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The Manga Review: SDCC 2023 Round-Up

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Over the last 20 years, SDCC has morphed from a comics-focused show to a pop-cultural behemoth dominated by movie studios and television stars. The ongoing SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, however, shifted the show’s emphasis back to comics, as many of the big, media-friendly events were scrapped in the weeks leading up to SDCC 2023. Writing for ICv2, Rob Salkowitz described this development as bittersweet. “This year’s San Diego Comic-Con proved that sometimes dreams can come true, even if one person’s dream is another’s nightmare,” he observed. “Despite fears to the contrary that the strikes and Hollywood’s general financial malaise would lead to implosion, SDCC 2023 proved that the industry’s premier event has a path forward even if the world takes a collective step back from the Peak Geek era.” Attendance was robust, dealers reported strong sales, and smaller panels drew bigger crowds, all of which suggest that SDCC, NYCC, and other conventions don’t need A-list actors and blockbuster films to attract fans.

On the manga front, Hayao Miyazaki’s Shuna’s Journey won the Eisner Award for Best US Edition of International Material—Asia, and Junji Ito took home an Inkpot Award for his “contributions to the worlds of comics, science fiction/fantasy, film, television, animation, and fandom services.” Previous Inkpot winners include Rumiko Takahashi and Tite Kubo… the Mangasplainers announced plan to co-publish four new titles with Fantagraphics and UDON Manga… Kodansha unveiled new titles for Spring 2024… ABLAZE licensed Masaaki Nonomiya’s GANNIBAL… Deb Aoki convened her annual Best and Worst Manga panel with Brigid Alverson, Varun Gupta, Siddarth Gupta, Jillian Rudes, and Laura Neuzeth… and speaking of Deb, she gets the last word in our SDCC round-up with Manga Was Marquee at San Diego.

NEWS ROUND-UP

The CBDLF has joined forces with the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers, and the Author’s Guild to oppose a new law that would require Texas booksellers to use a content ratings system when selling materials to libraries… a Florida woman is suing to have Assassination Classroom removed from high school libraries in Polk County… Hayao Miyazaki’s film The Boy and the Heron will open this year’s Toronto Film Festival… ICv2 names the top ten manga franchises for spring 2023… Brigid Alverson parses the June 2023 Circana Bookscan numbers… Insomniacs After School is entering the final stretch, with just two more chapters to go… George Morikawa’s long-running boxing drama Hajime no Ippo just achieved a new sales milestone… and Otaku USA has previews of two upcoming series: The Poetry of Ran and Tengen Hero Wars.

AROUND THE WEB

If you read nothing else this week, check out Tony Yao’s excellent essay about Kowloon Generic Romance, a series that “starts off as an interesting romance drama” and “becomes an ongoing mystery regarding identity and what it means to live as someone who feels strangely out of place.” Yao’s essay explores the cultural roots of this story, offering a thoughtful reflection on the “persistence of nostalgia” in Hong Kong culture. [Drop-In to Manga]

That Manga Hunter takes a deep dive into the Shojo Beat catalog in search of great josei titles. [That Manga Hunter]

Kara Dennison explains why fantasy fans should read Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. [Otaku USA]

Researcher Paul DeMerrit-Verrone joins Erica Friedman for an in-depth look at how Japan’s Student Movement (1968-89) influenced the development of shojo and yuri manga. [Yuri Studio]

If you’re a horror buff, be sure to check out Lynzee Loveridge’s interview with Masaaki Nakayama, whose PTSD Radio was nominated for an Eisner Award earlier this year. [ANN]

Slam Dunk fans take note: Aoba no Basuke might just be your new favorite basketball series. [Sports Baka]

School’s in session! Solène Mallet Gauthier and Stephanie Halmhofer dedicate the latest Comics Academe column to SPRIGGAN, “a fun, action-packed mix of archaeology, aliens, and international politics.” [WWAC]

ICYMI: The New York Times recently published a fascinating article on translating manga for English-language audiences, tracing out that history from Epic Comics’ flipped, colorized version of AKIRA through Drawn & Quarterly’s forthcoming edition of Nejishiki. [New York Times]

REVIEWS

Scott Cederlund posts an in-depth reflection on Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Good-Bye, Eri... Sarah reviews The Summer Hikaru Died, one of the year’s most anticipated horror manga… ANN’s Christopher Farris takes Spider-Man: Fake Red for a spin… Otaku USA’s Danica Davidson weighs in on Tokorozawa is 177 cm Tall, a collection of “shojo-ai” stories published by DMP… and Megan D. pronounces The Honor Student at Magic High School a dud.

New and Noteworthy

Complete, OOP, and Ongoing Series

Secrets of the Silent Witch, Vol. 4

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By Matsuri Isora and Nanna Fujimi. Released in Japan as “Silent Witch” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Alice Prowse.

What is supposed to happen after Monica fulfills her mission and whatever happens with Felix happens? I think, in Monica’s mind, that what will happen is that Monica Norton will suddenly vanish, having to “withdraw from school”, and Monica Everett will go back to her little cabin in the woods and live a quiet, cloistered life as she always had. There’s just one slight problem with that, which is that Monica is growing and gaining more emotional depth the longer she’s at the school. The combination of her father’s death and the abuse she suffered afterwards had left her with the ability to only see people as a series of numbers. But as she’s made real friends and learned how to actually socially interact, Monica sees them as people with actual feelings now. Of course, this is not all good – she loses a battle here because, even though her opponent is obviously bluffing, she can’t simply see her friend who is being threatened as “numbers” anymore. Monica will find withdrawing back to her cabin very hard.

This may be a fantasy world, but it’s still taking place in a school, which means it’s school festival time. No, we’re not doing maid cafes or haunted houses – the festival runs more towards presentations of magical theory. But the student council still has to move around and make sure everything runs smoothly. Of course, things do not run smoothly. Another of the Seven Sages arrives, and he’s a pain to deal with but basically harmless. He’s searching for a cursed artifact, which unfortunately ends up in the hands of The Littlest Petty Noble, whose feelings of one-sided love for Felix subsequently take a turn for the worse. And then there’s someone else who’s infiltrated the school, and they’re in a clever disguise. Can Monica sort all this out? And can she do so without revealing who she really is to the wrong people?

Claudia remains an absolute delight, and will probably continue to remind me of Hanajima from Fruits Basket. Speaking of characters from other manga and anime showing up in the book, it’s really hard to see Ray Albright in this book and not think of Tamaki from My Hero Academia, who also seems to have “socially inept” at his main feature. Oddly, his appearance here shows off how far Monica has come since the first book, as she’s now the outgoing one by comparison. The “boy of the book” in this not-quite-reverse harem is Cyril, whose subtle romantic overture to Monica is completely misinterpreted by her, but that might actually be for the best. By now I’m actually hoping that this does not end with a standard romantic ending – if ever there was a series that needed the “friendship ending” like a reverse otome game, Silent Witch is the one. Give this poor baby some good friends.

Assuming she can somehow solve the impending crises, that is. Crises which will have to wait, as the next book is apparently a short story volume. In the meantime, this series remains an absolute delight.

Manga the Week of 8/2/23

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SEAN: When the 1st of the month falls on a Tuesday.. STRANGE things happen.

We’ll start with Viz Media. No new titles, but it is August, and that means it’s time for the annual volume! Kaze Hikaru 31 is out. Hang in there kids, just 14 more years to go.

MICHELLE: I can’t believe I actually forgot about this!

ANNA: Yay! Always happy for August when new Kaze Hikaru comes out.

ASH: Same!

SEAN: Viz also has Ayashimon 3, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations 17, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War 26, My Special One 3, Prince Freya 9, Rainbow Days 5, Sakamoto Days 9, World Trigger 25, and Yona of the Dawn 39.

MICHELLE: I desperately need to catch up on Yona.

ANNA: I’m not too far behind on Yona, but need to catch up on Freya.

ASH: I’ve been enjoying both series, but have some catching up to do, too.

SEAN: From Udon we get Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, which is, I’m guessing, a sequel to Persona 4 Arena. It ran in Dengeki Maoh.

Steamship gives us GAME: Between the Suits 4.

Seven Seas has an OEL debut, Amongst Us. No, not that. This LGBT title is a spinoff from a webcomic called Carciphona, and is apparently a modern day AU.

ASH: Oh, I actually have another edition of this one! (Though I haven’t actually read it yet.) Carciphona was a splurge purchase for me at TCAF one year and I enjoyed it, so I’ve been keeping an eye out for the creator’s work.

SEAN: Also from Seven Seas: Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon: My Party Tried to Kill Me, But Thanks to an Infinite Gacha I Got LVL 9999 Friends and Am Out For Revenge 2, Crossplay Love: Otaku x Punk 4, The Idaten Deities Know Only Peace 5, The Knight Blooms Behind Castle Walls 3 (the final volume), Lupin III: Thick as Thieves – The Classic Manga Collection (a second “greatest hits” release), Wonder Cat Kyuu-chan 8, and Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii 4.

ASH: Still glad to see the new edition of Lupin III being released.

SEAN: Two print debuts for Kodansha Manga. Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir is a Shonen Sirius adaptation of the French/Japanese cartoon.

And WIND BREAKER is a print release of the series that’s already coming out digitally.

ASH: Delinquent manga in print!

SEAN: Also in print: As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I’ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World 6, The Heroic Legend of Arslan 18, The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World 6, and Tsugumi Project 2. (I swear they’re pushing the print release back a week right after I make these lists, just to make me seem dumb.)

The digital debut is The World is Dancing, a seinen manga from Morning magazine. It’s a semi-fictionalized account of the founder of Noh theater. It looks fantastic, to be honest.

ASH: It may be digital (which I don’t read much of), but this certainly interests me.

SEAN: And we also see Abe-kun’s Got Me Now! 11, Chihayafuru 39, The God-Tier Guardian and the Love of Six Princesses 10, I’m Standing on a Million Lives 15, Life 6, MF Ghost 16, and My Wife is a Little Intimidating 2.

Debuting digitally from J-Novel Club are several titles. La Ragazza: Living with Francesca (Italia-jin no Onnanoko ga Isourou Suru Koto ni Natta) is a manga series from Comic Walker. An illustrator suddenly finds an Italian girl staying… and mooching… at his house.

Only I Know That This World Is a Game (Kono Sekai ga Game dato Ore dake ga Shitte Iru) is a manga based on a (not yet licensed) light novel, and it’s also from Comic Walker. If you like Sword Art Online but thought “I need more of the exact same plot”, good news.

Taking My Reincarnation One Step at a Time: No One Told Me There Would Be Monsters! (Tensei Shōjo wa Mazu Ippo kara Hajimetai: Mamono ga Iru toka Kiitenai!) is a light novel series. A woman who has spent her entire life with an unexplained fatigue is transported to another world by a goddess, in the body of a 10-year-old. Now that she actually has energy and drive, what will she do?

ASH: Huh! I’ve asked myself similar questions…

SEAN: The Troubles of Miss Nicola the Exorcist (Haraiya Reijō Nicola no Komarigoto) is a light novel about a reincarnated young sorcerer girl and her attempts to not get dragged into the life of her annoying childhood friend.

There’s also Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon: My Trusted Companions Tried to Kill Me, But Thanks to the Gift of an Unlimited Gacha I Got LVL 9999 Friends and Am Out For Revenge on My Former Party Members and the World 4, Hell Mode 6, Monster Tamer 14, My Friend’s Little Sister Has It In for Me! 10, Perry Rhodan NEO 14, and When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace 7.

Cross Infinite World debuts I’ll Use This Do-over to Become the Ideal Lady’s Maid! (Yarinaoseru Mitai nano de, Kondo Koso Akogare no Jijo wo Mezashimasu!), which is from the writer of Formerly, the Fallen Daughter of the Duke. Yes, we’ve got another girl who’s sent back in time because of her tragic death, and she’s determined to live a different life… as a maid?

ASH: Personally, that wouldn’t be my first choice of careers.

SEAN: Also out from CIW: Expedition Cooking with the Enoch Royal Knights 3, Lovestruck Prince! I’ll Fight the Heroine for My Villainess Fiancée! 2, and The Reincarnated Villainess Won’t Seek Revenge 2.

Airship gives us print editions for 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy! 4 and The Case Files of Jeweler Richard 5.

And we get early digital of Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut 6 and Raven of the Inner Palace 3.

July? Or August? You decide!

ASH: I can’t tell what day it is these days, let alone month…

Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!, Vol. 16

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By FUNA and Itsuki Akata. Released in Japan as “Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne!” by SQEX Novels. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Diana Taylor. Adapted by Maggie Cooper.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the overuse of slavery in isekai books, and it’s a good discussion to have, but I also think we need to look at the “plucky orphans” trope as well. Our hero/heroine comes across either children starving on the street or an orphanage where they barely get enough food to survive. And over the course of the next few pages, what happens for the most part is “sweet, free workforce!”. The general feeling is that they are amazingly fortunate to have our isekai’d person come along and teach them skills and trades, and what’s more, their bellies are finally full, so they’ll do anything they’re asked. Sometimes there is at least a vague attempt to show that this is bad (Bookworm). Sometimes it’s abused horribly, but at least the kids are paid actual wages (Kuma Bear). And sometimes it’s “they’re getting food from me, so let’s turn them all into little 6-year-old waitresses”. Welcome to FUNAtown.

Mile and the rest of the Crimson Vow finally get to see the Demon Village, which is mostly an anticlimax, though she does meet the “Holy Maiden”, a demon girl with the same ability as Mile to talk to the nanos. (The girl is clearly being used and mistreated by the village, a fact that Mile mostly ignores except to give her and her family a pile of food). Elsewhere, Mile ends up getting led to an ancient artifact, buried deep (very, very deep) beneath the ground, and communicates with it, learning a lot of backstory about this world’s past. Unfortunately, it turns out that there was some time dilation involved, and when she and the Vow emerge from the Earth the invasion that Mile has been worried about for the last couple of books is about to go full blast. Will Mile be able to stop it? And can she get Reina to cosplay as Kuroko from A Certain Magical Index?

As always with FUNA, any attempts at a serious examination of the world or actual danger and angst is offset by the fact that her heroines are massive overpowered goofs. This is especially true of Mile. She gains the ability to show the entire world a projection of herself in order to warn them that the real danger from another world is going to emerge from a different place… and the first thing she does is imitate the MGM lion. I did appreciate that she finally started to tell her friends SOME of the reason why she is what she is. Not the reincarnated from Japan thing, but that God had given her special abilities, and that she needs to use them to save the world. Mile is making a lot of inferences that I’m not sure hold up, but as long as she’s trying to do good and doesn’t just farm it out to the orphans instead, that’s fine.

We’re mostly caught up with Japan, so expect a new volume in 6 months or so. It also seems like the series might be getting near an ending, and the cover of Vol. 17 looks like a “final volume” cover… but there’s an 18 already, so I doubt it. Recommended for fans of this author.

Stuck in a Time Loop: When All Else Fails, Be a Villainess, Vol. 1

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By Sora Hinokage and Tsukasa Kiryu. Released in Japan as “Loop kara Nukedasenai Akuyaku Reijō wa, Akiramete Sukikatte Ikirukoto ni Kimemashita” by DRE Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Andria McKnight.

It’s always nice to see a refreshing variation of the old formula. In fact, this book takes two formulas and combines them. Selene starts off by having her engagement broken by her fiance (who is, of course, in love with her younger sister) and has “dark” powers that are typical of a villainess character. We also get the time loop variation, where our heroine keeps dying and resetting, trying to find the timeline where she can live happily ever after. The gimmick here is that Selene was a kind, fairly shy young women who has been desperately trying to find a solution for nine lifetimes, and once she hits the tenth she decides that all this can go to hell. She’s not quite broken, but she’s certainly now jaded and cynical as hell, and perfectly willing to torture her father to the brink of death in order to become head of house. The trouble is, deep down? She’s not THAT bad, really.

Selene is the daughter of her father, head of the Vixent House and a commoner woman. Ever since her younger sister, Soleil, was born, she’s been treated like crap by her family and the servants. Worse still, she manifests the power of Shadow, which is seen as an ill omen – her family are supposed to manifest sun powers. So she’s locked in a room to starve to death. Or murdered. Or she runs away and is killed. Or she kills herself. Nothing she tries can stop bad things from happening and her going back to try again. Now, in this new life, she’s determined to stop playing nice. She quickly gains control of her family and finds that hey, now that she’s powerful and can theoretically kill them all, the servants love her! But she needs to find out why this is happening, so teams up with… a man who doesn’t exist anymore.

There’s a lot to like here. The one weakness in the book, I’d say, is that Selene is of the “stoic, relatively unemotional” style of protagonists, which can be a bit boring in some places where I had hoped for a bit more oomph. That said, there’s absolutely a reason for her to be that way, so I get it. Her not-quite-romance with Dier is fun – they’re “accomplices” rather than anything else, which made me think of Otherside Picnic. The other family heads with power are variations on a stock type, but none of them are overly annoying except maybe the water user who is obsessed with Selene… and even then, the fact that she doesn’t take him remotely seriously helps. The one shoe that hasn’t dropped yet is her younger sister. The only person in her family who seems to love Selene, Soleil, throughout this book, acts like a loving but somewhat ineffectual young girl. But I’ve read these books before, and I just KNOW that in this situation, she’s going to be evil. That may have to wait for the second book, though.

This wasn’t lights out fantastic, but it was a very solid read, and if you like jaded women who nevertheless are still pretty kind at their core, give it a try.

Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire, Vol. 9

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By Hayaken and Nagu. Released in Japan as “Eiyu-oh, Bu wo Kiwameru tame Tensei su. Soshite, Sekai Saikyou no Minarai Kisi ♀” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Mike Langwiser.

Sometimes I tend to dramatically overthink things. This even applies when I’m reading a series like Reborn to Master the Blade, where I know that the main motivation behind the author writing it is “have fun and cool fights”. So when Inglis had her body aged down that of a six-year-old early in the book, I started to theorize about what would necessitate this change in the book. Was it related to the engagements that Inglis and Rafinha are apparently going to face at the start of this volume? No, that’s not it. Is it to make Inglis less powerful so that she actually loses a fight and ends up learning an important lesson? Hardly, though there is one fight here where the records a draw. Then, by the end of the book, I began to realize the real reason: it’s because the author thinks that a 6-year-old Inglis is cute as a button, and wants more art of her than the first volume could provide. Fair enough.

Inglis and Rafinha return home to find that they have a bevy of suitors now, both being hot commodities. They both write to the royal palace to ask them to stop this; Rafinha because she only wants Inglis to marry Rafael, and Inglis because she doesn’t want Rafinha to marry ANYBODY. Before any suitors arrive, though, an experiment Inglis is trying goes wrong and now she and Rafinha are back in their six-year-old bodies! And bad timing there, as there is a Highlander who has heard about Inglis and is there to have a really good fight. He’s basically Inglis as a man, and the fight the two have is indeed epic, and takes up a big chunk of the book. Unfortunately, Inglis was using Eris as a weapon during the fight, and Eris got a little broken, so to fix her, they’re going to need to… well, need to wait till the next book, but the back half of this sets us up for that.

Not gonna lie, for all that he is a walking cliche, Jildegrieva was easily the best part of the book, finally giving Inglis the fight that she’s wanted since the series began – a fight that, admittedly, ends in a draw, but she is in a much smaller body now. Other than that, though, the other main plot of this book is basically introducing zombies to the story, and showing that someone is making it so dead assassins become zombies. This leads to mental trauma in some cases (Leone) and showing off to family in others (Lieselotte). But, as with Inglis becoming a child or Eris getting damaged/injured, it’s a plot point that is not going to be resolved this book. As a result, like a lot of books in this series, how much you enjoy it depends how much you like straight up fighting.

We’ve also caught up with Japan, so that next volume that explains everything may be a while. Ah well. Inglis is pretty cute as a kid (and there is thankfully a minimal amount of lolicon shtick that comes with it).

Modern Villainess: It’s Not Easy Building a Corporate Empire Before the Crash, Vol. 3

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By Tofuro Futsukaichi and Kei. Released in Japan as “Gendai Shakai de Otome Game no Akuyaku Reijou wo Suru no wa Chotto Taihen” by Overlap Novels. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Emma Schumacker. Adapted by Jack Hamm.

I want to be more mad at this series than I am. It’s ludicrously pro-capitalism and pro-cop. Our heroine builds gated communities for people in the previous book, then in this one seems to be absolutely shocked that racism exists in the United States. The bulk of the middle third of this volume involves her trying to prevent 9/11 from happening. She fails. But then you also see that 9/11 has been enhanced by a deadly nuclear train almost wiping out Denver, and you think to yourself, “Wasn’t that the movie Atomic Train?”, and you realize that the author really does not have a hidden message or meaning to this book at all. It’s not trying to use its heroine to show you that right-wing politics is good, actually. It’s an author playing with toys, and when there’s a section of the plot where, say, you can work in a Tom Clancy book’s plot, in it goes. It’s hard to get mad at a Tinkertoy novel.

Even the author admits that this volume’s “plot” is scattered. It’s basically events that happen before and after Runa’s 10th birthday. This includes the aforementioned 9/11, which happens DURING Runa’s birthday party. We get school adventures, like Runa doing sports and club activities, and also a mountain climb and a trip to Kyoto. We also get more of Runa being the hidden power behind most of Japan, and start to see the beginnings of a rift between her and Prime Minister Koizumi. But other people are finally beginning to realize that this little girl has her fingers in a LOT of pies, and they’re trying to stop her. Not necessarily for reasons of “I want to control what she has”, but also for upright reasons like “this 10-year-old girl is killing herself trying to do everything”. How much longer can Runa get away with this?

I was very amused at the new character in this book, a “high roller” type who, like most of the capable people in this world, ends up becoming one of Runa’s employees. Unlike the rest of her staff, who likely realize something is wrong but don’t say anything out of politeness, he straight up asks Runa how the hell she is doing this. Runa still has not quite admitted “I’ve been reincarnated into an otome game”, but there’s just no way to accept any of her decisions without thinking that she has supernatural powers. Hell, her friend Hotaru has them, why not Runa? As for Runa herself, I think the book’s weak point remains her “villainess” part of it. She seems torn to the point of tears about whether she can change her fate, but she’s not trying to make herself a better person, she’s just trying to make sure her financial empire is not ruined. She’s still sort of evil. Work on that.

I don’t really recommend this series to anyone but economics majors, but I still find it rather fascinating in a morbid way. The webnovel version of this has 11+ books of material, but the 4th volume is the latest published in Japan, so we’re mostly caught up.

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, Vol. 14

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By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by Lorin Christie.

No series has quite managed to make me eat my words quite as much as Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, a group of books that is about an overpowered shut-in who wanders the land defeating powerful monsters and acquiring a string of little girls to follow her around and hero worship her. The start of the series balanced out the “cute girl doing OP things” vibe with some truly dark and weird plot points, with young girls being abducted, raped and killed, or Yuna having to repatriate a group of women whose families were murdered and who were *also* raped. To no one’s surprise, as this series got an anime, almost all of this was thrown out the window in favor of “let’s watch Yuna finance a bakery” and similar things. But it still occasionally dips its toe in darkness. Last time I was grumpy about Yuna’s pathological avoidance of praise being treated like a quirk of her personality rather than a genuine problem. In this new volume, it’s clear the author knows that, and is sending us to dark places again.

It doesn’t really seem that way at first. The majority of the book is Yuna coming back home after her trip to the land of giant scorpions. She presents a “Mission Accomplished” to the King, then relaxes in her bear house, only just remembering to tell Fina and the others that she’s back. She then prepares for the massive vacation to Mileela, which by the time it starts has about fifty people going (mostly the orphanage who are Yuna’s main child labor force… let’s not go there right now) and requires Yuna to create not only a big bear bus but two bear minibuses, powered through her mana. This requires her, on the journey there, to switch from her normal black bear outfit to the reversed white bear outfit, as she’s going to be using mana like a sieve. This leads to people not recognizing her at first, which merely irritates her… for now.

So yeah, once they get to the ocean and the beach, Yuna has to give in and remove the bear costume. She’s done this before at a palace function, but that was mostly filled with people who had no idea who she was anyway, so it was mostly her own personal safety that worried her. Same with the school festival. Here she has a bigger existential crisis: when she walks around as Yuna, dressed in a swimsuit and without her bear things, almost no one recognizes her. Literally, they stand next to her and ask Fina where she is. Fina, bless her, seems to be the exception to this rule. (Note that everyone, once they DO see it’s Yuna, immediately praise her pretty and petite body, but Yuna being Yuna, she doesn’t take this as praise at all.) At first Yuna is merely annoyed, but as it goes on and on, and as she attempts to do normal things (like teaching girls to swim) and failing as she has NO STAMINA without the bear suit, she gets more and more depressed. As she states to herself, no one is friends with Yuna, they’re all friends with “the bear”. The bear is the one that does everything. The bear is their savior. The bear is their friend. Yuna? Yuna is just an out-of-shape shut in.

Frustratingly, the book goes from Yuna’s spiral of depression to the usual end of book side stories, so we’ll need to wait till next time. Fortunately, as this book ran a bit late, next time is next month. Join me then to see if we get to see Yuna on the verge of a nervous breakdown, or if she simply shrugs everything off. Again.

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!: Fantastic Days

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By Hirukama, Natsume Akatsuki and Kurone Mishima. Released in Japan as “Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

Spinoffs can be hard. Spinoffs written by someone other than the original author are harder. And when you get a spinoff written by someone who’s not the original author based on a mobile game that likely was also not written by the original author, well, you’re really starting to get into trouble. Hirukama is best known over here for the Reborn as a Vending Machine light novel that’s currently getting an anime. He also writes the longest running KonoSuba spinoff, Ano Orokamono ni mo Kyakkou wo!, which focuses on Dust, the loser guy who seems to linger around the edges of the main series. We’re unlikely to get that, if only as it doesn’t star Kazuma, Aqua, Megumin and Darkness. This book we are getting does feature three new girls who have the plot built around them, but it has healthy doses of our main cast as well, so fans will not feel cheated. Is it good? Eh.

For those wondering where in the main story this fits in, it’s left deliberately vague, but I’d say around Volume 8, mostly as Megumin and Darkness show no signs that they’re in love with Kazuma at all. While trying to stop a disaster, Megumin blows up a wagon containing a) a monetary tribute to nobility, causing him to go deeply in the red, and b) the supplies to a dance troup/adventuring party. The troup consists of Lia, the theoretically sensible one with the mysterious past; Cielo, a noble whose upbringing caused her to develop an extreme fear of men; and Erika, a girl who tries her hardest to be cute, and is also searching for her birth parents. Kazuma, on seeing them, is reminded of Japanese idol groups, and decides to make them stars!… mostly as making them stars will help pay off his debt. Unfortunately, these idols have fanboys, and they’re also trolls. No, not internet trolls, real trolls.

The three new girls, of course, are deliberately meant to contrast with the three regular stars. Cielo and Darkness are both blonde nobles trying to get away from all that by adventuring. Erika focuses on cute as much as Megumin does on cool. As for Lia… well, OK, she’s not that much like Aqua, except perhaps for her pathological messiness. She is, however, the character whose plot matters the most, as her amnesia turns out to be an important key to defeating Daniel, the troll lord who has decided to stan her. Everyone gets to do their bits. Megumin fires off explosions, Darkness is masochistic, Aqua screws up everything, etc. Unfortunately, it really does feel likely someone trying to write an “original flavor” fanfic with their own OCs, to be honest. By necessity, this cannot grow or develop any character except the new girls… and actually, it ends up just being Lia. That means this rides on how funny it is, and the answer is: not as funny as the main books.

If you really love KonoSuba, you can certainly enjoy this. As a spinoff, though, I’d rather read the Megumin books.

Sabikui Bisco, Vol. 5

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By Shinji Cobkubo and K Akagishi. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jake Humphrey.

Sabikui Bisco tends to coast along on three elements. The first is what I would call “high concept”, coming up with fantastical ideas, people or places that make the jaw drop when they’re described. The second is the wall-to-wall action sequences that make up the bulk of the book. And the third is Bisco and Milo getting closer and closer to just making out, even as each book seems to add a new girl to fall in love with Bisco and sigh as she watches he and Milo declare themselves to be soulmates. The good news is that this fifth volume has all of those things in abundance. The bad news is that it does tend to lean a bit too much on the action scenes this time around. Bisco is not really someone who ever slows down or stops to smell the roses, but reading this book is like watching an action movie that’s all the last 15 minutes. It can be utterly exhausting.

After the events of the last book, Shishi is now apparently evil, and Bisco is very definitely a 10-year-old. As he and Milo try to catch up with her so that he can do something about that, they end up on Hokkaido… which it turns out is basically a giant floating space whale. That was not in any of the guidebooks! Unfortunately, Shishi got there first, and is trying to take over the island with camellia flowers… which have already taken over the prison wardens from the previous book. Fortunately, they have allies in the native peoples of Hokkaido, which include (yes, try to contain your surprise) another teenage girl who thinks Milo is pretty hot. She’s not into Bisco, though, as he’s just a kid. Will they be able to stop the island being used for a mass terrorist event? And just how evil *is* Shishi anyway?

The book makes an effort to try to keep it ambiguous about Shishi’s motivations, saying that it wasn’t just her being possessed by an evil flower but her own desires that led to her murdering her dad. But given that this motivational speech is coming FROM the evil flower, it’s a bit hard to take this as anything more than “sorry, bro, I was possessed”. Indeed, it’s not the only possession of the book, as the climax of the volume shows that there is no character the series will not bring back to make another appearance. Speaking of which, Pawoo is kept far away from her husband, but Tirol is around to be the absolute worst again, and Amli also shows up to try to save her god/crush delete where applicable. This is a series that thrives on barely controlled chaos, so it works, but eventually the “controlled” part is going to be lost, I suspect.

Still, overall I was less grumpy about this book, despite it basically just being Bisco and Milo screaming for 260 pages. I’ll keep going.

Manga the Week of 7/26/23

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SEAN: As July sinks slowly in the West, we are faced with its hotter cousin: August.

ASH: How has it already come to this?

SEAN: Airship has a bunch of print light novels. We get Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! 16, Modern Villainess: It’s Not Easy Building a Corporate Empire Before the Crash 3, She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man 8, and Sword of the Demon Hunter: Kijin Gentōshō 2.

ASH: A good reminder that I’ve been meaning to give the first volume of Sword of the Demon Hunter a try.

SEAN: And there’s early digital for There’s No Freaking Way I’ll be Your Lover! Unless… 2 and The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash 4.

Denpa Books has the 2nd volume of Baby Bear’s Bakery.

Not Ghost Ship, but probably should be, we get Asumi-chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! 3. Ayakashi Triangle 4 and SUPER HXEROS 11 definitely ARE Ghost Ship.

ASH: I would not have been surprised to find Asumi-chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! in the Ghost Ship catalog.

SEAN: One digital light novel debut from J-Novel Club: You Like Me, Not My Daughter?! (Musume Janakute, Watashi ga Suki Nano!?) is from the creator of When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace. A young single mother raising the child of her late sister finds that, now that he’s in college, her daughter’s childhood friend has feelings. Wait, for HER?! For lovers of age-gap romance in a comedic vein.

And there’s Ascendance of a Bookworm 26, I Surrendered My Sword for a New Life as a Mage 3, The Invincible Little Lady 3, The Mythical Hero’s Otherworld Chronicles 4, Only the Villainous Lord Wields the Power to Level Up 2, Reincarnated Mage with Inferior Eyes: Breezing through the Future as an Oppressed Ex-Hero 3, and the 9th manga volume of Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles.

ASH: Obligatory cry of “Bookworm!”

SEAN: Kodansha Books has the 3rd volume of Am I Actually the Strongest?, whose anime is currently delighting hard-core isekai fans.

Kodansha Manga debuts Seraph of the End: Guren Ichinose: Catastrophe at Sixteen (Owari no Seraph: Ichinose Guren, 16-sai no Catastrophe), an adaptation from Weekly Shonen Magazine of the light novel that was put out by Vertical, which is a prequel to the original manga, which runs in Jump Square. This manga’s past is kudzu. It’s also an omnibus of the first two volumes.

Also in print: Am I Actually the Strongest? 4, Fire Force Omnibus 5, In the Clear Moonlit Dusk 5, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime 22, and What Did You Eat Yesterday? 20.

MICHELLE: I’m always here for more What Did You Eat Yesterday?.

ASH: Same!

SEAN: For digital releases, we get Am I Actually the Strongest? 8, And Yet, You Are So Sweet 8, As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I’ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World 6, Boss Bride Days 7, A Couple of Cuckoos 12, DAYS 36, Elegant Yokai Apartment Life 26, Gamaran: Shura 10, The Heroic Legend of Arslan 18, The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World 6, My Home Hero 6, ONIMAI: I’m Now Your Sister! 7, and Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence 11.

ASH: I had momentarily forgotten about The Heroic Legend of Arslan despite enjoying earlier volumes.

SEAN: One Peace Books has the third volume of Captain Corinth.

Seven Seas debuts a new danmei novel, Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang. Steampunk BL! A young man living in an impoverished village finds his whole life has been a lie! This is from the creator of Guardian, also due out soon.

MICHELLE: Definitely into this but Guardian more so, admittedly.

ASH: Adding them both to my TBR list!

SEAN: Also from Seven Seas: Drugstore in Another World: The Slow Life of a Cheat Pharmacist 7, The Duke of Death and His Maid 7, I’m a Wolf, but My Boss is a Sheep! 3, LES MISÉRABLES Omnibus 3, and Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General 9.

From Square Enix we see Beauty and the Feast 9, Soul Eater: The Perfect Edition 11, and Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town 9.

Tokyopop has Formerly, the Fallen Daughter of the Duke 4, The Fox & Little Tanuki 6 and the 2nd and final volume of My Dear Agent.

From Viz: Chainsaw Man: Buddy Stories is a prose short story collection based on the popular manga.

Soichi: Junji Ito Story Collection (Souichi no Katte na Noroi) is another series of horror stories that ran in Nemuki about 20 years ago.

ASH: I recently mentioned that I was glad we were getting more horror manga beyond Ito’s oeuvre, but I’m not going to say no to more Ito, either.

SEAN: The Way of the Househusband: The Gangster’s Guide to Housekeeping is a guidebook that gives you recipes, helpful hints, etc. Seems to be by Western writers with the blessing of the manga artist.

ASH: Oh, that’s interesting.

SEAN: And Viz also has How Do We Relationship? 9.

ASH: I really need to get caught up with this series.

SEAN: And some stragglers from Yen to close us out. Yen On has Banished from the Hero’s Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside 9 and Secrets of the Silent Witch 4.

And from Yen Press, the 13th and final volume of High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World!.

Definitely less manga than the week before last! What are you getting?

The Genius Prince’s Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt (Hey, How About Treason?), Vol. 10

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By Toru Taba and Falmaro. Released in Japan as “Tensai Ouji no Akaji Kokka Saisei Jutsu ~Sou da, Baikoku Shiyou~” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jessica Lange.

As the series hits double digits, it’s pretty clear that it’s at least sauntering towards a conclusion. Wein is closer than ever to becoming the King, but (see premise of the series) he really does not want this, and would much rather leave things to the little sister who’s been growing by leaps and bounds over the course of the book and just run off somewhere with Ninym to do all the things he could not do with Ninym when he was heir to the throne. Of course, what’s stopping him is the rest of the plot. For one thing, he’s made such a name for himself that people are not yet taking Falanya seriously, though I expect that will change in a big way after this book. For another, there are too many people whose ongoing plans really need Wein to be around and also as clever as he normally is. Lowellmina is the obvious one, but the Church has an eye on him too… or rather, on Ninym, by his side.

‘

After events in the last book, Wein’s country, or more accurately the vassals in his country, really want him to stay home. Unfortunately, Delunio is holding a big event to celebrate their alliance with Soljest and Natra, and have asked Wein to attend. He’s not going to, but he can send Falanya… despite the fact that the disgraced prime minister of Delunio is now Falanya’s adviser. Of course, this does not mean that Wein gets to sit around either, as there’s a more serious crisis in the Empire. Lowellmina has too much power now, so her brothers have come up with a clever scheme: fight each other, let the casualties pile up, and then tarnish Lowellmina’s name because she, the peace loving princess, did not intervene. She wants Wein’s help. And as if this weren’t enough, in Soljest… Gruyere has been overthrown?!

The fun of this series is the fact that not just the main characters, but EVERY character seems to have one main scheme and seven backup schemes all going at the same time. The best scene in the book features a most unlikely pairing, Gruyere and Nanaki, but of course the main thing to talk about here is Falanya. She’s finally gotten to the point where Wein does not have to worry about her when she’s trapped in a dangerous political hothouse, and while she does need his help near the end, 80% of the victory in this book is down to her own clever scheming. There’s a reason that Sirgis has decided to make it his goal to have her become ruler rather than Wein, though I’m not sure I buy his “he doesn’t care about the people of the country” – if that were the case, Wein could have schemed himself out of this a while ago. But it definitely feels like we’re headed for a sibling throne war, which is good, as Natra has experience with that.

So very glad to have this back, and I am pleased that it won’t take as long for the 11th book to come out here. Recommended for political intrigue fans.

Bookshelf Briefs 7/19/23

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Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 12 | By Ryoko Kui| Yen Press – And here we are at the apocalypse. Marcille is being sweet-talked by the lion/book into essentially becoming God, and the dungeon is now everything above ground as well, which is a bit of a problem for non-dungeon crawlers. The solution—kill Marcille—is one that is obvious to everyone but the main characters, who spend most of the book trying to talk Marcille down and figure out a way to walk this back, which is ludicrously impossible right now. This is not the sort of series that will have an unhappy ending, you can tell, but it will be very interesting to see HOW they can manage to work everything out here and not have the protagonists in jail for the rest of their lives. Very highly recommended. – Sean Gaffney

Gabriel Dropout, Vol. 12 | By Ukami | Yen Press – I’ve joked before about the yuri fandom of this series, but this volume brings it to the fore more than any other. There’s a chapter devoted to the internet art meme of “put two characters in a room and they can’t escape unless they kiss.” (It’s not “kiss,” but this is a family manga, so we get the PG version.) Raphiel is, of course, 100% down for this, and unfortunately is hit with a massive attack of nerves when it comes to following through, which is funny in and of itself. The other problem is that Satanya not only seems uninterested, but may actually be ace, which is bad news for yuri fans but good news for comedy fans. The rest of the volume is also fun, but we know why I’m here. – Sean Gaffney

Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 25 | By Tomohito Oda | Viz Media – I get the basic idea the author had here, which is that Komi has, in her second year, been surrounded by friends she made who know her well, and is living her best life. So it makes sense to put her (deliberately, as it turns out) into a class where no one knows her and she has to start all over again. Fortunately, Tadano is there as well. Unfortunately, so is Najimi, who is no Yamai but I still don’t like them. And then we get the rest of the new cast, who explode at us in a flurry of names and eccentricities, and who mean nearly nothing to me. The bulk of the book is a battle royale using nerf guns, to promote class unity or what have you, but again: this cast has gotten way too big. – Sean Gaffney

Murcielago, Vol. 21 | By Yoshimurakana | Yen Press – Last time I mentioned that Kuroko was spending far more time solving murders and far less time going down on hot women with her long tongue of doom. Good news! We’ve hit the end of the arc, so Kuroko gets to hit one of the surviving women in the arc, and by hit I mean “have sex with.” As for the arc itself, it involves a lot of misdirection, family trauma, and very bad things happening to the series’ punching bag who very bad things always seem to happen to—though this time around the trauma is physical rather than mental. Kuroko and Hinako are both very eccentric women who do not care about a single thing, and if that bothers you steer well clear of this. But for its genre (lesbian splattercore), it’s terrific. – Sean Gaffney

An Observation Log of My Fiancée Who Calls Herself a Villainess, Vol. 1 | By Shiki and Natsume Hasumi | AlphaPolis (digital only) – This may be the first villainess title where the male love interest actually interests me more. It’s not just because the series is from his POV. It’s that the villainess herself, Bertia, is very difficult to take seriously, even in comparison to Katarina and other goofy villainesses. Cecil, meanwhile, is a budding shoujo boyfriend, which is to say he’s an asshole who spends his life mostly being bored because he’s good at everything, and finds his fiancée/”toy” interesting. I will also note that AlphaPolis basically just sticks chapters together and calls it a volume, so expect no extras you’d normally find in a volume. For villainess fans. – Sean Gaffney

Snow White with the Red Hair, Vol. 25 | By Sorata Akiduki | Viz Media – I get my wish, as we are indeed starting a new arc. We also wrap up this last arc, getting answers and discovering that most everyone involved was either evil or being blackmailed by someone to be evil. Well, there’s also the “this evil was happening in my dominion, so it’s my responsibility” thing as well. In the meantime, we get to see Obi be cool, Shirayuki be cool, and Ryu is cool and also not dead. A lot of this arc was devoted to Ryu’s growth (which we’re also starting to see physically), and it did a good job, even if I felt that this went on a bit too long. That said, anyone expecting Zen and Shirayuki’s reunion to be anything but fleeting is fooling themselves. – Sean Gaffney

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement, Vol. 2

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By FUNA and Touzai. Released in Japan as “Rōgo ni Sonaete Isekai de 8-Man-Mai no Kinka o Tamemasu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Kodansha Books. Translated by Luke Hutton.

Sigh. There was no good way to do this. Kodansha Books re-released the first two volumes of this light novel series as an omnibus, which is good! It meant folks didn’t have to re-buy two books that they already had from the late, unlamented Sol Press and we could get to new content faster! But it also means that this second volume is the third in Japan. And that will be the case going forward. That’s why this is another review of the 2nd volume – it’s really a review of Volume 3. Got it? Good. That said, the first volume of this series originally came out here in 2019, the second 19 months after that, and here’s the third, about 30 months after that one. You might be forgiven for completely forgetting what’s been going on. Fortunately, there was an anime! It covered Books 1 and 2, so go watch it, then come back here. Because this is more of the same, and it’s fun and mind-boggling and a little disturbing. See: this author.

Things are getting busier for Mitsuha – so busy that she seriously considers, near the end of the book, stopping the “go back and forth between here and Japan” thing and permanently settling. She has a new territory to run. She’s being asked to attend all sorts of society balls. She’s trying to get board games to be a thing in this country, specifically shogi and reversi. She’s trying to create popcorn, with the help of some adorable… if somewhat mercenary… orphans. And of course she’s looking to make that money so that she can retire, though several times in this book she admits to herself that she needs to stop inventing new things and let this world relax and catch up a bit. That said, the biggest problem may be when three huge ships show up in her domain. Maybe they’re friendly!… OK, probably not.

Fans of FUNA will be happy to know there is quite a bit of what I call “the heroine goes completely batshit” in this book, the biggest being how she deals with the invading foreign army. As with I Shall Survive Making Potions!, the heroine’s morality is firmly in the grey area, and her solutions do sometimes involve “there’s no way I can do this without killing a few people, sorry”. Much of the “fun” in this series is seeing her do something along these lines, then act surprised that everyone is staring in disbelief at her. She actually has another crying breakdown here, after the Count who has become her surrogate father has to remind her that people actually love and care about her here, and she should not treat her life as disposable. Which, let’s be honest, she is. Almost all her decisions in this volume have a form of “what if I die, how will they deal with this then?” Which is great in a worldbuilding way, but not so good in a psychological one.

If you hated Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average and I Shall Survive Using Potions!, you’ll hate this too. If you loved them, you’ll love this too. It’s as simple as that. See you next time for the third (fourth) book.

Young Lady Albert Is Courting Disaster, Vol. 2

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By Saki and Haduki Futaba. Released in Japan as “Albert-ke no Reijō wa Botsuraku o Goshomō Desu” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Ray Krycki.

Most of the time, when you hear about a light novel protagonist who is described as “no one has any idea what they’re thinking”, there’s a fairly obvious reason for it. usually it’s because they were reincarnated from Japan, or (as in Mary Albert, theoretically) a villainess in an otome game. But we, the reader usually know why they’re thinking what they’re thinking. it’s just the poor supporting cast who have it rough. That’s not the case in this series, and I have to hand it to the author: there are many times in this volume when I *really* have no idea what Mary Albert is thinking. It’s not even a case of “trying to sabotage my future” like the first book in the series – she did that (well, OK, the opposite, but you know what I mean) and has moved on. But in the case of Mary Albert and her feelings for Adi, even she has no idea what she’s thinking. Until WELL after you might expect.

Everything’s coming up roses for Mary Albert at the start of this book. Despite attempting to be a villainess, she actually managed to work things out in a different way, so the ending of the otome game is not going to happen. She’s going off to a foreign land to study management skills. Hell, even her trademark drills, previously unable to be tamed, are now gone thanks to the power of the game being over. But there is a second game, the sequel to Heart High, that takes place at the school in that foreign country. One with a “heroine” and a ‘villainess”. That said, Mary’s not in that game at all, so she can simply sit back, watch the enfolding disaster, make good friends with a wet blanket of a noble, and also get married to Adi. Wait, what? What was that last part?

I admit that I *was* expecting the events of this book to some degree, but the author really threw me off by the order in which they happened. Mary is not yet finished dealing with/watching for villainess pointers at her new school when she’s called back to her country to get married, something that she does unconsciously and without think9ing about it, to the amazement of everyone. It’s only after she and Adi are already married that she’s forced to confront the fact that it happened, and why she was so blase about it. Mary Albert is a rare “villainess” who’s retained very little of her Japanese self, and simply associated marriage with “political move”. Marrying for love never was a thing she expected. As such, when she realizes it happened, her freakout is possibly the best part of the book. As for the second game and its resolution, it’s yet another example of why “harem” endings are good in a funny way when you’re a gamer, but terrible if you try to consider them seriously – see also Endo and Kobayashi Live.

And so, we’ve reached the end of the series. Um. There are HOW many books left? Let me guess, short story volume? (checks) Yup. We’ll be back next time for the obligatory short story volume! Till then, this is much more fun than I expected, with a great heroine.