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Strike the Blood, Vol. 11

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By Gakuto Mikumo and Manyako. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jeremiah Bourque.

To its credit, this volume of Strike the Blood is not the same as many of its predecessors. School plays a minimal role, and wacky “hur hur, Kojou is a teenage boy and everyone gets mad about it” humor is there, but takes a back seat to more serious stuff. The volume begins with Kujou’s sister being kidnapped and his father being fairly easily taken out, and you expect that he and Yukina will be headed to the mainland to save the day. Which… may be true in Vol. 12, but instead this volume shows us that all the various factions around Kojou are perfectly happy with him destroying city blocks and causing massive panic and serious disruption of everything… as long as he does it within the island itself. Leaving the island, though, is no longer an option. And if that means that his mentor Natsuki has to become the book’s big bad, well then that’s what’s going to have to happen.

Natsuki at times has reminded me a lot of Evangeline McDowell from the Negima series. She looks like a little girl but is really of age, she is happy to abuse the hero while also imparting important lessons, etc. Turns out that “she’s also a powerhouse who can kick his ass eight ways from Sunday” also applies. I am going to assume that something in the next volume is going to allow Koujo to forgive her for this, because otherwise this is causing a pretty irreparable rift in their relationship. Honestly, it’s not really clear why the Lion King Society and Natsuki both decide the answer is “lock Kojou in prison and don’t explain anything”, but it’s easily the weakest part of the book – I know the author likes fights, but this seems willfully stubborn purely for the sake of putting the plot off to another volume. (On the bright side, I did like seeing Asagi acknowledge that she tends not to get majorly involved in these sorts of things, and taking steps to change that.)

Speaking of relationships that may be irreparably damaged, Yukina is beginning to realize just how little the Lion King Agency cares about her – and despite some lip service from a few characters that tries to put their actions in a better light, the cliffhanger seems to reinforce that. It’s been pretty clear for a while now that there are other LKA agents surrounding Kojou, and after this volume I’m beginning to wonder why they want Yukina there at all, besides being a feint to draw attention elsewhere. Maybe they’re trying to have Kojou fall for her? That’s a pretty long row to hoe given that, despite stirrings of libido, he continues to have no idea Yukina loves him – or Asagi for that matter, despite her father literally saying “please marry my daughter so that I can gain political power”. As with Kojou and Natsuki, I do wonder if Yukina is going to be able to recover any working relationship with the Agency after this.

Of course, I am assuming they somehow escape the island in the next volume, because everyone is STILL THERE. This volume of Strike the Blood is a nice change of pace, and well written as always. But man, it drags things out so long that you feel as frustrated as the heroes by the end of the book.

Yuri Is My Job!, Vol. 1

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By miman. Released in Japan by Ichijinsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Yuri Hime. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Diana Taylor.

Fandom has had years of trying to get vaguely yuri things into anime and manga, from the days of Battle Athletes and (apropos for this review) Maria-sama Ga Miteru to more modern times. And this title really gives me the feeling that they’ve won, as we’re now seeing the concept of Yuri not as a genre but as an industry. If you’re good at doting on a “younger sister”, and can Gokigenyou with the best of them, for God’s sake, why not monetize it? That’s the premise we see here, as Hime, a high school girl who keeps up a “perfect princess” facade at school, accidentally runs into a young woman at the train station. One feigned broken wrist later and Hime finds herself having to work at a cafe to make up for causing it… a cafe based around the idea of “pure young maidens” taking orders and flirting with each other. The clientele seems to be mostly male, which doesn’t surprise me. Fortunately, the cafe is not as interesting as Hime and her “oneesama”, who get off to a rough start working together.

I thought Hime’s character was very well handled. She’s putting on the “little miss princess” act supposedly so she can marry rich, but this is played for laughs, and you never get the sense that she’s being mean about it. Plus the act slips constantly, especially when she’s out of school and in a situation she’s not used to – like, say, working at a cafe. Her co-worker Mitsuki plays the “Sachiko” to Hime’s “Yumi” at the cafe, but seems to have it in for Hime, particularly her attempts to act cute – or, one argues, not be herself. It feels like a bit more than simply a bad first impressions, and the cliffhanger ending to the first volume confirms that there’s actually more going on in their pasts than Hime may realize – it’s the sort of ending that makes you want to go back and reread things.

The rest of the book is all right, though I will admit that it reads a bit like a slow starter at first – not uncommon with stories from this magazine. I am somewhat wary of Hime’s classmate Kanoko, a shy bespectacled girl who clearly has a massive crush on Hime and I suspect is really not going to be happy with the direction this series is clearly going. Honestly, Kanako’s character feels too serious for this light-hearted story. The other characters – manipulative manager Mai and her “Gal” assistant – work better, getting Hime to do whatever they want but not actually being too unlikable because of it. The second volume will presumably involve Hime and Mitsuki resolving their differences, and honestly I would not be surprised if the series was only two volumes long, but apparently it’s still ongoing in Japan, so we shall see how long it can drag out the yuri cafe premise. Still, a pretty good start.

Off the Shelf: Cautiously Optimistic

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MJ: 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!

MJ: 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?

MJ: 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.

MJ: 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.

MJ: 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?

MJ: 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.

MJ: 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.

MJ: 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.

MJ: 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!

MJ: 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.

MJ: 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.

MJ: 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!

MJ 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!

Manga the Week of 1/30/19

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SEAN: It’s the last week of January, theoretically it should be light. What is with all this stuff?

Cross Infinite World has the 2nd volume of the Gleam manga.

Dark Horse releases Wish, the CLAMP manga from years ago, now in one big omnibus. Enjoy the gender pronoun wars all over again!

MICHELLE: Oh, jeez. I kind of forgot Wish even existed.

SEAN: Given that the solicit date from Diamond Comics is Summer 2017, I think everyone did.

ANNA: I read it the first time around, don’t need to read it twice. I’ll just lurk here in a corner, still feeling bitter over X/1999.

MJ: I sort of feel like as the resident CLAMP obsessive, I should take one for the team and do some kind of comparison read with the older version. Can I muster the will? Time will tell.

ASH: I’m picking the omnibus up specifically because of the new translation! I enjoyed Wish the first time around, but I’m looking forward to my side of the pronoun wars winning this time instead of having a specific gender foisted on some of the characters.

SEAN: J-Novel Club gives us a 2nd Arifureta Zero and a 7th Outbreak Company.

Kodansha, print-wise, has the 3rd Sailor Moon Eternal Edition and the 30th Seven Deadly Sins.

ASH: I’d lost track of how long Seven Deadly Sins has become!

SEAN: Digitally, we finish Ayanashi with its 4th volume. There’s also Altair: A Record of Battles 9, Elegant Yokai Apartment Life 10, Forest of Piano 10, Hotaru’s Way 7, My Boy in Blue 6, and Princess Resurrection Nightmare 2.

MICHELLE: I’m not actively reading any of these, but there are at least three that I intend to read at some point.

Seven Seas has a debut and a done-in-one with Now Loading…!, whose punctuation makes every sentence look strange. It’s from Ichijinsha’s Comic Yuri Hime, and given the magazine you know what to expect. This involves a game company, but promises a bit more actual yuri than New Game!.

Seven Seas also has the 5th Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka, the 2nd Ultra Kaiju Humanization Project, and the 3rd and final Voynich Hotel.

ASH: I finally got around to picking up Voynich Hotel; I plan on reading the whole thing in one go.

SEAN: Udon has a 4th volume of Infini-T Force.

Vertical has the 5th Arakawa Under the Bridge omnibus.

ASH: This series continues to delight me.

SEAN: The Inc. part of Vertical also has Koimonogatari, the latest in the Monogatari Series novels. Will we finally get Senjogahara’s POV? I have some bad news for you…

Yen has a couple new digital volumes with Saki 18 (we’re caught up with Japan, I believe) and Toilet-Bound Hanako-san 9.

Yen On has the 11th Log Horizon, which is also caught up with Japan.

Debuting from Yen is For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams (Yume de Mita Ano Ko no Tame ni), a new series from the creator of Erased. It runs in Young Ace. I’m guessing it’s dark.

MICHELLE: I’m very intrigued by this one! Also, I must read Erased.

ANNA: I know Erased is popular at my library.

MJ: I’ll be reviewing this for our next Off the Shelf column, and I’m pretty into it.

ASH: Oh, excellent!

SEAN: They also have Aoharu x Machinegun 14, High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World 2, and Kiniro Mosaic 8.

How are you celebrating the end of January?

ASH: With plenty more manga, obviously.

Infinite Dendrogram: The Hope They Left Behind

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By Sakon Kaidou and Taiki. Released in Japan by Hobby Japan. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson.

Way back in the first volume, when I had no idea what sort of series this was going to be, Ray was introduced to Liliana, a Royal Guard member, and I assumed that she would be the first in a long line of girls in Ray’s orbit who would fall for him. Since then, while there HAVE been a bunch of girls in Ray’s orbit, with the exception of Nemesis they have shown very little interest in him romantically. This just isn’t a harem series. That said, here Ray meets the first princess… or rather her “secret” alter ego, Azurite, a disguise that fools absolutely no one except Ray. She’s far more of a love interest, despite their confrontation when they first meet, which has her going off on Ray due to his “villain” outfit (complete with a new set of armor to make him look even more villainous, the best running gag in this series.) But is Ray interested?

“Not really” seems to be the answer to that. As I said above, this isn’t a harem series, or even a romance, and Nemesis’ occasional feelings of jealousy is as close as we ever get. There’s even a “walk in on the girls naked in the bath” scene here, which the author says has apparently been in the plans since the beginning of the series, but Ray, while acknowledging that Nemesis and Azurite are beautiful, does not seem particularly sexually aroused at all. The series has different things on its mind. Things like building up the world of Dendrogram itself, and its past history, which, as Ray observes, is so blisteringly realistic that it doesn’t feel like “backstory” added by game developers, but something that really happened. This is not a “trapped in a game” series, and players can and do log out (B3 is not around in this book as she has to do a tea ceremony in real life, a detail I liked), but clearly there’s more to this game than just realistic writing and NPCs.

The premise of this book involves the kingdom of Alter discovering a new ruin at the edge of their territory, which could mean fantastic new technology to help them… or could also mean horrible monsters and weapons waiting to kill them. In fact it’s both, and Ray and Azurite, who meet by chance on the way there, have to team up and try to do something about it. We see a few master developed, such as Tom, who wears a cat on their head all the time (the picture here was great), and the guy with the evil traveling band who fought Marie a while back, who still has the band but is not on the clock so is less evil. Always trust a guy who has to blow off a dungeon crawl to play music for an adorable bedridden orphan. The “villain” of this arc, if he can be called that, is a man named “Dr. Mario”, who speaks in a fake Italian accent to match his name but clearly has hidden depths, and his identity rapidly becomes obvious to the reader (but not Ray, whose denseness is pointed out multiple times, usually by the princess in disguise he doesn’t recognize).

The volume ends with a cliffhanger, and we’re caught up with Japan. That said, I think the next book comes out there in February, so it shouldn’t be too long a wait. Till then, let’s prepare for the battle and wonder what piece of horribly villainous clothing Ray will get as a reward next time.

Amagi Brilliant Park, Vol. 3

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By Shouji Gatou and Yuka Nakajima. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis.

Half of this was fantastic, the other half I hated. Welcome to another review of Amagi Brilliant Park, a series I’m still very ambiguous about. The third book in the series is made of of short stories, two short and two long. The short stories were all right. The first one was based around the gag that if we ever saw the fairy mascots as humans, they’d all be sexy bishonen, which did not, for once, wear out its welcome so was quite funny. The other short story has Seiya, curious about the magical world, trying to go to it with Moffle. He doesn’t make it (train issues), but does learn more about Moffle’s past and bonds with him a bit. It’s also the only part of the book where you don’t want to punch him in the face. Let’s face it, Seiya is a protagonist who’s very hard to like, and the two “large” stories in this book show us why; he’s an arrogant jerk who barely cares how others think of him.

Let’s start with the story I disliked, because I will admit part of it is me. Stories where there’s bodyswapping and a character has to pretend to be another make me feel deeply uncomfortable, and that’s the entire premise. Seiya has too many absences at school because he’s working on the park, but the park can’t afford for him to actually go to school regularly. Fortunately (?), the fairy team has a solution of what is essentially a lifelike Seiya costume that they can wear. Over the course of four days, Isuzu and the three main mascots go to school pretending to be Seiya, and get involved in a tortured plot involving love letter shenanigans. A lot of it was very predictable, and I sadly did not find it as funny as the author did. Still, as I said, if you DO like bodyswap-like comedy, you should have no issue with it. (It also has Seiya at his absolute worst, especially near the resolution.)

That said, the first story in the book is probably my favorite of the entire series to date. It takes place from the POV of Shiina, one of the three new part-time hires we briefly saw in the last book. She’s introverted, bad at being social, flubs her words when she speaks, and really only comes alive when she sings karaoke to herself in the evenings. Naturally, she’s put with Moffle for her part-time job, which has her dreaming of quitting after about half an hour. But it’s actually great, as while Moffle is a drill sergeant of a teacher he’s not unkind, and Shiina gradually acclimates to life at the park – and in school, as she realizes (well, OK, has to be told) that she’s no longer as shy and wallflowerish there, which stuns everyone. What’s more, the three mascots find her at the karaoke booth and learn her terrible secret: she’s a brilliant singer. But can she get over her introversion (still an issue despite everything) to save the Park? This was terrific. Shiin’a POV is great, there’s minimal Seiya, and the character growth all around made me smile.

That said, I wish it had been later in the book. As it is, the book feels very top-heavy. Still, it’s enough to keep me wanting to read more, if only to see if Seiya ever learns humility. (Joking about his being a tsundere is not quite enough, no.)

Nyankees, Vol. 1

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By Atsushi Okada. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Caleb Cook.

I was pretty excited when I heard about this license, despite never having heard of the title. I mean, stray cats depicted as delinquents in the classic “Japanese high school gang members” sort of way. It sounded hilarious and cute. Sadly, while it is cute when the cats are shown as cats, and there is an occasional joke that lands, this turns out to be a title that takes itself all too seriously. I get the sense that this is someone who wants to write delinquents rather than cats, and is therefore using the gimmick to tell the story he wants to tell. We haven’t had all that many successful delinquent manga in North America (have there been any?), so it’s also relying on a lot of tropes that are likely far more nostalgic and familiar to the Japanese reader. The premise is great, though, and the creator at least brings some nifty cat art to the title. It may get better as it goes along, but not a strong start.

The cat/hoodlum on the cover is Ryuusei, who is new to this neighborhood and cares not for all of your so-called “rules”. He’s here searching for the one-armed man… erm, sorry, for the calico tom with a scar on his eye that apparently has a past history with Ryuusei. In his new neighborhood, he looks like a pushover at first, not impressing the one female cat in the cast, Mii, and getting the crap kicked out of him by the other cats/gang members. But it turns out he was just starving, and once he gets food in him he actually kicks a lot of ass, including the gang leader, Taiga. In fact, he kicks so much ass that Taiga immediately wants to give up the leadership position to him. But it’s complicated. Ryuusei has his own thing that he’s doing, rival gangs are there to step in at any sign of weakness, and worst of all, Mii’s been kidnapped!

One thing I liked is the research that apparently went into the various kinds of cats the characters are. Our lead is a male dark tabby, pretty damn common, but the calico tom he’s looking for is quite rare, something mentioned by the others. The ‘stray cat = delinquent’ theme is sometimes amusing, as when we see the human-drawn Ryuusei get stuck in a box too small for his frame – though frankly the gag goes on far too long. And I hope you like cat puns, because they’re in here as well. Honestly, I don’t think they translate well, though at least Yen realized it had to keep the ‘nyan’ in ‘Nyankees’ to have it make sense. But honestly… at the end of the day, this is for delinquent manga fans, such as Worst. There’s the tough, rakish lead, the tomboy girl who slowly finds herself drawn to him, lots of fights, lots of guys acting tough. But they’re cats. Sometimes a girl chases after them, and they all scatter. I’m hoping the 2nd volume makes this either a bit less serious or a bit more cat-oriented.

Bookshelf Briefs 1/21/19

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Anonymous Noise, Vol. 12 | By Ryoko Fukuyama | Viz Media – Lots of things going on in this new volume. First of all, it’s a new year, and that means there’s potentially new club members—despite the band giving an absolutely wretched performance to the school. I’ll be honest, An feels a bit like she’s being introduced in order to be able to pair off one of the spares, but so far I’m pretty fine with that. Meanwhile, Nino seems to be maturing a little bit, but her relationship with Momo is still touch and go, and both Momo and Yuzu have a definite need for it to be Nino and only Nino who sings their songs. Yuzu is finally back towards the end of this book, but it feels right that he was away—the space has moved the plot forward. Not quite sure where yet, but forward. – Sean Gaffney

The Demon Prince of Momochi House, Vol. 13 | By Aya Shouoto | Viz Media – The most recent story arc of The Demon Prince of Momochi House starts off with a literal bang—after being shot by the villainous Kasha, Himari finds her spirit forcibly separated from her physical body. Understandably, it’s a dangerous state in which to exist, especially with the number of malicious ayakashi that pass through and by Momochi house. This certainly isn’t the first time that Himari has been in trouble, and I’m doubly certain that it won’t be last, but neither is she a helpless heroine. Himari’s underlying strength often seems to be overshadowed by the astonishing abilities of the other characters in The Demon Prince of Momochi House, supernatural and otherwise. In this particular case, however, Himari must not only save herself but the ones she loves, too—she’s not the ultimate target of Kasha’s schemes and many of the people she would normally rely on for help can’t. – Ash Brown

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, Vol. 3 | By Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court | Viz Media – To my surprise, this volume mostly seems to dial back the main plot in favor of character development with Koichi. But that’s fine, as these are solid chapters and help show why he’s being The Crawler despite not being a licensed hero. It also gives us more attention devoted to Captain Celebrity, the American All Might who is a selfish publicity hound and basically awful. And much to my surprise, it has some excellent backstory of why heroes came to be and why most people with powers aren’t heroes. It’s fascinating and makes sense. I also like the new girl, though her overly wide mouth makes me think of Tsuyu. This side series is growing on me. – Sean Gaffney

My Monster Secret, Vol. 14 | By Eiji Masuda | Seven Seas – I’m not sure whether I’m ready for actual drama in My Monster Secret, a series that still works best when it’s being as funny as possible. But they’ve been to the future, and it’s hinted it’s not a happy one for everyone involved. Sometimes this is played for comedy, as with Shiho finding that her future husband is the most annoying of “those three guys,” but there’s also a hint that Asahi and Youko are not going to get together. That said, when the series IS doing humor, it’s still pretty hilarious, even when the punchline is “please admire my awesome ass.” We’re clearly going to be dragging this on for at least a few more volumes, and may also be adding to the “I’m in love with Asagi” harem, but as long as it stays funny. – Sean Gaffney

Nyankees, Vol. 1 | By Atsushi Okada | Yen Press – Nyankees is “a tale of street cats portrayed as hoodlums.” When Ryuusei, a “dark tabby,” comes to Nekonaki Town in search of a male calico with a scarred eye, he first tangles with members of a gang led by Taiga, an orange tabby. Although winning a fight against Taiga entitles Ryuusei to take over as boss, he comes to respect the other kitty, and together they go to rescue a female cat who has been kidnapped by the calico’s gang. I wanted to like Nyankees but sadly it didn’t click with me. Probably its best attribute is that, after several pages of the characters in human form, a dramatic panel sometimes depicts them as cats, like the two-page spread in which Ryuusei and Taiga send a couple of adversaries flying. I didn’t find it funny—the “It’s pawback time!” line made me groan aloud—and the story’s not interesting, either. Too bad. – Michelle Smith

One-Punch Man, Vol. 15 | By ONE and Yusuke Murata | Viz Media – Saitama is back, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s bringing all the laughs, as he’s back to being in a funk about everything being so boring because he can easily defeat everyone. Of all people, King has the best moment of the volume, when he tries to convince Saitama that there are reasons to be a great hero other than finding stronger and stronger people to fight. Unfortunately, Saitama is not ready to accept that lesson yet. Meanwhile, the whole “become stronger by becoming monsters” movement is hitting up some of the older minor villains/heroes from prior chapters, sometimes with amusing results and sometimes not. Solid, but I desperately want this to be silly again. – Sean Gaffney

Shojo FIGHT!, Vol. 6 | By Yoko Nihonbashi | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – So much happens in the characters’ personal lives this volume, some of it monumental, that it almost feels like a soap opera. Michiru and Odagiri accidentally overhear that Shigeru has retinitis pigmentosa and is experiencing vision loss, causing Michiru to realize how blind he has been to why their father has been expecting more from Shigeru all these years. I love how often Michiru cries in this volume and nobody gives him crap for it. I also love that he gets more determined to win the spring tournament while Shigeru can still see it happen. On top of this, we get a lot more background about Hasegawa’s family and her friendship with Itami, which ties in to Odagiri’s brother the aspiring mangaka and to Atsuko and her contentious relationship with her stepmother. Every character gets some development and they improve at volleyball, too! Recommended. – Michelle Smith

Sweetness & Lightning, Vol. 11 | By Gido Amagakure | Kodansha Comics – It’s the penultimate volume of Sweetness & Lightning and things are winding down! After Inuzuka-sensei and Tsumugi work out some communication issues and visit family, the focus shifts to Kotori. She’s about to graduate high school, so the time seems right for her to confess to Inuzuka. I like that he evinces palpable dread about having to hurt her, but in the end she essentially proclaims her undying regard for him, Tsumugi, and food all at the same time. And she tells her friend “it was something more complicated” than love, so I guess that’s a relief. Too, though the restaurant will briefly close for remodeling, there are promises of cooking together in perpetuity. I’m not sure what the twelfth and final volume will contain, since this seemed plenty conclusive, but we’ll see all too soon. – Michelle Smith

Teasing Master Takagi-san, Vol. 3 | By Soichiro Yamamoto | Yen Press – I spent this volume admiring the cleverness of the title character. She clearly can read Nishikata like a book, but is also trying, in her teasing and bets, to get him to understand her feelings. That said, she is also content to merely tease him when he doesn’t get them—she’s not frustrated, and knows this is a long game. Possibly as Nishikata may not actually realize what’s going on till the end of high school. But it’s still middle school, so there are tests of courage, and measuring their height, and calligraphy, and even tickling. And even if they aren’t a couple, everyone else certainly seems to think they are, as the last chapter shows. This remains utterly fun and adorable. – Sean Gaffney

Kokoro Connect: Kako Random

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By Sadanatsu Anda and Shiromizakana. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Molly Lee.

Kako Random stands for Random Past, and sure enough that’s what we get here – though not from Heartseed for once. A 2nd Heartseed has shown up, possessing Taaichi’s classmate, and later his sister, to explain what’s going on… well, sort of. They pretty much only explain that if Taichi says anything, it will get much, much worse. Then, at club, we find the members suddenly getting younger, at random, for a five hour period. It’s everyone except Taichi, and can be varying ages – including babies. Needless to say, this is far more inconvenient than the first two, and our heroes end up holing up in an abandoned building for several days to avoid families. Unfortunately, the regression also brings with it memories when the person returns, some of which are not always so welcome, especially when Aoki reveals that Yui, the girl he’s professed his love to multiple times, is very similar to a girl he used to date a couple of years ago. Is she just a replacement? And has he really moved on?

Aoki and Yui get some needed depth here, as we knew that if they were ever going to be a real couple sher was going to have to either acknowledge or reject his overtures. The series has been very good at showing Aoki as being not overly creepy about his love, and he has some serious reflection after the regressions start to happen and he’s reminded more and more of Nishino, the girl he once liked. As for Yui, the fact that Aoki might actually NOT be in love with her after all annoys her far more than she’d like to admit. This despite the fact that she’s also dealing with her fear of men coming to the fore again because of the unwanted memories… as well as memories of her martial arts, which are helped along by an old rival that shows up and is pissed off. These two were my favorite part of the book.

Taichi continues to be irritating, as you’d expect – his character development is something that’s going to be happening over the course of the series, so here he mostly hems and haws and worries about telling everyone the bad news. (Honestly, I think it’s a good thing he shut up – as does Inaba, once she realizes what’s going to happen.) The narrative oddly switches to Iori for its climax, as one of her old stepfathers has returned and is being abusive and awful. After reaffirming the power of friendship, and confronting her mother, who turns out to be very much like Iori, the resolution is almost comically easy – though I will admit fairly satisfying. As for Inaba, since she got development last time, here she mostly gets to show off how she’s opened up to everyone since the first book.

This remains an excellent light novel series, especially for those tired of isekais. Also, kudos to Molly Lee’s translation, which is consistently excellent.

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, Vol. 10

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By Izumi Tsubaki. Released in Japan as “Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun” by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the online magazine Gangan Online. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Leighann Harvey.

As you might gather by the cover, the bulk of this volume of Nozaki-kun deals with the 2nd years going on the class trip, with all the usual gags you would expect from both “class trip” as a riff and these Nozaki-kun characters. We see Chiyo’s obsession with Nozaki get amped up even more than it already was, which I wasn’t aware was even possible. Nozaki, of course, is similarly obsessed – with manga reference pictures, which he will happily do anything to get, including pretend to be a teacher and hide under the covers with Chiyo. As for Seo and Kashima, well, their stories are connected with the not-significant others they left behind – Kashima is texting third-year Hori everything she does along the trip, while first-year Wakamatsu is both enjoying the Seo-less basketball practice and also realizing that not having her harass him bothers him in a way he can’t understand.

As is traditional with this series, each of the three “main pairings” gets some nice tease but also some walking back to make sure nothing happens too quickly. Waka may be happier with Seo gone, but it “opens up his heart” so much he’s now rivaling Kashima for the title of Prince of the School. And while Hori may now be aware that Kashima is what he has in mind when he thinks of the ideal woman, it doesn’t mean that he’s admitting feelings of love or anything, and in fact may be getting things wrong more than ever, as the karaoke chapters shows off, though it also shows that even Kashima at her worst is something he can accept. Of all the main pairings in the series, this is the one I think shows the most promise as an actual relationship – assuming that either Hori or Kashima can get past the comedy of their premise. As for Chiyo and Nozaki… well, maybe he really IS a good mom.

In contrast, the manga chapters in this volume aren’t quite as strong as usual. I’d argue the chapter showing Nozaki struggling to have “manga advice” for a column verges on boring, in fact. Better is the chapter where Ryousuke discovers Miyako in an apartment with a guy! It’s Maeno, of course, but that just makes things much worse for everyone involved, especially since Nozaki and Ken also end up involved in what is now becoming a five-way romance with BL elements. (It also allows the author to work in the tanukis, which are otherwise absent from this volume). And we can’t forget surprise manga creator Mayu, although we may want to when we realize that Mikoshiba’s influence means that these drawings are more suitable for Young Magazine and Nakayoshi.

All this and some actual character development for the other girls in Chiyo’s class, though not enough that I actually remember their names. Still, overall this volume made me laugh quite a bit, which is what I ask it to do every time.

The Magic in This Other World Is Too Far Behind!, Vol. 8

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By Gamei Hitsuji and Ao Nekonabe. Released in Japan by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

I feel this is a decent improvement on the last book, which I felt was overbalanced towards the back half. You could argue the same thing here, but honestly the front half was so amusing that I think its strengths outweigh the fact that it’s per fanservice and comedy. The start of the book has Felmenia, deciding that Suimei’s party needs a break, creating a pool in the middle of their backyard. Naturally we get swimsuit illustrations, but more importantly the girls all take this as an opportunity to have a giant water battle with each other using their powers. Suimei’s reactions are what make this, as he was expecting a nice quiet swim session and instead gets Armageddon. If you guessed someone’s top comes off, you’d be right. If you guessed everyone teams up to beat up Suimei, you’d also be right. But the whole thing is handled so well that I genuinely found it extremely funny rather than cliched.

Most of the rest of the volume involves our heroes storming Duke Hadorious’ castle in order to rescue Elliot from his infernal clutches… no, wait, that’s a massive fakeout. That said, it does allow the group to get into the castle and do battle with the Duke himself, who proves that actual sword training trumps Goddess Sword powers, for the most part. Hatsumi gets to face off against Liliana’s adoptive father, though he’s hiding his identity from her at the moment (likely so that Hatsumi does not tell Liliana about this), and they have a decent sword battle. And Reiji gets the standard “time stops and I enter a dream world to talk with a past hero who gives me power up suggestions”, plot, which may have repercussions down the road, but does also allow him to defeat the monster. That said, Hadorious succeeds in sowing doubt in his mind, which might be trouble later.

The best scene in the book, hands down, is the fight with the golem. For some reason or other Io Kuzami decides to stop possessing Mizuki in the middle of the battle, leaving a very confused but excited teenager behind. Suimei’s frustrated reactions and Mizuki’s overenthusiastic bubbling are a beautiful counterpoint, especially when joined by Reiji’s blithe asides. As they face off against the golem (which involves a lot of discussion of Nietzsche, Christianity, and Leibniz as one of the biggest magicians of our age, but honestly that’s beside the point) we finally see what the three teens must have been like all the time back on Earth, and it’s glorious fun. They bump off each other well, come up with ideas that are shot down just as fast, and we finally get the sense they are best friends. Though Mizuki, as you can imagine, reacts poorly when she finally hears Suimei is a magician and hid it from her.

The book ends with Suimei succeeding in creating a magic circle to get them back to Earth… but of course he’s just going back to briefly check on things with his main party. They’re not cutting and running. This sets things up for what promises to be a great “reverse isekai” volume with Book 9. Sadly, Book 8 came out 18 months ago, and there’s no word on future volumes. So… maybe someday? At least it’s going out on a high note.

Manga the Week of 1/23/19

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SEAN: (collapses under pile of manga) (muffled voice) Yen Press week, gang.

Dark Horse has a 2nd volume of its manga adaptation of the 2nd Dangan Ronpa game.

J-Novel Club has the 2nd and final volume of Apparently It’s My Fault That My Husband Has the Head of a Beast, and the 12th and nowhere near final volume of In Another World with My Smartphone.

Kodansha has a bunch of debuts, and they’re even print! We start with 10 Dance, which combines BL and ballroom dancing, so sounds AMAZING. It runs in Young Magazine the 3rd.

MICHELLE: I am so looking forward to this. The cover and concept makes me think of the works of est em.

ANNA: I am intrigued.

ASH: Yes! I am so excited for this one!

MJ: YES to this! I’m so excited!

SEAN: Hitorijime My Hero is a spinoff of a title that used to be released digitally here by JManga, but no doubt stands up fine on its own. I gotta be honest, this student/teacher BL story excites me far less than 10 Dance. It runs in Ichijinsha’s Gateau.

MICHELLE: I’ve seen a couple episodes of the anime and liked it, but I never got far enough for anything particularly problematic to happen. We’ll see how it goes, I guess.

SEAN: And on the yuri end (hey, when Kodansha decides to do new genres, they go all in), we have Yuri Is My Job! (Watashi no Yuri wa Oshigotodesu!), from Ichijinsha’s Comic Yuri Hime. A girl ends up working at a yuri café, but behind the scenes things aren’t quite as yuri… or are they?

ASH: I’m very happy to see Kodansha starting to release BL and yuri titles in print. I hope the venture does well for the company so we might see even more!

MJ: Agreed.

SEAN: Kodansha also has Golosseum 5 and Waiting for Spring 10 on the print end, as well as Ace of the Diamond 19, Ao-Chan Can’t Study! 4, the 8th and final Aoba-kun’s Confesssions, Blissful Land 2, Kakafukaka 4, and PTSD Radio 6. Looking forweard to Ao-chan and Kakafukaka.

MICHELLE: For a second, my brain interpreted the word “radio” to mean that we were getting more Wave, Listen to Me, but not yet, sadly.

ASH: That would be nice.

SEAN: Seven Seas has a mere two titles next week. We get the manga adaptation of I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, which should be as heartrending as the book was. It’s a complete omnibus edition, and ran in Futabasha’s Monthly Action. There’s also the 2nd print volume of light novel How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom.

ASH: I still need to pick up I Want to Eat Your Pancreas in one form or another; I’ve heard good things.

MJ: I should do the same.

SEAN: Vertical gives us a 3rd volume of The Delinquent Housewife!.

MICHELLE: Woot.

ANNA: Nice!

SEAN: And now Yen. There were a few titles delayed till the final week in January, but for the most part it’s all next week. On the light novel front, the most interesting title may be The Kids Are Alright: A Turks Side Story. This is a Final Fantasy VII novel.

Also out in novel form is Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody 7, Goblin Slayer 6, Overlord 9, A Sister’s All You Need 3, and Strike the Blood 11. An off month for me, as Strike the Blood is all I’m getting of those titles.

There are four debuts next week, some of which may even interest the rest of Manga Bookshelf. First we have DIVE!!, which is, oddly, a remake of a manga that ran in Shonen Sunday back in the 00s. This one is from Young Ace, and the premise is the same: let’s save the diving team from getting shot down. If you like sports manga, or the anime Free!, you’ll like this.

MICHELLE: What troubles me is the long list of credits on this one. I’ll give it a shot.

ANNA: Hmmmm.

ASH: I’m hoping the original light novels will be licensed and translated at some point, too.

SEAN: From the sublime to the ridiculous, we then get Monster Wrestling: Interspecies Combat Girls. It runs in Monthly Comic Ride. I guess if you like the other vaguely softcore Yen monster titles you’ll like this? Hard pass from me.

Nyankees is the delinquent manga you never knew you wanted, showing stray cats as if they were in teenage hoodlum gangs. I must admit I really want to read this. It runs in Shonen Ace.

MICHELLE: I really want to read this, too!

ANNA: Based on the description, I feel happy that something like this exists in the world.

ASH: I’m so looking forward to this series!

MJ: I’m so on board for this.

SEAN: Lastly we have The Witch’s House: The Diary of Ellen. This may sound like an OEL project like the James Patterson books, but no. It’s Majo no Ie: Ellen no Nikki, a harror manga that ran in Kadokawa’s Dragon Age.

There’s more Yen too, of course; Based on light novels, we see A Certain Magical Index 16, Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody (manga version) 6, DanMachi 10, DanMachi Sword Oratoria 6, and The Saga of Tanya the Evil 5.

There’s also Black Butler 27 (remember Black Butler? It’s back! In pog form…), BTOOOM! 23, The Case Study of Vanitas 5, Kakegurui – Compulsive Gambler 8, Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun 10 (yay!), Murcielago 9, Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts 4, the 7th Sekirei omnibus, Teasing Master Takagi-san 3 (yay!), and Today’s Cerberus 11.

MICHELLE: Yay for Nozaki-kun!

ANNA: Yay!

ASH: Huzzah, Nozaki-kun!!

SEAN: A lot of debuts next week. What interests you most?

Hayate the Combat Butler, Vol. 33

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By Kenjiro Hata. Released in Japan as “Hayate no Gotoku!” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by John Werry.

The manga had taken a six-week break in Shonen Sunday towards the beginning of this book, and so Hata amusingly tries to do a “let me remind you of the plot and cast” for those who have not been reading this for 32 previous volumes. Mostly what it does is remind us of Hayate’s near-inhuman stamina, which vies with his legitimately inhuman bad luck for dominance. Hata knows the value of setting up an obvious joke and letting it play out as far as he possibly can. We start with all the residents of the getting colds, except Hayate, who has to take care of all of them (despite such minor setbacks as being hit by a truck). Then, of course, he gets a cold right as he has to take a “fail this and you’re expelled” test at school, and runs into infinite obstacles on the way, not least of which is Fumi at her most annoying… well, OK, that’s Fumi all the time. The punchline, which involves Yukiji’s PSP, is the perfectly timed icing on the cake.

Last time I mentioned the debut of new character Kayura, but like most of the cast she made her big debut and then faded into the ‘brought out as needed’ category. On the bright side, she does not appear to be in love with Hayate, which puts her into a relatively rare category. (Though to be fair to the author, it’s not as rare as other harem manga. There are a good 6-7 girls we see in this title who are not in love with anyone, and of course there’s Miki, who loves Hinagiku.) Those who do love Hayate get a few spotlights here. Izumi’s birthday leads to a lovely cake and a desperate attempt by her to eat it alone with Hayate. Ruka also shows up again, needing bike lessons from Hayate, which gets very amusing when he asks her if she wants a gentle or strict teacher and she says “strict”. Hayate’s sadistic aspects don’t come out very often, but when they do they’re hilarious, especially combined with the low-simmering romance we see here.

And then there’s Ayumu, whose love for Hayate is the most explicit but also likely the most doomed. She’s getting the old high school career survey, and “Hayate’s bride” isn’t going to cut it, especially as she has these visions of what life will be like as said bride, involving a series of “Hayate’s bad luck means we lose everything” disasters. She talks with Nagi about becoming a musician, but lacks the drive and the talent for it. Actually, given how we’ve seen her handling Nagi and Hinagiku throughout the series, a counseling job might not be a bad idea, though she needs to restrain her more head in the clouds moments. Hopefully she’ll fare better than Hinagiku, who was once the ensemble darkhorse of the series that everyone loved, even getting an ED theme in the anime devoted to her, but now is entirely used for fanservice. Poor Hina.

This is the 33rd volume of Hayate the Combat Butler, and I applaud all of you still buying it every time it comes out. Its humor is consistently funny to me, which helps to get through plot-absent volumes such as this one. It is currently projected to end in North America in the fall of 2028. Thought I’d put that out there.

An Archdemon’s Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride, Vol. 3

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By Fuminori Teshima and COMTA. Released in Japan by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

This volume does a much better job than the previous two books at actually having tension during the fights – Zagan actually has to work hard once or twice, which shows you how dangerous things are. Of course, he brought things on himself by walking into what was clearly a trap – something he knew, and which everyone else in his party pointed out, and yet they did it anyway. Our heroes are invited to a luxury boat for a party – something that everyone except Chastille knows does not mean a REAL party – and while there run afoul of another archdemon and his dark elf, who is a carbon copy of Nephy except she’s dark-skinned and supposedly evil. In amongst this we have Zagan and Nephy continuing to be utterly adorable together, and they are getting a little better at reading each other’s feelings. And for those of you who like “an elf’s ears are an arousal point”, you’ll love this one too.

I will admit to surprise that most of the book takes place on the fantasy equivalent of a luxury liner, but why not? Zagan and party go there to see if he can get more knowledge, something that he says is obviously what all sorcerers and archdemons should be doing. Alas, things go south almost immediately and he is forced, along with the rest of the boat, to do battle with a toxic back sludge that is the dregs of a former demon lord who was killed near the lake they’re on. I had wondered if this was going to lead to a demon lord revival, but we aren’t quite there yet. There is quite a bit of interesting worldbuilding in this book, as we get more insight into the different types of fantasy races we have here, and why Nephy was so mistreated by her home village.

There’s also a fair bit of humor, some of which works and some of which I was less thrilled by. Chastille works best when she can balance out the lovesick young girl with the kickass swordswoman, and it’s unfortunately mostly all lovesick this time round, with much narrative mocking of her being a crybaby. This mostly annoyed me, though it did set up a very amusing gag later on with Nephteros. Speaking of Nephteros, I expect to see her again. The ‘dark mirror’ character has been done before, and I was relatively pleased that this wasn’t a clone or duplicate of Nephy but merely someone who looks almost exactly alike. She also carries the ‘I love my master but am horrified to realize he only sees me as a tool’ subplot extremely well. And she also gets the funniest moment in the book, in the final pages, where Zagan not only gets his revenge but weaponizes his revenge and gives it to Nephteros to use as she sees fit.

Basically, this is still a fun and sweet series, and the backstory is getting more intriguing. Less whining from Chastille next time, please? Also, liked the siren chanteuse who also turned out to be a cheerleader.

Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, Vol. 1

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By Midori Yuma and Waco Ioka. Released in Japan as “Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi: Ayakashi Oyado ni Yomeiri Shimasu” by Enterbrain, serialization ongoing in the magazine B’S LOG COMIC. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Tomo Kimura.

There are times when you simply have to trust in the good taste of a publisher. I admit, reading the first volume of Kakuriyo, I wasn’t all that drawn in. It’s apparently based on a series of novels, and sometimes reads like it: there’s a ton of exposition laid out by characters to the heroine (who also gets to exposit on her own past) in an effort to get the story to where the author wants it to be and have the reader understand things. Which is fine, but works better in prose than it does in a shoujo manga. As with a lot of series featuring a young human woman meeting up with a bunch of yokai, most of the cast start off as jerks, with one or two exceptions, including her dead grandfather who got her into this mess. That said, there’s a lot here that I can see should translate into a fun series down the road, so I will assume this just starts slowly (like many other series I follow).

Our human heroine is Aoi, a young woman in college (college? In a shoujo manga? Well, it’s is B’s Log…) whose grandfather recently passed away. He had a reputation as a lothario, fathering a lot of children and then skedaddling. To Aoi, however, he’s the precious grandfather who took her in and raised her, so she’s a bit conflicted when she thinks about his past. Also like her grandfather, she can see yokai, and does her best to be nice to when when she does, despite the fact that she gives then so much food it feels like she’s starving herself to death. One day she runs into an ogre yokai at the steps of a shrine, and gives him her lunch. But when she gets her lunchbox back, she’s transported to a yokai inn! Turns out that her grandfather was also a troublemaker in the yokai world, and offered up his granddaughter in marriage to get out of a debt. Now she either has to marry him… or work off her debt in the inn. But will anyone hire her?

As I said, most of the first volume is dedicated to the setup, as it’s only in the final chapter that we get the sense we know how Aoi will survive in this world (if you guessed tasty food, give yourself a pat on the back – there’s even a ‘let me describe how I make the food’ section). Genji, a young man who can change his appearance from boy to man to woman – and does so frequently – is the one yokai who seems to be nice to Aoi, and he helpfully explains the ways of the inn to her. The Odanna, the ogre wh0o brought her there in the first place, seems like the sort that’s outwardly standoffish but warms up when you know him better – the funniest scene in the book involves Aoi being “tortured” by getting a nice warm bath and dressed in a lovely kimono. Aoi herself is in a long line of “plucky young women” we’ve seen in this sort of book, and seems to have her head on straight.

So overall I would say that while I was merely mildly entertained by this first book, it shows promise and makes me want to read more. I trust it will improve by the volume.