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Unmagical Girl, Vol. 1

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By Ryouichi Yokoyama and Manmaru Uetsuki. Released in Japan as “”Hihou” Mahou Shoujo no Sonogo no Nichijou” by Ichijinsha, serialized in the magazine PoniMaga (Pony Canyon). Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Beni Axia Conrad. Adapted by Gretchen Schrafft.

Expectations can be tricky. It’s almost impossible to go into reading something without an idea of what you’ll think of it. When I first saw that Seven Seas had licensed Unmagical Girl, my first thought was to dismiss it as another one of the endless series of “let’s kill of magical girls in a grimdark way” series that the companies have been licensing in an effort to have the next Madoka Magica. I was therefore pleased to see that that isn’t the case for this title. This is the sotry of what happens when a magical girl ends up in the real world, and the fallout from such. The cover depicts the titular magical girl walking through a shopping district, looking pensive. I was thus expecting some sweet yet melancholic soul searching. Wrong again. Now I’ve actually read the title, and it’s clear that we’re going after broad comedy. If you liked Aho Girl, you’ll like this.

Our heroine – or, more accurately, our straight man – is Mayuri, a plain glasses-wearing girl who “doesn’t have any friends” in the best protagonist of a manga tradition. Her father used to direct anime that was known for being “niche”, which is to say not very popular. He did have a title called “Pretty Angel Nirvana” which is now very popular… about five spinoffs later, and now no one really remembers or cares about the original. Oh, and he’s dead. Her mother sends Mayuri an old computer with some of his stuff on it, though, and after accidentally crying tears on the computer while wishing for a friend, Mayuri is startled to find the computer exploding, and out stepping NirBrave, the ditzy yet powerful heroine from the original series. She’s now in the real world, which poses endless problems, as she reacts to problems in a magical girl way, eats like a magical girl heroine (i.e. a ton), and is, in general, somewhat obnoxious.

How much you enjoy this very much depends on your love of loud, brash comedy. I compared it to Aho Girl earlier, and it’s pretty accurate – I had a lot of fun reading the manga, but it quickly began to pall as I realized that it seemed to be hitting a lot of the same notes. There are some amusing things here – NirBrave’s horror at reading a porn doujinshi of her series made me chuckle, and the landlady is an excellent caricature of the type of landlady you see in a lot of series like these, who has the ability to get money out of a stone. Later in the series we also get some more magical girls and magical villains, as apparently NirBrave’s arrival in the real world started a trend, and we see NirBrave facing off against her fellow magical girl NirWind. Unfortunately, its occasional attempts at depth and pathos fall pretty flat. It’s not for kids – there are a few blatant panty shots here and there, and a nude transformation sequence that seems to inflate NirBrave’s bust by a factor of three – and it’s not really for magical girl fans either. If you like broad, slap-on-the-black style humor, though, you may have fun with Unmagical Girl.

Drifting Dragons, Vols. 1-2

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The nineteenth century whaler was a tough character. He’d board a ship in Nantucket or New Bedford, sail around the tip of South America and then into the Pacific hunting grounds in quest of sperm whales. Every aspect of his job was dangerous and unpleasant; as author Eric Jay Dolin notes in Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America, crewmen endured “backbreaking work, tempestuous seas, floggings, pirates, putrid food, and unimaginable cold” during their long stints at sea. At the end of a two- or three-year tour, a whaler might still be in debt from all the equipment he’d purchased at the outset of his journey, especially if the ship’s yield was low. Yet the gruesome work he performed was vital to the Victorian economy: whales’ bodies yielded the fat, bones, and oils that illuminated homes, corseted ladies, and gave shine and staying power to paint (Dolin 12).

The characters in Taku Kuwabara’s Drifting Dragons are engaged in a similar enterprise: they trawl the skies in a flying ship looking for dragons. The opening pages of the story make the connection between whaling and “draking” explicit, as we join the crew of the Quin Zaza on an aerial Nantucket sleigh ride. We glimpse a dragon through a parting in the clouds: first its back, then its tail, and finally the entire animal, as enormous and majestic as a blue whale. As the wounded dragon begins to tire, a crew member rappels down the tow line to plunge a harpoon into the animal’s back, delivering the final blow:

This image is a perfect introduction to draking, simultaneously conveying the peril and thrill of hunting such a powerful, swift animal at high altitude. Kuwabata’s thin, graceful lines and sparing use of screen tone capture the speed of the wind, the texture of the dragon’s skin, and the delicate feathering on the dragon’s ears, but also the vast emptiness of the sky. These details allow us to imagine for ourselves what it would be like to stand astride the dragon’s back, gazing at a mountain peak that’s poking above the clouds, or looking back at the ship and realizing the impossibility of rescue if something goes wrong.

As exciting as the dragon hunting sequences are, Drifting Dragons is as much an exercise in careful world-building as action-oriented storytelling. Kuwabara devotes page after page to the crew’s routines, capturing the heat, smell, and physical labor of stripping meat from bones and rendering fat. He also renders the physical environment of the Quin Zaza in precise detail, from the main deck and crow’s nest to the sleeping quarters and the hold, where most of the butchering, smoking, and boiling takes place. Last but not least, Kuwabara shows us how each member of the crew contributes to the functioning of the ship, and explains what first drew them to the skies.

Though the crew is drawn in broader strokes than the ship itself, the characters are distinctive enough to register as people with feelings, desires, motivations, and frustrations. Kuwabara is generous with his supporting cast, giving each a scene or subplot that reveals an unexpected facet of their personalities. Kuwabara lavishes the most attention, however, on the Mutt-and-Jeff duo of Mika and Takita: he’s a bold risk-taker with little regard for his own safety, while she’s a cautious newbie, eager to learn the ropes and prove her worth.

In trying to make Mika a more fully rounded character, however, Kuwabara depicts him as a swaggering gourmet, an Anthony Bourdain of the air. Mika is always dreaming up new strategies for preparing dragon meat, regaling his shipmates with lengthy monologues about a new technique he tried or goading the Quin Zaza’s cook into making his favorite dishes. This culinary concept carries over to the end of each chapter, which concludes with detailed recipes for Dragon Tail Meat Sandwich, Dragonet alla Diavola, and Pressed Dragon Liver Confit. These interludes aren’t very funny or appetizing; if anything, they feel more like a naked attempt to jump on the weird-cooking-manga bandwagon than an organic part of the story Kuwabara’s trying to tell.

If Drifting Dragons’ efforts at comedy fall flat, the manga is nonetheless engrossing. Kurabawa clearly knows the history of whaling, and has found a clever way to integrate those details into his fantasy world. At the same time, however, the vividness of the world he’s created has its own integrity; one could read Drifting Dragons in blissful ignorance of Moby Dick or The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex and still be swept up in the activity of the Quin Zaza’s crew and the thrill of flying alongside dragons in the clouds. Highly recommended.

WORKS CITED

Dolin, Eric Jay. Leviathan: The History of American Whaling. W.W. Norton & Co., 2007.

Kuwabata, Taku. Drifting Dragons, vols. 1-2. Translated by Adam Hirsch. Kodansha Advanced Media, LLC, 2018.

Queen’s Quality Vol 2

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Queen’s Quality Volume 2 by Kyousuke Motomi

Kyousuke Motomi shoujo series are entertaining and refreshing for me to read, because while romance certainly is a feature, it often takes a backseat to subversive humor and action oriented plots involving hackers or the demons that lurk inside the souls of humans. This volume of Queen’s Quality continues the exploration into the twisted soul of a teacher who was bullying students, and Fumi and Kyutaro have to combine their abilities yet again in order to root out the bugs that cause a sort of soul malaise to spread to people like an infectious disease.

Motomi’s humor is on full display in a scene where Fumi is going to pick her sacred psychic weapon and instead of summoning a spear of light or magic sword she conjures a long-handled scrub brush. Kyutaro suggests that she try for another weapon but Fumi is delighted with her weapon because it is perfectly balanced and the best possible implement for cleaning toilets. Fumi’s cartoonish enthusiasm as she waves her brush around in the air is one of the few light-hearted moments in this volume, because once the Sweepers head into the brain of Ms Hayashi, things get both scary and surreal.

Kyutaro’s role as a steady emotional support to Fumi becomes even more important as she reveals another aspect to her hidden power as they battle their most challenging bugs yet. The layers of protection that exist in Fumi’s mind that hide her memories as well as her ability to consciously manifest her role as a “Queen” make Queen’s Quality an intriguing character study. The violent psychic landscape that the couple has to navigate contrasts with the more mundane chores of cleaning and making rice porridge back in the real world. Motomi is great at portraying slightly broken characters with great nuance, and it’ll be interesting to see if Fumi and Kyutaro manage to heal each other and achieve some sort of peace by the end of the series.

Kieli: The Dead Sleep in the Wilderness

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By Yukako Kabei and Shunsuke Taue. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Alethea and Athena Nibley.

This is a digital re-release of a novel series that Yen originally published back in 2009, before the light novel boom. Which is good, as this really doesn’t feel like a light novel. Honestly, if it weren’t for the interstitial illustrations, which make Kieli look sort of cute and manga-ish, I wouldn’t even guess the author was Japanese. Instead, it feels like an odd fusion of children’s fantasy and Western, as if C.S. Lewis and Louis L’Amour had decided to collaborate. The main thrust of the story (clearly written as a one-shot, though there are eight other volumes after this) is to show the growth of its title character, a young girl living in a typical repressive pseudo-English boarding school that just happens to be in a post-apocalyptic world run by the Church. Fortunately, she’s got a perky roommate for company. Unfortunately, she also ahs a secret: she can see and interact with ghosts.

And yes, it has a new cover for the Western edition, which is meant to attract casual non-anime fan readers. If I recall correctly, Yen also did this with Spice & Wolf and Haruhi Suzumiya. At first I thought the cover image was a camera – it’s not till we get further into the book that you realize that it’s a radio, possessed by a ghost of an old soldier. The book gets started when Kieli and her roommate Becca meet a seemingly dead young man in the train station right before holidays. This is Herbie… pardon me, Harvey, who is an Undying, a former supersoldier used to end the war that was the cause of the apocalypse mentioned earlier. Like most inhuman yet sentient weapons created to fight a war, the Church has a very different view on him now. The thrust of the book involves Kieli accompanying him on a train journey, supposedly so she can get some history to write an essay for school, but in reality because these two are simply drawn to each other, and also because Kieli draws trouble to her wherever she walks.

The book is well-written and the characters are enjoyable, particularly Kieli, as she’s just the right combination of “intelligent and precocious girl” while still occasionally being a child. The first two-thirds of the book function as interlocking short stories, as we see Kieli and Harvey go to a new place and Kieli run into what she first thinks is a person but turns out to be a ghost – indeed, by the end of the book I was starting to wonder if anyone Kieli was going to run into was actually alive. Even the villain is an Undying like Harvey. It’s not clear how special her power to see ghosts is – Harvey doesn’t seem impressed, but that’s more a function of his personality, and the villain seems to want to torture her more than use her abi8lities. It’s a nice way to be able to show that the series can go on if enough people read it – and indeed, it did continue, with Vols. 2 and 3 due out later this month on Kindle, Nook, etc.

After a December filled with a more modern strand of light novel plots, I enjoyed reading the more subdued and thoughtful Kieli. Recommended for those who like teen fantasy but avoid the traditional Japanese light novel cliches.

Pick of the Week: Scrounging

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MICHELLE: There’s really nothing that I simply must have this week, so I suppose I’ll pick volume two of Lovesick Ellie for no deeper reason than that the cover of volume one kind of reminds me of Honey So Sweet.

SEAN: I’m uninspired as well, so I will go with a favorite author and pick Vol. 2 of Imperfect Girl, which will hopefully continue to be intriguing and disquieting in equal amounts.

KATE: I’m woefully behind on I Am a Hero, so I’m going to take advantage of a light week to dive in and catch up. Zombies ahoy!

ANNA: There isn’t a ton that’s coming out this week that inspires me either, so I’m just going to go with Full-Time Wife Escapist because I picked up a few volumes on sale recently, and that’s going to be my catch-up reading.

ASH: The second volume of Spirit Circle is unquestionably my pick this week! I had largely enjoyed the creator’s other series Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer so I was expecting to enjoy the manga, but I was still surprised by how much I ended up liking it.

Bookshelf Briefs 1/8/18

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Anonymous Noise, Vol. 6 | By Ryoko Fukuyama | Viz Media – Theoretically, a bare minimum of screaming should mean a substandard volume, but I must admit the tortured soap opera plot of Anonymous Noise is growing on me a bit. I mean, there are still a few issues—Momo runs away from his love problems like many other manga love interests (though usually it’s the woman who’s running off), and the attempt to have him get to know his new classmates is awkward and fake—deliberately so, I suspect. And Nino and Yuzu are having a spat, but also have music coursing through them—well, Yuzu does, Nino is trying to learn how to sing in a non-screaming way and not doing well. Meanwhile, the secondary pairings are starting to happen. How much longer does this run if they’re pairing the spares? – Sean Gaffney

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 18 | By Kazue Kato | Viz Media – There is interesting stuff going on here, like the resolution of Shura’s mini-arc (complete with dramatic haircut) and Amaimon coming in as a transfer student and immediately beign a giant jackass. But I’m most impressed with Shiemi’s response to Rin’s confession, which is very honest, has a long look at why this is totally in character for her, and sinks the ship but perhaps not permanently—this isn’t an “I love someone else” rejection so much as a “I have no idea how to love” rejection. Rin also takes it in a very mature way, insisting that they’re still friends and he will help her achieve her goals of becoming an exorcist. As love confessions that don’t work out go, this is absolutely top tier. – Sean Gaffney

Haikyu!!, Vol. 19 | By Haruichi Furudate | Viz Media – Back and forth we go, and for a lot of this volume it’s part two of what we had the previous volume, showing that Tsukishima is growing and learning a whole lot, and what’s more, may actually be (hold on to your hats) ENJOYING volleyball. Now it’s Hinata’s turn, as being short means he has to work even harder and use even more energy, and “try to block properly” is mean, but also accurate. And so our heroes are up against a wall again, but I’m sure someone will have a revelation or use a cool move or… I’m so sorry, I enjoy Haikyu!! a lot, but there’s a limit to what I can talk about in a review. SPORTSBALL! Also, that extra comedy manga at the end reeks of “getting around untranslatable Japanese wordplay.” – Sean Gaffney

Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You, Vol. 28 | By Karuho Shiina | VIZ Media – I have recently learned that this series is complete in 30 volumes and I am not ready for it to be over yet! That said, it definitely feels like things are moving in that direction. This volume covers Christmas and New Year’s (and Sawako’s blizzard-induced sleepover at Kazehaya’s house during which nothing more serious than kissing ensues), after which everyone will have a couple of weeks to study at home before their college admission tests. Sawako and Kazehaya seem poised to weather their upcoming separation just fine, Chizu tells Toru that she’s dating his brother, and Ayane… repeatedly gets flustered in Pin’s presence. Am I assigning too deep a meaning to the panel where he promises quite seriously to “think about it” regarding giving her a gift if she passes her exams? I can’t believe I’m rooting for a student-teacher romance! – Michelle Smith

Natsume’s Book of Friends, Vol. 21 | By Yuki Midorikawa | Viz Media – As the author herself notes in her copious afterword notes, we’ve rarely seen Natsume and Nyanko-sensei at odds, and I’m not sure that the author really pulls it off in this battle to see who earns the sleeping god’s favor and gets sake as a reward. (To be fair, the author admits this as well.) My favorite story in this volume involved Natsume’s friend Kitamoto, one of “those two guys” in his class, and a bookshop with a cute yokai acting as the clerk. Mostly as I like old bookshops. That said, I suspect most fans of this series will be most interested in the final chapter, which flashes back again to the wacky teenage misadventures of Natori, Matoba, and their amazing powers of bishonen. A good solid volume. – Sean Gaffney

The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window, Vol. 4 | By Tomoko Yamashita | SuBLime – We begin with Mikado taking a case to Mukae instead of Hiyakawa because he’s thrown by the latter’s suggestion that they could make money cursing people. Even after Mukae tells him that Hiyakawa has placed a “leash” on him binding them together, he’s still unable to forget how much Hiyakawa has helped him and can’t simply abandon him. In the end, and without Yamashita-sensei actually spelling it out, it seems that Mikado’s plan is to take a more active role in helping people, using the bond between them to pull Hiyakawa along onto a more righteous path. I do dearly love how Yamashita trusts her readers to understand things. This particularly comes into play in the chapter about Mikado’s parents and the poignant nonverbal panel in which Mikado’s father realizes that his son has inherited his abilities. All of this plus some ongoing plot threads make for a standout volume. – Michelle Smith

Species Domain, Vol. 4 | By Shunsuke Noro | Seven Seas – Again, I am impressed by how well the author is sticking to Dowa being a dwarf, which means not only does she have her big bushy beard, but when we get the obligatory beach arc, we see her swimsuit body and she is absolutely ripped, as you would expect from a dwarf. The beach arc itself is mostly a bunch of shenanigans, as the two rival clubs face off against each other in a series of amusing contests. More interesting is the ship tease between Ohki and Kazaori, both at the start (a forced date) and at the end, where Ohki’s “future vision” invention works a bit too well, and gives us a Kazamori who has literally lived the next ten years. And yes, she spoils everyone. A fantastic non-perverse monster series. – Sean Gaffney

The Water Dragon’s Bride, Vol. 4 | By Rei Toma | VIZ Media – In order to interact with and understand Asahi more, the Water Dragon God has taken on the guise of a human. When Asahi requests that he take her and Subaru somewhere fun, they end up attracting notice and, ultimately, Asahi is summoned by the child emperor, who refuses to believe she doesn’t have some kind of special powers, since she’s hanging out with a god. There’s an interesting balance here between slow-burn relationship stuff—Asahi attempts to shield her steadfast protector Subaru from the knowledge that she desperately wants to go home (though he knows already) and the Water Dragon God makes strides toward caring about Asahi’s feelings—and worldbuilding, what with the introduction of the emperor and some rumination on the possible loneliness of gods. I definitely plan to keep reading! – Michelle Smith

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 10

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By Fujino Omori and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka?” by Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Gaippe.

Last time we asked what would change about monster hunting if we knew that not all monsters are evil and mindless. But if there are good and bad monsters, then there are also good and bad people. And the bad people who make up the Ikelos Familia are very bad indeed, so a good deal of this book is reversing any gains made by the last book. In fact, reversing may be a bit of an understatement – by the end of this book, Bell’s reputation is in shreds and everyone is furious with him. (Well, not his own Familia, thank God.) And while Ouranos’ experiment is still living on, it’s hanging by a thread. It’s hard not to sum up this volume of Danmachi as “Everything is terrible. The end.” That said, how we get there is important, and there are some excellent fights, good character moments, and… OK, yeah, no humor this time around. Not even any harem antics.

Much of this book continues to revolve around Wiene’s story, and unfortunately that’s a weak point in the novel, as she is absolutely a damsel in distress throughout it, whether it’s getting captured and sobbing in captivity, or being forced to mindlessly rampage aboveground. The trouble, of course, is that her plight is needed to advance Bell’s character, so she has to suffer as a result. The moral battle between Bell (pure, good, a bit headstrong) and Dix (twisted, evil, scheming) is a highlight, though I’m not sure Dix’s description of Bell as a hypocrite quite fits. Dix’s anger stems from a classic dilemma in stories like this – who do you choose to save if multiple sides are in peril? Do you save humans or monsters? Bell saves both, of course, and that’s why Dix rails on him for such impossible optimism. Dix himself is a thoroughly loathsome villain, though I wasn’t all that fond of the whole “descendants must carry on the insane plan” thing.

Aboveground, the rest of the cast gets relatively little to do – Lili and Hestia investigate a bit to try to find out where the middleman is in this conspiracy, but for the most part they’re sidelined. As for Team Loki, they get the bulk of the climax, trying to stop the rampaging monsters in the city and wondering why in God’s name Bell is chasing after one of them. (It is fairly notable that Bell’s “this is my kill!” excuse is rather lame, and while it is what kills his reputation I don’t think anyone who really knows him buys it for a minute – Eina certainly doesn’t.) I was wondering if Bell would have to fight anyone from Loki Familia, but we avoid that, mostly as he’d get the crap kicked out of him, I expect.

And so now we wonder where to go from here. Bell’s reputation is bad, but he’s not thrown out of the city or anything. And Hermes is already trying to find ways to fix things. I have a feeling that the next book will involve a lot of dungeon crawling. and I hope that it’s a bit more lighthearted. Still, if you’re looking for a dose of Danmachi at its most serious and grim, this is the volume for you.

Nisekoi, Vol. 25

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By Naoshi Komi. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Camellia Nieh

Harems are a very popular genre, so popular they’re even called harems, rather than what they actually are – romantic comedy or romantic drama. You have a guy, or a girl, and their various love interests – when it’s more than two, that puts it in this genre. They are popular but also very dangerous to license long-term, especially for the West, where titles can come out in volume format over a year after fans have been shamelessly spoiled on the forums. Because let’s face it: 90% of readers are dissatisfied with the ending. Either the title leaves everything ambiguous (the so-called “no ending”), or the protagonist chooses the wrong one – i.e., the one the reader doesn’t prefer. This is true even if the correct choice has been signposted from the first chapter, so it must be even more frustrating for fans of Nisekoi, which theoretically did a much better job at keeping all its heroines as options till the end. That said, the series is still subtitled “False Love”. The False Love was the plot. And therefore the heroine… is the one we expected.

Therefore, this volume does its level best to shut down all the other pairings and show that, in fact, it’s Raku x Chitoge going forward. Chitoge is not the promise girl that we’ve been wondering about for the entire series – that’s Onodera – but she is the one that Raku decides he is in love with, despite the fact that, similar to Naru in Love Hina, she literally runs away from her feelings until there is nowhere left to run to. It’s very in character for Chitoge, and honestly everyone in this volume acts exactly as you’d expect them to. Tsumugi gets to have a cool fight, and finally show Claude that she is, in fact, a she (was anyone else reminded of that Night Court scene with Christine? No? Just me? OK…). Marika, who has always been the one whose feelings are RIGHT THERE, acts as an audience surrogate in telling Chitoge to man up and admit the truth. And Onodera… well, Onodera gets to cry, and also bake their wedding cake, something so mind-boggling that she has to textually tell the reader that she wanted to do this, and it wasn’t Raku or Chitoge’s idea. The nice girl to the end.

While we are starting to see a few series experiment with polyamory, it’s always in a “fantasy world” setting, and you’re not going to see it in modern-day Japan. And for those who want to ship the OT3 after the wedding… nope, we get a short epilogue showing Onodera’s daughter running into Raku and Chitoge’s son, and it’s obvious they haven’t met each other before. (Which is incredibly frustrating from anything other than a ‘dramatic irony’ perspective – must ALL harems never speak to each other again after the wedding, especially when they’re as close friends as Chitoge and Onodera were?) And so we’re left with a series that I enjoyed for 25 volumes… but is only going to be satisfying if you shipped Raku and Chitoge. This is the curse of all harem series, and it’s why they’re popular but hard to license, because hell hath no fury like a fanboy scorned. Still: Nisekoi was excellent. Good job.

The Irregular at Magic High School: Yokohama Disturbance Arc, Part 1

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By Tsutomu Sato and Kana Ishida. Released in Japan as “Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei” by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

Having finished the athletic competition between the magic schools, we now get a chance to see the scholarly competition, which is not nearly as popular with the masses but carries just as much prestige for the winners. Naturally, since Tatsuya is a freshman and also in Course 2, he’s not in charge of this; that’s left to Suzune, the former Student Council Secretary and resident tall, dark and handsome girl of the group. Of course, Tatsuya being Tatsuya, he’s asked to join the team as a helper anyway, partly as the previous helper was the girl who got zapped in the athletic festival and therefore can’t use magic anymore, and partly as the alternate choice disagrees with Suzune’s objectives, so why not use Tatsuya, who does agree with them and is also perfect in nearly every way? That said, terrorists are all around them, both as students trying to stop the competition, and as Chinese mafia trying to do the same thing for different reasons.

Honoka and Shizuku are on the cover, but unfortunately have the least amount of face time devoted to them of our main cast. Or perhaps it is fortunate, as the other half of this novel is devoted to taking the various members of Tatsuya’s crew and trying to put them in wacky romantic comedy situations. This works best with Erika and Leo, mostly as the two don’t really have a shred of sexual tension or attraction to each other besides “oh look, attractiveness”, and thus they are allowed to behave fairly normally, leaving aside Erika’s tendency towards rage and Leo’s cluelessness. It works least well with Mikihiko and Mizuki, in a scene that is so blatantly a set up for wacky “whoops, I tried to stop you falling and groped you” antics that I actually winced. (The author implied in the afterword that he added some scenes from the webnovel to set up later stuff better, so I assume these two become an item – they DO seem to have some chemistry, when they aren’t being written badly.) And Mayumi and Miyuki, who I expect are two of the triangle of “Tatsuya partner candidates” in this book (Honoka being the third) get scenes as well. Given I’m not fond of the incest subtext in this series, it’s no surprise who I preferred.

The pats of the book that are a serious action movie with terrorists fare much better. This is what Sato writes best, and there are a lot of cool fight scenes with clever uses of magic – Mayumi and Mari come off particularly well. The Chinese Mafia are there to be goons, with the exception of Zhou, who seems like the sort of “always smiling Chinese villain” I remember from Patlabor. I suspect he’s the only one I have to remember for later books. In any case, as the title implies, this is the first of what the author says is a two-volume arc. I imagine we’ll see the academic competition sabotaged further later on, though whether we’ll get more romantic comedy hijinks is not in my power to guess. (Please no.) If you like thrillers with magic and cool characters, this is right up your alley. As always, if you hated Tatsuya before, you’ll hate him again.

Manga the Week of 1/10/18

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SEAN: There is not quite as much manga next week as previous weeks… at least not print manga. Kodansha is here to ensure that there are still many more titles released.

Before that, Dark Horse has a 5th omnibus of I Am A Hero.

ASH: This series has been quite an intense ride, so far!

SEAN: J-Novel Club has a 4th volume of the very long-titled If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord, as well as a 4th volume of Infinite Dendrogram.

They also debut a spinoff novel. Yume Nikki: I Am Not In Your Dream, which is based off of a freeware game, and seems to be scary? And is not related to Future Diary, it would seem.

Kodansha Digital has no new titles announced for next week (yet – there’s always a danger of last minute announcements), but we do get Domestic Girlfriend 14, Grand Blue Dreaming 5, I’m in Love and It’s the End of the World 3, Kokkaku: Moment by Moment 4, Lovesick Ellie 2, and the final volume of Peach Heaven, 13.

MICHELLE: I’m still meaning to check out Lovesick Ellie.

SEAN: Seven Seas has a quartet of titles due out. The High School Life of a Fudanshi 3, Nurse Hitomi’s Monster Infirmary 7 (we’re mostly caught up to Japan on both of those), Spirit Circle 2 and Yokai Rental Shop 2.

ASH: The first volume of Spirit Circle was so good! I went in expecting to like the series, but at this point I’m honestly loving it.

ANNA: Interesting…..

SEAN: There’s some new BL from SuBLime, as we get a 10th volume of His Favorite (has this really been running in Japan since 2008?) and a 9th volume of The World’s Greatest First Love (which has been running since 2006).

Vertical has a 2nd volume of psychological thriller Imperfect Girl.

And speaking of long-runners, Viz has a 65th volume of Case Closed. That’s been running since 1994, and the North American release is only 27 volumes behind right now!

Getting something? Or catching up from previous weeks?

MICHELLE: Catching up, mostly!

ASH: A little of both, for me!

ANNA: So much to catch up on!