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Manga the Week of 4/25/18

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SEAN: A lot. A whole lot.

Kodansha has some print manga delights. We get a 6th Aho-Girl, a 2nd Battle Angel Alita: Mars Chronicle, and a 4th To Your Eternity.

ASH: I’ll definitely be picking up To Your Eternity. The series is certainly heartwrenching at time, but it’s very well done.

ANNA: Bought but haven’t read the first volume of this so I am already hopelessly behind.

SEAN: There’s also a box set collecting manga Vols. 1-4 of Attack on Titan, or Season One as they’re calling it.

On the digital front, the debut this week is Defying Kurosaki-kun (Kurosaki-kun no Iinari ni Nante Naranai), a Betsufure shoujo title about (sigh) a plain girl at a high school who ends up in a love triangle between a princely guy and a super sadist type. I may try it, but it sounds not my bag.

MICHELLE: Yeah. Not really into super sadists, personally.

MJ: Ugh. Lots of ugh.

SEAN: There’s also a 5th Beauty Bunny, a 7th Kokkoku: Moment by Moment, a 4th My Brother the Shut-In, a 5th PTSD Radio, and a 6th Until Your Bones Rot.

MICHELLE: I think Beauty Bunny also involves a jerk who called the lead girl ugly before “transforming” her via makeup. No, thanks.

MJ: MORE UGH.

SEAN: Seven Seas debuts the 2nd Perfect Blue novel, Awaken from a Dream.

ASH: I’m glad to see this being released! It’s a collection of stories that take place in the same setting as the original Perfect Blue.

SEAN: They’ve also got a 4th volume of Captain Harlock: Dimensional Voyage, a 3rd Hatsune Miku’s Everyday Vocaloid Paradise, a 2nd Made in Abyss, a 7th Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, and we have somehow reached double digits for Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn.

ASH: I’ve been enjoying Dimensional Voyage. I’m looking forward to the release of the original Captain Harlock, too.

SEAN: Vertical gives us the 2nd volume in Nisioisin’s Zaregoto novels, Strangulation: Kubishime Romanticist. This was released by Del Rey about 10 years ago, so is nice to have. Will they continue the series? I suspect sales will determine that.

Vertical also has an 11th Witchcraft Works.

Viz gives us a 5th volume (digital only) of élDLIVE, whose formatting always makes me cry.

And Yen. SO MUCH YEN. Let’s start with the ongoing light novels. There’s a 6th Asterisk War, which has finished its (first?) tournament arc. Baccano! has a 7th volume, the 2nd of a two-parter. The Devil Is a Part-Timer! is at Vol. 10, and there’s a 5th KonoSuba. Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers remains one of the few print-only Yen On titles with Vol. 4, Sword Art Online hits lucky 13, and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is at Vol. 2.

There are two debuts, and we’ll begin with the less silly one. I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level. Yes, I promise, that is the less silly one. Notable for a female protagonist, but it is an isekai with an overpowered hero(ine). That said, I hear the mood is meant to be “relaxed”.

And we also have the apex of silly light novels coming out, at least until the hot spring one gets licensed. Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon is exactly what it sounds, and I hope it will succeed on pure moxie, because come on. Really? REALLY?

MICHELLE: Hahaha. I would like to see the adventures of a wandering vending machine depicted in manga form.

ASH: Sometimes a premise is just so ridiculous I can’t help but take a look despite genre fatigue.

MJ: I feel like I have to check this out just to witness it for myself.

SEAN: Yen also has a giant pile of manga, which I will divide into three. First, ongoing manga titles not based on light novels. Akame Ga KILL! 14, Aoharu x Machinegun 10, Gabriel Dropout 3, Kiniro Mosaic 6, Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun 9, Murcielago 6, Of the Red, the Light and the Ayakashi 10 (this is its final volume), a 4th Sekirei omnibus, the second Silver Spoon (Manga Bookshelf folks breathe a sigh of relief that they at least get something to pick this week), Taboo Tattoo 10, Today’s Cerberus 8, Val x Love 2, and the 8th Yowamushi Pedal omnibus.

MICHELLE: Hooray for Nozaki-kun, Silver Spoon, and Yowamushi Pedal! I’ll also be picking up the final Of the Red… volume, but although I kept up with this series, I never really fell in love with it.

ASH: Ditto what Michelle said! And if I’m honest, I’ll probably be picking up Murcielago, too.

MJ: Silver Spoon! Silver Spoon! Silver Spoon!

SEAN: There are also new manga titles. We have As Miss Beelzebub Likes (Beelzebub-jou no Oki ni Mesu mama), a 4-koma where the demon lord is not quite as expected. It’s a Shonen Gangan title.

We also see the debut of Napping Princess, a manga adaptation (it ran in Newtype) of the novel that’s based on the anime. It’s this year’s The Boy and the Beast, I think? And I would wager is about a princess. Napping may also be involved.

There are also a lot of manga based on light novels. We see A Certain Magical Index 13, The Honor Student at Magic High School 8, Hybrid x Heart Magias Academy Ataraxia 3, Magical Girl Raising Project 2, My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong As I Expected 8, Overlord 6, and the 3rd volume of Re: Zero’s 3rd arc.

Not as much banter this time as there were simply too many titles to discuss. Are you getting any of them?

Moteki: Love Strikes!, Vol. 1

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By Mitsurou Kubo. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Evening. Released in North America by Vertical Comics. Translated by Ko Ransom.

Several years ago, when I was in New York City on a trip, I used to go to the Japanese bookstore to pick up random manga magazines and see what sort of things they had in them that would never be licensed over here. One of the more interesting ones was Evening, a magazine put out twice a month by Kodansha, meant as a complement to the mainstream Weekly Morning and the otaku-oriented Afternoon. Evening wasn’t as experimental as some magazines, but it tended towards manga for adults, with adult problems and solutions that didn’t necessarily come easily. Moteki is one of those titles, and I had bought it in Japanese back then thinking it would never be put out over here – it wasn’t the sort of thing publishers would look at. But then Yuri on Ice became THE PHENOMENON, and here we are. And I’m pleased, because Moteki is quite a good story, even if it can be extremely uncomfortable at times.

Yukiyo is our hero, though I use the term loosely. He’s almost thirty and seems to be coasting his life away – content to work temp jobs that are easy to get and easy to quit, living in bachelor-land, and having no luck with women, or so he thinks. Then all of a sudden his co-worker seems to be coming on to him; his old classmate is back in his life and going on trips with him; the girl he crushed on is back in his life as well; heck, even the high school delinquent girl is back and screaming at him that he’s a moron. It’s his moteki, which is to say that period in your life where guys suddenly tend to get very popular. There’s just one problem – Yukiyo is a passive wimp who keeps waffling about what kind of signs he’s getting from the women, and thus doesn’t really accomplish much of anything.

There is a certain self-awareness to this manga, both in the comedy extras – the author hooking Yukiyo up right away, and being reminded that this manga is supposed to be read by fellow losers – and in the main text, with everyone happy to point out to Yukiyo just what he is or isn’t doing. I think this is a very good thing, as it saves the manga from being a bit too didactic. Yukiyo can be very hard to take, and thus we appreciate it when the characters say this for us over and over. He does seem to be improving by the end of the volume, but… is he really? The girls also get some focus on their own where we can hear their own frustrations and insecurities – Itsuka is my favorite, and also probably the closest mirror to Yukiyo, but none of them are purely there as props.

Moteki is a relatively short series, and the second omnibus will wrap things up. I’m not sure if it will resolve a romance – this sort of title is the kind that tends to go for “I don’t need to resolve the relationships as long as I show personal growth” – but given how much personal growth is needed, I’m fine with that. If you don’t mind excruciating passive guys getting called out on their shit a lot, Moteki is an excellent examination of adult love lives.

Infinite Stratos, Vol. 1

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By Izuru Yumizuru and CHOCO. Released in Japan by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Holm Hinners.

I knew this one was going to be difficult, and kept repeating to myself as I read it, “Remember this came out in 2009, before all those other ones.” But it’s hard. I never saw the Infinite Stratos anime (I know, you’re shocked), which itself is almost five years old at this point. And we’ve had endless works of a similar type or variety since then, intentional or not. Guy arrives at a school, lots of girls, his relative is a higher-up, gotta pilot a giant mech… I should go re-read my review of Hybrid x Heart to see if I’m repeating myself from there. I have no doubt this series was a big influence on them. Which is fine, and I tried, but man, this feels really tired. There are too many tsunderes, the lead’s obliviousness had better be faked or else I’m going to have to rip his arms off, and the occasional interesting plot moment gets derailed at every point for harem antics.

So: in the near future, powered suits have been invented that revolutionize the world. However, only women can pilot them. As a result, men are somewhat second-class citizens now. But guess who is, for some unknown reason, the only man who can pilot an IS? That’s right, our hero Ichika, who is now going to be attending the all-female high school where he can learn how to be a fearsome mech pilot. The mechs, judging by the illustrations, are more Bubblegum Crisis-style suits than Gundams, and the documentation on them is thick and difficult to memorize, particularly if you are a dense male lead. Fortunately, Ichika will have help from his childhood friend Houki (grumpy tsundere), the British Cecilia (haughty tsundere), and his OTHER childhood friend Lingyin, aka “Rin” (standard garden-variety tsundere). Oh, and his older sister, who hits him in the head a lot, but means well. We think.

There are a few things this does well that I can appreciate. Ichika may be the only man in the world that can pilot an IS, but that doesn’t make him immediately the best pilot in the school, though a lot of that is implied to be simple ignorance of how the suits actually work. It is also refreshing, though perhaps unappreciated by me, that the book doubles down on the harem antics so quickly. Most of the stories of this sort that I’ve seen before try to balance out the plot and the harem equally, but IS doesn’t really seem that into its plot, which is a shame as it’s implied that enemies were trying to either kill or kidnap Ichika towards the end – likely related to why he’s the only man who can pilot an IS. And, it has to be said, in 2009 harems and tsunderes were HUGE. Not so much in 2018. I can easily see why this got an anime.

We’ve only had about 12 volumes of this since it began, mostly due to the author’s poor health (which he discusses in the afterword), so it’s not as big as it could be. I will say this: most of the series that have derivative plots that we’ve seen over here before are manga-only, so if you wanted to read actual harem prose, you’ve come to the right place. I’d recommend this book to those who like the anime as well.

Pick of the Week: Again!! Again

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MICHELLE: I am, of course, looking forward to DAYS 8 and Giant Killing 12, as well as the second volume of Again!!, but I’ve been anticipating Wotakoi for a long time, so it’s gotta be that.

SEAN: I really should be picking Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, but I’ve had experience with thinking I’ll love Asano titles and then finding them too dark. So instead I too will go with Wotakoi, which looks like a lot of fun.

KATE: Oof… there’s too much good stuff to pick just one title this week. If I had to limit myself to one, however, my vote would be for volume two of Again!!, a fresh take on the time-travel-to-high-school genre. It’s funny, rueful, and sometimes cringe-inducing — just like high school, only with better jokes.

ASH: I’m thrilled by pretty much everything that’s been mentioned so far. For ongoing series Again!! and Spirit Circle are probably the top of my list this week. As for debuts, I look forward to giving Wotakoi a try, but I’ll make Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction my official pick since no one else has yet. (I will never be able to say or type the title without looking at it though, and maybe not even then…)

ANNA: I liked the first volume of Again!! so much, I’m happy the second volume is coming out so soon after I finished the first one! That’s my pick!

Bookshelf Briefs 4/16/18

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Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor, Vol. 2 | By Hitsuji Tarou, Tsunemi Aosa and Kurone Mishima | Seven Seas – Perhaps I was just in a bad mood the first two volumes, but it seems to me that this third volume of Akashic Records is much stronger than the previous ones. It’s essentially a tournament arc, and features a lot of the standard cliches that you would expect. But I’ve gotten used to the proclivities of the characters by now, and the narrative does something very good in regards to Rumia and her hidden past, showing how she clearly wants to make things better but also can’t get over exactly what was done to her. Unfortunately, she’s also accused of treason. Which kinda sucks. This has gotten good enough that I want to read more, which is impressive given its bad start. – Sean Gaffney

Baccano!, Vol. 2 | By Ryohgo Narita, Shinta Fujimoto and Katsumi Enami | Seven Seas – After a first volume that functioned as a prologue to the series, this second book begins the actual adaptation of the first novel, which means we get a whole lot of Isaac and Miria being hilarious. That said, I’d still argue that this series is meant more for the hardcore fan than a newbie wondering what the fuss is all about—several references thoughout the volume only make sense if you know what’s going to be happening down the road. But in the end, as I said when I reviewed the first novel, I think the series at this point is about Ennis, and how she grows beyond what she was created to be. The scenes with Ennis are my favorite in the book, and I can’t wait for the last volume. – Sean Gaffney

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Vol. 3 | By CLAMP | Kodansha Comics – It feels like I spent the entirety of this volume just waiting for something to happen, already. True, Sakura collects a few new cards, but they both appear and are dealt with swiftly. She has a date with Syaoran, but we only see a couple of pages of it. Most of the volume is just mundane school stuff, particularly involving the new transfer student Akiho. For example, Akiho decides to join the choral ensemble and she and Sakura discover they both despise konnyaku. Be still my heart. It does seem like something is probably going on with Akiho—she has a plushie pal that reminds me of Kero-chan—but I guess I would’ve liked just a little more hinting that all is not as inconsequential as it seems. Oh well. I suppose I’ll keep reading for a while longer, at least. – Michelle Smith

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Vol. 3 | By CLAMP | Kodansha Comics – We’ve introduced a new cast member, Akiho, who fits in quite nicely with the rest of the group, i.e. she’s sweet and charming and rather well-off, to the point where she has a butler, though he functions more like a guardian. I’m not sure what the relationship between those two is—you’d think after writing Rika out of the series they’d have clued in to the idea that January/December romance is bad, but I can’t quite trust it. I’m also not sure if she’s going to end up being a villain, though I highly doubt it. Other than that, this is cute and fluffy, and also exactly what the old series used to be—I sometimes wonder if it’s actually the exact same chapters with new dialogue. For hardcore fans only – Sean Gaffney

Dreamin’ Sun, Vol. 6 | By Ichigo Takano | Seven Seas – Zen makes his triumphant return in this volume, as the relationship between Shimana and Fujiwara can’t even last an entire chapter before crashing and burning. It’s not quite a train wreck, but you definitely get the sense the author was barreling towards a six-volume series and then was told to stretch it out a bit. And so there’s tears, and self-hatred, and Zen being honest and helpful and getting emotionally stomped on, which is his role in this series. I’m going to be honest, the main issue I have with this series remains the main pairing, who I still think do each other more harm than good. But in the end, I can only go where the author takes me, and I’m entertained enough to soldier on. – Sean Gaffney

Dreams of the Days | By Kyungha Yi | Netcomics – Having previously read Yi’s earlier and very aptly named series Intense, I was glad to discover that her newest boys’ love manhwa was also recently released in English. Dreams of the Days follows three young men about to graduate from high school who are having recurring dreams. Though they don’t share the intimate details with one another, Howon describes his as horror, Jihyung freely admits his is erotic, while Changwoo says his is a crime mystery. The reality is that all three dreams cause them to reexamine their sexuality. Jihyung’s reaction is the most refreshing (and amusing)–he’s an incredibly straightforward individual with no qualms about liking a guy. On the other hand, Howon struggles to accept that he could be gay largely due to societal pressures. As the most reserved of the three, Changwoo’s character arc is even more bittersweet. – Ash Brown

The Faraway Paladin, Vol. 4 | By Kanata Yanagino | J-Novel Club – As we get more and more light novel series, I am likely going to have to skip full reviews for some of them. Unlike Demon King Daimaou, though, that doesn’t mean I think anything less of Faraway Paladin, which remains one of the purest of the fantasy light novels out there. This one is a collection of three longish short stories, featuring an unlikely but cute marriage (no, it’s not William, who it’s made clear here only has eyes for his Goddess); a trip to a wizard castle to help Bee research a song (I love Bee); and a fight against an old and stubborn giant who really just wants to have friends again. The series is earnest as hell, which is actually its main selling point—if you’re tired of snarky light novel heroes, try this out. – Sean Gaffney

Haikyu!!, Vol. 22 | By Haruichi Furudate | VIZ Media – The boys from Karasuno are almost entirely absent this volume so that the story can focus on the Tokyo qualifiers, where Nekoma is striving for a spot at the Spring Tournament. They’ve reached the top four and, after being squashed by Fukurodani in straight sets, must compete for the “venue sponsor” slot against Nohebi, a team who uses taunts to goad Nekoma’s hotheads yet acts obsequiously polite to referees in order to earn their favor. It’s all appropriately slimy (“hebi” means snake, after all) and it gets even worse when Nekoma loses their excellent libero to an injury. I did appreciate the brief appearance of some Karasuno characters as Nishinoya explains just how fabulous Nekoma’s libero is, but otherwise, while this was decent enough, it’s just not the same without characters one cares about. – Michelle Smith

Love at Fourteen, Vol. 7 | By Fuka Mizutani | Yen Press – The kids are fifteen rather than fourteen, so it’s time to start thinking about high school, and the fact that you can’t just make a school choice based on what your boyfriend is doing. Or maybe you can, as the moral here actually turns out to be “talk to your partner about future plans and don’t just assume.” There is also a dream Kanata has of being a flight attendant, which is so “WTF?” given her intelligence that Yen had to include a footnote explaining how glamorous Japan finds the position, and how it’s meant to be “jetsetting.” And yes, Nagai and Hinohara and their rather tortured not-quite romance, which alters between heartwarming and disquieting. I enjoy Love at Fourteen even though it makes a lot of choices I wouldn’t. – Sean Gaffney

Waiting for Spring, Vol. 5 | By Anashin | Kodansha Comics – Given that this is a shoujo series that is not making any brave choices, it’s astonishing how much I’m still enjoying it. But, as I’ve said before, sometimes a reader wants “the exact same thing I’ve read before only with different people,” and Waiting for Spring gives us that. The cute but low-confidence female lead, the brooding male lead, the smooth-operator rival, the friends who also subdivide so nicely that I thought I was reading Kiss Him, Not Me for a moment. There’s nothing here that makes you have to read this, but there’s lots of things that make you want to read it—everyone’s likeable, the situations aren’t too forced, and you’re content to see it take its time. What more can one ask? – Sean Gaffney

Short Takes: Delicious in Dungeon and Golden Kamuy

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Today’s reviews come to you courtesy of Patriot’s Day, my second favorite Massachusetts-only holiday. (The first is Evacuation Day, a thinly-disguised attempt to give Boston’s civil servants permission to skip work on St. Paddy’s.) For your consideration are volume four of D&D cooking extravaganza Delicious in Dungeon, and volumes three and four of everyone’s favorite backwoods culinary adventure Golden Kamuy. Looking back on food manga’s early history in the US, who could have predicted that readers would be feasting on such a wide array of titles in 2018, from Sweetness and Lightning and What Did You Eat Yesterday? to Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale, Food Wars!! Shokugeki no Soma, and Toriko. Maybe the North American market is finally ready for an Iron Wok Jan renaissance…

Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 4
Story and Art by Ryoko Kui
Translated by Taylor Engel
Yen Press, 192 pp.
Rated T, for Teens (13+)

If the first volume of Delicious in Dungeon was about assembling a posse, and the second and third about turning monsters into meals, then the fourth is about friendship — specifically, the strong emotional bond between Laois, Marcille, and Falin — and revenge, as the gang finally comes face-to-face with the Red Dragon. The showdown takes place inside a walled city whose narrow, maze-like streets give them a strategic advantage over their Godzilla-sized foe. And as exciting as the fight is, the real payoff is what follows, as Laois and Marcille discover that bringing Falin back from the dead isn’t a simple proposition. It’s in these moments that Ryoko Kui proves a more deft storyteller than we initially realized, effortlessly shifting gears from comedy to drama without mawkishness or cheap jokes. Instead, we’re allowed to contemplate the real horror of being eaten alive — as Falin was — and the real possibility of a character dying for good.

If I’ve made volume four sound like a bummer, rest assured it isn’t. Seshi gets his turn in the spotlight with a weaponized assortment of kitchen tools, while the rest of the gang endures its share of fumbles and miscommunications on the way to catching their dragon adversary. Though I suspect the next volume of Delicious in Dungeon will revert to a monster-of-the-week formula, that’s OK; Kui has firmly established her dramatic and culinary bonafides in volume four, leaving the door open for more character development in the future. Recommended.

Golden Kamuy, Vols. 3-4
Story and Art by Satoru Noda
Translated by Eiji Yasuda
VIZ Media
Rated M, for Mature (18+)

Midway through volume four of Golden Kamuy, Asirpa builds a fox trap in the woods. “Do foxes taste good?” Sugimoto inquires. “No, not really,” Asirpa replies. “Tanuki have more fat in them and taste a lot better.” With a twinkle in her eye, she then asks, “But Sugimoto, don’t you want to try eating a fox?” A mildly exasperated Sugimoto replies, “You know, I’m not out here to try all the delicacies in Hokkaido.”

There are two ways to read this exchange: as a tacit admission that the cooking elements of Golden Kamuy sometimes occupy more real estate than the battles, or a tacit admission that the series is more compelling as a study of Ainu culture than a bloody frontier adventure. I vote for the second interpretation, as the series’ frequent detours into the food, medicine, and mythology of the Ainu are fascinating, offering a window into a culture that has been largely hidden from Western view. Golden Kamuy is on weaker footing, however, when focusing on its secondary characters and subplots. None of the other gold-seekers are fleshed out as carefully as Asirpa and Sugimoto, despite Satoru Noda’s efforts to give each villain a unique motivation for wanting the treasure. The newest baddie — Kazuo Hemni — exemplifies this problem to a tee: though he’s been given a particularly grisly backstory to explain his murderous proclivities, he’s such a textbook sociopath that he barely rises above the preternaturally-calm-and-savage type.

The art, too, sometimes has a perfunctory quality; in several scenes, Noda’s use of a Photoshopped background doesn’t mesh well with the hand-drawn elements, resulting in an awkward collage. Noda’s use of perspective can also be a distraction. He has difficulty drawing bodies to scale, especially when he’s depicting Asirpa and her family, some of whom look more like Smurfs than people in their head-to-body ratio.

Still, the camaraderie between Asirpa and Sugimoto, and the well-staged action scenes more than compensate for the occasional roughness of the execution or flatness of the characterizations. Golden Kamuy continues to entertain, horrify, and educate in equal measure — something I can’t say for any other manly-man manga that’s currently being published in English. Recommended.

Arifureta Zero, Vol. 1

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By Ryo Shirakome and Takaya-ki. Released in Japan as “Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou Rei” by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen.

If a spinoff of Arifureta was going to be done, the Liberators were the only obvious choice. And, despite the novel starting out trying to make us think that Oscar was going to be the main character (which he is to an extent), this is all Miledi’s plan and all Miledi’s book. As such, enjoyment of this book will depend on how much you enjoyed Miledi in the second novel. She’s deliberately written to be annoying, and even though we get a tragic backstory here to explain why she does that it can still make you want to grit your teeth at times. That said, her drive to try to change the world and go up against the gods is laudatory, and her recruitment of Oscar (and later on Naiz) also allows plenty of scenes of her getting physically and emotionally abused for comedy purposes. (She reminded me of Shea a bit, to be honest, without the trolling that Miledi does all the time.)

(The author wonders if we were surprised at Miledi’s appearance, but honestly, this is pretty much exactly how I imagined her.)

As I said, Oscar is the focus at the start of the book, a synergist (much like our hero in the main series) trying to keep a low profile to avoid the Church. Said low profile falls to bits once Miledi arrives and starts harassing him, but honestly the church is so evil anyway that it was somewhat inevitable that it wouldn’t last. We also get a pile of adorable plucky orphan children, and once Oscar and Mikedi team up to find Naiz we get two more plucky adorable children, all of whom are put in deadly danger by events of the plot. And do you want tragic backstories? You’ll love Miledi’s, whose childhood was pretty crappy and then got much, much worse. There are also several very cool fights, as you’d come to expect from Arifureta, involving clever manipulation of gravity, creating impossibly hard shields via a cool umbrella (apparently a reference to Kingsman, though I kept thinking of Ryouga Hibiki), and teleportation badassery. And, as I said before, Miledi being really, really annoying.

This actually came out a mere 4 months after the Japanese release, so I would not hold your breath for the second volume right away. That said, I can’t imagine fans of Arifureta not enjoying this, even though the regular cast are nowhere to be seen. You get a good sense of the three leads and why they made the dungeons that they did. It also reminded me that Miledi’s spirit is technically still around in the main series, and I wonder if she’ll do anything else. (I also wonder if she and Oscar will ever hook up. Probably not, I suspect.) Basically, this is exactly the sort of thing you’d like a spinoff to be, and I will definitely enjoy more of it whenever it comes out.

Monster Tamer Girls, Vol. 1

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By Mujirushi Shimazaki. Released in Japan as “Kaijuu no Shiiku Iin” by Houbunsha, serialized in the magazine Manga Time Kirara Forward. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Amber Tamosaitis.

When I reviewed New Game!, I went into a bit of detail regarding the classic Kirara work, i.e. “a group of girls doing but really just relaxing and chatting a lot”. It’s a shame, because it would help to pad out the word count of this review, as there’s a lot of that happening here as well. To be fair, Monster Tamer Girls does have the girls taming monsters a hell of a lot more than, say, K-On! has the girls playing concerts. This is a world where monsters are still being analyzed to a degree, and as such, even though it’s treated as a typical high school club, the need for girls like Ion and her friends is absolutely needed. Sadly, Ion is rather shy and tends to still be wary of monsters, which is why we also have Sora, who has no talent for taming but is spunky, outgoing, and really loves monsters. Stop me if you’ve heard of this type of twosome before.

As you might guess by the cover, if you were expecting cute Pokemon-style monsters you’re in for a surprise. The main monster we see here is essentially a dinosaur, and even the short cute one that follows after the girls quickly grows to enormous proportions. Joining our two main heroines are Tsukiko, an overly serious monster tamer with horrible naming sense, and Kotomi, a teen genius in the graduate program whose chief job seems to be providing yuri subtext, although honestly there’s plenty of that to go around. And then there’s Kyouko, who is not only a level above every other monster tamer girl (she’s a monster charmer), but is also the girl who saved Ion from a monster when she was just a kid. Sadly, Kyouko is straining her voice from too much abuse (as a former chorus student, I can attest to how easy it is to do that), and also worries that Ion does not have what it takes to do the job.

As a first volume, this did its job very well, and manages to be a “monster” series without the fanservice that usually goes with that sort of thing, possibly as the girls aren’t the monsters in this case. Sadly, it apparently wasn’t interesting enough for Japanese readers, as the second volume will be the last one. I think it will definitely appeal to those who like relaxing, girls-in-school type manga, and I’d argue its main audience may be the yuri fan. There’s no yuri here, but, y’know, girls hug other girls and say they missed them, so it’s not all that hard to connect the dots. This may actually be a good series to wait till summer and get both volumes as a gift for someone else. And since the fanservice is nonexistent and the yuri is all hypothetical, I wouldn’t object to younger readers looking at it either.

Accel World: Signal Fire at the Water’s Edge

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By Reki Kawahara and Hima. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jocelyne Allen.

A lot of what I’ve seen in Accel World has been the author recognizing, lampshading, and attempting to either fix or downplay the faults that we’ve seen in his previous series, Sword Art Online. The lead here, Haruyuki, is if anything even more powerful than Kirito, but while Kirito does have inner turmoil (something the anime was not that great in bringing out), Haruyuki is all inner turmoil. Kirito spends most of his time in SAO either solo playing or reluctantly partnering up; Haruyuki cherishes working with people and forming friendships. Also, while Kirito may be your typical light novel hero and amass a harem of girls who like him, Haruyuki is short, stout, and has twice the number of girls after him. And what’s more, with the exception of the current Alicization arc, Kirito’s problems tend to be easy to solve, while the Accel World narrative never quite wraps anything up, and things just continue to snowball forward in one broad narrative.

Niko is on the cover, and it has been a while since we’ve seen her, even though the book is filled with reminders that the last several books or so have only happened over a period of a few days. She shows up as some other Brain Burst user, who seemed very similar to Kuroyukihime, was being evil, and thus some of her legion took it upon themselves to challenge Nega Nebulus (which now has a new addition as another old face we’re already familiar with returns to the fold). It’s all a misunderstanding, but reminds us that the Acceleration Research Society is still trying to get their way, which involves parasitizing as many users as possible with ISS kits, including sadly a very familiar face. Niko shows up in order to apologize for the rash actions of her legion and also add some muscle in their fight, along with Pard. And they’ll need the help, as they decide they can’t afford to wait any longer, they have to attack Metatron NOW.

The book, as always, is well written, with lots of funny moments, good fights, and emotional scenes. My favorite scene was probably the most chilling, though, which is where Niko notes how safe they feel around Haruyuki. She’s quite to point out that it’s not that he’s a “nice guy” per se, it’s just all female-type avatar users have a certain fear of being found in the real world, and Haruyuki, who knows a ton of them, doesn’t trigger that fear. He cares about what they think, and listens to what they say. For an author who I have yelled at for going to the “rape as drama” well far too many times, this is a surprisingly nuanced take – and all the more chilling for it, as all these girls are 15 years old or less by definition. It’s something that girls have to deal with every day in our real world, and it’s sad and yet very realistic that even in the future, female gamers still risk getting attacked.

The author lets us know this is going to be another multi-book arc, though honestly, as I noted above, this book feels far more like one long narrative than SAO ever did. I really want to find out what happens next. The 14th book better arrive soon.

Takane & Hana, Vol. 2

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Takane & Hana Volume 2 by Yuki Shiwasu

I enjoyed the first volume of this series, but it is always good to see how a new manga series will settle in after the author has gotten through introducing the characters and plot points in the first five chapters or so. It was interesting to see this odd couple continue to navigate situations that are out of their respective comfort zones. Hana attends an important work social event with Takane, made up to resemble her older sister. Hana then concludes (sensibly) that the age difference between them is too great and attempts to push Takane away, but that doesn’t go well. Hana then takes Takane out to cherry blossom viewing where he has to deal with being around throngs of people. One of the nice things about this series is seeing how this couple tends to push each other to experience new things, and then be very supportive of each other. One of Takane’s playboy friends shows up and awakens all of his protective instincts towards Hana. Shiwasu makes a comment in this volume about how much she enjoys drawing funny facial expressions and it really shows in the artwork for this series. I feel like even if there was very little character development or dialogue I would almost buy this series just to see Takane’s perplexed and incredulous facial expressions as he attempts to deal with Hana shoving a sea cucumber into his mouth. At two volumes in, Takane & Hana is still a fun, breezy read, and a welcome dose of shoujo comedy.


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