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Pick of the Week: Dreamy Picks

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MICHELLE: There are a few digital volumes from Kodansha that I’ll be reading, but my official pick is the debut of For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams. MJreviewed it in our latest Off the Shelf column and I am definitely intrigued.

SEAN: I’ll be going for another in the Monogatari Series this week. Koimonogatari is a bit of a fakeout, allegedly about Senjogahara trying to stop the possessed Sengoku but in reality it’s a character study of minor-villain-returned Kaiki Deishuu. The novels not from Araragi’s POV are always great.

ASH: Like Michelle, For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams is my pick this week. I enjoyed Erased, so I’m curious to read another dramatic mystery by Sanbe.

ANNA: I agree, For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams is intriguing to me this week.

MJ: I’m definitely on board with all the interest in For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams, which I reviewed in last week’s Off the Shelf, but I feel like it’s my job to say, “CLAMP still exists” so I’ll make the new omnibus edition of Wish my pick for the week. I’m looking forward to a new translation, and Dark Horse always does a beautiful job with these omnibuses, so I’m sure it will look fantastic.

Bookshelf Briefs 1/28/19

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Ace of the Diamond, Vol. 19 | By Yuji Terajima | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – It’s the West Tokyo finals, determining which team will represent that region at Koshien. Seido is up against the team that barred their path the previous year, Inashiro Industrial, and since it’s a hugely pivotal game, it spans several volumes. This particular installment covers the fourth through seventh innings, during which Seido loses its early one-point lead and eventually falls even further behind when Tanba, ostensibly the ace, takes over pitching duties from a struggling Furuya and immediately gives away a home run. Seido’s not completely out—there are some excellent plays by Furuya (in outfield, trying to atone) and Kuramochi—but it’s definitely going to be a nail-biter. It was also pretty neat that our protagonist, Eijun, only appears when he’s cheering on his teammates. I’m so glad that he finally matured and learned some humility. – Michelle Smith

Dive!!, Vol. 1 | By Eto Mori and Ruzuru Akashiba | Yen Press – This was pretty good, but not good enough for me to have a full review’s worth of things to say about it. It hits all the right sports manga beats, and has some nice pictures of handsome high school boys diving. Their club is about to be shut down, though, unless they can get one of the divers to the Olympics. Enter Kayoko, their new coach, who is ready to make them fantastic divers even if it kills them. There’s a few really good kids there, but our hero is no doubt the one everyone will be watching—he has a very flexible body—and don’t forget the guy trying to get over a head injury while diving in the past. It’s a sports manga, and if you’re a lover of the genre, or like diving, check it out. – Sean Gaffney

Dr. STONE, Vol. 3 | By Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi | Viz Media – A much stronger volume of Dr. STONE here, which has ditched the boring part of its cast and reboots itself around its science hero and the village that he’s going to lead into the future. Everything about this works better—there’s a lot more humor now that we’re not dealing with a guy going around shattering humans all the time, and Senku’s mastery of science leads to some great Bobobo-esque faces from the other cast members. Also, there’s a little girl who wears a watermelon on her head, and who promptly ends up on Senku’s side because he doesn’t ask her why she’s doing this. I liked that. This series has gotten a lot more ludicrous, which is all for the better. – Sean Gaffney

Haikyu!!, Vol. 30 | By Haruichi Furudate | Viz Media – Lots of volleyball here, and not much else, meaning as always I’m struggling with things to say other than “that looked pretty cool.” I liked the focus on Tanaka in this book, and how his ability to bounce back from getting down on himself is a big strength. (That said, I think his attempt to hook up with the childhood friend may have just died.) We also get a good long look at Nekoma, who do end up advancing, much to my surprise (they had a few death flags). Who will they be facing? Oh, probably Karasuno, but that game is still going on, and the other team has figured out a weakness in Nishinoya, who’s usually one of the best on the team. How is he going to bounce back? For once, we have a month or two to wait to find out. – Sean Gaffney

High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World!, Vol. 2 | By Riku Misora and Kotaro Yamada | Yen Press – First of all, this manga desperately needs a character sheet at the front, as I’d already forgotten half the cast. Secondly, what is it with isekais needing to show that the local feudal lord is the evilest of all evil guys? So let’s roll out the usual tropes, including a sneering advisor and the jus prima noctis run wild, which allows them to try to rape Lyrule. Of course, it doesn’t happen, because all our heroes are ridiculously brilliant and awesome and can do things like creating nuclear power within their first week of arrival. I assume this is the sort of series for folks who don’t care about OP heroes—if you do, you may burn this. It’s deeply ridiculous. – Sean Gaffney

Himouto! Umaru-chan, Vol. 4 | By Sankakuhead | Seven Seas – There’s a lot of focus on Umaru’s school rival, Tachibana, in this volume. As is fast becoming a trend, Tachibana is seemingly an arrogant ojousama type but in reality is quite a nice person, even if she has a major grudge against Umaru. Fortunately, a easy to see through disguise is able to fool her. There’s also a beach trip, which focuses on the fact that Umaru’s outside persona and her indoor sloth persona are apparently not merely mental states—she literally seems to shrink. This is probably for humor value, but still… it reminds me of The Wallflower. Actually, the whole series does, though in Umaru’s case there are no hot guys coming along anytime soon to rescue her. Cute. – Sean Gaffney

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, Vol. 10 | by Izumi Tsubaki | Yen Press – I enjoyed this volume a lot, largely because we got very good scenes between my favorite not-quite-couple, Hori and Kashima, at the beginning and end. They’re great, and the school trip stuff is pretty good too, especially Nozaki realizing he has some kind of special feelings for Sakura (even though it might just be maternal instinct), but what really surprised me was that a scene between Ryousuke (Seo’s older brother) and Miyako (the tanuki-drawing mangaka), two characters I care nothing about, ended up yielding a couple of laugh-out-loud moments as Ryousuke dramatically misunderstands her job and relationships and ends up concluding that Nozaki’s editor, Ken, has a… very interesting occupation. Ken’s reaction to this is priceless and executed with perfect comic timing. Bravo, Tsubaki-sensei! – Michelle Smith

No Game No Life, Vol. 2 | By Yuu Kamiya and Mashiro Hiiragi | Seven Seas – This is the second volume of the manga. Since the first came out, we’ve seen seven volumes of the light novel and four spinoff volumes of a different manga. It’s been over four years—both here and in Japan—between volumes. As such, a review seems almost irrelevant here. If you want a continued adaptation of the first novel in manga form, this is the book for you. The art pretty much still seems like Kamiya’s (I’m assuming his health problems are one reason why it’s so late). and there are some nice designs in the battlefield chess that [ ] has to play. Still, given that there’s no sign of the third volume anytime soon, I’d suggest fans either read the books or watch the anime instead. – Sean Gaffney

Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts, Vol. 4 | By Yu Tomofuji | Yen Press – There’s a nice fakeout here, which I sort of suspected halfway through but was pleased with in any case. It reminds you yet again that Sariphi is not simply going to be able to be pure and sweet and win over everyone who goes against her… except she totally is, because this is that sort of shoujo manga, and she’s basically Tohru without the mother issues. Here we see her practicing a ritual dance that needs to be done perfectly, and when she fails to do so she just requests a do-over and everyone just lets her do it, likely as they’re stunned that she’s even trying to. This is a series that weaponizes the Pollyanna for good, and it’s still a great deal of fun. Shoujo fans will love it. – Sean Gaffney

10 Dance, Vol. 1 | By Inouesatoh | Kodansha Comics – Along with Memeko Arii’s Hitorijime My Hero, Inouesatoh’s 10 Dance marks Kodansha Comics’ initial foray into the BL genre in print. (It is not, however, the first time that the publisher has released a manga about ballroom dancing.) 10 Dance is a series I’ve had my eyes on for a while, so I was absolutely thrilled when it was licensed. The story follows the relationship between two men, Shinya Sugiki and Shinya Suzuki, both exceptionally skilled ballroom dancers. Sugiki specializes in standard while Suzuki focuses on Latin, their contrasting personalities mirroring their chosen dances—Suzuki is generally fiery and bombastic while Sugiki tends to be cool and reserved. Sugiki goads Suzuki into entering the 10-Dance Competition, requiring each of them to master the other’s style. Dancing demands a certain amount of physical intimacy and trust and as they begin training with each other their dancing and complicated rivalry evolves in unexpected ways. – Ash Brown

Apparently It’s My Fault That My Husband Has the Head of a Beast, Vol. 2

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By Eri Shiduki and Kasumi Nagi. Released in Japan by Ichijinsha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by David Evelyn.

The second volume of this romance sees our heroine and her beast-headed husband traveling to a seaside religious community, hoping to find a way to cure both her condition and his. Unfortunately, there seems to be something very wrong in the Holy Land. There’s maids and princesses trying to take Rosemarie down, and she herself is seemingly possessed to leave the room late at night to try to return to the gods. That said, Rosemarie is made of sterner stuff in this book compared to the last one. Can she overcome mind control with the sheer power of being kind to people? Can she manage to tear herself away from her beloved bucket? And can she actually manage to have a direct conversation with Claudio where they both admit that they’re in love with each other? All the ingredients are here for a classic romantic potboiler. We may even discover what happened to her and Claudio as children!

The mystery is not really a good reason to read this (for a moment I thought we were going to meet a non-evil clergyman, but he was an undercover sorcerer, so…), but the romance holds up well, provided you’re OK with these two socially awkward kids doubting themselves and saying absolutely the wrong thing all the time. The reader will no doubt be sympathizing more with Heidi, Rosemarie’s maid who is somewhat desperate for her lady to realize that she is loved. That said, we do make some definite strides here. Rosemarie realizes that she’s actually jealous when Claudio is dealing with other women who have their eye on him, and that fixing his mana issue and leaving to go back home would devastate her. As for Claudio, he can still be a jerk when he’s trying to be kind (which leads to the funniest part of the novel, as his sorcerer friend literally kicks him in the ass for screwing up a romantic moment), but he too finds it in himself, albeit accidentally, to admit that he loves her.

The biggest problem with this book occurs at the end, when you finish it and realize that a lot of things are still up in the air. Rosemarie and Claudio’s problems have still not been solved, and they’ve still not consummated their marriage. They have admitted they love each other to their faces, but I was hoping for a bit more. Sadly, the second volume appears to be the final one, so this is all the closure that we’re going to get. I want to see more of these characters. I want Alto and Heidi to hook up (there’s zero evidence for this, but I want it to happen anyway). And there was almost no gardening! Am I going to be forced to turn to Bakarina for all my gardening heroine needs? Oh well. Despite a “you’re cancelled” feeling, only for light novels rather than manga, this has bee a fun and romantic little series. I recommend it for those tired of isekai.

10 Dance, Vol. 1

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By Inouesatoh. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Magazine the 3rd. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Karhys.

You can learn a lot from looking at a cover. This was one of those titles that I picked up solely because the cover looked so great, so it’s worth looking at. Clearly, based on the title and the two guys on the cover, it’s a ballroom dancing manga. Clearly, by the fact that there *are* two guys on the cover, it’s BL. The ’10 Dance’ part of the title is helpfully laid out for you in the text below their arms, showing us the ten dances in question – five Standard, five Latin. But most of all, the facial expressions and the posing of the two guys tells you immediately that this is going to be a contentious relationship, that they will probably dislike each other before they like each other, and that they’re both seriously attractive. It is, in fact, most everything that you could ask for in a BL title from a company that is just starting to dip its toe into that arena.

Both leads are named Shinya, and their last names are pretty close as well – Sugiki is the black-haired Standard Dancing champion, and Suzuki is the Latin Dance expert. Each wants to learn each other’s specialty so that they can compete in the 10 Dance, an endurance competition which, as the title implies, has contestants do all ten dances, five from each type. Both of them have female partners, who briefly get attempts at characterization before being quietly moved to one side, but we’re not reading this for them (though I loved the bit right at the start where Aki complains about female Latin dancers being pigeonholed as sluts or bitches). As a result, Sugiki and Suzuki take turns playing the ‘woman’ as they try to learn from each other, which mostly involves sniping at each other because each of them is wretched at the other’s specialty. Suzuki lacks the composure for Standard Dancing, trying to skip over the basics. And Sugiki is stiff and formal, which in Latin dancing is the kiss of death. Will they ever see eye to eye?

They also make a pretty hot couple, though neither of them is admitting it right now, or even admitting that they might not be as straight as they expected. We see Suzuki having various short-term affairs (including one who proceeds to rob him after sex), none of which are satisfying. The two women who are their partners are both in relationships of their own, despite media coverage (the media really like it when ballroom dance couples are also real life couples, which is not the case here). Suzuki sometimes makes suggestive comments, but you get the sense that that’s because that’s the sort of guy he is. That said… there’s no denying these two have a deep sexual tension right away, and they can’t stay away from each other. There’s a pilot chapter near the end that shows it even more – one woman is stunned when Suzuki hits on her, as she was pretty sure they were a gay couple. It’s a classic case of everyone can see it.

And, of course, there’s the main reason to get this – the art is great. The artist may not be as knowledgeable about the subject as, say, Welcome to the Ballroom’s artist (and given Ballroom’s erratic release schedule, fans of that may simply want to move to this title instead), but the drawings convey both a passion for dancing as well as the underlying sexual passions. Even if BL is not your thing, you may still want to read this – I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Strike the Blood, Vol. 11

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By Gakuto Mikumo and Manyako. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jeremiah Bourque.

To its credit, this volume of Strike the Blood is not the same as many of its predecessors. School plays a minimal role, and wacky “hur hur, Kojou is a teenage boy and everyone gets mad about it” humor is there, but takes a back seat to more serious stuff. The volume begins with Kujou’s sister being kidnapped and his father being fairly easily taken out, and you expect that he and Yukina will be headed to the mainland to save the day. Which… may be true in Vol. 12, but instead this volume shows us that all the various factions around Kojou are perfectly happy with him destroying city blocks and causing massive panic and serious disruption of everything… as long as he does it within the island itself. Leaving the island, though, is no longer an option. And if that means that his mentor Natsuki has to become the book’s big bad, well then that’s what’s going to have to happen.

Natsuki at times has reminded me a lot of Evangeline McDowell from the Negima series. She looks like a little girl but is really of age, she is happy to abuse the hero while also imparting important lessons, etc. Turns out that “she’s also a powerhouse who can kick his ass eight ways from Sunday” also applies. I am going to assume that something in the next volume is going to allow Koujo to forgive her for this, because otherwise this is causing a pretty irreparable rift in their relationship. Honestly, it’s not really clear why the Lion King Society and Natsuki both decide the answer is “lock Kojou in prison and don’t explain anything”, but it’s easily the weakest part of the book – I know the author likes fights, but this seems willfully stubborn purely for the sake of putting the plot off to another volume. (On the bright side, I did like seeing Asagi acknowledge that she tends not to get majorly involved in these sorts of things, and taking steps to change that.)

Speaking of relationships that may be irreparably damaged, Yukina is beginning to realize just how little the Lion King Agency cares about her – and despite some lip service from a few characters that tries to put their actions in a better light, the cliffhanger seems to reinforce that. It’s been pretty clear for a while now that there are other LKA agents surrounding Kojou, and after this volume I’m beginning to wonder why they want Yukina there at all, besides being a feint to draw attention elsewhere. Maybe they’re trying to have Kojou fall for her? That’s a pretty long row to hoe given that, despite stirrings of libido, he continues to have no idea Yukina loves him – or Asagi for that matter, despite her father literally saying “please marry my daughter so that I can gain political power”. As with Kojou and Natsuki, I do wonder if Yukina is going to be able to recover any working relationship with the Agency after this.

Of course, I am assuming they somehow escape the island in the next volume, because everyone is STILL THERE. This volume of Strike the Blood is a nice change of pace, and well written as always. But man, it drags things out so long that you feel as frustrated as the heroes by the end of the book.

Yuri Is My Job!, Vol. 1

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By miman. Released in Japan by Ichijinsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Yuri Hime. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Diana Taylor.

Fandom has had years of trying to get vaguely yuri things into anime and manga, from the days of Battle Athletes and (apropos for this review) Maria-sama Ga Miteru to more modern times. And this title really gives me the feeling that they’ve won, as we’re now seeing the concept of Yuri not as a genre but as an industry. If you’re good at doting on a “younger sister”, and can Gokigenyou with the best of them, for God’s sake, why not monetize it? That’s the premise we see here, as Hime, a high school girl who keeps up a “perfect princess” facade at school, accidentally runs into a young woman at the train station. One feigned broken wrist later and Hime finds herself having to work at a cafe to make up for causing it… a cafe based around the idea of “pure young maidens” taking orders and flirting with each other. The clientele seems to be mostly male, which doesn’t surprise me. Fortunately, the cafe is not as interesting as Hime and her “oneesama”, who get off to a rough start working together.

I thought Hime’s character was very well handled. She’s putting on the “little miss princess” act supposedly so she can marry rich, but this is played for laughs, and you never get the sense that she’s being mean about it. Plus the act slips constantly, especially when she’s out of school and in a situation she’s not used to – like, say, working at a cafe. Her co-worker Mitsuki plays the “Sachiko” to Hime’s “Yumi” at the cafe, but seems to have it in for Hime, particularly her attempts to act cute – or, one argues, not be herself. It feels like a bit more than simply a bad first impressions, and the cliffhanger ending to the first volume confirms that there’s actually more going on in their pasts than Hime may realize – it’s the sort of ending that makes you want to go back and reread things.

The rest of the book is all right, though I will admit that it reads a bit like a slow starter at first – not uncommon with stories from this magazine. I am somewhat wary of Hime’s classmate Kanoko, a shy bespectacled girl who clearly has a massive crush on Hime and I suspect is really not going to be happy with the direction this series is clearly going. Honestly, Kanako’s character feels too serious for this light-hearted story. The other characters – manipulative manager Mai and her “Gal” assistant – work better, getting Hime to do whatever they want but not actually being too unlikable because of it. The second volume will presumably involve Hime and Mitsuki resolving their differences, and honestly I would not be surprised if the series was only two volumes long, but apparently it’s still ongoing in Japan, so we shall see how long it can drag out the yuri cafe premise. Still, a pretty good start.

Off the Shelf: Cautiously Optimistic

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MJ: Well, hello, Michelle! Can you believe we’re back again in just two weeks? I hope you’ve had time to come up with a new joke.

MICHELLE: That last one I made was so very bad, I’m starting to feel remorse for inflicting terrible dad jokes on people at the start of these columns. So, you get a reprieve, everybody!

MJ: I dunno, I think you may be disappointing more people than you know!

MICHELLE: If you actually miss the terrible jokes, leave a comment and I’ll do better next time. How about that?

MJ: Fair enough! Well, if we’re not telling dad jokes, I suppose we’d better talk about some manga. What have you been reading this week, Michelle?

MICHELLE: I finally took the plunge and read the first two volumes of Fruits Basket Another, the three-volume Fruits Basket sequel by Natsuki Takaya. I was wary about this one, but though it has some significant flaws, I liked it more than I expected to.

In volume one, we’re introduced to Sawa Mitoma, an exceptionally meek girl who spends so much time thinking things like “Why do I always irritate others without even realizing it?” and being perhaps the most passive protagonist I’ve ever seen that she actually becomes irritating to the reader. She has just started her first year at Kaibara High School, and soon encounters “an incredibly sparkly boy” when she drops her student ID. This boy looks a lot like Yuki Sohma and, surprise, it’s his and Machi’s son, Mutsuki. Be prepared for a bunch of this sort of thing, because in short order we learn that Hanajima’s little brother is Sawa’s homeroom teacher and that Makoto Takei (remember that overzealous student council guy?) is a teacher whose obsession with Yuki has now transferred to Mutsuki. (He’s really creepy about it, too, and desperately needs to be fired.)

Sawa next meets Hajime, the son of Kyo and Tohru, who is serving as student council president. Mutsuki is the vice-president, and soon Sawa’s been drafted to be the first-year member. Over time, she meets more Sohmas, including Riku and Sora, the twin children of Hatsuharu and Rin. She gains confidence by being useful to the council and Riku helps her realize that by always keeping her head down, she’s missing opportunities available to her, like the nice girls in class who want to ask her to have lunch with them.

By the end of the second volume, Sawa has become a much more sympathetic character. Not just because she finally starts taking the initiative and actually engaging with life, but because readers can finally see what Takaya-sensei was doing. It turns out that all of Sawa’s issues stem from her abusive mother, who doesn’t come home for long periods of time, and when she does deign to appear, demands gratitude and apologies from the daughter she viciously belittles. No wonder Sawa got warped into thinking everything she does is wrong and that she’s a useless lump who causes trouble for others!

In the end, the not-very-subtle premise of the series seems to be “this generation of the Sohmas all love their parents very much, so this time they’re going to be the ones to save and accept a girl cursed with a shitty home life.” The execution is rather clumsy, however, as the Sohma offspring talk about their parents way too much for normal teenagers. I did like that Ayame’s son, Chizuru, struggles because he’s the normal one in his eccentric family, and that Mutsuki’s love for his parents is partly due to realizing not everyone has it so good. There’s one worrisome panel that suggests young Mutsuki witnessed Akito protecting her and Shigure’s son, Shiki, from Ren wielding a butcher knife! I hope that’s explained in the third and final volume, as well as whether Shiki was responsible for getting Mutsuki to help out Sawa in the first place.

In any case, I liked it enough to finish out the story, and that’s more than I expected.

MJ: Okay, so I’ll admit that the parade of Sohma children just reminds me how irritated I was by the neat pairing-off of everyone that happened at the end of the original series (Ayame, seriously??) so it’s probably getting off on the wrong foot with me from the start. But more than that, I’m struck by your description of the kids talking soooo much about their parents, like some kind of weird collision of “let’s make more money off of Fruits Basket” and “let’s assume that nobody actually read Fruits Basket and we have so much explaining to do!” Or maybe it’s just “let’s make more money off of Fruits Basket, but in only a few volumes, so DUMP THAT INFO.”

Honestly, the only thing that gives me hope is that butcher knife. Akito with a butcher knife is keeping me alive here. I might read it just for that. Do we have to have the creepy teacher-student obsession, though? I let that stuff go with older manga, but seriously. It’s 2019.

Or wait. Is it Ren with the butcher knife? I think I added a comma in my mind to draw my attention. Without the comma, I’m suddenly less interested.

MICHELLE: Yeah, it was Ren with the knife. She didn’t go away just ‘cos the curse was lifted, so she’s still around being horrible, apparently.

And yes, after everyone paired off neatly at the end of the main series, all of the couples seem to have stayed together for the next twenty years, judging from the age of Hatori’s daughter. At least Hanajima didn’t marry Kazuma! The parent talk isn’t as bad as recapping the events of the original series, at least, but there is a little bit of explanation when introducing new Sohmas to Sawa. Like, no one says Momiji’s name or what particular business he’s doing, but we know he’s extremely successful at it, which is kind of nice.

It’s more like someone saying, “I want to be like them,” which is still more than teenagers generally say, in my experience.

MJ: So, okay, you’re enjoying this more than you expected and you’ll likely read to the end. Should I be following your lead, or should I just reread Fruits Basket? I do suddenly have an urge to reread, especially since I recently lent out the first few volumes to one of my teen students!

MICHELLE: I honestly don’t know. I think it might bug you somewhat more than it did me. Maybe wait until volume three comes out and I can give a definitive answer as to whether this series adds anything to the Fruits Basket experience.

What have you been reading this week?

MJ: This week, I dug into the debut volume of For the Kid I Saw in my Dreams, a new series from the creator of Erased, Kei Sanbe. Like Erased, it was originally serialized in Kadokawa Shoten’s Young Ace and is being published in English by Yen Press.

Senri Nakajou had a twin brother, Kazuto, with whom his connection was so strong, they experienced shared vision and literally felt each other’s pain when the other was beaten by their abusive, alcoholic father. As the older of the twins, Kazuto was intensely protective of Senri and would manipulate his way into taking the beating for both of them, to spare them “double the pain.” He’d also insert himself between their parents when they were fighting, to spare their mother from the father’s abuse. On those nights, Senri, hidden in the cupboard under the stairs, would experience Kazuto’s pain as he took their mother’s beating on himself, until one night, when the expected beating never came. Instead, Senri emerged from the cupboard to find both his parents murdered and his twin missing. Based on the two brief visions he shared with his twin afterwards, Senri is certain that his brother was kidnapped and murdered as well. Now, Senri is a high school delinquent, still searching for the man who murdered his brother.

It takes a chapter or two for Sanbe-sensei to introduce Senri’s twin into the story—a choice that pays off, I suppose, by denying us full insight into Senri’s state of mind, which makes his morally-gray existence hit a bit harder in the beginning. The first things we find out about him are that he was discovered sitting in a pool of his parents’ blood as a child and that he now helps run an ongoing con in which his partners steal someone’s money and then Senri gets paid to pretend to recover it. He’s so cold and remorseless, we’d wonder if he might have murdered his parents himself if we weren’t also looking at his terrifying childhood drawings in which he repeatedly depicts the murderer (whose head he eventually lops off with a pair of scissors). Then the twin revelation transforms him from typical anti-hero into a scarier but more sympathetic anti-hero, which works much better, at least for me.

While Senri and Kazuto’s extreme twin connection doesn’t so far reach the supernatural heights of the protagonist’s time-traveling in Erased, there is a bit of a similar feel in this series that I admit I’m hoping might pan out into something just as fantastical, because an average tale of vengeance doesn’t much interest me. That said, there’s a lot going on here, and I am not at all sure where it’s leading. There is quite a bit of mystery introduced in this volume, beyond the identity of the murderer, and there are some supporting characters of whom I’m already very fond, including Senri’s grandparents, who raised him after he was orphaned, and his childhood friend, Enan, whose backstory is nearly as tragic as his own.

MICHELLE: Aside from an aborted attempt to read volume one, I haven’t read any of Erased, which I’m hoping to rectify this year. And this certainly sounds a worthy successor! I’m a little concerned I’ll have trouble getting into it, as I generally don’t love narratives that focus on remorseless anti-heroes, but it seems like the mystery of what happened to his parents will compel me forward. I confess that, even with this brief synopsis, I’m already expecting kind of a Loveless outcome with the older brother.

MJ: Well, maybe I’m overstating the antihero-ness? Senri’s got a lot of compassion in him (he’s the one who reached out to Enan when they were young and accepted her when nobody else would). He’s just very much intent on being the one to kill his brother’s murderer and it’s what drives his whole narrative at this point. He also tends to inflict physical pain on himself, and I don’t know whether it’s an attempt to recreate the pain he can no longer share with his brother or a survivor’s guilt thing, but he’s definitely a sympathetic character.

You’re not the only one thinking Loveless here, though. I’m also absolutely expecting that the brother is alive.

MICHELLE: Alive and potentially culpable! This really does sound pretty neat, though. I do like a good mystery.

MJ: I’m certainly intrigued! So would you like to talk a bit about our mutual read this week?

MICHELLE: Sure!

Ran and the Gray World is a seven-volume seinen series by Aki Irie. In this first volume, we’re introduced to Ran, a headstrong fourth-grader, who lives with her father and older brother, Jin. Ran and Jin’s mother, Shizuka, doesn’t live with them because her presence is required elsewhere to keep a pair of mysterious giant doors from opening. She’s a Grand Sorceress and it soon becomes apparent that Ran, at least, has inherited her mother’s abilities (and impulsivity). I’m assuming Shizuka also gave her the sneakers, currently far too large, which allow her to transform into a teenage version of herself. For his part, Jin has a magic coat that allows him to transform into a wolf, perfect for tracking Ran when she goes off on ill-advised adventures.

Insisting she’s already grown-up, Ran dons the shoes and hitches a ride with strangers to go visit her mother and, inspired by a special lesson from her kindly science teacher, attempts to fly from the school roof. She has some success at the latter and winds up in the garden of a rich guy named Otaro, who doesn’t endear himself to me when he returns to his apartment building naked, exposing himself to a couple of kids in the lobby in the process. Jin rightly pegs him as fishy, and it’s clear by the end of the volume that he’s become obsessed with Ran. Despite declaring he’d never touch a kid—she’s in teenage form for the entirety of their acquaintance—he soon suggests they become more than friends. He’s a creep, and I’m so glad Ran whisks herself off when he embraces her (“I’m outta here!”) but I do worry about what lies ahead.

MJ: I love a lot of things about the premise, and the art is freaking gorgeous, which is what drew me to the book in the first place. I’m also pretty into what’s going on with Ran’s family dynamic, MAGIC (always a winner), and wow, her mom and brother are both absolutely fascinating characters with so much going on. But I am super creeped out by Otaro and worried about what’s going to happen there. It’s funny as someone from the Big generation, I suppose, that I’m so disturbed by a story in which a young girl is inhabiting a much older body. But at least in Big (and I suppose also in something like 13 Going On 30), the young character is at least at an age where they are already experiencing sexual attraction and an interest in romance, so it somehow didn’t feel quite so incredibly wrong as this. So I’m worried about where this story is going to take Ran in that regard, but I’m trying to be optimistic, I guess?

MICHELLE: Yeah. At the very least, she’s able to extricate herself from these kinds of situations when they arise, but I can’t say I have any faith that she’s going to get any more savvy any time soon.

Jin is hands-down my favorite character in the series. He’s like a Doumeki type or something. Knows that magic exists, but sensible. Looks dour, but actually kind. And so, I side with him where Shizuka is concerned, finding her to be profligate with her magic when she comes to their house. I mean, it looked like people genuinely had car accidents when she rained giant desserts down upon the town!

MJ: You have hit the nail on the head with Jin as the Doumeki type! And that explains why I like him so much, too. I always identify with the Watanuki characters, but I adore and crave a Doumeki for reasons that are probably obvious. Kind of ironic, isn’t it, that the loose canon character here shares her name with him. Shizuka is a terrifying mess and her power lets her get away with it, so I feel that we can count on her to provide plenty of conflict here. We don’t need the creepy dude!

MICHELLE: Definitely not. Perhaps she’ll do us all a favor and turn him into a turnip.

MJ: I could get behind that!

Despite my reservations about Otaro and where that storyline might lead, I am probably more excited and intrigued about this series than anything else we’ve discussed here today. It’s whimsical, original, filled with mysterious potential (what’s behind those doors??), and I can’t overstate how beautifully drawn it is. With the artwork alone, I’m besotted.

MICHELLE: I failed to say this the first time you mentioned the art, but I absolutely agree. There’s a certain retro, Moto Hagio-ish quality to it that’s very appealing.

MJ: Yes, it’s sort of Heart of Thomas meets Bride of the Water God, art wise—detailed and ornate, but also flowing, always in motion, like Ran’s personality. I’m definitely looking forward to more!

MJ is running another Off the Shelf giveaway! Comment to this post or on Twitter with the answer to the question, “Are you a Doumeki or a Watanuki?” and enter to win volume one of Ran and the Gray World! Continental US only, we’re so sorry!

Manga the Week of 1/30/19

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SEAN: It’s the last week of January, theoretically it should be light. What is with all this stuff?

Cross Infinite World has the 2nd volume of the Gleam manga.

Dark Horse releases Wish, the CLAMP manga from years ago, now in one big omnibus. Enjoy the gender pronoun wars all over again!

MICHELLE: Oh, jeez. I kind of forgot Wish even existed.

SEAN: Given that the solicit date from Diamond Comics is Summer 2017, I think everyone did.

ANNA: I read it the first time around, don’t need to read it twice. I’ll just lurk here in a corner, still feeling bitter over X/1999.

MJ: I sort of feel like as the resident CLAMP obsessive, I should take one for the team and do some kind of comparison read with the older version. Can I muster the will? Time will tell.

ASH: I’m picking the omnibus up specifically because of the new translation! I enjoyed Wish the first time around, but I’m looking forward to my side of the pronoun wars winning this time instead of having a specific gender foisted on some of the characters.

SEAN: J-Novel Club gives us a 2nd Arifureta Zero and a 7th Outbreak Company.

Kodansha, print-wise, has the 3rd Sailor Moon Eternal Edition and the 30th Seven Deadly Sins.

ASH: I’d lost track of how long Seven Deadly Sins has become!

SEAN: Digitally, we finish Ayanashi with its 4th volume. There’s also Altair: A Record of Battles 9, Elegant Yokai Apartment Life 10, Forest of Piano 10, Hotaru’s Way 7, My Boy in Blue 6, and Princess Resurrection Nightmare 2.

MICHELLE: I’m not actively reading any of these, but there are at least three that I intend to read at some point.

Seven Seas has a debut and a done-in-one with Now Loading…!, whose punctuation makes every sentence look strange. It’s from Ichijinsha’s Comic Yuri Hime, and given the magazine you know what to expect. This involves a game company, but promises a bit more actual yuri than New Game!.

Seven Seas also has the 5th Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka, the 2nd Ultra Kaiju Humanization Project, and the 3rd and final Voynich Hotel.

ASH: I finally got around to picking up Voynich Hotel; I plan on reading the whole thing in one go.

SEAN: Udon has a 4th volume of Infini-T Force.

Vertical has the 5th Arakawa Under the Bridge omnibus.

ASH: This series continues to delight me.

SEAN: The Inc. part of Vertical also has Koimonogatari, the latest in the Monogatari Series novels. Will we finally get Senjogahara’s POV? I have some bad news for you…

Yen has a couple new digital volumes with Saki 18 (we’re caught up with Japan, I believe) and Toilet-Bound Hanako-san 9.

Yen On has the 11th Log Horizon, which is also caught up with Japan.

Debuting from Yen is For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams (Yume de Mita Ano Ko no Tame ni), a new series from the creator of Erased. It runs in Young Ace. I’m guessing it’s dark.

MICHELLE: I’m very intrigued by this one! Also, I must read Erased.

ANNA: I know Erased is popular at my library.

MJ: I’ll be reviewing this for our next Off the Shelf column, and I’m pretty into it.

ASH: Oh, excellent!

SEAN: They also have Aoharu x Machinegun 14, High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World 2, and Kiniro Mosaic 8.

How are you celebrating the end of January?

ASH: With plenty more manga, obviously.

Infinite Dendrogram: The Hope They Left Behind

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By Sakon Kaidou and Taiki. Released in Japan by Hobby Japan. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson.

Way back in the first volume, when I had no idea what sort of series this was going to be, Ray was introduced to Liliana, a Royal Guard member, and I assumed that she would be the first in a long line of girls in Ray’s orbit who would fall for him. Since then, while there HAVE been a bunch of girls in Ray’s orbit, with the exception of Nemesis they have shown very little interest in him romantically. This just isn’t a harem series. That said, here Ray meets the first princess… or rather her “secret” alter ego, Azurite, a disguise that fools absolutely no one except Ray. She’s far more of a love interest, despite their confrontation when they first meet, which has her going off on Ray due to his “villain” outfit (complete with a new set of armor to make him look even more villainous, the best running gag in this series.) But is Ray interested?

“Not really” seems to be the answer to that. As I said above, this isn’t a harem series, or even a romance, and Nemesis’ occasional feelings of jealousy is as close as we ever get. There’s even a “walk in on the girls naked in the bath” scene here, which the author says has apparently been in the plans since the beginning of the series, but Ray, while acknowledging that Nemesis and Azurite are beautiful, does not seem particularly sexually aroused at all. The series has different things on its mind. Things like building up the world of Dendrogram itself, and its past history, which, as Ray observes, is so blisteringly realistic that it doesn’t feel like “backstory” added by game developers, but something that really happened. This is not a “trapped in a game” series, and players can and do log out (B3 is not around in this book as she has to do a tea ceremony in real life, a detail I liked), but clearly there’s more to this game than just realistic writing and NPCs.

The premise of this book involves the kingdom of Alter discovering a new ruin at the edge of their territory, which could mean fantastic new technology to help them… or could also mean horrible monsters and weapons waiting to kill them. In fact it’s both, and Ray and Azurite, who meet by chance on the way there, have to team up and try to do something about it. We see a few master developed, such as Tom, who wears a cat on their head all the time (the picture here was great), and the guy with the evil traveling band who fought Marie a while back, who still has the band but is not on the clock so is less evil. Always trust a guy who has to blow off a dungeon crawl to play music for an adorable bedridden orphan. The “villain” of this arc, if he can be called that, is a man named “Dr. Mario”, who speaks in a fake Italian accent to match his name but clearly has hidden depths, and his identity rapidly becomes obvious to the reader (but not Ray, whose denseness is pointed out multiple times, usually by the princess in disguise he doesn’t recognize).

The volume ends with a cliffhanger, and we’re caught up with Japan. That said, I think the next book comes out there in February, so it shouldn’t be too long a wait. Till then, let’s prepare for the battle and wonder what piece of horribly villainous clothing Ray will get as a reward next time.

Amagi Brilliant Park, Vol. 3

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By Shouji Gatou and Yuka Nakajima. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis.

Half of this was fantastic, the other half I hated. Welcome to another review of Amagi Brilliant Park, a series I’m still very ambiguous about. The third book in the series is made of of short stories, two short and two long. The short stories were all right. The first one was based around the gag that if we ever saw the fairy mascots as humans, they’d all be sexy bishonen, which did not, for once, wear out its welcome so was quite funny. The other short story has Seiya, curious about the magical world, trying to go to it with Moffle. He doesn’t make it (train issues), but does learn more about Moffle’s past and bonds with him a bit. It’s also the only part of the book where you don’t want to punch him in the face. Let’s face it, Seiya is a protagonist who’s very hard to like, and the two “large” stories in this book show us why; he’s an arrogant jerk who barely cares how others think of him.

Let’s start with the story I disliked, because I will admit part of it is me. Stories where there’s bodyswapping and a character has to pretend to be another make me feel deeply uncomfortable, and that’s the entire premise. Seiya has too many absences at school because he’s working on the park, but the park can’t afford for him to actually go to school regularly. Fortunately (?), the fairy team has a solution of what is essentially a lifelike Seiya costume that they can wear. Over the course of four days, Isuzu and the three main mascots go to school pretending to be Seiya, and get involved in a tortured plot involving love letter shenanigans. A lot of it was very predictable, and I sadly did not find it as funny as the author did. Still, as I said, if you DO like bodyswap-like comedy, you should have no issue with it. (It also has Seiya at his absolute worst, especially near the resolution.)

That said, the first story in the book is probably my favorite of the entire series to date. It takes place from the POV of Shiina, one of the three new part-time hires we briefly saw in the last book. She’s introverted, bad at being social, flubs her words when she speaks, and really only comes alive when she sings karaoke to herself in the evenings. Naturally, she’s put with Moffle for her part-time job, which has her dreaming of quitting after about half an hour. But it’s actually great, as while Moffle is a drill sergeant of a teacher he’s not unkind, and Shiina gradually acclimates to life at the park – and in school, as she realizes (well, OK, has to be told) that she’s no longer as shy and wallflowerish there, which stuns everyone. What’s more, the three mascots find her at the karaoke booth and learn her terrible secret: she’s a brilliant singer. But can she get over her introversion (still an issue despite everything) to save the Park? This was terrific. Shiin’a POV is great, there’s minimal Seiya, and the character growth all around made me smile.

That said, I wish it had been later in the book. As it is, the book feels very top-heavy. Still, it’s enough to keep me wanting to read more, if only to see if Seiya ever learns humility. (Joking about his being a tsundere is not quite enough, no.)