Features & Reviews

By Jin (Shinzen no Teki-P) and Sidu. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On.

After two volumes of being very confused, I think I am finally starting to get a handle on Kagerou Daze, and elements of the plot are now coming together in ways they hadn’t before. As with the second volume, this book is divided into two parts, which interlock in alternating chapters. One details the struggle of a young boy in the city and his hopeless crush on a girl his age who seems to be using him as a baggage holder. The other continues to show us Shintaro and Momo getting involved with the Mekakushi-Dan, and dealing with the eye powers – which now have one more member, as the boy from the first story shows up with red eyes and a desperate need to save the girl he loves.

I’ll be honest, I found the Shintaro plot a lot more interesting – almost the reverse of the second book, where it was Takane who held my attention. Part of the problem is that Hibiya and Hiyori are both not very likeable kids – Hiyori deliberately, as she’s written as very much a stereotypical arrogant rich girl (complete with a “Mean Girls” sort of accent, with lots of ‘likes’ interspersed), but I suspect we’re meant to sympathize with Hibiya’s somewhat stalker-ish obsession with her more than we do, and the doll he creates that can speak n her voice is just icing on the cake of creepy. That said, he fares much better in the second story, where he’s allowed to be what he actually is away from his crush, a confused and emotional young kid.

Shintaro and Momo also grow over the course of this volume, although I have a sneaking suspicion that Shintaro may regress soon. The scene between him and Kano is the most powerful in the book, both to show the pain and despair that Ayano’s death sent Shintaro spiraling into, and also to show the reader that Ayano is somehow connected with this group as well, and not just Shintaro’s dead friend. It also shows us a cruel and vicious side to Kano, which I had suspected was there but hadn’t seen till now. As for Momo, she and Hibiya get off on the wrong foot (he calls her “Gran”, which I suspect is Oba-san in the original, and she understandably freaks given she’s still in high school), but quickly develop a sibling-like relationship. He seems to have seen her teacher before, too…

The writing here is quite interesting. It’s rare to see a Japanese book with English wordplay – the title of the book, The Children Reason, and one story within, The Children Record, could have multiple meanings, and the original Japanese used the English words. (The author does need to get better at remembering how he’s numbering, though – going from 01 to 02 to 03 to IV was jarring, and that was also in the original Japanese.) There’s also some subtle callbacks, such as Ene having a complete freakout when she sees Konoha, which sounds so much like her old self that Shintaro almost figures it out before she distracts him. Overall, I remain interested, despite a majority of the characters having serious character flaws, and will definitely pick up the next volume.

By Tetsuo Uesu and Miyakokasiwa. Released in Japan as “Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha” by Kadokawa Shoten Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

First of all, that is one awkward title. I’ve accidentally written it sa “New Sister Devil” at least twice, and it is very much in the genre of ‘random words strung together’ that we’ve seen so often these days. Looking at the title, you’d immediately guess it was based on a light novels, and you’d be correct. As for the manga itself, it shares similarities with a few other titles released over here lately. The premise could be vaguely interesting, some of the characters are promising, and there’s a whole lot of non-consensual sexual assault as fanservice that makes me ultimately rejecting recommending it to others.

As I said, I did enjoy the basic premise and backstory. Each of the main characters is introduced as a normal person to whom wacky plot points keep happening, only it turns out that they’re actually far from normal and have been hiding secrets of their own. Basara is actually from a village of heroes who are there to fight demons – a fight that he’s run away from after his powers got out of control as a child. His father, who appears to be the one complete dupe in the series, turns out to have also known all along. the one innocent in this, ironically, is Mio, who is the daughter of a demon – a fact she was totally unaware of until her entire family was slaughtered one day. Each of them has a very good reason for wanting nothing whatsoever to do with the war to see who gets to rule Hell, and yet they’re drawn into it anyway, because they’re fundamentally decent people. This is a good premise.

Sadly, we also get fanservice, to the point of near explicitness here, mostly due to Mio’s attendant Maria, who is a succubus, and who uses her powers “accidentally” to bind Mio as Bassara’s underling. This means she has to obey his orders, and if she doesn’t, her body gets more and more aroused. The only way out of this is, of course, to grope and otherwise assault her till she climaxes. Add to this and we have the usual ‘waking up with my fake sister lying on top of me’, ‘bath scene with lots of jiggling and bouncing’, and ‘let’s lick the arm in suck a way that it resembles giving head’. Honestly, half the time I’m amazed this isn’t in Young Ace instead of Shonen Ace. But to be fair, this is exactly the sort of thing that would interest teenage boys.

So if you can put up with the humiliation of the female lead (Maria seems to have no shame, so no worries there) and enjoy fantasy along the lines of Devils and Realist and some of the other ‘war in hell’ titles we’ve seen, this may be for you. As for me, I feel I can resist the call.

By Gakuto Mikumo and Manyako. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I’d mentioned in my review of the first volume that Strike the Blood reads like a series that was written in anticipation of being made into an anime. Having now completed the second volume, I’ll go a little further – it reads almost like a novelization, as if the anime had come first. This is actually good in many respects – the fight scenes are excellent and highly easy to visualize, and the normal pauses you see in these sorts of series where the plot is slowly explained are kept to a minimum. It does mean that I have the same issues I had with the first volume, though – the character types are all too predictable, as are the plot twists.

As a case in point, we have Sayaka, Yukina’s former roommate and friend and the orphanage devoted to taking girls and making them into magical superstars. She has a giant hate-on for Kojou, of the sort that we know will turn to love by the end of the book, because of course he’s not like those *other* evil vampires. She also has a pseudo-lesbian obsession with Yukina, which I expect will be promptly dropped now that it’s fulfilled its function as minor yuri bait. It’s disappointing, because while Yukina and Asagi also have elements of cliche written into their characters (elements which are exaggerated a bit more in this second volume), they both manage to feel like read young teenage girls, while Sayaka reads like a caricature.

The worldbuilding here fares better, as we once again see a series that knows it won’t be cancelled for a few volumes, so is content to spin out a few interesting subplots and not actually do anything with them. Koujo’s younger sister is clearly possessed by something, but we never quite find out what. Likewise, Asagi’s hacking abilities are starting to go beyond ‘teen genius’ and into legendary abilities. We meet another powerful vampire here, Vatler, and while he also has his share of cliched behavior, his smug “I did it for the lulz” attitude is more tolerable than Sayaka’s angry not-lesbian.

I will likely be reading more of this, despite my grumping. The prose is some of the smoothest we’ve seen in a Yen On release, with very little of the awkward narrative stuttering you see with a lot of first-person light novel narratives. And as I said earlier, the action scenes are genuinely exciting and not confusing, which is impressive given how much destruction is racked up here. The villain is a terrorist, and you get the sense that the author had seen Die Hard before writing him, as he’s very much in the Alan Rickman vein of “polite yet murderous”. There’s also a character from the first volume who returns – that did surprise me, though sadly it also involved maid fetishism. So it’s a good series, but I do wish that I wasn’t able to see the blueprint it works off of so easily.

By Eiji Masuba. Released in Japan as “Jitsu Wa Watashi Wa” by Akita Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Champion. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

I’ve been a little wary of the recent influx in “monster girl” manga, even though I do enjoy several of the titles. It can be a fun genre, but its nature lends itself to a sort of fanservice that I’ve grown out of over the years, and so I always approach new titles wondering how many of them are all large-breasted succubi and accidentally spilling milk all over someone’s face. Thankfully, there are also exceptions, and to its credit Seven Seas has not really leaned one way or the other in licensing the monster girl genre, but simply spread its net wide to gather up everything. And this means that we have titles like My Monster Secret, which has the subtitle “Actually, I Am…”, a literal translation of its original title. Which is just a fun silly comedy with no fanservice in sight.

The literal title is presumably meant to be followed by a fill-in-the-blank, with the first girl on the cover conveying “Actually, I Am… a Vampire.” She’s Shiragami, who is supposed to be cool and aloof, and who our hero has totally fallen for. In reality, she’s mostly cool so that people don’t see her fangs, and the aloof becomes goofy fairly quickly, though at times you can see the author struggling to see how “ditzy” he should make her. Acting as her foil is Asahi, a boy whose poker face is entirely absent, to the point where he’s actually shunned a bit by the class for his total inability to keep anything a secret. The trouble is that Shiragami’s secret isn’t just a love letter, she’s in big trouble if it’s found out. What’s a boy who can’t lie to do?

The plot and characters spin out as you’d expect. There’s the teenage newshound girl we’ve seen in many an anime, only this time she’s portrayed as straight up evil, which is refreshing. We also see another supposed stoic cool girl, only this one turns out to be an alien – something that should have been more obvious from the giant screw on the back of her head, which opens up to reveal her much tinier self. If you think all of this leads to over the top reactions and lots of falling over, you’re absolutely right. The goal here is comedy, with I expect some heartwarming interspersed as the series goes on.

The main reason I really enjoyed the first volume of the series is the art style, which is appealing yet odd. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, with very wide mouths and expressive screams. No one’s really attractive here, which is not what I was expecting – I’d thought the vampire and alien would be standard “beautiful”, but even they’re drawn to look strange more than anything else. Basically, the art helps the comedy. If you’re looking for a “monster girl” title just to say that you’ve read one… well, wait a month and get Franken Fran. But if you want two, this is a good choice. It’s relatively clean, especially for a Champion series, and genuinely amusing.