Features & Reviews

By Atsuko Asano and Hinoki Kino. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Aria. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Dystopias are, as a general rule, not my cup of tea. Those who read this blog on a regular basis already know that I’ll forgive a lot of a story if it has a happy ending; likewise, if a series is just unrelentingly grim, all I really feel is exhausted. But that isn’t to say that a series can’t still win me over with enough interesting things going on. No. 6 is indeed one of those series. It takes place in a supposed elite utopia that turns out to have many deep, dark secrets, and our hero quickly finds out how fast events can turn against him. It’s also shoujo – it runs in Aria, Kodansha’s upscale magazine that’s competing with titles like Asuka and Wings to get the teen “not quite BL” market.

Our hero’s name is Shion, a stoic and reserved young man who is on the fast track for the elite school (and this is among a city of elites) until he lets a young fugitive, who seems to be called Rat, briefly stay at his place, and sews up his wounds. This causes him to lose that elite privilege, something which… really doesn’t bother him much. Several years later, he’s working part-time jobs and staring blankly at his female best friend, who blatantly says she wants to sex him up but is just not registering on his radar, when he comes across a hideous government conspiracy that is killing people by aging them to death. He’s rescued by Rat, and is forced to abandon his life and go on the run, where he’ll find out what the city is really like.

Passive characters like Shion have to be handled very carefully not to be boring. Luckily, these creators are doing a good job so far. Shion may be reserved, but he’s not unemotional, and I like his youthful enthusiasm (which sadly wears down as the volume goes on) and bluntness when he first meets Rat. The scenes with Safu, the aforementioned best friend, are also both quite funny and very telling. It’s not entirely clear if he’s uninterested because he’s not into girls (certainly he bonds better with Rat than he has with Safu) or if the concept of sexual love has simply never occurred to him, but it’s another thing that serves to make him watchable. (By the way, Safu will be dying at some point in this series, sacrificing her life for Shion. I don’t know any spoilers, but bank on this happening anyway, because DUR HEY.)

Rat is less successful, being more of a standard smug pretty boy who has learned not to trust anyone but can’t help but be drawn to our hero. Likewise, the government conspiracy itself, along with its Orwellian officers who administer it, are very much out of the school of Dystopias 101. The aging-to-death thing is pretty horrific, but we don’t know either of the victims long enough for it to really sink in. And the art is serviceable, but doesn’t really pull you in much.

That said, I’m interested to see what happens with Shion, who’s an intriguing enough character that I’ll try another volume of this. The genre isn’t my cup of tea, but the lead may be. And it’s a definite must-buy for anyone who likes conspiracy thrillers with overtones of possible BL romance.

Story by Ryukishi07; Art by Jiro Suzuki. Released in Japan in two and 1/2 separate volumes as “Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Turn of the Golden Witch” by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine GFantasy. Released in North America by Yen Press.

(In case there are any Umineko obsessives reading this, please avoid any future spoilers in comments. No need to Yasu this up till we have to.)

We’ve had our first go-round, and now Umineko begins its second arc. Surprisingly, for most of this volume Battler isn’t the protagonist, either. I was expecting, as with Higurashi, a few arcs that are simply “Battler is dumb” before things really got going. Here, though, we get a wider view of the cast. The fist half of this has the servants Shannon and Kanon as the dual protagonists, showing Shannon’s love for George and how she got a chance to make that love happen, as well as Kanon’s combination of jealousy and self-loathing that balance this out. Between the two of them, Beatrice has a lot to manipulate, and that’s exactly what she does here – though Shannon, at least, is starting to see through Beatrice’s motivations. Certainly more than Battler is.

The second half of the “island story” (more on the meta world later) focuses more on Maria and her mother Rosa, and oh dear I worry about the fandom just dropping this like a hot potato. Parental abuse is not unique to anime and manga, certainly, but it’s rare in a protagonist, and I think that’s what Ryukishi07 is trying to set Rosa up as here – particularly after the events of the first Twilight that remove the other potential adult protagonists. Her bipolar tendencies are simply hard to read, and we definitely see why Umineko fandom has sarcastically nicknamed her “BEST MOM EVER”. Maria’s not exactly helping her case, either – she’s just as hyper-annoying and creepy as she was in the first arc, and it’s easy to see (though not justify) why she would grate on every one of Rosa’s nerves. Basically, this is a horribly broken family, and putting them in a situation like this is just mean.

Which brings me to Battler and Beatrice. No, not the Battler who’s on the island, or the Beatrice who’s showing up doing magic things and dressing in stockings and short skirts; I’m talking about the Beatrice and Battler from the first arc, who are sitting over a gameboard watching as Battler tries to prove that the murders are human-caused, and Beatrice tries to prove they’re all due to magic. The arcs certainly tie together more than they do with Higurashi, and even more than that series, this one rewards re-reads – and is harsh to those who don’t pay attention. I have to say that I think Beatrice’s ‘move’ here is excellent – Battler could easily deny witches in the first arc when she was just portraits and butterflies, but now Beatrice is everywhere, flouting Battler by simply existing and doing supposed magic.

No one really reads this to identify with or bond over the characters, I hope – leaving aside the fact that they always die, these folks are simply far more unlikeable and broken than even Higurashi’s broken cast, and they’re explicitly compared to “game pieces”. No, we read this to try to figure out what’s actually happening here – particularly now that we have multiple realities stacking up with the ‘meta’ gameboard. I’m pretty sure that this arc isn’t going to give us any answers – in fact, as with Higurashi, I’m not expecting anything concrete till at least the 5th arc – but it does have a lot of pointing and shouting, and over the top faces (sometimes too over the top – I think the artists overdo it in Umineko based on the fan reaction to Higurashi’s faces), and grand guignol horror.

A manga that requires you to think about everything that’s happening, while also trying not to overthink things, seems very contradictory. But that’s Umineko in a nutshell, and if you don’t mind horrible things happening to horrible people, it’s still a great deal of fun. Especially now that Beatrice, who is pure evil on a stick, has made her grand debut.

(By the way, for those curious, Yen didn’t leave out any extras – the 2nd volume in Japan also lacked the extras Vol. 1 had.)

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

(There may be spoilers in this review for people who are only following the anime.)

In general, I tend to do a lot of reviews for this blog. But sometimes, I don’t have as much to say. So I am very grateful to the Manga Bookshelf team, who allow me, with their Bookshelf Briefs column, to do quick reviews of titles I can’t really spend 500+ words talking about. That said, I have my pet series, which will always get full reviews no matter what. Sailor Moon. Excel Saga. Higurashi. And now, after a few briefs, I’ve decided that Attack on Titan is going to join that crowd. Because guys, this is seriously one of the best manga out there. Its popularity is very much on the rise, helped by the release of the anime, but also by its compelling plot and fantastic characterization, which has been helped by greatly improved facial art. The art is still the weak point, but it’s not enough to make this any less gripping.

Things pick up right where last volume left off, as we’re dealing with the fallout from Eren’s Titan reveal. Eren is not quite sure about it himself, and that’s the wrong answer to give to a city that’s very much had enough of its family and friends being eaten by Titans. The military trial that follows is great, showing off the “kill him before he kills us all” folks (who are more than one group, and for different reasons) and contrasting him with the Survey Team group, who think Eren may be the best way to help them gain ground and learn about the other Titans. Levi in particular makes an instant impression (that’s him in the foreground on the cover), being that sort of commanding officer who appears cold and unfeeling but has your best interests at heart.

Eren is thus taken to a new squad, and for a moment we worry that we may not see our other main heroes again. Fear not, though: their training is over and they’re all given the opportunity to join the Survey Team themselves. The speech inspiring this is stark and depressing, deliberately so, and it’s no surprise that the majority of those who’ve been through basic training walk away. We then get a great montage of the decisions the others make to join the team. Mikasa and Armin are givens, and I’m not surprised by Reiner and Bartolt either, as they’re the strong stoic types. But Jean, Connie and Sasha are genuinely worried and scared. Sasha, in fact, is absolutely terrified, having almost been taken out by a Titan in Volume 2, to the point where she begged for her life. We get a horrific image of what it would be like for those three to be assaulted and eaten by Titans. Connie recalls his mom back home would love him to be safe with the military police. And yet, in the end, they stay and join the Team, even if Sasha and Krista are crying. (Annie leaves, though. I’m sure she’ll pop up again, though, if only to beat up more guys.)

(Note that we also have some cast who have been around, but aren’t named yet. Gosh, who is that freckled girl next to Krista, and why is she so grumpy and yet always next to her? On a completely different note, there was a somewhat depressing side story at the start of the volume, where a survey team member tries to take notes regarding the Titans before she is brutally eaten. We later see her notebook is rescued, so it’s not all for naught. This chapter was far more important in retrospect, but I think a lot of people may have been spoiled about something or other, so it’s an odd case where those spoiled go “Oh my God!” more than those who haven’t.)

So yes, we now get a merging of the two casts, as Levi and Eren’s group (which also has Zoe Hange, who is marvelous and tortures Titans FOR SCIENCE and is a great reminder that Sasha is not the only weirdo in this series) merge with Mikasa and Armin’s crowd and go merrily off to train and capture Titans. And again we’re reminded how brutal this series is, as many of the people we’ve only just come to know are cut down by Titans who are simply too fast, too large, too homicidal, and (for a cliffhanger) too clever to go quietly. Armin, in fact, realizes what the rest of us may have not – if Eren can transform into a Titan, maybe the other Titans are actually humans as well? Does that mean that the entire Corps could be full of secret Titan spies?

Leaving aside the truly ludicrous “next time” page spread – the author allows himself to have fun with these – this is another very serious volume of Attack on Titan, and you really shouldn’t get too attached to many of the people in this cast. But man, it’s an amazing read, and I just can’t wait to find out what happens next.

By Ikumi Katagiri and Ai Ninomiya. Released in Japan by Ichijinsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Zero-Sum. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I have often joked in the past about how North American licensors will pick up any manga with the word ‘Vampire’ in the title. It’s now looking as if that may apply to two other genres that are exploding over here: Alice in Wonderland pastiches, and survival games. Alice in the Country of Hearts sells quite well, and BTOOOM!/High School Of The Dead/Battle Royale/Doubt stuff has been in Yen’s wheelhouse for some time. As such, this book may be one of the least surprising licenses of all time. Shame it’s so dull.

In its favor, the book does seem to get the dreamlike atmosphere and the sense that it would make more sense if only you could figure out the rules of the world. It’s also drawn quite well, with lots of pretty boys being crafty and/or manacing while looking really hot. (This ran in Zero-Sum, one of those “BL only not really” magazines Japan has.) Unlike Alice from the ‘Country Of’ series, this Alice seems to have a very clear awareness of his past in the real world, and is quite willing to do anything to escape it. That said, he’s running into problems, mostly as everyone else in this world is so smug and aggravating.

I’ve read books that start off with everyone being unlikeable before, but never have I had such a sense that this is where they’re going to be in 5-6 books time. And Alice is 7+ volumes and still running in Japan, so that’s quite an investment to have in these guys. For a lead character, Alice sure does come across as a whiny brat. The Mad Hatter’s stoicness seems more like malaise, the Cheshire Cat is amazingly two-faced… I did like The Duchess, but not only does it look like we won’t see much more of her, but it’s somewhat aggravating that the only female character in the entire series is the one placed in peril, and indeed Alice is specifically told “Your weapon cannot protect her, it can only kill”.

But my biggest problem with the series is that 200 pages later, I’m still not really sure where this is going beyond a cat and mouse game. Alice has to kill the White Rabbit in order to stay in this land (presumably Wonderland, though the backgrounds look more like an Italian cityscape than any Wonderland I’ve seen before), but they don’t meet here, so there’s no emotional investment behind it. Indeed, Alice doesn’t seem emotionally invested in much of anything, which is fine if you’re bouncing off a bunch of freaks and weirdos in the cast (say, like the Country Of series), but in a series like this where everyone else is equally detached, it leaves the reader with nothing to grab.

If I was a BL fanfic writer, I’d probably love this series. There’s lots of hot pretty guys who could get into a relationship, and none of that pesky character development that makes writing canon fics harder. They’re just two-dimensional enough to make flesh9ing out an appealing choice. I hope that in future volumes the authors might also try to do something with them, because for now, this is all flash, no substance.

By Isao Miura and Kotaro Yamada. Released in Japan as “Seiken no Katanakaji” by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Alive. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

In general, the review of Sacred Blacksmith is simple. This is a fantasy manga that takes place in a world recovering from a Demon war, which features girls with swords, bandits, elf-girl companions, etc. If you like fantasy like that, this is probably right up your alley. It doesn’t seem to have too much problematic content so far – the hero completely and utterly outclasses the heroine, but she also gets her share of badass things to do. If I have any complaints, it’s that I wasn’t really ‘wowed’ by anything in it – “a pretty good read” is not a bad thing, but doesn’t add up to 500 words very often.

There is the old standard “the anime changed things and made male fans hate the girl more” discussion, which I’ve used before in talking about Zero’s Familiar. Cecily as seen in the manga is an OK swordswoman who gets by on guts a lot, but doesn’t back away from an enemy and has a few badass moments towards the end of the volume. In the anime, I’m led to understand, she’s a lot less competent, because… well, no idea. She’s also a tsundere, and we know how much male Western fandom hates them. The manga at one point does the “it’s my fault I’m naked in front of you but I’m embarrassed so will hit you anyway” standard, and I was amused that Luke immediately called her on this.

As for Luke, he clearly has a tragic past, and does not suffer fools gladly, but at least isn’t outright horrible to Cecily, possibly as this isn’t a shoujo manga. His familiar Lisa is there to be adorable, and she is indeed cute as a button. The art is also very good at showing the awfulness of the demonic casting, and several scenes made me wince as people were basically possessed (and sometimes consumed) by monsters. There’s sort of a tense peace going on as the book begins, and the plot is no doubt going to be attempting to stop that peace.

There’s also a lot of discussion of katanas, which are unknown to this fantasy world that is no doubt supposed to be Western Europe. Lisa even has a long, mostly textual discussion at the end of the book on how they are made and why they are superior to straight Western swords. The katana is a nice weapon, but there’s just a touch of ‘and this is why Japan is better’ to the whole thing (not that this is exclusive to this series – off the top of my head, Attack on Titan is doing similar things as well). The action scenes are solid as well, which speaks well to the artist. I never had to go back and reread to figure out what was happening.

So while there’s nothing really wrong with Sacred Blacksmith after one volume, I’m not sure it has enough oomph to really excite me either. It seems like the authors are making tick boxes on a ‘fantasy anime franchise’ checklist. Hopefully a second volume will give me a bit more to chew on.

By Mitsuru Hattori. Released in Japan as “Sankarea” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

I have been running into the same sort of problem lately with many new manga, even though most of them are completely different on the face of it. They all seem to boil down to the same thing when I review them, which is “quite readable and even better than I expected, the big downside being crushing unoriginality”. This probably does the title a disservice, as originality, particularly in recent Japanese manga, is what DOESN’T sell. In general, what readers want is “something familiar with a slightly new spin on it”. And Sankarea provides that in a perfectly readable way.

I should note that the cover you’re seeing is one created by the artist especially for the North American market. The original Japanese cover just has Rea staring at the reader in that sort of cute seductive ‘girl posing’ way, with absolutely nothing to suggest what the content within is like. Except, of course, the title, which is a play on words based off of a very popular zombie movie (seen over here as Zombi 2, and one of the most terrifying movies of the late 70s, if I recall.) Kodansha decided that they’d need more than ‘generic cute girl staring at reader’ to sell this, so asked for the more… gruesome shot. I approve. It’s a better cover.

As for the content, it’s mostly a fairly standard romantic comedy. Nice if somewhat weird hero, who has a cousin who’s busty and secretly likes him, as well as a younger sister who’s an emotionless stoic. At his all-boys school, we see him with his two friends, one of whom is girl-crazy and overdramatic, the other pleasant and unmemorable. They are most impressed by the perfect Japanese princess girl who’s going to the all-girls’ school across the river, who is gorgeous and popular. Except that it turns out she has a secret, which our hero quickly finds out.

So far so boring, but it’s the nature of the secret, and the nature of our hero’s weirdness, that perks things up. Rea’s father is not so much possessive as disturbing. We don’t see a lot of him in this volume, but given she’s talking about him taking nude pictures of her and his increasing paranoia at Rea being touched by other men, I think Daddy’s shaping up to be our main villain here, with a side of incestuous creeper. (To the book’s credit, this ISN’T played for laughs at all – after all, he’s not an older brother.) As for Chihiro, he’s trying to resurrect his dead cat using a magic potion that turns things into zombies. Which is presented as mildly eccentric – he’s a normal guy at heart, he just wants to bring back his cat. From there, things start to go desperately wrong.

Rea is probably the best part of the title – she’s written very well. Her sheltered upbringing is warring with her desperate Attempts to get away from her father’s smothering. Her immediate attraction to Chihiro could be read as romantic, but could also be read as a little bit unnerving – fitting for a title like this. Her zombification (yeah, sorry if I spoiled that for you, as if the cover didn’t) reads almost like a rite of passage – she demands Chihiro “accept responsibility” in a seductive voice, equating death/resurrection with loss of virginity.

The question is which direction this goes in. If it continues to do fanservice and comedy (and there is quite a bit of fanservice – particularly from Chihiro’s cousin Ranko), I’m not sure it would keep my attention. But there’s a lot of potential for both depth and darkness here. If it manages to mine those two veins, Sankarea could be a real winner.