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Reviews

Kamisama Kiss, Vol. 12

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It seems like most volumes of Kamisama Kiss involve human kami Nanami traveling to a new land or meeting some strange yokai. Fortunately this is a plotline that Julietta Suzuki executes so well with both art and story, I don’t mind a bit. I would happily look at a Suzuki art book because I find her character designs so entertaining. I’ve noticed that her underwater characters are often particularly inspired, so there is a lot to like about this volume, which features some major romantic happenings not for Nanami but for her yokai acquaintance Himemiko of the Tatara swamp and her human boyfriend Kotaro.

Himemiko has only appeared to Kotaro in human form, but her secret is going to be tested when her childhood fiance arrives to cause problems. Nishiki is a prince of a neighboring swamp who has grown up arrogant and cut off from contact from most creatures. His solution to his upcoming wedding is to kidnap both Nanami and her shrine, leaving her cut off from Tomoe. Nishiki has a formal way of dressing, accessorized by a scaly headband and fins at the side of his head. When he finds Himemiko in human form she pretends to not know what he’s talking about because she still doesn’t want to reveal her non-human nature to Kotaro. Kotaro gets injured during a confrontation and the god of the sea Ryu-Oh appears again, with his toothy grin, eye patch, and attitude problem.

Nanami struggles with her shrine being trapped at the bottom of a swamp and attempts to get through to Nishiki. Her utter disregard for high court yokai etiquette starts to wear the arrogant Nishiki down towards the end of the volume. His royal mannerism have even cut himself off from his own people, who boggle when they are shown the slightest amount of regard from their ruler. Himemiko and Kotaro start dealing with the true nature of their relationship, even as Nishiki starts to thaw a little bit and begin to understand that he doesn’t know much about the nature of love. Nishiki’s character evolves throughout the volume, and it is always good to see Nanami cause change just simply by being herself.

Even if Nanami and Tomoe’s relationship isn’t resolved yet, it is nice to see things moving forward for the other human/yokai couple in the book. I’m going to look forward to see what happens next at the conclusion of this arc, and if there’s a happy ending for the swamp Princess and her human it will be very interesting to see how Tomoe and Nanami react to that development.

Slam Dunk, Vol. 26

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With each new volume of Slam Dunk I’m simultaneously happy and a bit disappointed – happy because I can read another volume of a great sports manga, and disappointed because we are slowly inching towards the final 31st volume. I continue to find Slam Dunk fascinating even when a basketball game gets spread out over several volumes. Shohoku is still playing tournament favorite Sannoh, but things finally start to click for the loveable underdogs. My favorite aspect of this volume was that the breakout star of the game wasn’t the cool Rukawa or the sometimes doltish basketball savant Sakuragi, but their sometimes overlooked and quiet teammate Mitsui who starts out the volume by hitting three 3-pointers in a row. He’s able to take advantage of the fact that Sannoh’s focus is on Shohoku’s star players and score with simple precision. Everybody is mystified by Mitsui’s sudden confidence, including his own teammates. The Shohoku fans remember that Mitsui used to be a junior high MVP, but his play has suffered because he felt like he had to live up to some past glories. Shohoku’s enigmatic coach concludes that Mitsui is starting to believe in himself again at just the right time, and there’s a great wordless interchange between coach and player as they make eye contact and pump their fists. Simple moments like this where Inoue just uses a few simple panels to underscore a moment do so much more to drive the story forward than pages filled with expository dialogue.

Once the opposing team realizes that Mitsui needs more coverage, Shohoku needs to change up their strategy yet again. Rukawa and Sakuragi both have some moments, but Sakuragi is tested when the opposing team puts a huge substitute player in and his coach tells him that the monster is his assignment. It is a measure of just how far Sakuragi has come that while he does give in to his first impulse of trying to fight strength with strength, he eventually hits on a way to deal with the new player using strategy and observation. Each volume of Slam Dunk always feels very satisfying. To describe the plot, it might seam as if the story is moving forward at a glacial pace, with three volumes or so spent on one basketball game. But the evolution of characters and personalities brought on by the conflict of basketball is layered and dense, and that makes this title such a special sports manga.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Wonder!, Vol. 3

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By Akira Kawa. Released in Japan by Futabasha, serialized in the magazine Women’s Comic Jour. Released in the United States by Futabasha on the JManga website.

When I left off with Vol. 2 of Wonder!, I was wondering whether the extremely uncomfortable plot twist that ended it would be brought up again in the third volume or just glossed over. In a way, it’s both. But I’m OK with how it resolved, as having it any other way would just give me the creeps (as indeed it does to Kaori at the start of the book). That said, it feels a bit of a cop-out, and makes Kaori’s mother even less sympathetic than she already was. But then, that’s one of the main things about this series: family are always there, even if you try desperately to avoid them, and they always bring their own issues to the table. And not all families are perfect.

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That said, the main family – Kaori, Taiyou, Kota and Miya – still tend to be a bit better than you’d expect. Problems that affect them mostly come from outside sources, and even the one time there’s a big screw-up – Taiyou trusts a mother that he bonds with at the zoo to take his girl to the ladies’ room, only for the mother to run off with her – it’s something that resolves in a rather pat way. As for Kota, when your worst flaw is that you’re sometimes too direct and a bit reserved, you’re clearly a great kid. He gets to show off how he deals with both kids and creeps in this volume, and his awesomeness is (so far) rewarded. Only Kaori really seems to have major issues here, and that’s mostly from the fallout from last volume. Everyone’s just a bit too perfect.

However, the author does seem to be trying to shake things up. Kota’s cousin Kaito, who looks very similar to Kota except for his height, arrives, and proves to be a giant pain in the neck. He’s under pressure from his mother to live up to his siblings’ success in school, and it’s driving him to acting up. He’s clearly meant to contrast with Kota, as the cast lampshades, and almost causes Kota to show an actual emotion. His mother, though, once revealed, explains much of his behavior – she’s even worse than Kaori’s mom (and in fact allows Kaori’s mom to have the upper hand for a bit), and makes your nerves grate. Kaori notes to Taiyo that part of the reason they agre4ed to their ‘open marriage’ at first was simply to avoid dealing with each other’s family, and we’ve come to see why.

And throughout all this there is the dog Wonder, who still has odd traces of the supernatural to him, being able to instantly show up whenever there is trouble, even if he’s also still at home playing with the kid. The family seems to have quietly accepted it as ‘awesome dog powers’, but given that said dog has saved their lives multiple times, I can see why they’d want to gloss over and explanations in case they ruin the fantasy. It does add an odd touch to this off-kilter soap-opera of a manga, which never quite allows me to find my footing. While the lack of stability can be annoying, it’s also probably why I find it so fascinating. I want to read more about these people to see how they tick. Yes, even if it means dealing with their families. Here’s hoping for Vol. 4 soon.

Alice in the Country of Joker: Circus and Liar’s Game, Vol. 1

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By Quin Rose and Mamenosuke Fujimaru, based on the game by Quin Rose. Released in Japan as “Joker no Kuni no Alice – Circus to Usotsuki Game” by Ichijinsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Zero-Sum. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

As I’ve noted before, I’m enjoying the Alice series a lot more than I’d expected to. I think one reason may be its similarity to the Higurashi series, another favorite of mine. Both franchises based on ‘visual novel’-type games, and made into manga series where the continuity reboots with each new incarnation. The Alice books, however, haven’t really tied into each other the way Higurashi does – you don’t really need to read them in order, and you can simply pick the series with your favorite guy and only read that one without missing much. Now, though, we have Alice dealing with a new antagonist, Joker, and this very much ties into the previous series, and rewards readers/players who are well-versed in it.

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It may come as a surprise, then, to see the volume begin with what amounts to a giant 80-90 page recap of Alice’s adventures in Wonderland to date, from her abduction by Peter to her present life working in the Heart Palace (yes, she’s there in this iteration, not the Clocktower, the Amusement Park, or the Hatter Mansion). We meet the entire main cast, get a brief precis as to who they are and what their damage is, and see how they interact with Alice (who hasn’t fallen for anyone here – romance is, so far, not in the cards in this setup). It’s given a wraparound of Alice reading her diary and reminiscing about the past, which works all right. However, this doesn’t seem like filler but more a way of putting the basic concepts of Wonderland in the reader’s mind before the creators start fiddling with them.

Because it’s April, the Circus is coming to town, and Alice’s memories are starting to go a bit wonky. She’s currently in the country of Clover, yet runs into Julius and Gowland, neither of whom should technically be there. It would appear that this is merely a function of the season, but the arrival of the circus to town might also be a reason – a circus with two creepy children and their master, the titular Joker. We met Joker in a small cameo in the original Alice series, but this is the first time dealing with him in the flesh. He’s a smug trickster-type character, and no doubt will be driving Alice nuts as the series goes on. More to the point, Joker and his two assistants ask Alice why she’s staying in Wonderland and not returning to her world. We get a bit more detail about her life pre-Wonderland here, including a touchingly sad side-story detailing her crush on her tutor, and her sister’s role in it. Again, we see that all of the main male cast seem dedicated to her NOT thinking of her sister, and I have a feeling Joker might try to sabotage that. (Of course, the fate of her sister is about as much of a spoiler by this point as Higurashi’s main villain – if you haven’t figured it out yet, read the main series again.)

This is a more serious and mystery-oriented incarnation of the Alice series, with only one sexual innuendo from the Hatter (a new low!). This isn’t to say it’s without humor, however. Alice’s reaction to Peter’s assault at the start is amusing enough to take the taste of creepy away a bit, and the Hatter’s way of showing her she’s being appalling by comparing him with her tutor is fantastic. There’s also an amusing side-story showing what the series would be like if Alice was a tiny cute little girl instead – let’s just say less romance and more adorable. But the main reason to read Alice, as always, is for the mind games the world brings with it, and this series promises to be the best one yet in delivering them.

GTO: 14 Days in Shonan, Vol. 7

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By Toru Fujisawa. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Vertical.

Another volume of 14 Days, and the lessons remain the same. Don’t let your past define you, don’t become a bad person just because society thinks you are, there are other people who really do care about you, etc. The telling of this can be somewhat melodramatic, but that works in the story’s favor, to be honest. Onizuka and his story is larger than life. Moreover, to every teenager who thinks their problems are the ABSOLUTE WORST EVER, every decision they make and conflict they have is this dramatic. Indeed, it’s telling that Kikuchi and Urumi’s solution on how to break Miko is simply to ramp *up* the drama.

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That said, my favorite part of the volume came in between crises, as Shinomi gets back to the White Swan and runs into Urumi, who’s hanging out after assisting Onizuka with Miko. Seeing the most popular girl in Shonan Jun’ai Gumi meet the most popular girl in GTO is sort of a fan dream, and at the start it goes exactly as we’d expect: Urumi instantly identifies Shinomi as a threat and starts to systematically make her feel small and cornered, with the help of money and a typically oblivious Onizuka.

The best comes in the bath, however, when Urumi learns that Shinomi hasn’t actually gotten anywhere with Onizuka, and realizes that they’re not rivals but the same – doomed to be the ‘little sister’ who can’t be seen romantically. And the tension in Urumi *instantly* dissolves, as she suddenly regards Shinomi as someone to confide in (I don’t think she ever did that in GTO, so it’s impressive). They’re both probably correct, by the way – I suspect if Onizuka ever does end up with anyone in the future of GTO, it’ll be Fuyutsuki, simply as he actually sees her as a possible romance. In any case, Urumi’s juvenile solution to their frustration, and Shinomi going along with it, is a pitch-perfect ending to the scene.

Unfortunately, the real world is due to come crashing into the series. Despite a chapter that pushes the bounds of ridiculousness by having Onizuka literally fly for over a mile. The mayor of Shonan proves to be the sort who wants anything that might be a problem to simply go away till he’s re-elected, and his slimeball assistant appears to want to take advantage of that by having some of the ‘White Swan’ kids returned to the loving arms of their parents – even if those parents are abusive scum. Which means that, with only two volumes of the series to go after this, we may end up right back where we started, with Sakurako being in danger.

For all that Miko and Riko were a credible threat to Onizuka in the past couple of volumes, there was no doubt that they wouldn’t be won over (kicking their deadbeat dad into the harbor likely helped out a lot there). These guys, though, are far less likely to simply be misunderstood or uncaring. Yes, GTO may tell you that you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself and move forward, but it never diminishes what you’ve been through. Which makes this new threat all the more scary. That said, this is Onizuka, and I look forward to seeing how he takes it out.

Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Vol. 37

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By Ken Akamatsu. Released in Japan as “Mahou Sensei Negima!” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

First off, I will admit that this reads a lot better in collected format than it did in weekly chapters. The parts of the story that really aggravated me are confined to the latter third of the book, and there is some honest attempt at character building and attempting to wrap things up. But overall, this is still Ken Akamatsu, after an exciting 18-volume arc of fighting and apocalypse, going back to Mahora Academy and simply coasting on fanservice for a while. And, at least in the West, he found himself up against a fandom that was now reading Negima almost entirely for the action and drama, and hated the fanservice. This is a big problem if you’re Ken Akamatsu.

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Where the story works well is when it’s capturing the fallout from the Magic World arc. Setsuna, as Eva points out, can’t deal with being a soldier in peacetime, and is still (still!) upset with her base desires for Konoka, not to mention finding out that Asuna is a princess. Her heroic self-loathing can be quite amusing, but it’s also a very annoying side to her, and so I was somewhat torn between laughing and wanting to smack her. Of course, all that class distinction goes right out the window when she finds out what Negi and Asuna’s plan for saving the magic world is. It’s a big but workable sacrifice for Negi, but a huge and appalling sacrifice for Asuna, and Setsuna is justifiably appalled that she’s avoiding telling anyone what she has to do. More on this in the final volume…

There are some other good chapters. Chisame spent most of the Magic World arc filling in for Asuna as Negi’s tsukkomi and adviser, and now that they’ve returned suddenly finds that she hates being out of the loop. Yue gets shorter shrift, but finally manages to recover the memories from the past year, ironically triggering them by confessing to Negi. Unfortunately, this then leads to the rest of the book, where Haruna and Misa (a truly disastrous combination who should never be allowed to plan anything together ever) decide that Negi ‘leading on’ all these girls by his natural-born charisma, and not responding to any of their love confessions (despite his age – I wonder if he’s turned 11 by now) makes him an enemy of women.

Earlier in the volume we had a chapter or so devoted to a giant fight between Negi and Eva, fanservice for those who like that sort of thing. And at the end of the manga we get a giant wacky chase, which Akamatsu loves to do (see my recent review of the 4th Love Hina omnibus) and which never fails to annoy me, as it always has people acting out of character for the sake of comedy schtick. Combined with far more nudity than usual (let’s just say Negi sneezes quite a bit this volume) and you have Akamatsu specializing in many of my least favorite scenarios.

There’s also the fact that Negima ends in the next volume, and there seem to be an insane amount of loose ends that still haven’t been tied up. Negi’s parents, the whole plan with Asuna – it won’t end the way it’s suggested, unless this series goes really dark – and of course which girl wins. And behind the scenes, Akamatsu and his editors at Weekly Shonen Magazine are (allegedly) having a bit of a tiff. How will this all shake out? Well… see you next time.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol. 9

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By Naoko Takeuchi. Released in Japan as “Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

I have so many things to say about this volume of Sailor Moon that I’m not even sure where to begin, so please forgive me if I start to ramble. For those of you wondering what’s going on, the Senshi are dealing with the Dead Moon Circus and Chibi-Usa’s getting visions of a pegasus who’s looking for the Legendary GOLDEN Crystal. Meanwhile, all the senshi have found themselves unable to transform and are wondering if this means their duties are over… and whether they can start to follow their dreams.

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The volume opens with each of the four Inner Senshi discussing their dreams of the future. Ami wants to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a doctor, Rei likewise wants to succeed her grandfather (who I’d forgotten looks nothing like his anime counterpart) at the shrine. Makoto wants to be a wife and baker; and Minako of course dreams of being an idol singer. As we move on, it’s not limited to just them. Not only do the Outer Senshi find themselves living in a small bubble of ‘perfect happy family’ that seems like a dream, but even the Amazoness Quartet, this arc’s minor villains, use the same language – getting their freedom to move in the real world is referred to as their dream.

The first three chapters also remind us that many of the senshi have family issues. Ami’s mother is really too busy to give her the care she needs (though notably she seems to show remorse about it, unlike a lot of ‘education mama’ portrayals of Ami’s mother I’ve seen), and her father essentially ran away and divorced them a few years prior. Rei’s mother died soon after she was born, and her dad is a government minister who has no time for his daughter and has sent her off to live at the shrine. (As we’ll find in a later short story, he *is* as unpleasant as he sounds.) And Makoto’s parents are both dead, and she’s living on her own with the traditional manga “where the hell does she get the money to afford that place” apartment.

The Amazon Trio (who, this being the manga, are barely characterized and killed off right away) thus have no trouble finding ways to get into the girls’ heads and try to tempt them away from their true calling. Preying on Ami’s loneliness and abandonment issues, Rei’s sense of duty and how oppressive that can feel, and Makoto’s indecision and feelings of being weak. Naturally, in the end, each finds the inner strength to go on (in Jupiter’s case, MONSTER STRENGTH, a line that had me laughing hard) and are able to transform, power up, gain new attacks, and wipe out the enemy. (Though not, notably, the Quartet, who always get away. Maybe it’s because they always work in a group, rather than on their own like the previous minor villains. You’d almost think they were friends…)

And then there’s Minako, who has issues of her own. She’s supposed to be the leader of the Inner Senshi, after all (something the anime quietly dropped), and is rather upset that they can all now transform and she still cannot. What’s more, the other three are all mentioning the Outers more and more – how inspirational they find them, the good advice they received from them, and how it would be great if they could show up to help everyone out. This makes Minako even more annoyed, as she never really bonded with them the way the others did, and is unable to offer advice as she’s still powerless. We see in the previous chapters each Inner thinking of advice from their Outer mentor – Ami with Setsuna, Rei with Michiru and Makoto with Haruka. Clearly that would leave Hotaru for Minako, but as she’s a baby right now that doesn’t really happen.

(Speaking of which, when did all these chats and bonding with the Outers actually happen? Between S and SuperS, or in the bits we didn’t see between S? Also, I know that Minako and Hotaru is quite a popular fanfic crack pairing, and I wonder if this might be a reason why.)

In many ways, this parallels an episode of the S anime, where Minako is frustrated that she’s the only one who hasn’t been attacked by the enemy. Here she charges forward into the enemy’s trap (and yes, she’s quite aware it’s a trap) in an attempt to make herself power up through sheer force of will. Unfortunately, what this leads to is her being dropped off of a tall platform, and the only thing holding her up is Artemis. Ignoring the physics of that for a moment, this resonates the best of the four Inner Senshi stories. Ami and Makoto had tiny little versions of themselves gibing them pep talks, and although Rei and Phobos and Deimos turn human briefly, we’d never seen her interact with her crows in quite the same way. But Minako and Artemis are partners (in a way that Usagi and Luna will never be), and when Minako thinks he’s been killed she’s heartbroken.

Artemis’s transformation into a white-haired handsome bishie would likely be less startling to those who read the manga when it first came out (they’d already seen a side-story where Luna did the same, which was adapted into the S movie), and it’s presented as sort of a powerup, much as the senshi go from Planet Power or Star Power to Crystal Power, Artemis is now strong enough to turn human in times of need. This is turn allows Minako to find the strength to make her own transformation.

In the meantime, as I noted, the Outers are living an idyllic life in a mansion somewhere. Haruka’s racing idiots on the highway, Michiru’s recording CDs (and getting hit on), Setsuna is doing important research, and Hotaru… now seems to be about 5 years old. And is quoting Yeats. The Senshi of Destruction quoting The Second Coming is never a good sign. She has her memories as Hotaru, her memories as Saturn, and these new memories of growing up with the Outers all in her head, and it’s turned her into quite the little prodigy. Of course, she also has her deep bond with Chibi-Usa, and knowing that she’s in trouble leads to her age up, again (this time to about 12, it seems), and unite the other Outers to do the same. It’s the sort of scene you want to see set to music, and is beautiful, inspiring, and a bit scary all at once.

In the meantime, what of our leads? Well, poor Mamoru is once again suffering by being the one who is always targeted. This time it’s shadows on the lung, which then becomes coughing up black blood – and even worse, it seems to be contagious, something we find at the very end of this volume when Usagi starts to cough as well. The ‘swapped bodies’ cliffhanger from last time is resolved fairly quickly (though not before Usagi tries to cuddle up with Mamoru in her chibi body, and finds that though he likes ’em young, that’s a little *too* young). Most of the book has Chibi-Usa trying to figure out what’s going on with Pegasus, which is a combination of ‘I want to save him from the bad guys’ and ‘he transformed into a hot guy what are these feelings in my heart?’. This, by the way, leads to the other big funny moment in the volume, where Chibi-Usa imagines talking about her unicorn wannabe-boyfriend with the other Inners, and quickly realizes Makoto is the only conversation that wouldn’t be a disaster.

I seem to have gone on a bit. Suffice to say this book was basically everything I wanted it to be, gave me tons of character stuff to analyze (giving lie to the anime fans saying the manga characters are too dull), and had huge roles for Minako and Hotaru, my two favorite senshi. And, if I recall, the next volume is just as good, and will wrap up the SuperS arc. Get it!

Game Review: Yedo

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Curry favor with the Shōgun–or maybe assassinate him!
Bits & Blips: Manga Bookshelf Edition

Every October from several thousand kilometers away I try to live vicariously through others’ accounts of Internationale Spieltage SPIEL, the largest board gaming convention in the world, also known simply as Essen after the German city in which it is held. Hundreds of games are unveiled publicly for the first time here, some of which will eventually be released worldwide within weeks or months. But some of the games released might never make their way to United States except through importers, and since getting heavy games across the ocean is an expensive endeavor, the cost to obtain these games can be significant. That means limiting myself to one or two of them and that means research. There were a lot of new games with significant buzz coming out of Essen ‘12, but most of them were slowly getting released here. One that particularly caught my eye was a game from a pair of designers from Belgium called Yedo published by eggertspiele / Pegasus Spiele. It didn’t have a lot of buzz, had no US release planned, and it was the designers’ first effort, but the people who played it really seemed to like it and it looked stunning. I decided to take a chance on it.

Best. Decision. Ever.

In Yedo, a worker placement/auction style game, each player is a Clan Elder trying to curry favor with the new Shōgun who rules Japan from the city of Yedo (also known Edo–see this designer diary for information on the name–which is modern day Tokyo). This is primarily accomplished by completing missions to earn money and prestige points (PP). The player with the most prestige points at the end of the game is the winner.

Gameplay:

Yedo lasts for 11 rounds (unless someone assassinates the Shōgun). There are two versions of the game: Geisha and Samurai. For this review, I will cover the more challenging Samurai version. I’ll discuss the differences at the end.

cardsAt the beginning of the game, players will each receive some money, two disciples, an action card, four missions, and a favor. Players will use the disciples to gather the various items needed to complete missions and can acquire more disciples during the course of the game in order to accomplish more in a single turn. The action cards grant the owners special, usually powerful single-use abilities that can be used at various points throughout the game. The favor grants the owner a special starting bonus which could include money, cards, or even a blessing. Each favor’s bonus is unique, however after collecting the bonus players flip the card over and may use it once during the game as a blackmail card or keep it for 2 PP at the end of the game.

The missions are the crux of the game. They come in four colors which are indicative of their difficulty to complete. Green missions are the easiest, followed by yellow, red, and the high scoring but extremely hard black missions. Early on players will need to complete some of the easier missions in order to be able to collect the items needed for the harder missions. There are also five mission types: Warfare, Kidnapping, Theft, Espionage, and Assassination.

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Once the game begins, players may bid in an auction on various assets: Action cards, Bonus Cards, Weapons, Annexes, Geisha, Disciples, and Mission cards. The assets are divided up into three color groups; in two and three player games, players bid on one of these color groups and in a four or five player game players bid on a specific asset. The starting bidder will make an opening bid on one group or asset equal to the minimum bid printed on the board. In player order, everyone participating in the auction will have a chance to increase the bid or pass. Finally, the person who started the auction has one more chance to increase the bid or pass and then the auction ends. The winning bidder places her bid token there, collects her asset (and in some instances 2 PP), and that color group or asset is now blocked for the remainder of the bidding round. This continues until everyone has had an opportunity to acquire an asset or drop out.

Next comes the event phase which starts with upkeep of the weapons market and ends with an event. The events can be good, relatively benign, inconvenient, or downright disastrous. The most devastating ones can really wreck players’ plans, possibly causing them to lose an entire annex, a disciple, a geisha, money, or a weapon–or more than one of these! Sometimes the really bad events can be somewhat mitigated by returning your blessing. There is a full deck of 27 events and since only one is used per round, not all events will be encountered offering variety from game to game.

After the event phase, the assigning phase begins. I’m not going to go over everything here as there is a lot that can be done, but this is where players will send their disciples to the various districts or their personal annexes. The districts include the Gates, Tavern, Harbor, Red Light District, Market, Temple, and Castle. Each district has a number of available spaces (depending on the number of players) where players may place their disciples to perform actions or to complete missions. Each district has multiple actions which can be performed ranging from acquiring new annexes, geishas, weapons, blessings, or missions to buying or selling PP, changing the turn order, or performing foresight (looking at the top three cards of one of the decks and with the exception of events replacing them in any order), among other things.

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Completing missions will require players to have one or more disciples in specified districts and may include other requirements such as specific weapons, geishas, annexes, blessings, or even a competing clan member to assassinate. The green cards are easier with fewer requirements, but the black cards will require a lot of planning to have everything needed and disciples in the right places. This phase is only for placement of disciples; performing the actions occurs later.

After all disciples have been placed, the watch patrol will move. Players know ahead of time where the watch is going to be based on the color and current location of the watch patrol marker on the board. Action cards can be used to influence the movement of the guard. If there are any disciples in the district where the watch patrol ends its movement, those disciples are arrested! Any disciples there are returned either to the reserve if the player owns more than two with the remaining going back to the player Clan House. This can be devastating! Luckily, Actions cards can be used to influence whether or not a player’s disciples are arrested. Also, the Blackmail card can be turned in to save one disciple one time, giving up the 2 PP the card would be worth at the end of the game.

After the watch patrol has been resolved, players in the Market District may freely trade weapons and/or money. Then, players in the Tavern District may freely trade weapons, money, bonus cards, action cards, geishas and/or uncompleted missions. Disciples, annexes, blessings, and completed missions may not be traded. Also, players cannot reveal what is on any card that they trade; they may only state that they believe the card would be useful to the other person. Honesty is not a requirement!

In the final phase, players will begin activating their disciples to perform the actions available in the district or to complete missions. Mission cards have two halves; the top half is the Standard reward which must be completed and the bottom half is a Bonus reward which is optional. For the Standard reward, a disciple in one of the required districts will be returned to the Clan House in order to complete the mission. Any other disciples required for the Standard reward or Bonus reward may remain on their locations meaning they will be able to complete other missions or perform actions. Thus, the order in which actions are resolved can be very important.

blackmissionAt the end of this phase, the next round will begin until 11 rounds have been played. That is, unless one player has completed the Kill the Shōgun black mission! If this happens, the game ends immediately at the end of the round.

At the end of the game, players will score any accumulated bonus cards (which I didn’t mention in the review but they score PP based on a variety of end game conditions) and their Blackmail card if they didn’t use it. The Clan with the most Prestige Points wins!

Theme and Artwork:

This game is dripping with theme and I love it! The mission cards all have wonderful flavor text and the requirements generally make thematic sense. Combined with with the absolutely stunning, colorful artwork this game really puts you in 16th century Japan.

The only extremely minor issue with the artwork is that the annexes are all similar looking and when trying to figure out which is which on the mission cards, you have to pay extra attention. But this is only barely a quibble worth mentioning. All of the art is lovely. It’s one of the most striking games I have in my collection and it always gets complimented when I introduce it to people.

Rulebook and English Translation:

I have a lot of board games and therefore a lot of rulebooks. The number of problematic rulebooks far outweighs the number of good ones. This is true whether or not the game was translated from English or was written by a native English speaker, but adding translation certainly can introduce more problems. I am happy to say that both the quality of the instructions and the quality of the translation are best in class. In fact, if I didn’t know that this wasn’t a game designed by native English speakers I would never have guessed it.

The rulebook is laid out in a very well organized manner. After reading through the rules, I had almost no questions about how to play. On the back page, there is a table that summarizes what things are, where to get them, what to do with them, and important notes. The player board lists all of the phases, all of the annex functions, and all card and weapon limits. The action cards clearly indicate in which phase they can be used.

That said, there were two misprints in the English edition of the game: The Tavern and Market districts on the back page were labeled incorrectly and a couple of the yellow Assassination mission cards were misprinted as Kidnapping. Mistakes like these are common in first printings of any game and neither causes a major problem, although some of the bonus cards do rely on the types of missions completed and players will have to make sure that if a mission is labeled Kidnapping but the flavor text says to Assassinate someone that they remember that it is an Assassination mission.

Still, those mistakes aside I consider the manual the gold standard of what game manuals should be like. The translation was perfect and the rules were complete, clear, and concise.

Conclusion:

If you haven’t figured it out already, I absolutely love Yedo. It scales very well for two to five players and is a solid tactical game. This game is what Lords of Waterdeep wishes it could be. While I found that game enjoyable enough, it was an extremely dry extrapolation of Dungeons and Dragons. This is the opposite of that. The theme shines in this game. It’s really hard to explain without just experiencing it, but everything looks beautiful and the missions are highly thematic.

I mentioned earlier that there are two versions that you can play. The Samurai version includes all of the action cards and all of the events. The action cards can be very confrontational and the events can be extremely cruel. I will admit that this game has flared tempers between players and if you don’t like confrontation or having your plans utterly wrecked by the turn of a card, you will NOT want to play this version of the game. However to accommodate this there is the Geisha version of the game. In this version, the most evil event and action cards are removed from the game. Also, the watch patrol is removed completely for the 11th round of the game. These changes will not make Yedo that much easier but may make it more palatable for some, especially younger players.

I really hope that this game finds a US distributor because it deserves to be played by everyone. Yedo is easily the best game I acquired in 2012 and definitely one that will find its way to the table often. There may be a few retailers who still have leftover import copies such as Funagain Games, but otherwise you’ll have to order this directly from Germany.

If you get the chance to play, take it! You won’t regret it.

Age: 14+
Length: 120-180 mins
# of players: 2 to 5

Designers: Thomas Vande Ginste and Wolf Plancke
Pubisher: eggertspiele / Pegasus Spiele.
Artist: Franz Vohwinkel

Dawn of the Arcana, Vol. 8

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Dawn of the Arcana continues to be an entertaining fantasy series in a subtle and well-executed way. This volume has our adventurers in the desert kingdom of Lithuanel. Nakaba is caught up with a struggle between the princes Akhil and Azhal. They encounter a new type of ajin in the form of a group of terroristically inclined snake-people. Caesar has to prepare to return to his own country, and he attempts to push Nakaba away in an attempt to protect her from getting hurt. Nakaba has grown into a much more confident woman, and she’s not afraid to invoke her power when she needs to in order to help her friends.

One of the things I’m always wanting from this series is more Loki. Nakaba’s devoted dog-like ajin protector has always seemed to have hidden depths and motivations and Nakaba’s power shows her a series of visions that demonstrate just how far Loki is willing to go to to protect her. Nakaba gains a new appreciation for how much information he shielded her from when she was younger and more innocent. Eight volumes in, and I’m still appreciating the clarity of Toma’s art. The paneling had really developed well to showcase both action sequences and the inner feelings of the characters. Seeing a younger Nakaba in flashbacks makes the reader appreciate the bond between her and Loki, and appreciate how far she’s come since she became Caesar’s princess.

Harlequin Manga: Angus’s Lost Lady and The Seduction Bid

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Although I’ve read a bit of manga on the Kindle app for my iPad, I haven’t actually read any manga on my newest toy – a Kindle Paperwhite. When I discovered that there were actually several Harlequin manga for sale for .99 cents on amazon, I wasted no time in purchasing them. I was particularly interested in these two titles, because I’d previously read another title adapted by Kazuko Fujita, Sale or Return Bride. I tend to assume that the art for these Harlequin adaptations is going to be fairly rushed, but either Fujita’s art is among the best that I’ve seen in a Harlequin manga. Her character designs are attractive, and she manages to convey a great deal of nuance in their facial expressions, with the end result that she ends up elevating the stories in these volumes. Backgrounds are sparse, and if you read Fujita’s manga one after the other you will notice that she only draws one basic hero, but she does draw him very well.

Buying Harlequin manga on the Kindle is a bit confusing because there are multiple editions for each title, but I’m linking to the editions that I bought and read here.

Angus’s Lost Lady by Kazuko Fujita and Marie Ferraella

Angus’s Lost Lady is the story of a PI and single father named Angus who is surprised to see a woman with with a lost shoe and amnesia on his doorstep. The only clue to her identity is the fact that she’s clutching his business card, but she hasn’t met him before. She has a head injury as a result from being grazed by a bullet. Since this is a romance manga Angus promptly moves the lost woman into his apartment, introducing her to his daughter Vikki and trying to jog her memory by giving her a phonebook to read. The woman decides to adopt the name Rebecca. Rebecca and Angus investigate her accident and missing memories, and along the way struggle with their attraction for each other. The old “woman in danger with amnesia” is not a novel plot device, but Fujita does a good job portraying the chemistry between Angus and Rebecca, and Rebecca isn’t as simpering and weak as many Harlequin amnesia ladies usually are.

The Seduction Bid by Kazuko Fujita and Amanda Browning

Perhaps it is due to my own anger management issues, but I generally enjoy it when women in romance manga yell a lot. In this case, the heroine of The Seduction Bid barges into an office and starts to chew out an incredibly handsome man who she thinks is an unscrupulous reporter for a local tabloid. Carrie is determined to defend one of her friends from scandal. While she is momentarily distracted by the stormy grey eyes of the man she is yelling at, she ends up storming out of the office ranting about “garbage journalism”. The man with the mysterious grey eyes decides that he wants to be yelled at forever and vows to marry her. Later, as Carrie is hanging out at the house belonging to the parents of her late husband she is introduced to the object of her rant and he turns out to be Lance, cousin of the gutter journalist. Lance then proceeds to relentlessly pursue the reluctant Carrie, and his charm gradually begins to wear down her well developed defense mechanisms.

The attractive art makes these volumes a pleasure to read, and the stories are basically what you’d expect from Harlequin. Reading these on the Kindle was fine – the size of the manga to fit the Kindle screen is about what you’d see in a Japanese tankobon, and since the backgrounds of the manga weren’t particularly detailed, the smaller reading size for the manga didn’t make much of a difference. At only a dollar a pop, buying these is a no-brainer for anyone who enjoys Harlequin manga.

Love Hina Omnibus, Vol. 4

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By Ken Akamatsu. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

I admit I put this volume on the back burner for a while. If ever there was a series that reminded me how much one can change and grow in 10-12 years, it’s Love Hina, which has lost a lot of the luster it originally had. This is an omnibus of three parts, appropriately since it covers three volumes. The first is the best, as Mutsumi helps to draw Naru closer to Keitaro and he heads off to America for a sabbatical. The second volume is all about introducing Kanako, Keitaro’s adopted sister and reader identification figure. Lastly, Keitaro returns and everything goes south for Naru, as the final volume is a chase of epic proportions to try to get Naru to admit her feelings or die. Die being what she’d prefer, really.

lovehina4

I tend to defend Naru a lot, mostly as the people who hate her tend to use sexist, horrible imagery in that hate, like many of the worst bashers in any fandom. Their hate is summed up by “she needs to be more nice to me… I mean him” and multiple uses of the word ‘bitch’. That said, Naru is certainly at her most frustrating here, dragging out the ‘do I really love him’ question to appalling lengths. Naru’s terrified of the future and things going wrong, and I completely identify with that. But add in Akamatsu’s comedic exaggeration and you want to cry at how much she can run away from her own problems. The end of this volume has her literally running away until there is no land mass left, to the northernmost tip of Japan.

Things are not helped at all by Kanako. I’ve mellowed a bit on Kanako over the years, and can see the appeal of a character who is designed to come in and call everyone out on the crap they’ve been giving Keitaro the last few years. Her naivete and hero-worship of her brother comes through quite well, and I liked the bond she forms with Naru (no surprise there, given Naru and Keitaro’s similarities). And given this was written in the late 90s rather than the early 10s, the incest subtext is meant to be creepy and wrong, for once. Kanako also gives us my favorite joke of the volume, where she dresses Mutsumi up as Keitaro to test everyone’s love… complete with ‘attachments’, so to speak. (“My brother’s would be at least that big.”)

I was reading this volume on public transport, which could be awkward at times. After a while, all the fanservice in Love Hina tends to mesh together so much you don’t notice it anymore, which is surprising given it’s everywhere. Characters are nude or near-nude through all three volumes of this, reminding me once more that Magazine skews much older than Jump or Sunday. And that’s not even counting the goth-loli Kanako, or everyone dressed as maids, or the Halloween costumes, or all the other service that’s here. Akamatsu works hard to please his audience, but you feel a little guilty about it all.

Honestly, any chance to read more Mutsumi is always welcome for me, but Love Hina is a classic example of what should have been a nine-volume manga dragged out to 14. Luckily, that means the next omnibus (only two volumes) is the last, and should wrap everything up for Naru and Seta. Oops, I mean Keitaro. Yeah, best save that little issue for Vol. 5’s review…

Happy Mania, Vols. 1-5

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This is a post for the Moyoco Anno Manga Moveable Feast.

Some series I take to right away, and other manga series end up being second chance reads. Happy Mania is one of those series that is better the second time around for me. I read the first couple volumes several years ago and didn’t really get into it because I found the main character incredibly annoying. Since then I’ve read several other manga by Moyoco Anno and have long suspected that I needed to give Happy Mania a second shot. I’ve pieced together the out of print series from paperbackswap.com and some good bargain manga outlets. I was hoping to read the entire series for the Manga Moveable Feast, but I wasn’t able to start reading it until much later than I planned. I was able to read a decent chunk of it though!

The heroine as a ditsy, hopeless woman who decides to “live for love” is quite the stereotype in shoujo and josei manga. Her life gets romanticized and she ends up getting saved by her ideal man. Anno’s approach is to show just how horrible a life someone like this would actually lead. Shigeta is a young woman who works in a bookstore. Her career’s nonexistent, but she’s fixated on the idea of meeting a man who will save her from the drudgery of her daily life. Unfortunately Shigeta’s main method of dealing with men is to fixate on someone totally unsuitable, sleep with him extremely quickly, and then wonder why he’s suddenly not interested in her. While she chases bad boys, her hapless co-worker Takahashi is pining for her. He is usually drawn with tears streaming down his face, sighing Shigeta’s name.

Shigeta goes through jobs and men in quick succession, hooking up with a womanizing younger DJ, the son of a cult leader who rapidly turns psychotic, a stoic ceramics artist, and a married man. Whenever Shigeta’s in crisis, Takahashi is there for her, and even though he goes overseas to study their relationship gradually progresses into a semi-dysfunctional engagement. If Shigeta exhibited absolutely no personal growth through these volumes the series would be a bit tedious, but she does gradually realize that her goals and behavior are not making her happy. This isn’t really enough to prevent her from seeking her self worth in the knowledge that a man might be interested in her, but she isn’t entirely without self awareness. When she pauses to think about a couple of the men pursuing her, she thinks “What’s wrong with these guys? If they like me that much…there must be something wrong with them!”
Shigeta is always pursuing the next unattainable man. Being stuck in a behavioral pattern like Shigeta’s seems refreshingly realistic for a manga heroine, and Anno certainly doesn’t shy away from the more sordid aspects of her life. Happy Mania isn’t romanticized at all.

Anno’s art is distinct and fluid. She has a unique ability to draw characters that are simultaneously attractive and slightly grotesque. Shigeta looks like a limpid-eyed, slightly crazed goblin half of the time. Takahashi shifts from being slight and nerdy to being more attractive as Shigeta’s view of him changes. There always seems to be a metatextual element to Anno’s manga. Happy Mania might be a manga about a love-starved twentysomething woman, but it is also a cynical commentary about manga about love-starved twentysomething women at the same time.

I’m glad that I gave this series a second chance. Shigeta’s antics didn’t really sit very well with me the first time I tried this series, but in the intervening years I’ve read a bunch more manga, and right now I find a manga about a woman finding unhappiness through her pursuit of men much more interesting than a more typical manga that is going to head towards a happy ending after a series of wacky misunderstandings.

Don’t Disturb Me and Him, Please

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By Asuka Katsura. Released in Japan as “Soko Wa Bokura No Mondai Desu Kara” by Ohta Shuppan, serialized in the magazine Manga Erotics F. Released in North America by JManga.

I… am not sure where even to begin. What the heck was this? Not since Sasameke have I been left with such a feeling of vague confusion and disgust. This one didn’t have quite the kick in the balls ending that Sasameke did, but it certainly matches it for weird gag humor out of nowhere and appalling over-the-top grotesqueries being presented as comedic. Which, to be fair, works at first, but as the manga goes on and tries to also have a real plot, the flaws inherent in the entire work become more apparent.

disturb

Given that the manga actually tries to have a plot, I suppose I should sum it up. Yaeko is a high school girl who reacts cutely whenever she’s tormented (or, more accurately, reacts in a highly amusing way), and thus has always been prey for perverts who want to dress her up, strip her, seduce her, or just rape her. Including her family. And her best friend, who in fact rapes her at knifepoint in the first chapter. While escaping said best friend by running nude through the streets at night, she’s helped by Rokuro, a gorgeous man carrying a teddy bear… who happens to match the description of a guy who’s been propositioning little kids around the neighborhood. After a series of misunderstandings, she injures his right hand, only to discover he has a high-stress job that absolutely needs doing. And so she moves in with him to be his right hand while it heals.

The reader, honestly, is meant to identify with the perverts here, as Yaeko’s reactions to everything are the best part of the manga. They are so over the top it goes beyond comedy into farce, and she frequently will be dressed as, say, a soldier or a Greek Statue for one panel only. She’s obsessed with proving that Rokuro is a lolicon, to the extent that she tries to frame him by going to a park and telling kids to pose for photos (realizing, a bit late, that this makes her a pervert – she’s even wearing the standard manga pervert outfit). Her complete lack of common sense is what drives the humor, along with her need to scream almost every line.

Sadly, Rokuro is not nearly as interesting – or indeed interesting at all. In the final chapter, we get an attempt at a backstory that explains his retiring personality and his tendency to chat up little kids, but for most of the story he’s a non-entity who exists to make Yaeko panicked and insane. He has a faux-girlfriend who (naturally) has a shotacon complex, who mostly seems to inhabit the manga so that the two of them have a third character to bounce stress off of. (Yaeko’s best friend, for obvious reasons, doesn’t fit this description. Which is a shame, as she was easily the most appalling (and therefore funny) part of this whole manga.)

I suspect this worked better serialized, but even them I think I’d be exhausted by the end of 20 pages or so. The author is better known for Blood+ and La Portrait de Petite Cosette, neither of which I believe are anything whatsoever like this. It has little to no internal logic, tries to tack on a heartwarming ending that is then ruined by both its heroine and hero, and is amazingly offensive at times (and by at times, I mean most of the volume). I will admit that I laughed at first at many of the situations, but by the time the final chapter rolled around, I was exhausted. (There were also several typos and misspellings, more than usual for a JManga release.)

I can’t possibly recommend this, as it’s bad, but if you’re in the mood to stare at your screen with your mouth open, you may want to try Chapter 1. If nothing else, it’s very different from anything else JManga has put out, and indeed any other Manga Erotics F titles I’ve seen.

Clair Voyance, Vol. 1

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clair

Clair Voyance Vol 1 by FSc
Available from jmanga.com

This is one of those unique non-commercial titles that makes me feel glad that jmanga.com exists in the current manga market. I decided to take a look at this title solely because of the cover image. I thought the art looked whimsical and quirky, and the inside of the volume matched with my initial impression of the cover. Clair Voyance doesn’t have much of a detailed plot, as it mostly deals with a relentless, classic science fiction novel quoting girl named Pi who fixates on a mysterious classmate named RueRune who goes around wearing a sarong and styles his hair in a bun anchored by random botanical specimens. Pi stalks RueRune, and sees him wander about, talking to the air, buying food, and getting violently ill. Eventually she realizes that his odd behavior is due to the fact that he’s talking to invisible creatures.

Where this title stands out from other monster of the week manga is the art and slice of life approach to the material. This title is published by Ohta Publishing Company, which I believe is the publisher of the magazine Manga Erotics F, home of beloved to manga bloggers authors like Natsume Ono, Usamaru Furuya, and Inio Asano. Fsc’s art reminds me a bit of a Natsume Ono, if Natsume Ono was inclined to draw spirits that look like odd hybrids between botanical illustrations and Where the Wild Things Are. Each chapter is basically a short episode where Pi indulges in her curiosity over RueRune by following him around and pestering him, and while RueRune is able to relate much easier to the creatures that surround him, Pi represents the potential for his first true human friend.

There were a few typos here and there in the translation for this book. Fans of Natsume Ono would likely appreciate the gentle atmosphere of Clair Voyance, and if you enjoy monster of the week manga but would like to try a title with a laid-back, unconventional sensibility, this is the manga for you.

Electronic access provided by the publisher.

Book Girl and the Undine Who Bore a Moonflower

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By Mizuki Nomura. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen Press.

One of the main themes of the Book Girl series has been elements of the past seemingly overlaying with elements of the present, and our heroes and other protagonists finding themselves trapped in a seeming reimagining of past crimes. Konoha, our hero, is especially notorious for seeing his relationship with Miu mirrored and kaleidoscoped in virtually everything he interacts with, but it also plays out with Takada, Akutagawa, and the other members of the cast. Including a girl from the 2nd novel named Hotaru Amemiya, whose presence is felt in this 6th book of the Book Girl series.

BookGirlv6Final

This novel takes place chronologically between books 2 and 3 (Famished Spirit and Captive Fool), during Tohko and Konoha’s summer break. That said, it reads better having come after the others, and has significant foreshadowing for the last two books, so it’s well-placed here. It also delves into the story of Maki Himekura, which isn’t too surprising, given she’s the one remaining main cast member who didn’t get a book of their own. I had worried that Famished Spirit would be all we saw of her, but that was Amemiya’s book, and its consequences play out a bit here, as we see Maki unchained, to a degree. Or rather, that’s what she wants to be.

Each Book Girl novel focuses on a specific work, and this one is no exception. I admit I’ve never read Kyoya Izumi’s play Demon Pond (I’m not even certain if it’s available in English), but its plot it helpfully laid out by Tohko along the way, so there’s no real need to. This book is also heavily imbued with demons and the supernatural, just like Famished Spirit, and even though most all of the ghostly elements are eventually explained as being all too human, the book has an atmosphere of tension, sort of like the old haunted castle romances of the turn of the 20th century.

This book takes place at the Himekura summer estate, so Takeda, Akutagawa and Kotobuki are absent. We do get to see Ryuto, however, Tohko’s cousin, and it becomes clear that Maki isn’t the only one deeply affected by the events in Famished Spirit. He and Maki clash immediately, with physical as well as verbal abuse. Not a surprise given how they’re both extroverted, flamboyant characters. As for Maki herself, she’s trapped in a situation that fans of Japanese manga with rich girls will know all too well – her life is already laid out for her and she can’t escape the thumb of her all-controlling grandfather. This helps explain (though not excuse) some of the rather unpleasant things she does in this book.

As for Konoha and Tohko, things are seemingly the same as ever. We get a classic Konoha panic attack here (though he’s just been kidnapped and is lost in a forest during a downpour, so I’ll grant him this one), and Tohko once again has a long speech at the end where she lays everything out for the cast, something that always seems a bit affected in these books, but fits the character perfectly. However, we also get a few hints of the final two books. Ryuto gives Konoha some prompts that, when eaten, given Tohko an altogether different attitude, and the final few pages of the book show Tohko in a highly melancholic state over the fact that soon she won’t be able to be with Konoha anymore. (The answer being ‘she’s graduating’, but given who Tohko is and the way this scene is written, it makes it *sound* as if she may have some wasting disease or something. I doubt the series is that downbeat, however.)

All five previous books of this series have bold type showing the inner monologue of the volume’s protagonist or antagonist, be that Takeda, Akutagawa, or whoever. Interestingly, the epilogue to this book’s bold type not only gives us a hint of Maki’s eventual fate (not sure how I feel about it, but that’s just the shipper in me talking), but reveals who the actual author of these pieces may be. If you’ve been reading along, it’s not much of a surprise, but the fact that we’re seeing it shows that we’re definitely getting all the cards laid out now. All that’s left is the final Book Girl story, which is so epic it will take two books to cover.