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Queen Emeraldas, Vol. 2

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By Leiji Matsumoto. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Zack Davisson.

These Emeraldas stories we see in this second omnibus tend to be fairly stand-alone and separate from one another, connected only by the interlocking narration of our titular heroine – indeed, sometimes the narration gets so interlocking it’s hard to tell when the chapter breaks are, which I’ve no doubt is somewhat on purpose. This is a long, endless journey through space. There’s no real destination, there’s no particular character development – Emeraldas is who she was at the start, and Hiroshi Umino may be hiding his identity behind a fake name, but is still essentially the same as well. So what you get in this volume is the delight of the scenery along the way, with Matsumoto’s sparse yet compelling art portraying a vision of space that its readers long to visit, even though they know that, since they aren’t Emeraldas, it’s likely they’ll end up as dead as most of the people in this book.

If you’re wondering where this takes place in the Harlock/Emeraldas/GE999 canon, the answer is “slightly early”, as we get a few shots here of Emeraldas observing (and really, that’s pretty much all she does) a short, teeth-filled man who faithful readers know is Tochiro, who will eventually be the love of her life. For the moment, though, the reader merely observes him dealing with life in a very Wild West-influenced outer space – much as Emeraldas is a grand Wagnerian opera, there’s also a large chunk of Hollywood Western to it as well. Of course, we’re not actually telling the story of Tochiro and Emeraldas yet, so which they interact, they eventually move on, just as everyone else does. Emeraldas is an anthology, and as such rarely stops to take on backstory. Still, it’s great to see him.

The series ends with a few short stories. The second one feels very much like the rest of the book, and is quite poignant. The first one… does not. I’m sure that in a collector’s sense the Matsumoto fan is delighted with its presence in this book, if only for the sake of completeness. As someone who’s read the rest of the series, however, the story of Emeraldas and her goofy female pirate crew running into Harlock and his male crew in an effort to find a treasure map feels like finishing off dinner at a 5-star restaurant with a bag of Doritos. I’m not sure if this story came out well before the rest of the book – I’ve been burned saying things like that before. But it FEELS like an earlier work, and while it’s quite funny in places, and it’s nice to see Harlock, I found its presence in the end simply jarring.

But that does not take away from the grandeur of the main work, and it’s been a treat reading Queen Emeraldas in English. It’s even more of a treat knowing that more is coming, as we have Harlocks both new and classic in the near future. Can a Galaxy Express 999 re-release be far away? (OK, probably, yes, it can.) In any event, classic manga lovers, fans of space opera, or even pirate kids will greatly enjoy this series. Long may she sail through the stars, narrating gravely as she goes.

Paying to Win in a VRMMO, Vol. 4

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By Blitz Kiva and Kuwashima Rein. Released in Japan as “VRMMO wo Kane no Chikara de Musou suru” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis.

Despite the fact that everything I either wanted or predicted would happen in my previous reviews turned out to be wrong, this ended up being probably the strongest volume in this series to date. Once again Ichiro is somewhat sidelined, this time by design – both parties have asked him to stay out of their design battle, which he does. In addition, I had predicted doom if Nem ever met Iris in real life – and lo and behold, that happens right at the beginning of the book. It’s OK, though, because this book ends up being a bit of a character piece, looking deeply at the life of a rich woman with tremendous talent but few friends or social skills, and a bipolar teenager (she says so herself, I might add) with a lot of drive and slightly more friends and social skills, but far less talent and likely headed for burnout.

The parts devoted to Nem are quite good, if a tad predictable, and I appreciate that she has the self-restraint to crush Iris in the game rather than Airi Kakitsubata in real life. As for Iris, I’m starting to see why the author mentions fans after the first volume wondering where she was. She’s such a car wreck in action, with astounding highs and devastating lows, that everyone around her defines her mood swings as her most well-known trait. I also appreciated the narrative acknowledging that as she is, she likely doesn’t have what it takes to make it as a designer – that may change now that she’s friends with Megumi, but even Ichiro admits that she falls short on the talent side. (Speaking of design, I appreciate the detail that these books go into showing off the careers of Iris and Megumi and what goes into creating custom fashion – there’s a lot of little anecdotes that help the whole thing feel more realistic.) And best of all, Iris still isn’t remotely showing signs of falling for Ichiro. I love that she still regards him as really annoying more than anything else.

The battle itself is closer than you’d expect, but Nem is a newbie to the world of NaroFan, while Iris is more familiar with “how would a gamer react” rather than “how would a normal human react”, so she comes very close, though in order to do so she does end up humiliating Sakurako, whose new character ends up being exposed a bit too much for her comfort. (There are also a few lines where Iris mocks the “old” Megumi, and Megumi and Sakurako’s reactions make me wonder if the author was poking at his editors for saying that the light novel reader hates women over 25.) Even Felicia is getting development, showing that she’s ready to break away from her cousin and achieve great things on her own in the game, something which ironically finally garners praise from him that she’d long coveted.

As I said, the only one who seemed to stay exactly the same is Ichiro, though you might argue that for once he appreciated his tactlessness a bit more than usual. Still, the cliffhanger leading to the next book seems to indicate that we’ll see more of him in it. The series is only six volumes long, so I’m quite happy to see what happens next. I wasn’t even as irritated by Ichiro this time around as I normally am, although that could also be a flaw in the work, given who he is.

She and Her Cat

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By Makoto Shinkai and Tsubasa Yamaguchi. Released in Japan as “Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Afternoon. Released in North America by Vertical Comics. Translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian.

The first thing that occurred to me after I finished She and Her Cat was that I felt that it would have been a much better book without the cat. I later changed my mind, but it has to be said that those who pick this up thinking it’s another cute animal book like Chi’s Sweet Home will be brutally disappointed. The cat exhibits some signs of cleverness in it, but is pretty much just a cat in the end, and the relationship with a kitten is the weakest part of the volume. That said, the volume is still absolutely worth getting because of the titular She, an office lady named Miyu who lives in her apartment with her cat and her regrets, possibly not in that order. Her life is laid out for us by Makoto Shinkai, who apparently created this in 1999 as a 5-minute animation and then expanded on it with both this manga and another anime series.

The reason I came to appreciate the cat is the way that the cat is also serving as the eyes of the reader… but because it’s a cat, doesn’t really understand much from Miyu other than surface emotions such as depression, exhaustion, or happiness. We understand more as a reader, having lived through similar moments in our lives, but the empathy comes from seeing Miyu’s life in miniature, rather than through any monologue that she has. There are a few scenes we see without the cat, and they are conveyed normally through dialogue – the only way we see into Miyu’s head is via either the words she says or the cat’s thoughts. She starts off cheery if harried, then suffers through a deep depression as things at work go sour and she’s reminded that her other friends have married by now.

Because this was written by Makoto Shinkai, I was uncertain if it was going to have a happy ending or not. But he specializes more in bittersweet than anything else, so though Miyu may entertain suicidal thoughts while under the bridge towards the end, things mostly work out thanks to a Neko Ex Machina. I like the fact that we end with her life swinging back up again, doing a lot better at work, and rejecting the proposal of a co-worker because she doesn’t love him, rather than because getting married is what she has to do now. Miyu finds being an adult as hard as the rest of us do, but she’s muddling through with the help of her cat, and I think it’s very inspiring to those who deal with feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness. And of course there are also scenes of Miyu playing with her cat, rest assured.

For fans of Makoto Shinkai, this is an obvious buy. I’d also recommend it for those who find themselves muddling through the day somehow, and wondering if it’s OK to be living like this. Even if the reader doesn’t have a cat, they may find an answer here anyway. (Also, why don’t you have a cat? Cats are awesome!)

Manga the Week of 8/23/17

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SEAN: I can’t. I just can’t. How on earth is this much stuff coming out?

MICHELLE: And still none of it is 7SEEDS or Silver Diamond!

ANNA: Or Demon Sacred!

SEAN: Dark Horse gives us the 26th volume of the Vampire Hunter D novels.

ASH: I somehow managed to forget that the novel series was still ongoing.

SEAN: J-Novel Club has a 2nd volume of adorable family series If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord. Oh please stay an adorable family series…

Yes, there’s still more Del Rey rescues, with Princess Resurrection 17.

Somehow there is a new Animal Land out, Vol. 12. Only 9 months after 11! Is the series back on track?

ASH: Maybe?! The ending seems so close and yet so far away.

SEAN: Kodansha gives us a 4th volume of Chihayafura digitally. Will our ragtag bunch of karuta misfits get it together?

MICHELLE: Yay!!!!

ANNA: So excited!

SEAN: And there’s a 4th manga volume of Clockwork Planet, whose novel I enjoyed more than I did the adaptation.

Domestic Girlfriend hits Vol. 5 digitally as well.

As does Fire Force, which is print, and still not as good as Soul Eater, IMO.

Inuyashiki 8 comes out in print as well. It’s ended in Japan recently.

And Land of the Lustrous hopes to make slightly more sense with Vol. 2, but it will look gorgeous no matter what.

ASH: I’m looking forward to the beautiful mess.

ANNA: Maybe I’ll check it out from the library just for the pretty….

SEAN: The first debut next week is Love & Lies, which North American readers may find slightly familiar if they read it on the Mangabox app. It’s also got an anime coming out. The premise involves a Japan where everyone automatically gets an arranged marriage at 16.

Kodansha has a 2nd volume of Real Girl, meaning I should read the first, but TOO MUCH MANGA.

MICHELLE: I missed the first one, as well.

SEAN: The second debut next week is another of THOSE isekai adaptations. That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime is based on a novel Yen will be starting this December, and Kodansha’s adaptation runs in Shonen Sirius. The premise is… what the plot says.

ANNA: We live in interesting times.

SEAN: Lastly (for Kodansha), we get a 2nd digital volume of Tzuredure Children.

On to Seven Seas, who blissfully only have two releases next week. A Centaur’s Life has its own anime adaptation going on, which seems to be adapting a lot more than I expected, including scenes I was sure it would cut. This is the 12th volume.

There’s also a 6th volume of yuri potboiler Citrus.

Vertical has reached a dozen volumes of What Did You Eat Yesterday?. Will there be egg dishes? (Do eggs come in dozens in Japan?)

MICHELLE: !!!!!! I love when there are surprise things that weren’t on my radar.

ASH: I’m always read for more What Did You Eat Yesterday!

ANNA: Woo hoo!

SEAN: The rest of the list is Yen. They have a bunch of light novels. The 4th Asterisk War may not be the best of them, but my guess is that it’s the shortest.

A Certain Magical Index’s 12th volume is a ‘downtime’ book, with much of it taken up by wacky shenanigans. I suspect the cliffhanger will be less wacky, though.

The Devil Is a Part-Timer! has an 8th volume, and may finally be returning to Enta Isla for a bit.

Goblin Slayer’s 3rd volume features goblins being slayed.

The Irregular at Magic High School has a 5th volume that I would also classify as ‘downtime’, but we do get a Beach Episode out of it.

KonoSuba’s 3rd volume will, one hopes, be completely ridiculous.

Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers has a 2nd volume, where we see how long they can extend the “one of us is a traitor” plotline.

And Sword Art Online’s 11th volume shows the ongoing adventures of Kirito and Eugeo training to become knights, this time complete with cute squire girls.

Yen manga also has one or two or twenty titles. Anne Happy has a 6th volume, and may be caught up with Japan by now.

Aoharu x Machinegun also gives us a 6th print volume.

ASH: The first volume was fun and I’ve been meaning to read more, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

SEAN: We have reached the final Blood Lad! You can tell it’s the final one as it’s not an omnibus, ending with a single-sized 9th volume. I will miss this underrated series.

BTOOOM! has an 18th volume, and I haven’t missed it at all, but it’s not going anywhere yet.

Delicious in Dungeon’s first volume was enjoyable enough, though I worry it will leave me with very little to review. Definitely getting its 2nd volume, though.

MICHELLE: I kept meaning to read the first, but now I’ll just have to review the first two together.

ASH: I loved the first volume and am looking forward to the next a great deal.

SEAN: There is also a 3rd Demonizer Zilch, which I keep forgetting Yen puts out.

More series whose premise I just couldn’t get past, we have a 7th First Love Monster.

Girls’ Last Tour will have an adorable post-apocalypse in Volume 2.

ASH: I didn’t find the characters overly compelling, but I did really like world and environment of the series.

SEAN: High School DxD is not dead, it merely seems like it after this recent hiatus. It returns with Vol. 9.

Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl has a 3rd volume of what will no doubt be adorable yuri stories.

Log Horizon: The West Wind Brigade does not have yuri, but it does have Soujiro, so there’s a tradeoff. This is Volume 6.

Murcielago’s 3rd volume will no doubt have yuri, but if you see “If you liked Murcielago, you may also like Kiss And White Lily for My Dearest Girl”, something is screwy with Amazon’s algorithms.

ASH: HA! Someone may be in for a surprise.

SEAN: Re: Zero’s 2nd arc has its 2nd manga volume, and no doubt features Subaru dying.

Rokka also has a manga adaptation, and it’s up to Vol. 3.

Vol. 3s are popular these days! We also have a 3rd Spirits & Cat Ears.

And double digits for Trinity Ten… um, I mean Seven.

Ubel Blatt also hits double digits with its 9th omnibus. If that makes no sense, you don’t know Ubel Blatt.

Lastly (thank GOD), a 6th omnibus for Yowamushi Pedal.

MICHELLE: Yay! This is a good week!

ASH: Yay, indeed! Yowamushi Pedal isn’t released nearly as often as I wish it was.

SEAN: You must be getting SOMETHING from this morass. What is it?

One Piece, Vol. 83

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

One of the most obvious things that a reader will pick up on when reading any given volume of One Piece is how much fun Oda must have while creating it. Jump manga in general is very good at showing off the author’s joie de vivre, but Oda in particular makes you think of the title as a giant rollercoaster of pure wow. In particular in this volume, the scenes in the Seducing Woods are amazing, being a combination of childhood dreams of everything being alive and talking to you (including all the sweets you eat), and the horror of everything being alive and talking to you, INCLUDING THE SWEETS YOU EAT. The revelation of how the woods, animals, and everything in Big Mom’s world speak is mind-numbingly horrific, but Oda breezes right by it, content to give us more running around and punching things as a distraction. It works, but in lesser hands this would have been tonally deaf.

Luffy and company are still trying to rescue Sanji, of course, but the woods keep them busy most of the volume, so we’re not there yet. Sanji is not having a good time, though. The rest of his family has arrived, including his father, who is a nasty guy whose skills are also equal to his son, it would seem. Once again, you get the feeling that Sanji could really do some damage if he’d only take the limiters off himself – usually it’s “I won’t fight women”, but here it’s “I’ll never fight using my hands” that’s his handicap, and it’s why he now is wearing exploding handcuffs. There is genuine sadness here as well, though, as we see Sanji’s abusive childhood, and realize why he would much rather think of Zeff as his father figure than this guy who’s willing to barter his “useless” son for political gain.

As for the fights, well, Luffy gets most of the action, as usual, though Nami fares better than she normally has in recent times, using her new Climatact with gusto. The big trump card, though, turns out to be the vivre card she got from Lola back in the Thriller Bark arc – Lola, it turns out, being one of Big Mom’s endless children. I always love it when One Piece manages to tie in a plot point that happened years and years ago, though it does require the reader to be well versed in the lore. She and Luffy also bounce off each other very well – there’s no romance in One Piece, of course, but I can’t imagine LuNa shippers being too upset with what they get here. Carrot and Chopper fare less well, though there are hints that they will be more proactive in the next arc.

Wilol Luffy and company get to Sanji? Will they even meet up with Brook and Pedro, who were the advance guard? And what of Charlotte Pudding, Sanji’s bride, who likes him well enough but seems perfectly willing to let Luffy rescue him. And of course, given Big Mom is one of the Four Emperors, it’s not going to be all that simple, especially given that she can destroy whole towns when she gets hungry. My guess is this arc has a long way to go before it ends. Luckily, it’s One Piece, so we will always be entertained.

Bookshelf Briefs 8/15/17

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The not-so-brief edition!

Akuma no Riddle, Vol. 5 | By Yun Kouga and Sunao Minakata | Seven Seas – How much you enjoy this final volume of Akuma no Riddle may depend on how much you enjoy stories having a happy ending even if they have to pull the logic out of their asses somewhat. The anime finished long before this, but the beats are essentially the same, as is the result. That said, the manga is definitely making things a bit more “yuri,” and since that is the main audience for this series, I imagine fans will appreciate that if nothing else. Also, we have some really hot women in suits on the cover, and that’s worth the price of the book in and of itself. In the end, this is the lesser of the two “assassination classroom” titles, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it—I had a lot of fun. – Sean Gaffney

Assassination Classroom, Vol. 17 | By Yusei Matsui | Viz Media – The first two-thirds of this is fantastic, as we see the class square off against each other to decide whether they will try to continue to kill Koro-sensei, or work on saving him. While lots of people get to show off their previously unseen chops, we’re all here for Nagisa and Karma, and we are not disappointed. There’s some backstory that mostly amounts to “we were good friends but grew apart,” but they also represent two very different kinds of assassins. As you may have guessed, Nagisa wins the day. The last third of the manga is a bit ridiculous, or as ridiculous as you can get in this essentially ridiculous series, but I’m prepared to shrug my shoulders and hum “Pigs in Space” while we power through it. Top-flight shonen. – Sean Gaffney

Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 19 | By Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki | VIZ Media – Central continues its “mop-up” campaign against Totsuki’s various research societies, and the volume begins with the last one of the day, during which Ryo Kurokiba manages to provide the only win out of 33 challenges for our heroes. That battle is interesting, as always, though there seems to be a bit more fanservice than usual, but what’s really fascinating is the cliffhanger ending. After unwittingly helping in a Central-style lesson by serving as sous chef for Eishi Tsukasa (current first seat of the Council of Ten), Soma ends up impressing him so much that Eishi invites him to join Central. Of course that doesn’t go well, and the volume concludes with the challenge: if Yukihira loses, he has to join Central as Eishi’s right-hand man, but if he wins, he gets first seat. Either way, it’s quite a big deal! – Michelle Smith

In/Spectre, Vol. 5 | By Kyo Shirodaira and Chashiba Katase | Kodansha Comics – This is based off of a novel, and I’d be very interested to see what it was originally like. The manga does a very good job of managing to keep things interesting given that this is nothing but talk, talk talk the entire way through. The way this is done is by dramatizing the events that Kotoko is theorizing about as if they are happening (which leads to one of the few moments of humor in the book when Kotoko sets up Saki as the prime suspect) interspersed with Kuro fighting Steel Lady Nanase in the background, which is a well-choreographed if somewhat tedious fight—by its very nature it’s going to last the whole book. The next volume is the final one—will our trio pull it off? – Sean Gaffney

Kaze Hikaru, Vol. 25 | By Taeko Watanabe | VIZ Media – Every year, I am so happy when a new volume of Kaze Hikaru comes out and every year I get so annoyed with its main character. It’s to the point now where the series would genuinely be improved by her sudden demise. But yet, I do so love the deep feelings of love and loyalty between Hijikata, Okita, and Kondo, and those are enough to overlook Sei’s foolishness. She’s once again getting all bent-out-of-shape over bushi discipline which, again, she should’ve known to expect when she joined the troop. But she just can’t help making an undignified scene trying to spare an accountant guy his fate when money goes missing. At least in the end, she sees that Hijikata is not actually cruel, the accountant shouldn’t have been a bushi either, and the real culprit was a creep. If only it’d stick and she’d mature some. Oh well. I’ll still be eager next year, I’m sure. – Michelle Smith

Maid-sama!, Vols. 17-18 | By Hiro Fujiwara | Viz Media – As is appropriate for a two-volume omnibus, this is definitely divided into two halves. The first one shows us Misaki coming to Usui’s rescue, and it’s as ridiculous as you might have expected, complete with her trying to jump off a great height because she knows he would easily do it. (She sustains light injuries herself.) The second half shows us that after all this time the true antagonist is still Misaki herself, and her need to be respected warring with the fact that she works in a maid cafe. Once she gets over this and is able to tell everyone how proud she is to do that, there’s nowhere else for the series to go, so it ends with a wedding, albeit ten years in the future. Far more variable than expected, but overall I enjoyed it. – Sean Gaffney

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, Vol. 4 | By coolkyousinnjya | Seven Seas – And this is where my enjoyment of the lead character and vague yuri is completely overshadowed by my dislike of stupid fanservice and annoying villains needing to be redeemed. Ilulu proved to be even more annoying than her introduction at the end of the last volume suggested, and I also groaned and slapped my head at the ‘let’s give Kobayashi a penis’ chapter. At times the series can still be intriguing, such as the chapter showing us how Kobayashi met Tohru on that drunken night, or the occasional depth Kobayashi receives. But it’s just not worth trawling through endless pages of ridiculous breasts and screaming lolis to get to it. Sorry, but this is the end for me. – Sean Gaffney

My Hero Academia, Vol. 9 | By Kohei Horikoshi | Viz Media – Over the past few months, it’s become clear that we have a new contender to take over the “Big Three” position now that both Naruto and Bleach have ended, and that contender is My Hero Academia, which has gotten staggeringly popular. And with good reason, as reading this volume shows us the author at the top of his game, with several villains infiltrating our heroes’ training camp and attempting to abscond with Bakugo. Things get very rough for a while, mostly as, being heroes, the kids need permission to fight back with all their strength. But once they do, great things happen, particularly with Midoriya, who remains the star of this ensemble. If you haven’t read this series yet, please start now. – Sean Gaffney

Nisekoi: False Love, Vol. 22 | By Naoshi Komi | Viz Media – As expected, Marika is written out, though in the end she’s not killed off OR married off—she’s sent to Pittsburgh, the only place that can cure the unnamed Love Story Disease she seems to have. But not before we get a thrilling rescue attempt with lots of wild fighting and far more helicopters than you’d really expect. Meanwhile, in terms of the only two girls who matter (sorry, Tsumugi), Onodera is still not QUITE ready to confess, but is trying to warm Raku up to it. I doubt that will go well. And Chitoge and Raku have another disaster of a date where she keeps completely misreading what he wants, which isn’t helped by his not really knowing. We’ve got three more volumes after this, so SOMEONE needs to get a clue soon. – Sean Gaffney

Scum’s Wish, Vol. 4 | By Mengo Yokoyari | Yen Press – We’re just about midway through this series, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s going to turn dark and tragic. Hanabi is travelling down a spiral that I’m not sure she’s able to control, and Minagawa is not helping there at all. Probably the most intriguing moment in the manga comes when Minagawa is bored out of her gourd on a date with Kanai… till he accidentally calls her Hana-chan, and it’s as if all of a sudden it matters to her. One thing that the author excels at is showing us the tempestuous fire of desire and sexual heat without ever, ever having it connect into anything resembling love. It’s so sordid, and again, I wonder how long things can go without someone snapping and a murder or suicide occurring. Addicting. – Sean Gaffney

UQ Holder, Vol. 11 | By Ken Akamatsu | Kodansha Comics – There’s a lot of stuff happening in this book. Yukihime rejects Touta as she still loves Negi, we find out Negi was possessed by the big bad from Negima! and has been suffering the last 20 years, Fate and Eva are trying to save and kill him respectively, both thinking they carry out his true wishes, and finally far more of the Negima! cast are still around than we’d previously thought—indeed, Zazie’s even turned into a shipper. But no, at the end of the day this is the volume that tells us that Karin was actually Judas Iscariot, her immortality a result of betraying Christ, who Touta, seeing Karin suffering because of that, offers to punch in the face the next time he sees Him. I… don’t know where to begin. What the what? – Sean Gaffney

In Another World with My Smartphone, Vol. 4

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By Patora Fuyuhara and Eiji Usatsuka. Released in Japan as “Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson.

Our little smartphone novel has grown up to a degree, and it’s something I view with very mixed feelings. Sure, we still have the occasional plotline that is just “Touya and friends lackadaisically do relaxing things’, but I can’t really call this a pure and innocent isekai anymore. It’s reached puberty and is trying to act up. Oh, rest assured, there’s no actual sex or anything. That would require losing an audience that the author is not prepared to lose. But Touya just seems a bit more cynical in his dealings with things, and he’s thinking about women a lot more than he did (though not quite to the extent of that short story in Vol. 2). On the bright side, the villains all still clearly delineate themselves into ‘evil’ and ‘SUPER evil’, so we don’t risk sympathizing with them at all then Touya destroys them. Rest assured, that will never change.

Yes, that’s right, there’s a new girl on the cover, and a new addition to the harem, though I’m amused that Touya describes his four fiancees as his “core team”. Lu is a princess of a neighboring kingdom, and personality-wise is very shy and blushy, similar to Shinobu from Love Hina. As we meet her, her kingdom is on the verge of a military takeover, with the general of the kingdom deposing the emperor and taking power with the help of a summoned demon adn some artifacts that make him almost invincible. That said, Touya barely reacts to this challenge, figuring out fairly quickly how to deal with him, though I’m not sure it’s a method he’ll ever use again. As a result the emperor is back on the throne, and Touya gets a very willing Lu as a reward, though he once again pleads for everyone to wait till he turns 18. (Yumina and Lu’s fathers plotting to use Touya politically is one of the best parts of the book, as Touya is always at his best when thrown off from his usual blandness.)

Elsewhere, Touya rescues a group of slaves and frees them up to become employees of the bookstore/cafe he creates, which ends up turning into a far-too-long joke about all the women in the entire kingdom being fujoshi (this was OK), and Touya thinking “no homo no homo!” about 865 times (this was not). We also resolve the ‘surely she’s a long lost noble’ plotline involving Renne, the runaway girl Touya took in as a maid in an earlier volume. Surprise! She’s a noble whose now-dead mother ran away from her family to marry an adventurer. This is also not as funny as the author would like, relying on a lot of jokes about Renne’s aunt Carol being a Christmas Cake. Oh yes, and the obnoxious nobles in Yumina’s own kingdom show up again, this time with a murder plot that will attempt to implicate Touya so that they can have their son marry and rape Yumina, possibly not in that order. When Touya hears about this, his response is… impressive, if a bit shocking. It seems out of character given he’s so mild-mannered, but given the circumstances I can’t blame him. Oh yes, and he’s awarded his own (tiny) kingdom, and builds a castle to go with it.

Overall this was a highly variable volume of Smartphone, which can’t simply rely on pure charm anymore and is therefore trying to decide what to do next. It works best when not crawling through the drudgery of anime cliches like “she’s angry people think she’s old” or “everything thinks he’s gay”. I’m still interested in the series, but honestly, I would not blame those who were having light, breezy fun with it for stopping here.

Also, he names his attack griffons John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Because of course he does.

My Week in Manga: August 7-August 13, 2017

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My News and Reviews

I shifted around my usual posting schedule at Experiments in Manga a little last week so, instead of posting July’s Bookshelf Overload, I ended up featuring my review of Kazuki Sakuraba’s most recent work to be released in English, A Small Charred Face. The book is scheduled to be released in September (I received an advanced copy from Haikasoru for review purposes), and is definitely worth checking out. I’m not especially interested in vampire fiction, but A Small Charred Face makes for a very interesting contribution to the genre and I loved the queerness present in the story. Sakuraba is probably best known as the creator of Gosick, which I’ve been meaning to read, but my introduction to her work was through Red Girls: The Legend of the Akakuchibas.

Elsewhere online last week: Justin of The OASG posted a transcript of Four Hundred Pages of Manga Every Single Week, a roundtable discussion held in July which was sponsored by Kodansha Comics and featured three of Weekly Shonen Magazine‘s editors, including the editor-in-chief; Anime News Network interviewed Akira Himekawa, the creative team behind most of The Legend of Zelda manga adaptations; Viz Media made a some licensing announcements while at Otakon including RWBY by Shirow Miwa, Takane & Hana by Yuki Shiwasu, and The Young Master’s Revenge by Meca Tanaka; Also at Otakon, Sekai Project, which is still relatively new to manga publishing, announced the acquisition of Keika Hanada and Kanemune’s manga adaptation of The House in Fata Morgana.

Quick Takes

Clockwork Apple by Osamu Tezuka. I’ll admit, I managed to burn myself out on Tezuka for a bit, so I’ve managed to amass quite a stockpile of his recently-translated manga which I haven’t actually gotten around to reading yet. Clockwork Apple is a collection of eight short manga originally published between 1968 to 1973. While they aren’t directly related to one another, they do share a similar tone, were generally intended for an adult audience (mostly seinen, I believe), and can all broadly be described as speculative fiction. The stories in Clockwork Apple tend to be fairly dark, dramatic, and serious. The visual humor, breaking of the forth wall, and self-awareness frequently present in Tezuka’s other non-comedic works are nearly nonexistent in the Clockwork Apple. (I don’t think the Tezuka’s Star System was applied, either.) Tezuka was personally having a difficult time in the late 1960s and early 1970s, so perhaps the tenor of these stories is partly a reflection of that. In general, I enjoyed the stories collected in Clockwork Apple even though the endings would sometimes be a little hit-or-miss or feel rushed. Each story would have at least one plot-altering twist, some had several, but occasionally those developments would come across as convenient rather than compelling.

Flesh-Colored HorrorFlesh-Colored Horror by Junji Ito. Most of Ito’s manga to have been translated into English are currently in print or have been recently reissued in a new edition and even more have been scheduled to be released in the near future. One of the few exceptions is Flesh-Colored Horror, the third and final volume in The Junji Ito Horror Comic Collection series released by ComicsOne. Currently, the volume can be a little difficult and expensive to find, but fortunately one of my local libraries had a copy. (I really hope to be able to find a reasonably-priced one of my own someday.) In addition to the titular story, Flesh-Colored Horror collects five of Ito’s other short horror manga. The six unrelated stories were originally published between 1988 and 1994 in Monthly Halloween, a shoujo manga magazine specializing in horror. Flesh-Colored Horror is a fantastic collection that is well-worth seeking out for either fans of Ito’s work or of weird horror in general. Ito has a way of starting with a simple and at times even mundane premise and twisting it into something truly strange and horrific. For whatever reason, while I greatly enjoy most of Ito’s work, I do find that I often prefer Ito’s older short manga over more recent collections; Flesh-Colored Horror continues that trend.

Giant Days, Volume 1Giant Days, Volume 1 written by John Allison and illustrated by Lissa Treiman and Whitney Cogar. I’ve been hearing good things about Giant Days for a while–the series has been nominated for multiple Eisner and Harvey Awards in the past, and several of my friends keep up with the comic–but I’m only getting around to reading it now. One thing that I didn’t realize about Giant Days, which initially started as a self-published webcomic before being picked up by Boom! Studios, is that it’s actually a spinoff of Allison’s earlier series Scary Go Round. I haven’t actually read Scary Go Round, but fortunately familiarity with that comic isn’t at all necessary to understand Giant Days. The comic largely follows three university students–Esther, Daisy, and Susan–who become close friends after living together in the same residence hall. The first volume seems to favor exploring the characters, their personalities, and relationships over having a strong overarching plotline. At times the comic feels somewhat disjointed and the scene changes can be rather abrupt, but the series has a good sense of humor and I do honestly like the characters. I think I would need to read a little more of Giant Days to really feel invested in their stories, but I greatly appreciate the inclusion of queer characters in the increasingly large cast.

Attack on Titan, Vol. 22

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By Hajime Isayama. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Ko Ransom.

“Tragic backstory intensifies” would be a good description of this volume, for the most part. Eren continues to have dreams that flash back to his father’s life before he was born, showing us the fate of Grisha’s first wife (she appeared in the story earlier than we think, it turns out!) and what our kingdom really is – an island kingdom, with most of the world very much not dead on the other side of the ocean. We also, as predicted, see Eren and Mikasa in jail for the orders they disobeyed in the previous couple of books, though that doesn’t last, mostly due to how important Eren really is. Oh yes, and much to Mikasa’s horror, we get a time limit on the Titans’ lives – they only live for 13 years after being titan-ized, meaning that we also get another major character death, though this one is offscreen.

Yes, in fine lesbian character tradition, Ymir writes a farewell note to Historia that confirms that a) she wanted to live the rest of her life married to her, but b) she can’t as she’s soon going to be dead. After Eren’s revelations, it’s pretty clear that this is meant to be due to simply living out that 13 year span rather than due to being executed. Reiner, at least, lets her write said farewell letter, though I wish we’d been able to see more of Historia’s reaction. I suppose it was unbecoming of a queen. So no happy ending for Ymir, though at least she doesn’t seem to have been killed off just for being gay. As for Mikasa, I’ve pretty much written off any hope of her character revolving around anything other than Eren, so her stunned disbelief through most of this is unsurprising. Not sure if they’ll find a way to stop Eren and Armin from dying. I could see it going either way.

There’s also more arguing over whether it was the right thing to save Armin or not – I suspect this may have been an argument that Isayama and some of his editors may have had as well. I wish that it had been one of the regulars allowed to take an opposing side, rather than generic military police guy, who is there to remind Hitch that Marlowe likely died terrified and to yell at everyone else, so immediately turns into one of my least favorite characters. I think it would have had more impact if it was a more familiar face on the Erwin side, though. In any case, however, we jump forward a bit and see the Survey Corps confirming what they’d found out from Grisha – that this is an island, and that there is ocean at the end of it. This leads to possibly the only really heartwarming scene in the book, with the members of Levi’s unit cheerfully splashing in the surf (though not in swimsuits – we can’t rewrite reality that much).

I didn’t see an “End of Part Two” at the finale of this volume, but it certainly felt like it. We’ve gotten a lot of our answers, but what comes next? In any case, Titan fans should enjoy this volume, though likely they will get frustrated with it as well. But we should all be used to that.

Yona of the Dawn Vol. 7

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Yona of the Dawn Volume 7 by Mizuho Kusanagi

I knew when I first picked up Yona of the Dawn that the reader would eventually be getting awesome archery moments, but it has been quite a road getting there. Yona has been evolving into an action heroine for the previous six volumes and this is finally where all her practice sessions pay off, as Yona’s team along with benevolent pirates manages to stop some horrible human trafficking.

Yona and Yun manage to break away from the other captives and signal for help, but not before Yona endures some intense and scary moments. But when she finally gets a bow in her hands she assumes an intimidating power, suddenly her captors find themselves frightened by a girl they were dismissing casually just a few minutes before. The first chapter of this volume had some wonderful action moments, like when the Green Dragon swoops in to answer Yona’s summons at just the right moment. But one of the things that sets this manga apart from typical shoujo fare is that Yona ends up with the most heroic moments of the whole battle instead of her male companions. She comes into her own in a dramatic fashion, assuming a power and authority that the reader hasn’t seen before. It isn’t any of her companions who end up taking out Kum-Ji who is terrorizing the seaside town, it is Yona herself. I was struck by Kusanagi’s facility with facial expressions in this volume especially, as Yona shifts from righteous anger to resignation at having to take a human life.

I love the way this series focuses on the emotional connections between the characters as well. Yona has a chance encounter with Su-Won, and Hak is there to deal with the aftermath. Saying goodbye to the Pirate Captain is emotional both for the Green Dragon and Yona, and I have a feeling as the companions embark on their next adventure, they’ll be able to deal with whatever crisis they may encounter due to the strong bonds between them and Yona’s leadership. This is one of my favorite current series, Kusanagi always manages to pack in a ton of story and character development in each volume in a way that never seems forced.

Clockwork Planet, Vol. 1

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By Yuu Kamiya, Tsubaki Himana, and Sino. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by fofi.

Ugh. I hate the (2) that’s sitting in the URL up there. Why couldn’t this book have had a subtitle like some other light novels? In any case, as the URL shows, I’ve reviewed Clockwork Planet before: the first manga volume, which Kodansha Comics put out back in March. And now we have the light novel it was based on. When I had only mild enjoyment of the manga volume, I was told a few times that the light novel is significantly better. And indeed those people were right, as my enjoyment of the novel was significantly better – especially in regards to Marie, whose inner workings (so to speak) are a lot more explicit and sympathetic than they were in the parts of the manga I read. That said, you can definitely tell that a lot of this is written by Yuu Kamiya, the creator of No Game No Life. It has the same… flavor, so to speak.

The premise is that a socially ostracized boy with a REALLY acute sense of hearing has an automaton crash into his apartment one evening. This isn’t as odd as it seems, because as the name might imply, the Earth now runs on clockwork in order to stop its death. This particular automaton, however, is one of a very special series, and had in fact been dormant for the last two hundred years. Fortunately, Naoto is able to “hear” where the problem is and fix it, and now he has his very own robot girl, RyuZU, who is devoted to keeping him safe and happy and abusing him verbally, not in that order. (This is where the NGNL author’s fetishes come into play, as I mentioned above.) The other half of the plot involves genius teenage engineer Marie and her calm bodyguard/babysitter Halter, who is mostly a cyborg himself. They’re trying to fix a gravitational error that might destroy all of Kyoto. And then we discover that this error is, in fact, bpart of a VAST MILITARY CONSPIRACY!

As you may have gathered, subtlety is not on the menu for this book, but it’s a decent thriller, and I enjoyed the characters while finding them somewhat exasperating. Because this is written for a male Japanese audience, there is of course a large color picture of a naked loli girl in it, so as always this isn’t recommended for casual fans. But for Kamiya fans, or those who like “steampunk” type stories, it’s a lot of fun. The second half is definitely better than the first, as things swing into high and we show off what all of our heroes can do. And there’s a setup for future books, which we actually see a bit of in the prologue, as well as another robot girl that needs to be rescued from the government/military complex. Unlike a lot of “first volume” light novels that may or may not become series, this looks like it was designed to have more to it. Good thing we’re getting more. Recomme3nded.

Melody of Iron

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Osamu Teuka hit rock bottom in 1973. Mushi Production, the animation studio he’d launched to great fanfare in 1961, had just declared bankruptcy. Although Tezuka had parted ways with Mushi in 1968, he was still linked to his old company in the public imagination — Mushi was, after all, the studio that had introduced Tetsuwan Atom to television viewers around the globe, and made Kimba the White Lion a household figure in Japan. Tezuka also faced a creative crisis: his work was out of step with emerging trends in what he called “young adult manga,” a point he plaintively addressed in the afterword to the 1974 short story collection Melody of Iron:

The media was whispering that I’d hit my wall… With a broken heart, but also rebellious determination, I blindly tackled magazine jobs …These are examples of my Young Adult Manga write during times when I was mentally hungry. There were many more. Ranging from pieces that were too dark and hopeless, to really harsh pieces that, in today’s day and age, would immediately receive protest from all sorts of organizations. All of my pieces then had really emotionless themes and I don’t remember enjoying writing most of them.

Manga publishers agreed with Tezuka’s glum self-assessment. In 1973, Weekly Shonen Champion offered Tezuka an opportunity to write a limited five-week series with the implicit assumption that Tezuka was publishing his final work. That series turned out to be the opening salvo in a new stage of Tezuka’s career, however, as Black Jack became one of Tezuka’s best-known, best-loved titles, a mixture of bold, expressive cartooning, crazy plot lines, and gut-punch endings all held together by one of the most memorable characters Tezuka ever created.

Not all of Tezuka’s work from the 1970s walks this melodramatic tightrope as effectively as Black Jack, a point underscored by Melody of Iron. The title story, for example, is a three-act mish-mash of gangster movie cliches and seventies pseudo-science. In the first act, a young man runs afoul of the mafia, ratting out one their assassins in court; as punishment, the Albanis cut off his arms and leave him to die. In the second act, Dan holes up in a mad scientist’s laboratory where he learns to use a set of psychokinetic prosthetic arms. And in the final act, Dan’s ability to harness PK proves a mixed blessing when the arms exact revenge against the Albanis… without him.

The finale exemplifies what’s good and bad about Tezuka’s crank-it-to-eleven approach. On the one hand, Tezuka has the cartooning chops to make the arms look sufficiently animated, a necessary condition for selling us on his Stephen King-meets-Mario Puzo concept. On the other hand, Tezuka’s own distinctive style works against the potential horror of the killer limbs; the arms aren’t menacing enough to be a convincing embodiment of Dan’s fierce anger, looking more like the Tin Man’s costume than instruments of death. The arms’ efficacy is further neutered by the staging of their grand murder spree, a string of over-the-top deaths that re-enact Dan’s initial humiliation in the most baldly literal fashion: look, Ma, no arms!

The story also stumbles in its efforts to depict American racial dynamics. Shortly after Dan’s bloody encounter with the Albani’s goons, for example, a mob of African American teenagers harasses Dan, pelting him with stones and mocking him for his missing arms. The way these characters are rendered — with thick lips and maliciously gleeful expressions — creates a profoundly uncomfortable moment for the modern Western reader, resurrecting the visual iconography of minstrel shows to dehumanize these unnamed teens. Dan is rescued by Birdie, a black Vietnam vet who counsels Dan to abandon his murderous plans. Birdie looks more recognizably human than the rock-throwing teens, but he’s more a construct than a character, a noble voice of reason whose primary purpose is to advance the plot by introducing Dan to the mad Dr. Macintosh.

The third strike against “Melody” — and, by extension, the entire anthology — is that the edgier content feels like a self-conscious effort to dress up the material in adult themes, rather than a vehicle for exploring the darker corners of the human psyche. This problem is most pronounced in “Revolution,” a short story about Yasue, a housewife who wakes up from a coma convinced that she’s a young radical named Minako Hotta. In an effort to prove to her husband that she is, in fact, Minako, Yasue describes Minako’s sexual encounters with a wounded revolutionary, explaining how Minako’s tender ministrations brought him back from death’s door. We’re clearly supposed to sympathize with Yasue’s husband — he’s disgusted by Yasue’s “memory” — but his boorish, violent behavior in previous scenes makes it hard for the reader to sympathize with his predicament. Worse still, Minako’s sacrifices are presented as a sign of her dedication to the cause, a notion so risible it seems more like a lame joke from Woody Allen’s Bananas than a credible character motivation.

As with Tezuka’s other work from the period, the principal characters in Melody of Iron are generically attractive types whose personalities emerge primarily through what they say, while the supporting cast members are vividly drawn caricatures whose personalities are established through how they look. Such visual shortcuts are a standard manga technique, of course, but in Tezuka’s hands these aesthetic decisions are effective since they’re rendered with flair and specificity; you know exactly what kind of person Dr. Macintosh is from the shape of his nose, the tousle of his hair, and the hunch of his shoulders. Tezuka also scatters a few Easter eggs through the collection, including a sequence modeled on The Godfather‘s iconic wedding scene, and a panel depicting Broadway’s signature jumble of lights and signs; look closely and you’ll see the names of several Tezuka titles gracing the marquees.

For all the flashes of imagination in Melody of Iron, however, Tezuka was onto something when he characterized his “young adult” stories as “less approachable” than his other work from the early 1970s. Even the most over-the-top scenes feel a little labored and dour, lacking the visual exuberance or emotional oomph that makes “Dingoes” and “Teratoid Cystoma” such memorable entries in the Black Jack canon. Readers looking for an introduction to Tezuka’s late work may find Melody of Iron a good point of entry, but anyone with dog-eared copies of Black Jack or Ode to Kirihito may be underwhelmed by this more workmanlike collection.

THE MELODY OF IRON • BY OSAMU TEZUKA • TRANSLATED BY ADAM SECORD • DIGITAL MANGA, INC. • RATED YOUNG ADULT (16+) FOR VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL CONTENT • 214 pp.

A Small Charred Face

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A Small Charred FaceAuthor: Kazuki Sakuraba
Translator: Jocelyne Allen
U.S. publisher: Viz Media
ISBN: 9781421595412
Released: September 2017
Original release: 2014

Kazuki Sakuraba is a fairly prolific author in Japan, having written numerous short stories, essays, and novels; sadly, only a small handful of those have been translated into English thus far. Although Sakuraba is probably best known as the creator of Gosick (which, I’ll admit, I still need to actually read), my introduction to her work was through Red Girls: The Legend of the Akakuhchibas, an award-winning, multi-generational epic which I thoroughly enjoyed. When Haikasoru, Viz Media’s speculative fiction imprint, announced that it would be releasing Sakuraba’s A Small Charred Face with a translation by Jocelyne Allen in 2017, I immediately took note. I was previously unaware of A Small Charred Face, originally published in Japan in 2014, and I’m not especially interested in vampire fiction, but with Sakuraba as the author, Haikasoru as the publisher and Allen as the translator–a winning combination with Red Girls–it instantly became something that I wanted to read.

The Japanese town in which Kyo lives is bathed in blood, a hotbed of organized crime, murder, and vice. With a population willing to avoid looking too closely at the surrounding bloodshed, resulting in a plentiful and readily accessible supply of food, it’s the perfect place for the Bamboo, vampiric creatures originating from the deep mountains of China, to secretly coexist with humans. Carnivorous grass monsters but human-like in appearance, the Bamboo are extremely powerful and resilient but vulnerable to sunlight, never age but are still mortal. Up until the point he meets one, Kyo was never quite sure if the stories he heard about the monstrous Bamboo were true or if they were just told to frighten children. Confronted with the immediacy of his own impending death while only ten years old, his mother and sister having already been killed by a group of hitmen, Kyo is unexpectedly rescued by a Bamboo. Mustah, impulsively acting in blatant disregard for the rules of his own kind by taking him in, saves Kyos’ life and in the process changes it forever. But even while Kyo, Mustah, and Mustah’s partner Bamboo Yoji form a peculiar, tightly-knit family, it will never be entirely safe from the dangers presented by humans or the Bamboo alike.

At its very core, A Small Charred Face is about the curious, complex, exhilarating, and often fraught relationships that evolve between Bamboo and humans. The novel is divided into three distinct parts–three tangentially related stories which can all be connected to Kyo and his personal experiences with the Bamboo. In some ways the stories are able to stand alone, but the references they contain make them more powerful when taken together as a whole. The first and longest section, “A Small Charred Face,” focuses on Kyo’s life with Mustah and Yoji. The two men are fascinated and enthralled by his humanity, at times treating him as something akin to a pet but also raising him as family while protecting him through his adolescence. To Kyo, Mustah and Yoji are his saviors, parents, and something even more which is difficult to define. The second part “I Came to Show You Real Flowers” serves as an epilogue of sorts to the first, following another Bamboo who becomes incredibly important to Kyo as well as a young woman who plays a crucial role late in his life. Finally there is “You Will Go to the Land of the Future,” a story which delves into the history of the Japanese Bamboo. Linking back to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, it traces the tragic origins of the Bamboo’s strained relations with humans and the strict, harshly-enforced rules implemented to guard their society and existence.

A Small Charred Face opens with the brutal aftermath of the rape and murder of those close to Kyo with him facing a similar fate. It is a horrific, gut-wrenching scene, but the story that follows becomes surprisingly beautiful. Though still punctuated by moments of extraordinary violence and devastating heartbreak, A Small Charred Face is a relatively quiet and at times even contemplative work. The relationships shown are intensely intimate, with love, desire, and devotion taking on multiple, varied forms. The characters struggle and frequently fail to completely understand one another–the worldviews, life experiences, and fundamental natures of humans and Bamboo occasionally at odds–but the strength of the connections that they form regardless of and in some cases because of their differences is tremendously compelling and affecting. There’s also an inherent queerness to the stories that I loved. It’s perhaps most obvious through Yoji and Mustah’s partnership and the fact that Kyo spends a significant portion of his life presenting himself as a girl for his own safety, but many of the novel’s essential underlying themes explore found family, the need for acceptance, and what it is like in one way or another to be a hidden outsider within society. While A Small Charred Face resides firmly within the tradition of vampire fiction, Sakuraba’s contemporary take on the genre is still somewhat unusual and unexpected; I enjoyed the work immensely.

Thank you to Viz Media for providing a copy of A Small Charred Face for review.

Manga the Week of 8/16/17

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SEAN: Next week is the closest we get to a small week these days. Revel in it.

Dark Horse gives us the 4th I Am A Hero omnibus. Zombies! Not quite as sexy and dangerous as vampires, but they try harder.

ASH: I Am a Hero is definitely one of the more interesting takes on the zombie subgenre that I’ve come across. But yeah, not especially sexy.

SEAN: J-Novel Club has two more volumes out next week. The 5th My Big Sister Lives in a Fantasy World is out, and will continue to compare itself to the Haruhi Suzumiya series.

And Playing to Win in a VRMMO has a 6th volume.

Most of the list is Kodansha, both print and digital. On the digital side we start with a 5th All-Rounder Meguru.

MICHELLE: This is one digital sports manga that I’ve yet to sample.

SEAN: Two new digital debuts next week. Beauty Bunny is from the author of Peach Heaven and is about a girl whose life is transformed by makeup and hot guys, perhaps not in that order. It’s 8 volumes, and ran in Dessert.

Cosplay Animal also ran in Dessert, but is about 10 years older than Beauty Bunny. A cosplayer meets her ideal guy whole cosplaying as a high school student. The trouble is her ideal guy IS a high school student. From what I’ve read this sounds like AMAZING complete trash. I am interested.

MICHELLE: I don’t think either of these is for me.

ANNA: I have to say I will at least try the first volume of Cosplay Animal, that sounds amusing.

Fairy Tail gives us a 4th monstrous volume of its Master’s Edition super-omnibus.

ASH: If someone hasn’t read Fairy Tail before, this edition is definitely the way to go.

SEAN: Kodansha Digital also has a 13th Fuuka, which continues to be written by Seo Kouji.

Hotaru’s Way also gets a 2nd volume digitally.

Back to print for the 8th Maga-Tsuki.

Peach Heaven has a 5th volume digitally, and I’m sorry this is so dull, but I haven’t read many of these.

MICHELLE: Although I love most of Kodansha’s digital offerings, Peach Heaven didn’t really appeal to me, I admit.

ANNA: I did not care for it.

SEAN: I have read the 22nd and final volume of School Rumble, though. It’s famous! Well, OK, infamous. The ending has to be seen to be disbelieved. There was a 1-volume continuation, School Rumble Z, that tried to fix things, but I don’t believe Kodansha has picked that up. In any case, bye, School Rumble! Flag or Riceball, you were great either way. Mostly.

Lastly for Kodansha, a 4th xxxHOLIC Rei has managed to edge its way out onto shelves, despite CLAMP’s busy schedule of delaying and cancelling other series.

ANNA: I’m still sad and angry about X/1999!!!

ASH: Yeah…

SEAN: Seven Seas gives us the 5th and final volume of Akuma no Riddle, which has combined yuri and assassins into quite an attractive package.

And a 6th Shomin Sample, whose package is less attractive.

Titan Books rarely makes appearances on here, but they do have the 1st volume of the Assassin’s Creed manga, which actually is adapting the Assassin’s Creed IV game. It ran in Jump Kai, and the author has also written some Naruto spinoff novels.

ASH: I’m picking this up mainly because of the involvement of Kendi/Kenji Oiwa, who also worked on the manga adaptations of Welcome to the NHK and Goth.

SEAN: Vertical has the 8th Devil’s Line.

Viz gives us two titles, the first being the 4th Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt series. We now have two Gundam series coming out at the same time. How times have changed.

ANNA: This is amazing, and reminds me I need to actually read my stockpiled volumes of Gundam: The Origin.

ASH: I shamefully have a few volumes of that I still need to read, too…

SEAN: And lastly, there’s the 14th Tokyo Ghoul, which will interest casual readers more than any other title I mentioned on this list.

See? Next week is totally small and has nothing coming out! Aheh. What are you getting?

Invaders of the Rokujouma!?, Vol. 5

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By Takehaya and Poco. Released in Japan as “Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Warnis.

I’ve mentioned before that I enjoy Yurika’s role in the novels, being the constantly mocked and abused girl whose suffering is absolutely hilarious. That said, it’s not the sort of thing that you’re going to be able to drag out over 26+ volumes, not if you want to actually develop the characters enough to have people read 26+ volumes. So I was not particularly surprised that this volume of Rokujouma was going to try to give Yurika a bit more gravitas, or at least show us that as a magical girl she isn’t, in fact, as completely incompetent as her personality may imply. I wasn’t expecting this to turn into the best volume of the series to date, though, as Yurika’s frustrations in the first half of the book give way to a battle royale with her evil counterpart, and she finally gets her wish: her friends believe her.

And yes, I can see you raising an eyebrow at me. “Magical reset at the end?”, you say cynically. Yes, yes, magical reset at the end. But that’s not the point, the point is that Yurika is NOT affected by the magical reset, which means that the development she gets in this book will (hopefully, crosses fingers) remain going forward. A lot of Yurika’s issues are self-confidence related, which makes sense given her background which we get a bit more of here – she was an “ordinary girl” attacked for the large amount of mana she had, and her magical girl sempai pretty much sacrificed herself so that Yurika could continue to defend the world, etc. As a magical girl, Yurika is actually pretty damn powerful. It’s just the constant ridicule and denial by her friends that wear her down. But now she’s aware that, memory loss or no, in the end when her friends discover the truth they do support and defend her.

As for the harem, it’s interesting that Yurika does not particularly moon over Koutarou the way that the other girls do. There are a few hints she likes him, but for the most part she’s content to set up Harumi with him. Her attempts at helping that relationship along work much better than her attempts to get people to believe she’s a magical girl, honestly. As for Koutarou, his main issue is that he’s surrounded by a ghost, two aliens, and an “underground priestess”, and Yurika the “cosplayer” is the one normal girl in his life. Once he accepts that his harem are not going to abandon him, I think things can move forward. (As for Harumi, her main issue is that Koutarou puts distance between them that he doesn’t do with the others, and this is relatively straightforwardly fixed.) The other haremettes don’t get much to do, though the ending implies that the next book will feature Kiriha – which makes sense, she’s on the cover of this book. Gotta keep things consistent.

Rokujouma is never going to break any originality records, but it’s settled nicely into doing its thing, and the characters are growing with each book. Well worth a read for fans of battle harems.