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Reviews

Takane & Hana, Vols 11 and 12

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Takane & Hana, Volumes 11 and 12 by Yuki Shiwasu

Sometimes my interest tends to wane a bit at more long-running comedic series, but Takane and Hana is still going strong, even when some of the plot points tend to get repetitive. The main way this manga manages to actually get me rooting for a romance between an emotionally stunted businessman and a high school girl is the way it deliberately shies away from things progressing very far physically. As the 11th volume opens Takane and Hana are dealing with the emotional fallout from when Takane got carried away….and kissed Hana on the nose. The over-the-top angst combined with Shiwasu’s dynamic rendering of psychological turmoil makes the opening chapter extremely amusing. Things aren’t kept light for long, as Takane’s evil cousin Yakumo figures out the relationship between Takane and Hana and decides to kidnap her. I’m trying to remember if this is the second or third kidnapping in this series, but it does provide the opportunity for some impressive, action-movie heroics as Takane and Okamon attempt to rescue Hana.

takane and hana 11

Volume 12 features my favorite cover so for this series, Takane’s twisted grin combined with heart hands captures the wacky appeal of this manga. Takane is recuperating from his dramatic rescue attempt, and Hana is determined to put more distance between them again because she doesn’t want their relationship to cause issues for Takane. This is circling back to a reset of their previous relationship dynamic, where Takane is bombarding Hana with an endless stream of unsuitable gifts and she’s growing more and more frustrated. Okamon ends up enlisting himself as Hana’s beard as he prevents Takane from grabbing Hana and carrying her out of a diner by proclaiming that he and Hana just recently started going out.

takane and hana 12

Takane ends up getting relationship advice from Nicola on a speedboat, and his attempts to rehearse speaking to Hana as well as “chill out” feature the emotional anguish and hilariously tortured facial expressions that Shiwasu is so excellent at portraying. These two volumes continue doing what Takane & Hana does so well – set up over the top comedic situations combined with a core relationship that is actually very sweet.

Tomo-chan Is a Girl!, Vol. 6

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By Fumita Yanagida. Released in Japan as “Tomo-chan wa Onnanoko!” by Star Seas Company, serialized on the online site Twi 4. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jennifer and Wesley O’Donnell. Adapted by T Campbell.

After the first volume, as I do with most series I follow, Tomo-chan Is a Girl! moved to Bookshelf Briefs. But sometimes you have things to say that cannot be condensed into 150 words, and this volume is a very good example – it’s almost the perfect Tomo-chan volume. We resolve Carol and Misaki’s romance, and given Carol possibly the best material she’s ever gotten, as Misuzu’s attempts to “break” her work all too well. The marathon chapter is one big long take on the Japanese saying “idiots don’t catch colds”, which Tomo proves wrong, to everyone’s shock and horror. And we get two chapter’s worth of flashbacks, showing how we got to the present setup – Tomo and Jun’s middle-school years, Jun’s own realization of his feelings, and possibly the most disastrous couple in the history of manga. If you love this manga series, this may be the pinnacle – there’s two more volumes after this, but it’s hard not to argue that this is the high point.

Carol has sort of been the breakout star of Tomo-chan, and her default reaction is, of course, smiles and good cheer. Now we, as the reader, and also Misuzu, have seen that cheer fall sometimes – notably when thugs were threatening Misuzu and she tried to protect Carol by saying they weren’t friends. But Misaki doesn’t see this, partly as Carol will never deliberately show that side to him, and partly as he’s scared to look further for fear there’s nothing behind her smile. Now, arguably Misuzu’s action here are appalling – something she realizes immediately. But they do work, and we get, as Tomo says, a wonderful few pages that show us that Carol can have real human emotions as well. (I was also amused at Carol’s mother cutting her off before she can go in for a kiss – given Ferris had Carol when she was thirteen, you can see why she’s going to step in. That said, given the omake chapter at the end, Ferris has little to worry about on Misaki’s end.)

I will admit that the two flashback chapters do run on a very old and creaking cliche, which is that Jun does not realize, for years, that Tomo was a girl, despite seeing her literally using the girls’ bathrooms at events. It always makes the main lead feel a bit too stupid, and it does here as well. But what follows is all too real and familiar, as Jun cuts himself off from Tomo after he doesn’t know how to be around her, and she too is hurt and retreats. Jun then realizes he needs to make an effort here, and does so… in a bizarre way. The brief, a few days relationship between Jun and Misuzu feels so wrong you want to scream, and both of them know it. Despite that, I loved that even though they knew that, both acknowledged that dating another person, having those feelings, felt good.

So we now have all the backstory, all we need to do is get Tomo and Jun on the same page and confessing. This has taken 6 volumes and we’re still not there yet, but the good news is that the end is in sight. Till then, Tomo-chan Is a Girl! is one of the best 4-komas I’ve read in some time. Funny and sweet.

Junji Ito’s No Longer Human

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Of all the famous works of literature to get the Classics Illustrated treatment, Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human is an odd choice. Its protagonist is Oba Yozo, a tortured soul who never figures out how to be his authentic self in a society that places tremendous emphasis on hierarchy, self-restraint, and civility. Over the course of the novel, he binges, gambles, seduces a string of women, joins a Communist cell, attempts suicide, and succumbs to heroin addiction, all while donning the mask of “the farcical eccentric” to conceal his “melancholy” and “agitation” from the very people whose lives he ruins.

Though the novel is filled with incident, its unreliable narrator and relentless interiority make it difficult to effectively retell in a comic format, as Junji Ito’s adaptation demonstrates. Ito’s No Longer Human is largely faithful to the events of Dazai’s novel, but takes Dazai’s spare, haunting narrative and transforms it into a phantasmagoria of sex, drugs, and death. In his efforts to show us how Yozo feels, Ito leans so hard into nightmarish imagery that the true horror of Yozo’s story is overshadowed by Ito’s artwork—a mistake, I think, as Ito’s drawings are too literal to convey the nuance of what it means to exist, in Peter Selgin’s words, in a state of “complete dissociation… yet still capable of feeling.”

In Ito’s defense, it’s not hard to see what attracted him to Dazai’s text; Yozo’s narration is peppered with the kind of vivid analogies that, at first glance, seem ideally suited for a visual medium like comics. But a closer examination of the text reveals the extent to which these analogies are part of the narrator’s efforts to beguile the reader; Yozo is, in effect, trying to convince the reader that his mind is filled with such monstrous ideas that he cannot be expected to function like a normal person. There’s a tension between how Yozo describes his own reactions to the ordinary unpleasantness of interacting with other people, and how Yozo describes the impact of his behavior on other people—a point that Ito overlooks in choosing to flesh out some key events in the novel.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Yozo’s brief affair with Tsuneko, a destitute waitress. After hitting rock bottom financially and emotionally, Yozo persuades her to join him in a double suicide pact. Dazai’s summary of what happens is shocking in its brevity and matter-of-factness:

As I stood there hesitating, she got up and looked inside my wallet. ‘‘Is that all you have?” Her voice was innocent, but it cut me to the quick. It was painful as only the voice of the first woman I had ever loved could be painful. “Is that all?” No, even that suggested more money than I had — three copper coins don’t count as money at all. This was a humiliation more strange than any I had tasted before, a humiliation I could not live with. I suppose I had still not managed to extricate myself from the part of the rich man’s son. It was then I myself determined, this time as a reality, to kill myself.

We threw ourselves into the sea at Kamakura that night. She untied her sash, saying she had borrowed it from a friend at the cafe, and left it folded neatly on a rock. I removed my coat and put it in the same spot. We entered the water together.

She died. I was saved.

As Ito recounts this event, however, Tsuneko’s death is caused by a poison so painful to ingest that she collapses in a writhing heap, eyes bulging and tongue wagging as if she were in the throes of becoming a monster herself. Yozo’s reaction to the poison, by contrast, is to plunge into a hallucinatory state in which a parade of ghostly women mock and berate him, an artistic choice that suggests Yozo feels shame and guilt for his actions—and a reading of Dazai’s text that makes Yozo seem more deserving of sympathy than he does in Dazai’s novel:

Throughout this vignette, Yozo’s contempt for Tsuneko creeps into the narrative, even as he assures the reader that she was the first woman he truly loved. Yozo’s disdain is palpable, as is evident in the way he off-handedly introduces her to the reader:

I was waiting at a sushi stall back of the Ginza for Tsuneko (that, as I recall, was her name, but the memory is too blurred for me to be sure: I am the sort of person who can forget even the name of the woman with whom he attempted suicide) to get off from work.

Only a few episodes capture the spirit of Dazai’s original novel, as when Yozo’s father gives an inept speech to a gathering of businessmen and community leaders. Ito skillfully cross-cuts between three separate conversations, allowing us to step into Yozo’s shoes as he eavesdrops on the attendees, servants, and family members, all of whom speak disparagingly about each other, and the speech. By pulling back the curtain on these conversations, Ito helps the reader appreciate the class and power differences among these groups, as well as revealing that this episode was a turning point for Yozo: the moment when he first realized that adults maintain certain masks in public that they discard in private. Though such a moment would undoubtedly trouble a more observant child—one need only think of Holden Caulfield’s obsession with adult “phoniness”—this discovery plunges Yozo into a state of despair, as he cannot imagine how anyone reconciles their public and private selves in a truthful way.

Ito also wisely restores material from Dazai’s novel that other adaptors—most notably Usamaru Furuya—trimmed from their versions. In particular, Ito does an excellent job of exploring the dynamic between Yozo and his classmate Takeichi, the first person who sees through Yozo’s carefully orchestrated buffoonery:

Just when I had begun to relax my guard a bit, fairly confident that I had succeeded by now in concealing completely my true identity, I was stabbed in the back, quite unexpectedly. The assailant, like most people who stab in the back, bordered on being a simpleton — the puniest boy in the class, whose scrofulous face and floppy jacket with sleeves too long  for him was complemented by a total lack of proficiency in his studies and by such clumsiness in military drill and physical training that he was perpetually designated as an ‘‘onlooker.” Not surprisingly, I failed to recognize the need to be on my guard against him.

As one might guess from this passage, Yozo’s terror at being discovered is another critical juncture in the novel. “I felt as if I had seen the world before me burst in an instant into the raging flames of hell,” he reports, before embarking on a campaign to win Takeichi’s trust by “cloth[ing his] face in the gentle beguiling smile of the false Christian.” Though Ito can’t resist the temptation to draw an image of Yozo engulfed in hell fire, most of Yozo’s fear is conveyed in subtler ways: a wary glance at Takeichi, an extreme close-up of Yozo’s face, an awkwardly placed arm around Takeichi’s shoulder:

What happens next in Ito’s version of No Longer Human, however, is indicative of another problem with his adaptation: his decision to add new material. In Dazai’s novel, Takeichi simply disappears from the narrative when Yozo moves to Tokyo for college, but in Ito’s version, Yozo cruelly manipulates Takeichi into thinking that Yozo’s cousin Setchan is in love with him—a manipulation that ultimately leads to Takeichi’s humiliation and suicide. That violent death is followed by a gruesome murder, this time prompted by a love triangle involving Yozo, his “auntie,” and Setchan, who becomes pregnant with Yozo’s child. Neither of these episodes deepen our understanding of who Yozo really is; they simply add more examples of how manipulative and callous he can be, thus blunting the impact of the real tragedy that unfolds in the late stages of his story.

Ito’s most problematic addition, however, is Osamu Dazai himself. Ito replaces the novel’s original framing device with the events leading up to Dazai’s 1948 suicide, encouraging us to view No Longer Human as pure autobiography through reinforcing the parallels between Dazai’s life and Yozo’s. And while those parallels are striking, the juxtaposition of the author and his fictional alter ego ultimately distorts the meaning of the novel by suggesting that the story documents Dazai’s own unravelling. That’s certainly one way to interpret No Longer Human, but such an autobiographical reading misses Dazai’s broader themes about the burden of consciousness, the nature of self, and the difficulty of being a full, authentic, feeling person in modern society.

VIZ Media provided a review copy. You can read a brief preview at the VIZ website by clicking here. For additional perspectives on Junji Ito’s adaptation, see Serdar Yegulalp‘s excellent, in-depth review at Ganriki.org, Reuben Barron‘s review at CBR.com, and MinovskyArticle’s review at the VIZ Media website.

JUNJI ITO’S NO LONGER HUMAN • ORIGINAL NOVEL BY OSAMU DAZAI • BASED ON THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY DONALD KEENE • TRANSLATED AND ADAPTED BY JOCELYNE ALLEN • VIZ MEDIA • RATED M, FOR MATURE AUDIENCES • 616 pp.

Beatless, Vol. 1

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By Satoshi Hase and redjuice. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ben Gessel.

This is a doorstopper of a book, and I think my largest issue with it is that it could easily have been split into two normal-sized books. There’s a lot going on in it, yes, with a large number of very cool action set-pieces, but the book also wants you to know that it’s going to be talking about what hakes a human and what makes an artificial intelligence, and it does. In great detail. It’s quite interesting, but after a while it can be exhausting. I also wish we had spent a bit more time with hIEs (that’s the series name for the artificial intelligences mankind has built) other than the five main modern units, as they’re clearly meant to be more special and more human than the usual shopkeeper hIEs and the like. It’s a bit difficult to hear one of the cast talking about them as if they’re cars that can be sold when you get to see their POV briefly and see they do have wants and needs beyond their owners.

This takes place almost a century from now, where humanoid intelligences (hIEs) have gotten to the point where they’ve started doing the “drudge” jobs for humanity and also are hard to tell apart from humanity. Our hero is Arato, who at times almost seems a parody of “generic anime protagonist”. He’s aggressively normal, except for the fact that he always wears his heart on his sleeve and tries to think of everyone as basically kind. He’s also kind to hIEs, seeing them as people, which his friends Ryo and Kengo certainly don’t. His father is a major player in the hIE world, but we barely meet him. His sister is even a classic anime little sister. That said, it all changes when, coming across a bizarre flower attack on the hIEs in the street, he’s rescued by Lacia, a clearly far more advanced than the usual hIE who asks him to become her “owner”. He agrees, but she also has a lot of secrets – like how she’s connected to five hIEs who broke out of a lab and are being hunted down.

This book does get a lot of things right. Arato is simple and earnest without being boring, and you get why people naturally like him. Yuka is a spoiled little sister but also not annoying. Ryo, his best friend and the heir to a hIE organization, is probably the most interesting and nuanced character in the book, and we watch him slowly go from being Arato’s best friend to a villain in stages so gradual you barely notice it. The action movie set pieces are fantastic, the best being a massive firefight at an airport that also involves one of the cast trapped in a slowly burning limo. It does, however, love to have everyone and their brother talk about the role of hIEs in society, and whether they are like people (Arato’s view) or like toasters (seemingly everyone else’s view). Towards the end the book even becomes a zombie survival novel, but never lets go of the nature of hIEs even then.

Given its length, there’s a lot more I didn’t get into here, like Lacia’s modeling career, or the somewhat abbreviated terrorist career of Arato’s other best friend Kengo (who is then mostly removed from the rest of the book, presumably as his function is finished). I think it might read better if you pace it out over several days. I do recommend it for fans of action-filled works, near-future SF what-ifs, and of course those who have seen the anime.

Silver Spoon, Vol. 12

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By Hiromu Arakawa. Released in Japan as “Gin no Saji” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Amanda Haley.

You can tell that the new year is starting in Silver Spoon because there’s a new freshman, and she’s interested in horses. This despite being in the dairy program. Again, it’s great to see that even at an agricultural school like Ezo, you don’t have to necessarily be slotted into the drawer that your family farm and/or business puts you in. It also once again shows the value of trying even after failure (she tried to get in on the science track, failed, and tried again on the ‘general’ track), which is good, as Hachiken is also dealing with some repeated failures in his life as well. On the positive side, his father is reading his business proposals and taking them seriously. On the negative side, they’re still not good enough, and he’s still not investing any money in them. That could change as we see the start of something that seems obvious but was never thought of much before: Hachiken needs to earn money and invest in his own business.

Of course, sometimes taking that once-in-a-lifetime chance can also lead to failure in the end – there’s a two-week student program in France that’s offered to Hachiken but he passes it on to cheese-loving Yoshino, who jumps at it… and then finds that for the two weeks, she’s at a high school specializing in fish. And yet, even with this obvious punchline, she manages to eat lots of French cheese and has a better idea about the direction she wants to go in. Any experience is good experience if it can show you a better way forward. That also applies to Komaba, who9 still has everyone telling him not to simply give up and abandon all his dreams, including his own family, and Mikage – indeed, the scene between him and Mikage is possibly the best in the volume.

As for Hachiken, he’s sticking with what he knows best – which is to say, pigs. Pigs and pizza. The section of the book dealing with pasturing pigs, free-range style, is fascinating, as with most of the “here is how you do agriculture” stuff in this series. He’s also found a way to solve the problem of Ookawa’s ongoing awfulness – hire him as company president, as when he’s working he’s far more reliable. It’s a character development that makes sense and is hilarious. As for romance, well, it’s pretty much on the back burner until Mikage manages to get into college – though that’s not stopping others (Sakae) from trying to get them to “go all the way”. And there’s also a suggestion that more equestrian action may be in his future – this despite the fact that he’s not picked for the preliminaries. They’re saving him! Again, seeing Hachiken from Vol. 1 and comparing him to this Hachiken is like night and day.

I’m not sure what to add. Another very good volume in a stellar series. Read it.

I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, Vol. 6

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By Kisetsu Morita and Benio. Released in Japan as “Slime Taoshite 300 Nen, Shiranai Uchi ni Level MAX ni Nattemashita” by GA Novels. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jasmine Bernhardt and Taylor Engel.

There is a literary device known as lampshade hanging, wherein the author, knowing that a plot point is ridiculous or obvious, points this out in the narrative, thus taking the curse off it a bit. A classic example is Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2 bemoaning that he’s having the same bad Christmas as Die Hard 1. Readers of Killing Slimes for 300 Years, therefore, should be ready for a number of instances in this book, even more than the usual, where our heroine just straight up says “wow, it’s just like we have in Japan”. The temple visits, the way that weddings happen, various types of spirits… boy, it seems really familiar somehow. This, of course, is because the author is Japanese and doesn’t want to spend too much of a slice-of-life book developing a world when she can have the cast go to the beach instead. Even the Beelzebub side story (which makes a welcome return) has as the central gag Japanese office politics, only with demons.

As with previous volumes, it’s a grab bag of what are basically short stories with Azusa and the gang. While visiting her “mother”, she eats something that turns her small, allowing her a few days to be treated like a real child. She goes to a “singles event” that turns out to be filled with much older men than expected, then meets the local spirit, who tries to officiate weddings but has had bad luck with no one coming by lately. No one in the cast is ready to get married, so they do a “sister’s wedding” between Falfa and Shalsha, inviting most of the regulars. After an injury causes her to revert to her slime form, Fighsly enters a fighting tournament anyway. The cast, as I said above, go to a jellyfish-filled beach, and then we see Halkara’s hometown, and find she’s the responsible one. Then we get more of Beelzebub’s origin story, as she has to deal with crooked administrators and murderous former colleagues.

There’s nothing really to analyze here – it’s not as if people have character development in a series like this – so the goal is to see how cute and fluffy everything is. The answer is very. The wedding may be between two sisters, but features all the things you’d expect, and will put a smile on your face. Halkara’s family were funny and also helped make a character who can grate on a reader fairly easily more sympathetic. There’s more wacky spirits – one talks like a dazed hippie a lot of the time, and another is interested in painting portraits… but the portraits may not come out the way others like. And the Beelzebub chapters are great, showing how even when she’s unsure of herself she still kicks eleven kinds of ass.

Anyone wanting depth and ongoing plot should run far away from this series. But if you like “cute girls doing cute things”, it’s right up your alley.

Toradora!, Vol. 8

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By Yuyuko Takemiya and Yasu. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by Will Holcomb.

Last time everything was terrible, and I asked is some of that could be fixed by the end of this book. The answer is mostly no, though we do get one major revelation that I expect will eventually lead to the endgame. Till then, though… this was a good volume, with lots of relatable teenage angst, but I have to admit that it feels very much like an author being told to stretch out a series to a nice round ten books and therefore just having everything continue to disintegrate. Minori in particular is still making all the wrong choices, trying to pretend that everything between her and Ryuuji is still exactly the same. Sadly, she’s much better at pretending than he is, so he assumes that his almost-confession meant nothing to her. Ami calls her out on her bullshit, which leads to a major fight between them. And then there’s the ending of the book, which I’ll get into later but leaves Minori sobbing alone in a corner. This is not a wacky fun Toradora! volume.

The tone of the book is set up right off the bat, as the much-awaited trip to Okinawa is cancelled when the hotel they were supposed to stay in burns down. As such, the class trip is a much shorter skiing trip, which pleases absolutely no one. As for Ryuuji, he’s still devastated by events of the previous book, and only JUST manages to get back to himself by halfway through the book. This thankfully allows for the brief bit of comedy we get – the tracksuit outfits picked out for the class are deliberately tacky and awful, and there’s various “Ryuuji and Taiga can’t ski” jokes that are a lot of fun – at least till the end. The main plotline remains the love septangle going on. Taiga is trying to distance herself from Ryuuji, and has also gone so far as to give Minori the hairclip Ryuuji was going to give her. She’s really pushing Ryuuji/Minorin hard. As for her crush on Kitamura, well…

As with the previous book, events in the last twenty pages of the volume almost consume everything else. After another fight, Taiga ends up disappearing off a cliff, and Ryuuji is the one to go down and rescue her. Unfortunately, Taiga, who is groggy from concussion and blood loss from the fall, sees Ryuuji’s goggles and thinks it’s Kitamura. We’ve heard that Taiga and Kitamura had a talk at New Year’s (which Ryuuji, in the hospital with flu, missed) and now we get the pretty obvious answer of what it was about – Taiga is incredibly devastated that despite her best efforts, she still loves Ryuuji. Naturally, she’s unaware she’s telling this TO Ryuuji. It’s so sweet and sad and heartwarming and terrible all at once, and I do feel that Ryuuji made the right choice for the moment of pretending that he was not her rescuer, but this isn’t going to go away.

If you like Toradora! and its teen comedy-drama, this one is almost all drama, but should definitely appeal. Next time, one hopes, Minori will finally open up, but I suspect nothing will really be resolved until the final volume.

Invaders of the Rokujouma!?, Vol. 27

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

Another “short-story” volume of Rokujouma, although honestly it’s more three short stories and a half-novel, as the story written especially for the book is a continuation of the previous book and not really skippable. The three short stories are all essentially character pieces. The first focuses on Nana, who has been slowly drawn into the secondary orbit of the main cast, although she’s not in the Koutarou sweepstakes. It involves making changes to her mostly cyborg body to have her look more of her actual age… as well as various other members of the cast envying how Koutarou interacts with each of them. The slightest of the three stories has Shizuka and her “dragon” uncle going to a hot springs. The third involves an eating contest that all the cast enters, but it’s mostly about Sanae and Theia, along with making Yurika the butt monkey again, because, well, we’re back on Earth. All three stories are the same as we’ve seen in previous volumes – nice character pieces, but slight.

The final story is more significant, and starts with an obvious problem: Koutarou being on Forthorthe is ruining the economy, as anywhere he goes is automatically where everyone else wants to go, and everything he buys, everyone else does… meaning all the competitors are being ruined. This is a tad ridiculous, but serves to give him an excuse to quietly go back home with everyone except the main Forthorthe cast. That said, they’ve been away from Earth a LONG time. Various people on the magical girl side have been pretending to be them in class, but that’s not helping their actual studies, so they have to take a test to prove that they’re up to date… and failure means repeating a year. You can imagine who panics most about this, but Sanae and Koutarou are also not great students.

Now, I will partly hand it to Yurika, despite whining and moaning the entire time, she really did seem to earnestly study. That said, I do like how this book shows that all the studying effort in the world can’t help you when you start from so far behind. I also liked how Maki kept Yurika motivated – yes, Koutarou would still let her stay there if she had to repeat a year, but he’s be so disappointed… as you can imagine, the thought horrifies Yurika. The other main plot here involves the cast being followed around by various guys in suits and sunglasses who look straight out of Urusei Yatsura. This was amusing, but feels more like a setup for next book, where I expect Forthorthe is going to have to go public. In fact, the author said there’s a lot of setup for the next book in this story.

So overall not bad, and sets us up nicely for the next two books, which are the final ones in the “main” storyline, though the series continues after that. Rokujouma fans should be happy.

Baccano!: 2002 [Side A]: Bullet Garden

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By Ryohgo Narita and Katsumi Enami. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

The first volume of this two-parter reminds me very much of the fist volume of the last two-parter we had, The Slash. It’s very short, almost all setup, and seems to be saving all its tricks for the back half. It also features a new character I don’t care for, and once again brings up Firo’s paralyzing fear of sexuality, which is not a plotline I like either. Adding this all together makes it one of the more “average” volumes in the series, and it feels sort of like the first volume in a DRRR!! arc as well – you’re reading along waiting for fun, only to be told the fun is four months from now. Fortunately, there is a BIT of fun to be had here – Claudia and Charon *are* new characters I like, being genderswapped carbon copies of their great-grandparents, Czes gets a lot to do an an ominous foreboding about what’s going to happen, and Illness is a treat, though her terrifying backstory reminds me of Huey and Elmer – deliberately, of course.

Firo and Ennis, we are told, married somewhere around 1980, fifty years after they first met, but have never had a honeymoon – or indeed consummated their relationship. On finding out about this, the Camorra bosses pay for him and Ennis to travel on an ocean liner’s maiden voyage – and, Firo still being extremely wary of what comes with a honeymoon, he invites Czes to come as well, much to Czes’s frustration. The cruise also features Claudia and Charon, great-grandkids to Claire and Chane (who, while not immortal, are both still alive and active in their nineties), who are in the film industry; Angelo, a sniper who is out for revenge on the terrorists who wiped out his South American gang; said terrorists, the Mask Makers, whose name seems awfully familiar to Firo and who have a love of modern cinema; and Bobby Splot and his gang, who stow away on the boat to get revenge on people because… well, because Bobby is terrible. He’s a disgrace to his great-grandfather Jacuzzi.

I am aware that Bobby will likely improve in the next book, but, like Maria in the first Slash volume, I have to rate him based on this book alone, and boy, he grates. To be fair, this is deliberate, as the book wants to have him NOT be his great-grandfather, in contrast to Claudia, but still. The plotline going on here seems complex, and you get the sense that we’ve barely seen the start of it. Someone seems to want to recreate the 1931 train incident, only without Isaac and Miria (who briefly appear, but are not on the boat). The Mask Makers are clearly a reference to the same group we saw in the 1705 novel, which makes you wonder what they’re doing here almost 300 years later. And, to make things even more interesting, the terrorists’ plan involves meeting up with the SISTER ship of this huge luxury liner, which is going in the other direction and scheduled to pass them.

We briefly hear what’s happening on the other liner, and honestly it sounds a lot more interesting than events here. As such, I suspect that the 2nd and final book in this 2002 arc will be far more exciting and interesting. Till then, enjoy Claudia, Charon and Illness, who are a lot of fun.

The Genius Prince’s Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt (Hey, How About Treason?), Vol. 2

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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.

I had a lot of fun with the first volume of this series, and am pleased to report that I liked the second volume even better. For one, it’s a relief to be living in a world of political intrigue and mind games, one where our protagonists actually are people born in that world and have not been transported from modern day Japan. There is no adventurer’s guild… or indeed adventurers at all, nor do we appear to have any magic. It’s just a series with a clever young prince and his clever aide doing battle (at least in this novel) with an equally clever princess from the strife-torn Empire, still dealing with the death of its Emperor that we heard about in the last book. It feels a little bit like an episode of Blackadder if everyone were as clever as he was. There’s even a minimum of light novel cliches – the readers get a scene of the main female cast in a hot springs, but Wein is absent doing paperwork – no accidental peeping here. These are adults.

As noted, the main thrust of this volume is that Wein’s kingdom is visited by the 2nd Princess of the Empire, Lowellmina, who rumor has it is looking for a political marriage. As it turns out, she’s someone both Wein and Ninym have met before, though they were unaware that she was a princess. Wein correctly guesses she has another plan behind the public one, but has trouble figuring out the REAL plan she has behind the second one. She, meanwhile, is also trying to see what he does and how he reacts, relying on his being exceptionally clever to keep the ball rolling along. In among this we have the usual political crises. The Empire is trying to figure out which of the three sons of the Emperor should be in charge. Two territories in Wein’s kingdom who have always been at each other’s throats are coming to a boiling point. And a lovestruck, foolish son of an aristocrat from a neighboring nation may cause everything to fall apart for both Wein AND Lowellmina.

I mentioned in my last review that the best part of the book was the relationship between Wein and Ninym, and that remains the case. At the moment, it’s impossible for anything to happen between them, mostly as Wein is a noble Prince and Ninym is a non-noble from a race that many countries are severely prejudiced against. I suspect that will change before the series ends, because let’s face it, Wein and Ninym have been “married” for years now, in terms of closeness and knowing each other’s hearts. Lowellmina is also a great character, not as overdramatic as Wein can be when things go wrong (there’s some amusing faces in the illustrations) but still cut from the same cloth. There’s also some fun scenes showing Wein and Ninym at the Empire’s military academy from two years prior (which is where they met the in-disguise princess), and I’d love to see more from that period as well.

Certainly I’d recommend this for fans of series like Realist Hero and other kingdom-building books, but also for those who enjoy a light novel series without having to make excuses for half of the events that take place in them. Glorious fun.

A Witch’s Printing Office, Vol. 1

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By Mochinchi and Yasuhiro Miyama. Released in Japan as “Mahoutsukai no Insatsujo” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki G’s. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Amber Tamosaitis.

It’s become something of a running gag that “isekai” is the way to sell your title to a publisher, no matter what the series is. “I’ve got this idea about two philosophy students meeting in a coffee shop to discuss Kokugaku and Rangaku.” “…why would that ever sell?” “You see, the coffee shop is… IN ANOTHER WORLD!” That said, sometimes the isekai prototype does help to make a series more interesting because it’s baked into the plot, especially when the series can avoid the usual pitfalls of having the same thing happen – no guilds, adventurers, etc. Without its isekai plotline, this would just be one of seventy different kinds of “we’re working in an office and also connected with Comiket” titles that come and go with no one remembering them. But, let’s face it: Recreating Comiket in a fantasy world, using magic tomes as the draw… that’s a very clever idea. And from this idea we get the story of Mika, whose desire to get back home led to all this.

The actual circumstances of Mika ending up in another world are mostly glossed over in this first volume – when we come across her, she’s been in this fantasy world for some time. She has one magical skill, Copy, which is what it sounds – she’s a human copier machine. Trying to find a spell that can transport her back home, she’s created her own printing office to help out people who desperately need things copied, such as the magic spell that can drive away monsters, which with Mika’s help can be given to every villager. That said, magic books and spells don’t just walk up to you, even if you are a printing company. And so Mika has decided to help organize Magiket, a massive convention where people buy and sell magical spells. Can she keep the convention from going off the rails? And can she find a spell that will get her back home?

I will admit, “magical Comiket” is just the sort of high-concept idea I like, so I was already on this manga’s side to begin with. Mika might remind many people of Yomiko from Read or Die, at least in appearance, but she’s also a very can do sort of woman who sometimes exhausts herself trying to achieve something and help others. There’s various subplots at the Magiket itself: some people aren’t selling well, at least not until a spell is urgently needed; some folks are trying to sell illegal or illicit spells; and of course there’s the usual problems with lines and keeping everyone moving. I’m not spoiling anything to say that by the end of this book Mika has not found a way to return home, but she has managed to carve out a niche for herself, starting a company with enthusiastic employees and organizing a massive publishing event. Honestly, she’s achieved more in one book than a lot of isekai slackers have in ten.

I don’t expect too many serious or ongoing plots in this series, which when you boil it down is another workplace slice-of-life. But adding the isekai made all the difference for once, and I look forward to seeing what the next Magiket brings us.

Banner of the Stars: The Ties That Bind

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By Hiroyuki Morioka and Toshihiro Ono. Released in Japan by Hayakawa Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Giuseppe di Martino.

These are novels rather than light novels, so you don’t get cute interstitial artwork. This may be why we get this cover, with Lafier trying to look cool and captainlike while a cat is climbing on top of her. The cat is Jint’s (it’s Jint now. Don’t ask. Or rather, ask Hayakawa Publishing.), and spends much of the book wandering around places where it shouldn’t be and basically being a cat. That said, after the massive firefight that dominates the second half of the book, it’s probably for the best that the cat ends up being given a permanent home on planet. The cat also provides a different source of humor from the usual in this book, which is banter. Everyone in Banter… erm, Banner of the Stars is in a two-person team of back and forth dialogue as if they’re Nick and Nora Charles – indeed, Jint and Lafier are not nearly as caustic about it as many of the others, perhaps showing the feelings they have for each other. It’s almost Moonlighting in space.

This book takes place three years after the events of Crest of the Stars, with Jint now reunited with Lafier as her Clerk and right-hand man on her brand new ship. She’s just one of many ships that are setting out to fight the enemy, though, and we get a large amount of time devoted to space combat, things blowing up, and last-minute escapes. We meet Lafier’s crew, with Number Two Sobash, stoic Ecryua (stoic may be the wrong term given her love on Jint’s cat) and lovable drunk Samson. There’s also her Assault Unit Commander, who happens to be the sister of the guy that Lafier killed in Crest of the Stars. Sporr is still hanging around and being fabulous. And we also see Neleth and Nefeh, two twin brothers (unusual among the Abh) with a propensity towards being exceptionally weird. Everyone talks back and forth at each other like it’s His Girl Friday. Oh yes, and there’s the planet they’re fighting to conquer, which irritatingly hasn’t surrendered yet.

As I said, Jint and Lafier are also part of this, and we do get some choice banter (the thing about Lafier thinking her mother was a cat is brought up by Jint multiple times, to her displeasure). At the same time, there is a certain fatalistic quality to Jint that the reader, and Lafier, may find disturbing. Atosryua invites Lafier and Jint to a dinner to commemorate the life of her brother… the one Lafier killed… but it’s all very polite and no hard feelings. Afterwards, Jint remarks how he doesn’t have anyone who would miss him after he died anyway, and the look that Lafier gives him burns through the page and onto your fingers. She makes it more explicit later that she would miss him, dammit, but it’s fairly clear that if there is any romance going on between the two, she will need to break through a bit of his self-debasement first.

The author notes that each book in this series will be self-contained, which is probably a good thing given the first came out in 1996 and the 6th in 2018. As with Crest of the Stars, it will bury you in vocabulary, and some of the eccentricities of the characters feel like the author is being cute rather than letting it develop naturally. Still, this is a good solid start to the “second season” of Jint and Lafier.

Konosuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World!: Megumin’s Turn

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

If you were going to suggest an obvious choice for a side-story spinoff in the Konosuba universe, Megumin immediately comes to mind. She’s the most popular of the cast, and her backstory could use some fleshing out beyond what we got in the 5th novel. Indeed, in Japan, this volume came out before the 5th novel, and the first thing I wanted to do after it was released was to reread that book to see if more of it made sense. It also allows us to get a sense of Megumin’s headspace – through most of this, she’s the narrative voice, and we can see her eccentricities filtered through a coating of relatively sedate and logical thought. Well, logical for the Crimson Magic Clan, of course, whose one truly eccentric member is Yunyun, she who gets embarrassed by the whole thing. If you wanted a book filled with Megumin and Yunyun being funny, good news, this volume delivers, while also fleshing out the overall story.

The book takes place two years before the main series starts, and shows us Megumin and Yunyun in magic school, learning the finer points of saying cool lines and practicing your awesome poses. Both have almost earned enough points to learn Advanced Magic – indeed, Megumin secretly already has the points to do it, but is saving up even more to get enough to learn Explosion, the spell that she’s been obsessed with since she was a little girl. Everyday life for Megumin consists of conning Yunyun out of her lunch every day, looking after her younger sister Komekko, and generally getting into trouble, particularly after picking up an odd cat, nicknamed “Ink” by Yunyun, who Komekko wants to eat but most everyone else wants to snuggle. Unfortunately, more and more monsters are coming to their village, and seem to be after Komekko! Will Megumin be forced to abandon her dream of Explosion to save her sister?

The main reason to get this solid first volume is the relationship between Megumin and Yunyun. Megumin tends to worry about Yunyun as the sort who would get suckered by the first person who called her friend, and she’s not wrong, as we later see two other classmates seemingly conning Yunyun out of money so they can help a sick younger brother, something Megumin regards with more than a little scorn. Despite Megumin’s constant bullying, it’s clear that the two are close – indeed, at least one girl thinks they’re lovers, and when Yunyun is dragged off by her other friends, accuses Megumin of being cuckolded. Despite that, there’s no yuri subtext here, but it is heartwarming to see Megumin look after Yunyun even while she makes her life miserable. The weakest part of the book involved the irritating NEET Bukkororii and his stalker crush on the girl he likes. Megumin and Yunyun think he’s a massive creep, yes, but so does the reader.

Aside from humorous foreshadowing, the other main cast is absent from this book, which is fine. It’s Megumin’s Turn, as the subtitle suggests. The next volume is supposedly Yunyun’s Turn, but I’m not all that optimistic about her achieving much – she’s funnier when suffering. In the meantime, Konosuba fans will definitely enjoy this.

A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 21

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By Kazumi Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “To Aru Majutsu no Index” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

As with the previous volume, and likely the next one, this is a giant action movie brought to the page. As such, there’s not quite as much development of Index’s main themes, though once again if you are religious you should drop this work like a hot potato if you haven’t already done so. That said, the ex-Pope showing up here and being the baddest ass who ever badassed just by kindly talking to everyone shows that it’s not just a binary “everyone with the Church is evil” thing. This also applies, oddly enough, to Accelerator, who seems to finally be getting over his “I am a horrible villain who must be punished” mentality now that he’s had his battle with Misaka Worst. In fact, he and Worst team up here, because a) he needs help in saving Last Order, and b) she finds the idea of his asking her for help hilarious. She too is an example of a bad guy who changes sides. And then there’s Touma, our theoretical hero, who just wants to punch Fiamma. A whole lot.

Kamachi said in the afterword that this was meant to be (along with 22) one book, which is likely why Mugino is menacing Hamazura on he cover despite the fact that she literally only shows up to be the cliffhanger. Also, given this is the second to last book in the first “series” of Index, there’s no major new character introduced here, though we do get a reappearance from a few older characters I wasn’t expecting – indeed, you could argue that without Kazakiri showing up, Accelerator and Touma would both be very dead right now. The plot is divided basically as follows: 1) Touma trying to catch up to Fiamma, starting with Lesser, then losing her but gaining Sasha, who fills a similar function; 2) Hamazura looking out for the forgotten and ignored, as always, while (finally) succeeding in helping Takitsubo; 3) Accelerator trying to help Last Order (this is less easy than helping Takitsubo); 4) Misaka arriving in Russia but mostly standing around, thus summing up her position in the novels since Book 3; and 5) Stiyl trying not to get killed by a still-possessed Index.

The action scenes are nice and solid here, and while I still find a lot of the magic discussion a bit boring, it at least doesn’t last as long this time. Everyone knows their function. Fiamma’s is to be smug, and he succeeds admirably, and you really do want Touma to punch him in the face, even though Touma does not achieve this (or really anything) in this book. Arguably that also applies to Accelerator, who is nudging closer to knowing how to save Last Order (magic) but can’t get to the next step. Again, only Hamazura succeeds while looking at the small picture… which also allows him to succeed when he ends up in the larger picture as well, pointing out to a dying Acqua of the Back that the REAL heroes are those who get up and return home to loved ones rather than those who accept death. It’s a really good scene, and you can easily see why he’s been added as a third protagonist, especially give that you get the sense Kamachi doesn’t know what to do with Touma at this point.

The next volume is important, as it will not only wrap up World War III, but may be the final volume of Index in North America. It’s unclear if New Testament is considered a new license or a continuing one, but in any case Yen On has not made it clear if they’re doing it. (That said, the back cover copy for 22 does not say ‘Final Volume’, so that’s a good sign.) Till then, enjoy an action-packed volume, and sorry, Mugino fans, I’m sure she’ll be in 22 more.

The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 15

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By Satoshi Wagahara and 029. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Kevin Gifford.

We’re back to the main storyline, but the devil is almost entirely absent from this book, not showing up till the end. Instead we get some of the other characters getting a section of plot, including Chiho (who is still dealing with “Maou hasn’t answered my confession and I know the moment Emilia realizes she loves him I lose”, while Emeralda is trying to drag out her time in Japan as long as possible, both because she likes it there more and also to make sure that Emilia is really doing OK. And, of course, there’s the choice that Emi and Maou have to make – help Laila and save Enta Isla, or stay in Japan and keep seeking their own future? Perhaps most importantly, it’s Christmastime, which ties in with Chiho’s woes – Maou’s working the entire holiday. All of these subplots end up coming together when we center on what to get Alas Ramus for a Christmas Present… a decision that ends up shaking up everyone and everything.

It’s fairly rare to have a Christmas-themed light novel come out in North America close to Christmas – owing to when a book is licensed here, we get far more “Christmas in July” series. It handles the Christmas plot well, and the concept of what Alas Ramus really wants for Christmas is a strong story beat. I also really like everyone thinking about their future going forward in Japan – Maou is absent from most of the book as he’s doing training to become a full-time McRonald’s employee (given the title of the series, I suspect this won’t go well), and both Emi and Chiho are studying to get into university. We see most of this from the POV of Emeralda, who is quite happy to see it as she’s been against Emilia sacrificing her life for some time now, and would be delighted if she actually did things for herself, be this a new career or romance.

That said, there are a few big flaws with this book. This series has never shied away from long expodumps, and I’ve criticized it before. Well, I’m going to do it again, as so much of this volume was characters sitting around listening to Angels and Demons explaining the backstory. I get the sense that the author wanted to put this into a side-story or a spinoff, but was told no, so instead we get to see it secondhand from other people. Sadly, that just makes things boring. The other issue I had was a “one fakeout too many” problem. The book begins with Chiho and Rika arriving at a deserted apartment complex, with Chiho telling Rika everyone connected to Enta Isla has now left. Then we get the book proper. When we return, we get the setup for what feels like another “sorry, humans, you have to stay behind” bit… only for Chiho to pitch an absolute fit, use a magical portal device, grab Rika, and leap into Enta Isla. I loved this. The problem I had was later, when Chiho’s rage, which I loved so much, was handwaved away as being Rika misreading the situation and Chiho being tired. I get they don’t want her to confront Maou yet, but I’d rather she’d have been angry.

Still, provided you don’t mind having the plot spoonfed to you, this is a reasonable solid volume of the series, and I liked one big revelation at the end, which made me think of the Doctor Who story State of Decay. Expect things to stay on the Enta Isla side for the next book.