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So I’m a Spider, So What?, Vol. 5

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

There are a few series where you simply have to wait a few volumes/episodes for it to get really good. In fact, that’s the cry of the obsessive fan trying to get someone to try things. “By the way, it only REALLY gets good about the 26th episode!” they say, and then cry as they watch the interest in their new friend’s eyes die. But it’s true. Take, for example, the series So I’m a Spider, So What?. The first few volumes, while entertaining, suffered from a very real problem, which is that the spider slowly making her way out of the dungeon, along with the endless leveling up and pages of stats, was not inherently interesting. There were moments of excitement in the fights, and some plot development, but having her totally separate from the rest of the main cast was annoying – especially as it turned out she was separated by time as well. But now the spider is on the surface and interacting with the world. The result? The best book in the series, by far.

As with prior volumes, the books are divided into two segments which alternate. The first deals with our spider, who has run into a fellow reincarnated student, who is a vampire baby. Her parents are human, though, “vampire” is just the role she got when reincarnated. Spider takes an interest in her, and ends up getting embroiled in a fight between two countries that is turning deadly. There’s also a very familiar elf who wants to get that vampire baby… and kill her. Oh yes, and there’s also the demon lord, who is rapidly becoming a bit… different, personality-wise, thanks to one of Spider’s other minds hacking away at her own. Now I know why I thought Ariel was our heroine when I first met her. She has the “narrative voice” in her outward personality. But the spider (who I won’t name just yet, but we do seem to find out her identity here) is actually, when we’re not in her headspace, socially awkward and mostly silent.

Meanwhile, in the future, the demon lord’s army is taking on the elf village. The elves were not exactly nice when we went into the village last time, and here we find they’re possibly worse than the so-called villains – they’re dismissive of humans, physically abusive towards Anna, the half-elf girl, and in general you are not all that troubled by the idea of them getting wiped out in this battle. Which is good, because it’s leaning that way. Sure, the kids’ teacher is the elf leader’s daughter, but there’s only so much she can do, especially as everyone doesn’t trust her. And there’s the revelation that most of the “missing” kids – and indeed, one who was presumed dead – are on the side of the demons. It’s troubling for Shun, who is still a very shiny and noble hero. That said, one of the two or three cliffhangers we get here implies that may be changing soon.

While the “spider” part of the book ends in a very satisfying place, the “hero” part of the book is riddled with “what happens neeeeeeeext?” questions. Sadly, we’ll have to wait till the summer to find out. Till then, though, enjoy a book with excellent plot and character development, less stats than previous books, and some gripping fights. Really loving this now.

Manga the Week of 3/27/19

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SEAN: Another huge week. Lots of Kodansha. Lots of Seven Seas. Lots of Yen. Lots of everything.

Denpa has a 3rd volume of Inside Mari.

Ghost Ship gives us a 5th Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs.

Kodansha’s digital debut is Asahi-sempai’s Favorite (Asahi-senpai no Okiniiri) is a Betsufure title that – try to contain your surprise – has a popular boy teasing an easily flustered girl. Sometimes a bit too much.

There’s also a PILE of ongoing digital. We have Ace of the Diamond 21, Ao-chan Can’t Study! 5, Black Panther and Sweet 16 10, Boarding School Juliet 9, Elegant Yokai Apartment Life 11, Hotaru’s Way 8, I Want to Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die 4, Kakafukaka 5, My Boy in Blue 7, and Tokyo Alice 9. That’s a lot. I follow Ao-chan and Kakafukaka.

MICHELLE: I’m only following Ace of the Diamond currently, but there are several in this list I *want* to read if time ever permits.

ANNA: Honestly, there is too much manga, and I am so far behind, it is tricky to even contemplate reading everything I am mildly interested in.

SEAN: For print, we only have Yuri Is My Job! 2.

ASH: I somehow missed that this was an ongoing series!

SEAN: Seven Seas has a digital-first light novel debut this week. Skeleton Knight in Another World is another in an odd trend of “I’m in a fantasy world as a living skeleton” series, this one an isekai. If you thought “I wonder if it has a gorgeous elf woman”, five more points.

Seven Seas also has Arpeggio of Blue Steel 14, Bloom Into You 6, A Centaur’s Life 16, Dragon Goes House-Hunting 2, Dragon Quest Monsters + 2, Hour of the Zombie 8, My Monster Secret 15, New Game! 5, and Wonderland 2. Lots I like in that pile.

MICHELLE: I need to read Dragon Goes House-Hunting!

ASH: I was legitimately amused by the first volume.

SEAN: Vertical has a 5th volume of CITY.

Yen has a light novel debut with 86–eighty six–, a title so nice they said it twice. It’s a dark little story about an invisible district, suicide bombers, and constant warfare. I’ll give the first volume a try, but it sounds like not my thing at all.

Yen On also gives us Accel World 17, Durarara!! 12, and The Saga of Tanya the Evil 5, which may equal the page count of AW and DRRR!! combined.

Yen Press has a debut manga with Plunderer, a Shonen Ace title from the creator of popular but unlicensed series Heaven’s Lost Property. As such, I expect a lot of fighting and a male lead who’s a pervert. Let’s see if I’m right.

And the Yen Press Players! We get Alice in Murderland 10, As Miss Beelzebub Likes 5, BTOOOM! 24, The Devil Is a Part-Timer! 13 (manga version), Kakegurui – Compulsive Gambler 9, Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl 8, Log Horizon: The West Wind Brigade 11 (a final volume), WataMote 13, One Week Friends 6, Re: Zero Arc 3 Volume 6 (manga version), Taboo Tattoo 13, A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School 6, and Triage X 17.

A stack of stuff! Stoked? Or stunned?

MICHELLE: Yeah, stunned. Very stunned.

Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?, Vol. 2

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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.

Here we are with the second volume of everyone’s favorite parody. Last time, I was very pleased with the over the top humor and the fact that, desp[ite “lol incest subtext” being the premise, the book did not lean overheavily on any actual incest subtext. That’s still the case with the second book, which is not QUITE as funny but still has lots of amusing moments. Now that it’s an ongoing series, the author has to figure out how much it can rely on “this is a parody” and how much it actually has to take its plot seriously. Sometimes it doesn’t succeed – there’s a couple of stock fanservice moments in the middle of the book that are meant to be funny but made me cringe. Fortunately it fares better with its ongoing plot, which is comparing and contrasting Mamako to other moms in this game and realizing that she is, in fact, pretty awesome.

As the cover might have warned you, this second volume gets Mamako into a sailor suit school uniform. Our heroes find their next quest involves taking a week of school at a stock high school with NPC Teacher guy and a class so generic that their faces are literally ASCII art. Technically it’s kids-only. In reality, Mamako is there as an “observer”, and of course can’t resist taking up the spotlight and embarrassing her son. Also there is a pretty newcomer, Medhi, and her own mother (who is named “Medhimama” throughout the book, but I’m assuming that’s shorthand, as opposed to Mamako’s blatant actual name). Medhi is saddled with a classic “Education Mama” to the nth degree, who insists she be number one in everything. And while Medhi seems to be taking this with grace and patience, in reality she’s a seething cauldron of resentment waiting to go off.

Let’s get this out of the way immediately: the middle of the book has Mamako briefly molested by a tentacle monster, though it doesn’t get very far. There’s also a scene where Mamako has to apologize to customers for something (school festival booth), and her bouncing breasts are leered at quite a bit. These two tropes are not particularly part of what Mom Isekai is parodying, and so I am less inclined to give them a pass. They’re bad. Also, and possibly running the risk of taking this series too seriously, the relationship between Medhi and her mother is pretty abusive and toxic, a fact explicitly spelled out. As a result, I was a bit annoyed that Medhimama was possessed by some sort of illegal “dark item” (it came up last time as well, if I recall) that made her much worse. This makes it sound like the abuse was not her fault, which isn’t what the author wanted to say, I suspect. On the brighter side, the relationship between Mamako and her son is much better in this volume. He’s a good kid, and she’s a good, if overly affectionate, mom.

I still enjoyed this volume in general, even with my carps above. Those who like wacky parodies will still enjoy it, those looking for hot hot mom-son love will probably be frustrated. And it definitely needed more of Mrs. Shiraaase, who appeared far less this time around.

Ran the Peerless Beauty, Vol. 1

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By Ammitsu. Released in Japan as “Takane no Ran-san” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Friend. Released in North America digitally by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Nate Derr.

One of the running themes of this blog has been about how a manga can be good even if it is not original. Trying to describe Ran the Peerless Beauty simply by the plot and characters alone might have a reader who’s very familiar with shoujo rolling their eyes and moving on, or at least asking how much it felt like reading a secret, 31st volume of Kimi ni Todoke. (Answer: a whole lot.) It’s true that the premise does not really surprise. But I enjoyed this first volume immensely. The romance was sweet, both leads are nice people who get along with a minimum of teasing. Ran is introverted without being a shrinking violet. Akira is ‘the popular guy’ but lacks the ego that frequently goes with it (I’m looking at you, Hatsu*Haru.) It’s also frequently funny without actually being a comedy. It’s kind of like finding a new burger place. It’s still a burger and fries, but man, it’s tasty. You want to come back.

We are introduced to the titular Ran, who is tall, gorgeous, gets great grades, is good in sports, family is well-off, etc. She’s so maxed out on perfect attributes, in fact, that most guys never even try to approach her. It doesn’t help that she’s fairly stoic and introverted. She’s on the school’s gardening committee, but that’s more to fill out its ranks than anything else. One day, while watering flowers and thinking about other things, she accidentally soaks one of her classmates, Akira. He’s a popular guy in her class, nice, talks to everyone… grades not so great, but hey. He thinks she’s cute. He also has a dark secret. OK, not so dark. His family runs a florist shop, and he’s very good with flowers! Ran discovers this, and the two gradually become closer.

I like these two a lot. Ran is sort of like a less intense Sawako, as she soon comes to appreciate things around her and open up to Akira. Akira is the sort of boy you’d call ‘refreshing’. The rest of the cast hasn’t quite opened up yet (Ran’s best friend is there to be the extrovert to her introvert, but we know little about her except that she had a boyfriend, then broke up with him.) Mostly, though, I enjoyed this so much as I did because of the little stylistic things. The artist has lots of side comments and funny background events that reminded me of the old cluttered Hana to Yume manga. It’s not a comedy per se, but there’s lots of funny bits that come from this, and I like that Ran’s family is a normal goofy shoujo family. Best of all may be the portrayal of the Student Council, who are all, men and women, the complete cliche of the “student council member”, as if they were chosen based entirely on their looks.

So yes, the plot is “cute buy meets cute girl and they cute together”, but that’s fine by me, and I found a great deal to enjoy here. There’s far too many Kodansha series that are digital only for me to keep up with, but this is going to be one I’ll definitely make an effort on.

Bookshelf Briefs 3/19/19

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Behind the Scenes!!, Vol. 6 | By Bisco Hatori | Viz Media – This is coming to a close soon, and you can sort of tell—despite the plot complication showing us that Goda still really wants to direct, there’s just not a lot of special effects work here. Instead, we see the romantic pairings start to resolve, though resolve does not, in this case, mean “start a relationship.” I like this, as it shows how it can be difficult but not impossible to carry on working and being friends with someone after you’ve been rejected. Ruka, though, may have a tougher row to hoe here, and I have a suspicion that her arc is going to be the resolution of the series. Which is in the next volume, hopefully coming out a bit sooner than the year between books five and six. – Sean Gaffney

Dr. STONE, Vol. 4 | By Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi | Viz Media – This is a Shonen Jump series, and I think that fans of Dr. STONE are simply going to have to accept that we are not dealing with science, but with SCIENCE!, shouted like the Thomas Dolby song. In other words, leave your disbelief at the door, it is not welcome here. Meanwhile, we do find out why the girl wears a watermelon on her head—she’s half-blind without glasses, which don’t exist here. Glass is important, as it will allow Senku to help save the girl, but before he can do that, there’s a tournament arc coming up, which everyone enters with lots of “we will fix the bouts” plans which all get torpedoed instantly. This series is pure dumb fun, almost JoJo-esque at times. – Sean Gaffney

Everyone’s Getting Married, Vol. 9 | By Izumi Miyazono | VIZ Media – Despite the fact that Asuka suggested that she and Ryu break up at the end of the previous volume—having seen how he flourished in Washington, DC and not wanting to hold him back—there was really zero chance that the series would end without them tying the knot. Apparently, they had a three-year separation where they were still in love but focusing on work and didn’t talk at all. They meet again at their friends’ wedding and suddenly it’s proposal time! It’s pretty anticlimactic, but there were things about the final volume I did like, like Kamiya assuming Asuka was crying over the breakup only to find her clear-eyed and also that Asuka came to appreciate her challenging job and changed her mind about quitting to be a full-time homemaker. I’d probably read something else by this author. – Michelle Smith

Fate/Zero, Vol. 8 | By Gen Urobuchi, Type-Moon, and Shinjiro | Dark Horse – Given this is the eighth of fourteen total volumes, we are at last starting to cull some of the cast, and thank goodness it involves Caster and his master being taken down, though honestly I could have done without the “Jeanne forgives me for killing all those little kids!” bit. We also get to see how overpowered Gilgamesh really is, as if we didn’t know that already, and find that the Lancer/Sola-Ui team is also getting removed from the equation. We do finally get more Tokiomi, at last, but ugh, he’s a really horrible father, even if you aren’t a Sakura fan. Since I am, I regard him with revulsion, even as I know that Kariya is on the losing end here. Well-written apocalypse manga. – Sean Gaffney

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Complete Four-Panel Comics | By Hiromu Arakawa | VIZ Media – This slim volume collects not only the four-panel comics from the 27-volume Fullmetal Alchemist manga series—about which I’d forgotten everything save for a memory that Alphonse was drawn very cutely—but also those included in DVD releases for the first anime and Brotherhood and “rare strips from Japan.” The contents are organized by source. Some strips are more amusing than others, of course. Jokes about Edward’s height became tiresome, but I did like quite a few of them, particularly one in which a gorilla dude is disappointed that a lion dude doesn’t have toe beans and the one featuring some sheep terrorism. The volume is certainly cute and a must-have for completists, but not earth-shattering. It does make me want to reread the series, though! – Michelle Smith

Golden Kamuy, Vol. 8 | By Satoru Noda | Viz Media – Sometimes Golden Kamuy ditches its dark humor or its politics or its action adventure or even its food. Yes, sometimes it’s pure horror, and that’s what we get for a lot of the first half of this volume, which is stomach-churning. I imagine anyone who would have truly been upset by this long since dropped the title, but Edogai (who premieres at the start of the volume and is dead by the end of it) is a real piece of work, and leads to some of the grossest art in the series. Thankfully, it’s not all taxidermy gone wrong, and there is a bit of food, as well as an exciting and lethal mining adventure. But I must admit, I’m hoping the next volume steps back just a bit from seeing how horrifying it can get. – Sean Gaffney

Haikyu!!, Vol. 31 | By Haruichi Furudate | Viz Media – It’s not going to be easy for Karasuno, who lose the second set here, and need to find a way to regain the momentum. That said, the other team is really good. Here we see how everyone has evolved to use their bad habits for good—Kageyama’s drive to win and succeed no longer is at the expense of everyone else, and Tsukishima’s insults and sneering are almost weaponized, too. The art is also getting more assured, showing off some really nice angles and making you want to go see a volleyball game in real life. But I gotta admit, in the end this is a lot of pages about a volleyball game in progress, which means I enjoyed it but don’t have a heck of a lot to say. – Sean Gaffney

The Quintessential Quintuplets, Vol. 2 | By Negi Haruba | Kodansha Comics – This series runs on—in fact its main reason for being is—pulling a shell game to see which heroine will win. As such, we need to balance out the heroines. Since Miku got so much attention last time, we move to the others. Nino is upset that Futaro can read her like a book. Itsuki bonds with his younger sister at an arcade, and gets the “wow, we look like a family” picture. And Ichika, the short-haired twin, has to deal with an acting audition being at the same time as a festival, meaning she has to break a promise with her sisters. This isn’t all that original, but I like everyone—even Nino, who’s written to be unlikable here. A fun romantic comedy where I’m still not sure who wins. (My money’s on Itsuki.) – Sean Gaffney

Tomo-chan Is a Girl!, Vol. 3 | By Fumita Yanagida | Seven Seas – This may be rising up to become one of my favorite 4-koma manga of all time, as it moves from strength to strength. This despite the revelation that Carol’s mother had her when she was thirteen years old (which is commented on as creepy in the text). We find that, just as Tomo takes after her mother, so do Misuzu and Carol with their respective mothers. As for Tomo and Jun, well, she stays the night at his place, and later on bonds with him while dressed in a nice dress and wig (so he doesn’t know it’s her). They’re adorable and awkward. We also get to see what good friends our main trio are coming, and while I like Jun, and wish I could see more of Kosuke, I’m delighted with that. Excellent title. – Sean Gaffney

In Another World with My Smartphone, Vol. 13

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By Patora Fuyuhara and Eiji Usatsuka. Released in Japan as “Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson.

Smartphone continues to be a series with two very different types of interlocking plots. The first is the “main” plot, showing Touya battling the Phrase, deducing what’s actually going on in this world, and traveling to other worlds and having adventures. The second is Touya basically wandering around, goofing off, and leisurely talking with everyone in his kingdom. The problem is that the author is very good at the second thing but consistently falls down on the first. Oh, the Phrase battle was pretty good, except for one consequence which I’ll get to later. But when Touya comes back to the Reverse World, he promptly runs into a villain. Stop me if this surprises you… the villain is insane to the point of mad laughter, gleefully kills tons of innocents, and is also a bit of a sexual deviant. Touya learns that her personality might be degraded due to the golem she’s contracted with… but then undercuts it by saying “no, I think she’s like that anyway” so as not to upset readers with that fetish. Guh.

Sorry to say that despite the cover we do not get to see Touya and his fiancees racing early 20th century cars around the kingdom here. The majority of the book is supposed to be the Festival that Touya set up last time, and we do get to see the front end. It’s pretty fun, with baseball tournaments, shogi tournaments, lots of shops, lots of food. Touya gets to walk around with a fiancee or two, chat, and just be his usual bland self. It’s refreshing, and it makes it more entertaining when he has to actually try hard NOT to be his bland self. The best joke in the book has him walking with Hilde, one of his more insecure fiancees, and having to reassure her that he loves her by saying it out loud. This gets back to the others… and he now has to say it to all of them, something which causes him to nearly break down in embarrassment. It’s really cute.

Unfortunately, despite setting up for an entire festival (and even bringing God down from Heaven), the Phrase show up somewhere in the smoking remains of not-China and Touya and his mecha army have to go take them out. The plot here is actually interesting. The Phrase seem to be having a civil war, with Phrase that have been infected by the evil God killing the non-infected Phrases in a way that reminds me of the old Dalek civil war in Doctor Who. We also see the return of Gila, the arrogant Phrase construct who looked to be a reoccurring villain… till Touya killed him here, cutting that off pretty rapidly. Touya also has to use God powers to do it, meaning afterwards he falls unconscious… and we miss the entire rest of the festival as a result. This really irritated me, especially as Touya rattled off all the stuff that happened in a couple of paragraphs.

So, cute but also frustrating, bad villains but good fiancees and a bland hero who is at his best (and worst) when he tries not to be bland. In other words, typical Smartphone.

Pick of the Week: Turn Around, Bright Eyes

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SEAN: I have not been able to remotely keep up with Kodansha’s digital-only titles, but I do appreciate them when they give us lots of series that may not have sales that justify a print license. So I’ll make my pick this week Ran the Peerless Beauty, a shoujo series that looks cool and cute. Let’s hope that’s not the slang term for “peerless”, though.

ASH: I’m always happy to see a new volume of Gangsta, but this week the release I’m most excited about is Total Eclipse of the Eternal Heart. I adored Go For It, Nakamura!, so I’m thrilled to see more of the creator’s work in translation.

MICHELLE: I’m definitely going to be checking out both of the titles mentioned already, but I’ll go with the debut of Love in Focus this time. I enjoyed the mangaka’s previous series much more than I expected to. Too bad this one is also quite short!

KATE: Again with Again!! for me. I love the way Mitsurou Kubo resists tidy resolutions for her characters’ dilemmas. Everyone learns lessons in Again!!, but no one has the kind of radical epiphanies that lead to big moments of triumph or change; seven volumes in, it’s still an open question whether the ouendan will survive Imamura and Usami’s tempestuous leadership. Crack pacing and a great cast of supporting characters make this uncertain state of affairs something to savor, rather than something to endure, and crisp artwork helps sell the time-travel angle. I can’t recommend this enough! (Or should that be Enough!!?)

MJ: There are a number of releases that intrigue me this week, including Ran the Peerless Beauty and Love in Focus, but BL horror from Opera wins the day for me. My pick is Total Eclipse of the Eternal Heart.

ANNA: There are so many interesting manga series coming out this week, but it has been such a long time since I’ve seen a new volume of Gangsta. That’s my pick!

5 Centimeters per Second: one more side

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By Makoto Shinkai and Arata Kanoh. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Vertical, Inc. Translated by Kristi Fernandez.

(This review is based on a review copy provided by the publisher)

I hadn’t initially planned to review this, mostly as I’ve never seen the 5 Centimeters per Second movie, and if I read the manga it was so long ago I’ve forgotten it. But I’m familiar with the author from the your name spinoff he wrote, which I enjoyed, and he also has a Voices of a Distant Star novel coming out over here this summer. So I gave it a try, and I’m glad I did. I knew going in from the start that the overall mood of the book would be ‘wistful verging on bleak’, of course. This is Makoto Shinkai we’re talking about, the creator who surprised everyone by NOT giving your name a bittersweet ending. 5 Centimeters per Second tells the story of a boy, Takaki, and a girl, Akari, who meet as kids, fall in love, separate, try to stay in touch, meet one more time in an ultra romantic scene… and then never meet again. This book tells the story from different perspectives.

I’ll be honest here, I liked Akari a lot more than I liked Takaki. This is deliberate, I suspect. It’s one reason why I think my favorite part of the book was the start, showing us Akari’s perspective of life as a shy, introverted child who had to transfer schools. Her emotions are raw, and mention is made of wanting to “disappear” but not actually having the wherewithal to kill herself, which is really bleak given she’s about nine. Transferring schools is a lot more common in Japan than it is in the West, and the lessons given here on how to fit in – and how hard it is – read very true. Takaki is at his best here, helping Akari with some sound advice and an ear to lend, but even at this age we can see how he tends to withdraw from her when things get too close.

The second part of the book is Takaki’s, showing his middle school life after he moves down South to Tanegashima. He meets a nice girl who falls for him hard, and he clearly likes her, but is also deliberately not doing anything. This compares nicely to the third part of the book, which has interlocking POVs, where he meets a nice woman as an adult who falls for him hard and he clearly likes her but is also deliberately not doing anything. Takaki seems trapped in that one moment he had with Akari at the station when they were thirteen (twelve? Around there), and it’s only at the very, very end of the book that he seems to grow past it. Akari, on the other hand, blossoms into a confident, happy young woman, marries a nice guy, and has a wonderful life. Seeing this made the ending less bittersweet than I’d expected. Sure, young love didn’t work out. That happens all the time. But, helped by Takaki’s advice as a child, Akari has become a wonderful young woman.

I’m not sure how this complements the movie, but I’m pretty sure fans of it will want to pick this up. The prose is gorgeous and evocative, worth the price of the book alone. I’ll definitely want to get more of this author’s take on Shinkai’s works.

Skip Beat! vol 42

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Skip Beat! Volume 42 by Yoshiki Nakamura

With such a long running series like Skip Beat! once it has caught up with Japan, the wait between volumes is long enough that I temporarily lose track of of the plot. But within just a few panels, my memory gets triggered and I’m back in the story again. In this case seeing Ren’s reaction to learning that Sho kissed Kyoko made the wait between volumes all worthwhile. It is always amazing how well Nakamura can portray someone attempting to be stoic when they are filled with turbulent emotions.

Skip Beat 42

Kyoko meanwhile has her own battles to fight, and Skip Beat! always excels when she has to fight for a role. She’s in the middle of a rigged contest, trying to get a role alongside her beloved Moko. Kimiko, the niece of the producer, is determined to use any advantage against Kyoko and she plays up an imaginary relationship with Ren just enough that Kyoko becomes totally distracted and forgets to focus when she’s receiving directions for the next stage of her audition. Moko ends up saving Kyoko by altering her body language just enough that Kyoko is able to intuit the rest of the scene, and she ends up turning in an impressive performance.

One of the most entertaining part of this volume was seeing Ren’s manager accompany Kyoko throughout the audition process. His interior thoughts as he observes Kyoko’s reactions and starts building up theories about Ren and Kyoko’s relationship are priceless. As the audition progresses, Kyoko is able to battle through her emotional turmoil and fully inhabit her character. One of the things about Skip Beat! that I enjoy so much towards the start of a story arc is being able to look forward to all the impending drama. Kimiko seems to be engaged in a strategic retreat, I’m guessing that she’ll return to cause even more chaos. Ren and Kyoko haven’t met yet since Sho kissed her, so I’m looking forward to that scene, I’m guessing in two more volumes or so? Skip Beat! always manages to draw the reader in, and even though the big confrontations and resulting emotional growth for the characters doesn’t happen right away the series always delivers.

Captain Harlock: The Classic Collection, Vol. 3

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By Leiji Matsumoto. Released in Japan as “Uchuu Kaizoku Captain Harlock” by Akita Shoten, serialized in the magazine Play Comic. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Zack Davisson. Adapted by Snati Whitesides.

In many respects this is Daiba’s story more than Harlock’s, and we’ve been following his journey and not really going back to show how Harlock got started, got the crew together, etc. That said, just because we started with Daiba doesn’t mean we get a satisfying ending for him – or anyone. A lot of Matsumoto series, I’ve found, tend to best be described as “a cutout of a larger, more epic tale”, even when they’re being epic tales themselves. And so this volume wraps up with not much having changed, except that we’ve possibly found the Mazon are more similar to humanity than anyone expected – except, of course, the reader. The Arcadia, with its main cast all intact, set sail to further adventures and battles, which we, as a reader will not see, because Matsumoto wrapped up the manga at this point, probably so he could concentrate more on Galaxy Express 999.

A lot of the back half of this volume is concerned with the life and death of Tochiro, who frequently appears posthumously in the Harlockverse (he was in Queen Emeraldas as well) but rarely shows up in the flesh. His death looms over everyone, and is handled with such reverence and dignity that when a rogue Mazon tries to attack Arcadia while they’re at his gravesite, the Queen literally throws her off the ship, where she falls to her death, because let’s face it, these are pirate ships more than spaceships. It’s a bit ridiculous, but fits with the overall mood of the book, which is brooding, somber, and oh so serious. Aside from the occasional stab at humor, such as everyone’s collections falling over in a battle, or Kei getting fall down drunk at one point, the laughs of the last two books are mostly gone. (There is a short Harlock/Emeraldas story added after the main events here, which is meant to show them as almost Rule 63 versions of each other. I didn’t enjoy it much, but it DOES have humor.)

As for Daiba, well, he’s trying hard to grow and learn everything as fast as possible, and that’s not going very well, though he is rather clever. Harlock seems to be grooming him as a sort of heir at times. He also helps to discover the Mazon’s involvement with the Ancient Pyramids, as the Wagnerian myth takes a slight detour and also shows off the Mazon as sort of dandelion spores that will gradually infect everything in the galaxy. Not the world’s most original plot, but that’s fine, as you’re reading a story about space pirates, so originality is not why you’re here. The dialogue continues to be ripe, even with the seriousness, and I think it may actually work even better if you read it aloud in a stentorian voice, sort of like William Daniels as Captain Harlock.

The modern-day reboot of the series, Dimensional Voyage, is still going strong, and adding a bit more depth and characterization that isn’t in this original. But if you want the definitive mood for Harlock, it’s hard to beat this three-volume set, which is dramatic and stentorian to the last. A classic slice of manga history.