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By Eiichiro Oda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

I warn you in advance, this is another One Piece volume consisting primarily of one big fight, with many tiny little fights interspersed therein. Luckily, One Piece is dense enough that there’s still stuff to talk about even if the plot is mostly ‘Luffy hits the villain until he wins’.

One reason that the non-Luffy battles are so inconsequential is this is the big opportunity for Oda to show off how far his cast had improved in the two-year gap before the Fishman Island arc. There are some supposedly impressive mimi-bosses, but it’s notable that the only one who makes a really strong impression is the silliest, Zeo. It’s no coincidence that Zeo faces off against Brook, one of the silliest Straw Hat Pirates. He really is fantastically funny, and helps to liven up what might otherwise simply be a long stretch of battle. Usopp, too, has leveled up, and being who he is, gets to lampshade it. He doesn’t have to use fake balloon hammers or Sogeking anymore, he’s not tough enough to take on these bad guys with ease. Even Chopper has leveled up, coming to terms with his monster form and thus becoming able to control it.

The ongoing Fishman Island plot has been about racism, and this volume is no exception. It notes that Hody’s Fishman Uber Alles attitude may be stronger and angrier, but it’s also more hollow – he has no actual experience with what the Fishmen went through, but has merely grown up surrounded by a culture of hate. That’s not something easily changed, not even with a petition or really good thoughts. It has become, as the translation explicitly states, a holy war, and Neptune’s sons finally ask Luffy to do something that they cannot – wreck the entire island, reduce their past culture, with all its hatred, to smithereens.

This, of course, would fit the prophecy while not immediately spelling doom for everyone. Which is good, as this is also a good volume for seeing the good side of Fishman Island, and of One Piece heroes in general. You can always tell a character that Oda likes (even if they may be a villain) by their tendency not to give up even under the face of the worst adversity. Even the children watching the battle refuse to evacuate. And there’s a difference between this sort of strength and obsession, which is what we see from Hody and Vander Decken, who are perfectly happy with taking out countless innocents as long as they achieve their goals.

That said, I will admit to being a bit exhausted by this arc. It looks like it’s going to wrap up soon, for which I am thankful. I also wish we could have seen Nami and Robin do a bit more, but I can’t have everything. At least Sanji wasn’t too big an idiot this time. Next volume we wrap things up here and set off on a new adventure in the New World. Will we add a new crewman as well? I doubt it, but you never know with Luffy…

By Rikdo Koshi. Released in Japan by Shonen Gahosha, serialized in the magazine Young King OURS. Released in North America by Viz.

Given everything that’s been happening over the last few volumes of Excel Saga, this volume might read at first glance like it’s a bit of a breather. Miwa barely appears, and the same can be said for Il Palazzo. A lot of time is spent trying to ‘fix’ Excel – or rather get her to realize the fix she’s in, but this doesn’t really happen either, mostly as relying on Elgala to bring this about is both hilarious and terrible. What we do see here, though, is a continuation of Rikdo’s ongoing deepening of the characterization. Excel, Hyatt, Misaki, Umi, Watanabe, and even Iwata get depth to them here that makes you sit back and think about just how screwed up their lives have become, and how it’s a lot less easy to accept that now that they’re not cartoon people who get blown up a lot but keep reviving.

For all that I didn’t care for the Teriha plotline, its effects continue to be felt by the group. Umi is still devastated by the disappearance of her friend, and a scene with Iwata (who, for once, gives helpful and useful advice – something he lampshades immediately) shows us how desperately she is clinging to Teriha, given the difficulty she has making friends. There’s a rather startling monologue where she notes that her mother initially thought she was a prodigy, but then she met Shiouji and figured out how far from his heights she was. It’s heartbreaking, in that, although it reminds is that Umi isn’t really dumb, just a klutz and a bit ditzy, there’s also the feeling that she could have been more – at such a young age, finding yourself so limited must be crushing, and I think it helps to explain a lot of her personality, as well as why she’s so devoted to Shiouji. I wonder if he ever thinks about any of this?

As for Iwata, he starts off with minimal memories of the last several years, but thanks to an outbreak of mysterious plot (was this Miwa? It doesn’t quite have the same feel), he seems to be back to himself, physically and mentally (albeit still in an indestructible robot body). In fact, as I noted above, he seems to be a bit less thoughtless and jerkass-ish than before, though that might change at any moment (his variable personality continues to be a sign that he may not live past the series). He’s also the one who knows immediately how to get through to Excel, something Elgala has to be coached to say: mention Umi. As for Misaki, she has less to do here, but is getting more distrustful of everything – and I can’t really blame her, given what’s going on with Iwata and what Shiouji isn’t really telling her. Her emotions are becoming more visible by the day.

Watanabe and Hyatt, meanwhile, seem to have resolved their own plot – and I say seemed because things could turn on a dime at any time. This does lend itself to one of the funnier bits of the volume, where Watanabe attempts to stalk Hyatt but keeps getting distracted by things that require a superhero – which, as Kabapu notes, sort of defeats the purpose of a secret identity, even if its intentions are ultimately good. As if to reward him for doing good deeds (as opposed to being the uncaring sleazy louse he’d morphed into during the Teriha arc), he actually does get to catch up with Hyatt and have a conversation with her. And… it doesn’t go his way, as expected. What surprised me was that Hyatt basically confirms here that she does have feelings for Watanabe, and does now remember him again. The only thing holding her back is her loyalty to Il Palazzo. Hyatt is by her nature one of the most opaque of the Excel Saga bunch, so it’s good to see her getting some depth as well.

And then there’s Excel. She now has an indestructible robot body as well – one that doesn’t even need to rest and power up, to Shiouji’s surprise – and can now finally keep up with Il Palazzo in every way. But it doesn’t seem quite enough, and even constantly heaping abuse on Elgala isn’t the same. It doesn’t help that both Iwata and Elgala remind her of Umi, that being the only thing that might distract her from ACROSS. Indeed, we get to see a rare shot of Excel acting tsundere, still attempting to deny that the Teriha memories are not quite as gone as she’s like them to be, and that she may need Umi’s friendship as much as Umi needed hers. (After all, Excel’s two closest female friends, Hyatt and Elgala, are not really all that close.) My favorite moment of the entire volume, though, was when she reported to Il Palazzo, making his only appearance in this scene. It’s arguable whether it’s really him, but let’s not go there right now. Instead of his usual abuse, he invites her to sit down by his side in the chair next to him. Hardly believing it, she does so – and the look on her face is possibly the cutest we’ve ever seen her, as Carl Horn remarks in his notes. For all that Excel’s devotion to Il Palazzo is used for humor, at its core is a deep, unconditional love. And it’s shown here at its purest, making you actually want to root for them to get together.

We now know that Excel Saga will end with Vol. 27. Luckily, Viz has sped up its release to twice a year again (probably as they now know it’s ending), so Vol. 25 will be out this April. Excel Saga has its faults, of course. The plot can get very confusing even if you do have the photographic memory required to deal with all the various subplots. And Rikdo’s fanservice fetish, now allowed to flourish after the series became a hit, can get very annoying to those who recall he used to draw girls with normal, if busty, proportions, and clothing that was a bit more modest. But there’s still no other manga series out there that has me as invested in its outcome as this (and yes, I have the last three in Japanese, but it’s not the SAME). Join me in April as I prepare to overanalyze Vol. 25 as well! And thanks to Carl Horn and Viz for continuing it to completion!

By Io Sakisaka. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Margaret (“Betsuma”). Released in North America by Viz.

As many readers of this blog know, give me a choice between a new series that’s daring, bold, experimental and avant-garde and a new series that’s more of the same as all the other series except with different bits, and I will go for the latter every time. I appreciate the value of alt-manga, but am far more happy reading Vol. 97 of Shoujo Girl X. Usually because every time I do, even if it seems like it’s going to be more of the same, there’s always something that ends up drawing me in. These series all have to compete in Japan with 7,000 other high-school romances. There needs to be something that stood out enough to have it be a success there and get licensed here. Which brings me to Strobe Edge.

The cover really says it all – it’s hard to look at and not feel ‘well, it’s a bit overly sweet, isn’t it?’ without even reading the content. And the first half of the book doesn’t seemingly do much to change that opinion. Ninako is naive and a bit flighty, but not overly ditzy. She’s got a group of close female friends (who so far have stayed her friends, yay!) as well as a male childhood friend that everyone assumes she is in love with, mostly as he is clearly in love with her and that’s how these things go. Ninako, however, isn’t sure what she feels for Daiki is love. And she has *no idea* what these feelings she has are when she runs into Ren, the school heartthrob and all-around mysterious guy.

As I said, so far so normal. If I told you Daiki was blond and Ren had black hair, I assume you’d be totally unsurprised. But gradually I started to realize that more thought was being put into the plot than I suspected. Ninako may seem flighty, but she thinks hard about everything, and once she realizes that what she’s feeling for Ren is love, all sorts of extra problems come up. As for Daiki, he is obviously the ‘unlucky childhood friend’ who is there to provide the love triangle, but this does not make his crush on Ninako any less weighty, especially as we see its origins. He’s a nice guy, as Ninako herself says, and we feel for him even as we root for Ninako to get together with Ren, because that’s how these things go.

The second half of this volume really picks things up, and I was quite startled a few times. Ren, for one, is not really the aloof loner type he presents… or at least not around Ninako, which is a good sign. Of course, things aren’t as simple as ‘if I just worked up my courage to confess, we’d be together’. Ren’s own life intertwines with Daiki’s in very unexpected ways, and as Ninako herself notes, when you fall in love with someone the feelings don’t merely vanish just because you get rejected. I suspect the plot of much of Strobe Edge will deal with that, given the large number of unrequited relationships we bring out here.

Strobe Edge begins with its heroine thinking about what it means to be in love, and I suspect that’s what the whole series is going to be about. It’s working with stock shoujo manga types, but what it’s doing with them is interesting. Which, as I said before, is exactly what I look for in ‘normal’ shoujo manga.