Off the Shelf with Melinda & Michelle

MICHELLE: Melinda, after we finish this one we will have done as many columns in 2019 as we did for the entirety of 2015-2018! Go us!

MELINDA: *laughs weakly* Yes… “go us.” Um. Wow. When you put it that way, we sound terribly unimpressive.

MICHELLE: Well, the alternative would’ve been to let it disappear, so I think we deserve a bit of credit for resuscitating it! Anyhow, I expect that you’ve been reading some manga!

MELINDA: I suppose you’re right! WE ARE BASICALLY GODS.

…

Okay, maybe not. But yes, I have indeed been reading some manga, or at least rereading, which is to say that I took some time this week to look at the new omnibus edition of CLAMP’s four-volume manga, Wish, originally published in Kadokawa Shoten’s Mystery DX, adapted into English in the early 2000s by TOKYOPOP, and resurrected just a few weeks ago by Dark Horse Comics, with their usual omnibus treatment—larger trim size, very nice-looking print, and a somewhat refreshed translation.

For those who missed Wish the first time around, it’s the story of an angel, Kohaku, who has been sent to Earth to find Hisui, one of the four “Master Angels” (why they don’t just say “Archangel” is a mystery to me, but maybe there’s something I don’t get), who disappeared from Heaven after a visit to the bridge between Heaven and Hell. During their mission, Kohaku—who appears human-sized during the day but reverts to tiny cherub form at night—is rescued from an attacking crow by Shuichiro, a local human doctor. Complications ensue when it turns out that Hisui actually defected to Earth in order to be with Kokuyo, the actual son of Satan, with whom they have fallen in love. Meanwhile, Kohaku becomes confused by their own growing feelings for Shuichiro.

There’s a whole lot packed into this short series, including more angels and demons, time travel, reincarnation, messenger rabbits, cats (some of whom are actually demons), and a tree fairy, but generally speaking it’s all just incredibly CLAMP from start to finish, and if you’re into that, you know what I mean. Someone even sacrifices an eye. This thing honestly couldn’t get any CLAMPier. It’s not my favorite of their series—I could live very happily never reading another manga about angels for the rest of my life—but as most CLAMP fans will know, the big deal about this edition is the translation, which is certainly what caught my attention.

In CLAMP’s original vision, there is no gender in Heaven or Hell, but in early 2000s publishing, it was unthinkable to convey that in English, especially when it came to the angels, who, in Japanese, referred to themselves with genderless pronouns. This led to a decision to choose genders for each of the angels, based on heteronormative standards regarding appearance and romantic entanglement, outraging some fans but satisfying style guides. Fast forward to 2019, when publishing has finally recalled that singular “they” is a thing, and our angels are genderless at last.

I’ve already mentioned that Wish is far from my favorite of CLAMP’s work, so I wasn’t especially eager to reread it, but I was surprised to note just how much more enjoyment I got out of it this time around. As someone who identifies as nonbinary, I realize this may be of greater importance to me than most, but whatever CLAMP’s intention really was when they filled their comic with genderless angels, it feels like representation, and for something originally published in the 1990s, that is kind of a big deal. Freeing the angels from gender expectations breathed new life into them for me, made the story richer, and opened up its universe to the notion that love and attraction might be based on something other than a person’s gender expression or whatever reproductive organs they happen to possess. These are not novel ideas for many of us, but with all the hand-wringing over this series back in 2002, it feels revolutionary. Mostly, though, what I’m struck with as I read this edition, is how easy it would have been to publish it exactly as it is now, then. The sentences are not awkward. There is nothing that feels labored or unnatural in this translation. How has it actually taken publishing this long to figure that out?

MICHELLE: It’s been a long time since I read Wish, and it was also not my favorite, but I definitely feel a greater spark of interest when I imagine a translation that represents the angels as genderless! It makes me want to shake TOKYOPOP and demand, “Would that have been so hard?!?!” (They had other similar issues back in the day, too, and not just with genderless protagonists. I distinctly remember a character in GetBackers being assigned feminine pronouns when, in fact, he is very much a dude and if anyone had actually bothered to learn anything about the series they were translating, they would’ve known that. SIGH.) I can totally see how it would make the whole story richer as a result.

MELINDA: Yeah, nobody could be more surprised than I am to be describing Wish as “rich” in anything other than CLAMP’s beautiful, swirly artwork, but I genuinely enjoyed rereading it, and I’d even recommend it, at least to fans of shoujo manga, and particularly to other enbies. It’s an unusual treasure of representation for the time period. And messenger bunnies! Who doesn’t love messenger bunnies?

There is one jarring panel in the first volume, where one of the demons seems to misgender Kohaku as “she,” but I don’t know if that was an editorial oversight (that’s how it’s translated in TOKYOPOP’s version, too) or if it was actually written that way in Japanese. But in over 800 pages, that one panel wasn’t significant enough to mar my enjoyment overall.

So what did you read this week, Michelle?

MICHELLE: Maybe that demon was intentionally being a jerk.

I checked out the first volume of Hitorijime My Hero by Memeco Arii, one of the first boys’ love manga published in print by Kodansha Comics. (They did release a handful of others digitally in 2018.)

As a kid, Masahiro Setagawa hated tokusatsu shows because he knew that, no matter how miserable his life was, no hero would come to save him. But when he fell in with a group of delinquents in middle school and became their gofer, a hero did come in the form of Kousuke Ohshiba, the so-called “bear killer,” who defeated the thugs and ended up with Setagawa as his new underling. Setagawa befriended Ohshiba’s younger brother, Kensuke, and as the manga begins, some time has passed. He’s dealing with the fact that Kensuke is now in a relationship with another boy named Asaya Hasekura and that Kousuke is a teacher at their high school.

Almost immediately, Kousuke is confronting Setagawa about the feelings he believes Setagawa has for him, saying, “Even if you feel that way I won’t be able to return those feelings.” Setagawa is too dumbstruck to deny it, and then Kousuke (an adult) keeps sending him (a teenager) mixed signals, like suddenly smooching him or calling him “the guy I like.” It turns out that Kousuke is basically trying to make Setagawa realize he is gay. This eventually works. And then they do it. Eyeroll.

Because this series is a spinoff from an earlier series, we’re just kind of thrown into a confusing timeline and a mix of characters without a lot of context. I’ve seen the first couple of episodes of the anime, and they handle all of this material far more clearly. The manga does a little to show why Setagawa likes Kousuke—he’s strong, smart, and capable—but none at all to show why Kousuke likes Setagawa, aside from one page where he talks about how his devotion helped him retain his humanity or something. Really, it’s all pretty disappointing so far. I know it’s a popular series, so I’m hoping it gets better.

MELINDA: I can’t help but roll my eyes along with you. This basically sounds like a collection of my least favorite BL tropes, though maybe (hopefully??) at least without the younger, smaller guy wincing in pain and horror every time they have sex? Please tell me it at least doesn’t have that. Though maybe it doesn’t matter. I know the student/teacher thing is a common trope too, but I really hate it, especially when it’s the main romantic plot line. I know it’s a popular series, but I honestly can’t imagine reading it by choice.

MICHELLE: To its credit, it absolutely does not have that. It’s fully a fade-to-black scenario with some evidence afterwards that Setagawa enjoyed himself tremendously. As for the student-teacher thing, this is a slightly different variation in which the two people concerned knew each other for years before Setagawa came to the school where Kousuke teaches, so the power imbalance between them is not so much that Kousuke is in an official position of authority but that Setagawa has kind of idolized him.

MELINDA: Either way, I’m guessing it’s not for me. I’ll wait to hear what you think of future volumes before taking the risk.

MICHELLE: Okay. I can handle at least one more. Speaking of Kodansha’s advances into the realm of print BL, would you care to do the summary honors for our mutual read this time?

MELINDA: Sure!

This week, we both read the first volume of the much-anticipated series 10 Dance, by Inouesatoh, also from Kodansha Comics, as Michelle mentioned above.

The story involves two ballroom dancers with similar names—Shinya Sugiki, who is an international champion in Standard Ballroom, and Shinya Suzuki, who is the Japanese national champion in Latin Dance. Their relationship with each other is both admiring and rivalrous, and when Sugiki asks Suzuki and his partner to train with with him (and his partner) for the 10-Dance Competition (combining the 5 Standard and 5 Latin dances), Suzuki finds it impossible to refuse.

Over the course of the first volume, the four dancers train together—the men in particular working to be able to lead in each other’s specialty—and that’s literally all that happens in the story, but as we watch the two of them butt heads (and other things) throughout the training, it’s honestly just riveting. This story is all about personality and relationships, and certainly we’re expecting some steamy romance between the two male leads down the line, but even in this preliminary volume, where nothing overtly romantic happens, there’s so much interpersonal entanglement to enjoy.

The two men couldn’t be more different. Suzuki, who grew up in Cuba, has been dancing with his partner since childhood, while Sugiki changes partners constantly, never quite settling in with anyone. Suzuki’s strength is showing passion on the floor, while Sugiki’s is the elegance of his form. And though things are slowly heating up a bit, I honestly believe I would be happy just watching them dance together as I learn new details about Standard and Latin ballroom rules, pretty much forever. It’s that entertaining.

MICHELLE: I enjoyed it tremendously! From the start, the cover art reminded me of est em, and the content within does, too. With est em, I was always struck by the way her characters would talk while engaged in intimate acts, and although Sugiki and Suzuki aren’t having sex, they’re still engaged in physical activity—indeed, they’ve been dancing until dawn together for months—that puts them in close proximity, gettin’ sweaty, maintaining eye contact, et cetera. And they’re talking throughout, gradually becoming closer and revealing details about their personal lives in the process. I love the slow development of their relationship and how this, in turn, makes small moments so pivotal. The one that stands out is when Sugiki has gone to London to defend a championship title. When he succeeds, it’s Suzuki that he calls, and when this reserved man actually smiles when being told “Hurry up and come home,” it has such impact! Of course, they go right back to butting heads after that.

MELINDA: I agree on est em, though I’d go even further and say it feels like an est em/Fumi Yoshinaga hybrid, with the additional warmth of their observations about each other’s habits and idiosyncrasies and the scene where they dance together at a restaurant, because trying to make points about dance while sitting at the table just isn’t working. It’s got all of est em’s sexiness and suave, along with Yoshinaga’s warm goofiness, and the underlying elegance of both.

MICHELLE: “Warm goofiness” is a great way to describe the scene where Sugiki, frustrated by Suzuki’s attempts to lead the waltz, gets Suzuki to adopt the woman’s role and proceeds to very thoroughly make him feel like a princess. “I feel like I could pop out a dozen babies for you right now!” And you’re absolutely right about elegance, too; these dance scenes are drawn so beautifully.

If you’ll forgive somewhat of a non-sequitur, although I don’t know the kanji used for Sugiki and Suzuki’s given names (and, indeed, it might not even be the same), one definition for “shinya” has a meaning that’s very applicable to the story. Check it out.

MELINDA: I believe I read somewhere that the kanji for each of their names is slightly different from the other, but I’m tickled by that meaning all the same. It certainly is appropriate!

Bottom line, I can’t wait to read more of this series, and I’m thrilled that Kodansha brought it over for us!

MICHELLE: I enthusiastically concur!

Thanks for joining us for another installment of Off the Shelf! The winner of last column’s giveaway is Joseph Miller! Joseph, send over an email or drop a message to Melinda on Twitter to collect!

MELINDA: Well, hello, Michelle! Can you believe we’re back again in just two weeks? I hope you’ve had time to come up with a new joke.

MICHELLE: That last one I made was so very bad, I’m starting to feel remorse for inflicting terrible dad jokes on people at the start of these columns. So, you get a reprieve, everybody!

MELINDA: I dunno, I think you may be disappointing more people than you know!

MICHELLE: If you actually miss the terrible jokes, leave a comment and I’ll do better next time. How about that?

MELINDA: Fair enough! Well, if we’re not telling dad jokes, I suppose we’d better talk about some manga. What have you been reading this week, Michelle?

MICHELLE: I finally took the plunge and read the first two volumes of Fruits Basket Another, the three-volume Fruits Basket sequel by Natsuki Takaya. I was wary about this one, but though it has some significant flaws, I liked it more than I expected to.

In volume one, we’re introduced to Sawa Mitoma, an exceptionally meek girl who spends so much time thinking things like “Why do I always irritate others without even realizing it?” and being perhaps the most passive protagonist I’ve ever seen that she actually becomes irritating to the reader. She has just started her first year at Kaibara High School, and soon encounters “an incredibly sparkly boy” when she drops her student ID. This boy looks a lot like Yuki Sohma and, surprise, it’s his and Machi’s son, Mutsuki. Be prepared for a bunch of this sort of thing, because in short order we learn that Hanajima’s little brother is Sawa’s homeroom teacher and that Makoto Takei (remember that overzealous student council guy?) is a teacher whose obsession with Yuki has now transferred to Mutsuki. (He’s really creepy about it, too, and desperately needs to be fired.)

Sawa next meets Hajime, the son of Kyo and Tohru, who is serving as student council president. Mutsuki is the vice-president, and soon Sawa’s been drafted to be the first-year member. Over time, she meets more Sohmas, including Riku and Sora, the twin children of Hatsuharu and Rin. She gains confidence by being useful to the council and Riku helps her realize that by always keeping her head down, she’s missing opportunities available to her, like the nice girls in class who want to ask her to have lunch with them.

By the end of the second volume, Sawa has become a much more sympathetic character. Not just because she finally starts taking the initiative and actually engaging with life, but because readers can finally see what Takaya-sensei was doing. It turns out that all of Sawa’s issues stem from her abusive mother, who doesn’t come home for long periods of time, and when she does deign to appear, demands gratitude and apologies from the daughter she viciously belittles. No wonder Sawa got warped into thinking everything she does is wrong and that she’s a useless lump who causes trouble for others!

In the end, the not-very-subtle premise of the series seems to be “this generation of the Sohmas all love their parents very much, so this time they’re going to be the ones to save and accept a girl cursed with a shitty home life.” The execution is rather clumsy, however, as the Sohma offspring talk about their parents way too much for normal teenagers. I did like that Ayame’s son, Chizuru, struggles because he’s the normal one in his eccentric family, and that Mutsuki’s love for his parents is partly due to realizing not everyone has it so good. There’s one worrisome panel that suggests young Mutsuki witnessed Akito protecting her and Shigure’s son, Shiki, from Ren wielding a butcher knife! I hope that’s explained in the third and final volume, as well as whether Shiki was responsible for getting Mutsuki to help out Sawa in the first place.

In any case, I liked it enough to finish out the story, and that’s more than I expected.

MELINDA: Okay, so I’ll admit that the parade of Sohma children just reminds me how irritated I was by the neat pairing-off of everyone that happened at the end of the original series (Ayame, seriously??) so it’s probably getting off on the wrong foot with me from the start. But more than that, I’m struck by your description of the kids talking soooo much about their parents, like some kind of weird collision of “let’s make more money off of Fruits Basket” and “let’s assume that nobody actually read Fruits Basket and we have so much explaining to do!” Or maybe it’s just “let’s make more money off of Fruits Basket, but in only a few volumes, so DUMP THAT INFO.”

Honestly, the only thing that gives me hope is that butcher knife. Akito with a butcher knife is keeping me alive here. I might read it just for that. Do we have to have the creepy teacher-student obsession, though? I let that stuff go with older manga, but seriously. It’s 2019.

Or wait. Is it Ren with the butcher knife? I think I added a comma in my mind to draw my attention. Without the comma, I’m suddenly less interested.

MICHELLE: Yeah, it was Ren with the knife. She didn’t go away just ‘cos the curse was lifted, so she’s still around being horrible, apparently.

And yes, after everyone paired off neatly at the end of the main series, all of the couples seem to have stayed together for the next twenty years, judging from the age of Hatori’s daughter. At least Hanajima didn’t marry Kazuma! The parent talk isn’t as bad as recapping the events of the original series, at least, but there is a little bit of explanation when introducing new Sohmas to Sawa. Like, no one says Momiji’s name or what particular business he’s doing, but we know he’s extremely successful at it, which is kind of nice.

It’s more like someone saying, “I want to be like them,” which is still more than teenagers generally say, in my experience.

MELINDA: So, okay, you’re enjoying this more than you expected and you’ll likely read to the end. Should I be following your lead, or should I just reread Fruits Basket? I do suddenly have an urge to reread, especially since I recently lent out the first few volumes to one of my teen students!

MICHELLE: I honestly don’t know. I think it might bug you somewhat more than it did me. Maybe wait until volume three comes out and I can give a definitive answer as to whether this series adds anything to the Fruits Basket experience.

What have you been reading this week?

MELINDA: This week, I dug into the debut volume of For the Kid I Saw in my Dreams, a new series from the creator of Erased, Kei Sanbe. Like Erased, it was originally serialized in Kadokawa Shoten’s Young Ace and is being published in English by Yen Press.

Senri Nakajou had a twin brother, Kazuto, with whom his connection was so strong, they experienced shared vision and literally felt each other’s pain when the other was beaten by their abusive, alcoholic father. As the older of the twins, Kazuto was intensely protective of Senri and would manipulate his way into taking the beating for both of them, to spare them “double the pain.” He’d also insert himself between their parents when they were fighting, to spare their mother from the father’s abuse. On those nights, Senri, hidden in the cupboard under the stairs, would experience Kazuto’s pain as he took their mother’s beating on himself, until one night, when the expected beating never came. Instead, Senri emerged from the cupboard to find both his parents murdered and his twin missing. Based on the two brief visions he shared with his twin afterwards, Senri is certain that his brother was kidnapped and murdered as well. Now, Senri is a high school delinquent, still searching for the man who murdered his brother.

It takes a chapter or two for Sanbe-sensei to introduce Senri’s twin into the story—a choice that pays off, I suppose, by denying us full insight into Senri’s state of mind, which makes his morally-gray existence hit a bit harder in the beginning. The first things we find out about him are that he was discovered sitting in a pool of his parents’ blood as a child and that he now helps run an ongoing con in which his partners steal someone’s money and then Senri gets paid to pretend to recover it. He’s so cold and remorseless, we’d wonder if he might have murdered his parents himself if we weren’t also looking at his terrifying childhood drawings in which he repeatedly depicts the murderer (whose head he eventually lops off with a pair of scissors). Then the twin revelation transforms him from typical anti-hero into a scarier but more sympathetic anti-hero, which works much better, at least for me.

While Senri and Kazuto’s extreme twin connection doesn’t so far reach the supernatural heights of the protagonist’s time-traveling in Erased, there is a bit of a similar feel in this series that I admit I’m hoping might pan out into something just as fantastical, because an average tale of vengeance doesn’t much interest me. That said, there’s a lot going on here, and I am not at all sure where it’s leading. There is quite a bit of mystery introduced in this volume, beyond the identity of the murderer, and there are some supporting characters of whom I’m already very fond, including Senri’s grandparents, who raised him after he was orphaned, and his childhood friend, Enan, whose backstory is nearly as tragic as his own.

MICHELLE: Aside from an aborted attempt to read volume one, I haven’t read any of Erased, which I’m hoping to rectify this year. And this certainly sounds a worthy successor! I’m a little concerned I’ll have trouble getting into it, as I generally don’t love narratives that focus on remorseless anti-heroes, but it seems like the mystery of what happened to his parents will compel me forward. I confess that, even with this brief synopsis, I’m already expecting kind of a Loveless outcome with the older brother.

MELINDA: Well, maybe I’m overstating the antihero-ness? Senri’s got a lot of compassion in him (he’s the one who reached out to Enan when they were young and accepted her when nobody else would). He’s just very much intent on being the one to kill his brother’s murderer and it’s what drives his whole narrative at this point. He also tends to inflict physical pain on himself, and I don’t know whether it’s an attempt to recreate the pain he can no longer share with his brother or a survivor’s guilt thing, but he’s definitely a sympathetic character.

You’re not the only one thinking Loveless here, though. I’m also absolutely expecting that the brother is alive.

MICHELLE: Alive and potentially culpable! This really does sound pretty neat, though. I do like a good mystery.

MELINDA: I’m certainly intrigued! So would you like to talk a bit about our mutual read this week?

MICHELLE: Sure!

Ran and the Gray World is a seven-volume seinen series by Aki Irie. In this first volume, we’re introduced to Ran, a headstrong fourth-grader, who lives with her father and older brother, Jin. Ran and Jin’s mother, Shizuka, doesn’t live with them because her presence is required elsewhere to keep a pair of mysterious giant doors from opening. She’s a Grand Sorceress and it soon becomes apparent that Ran, at least, has inherited her mother’s abilities (and impulsivity). I’m assuming Shizuka also gave her the sneakers, currently far too large, which allow her to transform into a teenage version of herself. For his part, Jin has a magic coat that allows him to transform into a wolf, perfect for tracking Ran when she goes off on ill-advised adventures.

Insisting she’s already grown-up, Ran dons the shoes and hitches a ride with strangers to go visit her mother and, inspired by a special lesson from her kindly science teacher, attempts to fly from the school roof. She has some success at the latter and winds up in the garden of a rich guy named Otaro, who doesn’t endear himself to me when he returns to his apartment building naked, exposing himself to a couple of kids in the lobby in the process. Jin rightly pegs him as fishy, and it’s clear by the end of the volume that he’s become obsessed with Ran. Despite declaring he’d never touch a kid—she’s in teenage form for the entirety of their acquaintance—he soon suggests they become more than friends. He’s a creep, and I’m so glad Ran whisks herself off when he embraces her (“I’m outta here!”) but I do worry about what lies ahead.

MELINDA: I love a lot of things about the premise, and the art is freaking gorgeous, which is what drew me to the book in the first place. I’m also pretty into what’s going on with Ran’s family dynamic, MAGIC (always a winner), and wow, her mom and brother are both absolutely fascinating characters with so much going on. But I am super creeped out by Otaro and worried about what’s going to happen there. It’s funny as someone from the Big generation, I suppose, that I’m so disturbed by a story in which a young girl is inhabiting a much older body. But at least in Big (and I suppose also in something like 13 Going On 30), the young character is at least at an age where they are already experiencing sexual attraction and an interest in romance, so it somehow didn’t feel quite so incredibly wrong as this. So I’m worried about where this story is going to take Ran in that regard, but I’m trying to be optimistic, I guess?

MICHELLE: Yeah. At the very least, she’s able to extricate herself from these kinds of situations when they arise, but I can’t say I have any faith that she’s going to get any more savvy any time soon.

Jin is hands-down my favorite character in the series. He’s like a Doumeki type or something. Knows that magic exists, but sensible. Looks dour, but actually kind. And so, I side with him where Shizuka is concerned, finding her to be profligate with her magic when she comes to their house. I mean, it looked like people genuinely had car accidents when she rained giant desserts down upon the town!

MELINDA: You have hit the nail on the head with Jin as the Doumeki type! And that explains why I like him so much, too. I always identify with the Watanuki characters, but I adore and crave a Doumeki for reasons that are probably obvious. Kind of ironic, isn’t it, that the loose canon character here shares her name with him. Shizuka is a terrifying mess and her power lets her get away with it, so I feel that we can count on her to provide plenty of conflict here. We don’t need the creepy dude!

MICHELLE: Definitely not. Perhaps she’ll do us all a favor and turn him into a turnip.

MELINDA: I could get behind that!

Despite my reservations about Otaro and where that storyline might lead, I am probably more excited and intrigued about this series than anything else we’ve discussed here today. It’s whimsical, original, filled with mysterious potential (what’s behind those doors??), and I can’t overstate how beautifully drawn it is. With the artwork alone, I’m besotted.

MICHELLE: I failed to say this the first time you mentioned the art, but I absolutely agree. There’s a certain retro, Moto Hagio-ish quality to it that’s very appealing.

MELINDA: Yes, it’s sort of Heart of Thomas meets Bride of the Water God, art wise—detailed and ornate, but also flowing, always in motion, like Ran’s personality. I’m definitely looking forward to more!

Melinda is running another Off the Shelf giveaway! Comment to this post or on Twitter with the answer to the question, “Are you a Doumeki or a Watanuki?” and enter to win volume one of Ran and the Gray World! Continental US only, we’re so sorry!

MICHELLE: Hey, Melinda! You know what time it is. Time for my first really terrible joke of 2019. Are you ready?

MELINDA: Michelle, I was born ready.

MICHELLE: Okay, then. How do you find Will Smith in the snow?

MELINDA: Um. I don’t know, Michelle. How do you find Will Smith in the snow?

MICHELLE: You follow the fresh prints!

MELINDA: Okay, I know that was a terrible joke, but since I’m a pretty big fan of the Fresh Prince, I can’t help but appreciate it.

MICHELLE: It is exceedingly terrible but somehow it makes me happy! Anyways, we’ve once more dusted the cobwebs off the shelf because there’s some new manga we want to talk about. Would you like to go first?

MELINDA: I would! So, I just finished reading Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, which was adapted from the light novel series of the same name and as such, comes with a slew of credits: art by Waco Ioka, original story by Midori Yuma, and character design by Laruha.

Aoi was adopted as a kid by a man named Shiro whom she describes as her grandfather. Shiro was a notorious philanderer, who wandered Japan fathering countless children with his many lovers, so he was hardly wanting for progeny of his own, but he raised Aoi faithfully, even providing for her college tuition after his death. Now alone, Aoi is prepared to make it on her own, but before she can even begin, she’s kidnapped by an ogre named Ōdanna, who whisks her away to the Ayakashi (spirit) world. As it turns out, Ōdanna is the proprietor of a well-respected inn, which Aoi’s grandfather once trashed on a bender. Unable to pay for the damage, Shiro promised Aoi’s hand in marriage as compensation, and Ōdanna’s come to collect. When Aoi refuses, she is offered the opportunity to work off the debt herself, but to do so, she has to find a job somewhere among the Ayakashi, most of whom hate humans, especially her grandfather.

Manga adaptations of light novels are not usually a big draw for me, but they’re also a bit of a rarity for Viz, so I figured it was worth a shot, especially since the supernatural setup is the type of thing I generally enjoy. My immediate reaction was regret. This adaptation begins with pages of narrated exposition that may work perfectly well in the novel but are clunky and awkward in manga form. The setup feels rushed, as though the artist knows that it’s awkward and wants to just push through it to get to the parts of the story that will be easier to tell, which unfortunately renders Aoi as a pretty generic protagonist with no personality in particular outside of a soft spot for Ayakashi and an interest in cooking.

Thankfully, the artist does seem to find their footing about halfway through the volume, and there are some fairly compelling mysteries set up, especially regarding a shape-changing nine-tailed fox named Ginji, who seems to be a friend. Or is he?

MICHELLE: My immediate reaction to your summary is that Shiro sounds like quite the asshole!

I’m sorry to hear that it gets off to a disappointing start. Are the mysteries sufficiently compelling that you think you’ll bother to pick up volume two?

MELINDA: Shiro indeed seems to have been quite the asshole, though certainly there is a lot of mystery surrounding him as well. For instance, he carefully taught Aoi how to avoid being kidnapped by an ogre, which would indicate that he never intended to surrender her as “payment” after all, and I get the sense that there’s more to the story than Aoi’s being told. And yes, I do think I’d give it at least one more volume. As lukewarm as this began, by the end I really did want to know what was going to happen next. Would Aoi find a job? Is Ginji as harmless as he appears? And what’s up with Akatsuki, the inn’s cranky general manager who really hated Shiro, and his adorably tousled hair?

Oh, and lest our shoujo-loving readers fear, despite being an ogre, Ōdanna is a total hottie with red eyes and cute little horns, which honestly is kind of a disappointment for me, but will probably sit well with the intended demographic.

MICHELLE: Probably. I should also note that a 26-episode anime version aired recently and is available on Crunchyroll last I heard.

MELINDA: I suspect that an anime adaptation might be more effective, especially for the exposition sections, so perhaps that’s the way to go. I will stick with the manga a bit longer, though!

So, would you like to share what you’ve been reading, Michelle?

MICHELLE: Continuing with the VIZ shoujo trend, I just finished the first two volumes of Shortcake Cake by a duo creating manga under the name suu Morishita. The series runs in Margaret, which is typically a very good indicator that I’m going to like it.

Ten Serizawa is from a very small town where local schools only go through junior high, so she’s had an extremely long commute for her first month of high school. Her long-time friend Ageha has been trying to persuade her to move into the boardinghouse where she lives and finally, after visiting the place, Ten agrees. Because this is shoujo manga, it turns out that the gorgeous, bookish boy that all the girls are obsessed with turns out to live there, too. His name is Chiaki Kasadera.

By the end of the second volume, it’s clear that Ten likes Chiaki, but how we get there is a pretty interesting and complicated route. One of the other boarders is a flirtatious boy named Riku Mizuhara, and he’s intrigued when Ten shuts down his attempts at flirtation. Soon, he’s developed a crush on her that she finds out about almost immediately. She rejects him and to his profound credit, Riku backs off. “I don’t want to pester her and make her hate me.” Chiaki, however, wants the two of them to be happy, so when Riku’s estranged little brother Rei—a wholly odious and imperious little shit who calls Ten by the name “Ugly”—commands Ten to be his girlfriend (just to make Riku miserable), Chiaki claims that he and Ten are actually dating, hoping that this pretend relationship will convince Rei that Riku is already suffering enough. Then, the kid will back off and maybe Riku and Ten can make it work.

Still with me? I grant that all these boys have feelings for Ten incredibly quickly—well, only Riku has officially admitted that he likes her, but I imagine it’s only a matter of time before Chiaki and Rei are forced to examine their real motivations—but at least she’s not an annoying protagonist. What’s really neat, though, is that we actually see inside the boys’ heads! This is exceedingly rare in shoujo manga, so a little bit of narration from a potential love interest goes a long way. I’m sure that it’ll be Chiaki in the end, but Riku is so thoroughly charming that I really want it to be him.

MELINDA: Okay, so from your summary, I admit that, like you, I’m currently a fan of Riku. I always like the boy who isn’t going to end up with the girl. It’s a lifelong curse. Mostly, though, I’m thinking that this sounds so gloriously shoujo, I must read it right away. I mean, seriously. A boardinghouse. I’m so here for this.

Is there other stuff going on besides the romantic drama? Like, at school?

MICHELLE: Not even a little. Ten’s mother only puts in a brief appearance to consent to the arrangement (though it’s at least suggested that her parents did go have a look around the place and all before she moved in) and school pretty much only exists as a backdrop for Chiaki and Riku to both attempt to walk Ten home so that she doesn’t get menaced by Rei. On the one hand, the protagonist having a well-rounded life is nice, but on the other hand, maybe it means we’ll be spared some of the by now too-familiar shoujo story beats like sports and cultural festivals.

MELINDA: Fair enough. Sounds like a fun read, in any case. I’ll definitely be digging into these volumes myself.

MICHELLE: I look forward to hearing what you think!

So, to conclude our VIZtacular trio, our mutual read this week was the first two volumes of Ao Haru Ride by Io Sakisaka, who also brought us Strobe Edge. Would you like to do the summation honors?

MELINDA: Sure! Here we go.

Futaba Yoshioka was a shy junior high school student with no interest in boys, except for Kou Tanaka, whose quiet sweetness mirrored her own. She thought something might happen between them, but when she turned up to meet Kou for a summer festival at his invitation, he never showed, and then his family moved away. Now, she’s in her first year of high school, and when she discovers that Kou is at the same school, she imagines them starting over. But the truth is, they are both so changed, they might as well be different people. He’s become a prickly underachiever to cope with his broken family life, and she’s become a tomboy to stay on the good side of her catty group of friends.

Then everything goes wrong, and Futaba finds herself friendless and isolated in a new class. But when she makes the rash decision to volunteer as class representative, she begins to find new friendships among a collection of loners, one of whom is Kou.

MICHELLE: Nicely done! This series ran in Bessatsu Margaret so, of course, I like it. There are a number of things about the initial setup that are pretty neat. For one, the action doesn’t start on the first day of Futaba’s first year but rather in the last semester, meaning she’s been at the same school with Kou for a very long time without noticing him. He’s in the honors class, which convenes on a different floor, but has definitely noticed her. Secondly, instead of the heroine starting friendless and gradually acquiring them (like Kimi ni Todoke or Waiting for Spring, to name but two recent examples), she starts with some friends. They’re just not really friends because she’s been duping them about who she really is. It’s true that both of those girls are not very nice, but I also appreciated that the dissolution of their friendship was not accompanied by mean-girl antics. Futaba just has to start over, and we’re shown glimpses of two other isolated girls who seem destined to become her true friends.

MELINDA: I’m struck by the differences between this and my first read here. This series, too, starts off with a lot of narration, but it’s utilized so effectively in Ao Haru Ride. Because Futaba is so shy, most of her thoughts are kept to herself, especially in the beginning, but instead of delivering an exposition dump, this narration is guiding us through Futaba’s realization about her crush on Kou and her interactions with other kids at school. We’re experiencing her thoughts and feelings much the way we would if she were the POV character of a YA novel, but only exactly as much as we need to. We’re shown what’s happened and told how she feels about it. This isn’t something that’s unique about the series at all—it’s exactly what we want to see in shoujo manga, and when it’s done well, it’s kind of invisible. But after reading Kakuriyo, I’m struck by how skillfully Sakisaka utilizes Futaba’s inner monologue.

MICHELLE: And some of the things she thinks are so poignant, too. She spends much of these volumes looking for signs of the old Kou and there’s one moment when she’s looking at him and thinks, “The nape of his neck is familiar but he sounds like a stranger. It makes me feel like crying.” Physically, someone she used to know and love is standing in front of her, but the connection they had has been cut off. I have been there and I thought Sakisaka captured that kind of feeling very well.

And then Kou rightly tells her, “You’re acting like you want to move forward, but you’re holding on to the past,” which I liked, as well. Eventually she decides that only his words are harsh, but that his heart is kind. I was glad she came to that realization in the second volume, because I didn’t want to keep rehashing the contrast to his past self and also, it’ll be nice to see Kou grow, as well.

MELINDA: Things do seem to happen in this series exactly when we most need them to. Just when I was becoming impossibly frustrated about Futaba’s attachment to the friend group that forced her to hide her true self, she broke free of them. And as you say, just as I was done with her mooning over the boy Kou used to be, she finally let that go as well. The pacing in these volumes is somehow exactly right.

Just as I was typing this up, I saw Shōjo Beat mention on Twitter that the third volume will be out next month, and I felt a surge of glee, so Sakisaka is definitely doing something right.

A bit of an odd confession: I admit that I’ve come to a place as a reader where I’m a bit bored by stories that lack queer characters, so from the beginning I found myself personally casting Kou as trans to help me get into it a little better. Queer readers, If you haven’t tried this with Ao Haru Ride, I wholeheartedly recommend it!

MICHELLE: That’s interesting, especially when he comes back with a whole new name and she keeps using the one he doesn’t identify with anymore!

I had a surge of glee when I was researching Sakisaka and read a little about her current series. Now I really want that one to be licensed here, too!

MELINDA: Yeah, I really didn’t expect that, but it did capture something poignant and relatable there.

I’d very much like to see more of Sakisaka’s work make its way here, so I guess we’ll cross our fingers!

To celebrate the return of Off the Shelf, Melinda’s running a Shortcake Cake giveaway on Twitter! Follow the link to enter!

MELINDA: Heeeeey, look at this, it’s been less than two months and we’re already back again. That’s a huge improvement on our recent record, no?

MICHELLE: Considering that there was a two-year gap before our last column, I’d certainly say so!

MELINDA: Heard any good jokes lately?

MICHELLE: Hmm.. Here’s one! Why did the old lady fall in the well?

MELINDA: Wow, I don’t know! Why did the old lady fall in the well?

MICHELLE: She didn’t see that well.

MELINDA: Hey, that was actually pretty funny!

MICHELLE: Your reaction was unanticipated!

MELINDA: Speaking of “unanticipated”… no, wait, this is totally anticipated. Wanna talk about some manga?

MICHELLE: Sure! I’ve just finished the third volume of Hiroaki Samura’s Wave, Listen to Me!, a Kodansha digital exclusive.

It’s the story of Minare Koda, a waitress with a gift of fluency that catches the attention of a local radio producer, Mato. After secretly recording her drunken rant about her thieving ex and playing it over the air, he eventually takes the chance of giving her her own weekly show in a late-night time spot where she has the freedom to do some really kooky things. The first episode, for example, is a surreal audio drama about murdering said ex, Mitsuo. The next week, it’s time to bury the body on Mt. Fuji!

In this volume, Koda finds that going through those crazy plotlines has actually helped her set aside her bitterness about how Mitsuo done her wrong, and she must think about what she wants the show to be going forward. I really like the scenes wherein Mato mentors her about radio and the relationship between host and linstener. “TV viewers are guests. Radio listeners are participants,” he says at one point. This proves to be true when one of her listeners sends a fax that leads ultimately to the discovery of… well, perhaps I’ll play coy about its exact nature, but it definitely proves that reality is sometimes stranger than the occult.

Minare is a fascinating character. Full of energy and charisma, capable of selfish acts that she’s later thoroughly horrified by… She finally found a goal in life and she’s going for it, but doesn’t exactly know what she’s doing. I like her very much.

MELINDA: Okay, I gotta admit this sounds fantastic. It reminds me a little of a time when I played a lot of Quake so that I could imagine I was repeatedly blowing up my ex, only much more creative and generally productive. Is this series as delightful as it sounds?

MICHELLE: It’s delightful, but it’s also really a genius concept, since letting Minare do many things in many genres allows Samura the same liberty. So, on top of watching Minare’s skills and career progress, there are also wacky happenings to enjoy, too. I very heartily recommend it.

MELINDA: It’s hard for me to resist a Michelle recommendation, especially when it is something so obviously up my alley. You especially got me at “reality is sometimes stranger than the occult.” I mean… I have to know more. I just have to.

MICHELLE: Oh, that reminds me of another fun aspect… because Samura has already drawn out a couple of the audio dramas as if they’re actually happening, when strange things start to happen, it made me question whether he might have started another one without telling us. This is the sort of manga that would totally do that.

Anyway! What have you been reading lately?

MELINDA: I’ve been reading the first volume of Gengoroh Tagame’s My Brother’s Husband, just released by Pantheon Books. If, like me, you’re primarily familiar with Tagame’s work as a bara artist, this slice-of-life seinen manga is certainly a departure, but it feels so natural in his hands, you’d never know that it wasn’t a genre he’s always drawn.

Yaichi is a single dad, earnestly raising his young daughter, Kana, whose life is upended by the arrival of Canadian visitor, Mike, husband to Yaichi’s estranged twin brother, Ryoji, who has just passed away. Yaichi greets Mike with awkwardness and not just a little homophobia, but is forced to invite him to stay after Kana, blissfully unaware of her father’s discomfort, insists that he must be welcomed into their home. Mike, stricken with grief, but anxious to connect with Ryoji’s family and childhood, gratefully accepts Yaichi’s grudging hospitality and settles into Ryoji’s old room.

As the manga continues, we watch Yaichi confront his preconceptions about Mike (and gay people in general), with considerable nudging from Kana, who adores their new houseguest. It’s rough going at first, but as Yaichi gets to know the man who so deeply loved his brother, he is increasingly able to see past his prejudices, to the point that, by the end of the volume, he’s defending Mike’s snoring problem to Kana and fighting the desire to rage at a neighbor who declines to let her child visit Kana’s house, fearing “negative influence.”

True to expectation, this is a pretty moving manga, made all the more poignant by its quiet, slice-of-life atmosphere, The artwork and visual storytelling are downright adorable, as somehow Tagame has managed to create something that wouldn’t look out of place on the shelf alongside, say, Yotsuba&!, without sacrificing his own artistic sensibility. But, of course, it’s not the artwork that makes this book so important.

As a westerner, I’m always wary of imposing my own cultural expectations on books like this, and I’m very much aware that queer culture in Japan is as different from what I’m accustomed to here as is Japanese culture in general. And with that in mind, it’s pretty great to know that a series like this was run in Monthly Action, which, despite its “indie” aspirations, is clearly aimed mainly towards straight men (so many boobs, my friends, so many). Perhaps because of that, it was difficult for me to warm to Yaichi, who is obviously intended as the stand-in for the reader, in all his discomfort over the concept of gay people and how he’s supposed to interact with one. Watching Yaichi’s progress is painful and, yes, eventually heartwarming, but what is most striking to me, as a reader, is Mike’s patience, kindness, and general agreeability throughout. Watching this sweet, hulking man smile with gratitude in every moment, even when he’s being treated with barely-concealed suspicion, is just… heart-wrenching. I can only imagine how this must read for someone who has experienced the same.

MICHELLE: Oh, man. I knew the general premise of this but not that Yaichi would be quite so awful at the outset. And it’s bad enough that Mike’s being treated this way, but when he’s grieving and so desperate for any scrap of his beloved that he’ll take it. From how you describe him, it doesn’t sound as if Mike tries to stand up for himself at any point.

MELINDA: I feel like I should rephrase, perhaps… I mean, yes, from my perspective Yaichi is being awful, but that’s where my western perception is failing me, I think. I think we can all agree, however, that what’s astonishing and awesome about Mike (also a westerner) is that he seems to be naturally accounting for differences in culture, and is just ceaselessly kind and giving. And when Yaichi becomes moved by that, it is what really changes his perspective, perhaps even more than Kana’s influence.

There’s obviously a lot more here, too, than just Yaichi overcoming homophobia. We find out a little about his estrangement from his twin brother and also about how his own marriage broke down, and I think in the end he and Mike are going to be strong healing influences for each other, and probably also for Kana, who didn’t even know she had an uncle!

MICHELLE: That does sound reassuring. I’m about to begin reading My Brother’s Husband this evening, in fact, so I’ll do my best not to get too riled up. Especially since I’m so very grateful that Pantheon has brought it to us!

MELINDA: Oh, go ahead and get riled up! But I really think you’ll love it in the end. It’s one of my favorite manga I’ve read so far this year.

So, we also have a mutual read this week… do you want to do the honors?

MICHELLE: Sure!

From Rei Toma, whose Dawn of the Arcana I liked and also featured a protagonist whose unusual red hair is viewed with suspicion, comes The Water Dragon’s Bride.

Asahi is spending a pleasant afternoon with her parents and she’s just about to go in and have some cookies when the backyard pond reaches out and ensares her, transporting her to another world. There, she meets a friendly boy named Subaru who unfortunately has some very ruthless parents, who immediately decide to offer Asahi to the water dragon god to obtain prosperity.

Asahi meets the dragon god who is, of course, a bishounen. He decides she’ll do for entertainment and shows off various tricks, but she’s unimpressed and protests so much that he steals her voice, promising to return it when she becomes his bride. Subaru mounts a valiant rescue, but the villagers prove to be just as crappy the second time around and the god decides to intervene.

How’s that?

MELINDA: That’s about the size of it! So. Okay. Honestly, I’m having a hard time coming up with a lot to say about this series so far. It’s definitely kind of adorable. Asahi is a spunky, likable heroine. Subaru, the obvious love interest, is sweetly earnest, and the bishounen water dragon god is pleasantly crusty. But man… haven’t we read this book before? Like a thousand times? Am I too much of a bitter, old schoolgirl-in-another-land fogey to enjoy this… again?

MICHELLE: It was certainly a very lightweight volume! I do think there’s potential, especially in the character of the water god. He’s cold, distant, and uncaring. At one point he simply watches as she wastes away in starvation. And he only intervenes at the end to preserve his entertainment. I’m sure he’ll feel love eventually, since that sort of thing always happens, but he’s definitely the most interesting character so far. Too, at least with the fish imagery and the pond, I had a little bit of Moon Child feels, and that’s always welcome.

MELINDA: I hadn’t thought about Moon Child, but I can see where you’re coming from, though the artwork isn’t nearly as beautiful as Shimizu’s, nor does it hold up well to what was the obvious comparison for me, Yun Mi-kyung’s Bride of the Water God, which, whatever you think of the series in general, I think is objectively visually stunning. Of course Bride of the Water God is a much more serious take on the sacrificial maiden theme, and Moon Child is weird and darkly whimsical like no other manga I’ve ever read. So it’s not really fair to hold this sweet little volume to either of those standards.

That said, I agree that the bishounen god has some possibilities (even if the long hair and excessive lounging just made me wish we were getting a new volume of Loveless anytime soon), and I expect there will be more substance as we go forward. But I kinda hope it hurries.

MICHELLE: Me, too! I did think of Bride of the Water God, but I although I did collect the volumes for a while, I never actually read them.

MELINDA: Well, perhaps this little manga will fare better on your shelves! I guess time will tell!

MICHELLE: I will least give it a few volumes to see how it fares. But it won’t assuage my sorrow that volume four of Wave, Listen to Me! is not even out in Japan yet.

MELINDA: That is a tragedy, indeed.

MICHELLE: Hey, Melinda! What do a plum and an elephant have in common?

MELINDA: Wow, Michelle, I have no idea! What do a plum and an elephant have in common?

MICHELLE: They’re both purple! (Except for the elephant.)

MELINDA: Ahhhhhh, now this feels right. Starting off with a bad joke. That’s the stuff Off the Shelf is made of.

MICHELLE: Quite possibly nobody else enjoys it, but it is tradition, after all!

We’ve dusted off the shelf to discuss a few recent series, including one title that we both read. But would you like to go first with your solo read?

MELINDA: I’d love to!

So, nobody will be surprised to hear this, unless they’re just surprised that it took so long, but I’ve been reading the first two volumes of Platinum End, the latest from one of my favorite manga artists, Takeshi Obata, and his frequent collaborator, Tsugumi Ohba of whom I am historically much less fond. But, y’know, I love Obata and I’ll take what I can get, so here we go.

Mirai is graduating from middle school, but he couldn’t be more miserable. Orphaned at a young age and forced to live with abusive relatives, all he wants is to end it all. But when he tries to do that by jumping off his roof, the intervention of an angel, Nasse, drags him instead into a deadly, Highlander-style tournament in which he is competing with 12 other humans to win the chance to become the next God. Armed with a few special powers—angel’s wings, red arrows that work like a love spell, and white arrows that kill on contact—Mirai must prove that he’s worthy of inheriting the power of God.

Okay, so besides humiliatingly showing my age, the Highlander reference is also somewhat inaccurate, at least in theory. There is no rule in the angels’ truly weird competition that requires the God contestants to kill each other in order to win. But in Ohba’s pessimistic (and probably depressingly accurate) view of humanity, there is inevitably a candidate who immediately decides that the surest path to victory is to kill the other candidates, creating an atmosphere of terror and violence in the competition right from the start. Just as typical of an Ohba manga is the specificity of the powers’ rules—the red arrows only work for 30 days, for instance—and the competition’s built-in inequity. The angels choosing the candidates from among the downtrodden are not all created equal, and their contestants only inherit whatever powers their personal angel can also wield. Mirai, luckily, has a special-rank angel who can give him all three, but he’s a rarity in the bunch.

I’m talking a lot of plot here—also an Ohba trademark, of course—so let’s get down to the business of reviewing this thing. I generally expect to have a love-hate relationship with an Ohba/Obata manga, and my expectations were even lower going into this one, since I tend to be bored by angel stories. Interestingly, I get the sense that Obata might feel the same way, as his angel characters are the least imaginatively drawn in the series so far. But that said, I came away from these first two volumes actually hating very little.

Like most of Obata’s collaborations with Ohba, the story leans very heavily on plotting and strategy, but the real story seems to be about Mirai figuring out the point of living. Though his new wings give him a taste of personal freedom he’s never before enjoyed, his true liberation comes from the destruction of his abusive family, which he unwittingly causes, sending him into a guilt spiral and forcing him to confront questions of morality on a level most middle-schoolers are years away from having to think about outside of YA novels and video games. He’s made immediately aware of the consequences of his anger, and the cost of manipulating others with his new powers. Meanwhile, he’s learning to forgive the manipulation perpetrated by those weaker than he is, starting with his middle-school crush—herself a God candidate—whose weaker angel advises her to take pre-emptive actions against Mirai in order to protect herself.

Obviously I can’t be sure where this series is headed, but getting to read a new Takeshi Obata manga that doesn’t present me with either an utterly hateful protagonist or outrageous sexism right from the get-go feels like a treat.

MICHELLE: I, too, am bored by angel stories and I confess that I expected you were going to say you disliked it. Now my curiosity is piqued!

It seems, too, like there might be some symbolism in Mirai’s name, as “mirai” means future. And that’s really what’s on the line for him.

MELINDA: I think it might help on the angel front that the story is really not about them. Also, they are pretty strange, amoral beings who seem perfectly comfortable advancing a sort of hyper-selfish, Ayn Rand vision of individual happiness over all on behalf of their candidates, one of whom uses his newfound power to make swaths of female idols fall in love with him, so that he can spend his life immersed in a 24-7 orgy. Meanwhile, Mirai’s angel is utterly unable to comprehend why enacting bloody revenge on his horrible relatives, despite their Dickens-level villainy, does not make him happy.

The nature of God is equally ambiguous, especially since we’ve seen that only those who have already given up on humanity are actually eligible for the post. All of this plays into the creative team’s strengths, as it gives them a lot of morally gray material to work with (and lots of shonen-friendly competitiveness), while avoiding some of the things that sometimes makes their work unreadable (for me, anyway) by letting Mirai be our gateway character who is just as weirded out by most of this as we are.

It works for me, at least so far, which is a bit of a relief!

MICHELLE: Yeah, it really does sound pretty interesting! I will have to check it out.

MELINDA: I think the rest of the Battle Robot so far has not enjoyed it as much as I, so ymmv. But for me, this is a win.

So what have you been reading, Michelle? Something less morally ambiguous?

MICHELLE: Oh, indeed. Nothing is ambiguous about Welcome to the Ballroom, after all. It’s all about passion and determination!

Specifically, I’ve been reading volume three, but I’ll give you a short introduction to the series in case you’re not familiar. Fifteen-year-old Tatara Fujita had nothing that he was especially good at. When he is saved from bullies by a champion ballroom dancer named Sengoku, he doesn’t have the courage to tell the other man that he was actually looking at a part-time job advertisement and not a flyer for the dance studio. Once he sees a recording of Sengoku in action, looking confident and self-assured, he vows to change himself by also entering into the world of dancesport. It doesn’t hurt that his lovely classmate, Shizuka Hanaoka, is also one of the top amateurs.

In volume three, Fujita is competing in his first tournament. He’s also got a wager on the line with Shizuka’s bellicose new partner, Gaju, who has tossed aside his sister and longtime partner, Mako. Because he’s a newcomer, he lacks the stamina and repertoire of the others, and his attempts to beat Gaju are not successful. However, once he realizes that his real goal ought to be helping Mako outshine Shizuka (and thus convincing Gaju to partner with her once more), there’s a palpable shift in his performance. He goes from merely leading to becoming the “frame” for the “flower,” executing moves that allow Mako to shine to her best advantage.

I really enjoyed seeing how a ballroom dancing competition works, but what I found especially impressive was that Tomo Takeuchi’s art actually conveys this change in Tatara’s attitude. There was a tension in his earlier performances, when he was essentially taking full responsibility upon himself, and once he internalizes the notion of becoming the “frame,” his whole body language changes. It’s difficult to explain in words, but to be able to depict that difference in a way that even an utterly ignorant-of-dance person like me could pick up on is seriously cool.

MELINDA: For some truly unfathomable reason, I have yet to pick up this series, and I really can’t believe it. Everything you describe just sounds both dramatically exciting and fun. Making a story about dance work with only still drawings is a huge challenge, but when it works, it’s just spectacular. The visual storytelling sounds incredible, from what you describe.

MICHELLE: I think you’d like it quite a bit. Another thing that’s neat is that, unlike a lot of sports manga with a male protagonist, the female characters aren’t cheering on the sidelines or serving as the team manager. They’re co-competitors. And, in fact, it’s by Tatara allowing Mako full agency and achieving nonverbal yet total communication with her that the pair really attracts notice.

MELINDA: That’s definitely a welcome feature in a “sports” manga, and possibly the push I needed to get me to the bookstore!

MICHELLE: I hope you do check it out. And, of course, one generally doesn’t dance without music, which is my not-so-subtle segue into discussing our mutual read for this column. Would you like to do the introductory honors?

MELINDA: I will give it a go, sure! Our mutual read this week was the first volume of Ryoko Fukuyama’s Anonymous Noise, recently released on Viz’s Shojo Beat imprint.

Nino loves to sing with her best friend, neighbor, and habitual punster, Momo, but when his family suddenly moves away, she’s left with the fear of using her voice at all, as all she wants to do is scream. She finds momentary salvation in the company of Yuzu (who nicknames her “Alice” as a shortened version of her surname “Arisugawa”), a kid she finds writing songs on the beach, but he ends up disappearing on her, too, after he realizes he has no shot at living up to her dreamy memory of Momo.

Flash forward a few years, and these three are thrown back together in high school, where Yuzu is the main songwriter for an Alice-in-Wonderland-themed pop band, Nino is destined to become their new lead singer, and Momo is a mysterious dude befriended by Yuzu whom Nino hasn’t yet recognized. Also, the pop band (who sing all their songs while wearing face masks?) is operating incognito as the pop music club at their school, and Yuzu has super-long eyelashes, which is somehow a plot point.

I think that’s the best I can do, here. Michelle?

MICHELLE: That about sums it up! (The repeated eyelash references were especially odd.)

Anyway, I’m not really sure what I expected from Anonymous Noise, but it wasn’t quite this. To me, it reads almost breezy (with dumb jokes and kooky supporting characters) and a bit muddled, though it’s possible the storytelling will calm down some now that everyone is at high school together. Some elements of the story come through clearly, like Nino’s longing to see Momo and Yuzu again and the way that singing eases her pain. But unlike, say, NANA, I’m not getting much sense of what Yuzu’s band sounds like, or what Nino’s singing voice sounds like. We are shown its power to transfix others, but is it high? Is it low? Is it raw? Is it pure? No idea!

Another slightly muddled area for me was Momo’s and Yuzu’s reactions to seeing Nino again. Yuzu, it seems, didn’t want to see her because he has been wanting to escape his obsession with her, but there’s some disembodied narration that I think is Momo, also wishing that he could escape being in Nino’s thrall. Or something? How did you read that part?

MELINDA: I, too, found myself comparing it to NANA, which really isn’t fair at all. And, like you, I couldn’t exactly say what my expectations were for this manga, but whatever they were, I didn’t expect what we got, and what we got was largely disappointing. I’m willing to give it more time to come together, and I think it still could end up being interesting, but so far it’s kind of a vague mess, with a few clear elements as you describe. I feel like I’m the most interested in Yuzu at this point, but it’s really because he’s the character we’ve gotten the clearest read on so far. His needs and desires are fairly transparent, and he ends up being my favorite character just by default. I don’t think that was the author’s intention, though.

As for that section of narration near the end… I read it the same way as you did, but I didn’t really understand it. Is Nino’s voice the cage? And if so, why? Or was that Yuzu’s narration? I was pretty confused by that sequence, I have to admit.

Maybe the expectation that wasn’t met was an idea that somehow this was written for an older audience than it actually was?

MICHELLE: That may be it. I think I was expecting a story about a determined girl who’s serious about her band. And that’s not what this is, at all. Now, maybe Nino will grow into that kind of girl—Fukuyama does make a point of showing how terrible she is singing with others, and maybe that was laying a foundation for growth—but I kind of doubt it at this point. It seems like “music leads to Momo” will always be her true obsession rather than music for its own sake.

MELINDA: I long for that, I admit, and also perhaps a clearer idea of what any of the music sounds like, besides her childhood obsession with “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” In my mind, it’s all kind of “Twinkle, Twinkle” at this point, and that is just not very compelling.

That said, I’ll definitely read the next installment.

MICHELLE: Haha, yes, exactly. I agree on all points.

MELINDA: And so we live in hope. Until next time?

MICHELLE: ‘Til then!

MICHELLE: Hey, check it out! It hasn’t been a whole year and we’re totally back again!

MELINDA: It’s a Christmas miracle! Or something.

MICHELLE: It must be! This week there’s one debut that we both read—shall we start with that one? Would you like to do the summarizing honors, or shall I?

MELINDA: I’ll give it a try!

This week, we both dug into the first volume of Yukarism, the latest from Chika Shiomi, author of Yurara and Rasetsu. The story centers around Yukari, a seventeen-year-old boy who, according to a fortune-teller, was born without forgetting his previous life. The fortune-teller seems to have been on to something, as Yukari has such a strong sense of Japan’s Edo period that he’s been able to write numerous historical novels set in that period without any research at all. But though Yukari is keenly aware that he has this uncanny sense for the past, the details only begin to come together for him when he meets a classmate named Mahoro, whose chance presence in his life awakens his full memories, sending him back in a dreamlike state to his previous life as an oiran in the pleasure district, and even to the scene of his death.

MICHELLE: Nicely done!

As this is a short series—complete in four volumes—we ought to get resolution to the low-key mystery of that death in a fairly straightforward fashion. Already there is a suspect in Takamura, one of Yumurasaki’s (the oiran) customers, who is pretty creepy and known to wield his curse-making talents as an assassin. As the volume concludes, it seems likely we have met his present-day incarnation as well, though I don’t get much sense of our present-day characters in peril.

Initially, I would’ve said I didn’t get much sense of our present-day characters at all, but once the reincarnation of Hitoha, Yumurasaki’s attendant, showed up, Mahoro did start acting a little more lively. It does seem, though, that in this first volume at least, the priority was on establishing the concept.

MELINDA: I’m find that I’m both distressed and pleased to hear that this series is complete in four volumes. On one hand, I applaud succinct storytelling when done well, and I do have a lot of faith in this artist. On the other, if it indeed is done well, I’ll be very sad to see it go. So far, I’m feeling optimistic, though I’ll agree that the present-day characters are less distinct at this point than their past-life counterparts, but as you say, that begins to ramp up a bit near the end of the volume. One exception on that front, however, is Yukari, at least in my opinion. His character is fairly well-established (and nicely linked) in both the past and present, and I do appreciate the way he so easily falls into his former self. He and Yumurasaki are so clearly the same person at the core, and this is only enhanced by Shiomi’s efficient yet expressive art style.

While this volume is mainly setup, it does set things up pretty clearly, at least. I suspect we’ll discover soon just why these people have been brought back together in this time period, and perhaps even why they’re so easily able to reconnect with their past selves. I’m quite looking forward to it.

MICHELLE: I absolutely agree about Yukari and Yumurasaki clearly being the same. It’s Mahoro who seems so different from her past self that it’s puzzling. Maybe Yukari’s wrong about who she really is? That’s an intriguing possibility. In any case, I am definitely on board for the rest of the series!

MELINDA: I suspect there’s a lot more to Mahoro (and her past self) than we yet know! And yes, I’m definitely on board for finding out!

So what else have you been reading lately?

MICHELLE: I actually checked out another Shojo Beat debut from VIZ, Kiss of the Rose Princess by Aya Shouoto!

This nine-volume series is about a girl called Anise Yamamoto who was given a choker by her father with the warning, “If you ever remove it, a truly terrifying punishment will befall you.” She duly wears it until one day a bat-like creature flies into her. The choker disappears, but in its place is a card. By kissing it, she can summon Kaede, her hot-headed classmate. Turns out she’s some sort of sovereign that has knights at her disposal. Instead of Anise going around collecting the rest of the cards, the bat (Ninufa) just gives them to her, so now she has four bishounen at her beck and call. Anise wisely wonders, “This isn’t punishment, is it?”

In addition to Kaede, there’s the princely student body president, a grumpy goth dude (who is apparently not quite human), and a frail and delicate boy. Supposedly, the power of the cards was sealed until a demon lord resurfaces, only he hasn’t yet, so… What is this story going to be? Is it a comedy? The reveal of the president’s masochistic predilections is played for laughs. Will the demon lord ever show up, or are we in for more stories with plots like “we’ll work together as a team to create a new main gate for the school festival”? I honestly don’t know what to make of this one.

Ultimately, I suppose I will read more in the hope that this will possibly turn out not to be something generic.

MELINDA: Right now, I feel like I’m reading some kind of alternate universe reboot of Cardcaptor Sakura. Am I wrong?

MICHELLE: I can see how you’d think that, and it is true that each knight supposedly has a different specialty (attacks, discovery, alchemy…), but because she isn’t compelled to collect more cards or go up against an enemy, Anise isn’t actually using these cards the same way Sakura does, and it’s much less compelling so far. That said, volume two has just come out, so perhaps that’ll give me a better idea of the direction in which the series is heading.

What else have you been reading?

MELINDA: I’ve finally now caught up on the latest volumes of one of my favorite series, Fumi Yoshinaga’s What Did You Eat Yesterday?, specifically volumes five and six. I suppose it’s a testament to my harried life that I would have let more than one volume of this series linger in my to-read pile, but it’s also telling that when I have real time to sit down and read, this is the series I choose first.

Something I’m always struck by when I read this manga is just how well Fumi Yoshinaga’s style works with this foodie/slice-of-life mix. Her sense of humor and ability to infuse casual anecdotes with real relationship-building makes the storytelling feel substantial even when so much page time goes to food preparation. With that in mind, there’s quite a bit going on over the course of these two volumes, but perhaps the most significant bits of the storyline have to do with Shiro and Kenji’s new acquaintance with another couple, Mr. Kohinata and his younger boyfriend, Wataru.

Shiro is originally introduced to Mr. Kohinata by Mr. Tominaga, the husband of the woman with whom Shiro often splits groceries. Though both Shiro and Mr. Kohinata recognize the absurdity of the introduction (Mr. Tominaga seems to believe they’ll naturally have lots in common simply because they are both gay), they actually do strike up a friendly acquaintance, and soon the two couples are having dinner together and meeting up to watch Mr. Kohinata’s company baseball game. There’s a lot of humor involved, but the real significance of this new friendship is in the way it influences Shiro to begin feeling more comfortable as part of a gay couple in public. By the end of volume six, he’s even invited Kenji to go grocery shopping with him in their own neighborhood, which may seem like a small thing, but is a pretty big deal for Shiro—a fact that does not elude Kenji in the slightest.

I often see comments here from readers who dislike Shiro, and I admit that I really don’t understand it at all. Yes, he’s emotionally reticent, and yes, his professional life is a complication in terms of how open he feels he can be in his personal life. But he expresses his caring for Kenji in so many ways—and vice-versa. I am pretty deeply in love with their relationship and the ways in which they continuously learn to work around each other’s fears and insecurities in order to continue to support each other, emotionally and otherwise.

Also, the food. THE FOOD. I get so hungry when I read this manga. It’s a good thing I have a cooking-savvy husband of my own. How do I relate to Kenji? Let me count the ways.

MICHELLE: I am with you on being baffled that anyone would dislike Shiro! I would challenge those folks to read through the end of volume six, which not only includes the public grocery-shopping invitation but the real reason for Shiro’s intense frugality, and see how they feel about him then. He may not be demonstrative, but he really does care, and is thinking of Kenji’s long-term health and happiness.

It’s interesting how my reaction to the food works, because if it’s something unfamiliar, I kind of go, “Oh, that looks tasty,” but if it’s something known and delicious, then I will become a slavering craving-beast. Latest trigger? Gyoza!

MELINDA: Yum! Though of course that seems to be my reaction to everything they eat in this series. Now… time for some lunch!

MICHELLE: Suddenly, this Stouffer’s frozen entrée is not looking up to par.

MELINDA: I feel that.

MELINDA: *tap* *tap* Is this thing on?

MICHELLE: What’s this strange noise?

MELINDA: It seems to be the sound of… AWESOMENESS. Or, y’know, typing. One of the two.

MICHELLE: Oh, it’s starting to come back to me now. You’re Belinda, right?

MELINDA: Yes, and you’re… Michael?

MICHELLE: More or less! And I’m feeling the strongest desire to tell a really stupid joke, for some reason…

MELINDA: And I feel the unexpected desire to listen to one. So, shoot!

MICHELLE: Let’s see…. how about… What did one lawyer say to the other lawyer?

MELINDA: I don’t know, what?

MICHELLE: “We are both lawyers.”

MELINDA: That was… actually kind of funny. Wow. And now I’m feeling the strange urge to ask you a question. Is it okay, Michael, if I ask you a question?

Wait, that was a question. Um. Er. Another question?

MICHELLE: Go right ahead, Belinda!

MELINDA: Okay, here goes: Have you been reading any manga lately?

MICHELLE: What a timely query! As a matter of fact, I have!

MELINDA: Do tell!

MICHELLE: Well, one of the things I read was the latest volume (17) of a much-beloved series, Natsume’s Book of Friends by Yuki Midorikawa. This has really become one of the few series where I have to read the new volume as soon as it comes out. It’s episodic, which is not normally my thing, but with this series, it’s just got such a languid fairy-tale feeling to it that I honestly hope it never ends. I am perfectly okay with the lack of urgency.

Possibly I have made the series sound dull, but it really isn’t. Natsume is eager to learn about yokai and their ways, so it’s more a tone of… respectful discovery? Something like that. Anyway, the first two chapters here involve a yokai who looks like a teenage human and the girl who loves him. It’s a classic case of immortal-guy-teen-girl love wherein the guy knows that it’s not going to end happily, but the girl is insistent upon pursuing it anyway. And Natsume can’t help but cheer them on. A third chapter finds Natsume drafted to join a yokai game of hide and seek while Nyanko-sensei is off getting drunk.

I was a little disappointed at first that there were only three chapters about Natsume and that other two delved into the past of Shuichi Natori, famous actor and exorcist, but I should’ve trusted Midorikawa more, because I ended up liking them quite a lot. It turns out that Natori originally became an exorcist to help assuage humans’ fear, so his intentions were good, but at the same time we know that Natsume will later have cause to question the practice of exorcism.

Sorry for rambling on there, Belinda. In short: I continue to love this series.

MELINDA: Despite the fact that I let this series go a while back, I find that I’m genuinely happy to hear that it is still lovely in the ways that it was always lovely. And maybe a little regretful that I did let it go… but maybe with its episodic nature, it would be possible to still peek in every once in a while. You make that sound very tempting.

MICHELLE: Oh, I’m really sad to hear you let it go. You probably could pop in without missing too much, though Natsume has slowly been growing more confident and social, interacting with his classmates a little more and seeming at peace with his new living situation. Other than that, things are pretty much the same.

What’ve you been reading, if not Natsume?

MELINDA: Well, I’ve also been spending time with the latest volume of a beloved series, though in my case, the series is Jun Mochizuki’s Pandora Hearts. I’ve loved Pandora Hearts for a long time, for various reasons, particularly its endearing characters and its pretty, pretty artwork. Plotting, as you know, has had its ups and downs, at least in terms of coherence, but the tension has always been there. This has escalated dramatically in the past few volumes, and given everything that ultimately happens in volume 21, it’s kind of hilarious to note that it almost feels like a bit of a rest, at least to start.

After numerous betrayals, revelations, and deadly battles, this volume opens with most of the original gang (Oz, Alice, Gil) regrouping in a relatively secure location without much idea as to how to proceed. This state of affairs doesn’t last long, but it feels oddly peaceful, just for a moment, and even Oz, who has been through so much, seems rather like his childish self again, if irreversibly tinged with sadness.

This sense of quiet is short-lived, and soon the tension and new revelations start piling up again, but it’s to Mochizuki’s credit that this continues to feel fresh and exciting. The story’s many twists at this point read mainly as well-plotted and perfectly paced—and thank goodness, considering how quickly and frequently things change now in this series. Every time it feels like things are finally about to come clear, we discover that everything we thought we knew was wrong.

I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that I haven’t even mentioned my favorite character, Xerxes Break. He features heavily in this volume as well, but I think there’s almost nothing I can say that isn’t incredibly spoilerful, so I’ll leave it there for now. Needless to say, his fate holds my heart cruelly in its grip, and that grip is only getting tighter.

You know, I often find myself disoriented when I first start reading a new volume of Pandora Hearts, but even picking up this volume several months late, I was able to just right in, and now I can’t wait for more. Fortunately, the next volume is due out soon!

MICHELLE: I’m a few volume behind with Pandora Hearts, but I do know what you’re talking about with those calm-before-the-storm moments that Mochizuki sprinkles in there. I left off with a very Loveless-style cliffhanger involving Gil’s allegiance, and I thought he was my favorite character, but now you’ve got me worried about Break, so perhaps I was wrong about that. I clearly need to get caught up!

MELINDA: You have so much heartbreak and renewal (rinse, repeat) to come, my dear Michael. So much. And I suspect I do, still, as well.

So what else have you pulled off the shelf of late?

MICHELLE: Hey…. ‘Off the Shelf’… That’s got a nice ring to it.

MELINDA: I thought so!

MICHELLE: Well, I seem to recall that we both found Yuuki Kodama’s Blood Lad to be an unexpected delight. I’ve also been reading the related Bloody Brat, in which Kanata Yoshino replicates Kodama’s art style with eerie accuracy and basically offers up a series of four-koma comics and silly short stories starring the characters. The second volume has just been released.

I’ve gotta say, these are not fabulous jokes. You’re really not missing anything if you don’t read it, even if you’re a Blood Lad devotee. However, after initially thinking to myself how I wasn’t even being moved to smile, this volume really grew on me. It was just so unrelentingly doofy that I found myself enjoying it somewhat despite myself.

There are no deep themes here. There is absolutely no plot here. There are lots of jokes about crotches and wolfboys who can’t help but fetch sticks and catdudes experiencing the flehmen response in reaction to natto. I probably cannot stress enough how silly it is, but on the whole, it’s actually kind of charming.

MELINDA: You’ve left me feeling rather conflicted here, I admit. I do love Blood Lad with the fire of a thousand suns. But I’m not entirely sure my life is empty without four-koma silliness (which tends not to do well with me, in general). The crotch jokes aren’t helping to convince me. Should I be convinced? Will I actually find it charming?

MICHELLE: I find I cannot answer you with assurance either positively or negatively. I think this is probably one of those things where you just have to see for yourself. For me, it’s worth it to get another nugget of Blood Lad, especially since it’ll be a long time before we get another installment of the main series.

Read anything else this week?

MELINDA: I did indeed! Finally, this week, I caught up with the first two volumes of Tomu Ohmi’s Spell of Desire, the latest in Viz’s line of semi-trashy josei manga rebranded as shoujo for North American readers. To be clear, despite the description I just gave, there’s definitely a level on which I enjoy these series, but with the frequency of these newer releases I’ll admit that the standard tropes are beginning to wear.

In terms of these standard tropes, Spell of Desire is nearly indistinguishable from Ohmi’s earlier series, Midnight Secretary, which just finished its run with Viz earlier this fall. In both series, a supposedly plain, sexually inexperienced heroine is compelled by unexpected supernatural circumstances into a decidedly erotic but nominally utilitarian relationship with a handsome, mysterious, and emotionally unavailable man, whose obvious romantic feelings are apparently invisible to the heroine, who feels she must squash her own growing affection so as not to cause trouble for anyone. Add some varying details (the particulars of the supernatural circumstances, workplace, and clothing preferences) and this is pretty literally the premise of both series.

I can’t deny that I’m tired of this premise. I’m tired of the contrived supernatural relationship, the heroine’s persistent self-denial and low self-esteem, and the level of reverence given to mysterious, controlling men. I really could not be more tired of these things.

Fortunately, there’s still something about Spell of Desire that is keeping me interested. Maybe it’s the morally ambiguous animal familiars. Maybe it’s the ongoing mystery surrounding the heroine, Kaoruko’s, mother. Whatever it is, I’m grateful for it, and I expect I’ll keep going with this series, at least for the time being.

MICHELLE: Whenever mysterious, controlling men are deemed sexy, I always think about Kate Beaton’s Dude Watchin’ with the Brontes.

I haven’t yet read the second volume of Spell of Desire, but I too found something about the first volume that compelled me to recommend it. I especially appreciated that the lead male was at least kind to ailing kittens.

One of the things I liked about Midnight Secretary was that the heroine was extremely proud of her professional competence as a secretary and doesn’t relinquish that, so I have hope that Kaoruko will have a bit more spine than one expects, too.

MELINDA: I have such hopes as well. And as much as I cringe at certain popular josei tropes, I can’t help but be grateful when anything intended for adult female readers is released over here. Even when there are vampires. Or witches. Or anxious virgins in their twenties. (Wow are there a lot of those in josei manga.)

So, Michael… now that we’re wrapping up this column, how does it feel to be back together again? I, for one, am feeling kinda giddy.

MICHELLE: It feels pretty good! We should do it again sometime!

MELINDA: I agree! Until then…

MELINDA: Hello, Michelle! Wow, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

MICHELLE: It certainly has! We’ve both had a tremendous amount of stuff going on in our lives lately.

MELINDA: Ooooh yes we have. It’s great to be back here with you, though. I’m dying to talk about some manga! We’ve got two mutual reads to discuss this week. Want to get us started?

MICHELLE: Sure! I suppose I’ll just start with the one I read first, which was the debut volume of Midnight Secretary, by Tomu Ohmi. Originally serialized in Petit Comic, this seven-volume josei series is about an uber-efficient young secretary, Kaya Satozuka, who is assigned to Kyohei Tohma, the difficult managing director of the tableware manufacturer they both work for. Tohma’s pretty much a jerk and is inclined to dismiss her at their first meeting for her plain looks, but Satozuka counters that he should wait and see what she’s capable of so he can make an informed decision.

She proceeds to do her job with surpassing competence, and Tohma’s ungrateful remarks gradually give way to compliments, though remarks about her appearance persist. In the process, she discovers that her boss is a vampire, and makes it her mission to protect him dutifully, even giving him her blood at one point when a meeting in an atmosphere of religious faith leaves him weak. Of course, she’s unable to get this incident out of her mind, and before the end of the volume she’s shedding her professional persona and getting gussied up to attend a Christmas function with Tohma, whereupon he feeds on her again, then develops some mad craving that all of his other sexy “meals” aren’t able to provide.

I just don’t know about this one. I didn’t hate it and would probably read more, but I’m kind of annoyed by the “competant woman gets undone by the attentions of amorous soundrel” plotline.

MELINDA: Oddly, I found that this didn’t really bother me all that much, and I’m a bit perplexed as to why. Somehow, though, I found that the over-the-top fantasy premise kept me from needing to take anything about it seriously, and in the end I just had a lot of fun.

It also helps that Kaya really is an incredible secretary, so even as we’re being put through the usual “amorous scoundrel” paces, that’s an area where she isn’t remotely vulnerable. So often, Tohma’s type of controlling hot-shot love interest relies on breaking down the heroine’s self-esteem, but when it comes to the one thing she truly cares about—her abilities at work—he can’t even make a dent. If she falls for him? Well, that’s romance. But nobody can damage Kaya’s belief in herself.

MICHELLE: That’s a very good point about her skills—she doesn’t need him to take care of her, because she’s got an excellent professional reputation already. Probably I’m just taking things too seriously, as is my wont. Also, I feel like a crotchety old lady for saying this, but… I kinda want to know more about the tableware!

MELINDA: Normally, I’d be taking it too seriously, too! I have a very limited sense of humor when it comes to controlling, male love interests. Yet somehow, I’m super-relaxed about it here.

I do have some favorite bits of humor in this volume, too. I particularly enjoyed following Kaya’s early experiments with things like crosses and mirrors, as she tries to determine which vampire legends she needs to pay attention to in order to properly protect her boss.

I admit I don’t remember the tableware. Is the a euphemism? What am I missing here?!

MICHELLE: Oh, it was just a throwaway line about what their company does. Care to introduce our second manga?

MELINDA: I would! Our second read this week was the first volume of Maki Enjoji’s Happy Marriage?!.

Like Midnight Secretary (and, previously, Butterflies, Flowers), Happy Marriage?! comes to us from the josei magazine Petit Comic, released here under Viz’s Shojo Beat imprint. And, like both Midnight Secretary and Butterflies, Flowers, the series features an office romance between a young woman and her boss—in this case, office lady Chiwa Takanashi and her company’s president, Hokuto Mamiya.

Chiwa works full-time at the Mamiya Company, but moonlights as a hostess in an effort to pay off her father’s business debts. Unlike her coworkers, she’s fairly uninterested in attracting a boyfriend, let alone anything more serious. But her life is turned upside-down when the company’s Chairman offers to eliminate her family’s financial troubles if she’ll agree to an arranged marriage with his grandson, Hokuto, who also happens to be her boss. Hokuto has his own reasons for agreeing to the marriage (namely, keeping his position as company president), and though Chiwa’s reservations are considerable, she ultimately agrees.

The two move in together (against Chiwa’s wishes) and this leads to a number of embarrassing moments as well as the disappointing revelation that Chiwa’s new husband is a complete slob. He’s also a devastatingly handsome, predictably controlling romantic lead, who taunts her with a sexy secretary while improbably pledging sexual fidelity to his wife of convenience. Misunderstandings and wackiness ensue.

There’s nothing really new in this series, as you may have guessed, but it’s genuinely fun and (so far) less maddening than, say, Butterflies, Flowers, which is a compliment, I suppose.

MICHELLE: After a notably inauspicious start—the scene in which Chiwa conveniently forgets to bring new undies to change into after her bath, and then just so happens to trip over a cushion and expose her goodies to Hokuto is particularly cringe-worthy—I actually kind of enjoyed this one. True, Hokuto can be quite controlling—he arranges for them to get locked in the company archives so they can have time along together—and, like Tohma, makes remarks about Chiwa’s looks and status (“If people found out that I married a woman like you it’d ruin my reputation”), but has some redeeming points, like his intention to take the marriage vows seriously. Chiwa can be irrational—she’s the type to storm out after an argument but forget her purse—but I liked that she will actually ask for help when she needs it as well as express her gratitude.

This arrangement and their personalities reminded me a lot of a manhwa plotline, actually. Something akin to Full House.

MELINDA: It’s funny that you should bring up Full House, Michelle, because I found myself thinking of another manhwa series, So I Married an Anti-Fan, which similarly pushes its heroine and hero into a “fake” relationship that (presumably) becomes a real one. And though Happy Marriage?! lacks the outrageous K-drama-esque quality that made Anti-Fan so much fun for me, I really did enjoy this first volume as well.

I think, similarly to the way you reacted to Midnight Secretary, I was bothered that Chiwa falls for Hokuto so quickly, and perhaps that’s where it differs from the manhwa we’ve mentioned, too. I mean, he’s not a monster, and he does sweep in fairly heroically in the last chapter to save face for Chiwa at her class reunion. But I suppose I’d prefer the bickering to last as long as possible in a story like this.

MICHELLE: Oh, yes, Anti-Fan is probably a better comparison! I think I have a much lower bicker tolerance than you do, so was pleased to see scenes wherein Chiwa and Hokuto are actually able to really talk to each other happening as early as volume one.

I can see myself reading the complete run of both these series, but I’m not sure whether I’d reread them.

MELINDA: I’m absolutely certain I’ll enjoy reading both these series all the way through… and that I’m unlikely to re-read them. Which is interesting to note, since I’d absolutely re-read both the manhwa series we’ve brought up in comparison. I’m trying to put my finger on what exactly makes the difference, and the closest I can come is “personality.” Both of those manhwa series feature an excess of individual personality as the primary element of their charm. These josei romances, on the other hand, I think are charming largely for their sense of sameness and familiarity.

Like most high-school romance series, these office romances are compelling in part because we know exactly what’s going to happen and we can just relax and enjoy ourselves as the inevitable plays out. And though they each begin with their own premise, they’re ultimately alike enough that they kinda ran together for me as I read them. In fact, I had to correct myself early on in the discussion of Midnight Secretary as I began to discuss a romantic rival that I later realized was from Happy Marriage?!

MICHELLE: Yeah, in particular the guys are similar, what with the mix of insults and compliments and all of that. Sometimes I was reminded of those Harlequin romance manga adaptations, too, but I’d definitely say these are several steps up in terms of originality, even being as similar as they are. I think the conclusion to Happy Marriage?! is a little more obvious than Midnight Secretary, but I can certainly use some easy, cozy things to read now and then!

MELINDA: Definitely! Honestly, none of this is a complaint. Even if my public pleas for “more josei!” are answered by more of this and not as much meatier fare, such as Vertical’s Helter-Skelter (which we originally planned to include with these as part of a josei column, until we realized just how inappropriate that matchup would be), I can enjoy these for what they are. It’s still gratifying to read stories about adult women, and I can’t deny that I love romance. It’s comfort food, no more, no less.

MICHELLE: Pass the mashed potatoes!