom that she tries to break out to entice him as well. What, in the end, is the problem?

To no one’s surprise, it’s poor communication that’s the issue here. Despite her laying out her feelings and what she wants, he’s not really taking her seriously, and it takes her leaving the apartment for a bit to make him realize what’s going on. Similarly, she just assumes his lack of desire is just that, and never tries to ask him why he doesn’t really feel in the mood. Of course, this is merely the case of Togame and her husband. In an epilogue, which I quite liked, we see various other women and their own relationship, and get other types of explanations, such as a woman with “no libido”, or another woman who loved her husband as a person but didn’t find him sexually attractive at all. Communication is not ALWAYS the answer. But, in the main story, it seems to have done the trick, and we end with Togame and her husband now having sex and trying to have a child.

Like Togame herself, I feel this is more “cute” than “sexy” as a manga. But it was a sweet read, and reminds the average reader that the cliche of “the guy wants it, the girl doesn’t” is not always the case.

Dr. Stone, Vols 5 and 6

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Dr. Stone Volumes 5 and 6 by Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi

Dr. Stone’s science-infused shonen post-apocalyptic story continues to be amusing. The fifth volume works through the shonen staple of a tournament fight in order to decide the chieftain of the small village that Senku intends to use to build his Kingdom of Science. There are opportunities to expound on the benefits of optics in battle, both for improving eyesight and setting things on fire. The tournament doesn’t last overly long though, and Senku turns his attention back to manufacturing basic antibiotics in order to save the life of Kohaku’s sister.

Dr Stone 6

I was glad to see this series take more of a detour into the backstory of the event where everyone turned into stone, with an appearance by Senku’s father who was an astronaut. The decisions he made up in space during the event ended up ensuring that Senku would find allies once he woke up. The contrast between a crew of castaway astronauts living in Senku’s past and building the idea of oral traditions with Senku’s contemporary science-based approach was interesting. The looming possibility of conflict between Senku’s Kingdom of Science and Tsukasa’s growing empire continues, as a raiding party attacks and Senku’s allies narrowly escape. Boichi’s art is always dynamic, but I particularly enjoyed the scenes in this volume where a poisonous wind is portrayed as a terrifying giant looming over the landscape. Occasionally seeing the characters portrayed as tiny against the immense backdrop of nature just brings to home how difficult it is to cobble together a society with only a few resources.

I’m still getting more impatient for another appearance by Taiju, but I’m hoping as Senku and Tsubasa race towards an epic confrontation he shows up again. This is still a fun series because I never know what type of invention will be featured next, and Senku’s cerebral enthusiasm makes him an entertaining shonen protagonist for anyone wanting a slightly different slant on fight scenes.

Manga the Week of 7/31/19

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SEAN: Most of the rest of Yen is next week, though some got delayed to August. And lots of other publishers as well.

Dark Horse has the 3rd volume of Mob Psycho 100. Actually, that may have come out this week. Dark Horse release dates are ephemeral things.

MICHELLE: This is a pretty fun series.

ASH: I really like it so far!

SEAN: Ghost Ship gives us To-Love-Ru Darkness 11.

J-Novel Club only has one release next week, but its title is so long it counts as three. Seriously Seeking Sister! Ultimate Vampire Princess Just Wants Little Sister – Plenty of Service Will Be Provided! (Tonikaku Imouto ga Hoshii Saikyou no Kyuuketsuki wa Mujikaku Gohoushichuu) is a one-volume light novel about a vampire princess and her desire for a cute little sister. It sounds dire, but who knows?

MICHELLE: Dire, indeed.

ANNA: I feel confident about forgetting this exists.

SEAN: Kodansha, in print, has UQ Holder 17.

Kodansha, digitally, has much much more. First, we have a debut, The Slime Diaries. This is a comedy spinoff of the Reincarnated as a Slime series.

ASH: I did enjoy much of the original series more than expected.

SEAN: Also debuting in volume form (individual chapters have been released previously) is Farewell, My Dear Cramer. A sports manga that’s a sequel to Sayonara Football (which got no attention over here) and by the creator of Your Lie in April (which certainly did), I’ve heard good things about it. Girls’ soccer, in case you were wondering.

MICHELLE: I hadn’t realized the history of this series or its creator. I was just, all, “Ooh, sports manga.”

ANNA: Did someone say sports manga?

ASH: Indeed!

SEAN: And we have new volumes for Asahi-sempai’s Favorite (5), Back Street Girls (12 and final), Domestic Girlfriend (19), Drowning Love (13), Hotaru’s Way (10), Kakafukaka (8), and My Boy in Blue (11). Kakafukaka is hard to read but highly underrated.

MICHELLE: Hooray for more digital josei!

ANNA: One day I might catch up….one day…..

SEAN: Seven Seas makes up for barely having any releases at the start of the month. Debuting is the manga version of My Next Life as a Villainess! All Routes Lead to Doom!, based on the light novel. I love Katarina, and want to see her in any format. (Also, anime next year!)

We also see D-Frag! 13, Fairy Tale Battle Royale 3, Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash 10 (print version), Harukana Receive 4, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid 8, Mushoku Tensei’s light novel 2 (print) and 3 (digital), and the 4th Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General.

Sol Press announced something that’s out this week, but I wasn’t able to get it into last week’s MtWo so here it is. Two manga titles. How to Treat a Lady Knight Right (Ima made Ichido mo Onna Atsukaisareta Koto ga nai Jokishi wo Onna Atsukai Suru) runs in Kodansha’s Suiyoubi no Sirius, and is about a knight who’s always been seen as a muscley sort getting treated as an attractive women. She spends the next 3+ volumes of the manga looking shy and blushing heavily, from what I can tell. This screams “not for me”.

ASH: I mean, I’m definitely a fan of knights who are women, but…

SEAN: They also have The Ride-On King, from the creator of Golosseum, which is about a Putin with the serial numbers filed off and his adventures being awesome. It’s for those who want more titles like Golosseum or those who think Russia is awesome.

Vertical has the novel version of Voices of a Distant Star, subtitled Words of Love/Across the Stars. I seem to recall this wasn’t as depressing as the creator’s other movies. Slightly.

JY, Yen’s young adult line, has the Little Witch Academia light novel. Enjoy Akko being Akko in prose form as well!

ASH: I somehow missed or completely forgot that Yen has a young adult line???

SEAN: They also have the 4th Zo Zo Zombie.

Yen On gives us three new debuts. Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki is for all those who want gaming but without the fantasy isekai aspect. Tomozaki is an awesome gamer, but fails at real life, which he describes as a horrible game. Then he meets a girl who’s not only as good a gamer as he is, but explains how to win at life too. Fans of My Youth Romantic Comedy Etc. should like this.

The Dirty Way to Destroy the Goddess’s Heroes is not as naughty as the title makes it sound. A demon King, who wants to live in peace but heroes keep attacking him, hires a Japanese boy to take care of them. This proves to be a mistake, as the boy goes a bit overboard.

ASH: That could be entertaining.

SEAN: Last Round Arthurs: Scum Arthur and Heretic Merlin has a very Magical Index feel, possibly as they share the same artist. Our hero is tired of his boring life, so teams up with a girl to become the next successor to King Arthur.

There’s also another Final Fantasy tie-in novel, Final Fantasy XIII-2: Fragments Before, as well as The Saga of Tanya the Evil 6 and Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online 4, which starts a new arc.

Print manga debuts. There’s The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life (Ikinokori Renkinjutsushi wa Machi de Shizuka ni Kurashitai), whose light novel is out in September. It’s about a run-of-the-mill alchemist who ends up in stasis to save herself, and after coming out of it finds there aren’t any more alchemists in the world! How will she live her quiet, boring life? Sounds like it’s for fans of Killing Slimes for 300 Years. It runs in B’S LOG Gomic.

ASH: This could be interesting, too.

SEAN: Secretly I’ve Been Suffering About Being Sexless (Jitsu wa Watashi Sexless de Nayandemashita) is done in one, and ran in Comic Flapper. It’s about a married woman trying to figure out what to do when her libido is much larger than her husband’s.

ASH: I’ll admit, I’m curious to see how this premise is handled.

Manga Bookshelf’s Pick of the Week (OK, I’m just guessing, but pretty sure I’m right) is debuting next week as well. Skull-Faced Bookseller Honda-san (Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san) already has a cult classic anime, and this is the manga, which ran in Gene Pixiv. It’s about… well, the title says it all. This looks fantastic.

MICHELLE: Well, your guess is right on my end, at least. I’ve only seen a little of the anime, but it is charming and I’m really looking forward to reading this.

ANNA: Me too!

ASH: I am so, so looking forward to this series!!

SEAN: We also get first volumes of light novel adaptations with Torture Princess (an omnibus, done in one) and Woof Woof Story.

A lot of ongoing titles moved to August, but we do see Interspecies Reviewers 2 (bleah) and Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts 6 (yay!).

ASH: Shoujo fantasy for the win!

SEAN: Lots of new series next week. Perhaps you could ask a skull-faced bookseller what works for you?

I Shall Survive Using Potions!, Vol. 3

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By FUNA and Sukima. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hiroya Watanabe.

I’m at a loss for words to an extent. It can’t be that the author read my reviews – they’re in Japan, and this volume was out before the series started here. I double checked, and it didn’t change companies or anything like that. Perhaps someone told the author that an anime might be a possibility? But yes, it’s very clear that between the second and third book – actually, more like “after the timeskip” now that I think about it – the author acceded to the requests to dial Kaoru back a lot. She’s still very snarky, and won’t hesitate to mock and belittle obviously arrogant noble guys, but she’s (mostly) found an emotional center and is actually doing what I thought she would do when the book began – running a small potion store in a large city. I guess the answer to “how to solve a problem like Kaoru” is “keep her away from war”. Not that this has suddenly turned into a Slow Life title or anything. Trouble continues to follow Kaoru around. But she’s now a standard OP FUNA heroine, and not “will she turn evil?”.

As noted, Kaoru and her newly adopted daughter are starting a potion shop. But no overpowered healing potions this time around, just normal minor illness stuff like “soldier’s disease” (athlete’s foot). She makes the potions good enough to be palliative, but not curative forever, so they have to come back to buy new ones. But things aren’t easy. Soldier’s Disease is far more of an issue in this military town than she suspected. She’s being asked to join an association and give up her secrets. There’s a deadly disease killing people in a village a few days away. The “distortion” that the goddess had warned her about actually appears. No one will buy her shampoo/makeup products. No one prefers her “standard” box lunches. And worst of all, she’s still not attracting husband material. Can she put down roots in this town, or is it time to move on?

Now, don’t panic. Kaoru is still easily the meanest of the FUNA heroines. But she’s not getting revenge that may literally get people executed this time around. She’s also doing great things for the military, finding lost treasures for poor nobles, giving money to orphans and street urchins, and of course, preventing the world from being ravaged by disease. She’s become a heroine, rather than an anti-heroine. It’s fun to see, but it does make this a bit less of a must read as there’s no longer any sense that she’s going to completely lose it the way there was during the war last volume. The rest of the running gags are present and correct, including the rest of her group being so devoted to her safety that they all fall over each other to protect her from enemies, and don’t go on dates because that would take away from protecting Kaoru time. And of course there is Kaoru’s lack of self-awareness, as she, like Mile, occasionally talks about being a normal girl, to everyone’s amusement.

In the end, dialing Kaoru back is good for the future of the series. And it’s still a light, breezy read. But I miss my jaw dropping, I will admit.

Bookshelf Briefs 7/24/19

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Anonymous Noise, Vol. 15 | By Ryoko Fukuyama | VIZ Media – It’s hard to believe I’ve read fifteen volumes of Anonymous Noise already but even harder to believe that there are only three more until it’s over! Rock Horizon is here again, and due to another band’s cancellation, In No Hurry is playing on a bigger stage than ever before and their exuberant performance is the highlight of the volume. Meanwhile, Kuro makes progress toward pursuing a new love after losing out with his first one, Nino searches for a foundation for her singing that does not revolve around Momo, and Yuzu is composing up a storm, though he worries that this will stop if Nino ever actually falls for him. In other words, it’s just as angsty and dramatic as usual, yet surprisingly hopeful, too. Good stuff. – Michelle Smith

Beastars, Vol. 1 | By Paru Itagaki | Viz Media – At a high school in which carnivores and herbivores attend classes and live alongside one another in relative peace, there is a natural tension among the student body. But the delicate balance between the two groups is shattered when an alpaca named Tem is found murdered on campus. The herbivores’ mistrust and hostility towards their carnivorous classmates become more blatant and even Tem’s friend Legoshi comes under suspicion. As a large gray wolf, Legoshi is used to being feared and hated, but that doesn’t make things any easier for him. More than anything else, the reason that I’m so eager to read more of Beastars is Legoshi. Yes, there’s interesting worldbuilding. Yes, there’s engaging drama and mystery. Yes, there’s appealing illustration work. There’s even other fascinating characters. But ultimately it’s lone wolf Legoshi, the behind-the-scenes theater kid, in all of his sensitive awkwardness that steals the show for me. – Ash Brown

A Certain Scientific Railgun: Astral Buddy, Vol. 2 | By Kazuma Kamachi and Yasuhito Nogi |Seven Seas – I have to admit, I’m calling “no way” on the sheer power behind Junko, who seems to suddenly be far more actively involved in every aspect of the plot and can hold her own with villains who are hospitalizing Judgment. This is a lot to accept for someone whose sole character trait before this had been “Misaki’s chew toy.” The plot involves, no surprise, the fact that kids in Academy City are subject to unethical scientific experiments, not exactly big news to regular readers of Railgun and Index. But the fights are nice, and Junko is a sweet and determined girl. It’s just hard for the reader to accept that this is the spinoff we’re getting rather than, say, Itsuwa or Kanzaki. – Sean Gaffney

Gabriel Dropout, Vol. 7 | By Ukami |Yen Press – There were no laugh-out-loud moments here like the previous volume, but it continues to keep a smile on your face. I enjoyed the idea of asking Vignette, the demon who’s sweet and nice, if she’d rather be an angel, and her negative response. “Angel” and “demon” are not meant to be good or bad in this manga, despite what you’d expect, and I like Vignette sticking to what she’s already lived with. I also liked the chapter with Taplis challenging Satania to card duels, if only as it’s nice to see Satania actually succeed for once. Gabriel Dropout is unlikely to pick up new readers who aren’t already fans of it, but those fans should enjoy this. It even makes Raphiel briefly sympathetic, which is highly unusual. – Sean Gaffney

Golden Kamuy, Vol. 10 | By Satoru Noda | Viz Media – I like that Golden Kamuy, no matter how bonkers it gets, never quite forgets its roots as a foodie manga. There’s lots of discussion of gross-yet-tasty foods this time around, in among various attempts to rescue Shiraishi, who has gotten captured and is having trouble escaping for once. It doesn’t help that there’s so many different factions going around that the reader has long since lost track of which is which. “The guy with the plate in his head!” “The small plate guy or the large-plate guy?” There’s also a bittersweet implication towards the end of the book that this does have an end in sight, and that it may wrap up by returning Sugimoto to what he lost—though regaining it is another issue. Breathtaking. – Sean Gaffney

Mythical Beast Investigator, Vol. 1 | By Keishi Ayasato and Koichiro Hoshino | Seven Seas – This is another in a long string of “supernatural people investigate supernatural things” titles we’ve seen, mostly from this publisher. It’s not terrible and there’s nothing wrong with it, but I have to admit that the well may be running dry, and this does not really attract a new reader the way that The Ancient Magus’ Bride—or even How to Treat Magical Beasts—does. Ferry investigates issues with beasts, which are usually the fault of humans, with the help of the black rabbit of inlé… erm, Kushuna, who is her cynical bodyguard. Together, they fight crime! Some of this is heartwarming, some of it is tragic, it’s very readable, and you’ll forget about it the next day. – Sean Gaffney

The Water Dragon’s Bride, Vol. 10 | By Rei Toma | Viz Media – The start of the volume is well written but not all that surprising, as it hits all the beats I was expecting to resolve that arc. The meat of the volume, though, is in the second half, as the Water Dragon God is starting to lose his powers, and may soon disappear. There’s a solution, but he’s not going to take it—and Subaru will never let him do it either. So what’s the solution here? There’s only one volume after this, so it had better come quick. In the meantime, the evocative art and storytelling and led to The Water Dragon’s Bride being my favorite Rei Toma series to date. I can’t wait to see how it ends. – Sean Gaffney

Koyomimonogatari: Calendar Tale, Part 01

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By NISIOISIN and VOFAN. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by Vertical, Inc. Translated by Daniel Joseph.

This originally came out in Japan as one giant volume, but I totally understand why Vertical has decided to break it in half. The Monogatari books feel long and wordy enough as it is with their 280-300 pages per volume, but this one would be around 500, and that’s just too exhausting. That said, it does present a bit of a dilemma in that I feel the book is meant to be appreciated as a whole. Without spoiling the second volume, there is a very definite cliffhanger to this book, and it puts everything we read before into stark relief. But we don’t have that, so it has to be said: this feels meandering even for a Monogatari volume. Being a short story volume, even less is “happening” per se, so you’re entirely dependent on the conversations. Which is fine, as honestly dialogue is why we’re reading NISIOISIN in the first place. If you like snark, these stories will give it to you in spades. There’s also some nice foreshadowing here, as most of them take place at or near the start of the series.

“Koyomi” is not only Araragi’s first name, but also the word for “calendar”. The conceit of this volume is that we get twelve short stories, one for each month of the year. They start in April, immediately after the events in Kizumonogatari but before Nekomonogatari Black, and move forward in the timeline from there. Each story has Araragi conversing with one of the female leads, in the order he met them (not counting Shinobu/Kissshot). They serve as an examination of each heroine’s story (particularly in Sengoku’s case), but are also about the fact that, despite what you may think, not everything that Araragi happens across happens to be related to the supernatural. There are several puzzling things in this book that turn out to have ordinary, prosaic meanings – as is normally the case. Usually it’s NOT the immortal vampire.

Naturally, each story ends up sounding like its heroine, to a degree. Senjogahara’s is filled with caustic banter between two kids who agreed to date the other day but have no idea how to actually be a couple. Kanbaru’s has another cleanup of her messy room, is filled with innuendo, and has probably the best ending of the book, if only as it sounds perfectly in character. Sengoku’s has an ominous tone to some of it, taking place after her first arc but before her second, and hinting at events to come. The weakest stories in the book are probably the first and the last ones – Hanekawa before all her character development just comes across as Ms. Exposition, and Karen is simply not nearly as interesting as her brother and younger sister. Oh yes, one minor translation quibble – why is everyone cursing in this book? Normally I gloss over that sort of thing, but there sure are a lot of shits and fucks in here. When it’s Araragi it doesn’t jar as much, but Hanekawa saying “bullshit” does jar quite a bit, especially pre-Nekomonogatari Hanekawa.

This is a decent slice of Monogatari life, and will make the reader happy, but honestly if you can I would advise putting it off and reading it with its second part.

Takane & Hana, Vols. 8 and 9

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Takane and Hana, Volumes 8 and 9 by Yuki Shiwasu

At 9 volumes in Takane and Hana continues to have story arcs centered on wacky shenanigans, but since those shenanigans seem to be prodding along the romance between Takane and Hana at a glacial pace, I tend to just sit back and enjoy the story.

Most of this volume is taken up with Hana’s realization that she actually cares for Takane, and stumbling through events like Valentine’s Day and dinner with her family while she’s burdened with newfound awareness of her own feelings. There are still plenty of moments of culture shock as Takane isn’t sure what to do the first time he encounters insufficiently marbled beef. There could only be so long that Takane could survived in forced poverty in the position of a mediocre salaryman, mostly because while he is an emotional idiot, he’s actually exceedingly good at business. His current company ends up creating more of a manager role for him, and he’s clearly moving up.

Takane & Hana 9

Takane’s grandfather is pleased with the success of his machinations to force his grandson to grow through vicariously experiencing poverty, but now he’s worried that there will be no time for Takane’s romance to progress. Since exercising familial authority through housing worked so well the last time, he decides to provide Hana’s family with an elaborate mansion to live in as part of a made-up “testing program.” They all move in, only to find out later that they are also required to live with Takane. Takane and Hana end up setting some rigid boundaries around their new living situation, but they aren’t rigid enough for Okamon. Okamon has been lurking on the margins with his carefully deadpan expression, but he hasn’t weighed in on Takane and Hana’s relationship before. I was delighted that volume 9 finally featured Okamon being more direct and also presented a chapter from his point of view. While Okamon may firmly be fulfilling the role of “second lead guy” so familiar in Korean dramas, and I don’t think that he represents a serious threat to an eventual resolution for Takane and Hana, it was a nice change of pace to get to spend more time with him in this volume. I’m expecting that Takane and Hana cohabiting in a mansion will provide plenty of antics for at least 2 volumes.

Pick of the Week: Present and Future Manga

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SEAN: Most of the debuts I was looking forward to picking this week got schedule shifted away, and I’m left with a lot of “Hrm”. So I’ll go with Teasing Master Takagi-san 5, always a favorite and with two fantastic chapters bookending the volume.

MICHELLE: I’ll go with the third and final volume of Love in Focus . This is the second short series from Yoko Nogiri that I’ve liked more than anticipated. I hope she writes something longer someday!

KATE: Our Dreams at Dusk is just about perfect with beautiful art, great characters, and a compelling story that allows readers across the spectrum to appreciate just how difficult it can be to come to terms with your own sexuality.

ANNA: Honestly the main thing I’ve been thinking of this week is the fact that we had a Rose of Versailles cover reveal! So I’ll pick Rose of Versailles even though it isn’t coming out for a long time, and also reserve the right to pick it again.

ASH: I am in complete agreement with Kate. Our Dreams at Dusk is such an incredible series, I’m making it my pick even when this week’s other releases include another of my favorites, To Your Eternity.