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Reviews

The Way of the Househusband, Vol. 1

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By Kousuke Oono. Released in Japan as “Gokushufudou” by Shinchosha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Kurage Bunch. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Sheldon Drzka. Adapted by Jennifer LeBlanc.

Sometimes, it has to be said, an author comes up with a premise that is so magical that you are tempted to say that it writes itself. This is never a good thing to say, especially to the person writing it, but let’s face it: the premise of this manga, which is that a yakuza thug is trying his hardest to go straight and become a househusband, is magical. You should read it for that alone. Fortunately, the execution is also very good, showing off a minimal cast and going in several directions that I wasn’t expecting. I have to admit, I suspected that the gag would be how good the husband is at typical housewife things, but no. He’s really good cooking with knives (a holdober from his former job), but is otherwise trying to learn on the job, so to speak, and we see him fail several times. There’s also the matter of his face. Let’s face it, he has a face that yearns to stare someone down and yell “Huuuuh?!” menacingly.

At some point in the past, our hero met his wife, fell in love, and decided to give up his unlawful career to be a homemaker while she became the breadwinner. In general the series falls into three different scenarios: one where he’s trying to do a housewife thing, and we are amused at the results and at the faces he makes; another where he’s interacting with his wife, who can seemingly beat him up (we see her strongarm him through a window when he overreacts to buying her a birthday gift she had already by cutting off his pinky) and loves PreCure; and interacting with an old member of his gang, who looks up to him and wants to get him back into the old yakuza (mostly, from what I can tell, so that said guy can be protected, as he’s a bit of a wannabe schlub). Through it all, our hero makes it clear: being a househusband is what he does now. And he’s going all in.

Again, the author knows his strength, and it’s in drawing that “Huuuuuuh?” face that our hero wears seemingly all the time. He may no longer be “the Immortal Dragon”, but his face seems to be stuck that way, causing lots of misunderstandings. Sometimes this causes problems for his more down-to-Earth wife, who has to explain to the store clerk that the “white powder” he wants is flour. At one point she tries to do something about his image by dressing him in less stereotypical clothing, which leads to a series of hilarious fashion disasters. It’s also the best chapter for showing off their marriage, as we see them fighting but also trying to accommodate each other. They make a pretty great couple. Oh yes, they also have a cat and a Roomba, and the two combined may make the funniest chapter in the book, at least for pet owners.

There’s not much plot development here beyond the basic premise, but why would you want it? I hope at some point we see a flashback as to how our couple met and fell in love. But other than that, the main reason to get this is that it’s funny. Recommended.

I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, Vol. 5

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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 Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jasmine Bernhardt.

I tend to enjoy this series, and so I will try to be charitable about some of its… quirks. A lot of the series involves revisiting plots and characters that we’ve seen before, and this gets turned up to eleven in this book, which starts with a dungeon crawl that turns out to be a tourist trap… much like the tourist trap we saw in the previous book. There’s also another festival, which gives our heroes the opportunity to run another cafe, only this time they have more people on their side, which is good as the cafe has a LOT more visitors. The festival itself is a cavalcade of “oh, that’s where they got to” reunions. It might be annoying if it weren’t for the matter-of-fact, blase tone of our heroine, whose tendency towards lack of surprise helps ground the reader as well. Even when she does react, it sounds more like tsukkomi than anything else. This series “chugs along”, in the best and worst sense of the term.

There’s a new character introduced here, who ticks off a few more boxes. She’s an intelligent mandragora, one that’s been around for a century or two but still tends to act exactly like a child who’s intellectually mature but emotionally stunted. Sandra quickly moves in with the others and becomes the tsundere they never knew they needed, as well as giving Azusa a child who is not essentially perfect. In fact, her other two slime children may be a bit TOO perfect, as we find when they attempt to go to a local elementary school and blow away the competition… and the teacher. Speaking of imperfections, Sandra, being a walking plant, is quick to point out what a horrible garden Azusa has, and this may be why no one likes to eat their veggies in this hourse. With the addition of some really good soil, we briefly get a nice foodie manga scene.

The highlight of the book, though, is the spinoff at the end, giving an origin story for Beelzebub, who (no surprises here) turns out to have been a LOT like Azusa, to the point of being a low-level officer worker for 1500 years as she didn’t really want more responsibility or trouble. Unfortunately, the new Demon Lord takes notice of her and immediately appoints her Minister, thereby upending her entire life. There’s lots of fantastic scenes in these two chapter, including Beelzebub trying to perfect her new over the top haughty personality, and dealing for the first time with the Leviathan Sisters and their complete opposite personalities. It also makes you realize why she’s always dropping in on Azusa, and why she keeps asking the slime kids to come live with her: after 1500 years on her own, she’s discovered what friendship is, and wants more.

If you’re looking for surprises or emotional depth, these books must be like Kryptonite for you. If, on the other hand, you want a relaxing book that goes at its own pace and does what it likes (even if it’s the same things it’s done before), this is another good volume.

Koyomimonogatari: Calendar Tale, Part 02

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By NISIOISIN and VOFAN. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by Vertical, Inc. Translated by Daniel Joseph.

There are spoilers towards the end of the review for the end of the book, which is hard to talk about without spoiling.

The second half of Koyomimonogatari feels like it’s sliding slowly towards a darkness that you really don’t want to see. The first half of the collection (i.e. the first book, as Vertical split it in two) was fairly lighthearted and bantery, with only Nadeko’s story coming across as ominous. But as we get into the events of the 2nd half of Araragi’s school year, and things take a darker turn, it’s no surprise that the short stories do as well. The exception to this, oddly enough, involves Shinobu, whose donut-filled discussion with Araragi ends in a punchline so sweet that I’m glad it was delivered by the matter-of-fact Hanekawa. (Hanekawa is away almost the entire book, but the magic of cell phones means she can still be there to provide Araragi with the right answer. Honestly, these two need to see less of each other, it’s not good for them.) But even Tsukihi’s story involves a presumed extra person in the tea ceremony ghost story, and the last two stories almost end up defining everything that goes before them.

NISIOISIN said in the afterword that he wanted to have a look back at the series as he wrote this, and, as with the first book, there’s a lot of foreshadowing and backshadowing going on here. This is particularly true of Nadeko, who isn’t actually in these stories (she had hers already) but of course ends up lurking in the background as her main story took place from late October to early January – almost a three-month chunk. We saw that in the original stories through the point of view of Kaiki and Nadeko herself, but here we see Araragi’s own perspective on things, which is rather fatalistic, something that is no longer surprising with someone like hm. Araragi would be perfectly fine sacrificing everything he has to help someone who needed help, and I wonder how he and Shirou Emiya would get along. (Oh God, the idea of Araragi as Archer is horrific and hilarious.)

The last two stories in the book focus on two of the heroines that aren’t in the “harem” per se. Kagenui is there to try to help Araragi solve his “I’m turning into a real vampire” problem, but there are other forces getting in the way here, mysterious and unknown though they may yet be. (That said, it’s Ogi. Come on, of course it’s Ogi.) As such, the ending of her story has her removed from the plot – it’s called Koyomi Nothing, which fits as there’s a blank space where an ending should be. As for Koyomi Dead, well, the story spoils you as to what’s going to happen from the start. Gaen is the final heroine, in more ways than one, and her pragmatic disposal of Koyomi is both in character and also mind-boggling. (I like how she says that Shinobu won’t go on a rampage after his death because she’s seen the bad future where she does. Um, correct, but she can still kill YOU, Gaen.) It does solve Koyomi’s problem, though!

This is a pretty big cliffhanger, ending with Koyomi seemingly in the afterlife (Mayoi’s presence implies that). Unfortunately, folks are going to have to wait a while to see how it’s resolved, as we’re once again going back in time to fill in gaps. Owarimonogatari 1 will show us how Araragi first met Ogi, and also delve into why he became such a misanthrope before the series began. In the meantime, enjoy these short stories that shed light on why he is who he is now. (No, not dead. You know what I mean.)

The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 14

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

As hinted in my previous review, this does not give us the next installment of the main series, but is another series of short stories that are interspersed throughout the series’ timeline. Most of them, with the exception of the last one, were published in magazines, something that happens quite frequently in Japan but is not always collected into a volume, and even when it is sometimes is not picked up in North America (hi, Index). As you can imagine, the stories here range from merely OK to quite good. None of them are too serious and none of them really advance the plot, but they’re fun and make you smile. Ashiya’s reaction to winning a pressure cooker in a contest is as hilarious as you’d expect given his frugality. Maou finds buying a new phone to be a lot more difficult than he expected, as he has memories attached to the old, broken one. And Maou also bikes a lot, so needs new pants, in possibly the slightest story here.

Three stories do get a little more depth, though. In the first, which takes place between the first and second books, Chiho meets up with Emi, Albert and Emeralda for sushi and they discuss Maou’s past, why he hasn’t erased her memories, and Chiho’s own feelings for Maou. This is well done but also feels a bit unrealistic in terms of Emi’s personality – it feels like Vol. 13 Emi is overlaid with Vol. 1 Emi so that she doesn’t explode in rage. The funniest bits are probably Albert and Emeralda experiencing conveyor belt sushi and revealing their hideously large appetites to us. Another story deals with Kisaki’s past, as when the manager of the Sentucky Fried Chicken across the street comes into McRonald’s (with Sariel in tow, of course), Kisaki literally throws her out, and has to face disciplinary action. The revelation that they have a past is not exactly surprising, but it’s fun. I really liked the revelation that she’s stalling her career a bit because she’s debating asking Maou to join her in her dream. I suspect that ain’t happening, though.

The best story is the last one, the only one written especially for the book, which shows us Emilia’s life after arriving in Japan for the first time. Naturally, she’s chased all over the place by cops, particularly when she tries to live in a park and drink from the central fountain. She ends up at a familiar apartment building, though it’s empty at the moment, and the moment she broke into it I knew exactly what would happen, but that didn’t make this less funny or endearing. I am somewhat relieved that she did not drive her realtor namesake into an institution or get her fired, as I was expecting one or the other. It also helps to emphasize how, when not driven to kill by the likes of Olba, Emi is really a sweet, kind person at heart. Even when she’s being a samurai ghost.

So this is not essential in terms of plot, but is a nice, fun read with more of the characters you know. Next volume should get back to the plot, and has a Christmas theme – will it come out by Christmas Day?

Daytime Shooting Star, Vol. 2

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Daytime Shooting Star Volume 2 by Mika Yamamori

I can usually tell if I’ll like a series after I read the first volume, but after two volumes I can more easily decide if I really like it. The second volume of Daytime Shooting Star still features plenty of angst over a potential student-teacher romance, but the supporting cast was featured a little more and I started to find this series endearingly quirky.

The second volume opens with the shoujo staple of a school trip, and when Suzume finds herself accidentally trapped in a ravine with Mamura the boy who is pathologically afraid of being touched by a girl, they actually have a couple moments of conversation. Suzume passes out just in time for Mr. Shishio to come to the rescue, and Yuyuka quickly figures out that Suzume has a crush when she visits her in the aftermath of the forest adventure. Yuyuka’s offhand gestures of friendship and blunt personality are a useful contrast to Suzume’s tendency to get lost in thought about her new life. There’s a hilarious scene when Suzume is studying and Yuyuka’s usual social mask slips as she launches into a tirade and Suzume grabs Mamura’s arm in a desperate attempt at distraction. Yuyuka then finds herself beset with a group of boys who follow her around in hopes of being berated. In the meantime, Mamura seems to have gotten over his fear of girls, but only with Suzume.

This volume sets up an entertaining soap opera with plenty of humor as well as more quiet moments of reflection. I’m also enjoying the art in Daytime Shooting Star, Yamamori’s character designs have a touch of whimsy, and she easily shifts from more cartoonish exaggeration to panels that highlight contemplation and internal emotion.

Become You, Vol. 1

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Ichigo Takano’s orange may be one the of best shojo manga published in the last ten years, offering readers a vivid, sympathetic portrait of five friends who get an unexpected chance to save a suicidal classmate’s life. Though orange explored dark emotional terrain, it was never mawkish; instead, orange ended on a hopeful note that showed younger readers that life goes on after tragedies big and small.

Become You, Takano’s latest series, mines a similar thematic vein, this time focusing on two emotionally damaged boys who form an improbable bond through music. And by “improbable,” I mean Taiyou and Hikari are temperamental opposites who initially seem ill-suited for friendship, let alone artistic collaboration. Taiyou is one of those only-in-manga characters whose dogged optimism shades into fanaticism—the kind of character who calls everyone his friend, and wears down skeptics with his relentless overtures. Hikari, by contrast, is a classic Character With a Secret, a former prodigy who abruptly abandoned the piano despite (or perhaps because of) his phenomenal success, keeping his classmates at bay with blunt comments. Naturally—by the immutable laws of Shojo Manga Plot Mechanics—Taiyou tries to recruit Hikari for a band, despite the fact that Taiyou is a tyro guitar player.

At first glance, Become You seems to be following a well-worn path in which an enthusiastic novice persuades a reluctant genius to mentor him, in the process drawing out his teacher and helping his teacher recover something that he lost—say, his joy in playing the tuba, or his relationship with an estranged family member. But Takano adds an interesting wrinkle to this familiar plotline: midway through volume one, we learn that Taiyou originally wanted to be an artist, but lost his desire to paint after being bullied by a teacher. In the aftermath of this encounter, what Taiyou really wants is to be good at something—anything, really—and will work diligently towards achieving that goal, even if he shows little or no aptitude for his chosen pursuit. Equally important, Taiyou is just as emotionally vulnerable as his would-be mentor, even though Taiyou papers over his anguish with bright smiles and cheerful comments.

As with orange, a magical plot device brings Become You‘s principal characters together–in this case, a mysterious cloaked figure who presents Taiyou with an electric guitar and words of Yoda-like encouragement. It’s not entirely clear if Taiyou is fantasizing or having a premonition, since his guardian angel looks an awful lot like Hikari. And while the ambiguity of these scenes has little impact on the reading experience, they occupy more space than the time-traveling letters did in orange—a mistake, I think, because Taiyou’s daydreams don’t add any special urgency or poignancy to the story. By contrast, orange‘s letters served a twofold purpose, setting the plot in motion and highlighting all the small ways that innocent comments or decisions could hurt someone as fragile as the suicidal Kakeru.

The other drawback to Become You is that Takano doesn’t seem to know much about music. Taiyou, for example, cheerfully states his intention to attend a “music college,” but lacks the rudimentary skills to play in sync with a metronome or sight-read sheet music. (He also seems blissfully unaware that conservatories require an entrance audition.) The concert sequences are similarly revealing: though Takano draws attractive, animated characters, and can put them through their emotional paces, she struggles to make Taiyou and Hikari’s musical performances come to life on the page, either by showing the physical effort necessary to making a sound—embouchure, hand position, posture—or by drawing convincing crowd shots that convey the impact of the music on listeners.

I’m not ready to give up on Become You just yet, however, as Takano has something worthwhile to say about pursuing activities for emotional fulfillment, rather than for personal achievement. She also explores the idea of artistic mentorship with honesty, acknowledging that the teacher-student relationship can have a profound effect on how a young artists finds his voice; any violation of that compact—an unkind comment, a dogged insistence on doing things the “right” way—can leave deep scars and stunt one’s artistic growth. Here’s hoping volume two strikes a better balance between the magical realism and the realities of being a musician. Tentatively recommended.

BECOME YOU, VOL. 1 • STORY & ART BY ICHIGO TANAKA • TRANSLATED BY AMBER TAMOSAITIS • SEVEN SEAS • RATED TEEN • 200 pp.

Aria the Masterpiece, Vol. 3

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By Kozue Amano. Originally released in Japan by Mag Garden, serialized in the magazine Comic Blade. Released in North America by Tokyopop. Translated by Alethea and Athena Nibley and Katie McLendon.

Having given a long introduction to the main character of Aria – the city itself – Amano can now set about fleshing out the cast. Of course, the fleshing out is done at the exact same “slow pace” that the rest of the series has, but we do get two new regulars at the start of this third omnibus. Alice is from Orange Planet, the main competitor to Aika’s Himeya and the top gondolier company in Neo-Venezia. (Great gag when Akari asks about Aria Company and is reminded they have two employees.) Alice is one of those people who is really good at what she does but also somewhat introverted and bad at people skills, which has left her much like a prickly cat – well, prickly in a different sort of way than Aika, who’s more of an angry cat. Alice, naturally, attempts to tell Akari and Aika to go away when they first meet. Also naturally, Alice is totally unable to resist Akari’s natural in your face niceness and becomes a friend.

The other main character we meet in this volume is Aika’s mentor Akira. She’s there to underscore the fact that the gondoliers in Aria seem to get apprentices who blend well with them… or in some cases mirror them. This is readily apparent with the hit-headed Akira, who arrives after Aika runs away from her harsh training and decides to hang out with her crush, Alicia, instead. Naturally, we find that Akira and Alicia have a very similar relationship to Aika and Akari, complete with not allowing things and their competitive nature. Fortunately, Akira and Aika make up fairly quickly (it turns out Aika is actually the heir to the Himeya Company, which is one reason Akira is so strict) and she mellows out a bit for subsequent appearances. I will note it does seem odd that Athena is not mentioned several times, particularly when Alicia and Akira take their changes – and Alice – to the beach, but of course that’s hard to do when you aren’t written in yet.

The rest of the book contains more of the usual reasons to read Aria. There’s ‘sense of wonder’ chapters galore here, one of the best being a treasure hunt where the three girls run around the city finding clues and hints. As you’d expect, Akari also has another run in with Cait Sith, this one brought about by being outside on the hottest day of the year. Don’t drink that cold milk too fast, you’ll get a tummy ache. Oh yes, and we also meet Woody, who is a minor character whose main feature is that he looks – and acts – a lot like Vash the Stampede from trigun, something I suspect is mostly unintentional. And of course there’s the main reason to buy these books again – the larger trim size and nicer paper mean that it’s a treat to look at, and you want to go back and go over the art in slow motion after you finish it.

The next omnibus will have Vols. 5-6 of Aria, aka right before the series originally got cancelled by Tokyopop. Let’s hope it does better the second (no, wait, third – sorry, ADV Manga, no one remembers you) time around.

Baccano!: 1705 The Ironic Light Orchestra

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

In general, those who are really obsessive about the Baccano! series fall into two camps: anime obsessives and light novel obsessives. The anime obsessives tend to stick to the 1930s, which is, after all, what the anime adapted, with the exception of one episode. The light novel obsessives, though, really love the non-1930s books and their deep look at some of the more… broken members of the cast. In particular Huey Laforet, the “mastermind villain” of some books in the 1930s, last seen escaping from Alcatraz, and Elmer C. Albatross, who loves to try to make everyone smile but has something distinctly wrong with his way of thinking and moral compass in regards to smiling. They both cried out for an origin story, and we get it in in this, the first of the “1700s trilogy”, and possibly the most anticipated book since the series was initially licensed. This is the story of a city in Naples, Lotto Valentino. In particular, three students who are learning alchemy at a secret library: Huey, Elmer, and Monica Campanella. And let me say this: they are written as the OT3 you never knew you wanted.

The subtitle is, of course, a take on the 70s band ELO, aka the Electric Light Orchestra. No, Monica’s not the meek-looking brunette in the foreground; that’s Niki, a teenage girl and slave who spends most of the book awaiting her longed-for death, only to run into the power of Elmer and decide to live a little longer after all. Monica’s the blonde inn the background. You get the sense that Narita may have had the idea of Niki and Elmer as a beta couple to Huey and Monica, only to find that he simply could not remove Elmer from their orbit. I was rather startled to see how much of this book read like a genuine rom-con, and even the darker moments are about “will you still love me if you find out my SECRET” stuff. These are three adorable kids who, well, hate the world and want to destroy it in many ways. Elmer isn’t quite like that, but it’s clear that if it would make everyone smile, he’d be totally fine with the world’s destruction as well. Cute broken kids.

There are other things going on in the book, of course. Huey’s past is told via flashback and is a tragic nightmare, revolving around the just-dying out practice of witch-hunting in Europe. Monica’s is barely touched on, and I suspect we may go into it more in the next book. And Elmer’s is also just barely touched on, likely as it would simply be TOO horrific to do anything but merely glance at it. Remember, none of these folks are immortal yet (except, oddly, their teachers, who seem to be immortal from some other source than the one we know), so bad, permanent things can still happen to them. There’s a woman-loving Count who is an odd combination of Isaac Dian and Chikage from Durarara!!. There’s also a young gang member named Aile, who seems familiar but we’re not sure how familiar till the end. This book is a great example of why you shouldn’t read this series in chronological order by date. And a main plotline that reminds me a bit of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.

The end of the book really makes you want to see the ongoing adventures of Huey, Monica and Elmer, which is why I hate to break it to you, but we’re jumping forward again. This time we go all the way to 2002, to see Firo and Ennis’ long-awaited (no, seriously, very, very long awaited) honeymoon on a luxury liner. Surely nothing can possibly go wrong!

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!: Crimson Fate

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By 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.

This is another one of those books where the last sixth or so of the novel completely dwarfs everything that comes before it, so let’s use the time before the cover art to talk about the rest of it. Despite wanting to hang around the mansion and do nothing aside from get involved in wacky binding adventures with Darkness, Kazuma is coerced into going to a nearby castle that is beset by another Demon General. This one seems familiar to Kazuma, as he’s seen her before in the hot springs about five books ago. She’s also very familiar to Megumin and Yunyun, for backstory reasons that drive a lot of the plot. The demon general keeps blowing up the castle every day with Explosion. Fortunately, they have Aqua’s extraordinary public works gifts (no, really, not making a joke here) and also the ability to beat her at her own game. But whose Explosions are best? And oh yes, will Megumin find time to confess?

I’ve always been impressed with Konosuba, despite the occasional murmur of other girls, keeping itself to a simple love triangle. Megumin and Darkness both love Kazuma, despite his… well, Kazuma-ness. That said, one of these girls is MUCH MORE POPULAR among fans than the other. And it has to be said, at a base personality level that leaves out eccentricities, Megumin and Kazuma are the most compatible and similar. Here she does confess, and though there’s no kiss there’s a little snuggling. He also says he loves her back, but she accurately points out this is because he doesn’t want to upset her, and his own feelings are somewhat ambiguous. I was very amused by his apologizing to all the other waffling harem protagonists he always yelled at for not jumping the girl’s bones in manga he read. I also liked Megumin and Darkness inviting him to wash their backs at one point knowing he’s never going to actually do it.

ARE they now together? Well, Kazuma is wondering that himself at the end of the book. The author, though, implies that they plan to put romance on the back burner for the next volume, so it might be a while before we see any further development here, and in any case, few people are reading KonoSuba primarily for the sweet romantic bits. This isn’t good news for Darkness, though she does get an extended scene at the start of the book, possibly to apologize for doing almost nothing else the rest of the book. Darkness is Kazuma’s “type” more than Megumin, but her own eccentricities, i.e her masochism, is much more difficult to turn off than Megumin’s chuuni behavior, so a realistic relationship doesn’t seem in the cards. As for Aqua, once again the story emphasizes how they’re like brother and sister and not romantic. Which, honestly, thank God. That said, Aqua’s skills at building walls in this book may be the best part of the volume. Stop being a goddess, become a foreman!

As with the last book, this one ends with a cliffhanger where Princess Iris writes to say that she’s being married off. No way Kazuma lets that happen. In the meantime, enjoy a very good KonoSuba volume, essential for Megumin fans.

Fate/Grand Order: mortalis:stella, Vol. 1

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By Type-Moon and Shiramine. Released in Japan by Ichijinsha, serialized in the magazine Comic Zero-Sum. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Kevin Gifford.

Sometimes you really have no choice but to do a series of spinoffs. Fate/Grand Order is huge, the visual novel/game that everyone is playing on their phone or tablet these days. Well, everyone but me, of course, as while I started it, and liked the visual novel aspects, the”pick these cards and see if you win” part drove me nuts. That said, I like to think I have enough of a passing familiarity with Fate in general that I’d have no issues with this. It does approximately the right things, adapting the start of the game, where you as a player (you’re male in this adaptation, because in general Fate adaptations don’t go the yuri route) arrive at a top secret facility for a top-secret mission, assisted by your new friend and possible love interest Mash. Sadly, halfway through the book everything blows up and you end up in a Fuyuki that’s had the Grail War go horribly wrong. Unfortunately, this is also about where the manga loses me as well.

Some of the problems seem to be things I suspect I’d have issues with in the original as well. Mash is a fairly passive, bland female protagonist, some of which is explained seemingly by her origins, but we don’t really get into those here. She turns out to be a Servant of some sort, but doesn’t seem to be the Saber or Archer sort. She needs the sort of development that you get in a visual novel which can use 20 hours of text to go deeper, and she’s not getting that here. Likewise Ritsuka is a ‘you are the player’ sort of protagonist, which means that he’s also fairly bland, as PCs never have much personality so that the reader/player can overlay themselves on them. He’s sort of Shirou-esque at times, minus the complete lack of self-worth. Perhaps most aggravatingly, a death scene that I think is meant to be both horrifying and tragic is so confusing, and the person being killed got so little attention, that it ended up being “what just happened?” more than anything else. Sorry about the black hole, Olga. Whatevs.

It’s not all bad, of course. Lancer is here and is awesome, though amusingly he’s not Lancer, but Caster. (I suppose I should call him Cu Chulainn instead, really.) He grumbles several times about this totally not being a class he’s best at, and I can’t blame him really. On the bright side, he’s also missing Lancer’s tremendously bad luck stat, meaning he’s allowed to be competent and do things. It’s also nice to see Archer (erm, EMIYA, I guess) and Saber Alter (Arturia Alter?), who are there to show off that this is a Fuyuki gone wrong. And we get the first of the main reason a lot of people play Fate/GO, which is too see famous historical figures as hot babes. Leonardo da Vinci is pretty hot. Honestly, if this were 9-10 volumes long, like Fate/Zero or Stay Night, I’d be more inclined to cut it some slack. But it ends in Vol. 2, and as a result I’m not even sure it was worth starting. Play the game instead.

An Archdemon’s Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride, Vol. 7

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By Fuminori Teshima and COMTA. Released in Japan by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

As the author indicates in the afterword, this series has gotten reasonably successful, to the point where they can now plan foreshadowing and deeper plots for future volumes. It also means that they can afford to have the cast simply hanging out on the beach for half the book as well. We get lots of swimsuit watching, everyone goes deep-sea fishing, there’s a barbecue, there’s yukatas, and everyone has lots of fun watching Chastille and Barbatos be the worst Ranma and Akane ripoff ever. Yes, it’s all fun and games till someone loses an eye… that someone being a mysterious man who has been going around killing archdemons (well, an archdemon) and has now decided he wants to go after Zagan using the strength of his mighty fists and the power of his mystical silver cursed eye giving him tons of mana. Unfortunately for him, Zagan has both of those to spare. Fortunately, there are a few additional twists and turns to help the story along its merry path.

Zagan’s past has always been given to us in dribs and drabs, but we get a lot more of it now than we did before, including mention of other kids on the streets he was living with in his pre-archdemon days (stories of which seem to reduce his entourage to tears). And I hate to spoil things, but if you’re surprised you haven’t read too many light novels; it turns out those same kids may now be getting involved with his life as adults! One is a older brother figure wearing glasses, so he has to be a Big Bad going down the road. The other is more of a spoiler I won’t give away, but I was very impressed with how the author handled it, making it obvious to the reader just before the actual revelation, in the best mystery tradition, though this isn’t much of a mystery. We also meet a new Archangel who helps us to understand that the relationship between the Church and the Archdemons is not nearly as cut and dry as some people think it is, and they also provide the best battle scene in the book.

Nephy and Zagan both mention in this volume how much they’ve changed since they first met, and it’s a good reminder that in Vol. 1 Zagan was stiff and sullen and inclined to brutally murdering bandits in front of young women just because he didn’t really think much of it, while Nephy was a death-seeking stoic who was an abuse survivor. It’s quite heartwarming to see how far they’ve come, even though they STILL have not gone on a cliched love-ydovey date the way that Zagan really wants, nor has their relationship advanced physically. Still, they’re way ahead of Chastille and Barbatos, who are trapped at the “embarrassment = love” stage of things, or Richard (assistant to Chastille) and Nephteros, in the “hopeless suitor” stage. They’re still the best couple to watch.

The final scene implies that future volumes may get darker. That said, I suspect they won’t get that dark. We know why readers want to read this series, and it can be summed up in one word: ‘D’awww!’.

No Guns Life, Vol. 1

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No Guns Life is a textbook example of  “robo noir,” a story that borrows tropes from Double Indemnity and The Maltese Falcon and transplants them to a not-too-distant future where old and new technologies rub shoulders, and damsels in distress might, in fact, be androids. The hero is Juzo Inui, a bodyguard-for-hire who has a strong moral code and an aversion to “humidity and kids.” Like the cyborg clientele he serves, Juzo’s body has been cybernetically enhanced, his head replaced with a giant revolver. Yes—you read that right. Juzo’s head can fire a round of ammunition, a creative decision that skirts the line between funny and horrific; only Juzo’s strong moral code makes the gun-as-head concept palatable.

And speaking of that moral code, volume one focuses on Juzo’s efforts to honor a contract with a fellow cyborg. That cyborg shows up at Juzo’s office with a 12-year-old boy in tow and a request: hide the boy from the Berühen Corporation, a powerful organization that manufactures top-secret weapons. With the police and Berühen’s goons on his trail, Juzo stashes Tetsuro with his friend Mary, a back-alley surgeon, and sets out to discover why Tetsuro is such a hot commodity.

While Juzo’s exploits are entertaining, No Guns Life is a mixed bag. On the plus side, the story is briskly paced and well drawn; Tasuku Karasuma creates a strong sense of place in his establishing shots, drawing a sprawling modern city that still has hole-in-the-wall office buildings, dingy basements, and crowded tenements, all populated by characters with memorable mugs. On the minus side, the story traffics in cliches, from the beautiful assassin who carries out her duties in a skimpy costume to the villains who deliver lengthy, exposition-dense monologues before pulling the trigger. The fight scenes, too, leave something to be desired; there are too many flash-boom panels that bury the action under sound effects and speed lines, leaving the reader to guess what’s happening. None of these shortcomings are fatal, but they emphasize the fact that No Guns Life is chiefly memorable because the protagonist looks like a Second Amendment poster boy, not because the story has something new to say about the boundaries between man and machine, or the ethics of human experimentation.

The bottom line: Fans of the anime will probably enjoy No Guns Life, but readers versed in sci-fi and noir conventions may find it too pedestrian to make a lasting impression.

A review copy was provided by VIZ Media, LLC. Volume one will be released on September 17, 2019. Read a free preview here.

NO GUNS LIFE, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY TASUKU KARASUMA • TRANSLATED BY JOE YAMAZAKI • VIZ MEDIA • RATED T+, FOR OLDER TEENS (VIOLENCE, SCANTILY CLAD WOMEN) • 248 pp.

Ascendance of a Bookworm: I’ll Do Anything to Become a Librarian!, Part 1: Daughter of a Soldier, Vol. 3

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By Miya Kazuki and You Shiina. Released in Japan as “Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen” by TO Books. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by quof.

Tempting as it is to have the series be 20+ volumes of Myne and Lutz sitting around and making paper, it’s no surprise that we’re going in a different direction. More accurately, the moment that Myne found out there was an easier way to get at books, she was going to go after it no matter what. Of course, Myne being Myne, she chooses the one thing that will upset everyone, as the way to get to books is to become a shrine maiden at the local temple… which is composed mostly of orphan children abandoned by society who are worked to death. No wonder the family is against it. But of course, this is the thing. Myne is weak. Even after a temporary cure of the Devouring (though it’s just putting it off), she’s still really, really weak. So honestly, provided she gets some leverage, shrine maiden might be a perfect job for her. Fortunately, finding leverage is what Myne is all about.

I will admit that I wish the religion had been given a bit more emphasis in earlier volumes. As it is, it feels like the Church comes up right about when the plot requires it to. It at least gets a bit of development, with a nice story about how the Gods work, and a prayer pose that unfortunately looks like a very popular Japanese meme image, causing Myne to lose it with laughter during her own baptism. (It also provided the inside color image, because really it deserved illustration.) On the same note, Myne finds out more information about The Devouring right when the plot requires it as well – there doesn’t seem to be a taboo on discussing it, so it’s a mystery as to why Myne just now finds out that it’s due to too much mana inside her. It is clever to show that the only reason she hasn’t died yet is due to the reincarnated memories, which allow her more adult brain to control it better.

There is, believe it or not, an actual action sequence in this very inactive light novel series, as when Myne shows up with her parents to the temple, the bishop has an attitude of “we’re taking your daughter forever now, goodbye”, and gets upset when both she and her family refuse. This allows her father to kick ass and take out several priests at once, in a sequence that would be ridiculous if it lasted any longer than the two paragraphs it does. Likewise, Myne had better start learning how to control her Devouring/mana, as in her rage she ends up nearly killing the Bishop for attacking her family. It’s a startling scene. That said, it does given Myne the leverage she was seeking out, and fortunately the High Priest is a lot more sensible than the Bishop.

So Myne is off to the Temple, but can still see Lutz and her family and innovate. Oh, and she gets to be treated like a noble shrine maiden, not a slave shrine maiden. And, most importantly, BOOKS! But will it really be that easy? We’ll find out in the next arc of Bookworm, which seems to be four books long.

Star Blazers 2199: Space Battleship Yamato, Vol. 1

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By Michio Murakawa, originally written by Yoshinobu Nishizaki. Based on the series created by Leiji Matsumoto. Released in Japan as “Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2199” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Newtype Ace. Released in North America by Dark Horse Comics. Translated by Zack Davisson.

I was very much of two minds about this modern reboot of the classic 70s space opera. On the one hand, it does everything that you’d want to have done in a retelling updating Matsumoto to the 21st century. The character development gains greater depth, there’s more room for the story to breathe, there are significant female characters (and some of them aren’t even blondes!). It’s pretty good. On the other hand, it does everything you’d expect to have done in a retelling as well. The relationship between Mori and Kodai reminds me of Ranma and Akane at times, and Mori reads far more like a tsundere than I’d really want. There’s also a lot of really gratuitous fanservice, including many, many ass shots of the female cast, and one bizarre moment when they go through warp that is supposed to show it’s a mental experience as well but also mostly shows off naked breasts for the crew. So it’s pretty good, but there are issues.

The basic plot is the same as the original. The Earth is under attack from the alien Gamilans, who have basically destroyed Earth. Fortunately another alien race, the Iscander, are offering hope for the ever-popular in SF faster-than-light drive. The trouble is getting there… and that’s why we have the Yamato and its motley crew (a bit less motley in this version as it’s not being drawn by Matsumoto). We’ve got Admiral Okita, who is as good as ever as being “top Naval commander”. We’ve got crack pilot Susumu Kodai and his best friend Daisuke Shima. We’ve got Yuki Mori, who gets off to a bad start with Kodai but also has “love interest” written all over her. But there’s also a bunch of new characters, most of the notable ones women. Niimi seems like “the smart one”, the nurse Harada, who serves as a combination of comedy relief, fanservice, and romantic shipper. There’s Yamamoto, another hotshot pilot sort. And there’s also the robot, though as of yet he’s not as fun as the original.

There are lots of nice shots of space and the Yamato traveling through it, though we don’t get pages and pages of it the way the original series did. Those pages are taken up by plot and characterization, and it’s up to the reader to determine if they make the remake better or worse. I’d say “different”. Certainly I do feel like continuing the story, and I love seeing these characters all over again. It just lacks the space opera grandeur of the original – it’s not as operatic as Matsumoto at his best. But it’s also a lot longer than the original manga, so we’ll see what direction it decides to take its story in the future.

Combatants Will Be Dispatched!, Vol. 1

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By Natsume Akimoto and Kakao Lanthanum. Released in Japan as “Sentouin, Hakenshimasu!” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Noboru Akimoto.

Sometimes you can have an isekai without all of that pesky dying and being reincarnated, or being transported to another world by a magic spell. It’s as easy as making the “fantasy world” on another planet, and having our heroes sent to it to see if it can be taken over… erm, colonized. That’s the basic premise of this series, which features the nameless Combat Agent Six and his android partner Alice Kisaragi sent via a teleport (that is totally tested and functional, honest) to a planet that is apparently dealing with a demon lord invasion. On the one side we have the kingdom of Grace, with knights, princesses, castles, etc. and the demon lords, who have golems and are your standard demonic types. On the other side we have Six, Alice, and their newly befriended band of misfits… erm, crack squad, and modern weaponry. Oh, yes, and one other thing that should be noted: Six and Alice work for an evil organization, and can only get weapons and equipment by doing evil acts.

Actually, one other thing should be noted: this is by the author of KonoSuba. Actually, it was written online before Konosuba, and picked up by Kadokawa after the latter’s success as a light novel/manga/anime franchise. This means, needless to say, that the best reason to get this is the comedy. It’s not a full-on parody like KonoSuba, but the humor tends to be along the same lines. (Actually, the humor can sometimes, like KonoSuba, cross a line or two – I was not all that pleased with the “take photos of the evil sorceress in a certain pose” moment, even if it’s a PG-rated version of same.) The cast may also ring a bell as well – Six is not that far from Kazuma, and Snow is basically what would happen if Aqua and Darkness had a kid. There’s a lot of great humor, provided you don’t mind the cast all being horrible people to one degree or another.

The best reason to get the book is the bantering relationship between Six and Alice. Like Kazuma and Aqua, there’s no real romantic tension between these two. Instead, they function as snark factories, ready and willing to tear down anything for the sake of evil and/or their own amusement. The other good reason to get this is the few moments when the protagonists are allowed to be cool. Because it’s not a parody like KonoSuba, the cool moments are allowed to exist without getting undercut, and actually impressed me a bit, even when they were also hilarious (Rose and Grimm’s “you shall not pass!” moment, the land mine trap, the chainsaw ending). There’s also some nice character development for Snow, who is arrogant and sword-obsessed but also has something of a righteousness to her, which contrasts well with Six, who is supposedly working for an evil organization but relies on petty, assholish acts to cover up the fact that he can’t be REALLY evil when it counts.

The color pages note that Snow is “this volume’s heroine”, so I expect the next book will focus on either Rose, a chimera girl who’s trying to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps, or Grimm, an archbishop of death who actually uses a wheelchair most of the book – something rarely seen in a light novel. (Yes, she can on occasion get out of it, but for the most part really does need it.) A must-read for KonoSuba fans, and those who enjoy comedy light novels and don’t mind characters whose default is “jerK” will also be happy.