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Manga the Week of 1/2/19

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SEAN: It’s the new year! 2019 manga! Fortunately, January is always the lightest month of the year, so there’s not TOO much of it. Yet.

ASH: I’m ready! (If you ignore the giant “to be read” pile of 2018 manga and novels still waiting for me…)

ANNA: I’m not ready!

SEAN: Apologies to Bookwalker, as I always forget when they release a new volume of The Ryuo’s Work Is Never Done. The 6th novel is already out.

Dark Horse has a 2nd Gantz omnibus.

J-Novel Club has a 3rd Sorcerous Stabber Orphen.

Kodansha debuts in print a title that’s come out digitally already, and is also getting an anime soon. The Quintessential Quintuplets sounds like classic Shonen Magazine romantic comedy.

In print, Kodansha also has a 10th Aho-Girl, the 10th (and final) Descending Stories, and a 4th Tokyo Tarareba Girls.

ASH: I’ll admit, I’m not following many of Kodansha’s print series right now, but I’m definitely picking up Descending Stories and Tokyo Tarareba Girls.

MICHELLE: I read a little Descending Stories and really liked it. I need to go back and have a marathon now that the final volume is coming out!

SEAN: Digitally, there doesn’t SEEM to be a debut, but I already know they sometimes add those at the last minute. There are definitely new digital volumes for Can You Just Die My Darling? (7), Can I Kiss You Every Day? (3), Chihayafuru (14), and The Prince Romance Gambit 6.

MICHELLE: It seems like the Chihayafuru releases are coming a bit faster now, so huzzah.

ANNA: More for me to get caught up on with Chihayafuru. I’m hoping to make some headway over winter break.

SEAN: Seven Seas doesn’t realize it’s 2019 already, so is releasing these manga while it’s still 2018! Due to the nature of this list it still counts, though. There’s A Certain Scientific Accelerator 8, Devilman Grimoire 5 (a final volume), High-Rise Invasion 5-6, Hungry for You: Endo Yasuko Stalks the Night 2 (also a final volume), and Magika Swordsman and Summoner 10.

And there is Viz, rounding things out with a heaping helping of shonen and shoujo. The debut is Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits (Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi: Ayakashi Oyado ni Yomeiri Shimasu), and is an Enterbrain title, from Comic B’s Log. It’s about a young girl who, not wanting to marry a demon to clear her debt, ends up employed at an inn… for the afterlife. Sounds like a good title for Kamisama Kiss fans.

ASH: I’m looking forward to giving this one a try!

MICHELLE: Hm. Could be good!

ANNA: Sounds promising!

SEAN: There’s also Anonymous Noise 12, Blue Exorcist 21, The Demon Prince of Momochi House 13, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba 4, Dr. STONE 3, Dragon Ball Super 4, Haikyu!! 30, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War 6, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes 3, One-Punch Man 15, the final Rurouni Kenshin 4-in-1, Skip Beat! 3-in-1 13, Twin Star Exorcists 14, and The Water Dragon’s Bride 8.

ASH: Quite a few in this list that I’m reading, too!

MICHELLE: Forsooth. I just wish that Skip Beat! volume was new material!

ANNA: Me too. Always glad for another volume of Water Dragon’s Bride.

SEAN: So, y’know, there’s a lot. Just not as much as the past few weeks. What interests you?

Pick of the Year: A Year of Terrific Manga

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SEAN: This week is a bit light on stuff, so it’s a good time for the pick of the year. I’ve already talked about Silver Spoonin other end of year wrapups, so let me take the time to praise two other series I love to bits, both from Viz: The Promised Neverland and Yona of the Dawn. Each are the top of their genre, shonen and shoujo respectively, and also great manga for teens.

MICHELLE: If someone had asked me to name the best shounen and shoujo series that I read this year, I would have the exact same picks as Sean (with My Hero Academia and Takane & Hana as runners-up). So, instead I’ll highlight my favorite josei and seinen releases of the year—Chihayafuru and Giant Killing, both brought to us by Kodansha’s digital-first initiative. It’s been really neat to see sports manga from a more grown-up perspective, and I recommend each series heartily.

ASH: When it comes to the end of the year, I usually try to get away with picking a publisher as a whole. This year, Seven Seas has continued to impress me with the variety found in its catalog, everything from autobio comics like The Bride Was a Boy, to classics like Devilman (in multiple incarnations), to the publisher’s first BL offering Go For It, Nakamura!, and so much more.

ANNA: The titles that first came to mind for me for pick of the year were Water Dragon’s Bride and Yona of the Dawn, truly excellent shoujo series. It has been a great year of shoujo in general, and I’m also thankful that we are also getting titles like Ao Haru Ride translated in English. I finally got around to reading three volumes of Inio Asano’s Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction last night and thought it was amazing. I’m going to recommend Dead Dead Demon as my pick for the year.

KATE: I agree with Ash: my pick of the year is not a series but a publisher. Seven Seas has emerged as one of the boldest US publishers, licensing classic and queer-friendly manga, all while keeping their original readership happy by providing a steady stream of monster girl series and light novels. The company’s monthly licensing survey is another brilliant strategy, as it gives fans a say in what Seven Seas publishes. So my hat’s off to Seven Seas!

MJ: There’s been a lot to love this year in manga, and like my colleagues, I’m impressed with what Seven Seas has become. But I can’t deny that this year, my heart belongs to Silver Spoon. There’s honestly no other series that’s captured my attention so completely this year. It’s funny, original, and charming in a way that is entirely unique to its creator. I maintain a manga lending library in my voice studio, and I had the pleasure just a week or so ago of introducing Fullmetal Alchemist to a pair of 16-year-old twins for the first time. Since I hadn’t read the series in so long, I gave myself a quick refresher read of the first few volumes, and I was reminded all over again of what a masterful storyteller Hiromu Arakawa is, and how emotionally rich her characters and relationships are. Silver Spoon is obviously a very different manga, but I’m struck by how much her artistry has continued to deepen and mature. Each new volume is an absolute pleasure to read. Silver Spoon has to be my Pick of the Year!

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!: 110-Million Bride

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By Natsume Akatsuki and Kurone Mishima. Released in Japan as “Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

For all that KonoSuba is occasionally called a harem manga, it’s more clearly a love triangle. And having given Megumin her due again in the 5th book, we’re back to focusing on Darkness, who is dealing with the realities of being the daughter of a noble. As the title may imply (it’s a parody of the “My Bride Is a Mermaid” series), she’s getting married off in order to clear a family debt, one that hearkens back to events of the previous books. This is actually very well handled, as it looks more closely at the “we saved the world but there was massive property damage” trope from various fantasy titles. Knowing Darkness’ sense of duty, it’s no surprise that her first thought is to sacrifice herself for the sake of everyone else. Of course there’s no way that Kazuma is going to let her get away with… oh, he’s sulking. OK, he may actually let her get away with it. Fortunately, Megumin and Aqua are on the case. (Fortunately?)

Before the wedding, Darkness is trying other avenues to earn cash, including taking out a hideously dangerous (and thus high bounty) monster, which naturally likes to attack and eat people, leading to Kazuma dying – again. This helps to emphasize something that we saw in the previous book – Kazuma and his partners work better in a large group than they do as a quartet. Unfortunately, this also means the reward is divided among various adventurers, so she has to go through with the wedding. Which is, naturally, to the evil Lord we’ve seen before, who is pretty much the bad guy behind nearly everything in the series. To Kazuma’s credit, he does try to rescue her from this plight, at first, but he simply cannot resist running his mouth off, which leads to a fight, which… well, you know. Kazuma.

This is one of those books that’s all about the climax, though. It’s also very much about Darkness’ specific masochism fetish, which is on display throughout the book. It can be very difficult for both her and Kazuma to draw a line between “you are being mean and embarrassing me and I find it really arousing” and “you are being mean and embarrassing and I am pretty furious”, and after the events of this book, I don’t think either one has really gotten closer to figuring out where that line is. In terms of the reader and KonoSuba’s sense of humor, though, nothing can quite top Kazuma’s declaration that she’s his property now and he plans to use her body to the fullest. This is in the middle of the wedding, and is essentially followed up by Darkness having an orgasm. It’s strangely heartwarming too, in that KonoSuba way. Also heartwarming is the way that everyone in the town arrives to help Darkness.

This series has been very consistent lately, which I’m quite happy with. And the cliffhanger shows that Kazuma has finally figured out who Chris is, which is nice. The next volume seems to feature both Eris and Aqua, so I’m expecting less romantic comedy and more just plain comedy. KonoSuba will make any reader who likes funny stuff happy.

Bookshelf Briefs 12/26/18

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Abara | By Tsutomu Nihei | Viz Media – Although it’s up for debate how directly or tangentially related Abara actually is to Knights of Sidonia, in my mind the manga is unquestionably a precursor to Nihei’s later work. Even if they take different forms, the two series at the very least share elements of the same dystopic vision, a grim future in which humanity’s survival is not guaranteed in the face of the existence of creatures known as Gauna. Collected in a single, deluxe hardcover volume (along with another of Nihei’s earlier stories, “Digimortal”), Abara feels like the beginning of something grand even while being a complete work unto itself. Rather than prioritizing a narrative telling a coherent story, more than anything else the plot serves as a vehicle to showcase Nihei’s artwork and the astonishing, nightmarish atmosphere it creates. And that is just fine—the illustrations in Abara are stunning, managing to be simultaneously  beautiful and grotesque. – Ash Brown

Again!!, Vol. 6 | By Mitsurou Kubo | Kodansha Comics – In the original timeline, the fate of the ouendan was sealed when Usami was responsible for a disaster at a baseball practice game. This time, Imamura is working very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen. True, he still blames himself for the team’s eventual loss, since he wounded the pitcher’s fragile ego, but some things have clearly changed as a result of his actions. Namely, Usami is able to get the crowd on their side, rallying their spirits with her cheers when all seemed lost, and earning some praise from the school principal for her leadership. Sometimes this series is frustrating in that characters have to work harder for the kind of sports manga successes that make me sniff, but man, there are a few brief, glorious moments in this volume that are all the sweeter for having been hard-won. – Michelle Smith

Giant Spider & Me, Vol. 3 | By Kikori Morino | Seven Seas – There’s a bit of seriousness at the start of the third Giant Spider manga, as we find out why our kidnapper is so upset about the spider—his daughter was clawed by a cute baby bear, and died from an infection from the wounds. The rest of the volume, though, is relatively sedate, and even the big finale, in which Asa appears to be either ill or grumpy but is merely molting is pretty low-key. And yes, it’s a big finale as this is the final volume, even though the author says they know Nagi and Asa have lots more adventures. This is the sort of series that doesn’t really need a dramatic climax, but Nagi has changed thanks to her giant spider friend—she’s now surrounded by other friends as well. This was sweet. – Sean Gaffney

Girls’ Last Tour, Vol. 5 | By Tsukumizu| Ywn Press – Each volume of this gets darker than the last, while still maintaining its mood of “two girls wander around a city in their tank.” Chito almost dies a couple of times, and sprains her ankle at one point, leading to Yuu attempting to do leader-like things, which does lead to some laughs. And there’s a fascinating sequence when they look at modern art in a deserted museum. They’re still going up, though, and are helped in this (after breaking into a building using more high explosives) by an AI unit that begs for them to turn it off. We also get a flashback to how their journey began, showing that they were kids staying with adults at one point, and that things are terrible all over. One more volume to go. Will it end in death? – Sean Gaffney

Haganai: I Don’t Have Many Friends, Vol. 16 | By Yomi Hirasaka and Itachi | Seven Seas – The big surprise in this volume is that the student council president happens to be Yozora’s older sister. We’ve seen for a while that family issues are a large part of what makes Yozora the way she is, and it’s no surprise that she’s in a relatively foul mood this volume, where the Neighbors Club and the Student Council go on a vacation together. Before that, though, we do get Yozora returning to the Neighbors Club, and a virtual reality game that I will just gloss over as I found it the weakest part of the book. And for fans of Kodaka and Sena, there’s the final scene, even though it’s just a dream that… Rika has? Why is Rika dreaming of things like that? A good, fun volume, though even more perverse than usual. – Sean Gaffney

Hakumei & Mikochi: Tiny Little Life in the Woods, Vol. 3 | By Takuto Kashiki | Yen Press – Adorable and relaxing take a back seat to ADVENTURE in this volume, as Conju is kidnapped while in a “rough section” of town, requiring a rescue that involves a lost liquor, hang-gliding, and lots of faux badasses who really aren’t all that. It’s a heck of a lot of fun, and really shows off our heroes at their best. They also do well taking Hakumei’s boss out for a day on the town, showing him that life is not just work 24/7. And there’s a chapter involving sweets and some badgers that is quite funny. I’m really enjoying this series, though it has to be said—Hakumei and Mikochi are a married couple, they’re just not aware of it yet. (Nor do I expect that to change.) – Sean Gaffney

Hatsu*Haru, Vol. 4 | By Shizuki Fujisawa | Yen Press – How much you enjoy this volume may depend on how much you can take “I am oblivious to even a direct confession” on the part of Riko, which makes Kai once again spend half the book holed up in his room wondering where everything went wrong. Even when he returns to school and tries to take up his playboy ways once more, things go wrong—right now Riko needs a good friend more than a boyfriend, and if Kai’s not there, well, maybe Takaya will do. (Honestly, Takaya seems to be like he has his own issues, which I suspect may get revealed in a future volume.) Will Riko ever get Kai’s feelings? Does she like him back? Is she even ready to move on? And what of Ayumi, the intrepid newshound? Hatsu*Haru is a well-written soap. – Sean Gaffney

Horimiya, Vol. 12 | By Hero and Daisuke Hagiwara | Yen Press – I imagine there may be some people who have dropped Horimiya by now, and I get it—Hori is sort of a terrible person, groping her friends and joking about getting “technical” consent, and still being upset that Miyamura isn’t hitting her like she really wants him to. She’s a bit of a teenage mess, really. Fortunately, the cast around her have their shit together, so I don’t think things will get that bad. Honestly, seeing Hori groping Sakura reminded me that Sakura is one of the group now—in fact, one chapter has other students surmise that she may have a harem of hot guys. I still love reading Horimiya, even as it’s gone from “romance I’d happily recommend” to “problematic fave.” – Sean Gaffney

Slumbering Beauty, Vol. 2 | By Yumi Unita | Seven Seas – For the most part this was an OK, not great final volume of this series. The majority of it deals with Nerimu’s master trying to recruit Yoneko for the job permanently, and Nerimu trying to point out that this would involve essentially dying. That said, there was a fantastic moment near the end, as Yoneko is shown that her neglectful parents started off with good intentions and are not merely terrible people. And Yoneko says that this is true, and acknowledges it… but also reminds readers (and Nerimu) that the majority of her time growing up has been spent unhappy, and seeing that her parents have good sides as well is not going to change that. Still, at least she decides to live on for now. Like other Unita series, this was weird but worth reading. – Sean Gaffney

Yowamushi Pedal, Vol. 10 | By Wataru Watanabe | Yen Press – The third and final day of the Inter-High begins and since Midousuji got a somewhat sympathetic backstory that might be the start of a redemption arc of sorts it’s time to introduce another odious foe, this time in the form of Eikichi Machimiya, a schemer from Hiroshima who’s got a huge grudge against Hakone due to how things played out the previous year. This is a pretty fun volume, since Machimiya organizes a huge peloton that gobbles up stray riders, Jaws-like, and Sohoku must contend with leaving Onoda—who worked so hard on previous days for the team—behind to be devoured. Tadokoro even cries. Of course, plucky Onoda can’t be counted out yet, but neither can Hiroshima! Looking forward to the next installment, as always. – Michelle Smith

Ojojojo, Vols. 1-2

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By coolkyousinnjya. Released in Japan by Takeshobo, serialized in the magazine Manga Life. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Ben Robert Trethewey. Adapted by Clint Bickham.

Well, this was a pleasant surprise. We’ve seen a lot of this author’s works over here recently, including Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, which I dropped after a few volumes as I found it overrated, and Mononoke Sharing, which I didn’t like at all. Here, though, in a 4-koma series that lacks either monster girls or fanservice, I’ve found a series I can get behind. It helps that this handles the ‘4-koma slice of life’ genre very well. There’s always a danger in these sorts of titles that it will end up being plotless and lacking in forward motion, moving through the school year, festivals, etc. and ending up at graduation. Ojojojo, though, seems to actually care about character development, and things do, in fact, happen. Indeed, our leads end up dating by the end of the first book, which surprised me a great deal. That said, it’s not a surprise, as they complement each other perfectly.

…OK, perhaps they don’t complement each other perfectly immediately. As you can see by the cover, where they stand as far apart as they can and still exist, there’s a bit of awkwardness. This is because Haru Jikogumeguri (you can tell she’s rich because the name is *six* syllables) is socially inept and therefore acts like an arrogant rich princess, and Tsurezure Kawayanagi (who seems to be of modest status, despite also having a “rich” last name) is sopcially inept and therefore doesn’t really interact at all, preferring to stare at nature. When she transfers into his class, they bond almost despite themselves, and the joy of this book is watching the two of them grow close and learn how to communicate honestly. They’re helped by Akane Tendou, Haru’s first female friend in class and the relatively “normal” one of the group, Haru’s acid-tongued butler, and Chris, an English transfer student who has a similarly arrogant introduction as Haru did, but gets away with it more (probably as he’s a guy.)

Haru is the sort of arrogant rich girl you can’t help but love, especially once you get her semi-tragic backstory and see her earnest yet awful attempts to change her ways. The first volume is fairly normal 4-koma stuff, as we learn about our heroes via various quick gags and the occasional sweet moment. (The author says he planned to end it with the first book.) In the second half, he starts to deepen things, particularly the relationship between Haru and Akane, which turns out to involve a lot of misplaced guilt on Akane’s end. (The last name is a bit unfortunate – be assured she is not crossing over from Ranma 1/2.) By the end of the 2nd volume our leads have progressed to holding hands (which, given their personalities, is a big jump), and Chris is beginning to get over his own arrogance. There is one more omnibus to go, though, and since we know next to nothing about Tsurezure (who is unrelated to the Children of the same name, speaking of which) I suspect the next book will go into his past in an effort to move things along further.

Add to this next to no fanservice (Akane is jealous of Haru’s large chest at one point, but it’s a normal large chest, not the massive bosoms we see in Dragon Maid and Mononoke Sharing) and you have a title that’s a perfect introduction to casual fans who want to read a nice romantic comedy and don’t mind the “gag comic” format. A nice pleasant surprise.

Baccano!: 1934 Alice in Jails: Streets

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By Ryohgo Narita and Katsumi Enami. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

At the end of this volume Narita announces that they’re making an anime (which we have all already seen, of course), and also that after a Prison volume consisting mostly of old favorites, the Streets book mostly features either new cast members or relatively new ones, such as Christopher. That said, while they may have been new to the reader, I’m sure that the anime watcher is finally relieved to see Gustav St. Germain, his assistant/student Carol, and Graham Specter, who were cameo’d in the last book but show up in a major way here. Narita wrote Gustav and Carol into the anime as bookends commenting on the story in a metatextual way, which fits with what they do, and Graham showed up in one of the OAVs, whose events are described here but not shown. Well, at least I assume that folks are enjoying Gustav and Carol. Graham has a few people who just don’t like him, and I get it – like many, many other Narita characters, he won’t shut up.

Miria is in the foreground of the cover, but doesn’t show up till the end of the book. Same with Huey, whose ominous face takes up the background on the left side. Instead we see Renee, who is introduced to us as almost a parody of the “dojikko” type – busty and gorgeous, but always tripping and bumping into people, and constantly apologizing. Of course, just as we were introduced to Elmer C. Albatross as a smiling, likeable guy and then realized that this was not really correct, it turns out that Renee, like Huey, who she seems to have a connection to, is a bit of a horrible monster. Graham, Gustav and Carol are on the cover as well, in addition to Christopher Shaldred, last seen getting the crap kicked out of him on the side of a building in The Slash. Turns out that had a big effect on him, so in the meantime he’s playing bodyguard to the heir to the Russo family, Ricardo, who turns out to also have some big secrets. Not pictured is Lua Klein, Ladd’s girlfriend, who the Russos have locked up, presumably as leverage. Given Lua’s ultra-passive personality, you’d think they could just tell her to leave, but she does make an effort to escape when it presents itself.

That said, though, I think the most important part of the cast (also not pictured) is Rail, also one of the Lamia/Larva group we’ve come to know, and (as all of them are) one of Huey’s homunculus experiments. Huey’s view of everyone as an experiment tends to dehumanize them, and Renee clearly feels the same way. Add this to their not being “born” the way normal humans are, and the horrific tortures they’ve been forced to undergo, and it’s no surprise that most of Lamia are a bit eccentric. Rail is not sure about such basic things as humanity, and the events in this book really don’t help. That said, the majority of this book, as with a lot of Narita’s works, is a big series of fights and battles, combined with explosions (Rail loves to use bombs, although they are apparently not as good as another bomber we’ve seen in this series).

At the end of the book Miria and Jacuzzi’s gang are back in Chicago, trying to meet up with Isaac, who can only afford rail fare to there. So no doubt Peter Pan in Chains will bring the old and new cast together for a big finale. In the meantime, despite being filled with new characters you’re still learning about, this is a typically fun volume of Baccano!.

My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong As I Expected, Vol. 6

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By Wataru Watari and Ponkan 8. Released in Japan as “Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabukome wa Machigatte Iru” by Shogakukan. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jennifer Ward.

This volume was pushed back a month or two, and when it finally did come out I didn’t have the time to read it except in short chunks. This is probably one of the reasons that I feel so exhausted after reading it, but the other is the subject matter. For a book that’s supposed to be a “romantic comedy”, which does have a generous helping of humor, it can be extremely depressing. It doesn’t help that this is exactly what the author is going for – after yet another problem is solved by Hachiman getting everyone to unite in hating him (and thus supporting the girl with the problem), his teacher reminds him that while Hachiman may not care about everyone’s bad feelings, there are others that worry about him. This includes her, as well as Yukino and Yui, but learning this lesson is, I think, going to take a few more volumes. Meaning that I may still be glum about this humorous series.

The subject of the book is the school’s Cultural Festival. Hachiman’s class is putting on a production of The Little Prince, which is not BL despite the best efforts of its adapter. Hachiman himself is on the festival committee, despite his best efforts, in the “Records and Miscellaneous” department, which rapidly becomes “defer everything we don’t want to do to here”. The supposed Festival Chairman is Sagami, a young woman with confidence issues who tries to get herself back in the “cool kids” group by taking this on, but in reality everything is being done by the vice-chairman, Yukino, almost to her physical and mental detriment, because since the chairman is flaking on things, everyone else decides to flake as well. And there’s also Yukino’s older sister lurking around the festival, making things worse in the way that only family can. Is this festival really going to be OK?

Well, yes, it pretty much is. There are no major festival disasters on this watch, mostly as Yukino is very good at organization (delegation, not so much). We are gradually seeing her warm up to a few people, particularly Yui, who remains the bright ball of sunshine in this series despite not having all that much to do in this book. The trouble, of course, is Hachiman, who once again narrates the book in a jaded, cynical and otaku-ish tone that serves to belie the fact that he really does care about these people and, when push comes to shove, wants to help them. But because of his self-image, he feels that it’s fine to solve a problem by throwing himself under the bus. Which is ironic, given how our three leads’ lives interacted at the start of the series. Despite being reminded that there are people who value him, the book ends with Yui taking a reluctant Yukino to the after party, while Hachiman resolutely doesn’t go.

I realize that once Hachiman learns from his past mistakes, we’re reaching the end of the series. And this is still very well written with interesting characters I want to see succeed. But man, it’s a slog, and right now I don’t really want either Yukino *or* Yui to end up with Hachiman. (There is a yuri fandom for it, right?) Definitely recommended for fans of the series, however.

Dr Stone, Vol. 2

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Dr. Stone Volume 2 by Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi

The second volume of Dr. Stone featured fewer scenes of crazy science action, but it did spend a more time on world building and setting up the conflict between the friends Senku and Taiju and newly revived but reactionary classmate Tsukasa. Senku is determined to push technology forward by manufacturing gunpowder, in order to give his group an advantage. The gunpowder sets off a plume of smoke which is answered by another smoke signal, indicating that the teenagers might not be alone in their post-apocalyptic world where everyone has been turned into stone.

Dr Stone 2

There was a flashback chapter showing Senku, Taiju, and Yuzuriha when they were young and pursuing Senku’s childhood dreams of rocketry. It was nice to see a glimpse of this mini friend group as little kids, and it played in well to how they work together to survive a hostile environment. Taiju and Yuzuriha have to figure out how to rescue their mad scientist friend, and we also get a glimpse of what Senku went through on his own, when he was the only human to wake up. There’s still plenty of dynamic science action in Boichi’s art, and while the second volume was a little less entertaining for me than the first simply because I was no longer as diverted by the initial premise of the manga, I’m curious to see how the conflict between Senku and Tsukasa is going to play out over the long term.

Female characters who exist mainly to be decorative and supportive is one of my shonen pet peeves, and at the end of this volume Dr. Stone seems to be heading in that direction. I’m not sure if all the genuinely enjoyable yelling about paleolithic science will be enough to offset those sort of plot developments, but I’ve liked the series so far.

Sword Art Online, Vol. 15: Alicization Invading

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By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

I was expecting that this volume would be a bit of a letdown after the highs of the previous work. Sadly, it’s even worse than I had anticipated: I actively don’t like this volume. Well, parts of this volume. We can divide the books events in half. Half of it involves Alice, having run away from the Integrity Knights at the end of the last book, living in the woods with Kirito, who is unresponsive and seemingly braindead. She’s struggling to find a purpose to fight, and various circumstances seem to give her that. This is not great writing, but it’s at least decent, and helps to set up the next couple of books. Alas, we then have the other half of the book. Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga discusses Shonen Power Creep, but there’s another aspect that Kawahara really suffers from, Shonen Villain Creep. Each villain has to be worse and more monstrous than the last one, doing even more evil things. So, ladies and gentlemen, meet Gabriel Miller.

Gabriel is introduced to us as a young corporate executive type, and we then flash back to his childhood, where he lived a comfortable life, met a nice sweet young girl to be his childhood friend, and then… well, Gabriel is a sociopath, like so many other of Kawahara’s villains, so you can probably guess. He’s part of a terrorist squad invading the ocean turtle, where Asuna and Kirito’s body are currently, in order to get the results of their experiments – Alice. He seems to regard humans and bugs exactly the same way, and is a thoroughly unpleasant individual. (He is assisted by another evil guy named Vassago, and I suspect that we may be familiar with him from previous volumes, though I will hold off till it’s confirmed.) Gabriel and Vassago are locked away from the Underworld, but they can still become “characters” in it. Which they proceed to do, as Gabriel is now the Demon Lord invading the human world.

The main problem with this book, and it’s teeth-grinding, is that half of it is from Gabriel’s POV. Given I already hate the way Kawahara writes villains, having to experience their thoughts for so long is unbearable. There’s also a couple of horribly violent deaths in the book, both women of course, there to make the reader feel sad and also make me wonder if the author had recently watched Se7en. (Speaking of which, Kawahara is rewriting his webnovel and editing it, and he changed events in Book 11 so that Ronie and Tiese are not, in fact, raped – however, dialogue towards the end of this book shows that he isn’t very good at cleaning up the mentions of it after the fact.) This may come as a surprise to the casual SAO fan, but I really miss Kirito’s POV here. Alice’s uncertainty and Gabriel’s loathsome villainy just make this book very hard to read. Oh yes, and Gabriel has also been in Gun Gale Online, and wants to do nasty things to Sinon as well. So that’s just great.

This was originally written when Kawahara was a much younger man, and it shows – it reads like the sort of thing an emo guy would write in order to be grim and gritty. The author, I think, realizes this – after the anime adaptation of Vol. 11, he publicly apologized for the rape scene, and said he wouldn’t write that sort of thing anymore. Unfortunately, it does mean we still have to plow through this book, which is filled with setup for cooler events to come, as well as appalling sadism. I won’t say to skip it, but you won’t enjoy it.

Dead Mount Death Play, Vol. 1

by

By Ryohgo Narita and Shinta Fujimoto. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Christine Dashiell.

Sometimes you get so used to a specific author’s tropes and themes that you can tell from a cursory read that a work happens to be by that author. That said, it took a while for me to feel like this was written by Narita, the creator of Baccano! and Durarara!!. Starting in a fantasy world with a battle between a paladin and a skeleton lord is not really his deal, at least not in what we’ve seen over here. But once we move back to the modern world, and the “hero” starts describing people as toys? Once you see a sociopath who commits the most horrible crimes with a smile on her face? A ganster-like organization with a “family” feel and cops who are not afraid to use suspicious methods to get justice? Yeah, that’s Narita all right. Here he’s doing a “reverse isekai”, as the death lord from the prologue ends up inside the body of a young man in our world.

Polka is that boy, and his actual self seems to have been moved out of his own body so that the corpse lord can take it over. (It’s OK he ends up inside a plushie shark.) You worry Polka will start up his old ways, but it turns out he was a misunderstood corpse lord with friends who were killed because they associated with him, so it’s all good. Unfortunately, the real Polka has an assassin’s contract out for him, and the assassin, Misaki, is a smiling high school girl who is rather annoyed that the kid she stabbed through the throat sn’t dead. That said, she gets over it rather fast, especially once he kills and then revives her as a corpse – which, honestly, she’s much happier being. Along with a young man who doesn’t seem to leave his control room and communicates through drones, he’s here to figure out this magicless world, though he can still use plenty of magic.

Polka, in his “possessed” form, reminds me not a little of Huey Laforet, who also considers people his toys. That said, he’s not QUITE as morally nihilistic as Huey, and can tell right from wrong. Which is more than Misaki, who seems like what you’d get if you fused Anri from DRRR!! and Elmer from Baccano!, horrifying as that thought is. The rest of the cast are still unfolding, though the two police officers seem like they stepped off the pages of Gangsta. For the most part, this is a fun little action manga with a few mysteries, mostly content to coast along on mood. Be advised it’s a rated M title, though you get the sense that this is more the editors telling the creators “insert lesbian sex here” than any real plot relevance. It’s very Murcielago-ish in its lesbian sex scenes.

If you like DRRR!! and Baccano!, you’ll want to pick this up. Fans of reverse isekai and mindless sex and violence might also enjoy it.