Features & Reviews

By Hirohiko Araki. Released in Japan as “Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz Media.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is inherently ridiculous. If you don’t accept that from the start, this likely is not going to be the manga for you. Luckily, Phantom Blood lets you know this is the case right away. Everything is dramatic and over the top, characters scream at the top of their lungs for no real reason, and emotions are at a fever pitch. At the beginning of the book, with Jonathan and Dio as twelve-year-olds, you’d think this was simply a way to show off the drama of puberty. But no, it’s Araki’s style, and even as the manga moves ahead to show them as young adults, the high-pitched drama never quite goes away. And make no mistake about it: this is a good thing. If you embrace the series’ style, you’ll not only find yourself laughing a lot, but also really come to love it.

Fans may have already read JoJ’s when the 3rd arc was released over here a long time ago, but this is the original from 1987, and it tends to wear its bheart on its sleeve, as you’d expect. There is no moral ambiguity here, just good vs. evil. Our hero, Jonathan Joestar (JoJo) is pure and noble but hopelessly naive, which is why he spends much of this volume suffering. Meanwhile, Dio Brando is a villain through and through, both in petty teenage ways (stealing the first kiss of the girl Jonathan likes) and in horrible monster ways (burning the beloved family dog in the incinerator). There are other people in the manga – despite vanishing halfway through the volume, I loved Erina’s response to the kiss, and Speedwagon looks to be the only person who might be able to keep up with the histrionics of the cast – but for the most part this is solely about Jonathan, trying to live his life and maybe make friends, and Dio, determined to ruin Jonathan’s life because… well, there’s an abusive father in there as well, but mostly it’s because Dio really wants to.

To a certain degree, summing up the plot of this is meaningless, as I think most people are going to be reading it for the visuals and the style. Araki is a great fan of rock music – Dio Brando is partly named after Ronnie James Dio (the other part I think you can guess), and Robert Edward O. Speedwagon will make any child of the ’80s nostalgic. Speaking of the 80s, this is from 1987, and looks it. Much as JoJo has influenced countless manga since its inception, it also has influences, which is why most of the cast look like First of the North Star outtakes, particularly once Jonathan and Dio grow up and start bulking out. And, of course, there’s the melodramatics I mentioned earlier. Jonathan doesn’t just react, he recoils in horror, screams to the heavens, pouts on his bed while looking out the window. Dio’s hatred is not shown merely via the occasional evil glance, he gets his own inner monologues and the occasional rant (including one that spawned a meme: “The first person you kissed wasn’t JoJo! It was me, Dio!”).

Subtlety is not something to come looking for here. But it’s glorious fun, even as I suspect it will end with the entire cast dead. So far things are mostly “realistic”, which only a mysterious ancient mask showing hints of the supernatural. But that changes towards the end of this volume, when we get… dare I say it… vampires! The bizarre of this adventure looks amazing, and I cannot wait to read more. (And digitally I can – the 2nd volume is out already for e-readers.)

By Kazumi Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “To Aru Majutsu no Index” by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On.

Kamachi wrote the 2nd volume of the Index series in 17 days at editorial request. I imagine it was a combination of “wow, this series got very popular very fast” and “a book we had slotted for this month fell through, fix it fix it fix it.” And so the 2nd book of the Index series, which Kamachi says deals with the subject of a “failed hero” and a “failed heroine”, ends up being something of a failed novel as well. This is not to say there aren’t many points of interest, especially for the Index fans, and there are certainly some evocative passages. But the first Index book was about magic and science smashing together and seeing what happened. The second book is a horror novel, and darker than it really needed to be at this early stage of the game.

Introduced in this volume: Aleister Crowley, Aisa Himegami. There’s also a subtle mention of Misaki Shokuhou if you know who she is from Railgun. For Railgun fans, this takes place at the same time as the final episodes of the first anime season. Oh, and for those curious, this shares the same readability issues as the first – the prose is awkward and verbose, inclined towards long lectures about magic and science, bolds text for obscure reasons, etc.

You’ll notice I left off our villain for this book, Aureolus Isard (yes, Isard – look, some romanizations are bound to be different, deal with it). It’s not exactly a spoiler to say he doesn’t pop up again, mostly as his function was fulfilled in this book – he is what Touma is not. Yes, Touma muses as to whether he might have become someone like Aureolus if he hadn’t been able to save Index in the previous book, but where it counts, Touma is a ‘hero’. He refuses to kill the fake Aureolus even though he probably would be justified, while our so-called villain not only has to dispatch a cut-rate dummy of himself in order to lengthen the book a bit (the anime cut this entire part out, and while I normally gripe about things like this I can’t blame them), but he happily sacrifices an entire building full of students to fill his plans, which in the end are less ‘save Index’ and more ‘notice me, Index’. He doesn’t deserve more space in this review.

Index doesn’t really get much to do here, something you will sadly be hearing me say a lot from now on. That said, she does manage to figure out a lot of what Aureolus is doing just from watching how he uses magic, so once again shows how she’s very dangerous with all the knowledge in her head. Most of the real character development goes to Stiyl Magnus and Touma himself. Stiyl begins the route towards being an actual ally of Touma rather than an enemy reluctantly assisting him. His love of battle and callous attitude towards collateral damage begins to shift about halfway through the book, something he notes himself, wondering if Touma has influenced him. Like Aureolus, he too harbors a grudge against Touma for saving Index when he could not; unlike Aureolus, he’s willing to accept it because it means Index is happy.

As for Touma, it’s only been about 8-9 days since he lost every memory in his head, and the most amusing part of the book is the fact that it doesn’t actually make a damn bit of difference. Even though he spends much of the time wondering what his old self would do and how his old self would have reacted – and it’s suggested this is why he’s reluctant to follow through on Index’s obvious romantic feelings towards him – in the end, the reader is amused because old Touma and new Touma are exactly the same – when you wipe Touma down to nothing but ‘learned information’ with no personal memories at all, he does the exact same things for the exact same reasons.

Lastly, there’s Aisa, who also suffers a bit from being underdeveloped in this novel. Her backstory is tragic, but we don’t really get inside her head enough to feel more than a brief “oh, what a horrible thing to happen to a little girl”. Index at least got a bit more focus in the first book. Still, she actually manages to survive to the end of the book, unlike most of the rest of the students in that building. (The death of the students is the main aspect of the ‘horror’ I was talking about, and it’s really creepy and horrible, and I’m not sure I mean that in a good way). Given that Index likes to have character ‘types’, and Aisa is a mostly stoic girl with a monotone delivery, I think she’s a good bet to be a valuable member of the main cast.

Unless, of course, an even more popular stoic girl with a monotone delivery shows up in the next volume and makes Aisa fade into the background so much that she almost becomes a joke character. But really, what are the chances of that happening?

By Aya Kanno. Released in Japan as “Baraou no Souretsu” by Akita Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Princess. Released in North America by Viz Media.

There should probably be “And William Shakespeare” somewhere in the credits above, but I don’t begrudge anyone for leaving it out – this is a very loose interpretation of four of Shakespeare’s earliest works: the famous historical tragedy Richard III, and the less famous and more problematic trilogy, Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3. That’s Henry and Richard on the cover, both looking bishonen and troubled, and surrounded by rose thorns, as is appropriate to the Wars of the Roses. Kanno sticks with much of the basic plot of the Henrys here, but adds her own twists, primarily by having Richard and Henry meet in a secret grove without recognizing each other, and feeling a bond between the two f them. It’s not quite BL, and certainly won’t be once Richard realizes who Henry is, but it’s very shoujo manga.

Richard himself is the primary focus, and rightly so. As you’d expect, the portrayal of Richard here is a lot more sympathetic than the villain of Shakespeare’s works. Rather than a deformed hunchback, Richard here seems to be intersex, much to the horror and loathing of his mother. His father doesn’t seem to mind as much, but still thinks Richard is a bit too frail and sickly to go into battle with him against the king – even though he can hear his son’s thoughts at dramatic times in the battle. There’s a nice shot of Richard as a child in the early part of this volume, before we realize that Kanno has shifted things up a bit with his background, where we see him looking almost exactly like Kitaro from the old 60s horror manga. Richard’s identity and body hatred fuels most of his anger and frustration.

Some of the Shakespeare has been left intact, of course. Queen Margaret is handled beautifully – one of Shakespeare’s strongest female roles, she gets short shrift these days as she’s not from a ‘famous’ play, but from the Henrys. She has no respect at all for her husband, and is fully prepared to step onto the battlefield and lead men against those who might claim the crown – and indeed innocents who may happen to be in the way. As for Henry himself, his piousness and weakness as a ruler is also portrayed very well here – he doesn’t want anyone to be hurt, but has no solution to offer except to keep praying. Kanno’s art excels here – a shot of Margaret looking down on Henry curled up in a ball, her face filled with disgust, is probably my favorite in the whole book. Oh yes, and the late Joan of Arc is here as well, her spirit seemingly haunting Richard, which fits with the negative portrayal of her in Shakespeare’s works, and adds a nice supernatural element to the mix.

Those who loved Otomen won’t find too many similarities here – this is a deliberate tonal change of pace from her previous series, filled with drama, intrigue, and betrayal. And a few battles, including one with Richard’s father the Duke of York that forms the cliffhanger of this volume. If you like Aya Kanno and Shakespeare, this is a very good pickup for you.

By Satoshi Mizukami. Released in Japan by Shonen Gahosha, serialized in the magazine Young King Ours. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

I’ve discussed before how series can sometimes be plotted in “short/medium/long” ways in Japan. The short is if the series is a failure – 2-3 volumes and it’s done. Long is when a series is a huge hit and basically can run as long as the author needs or editors demand. And mid-sized tends to be in the 10-20 volume range, where it’s a big enough hit to get room to grow. Biscuit Hammer falls into the second category, and I am happy that it has its ten volumes (or 5 omnibuses). That said, sometimes you can hear the screeching noises as the author realizes it’s not going to be cancelled and rolls out the rest of the plot. Having spent the first two volumes keeping the focus primarily on three people, these next two add the entire rest of the cast, plus the villain over the space of only a few chapters. It can feel exhausting.

That said, the cast is not without interest. Seeing two middle-school girls as two of the knights is rather jarring, and I liked the determination of the oldest of the knights to keep them out the battles, even as that quickly becomes moot. We get what seems to be the standard ‘childhood friends with secret crushes’ pair, only to realize that the girl is not only odd but a little worrying – given what happened with the Dog Knight, I wonder if she’ll survive the book. There’s not just youngsters, though – a 42-year-old ex-cop is one of the knights, an agent for justice whose cynicism won’t let him believe in it anymore. And the Swordfish Knight, now dead, gets probably the best backstory of the group, though it starts off in a ridiculous manner.

Then there’s our villain, Animus – assuming you aren’t thinking that the villains are our two heroes, who have after all vowed to destroy the Earth as well. He seems the typical smiling villain – he’s already corrupted one of the Knights, and goes after a second, though he’s unsuccessful – but he’s too laid-back to really fall into that stereotype – indeed, that may be a bit more disturbing, as his calm placidity works even better. I liked his intellectual faceoff with the Cat Knight, whose smackdown that gaining knowledge just for the sake of having it is a useless goal.

Overall, though, much of this omnibus feels like setup – lampshaded by Animus, who calls off the attack golems about 1/3 of the way through the book so that the author can show off his new characters and give us their backstories. It’s nice to learn about them, even if some seem a bit underdeveloped still, such as the Snake Knight. But I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as the first omnibus due to the sound of the grinding gears I heard in the background as the author realized he now has room to stretch things out. I’m still very interested in seeing how things go, though, and the next volume looks likely to have more action, if the cliffhanger is anything to go by.

By Shake-O. Released in Japan as “Hitomi-sensei no Hokenshitsu” by Tokuma Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Ryu. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

As longtime readers will know, I pay far more attention to which company is releasing a manga and what magazine it runs in, for good and ill. Sometimes this can give me a feeling of great anticipation (Love at Fourteen is a good example), and sometimes it can inspire a feeling of dread, such as with this title, which runs in Comic Ryu, home of Monster Musume, which is very, very popular in North America and I simply can’t stand. Luckily, even though it does feature a degree of fanservice and boob jokes, Nurse Hitomi is a far more palatable title, mostly as the fanservice is a distant fourth to its other aims: amusing comedy, amusing drawings of weird creatures, and monsters as a metaphor for teenagers.

This actually puts it closer to its other Comic Ryu neighbor, A Centaur’s Life. But whereas that’s more of a slice-of-life title that takes great pains in its worldbuilding, Shake-O is not particularly interested in why the world of Nurse Hitomi is filled with mythological people hybrids, or for that matter how a bear can father a cyclops. This is a manga that wants to have fun and be silly. And it certainly succeeds there. Hitomi is a nice teacher who genuinely wants to help her kids, but she has no depth perception, making her clumsy, and she tends to try to do everything herself, something pointed out by fellow teacher and childhood friend Kenjiro (you’d think they would have some unresolved tension between them, but sadly Ken is a lolicon, the final joke in the volume and a lousy one to go out on).

Rather than Hitomi, probably the best reason to read this title would be the kids who come to her with unusual problems, some of which are couched in subtle metaphor but most of which are as unsubtle as they come. One girl is horrified that as she gets older her tongue is getting longer and longer, and she can’t control when it comes out anymore. Two childhood friends are going in opposite directions – one is now a giant while the other has shrunk to the size of a 5-year-old. And a shy girl who has trouble speaking up has now found herself literally turning invisible. (To comedic effect – if you want Translucent, go bother Dark Horse.) As you can see, monster teens = puberty. Most of these titles try to have a heartwarming lesson in them, but the lesson is secondary to the humor, and that’s just fine.

There’s other things going on here – Hitomi’s assistant, Itsuki, seems to be gender-ambiguous, though Itsuki mostly exists to poke gentle fun at Hitomi. The story of the giant girl and her small friend has an undercurrent of yuri – though only an undercurrent – and I hear future chapters may do the same thing. For the most part, though, despite the occasional ‘this looks like tentacles but it’s really not’ art and ‘why are people staring at my large breasts’ jokes, this is a fairly cute and innocent look at teens and their problems, couched in monster language. It’s not essential, but if you like unusual comedies, give it a try.