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Reviews

The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 12

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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.

This is a stronger volume of Devil Is a Part-Timer! than the previous one, probably because the previous one got all the exposition out of its system in one gulp. Actually, the theme of this new volume could be avoiding exposition, as both Emilia and Maou do their absolute best to not talk to Laila and avoiding knowing why it is they’re the only ones who can save the world this time. In practice, this means this is a “downtime’ volume, though there is an exciting battle in a subway tunnel in the middle of the book. For the most part, though, Emi is still shattered by the last book, to the point where she runs away to a minor character’s home for college advice. Maou is just trying to get the new delivery program at MgRonald’s in gear. And Chiho should be pleased that Emi and Maou are finally acting closer, but this is offset by her realizing that she’s in a shonen love triangle where she’s the sweet girl who doesn’t get the guy but finds new confidence so that’s OK. Which does not sit well with her.

That’s Laila on the cover, but I get the feeling it’s meant to be what Emi and Maou think she’s doing in this book, rather than her real personality. Laila is genuinely trying to save the world, but seems to be making a lot of incorrect assumptions as well, not least of which is “this is for a good cause so my daughter who I have been manipulating her entire life and the boy I helped before he was a demon king will totally be into it”. But sometimes world-saving is goddamn exhausting, and after getting kidnapped/rescued and learning some nasty truths about heaven and Enta Isla, neither Emi or Maou really wants to deal with it right now. Probably the best scene in the book (and the author knows it, as the other characters praise him for it as well) is Maou talking about assuming that the strongest person will always be there to protect and save. If you have something made of steel, does that mean it’s OK to beat the crap out of it?

There’s also the romantic dynamics here. This series has been pretty good at keeping the romance there but on a low boil. Chiho has confessed to Maou (though he’s pretty much ignored that) and everyone can see how she feels. Suzuno is starting to realize that she may have feelings for Maou, though is very reluctant to admit it. And Emi, while not quite admitting that she’s in love with Maou yet, is willing to admit that she sometimes wants to be protected, and is OK if the person doing it is him. She even hugs him! (He does not hug her back. Maou still seems to be baffled by the concept of loving and being attracted to someone.) Unfortunately, both this and the main plot collide at the end, as due to a deal made between Maou and Laila, Emi is now refusing to leave his side, much to everyone’s horror.

That said, she can’t keep running from her problems forever. I suspect the next volume will have more details on how we’re going to save the world next. But for now, enjoy Maou reminding folks that heroes and villains need downtime too.

The Quintessential Quintuplets, Vol. 1

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By Negi Haruba. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Steven LeCroy.

Deserved or not, it has to be said that sometimes Kodansha in Japan has a certain reputation for making series that are very similar to series published by other publishers. The most obvious example is Fairy Tail, which is “Kodansha’s One Piece”, but there are a few others. So when Shueisha started releasing a series in Weekly Shonen Jump about a poor high school student who is blackmailed into tutoring a bunch of eccentric, mistrusting but gorgeous young women (We Never Learn), I raised an eyebrow when I saw that Shonen Magazine, precisely six months later, has debuted this title, in which a poor high school student who is blackmailed into tutoring a bunch of eccentric, mistrusting but gorgeous young women. (It’s also not hard to think of Araragi from the Monogatari series when looking at Futaro, and I think the author was on the short list of manga artists considered for that adaptation.) That said, unoriginal does not equal bad, and I found the first volume of this series enjoyable enough, though these girls are VERY mistrusting.

Futaro is our hero, a somewhat misanthropic young man who gets excellent grades but has a “loner” personality. His family is in debt, which may explain why he’s so gloomy, though his bubbly younger sister seems fine with it. He’s told that he can get his family out of debt by tutoring some girls, all of whom with grade issues, from his school. Imagine his surprise when he finds that one of them is the new transfer student he met the previous day. In fact, all these girls seem familiar… that’s right, they’re quintuplets, all in the same school, having left their previous school for low grades. And they are all pretty low. How he has to figure out a way to teach them so they retain it, while also dealing with the fact that they’re either unmotivated, airheaded, stubborn, or just plain malicious. Is there any way he can do this?

Well, we know the answer to that one right away – the manga debuts with a flashforward to the wedding of Futaro and…. one of the quintuplets. They look very alike, and sometimes try to “switch” to another sibling to fool Futaro, so there’s no guarantee that it’s Itsuki he’s marrying simply because she’s the first one that he meets. (That said, this is a shonen romantic comedy, where “first girl wins” holds quite a lot of weight.) Actually, the bulk of the character development in this first book goes to Miku, the middle sister, who’s the “quiet one” of the siblings and also has an obsession with the Warring States period. This allows Futaro to figure out a way to tutor her, and they bond a bit. Others may prove harder. Futaro getting literally drugged into unconsciousness by Nino, the angriest of the five sisters, was going a bit too far for me.

If you like reading shonen romantic comedies and arguing about who is “best girl”, well, we have five siblings who look a lot alike but have differing personalities, so you should have a lot of fun here. That said, this seems like the sort of series that gets better in future volumes. This was an okay start, but only okay. It has several more volumes out digitally, though, and is getting an anime soon.

Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!, Vol. 5

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

There is something going on with this series that I absolutely love, that’s gotten stronger with each volume. We see Mile and the rest of the Crimson Vow, who have awesome strength and abilities and are a fantastic party. And throughout the book, we see everyone trying to find ways to use that to further their own agenda. And every time – Every Single Time – they are frustrated and anguished as our heroines shut everyone down and continue doing what they want to do. It’s fantastic, especially since so many of these folks eyeing the Crimson Vow are young guys thinking “ehehehe, cute young girls of marriageable age”. We even get it contrasted with a plotline about an inn being run by three young (very young – more on that later) girls who end up with husbands (mostly). The Crimson Vow, minus Mile, are all able to understand the romantic subtext, but just are not looking for that in their life right now. Mile, meanwhile, is Mile.

The start of the book features a moment we’ve been waiting for, as Mile’s main friends go back to her old kingdom and meet her emergency backup friends, which is to say Marcela and company. The main chapters give a fun and emotional reunion. An extra side story turns everything very ridiculous, as Reina and company have to battle against Marcela and company to see who gets custody of Mile. Once Mile realizes that’s what this is about she gets really angry, but till then it’s really quite funny, showing off the old cast vs. the new cast in very amusing ways. There’s two other big stories that take up the rest of the book. The first has the group hired to try to find spices for a gourmet restaurant, and Mile deciding to simply make her own capsaicin. PURE capsaicin. The other involves two warring inns…. well, one inn in trouble and another that wants to help but can’t because of stubbornness.

It is mentioned several times that the age of “I am an adult” is far younger here, i.e. it’s ten years old. Which makes sense in a fantasy sort of way, but I do mention it as we are seeing a lot of 15-16 year old girls discussing marriage, and some here who are about eight talking about getting engaged. In fact, time does seem to be passing and things actually happening here. In addition to trying to track down those excavating the past (which provides us with the cliffhanger), Mile finds out that her old kingdom has executed or exiled those responsible for her original fate, and they are in fact actually trying to find her… again, so that she can be elevated to a title and married off. Responsibilities for young women are never far away from everyone’s thoughts. But Mile, Reina, Mavis and Pauline want to carve out their own path before settling down, and that path does not involve marrying a lord and stopping. This is a series that moves.

I didn’t mention the humor this time, but there are tons of funny moments, mostly involving Pauline, who gets humiliated a lot but also seems to be a few steps away from becoming a supervillain, so it balances out. Anyone who likes seeing young women kick ass and gales of laughter should be seeking this series out.

I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, Vol. 3

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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 Taylor Engel

For all that the premise of this book is about a girl who likes to take things easy and relax, they sure do a hell of a lot. But that’s where the humor comes into play, of course. The only thing relaxed about Azusa’s life is her general attitude and desire to simply live in her cottage. What actually happens? Well, OK, the cookie baking battle seems to fit in nicely. But then one of her daughters is stuck as a slime, leading to a big adventure to try to fix things, which includes a martial arts tournament. Then a fake witch is abusing the name of the Witch of the Highlands, forcing Azusa to track her down and find out why it’s happening. Even a barbeque party, which you’d think would be as peaceful as the cookie baking, involves killing off masses of dangerous boar animals – and teaching dragon girls that nudity is not OK. There’s a lot going on here.

There is more of what I enjoy about the series in this volume (some great humor, “found family” affection) and less of what I don’t like (Halkara’s clumsiness and jokes about her chest – well, OK, there’s some of those). There’s also still a large amount of yuri subtext, though it’s not going anywhere as Azusa really isn’t interested. It’s heavily implied most everyone who lives in the house – and even some who don’t – love her romantically, but she seems to be a) straight, and b) mostly indifferent anyway. Actually, that may be by design – when we meet another long-lived witch, and discuss the loneliness that happens when you outlive everyone around you, Azusa strongly implies that she’s deliberately suppressing all her emotions in order to not be affected by this. It helps that she’s made several long-lived girls part of her family (or ghosts, as the case may be), but I do wonder if it will come up again in the future.

Frankly, though, I’m happy with Azusa being relatively subdued and snarky – except in her head, when the tsukkomi comes across much louder. We get a lot more memories of her previous life on Earth, both from her wageslave days and her school life (she brags about her ping ping club skill… which proves to be a mistake against two dragons she describes as being “classic high school jocks”. There’s a bit more development of the others, particularly the dragons and Beelzebub the Demon Lord, who isn’t living with Azusa but might as well be for how often she pops up. There’s also some examination of modern Japanese foibles, as we get a fantasy undead who’s also a NEET, and the “fake witch” trying to get people to praise her by a method so oblique that it feels a little ridiculous.

If “my pace” heroines drive you nuts, steer clear. But however much Azusa may not want it to, things are happening in this series. Just… very slowly and leisurely.

Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 15

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Yona of the Dawn, Volume 15 by Mizuho Kusanagi

This story arc of Yona of the Dawn examines issues of geopolitics and addiction, along with Yona’s growth into someone who inspires others to do their their best. Yona gets injured defending her new friend Riri. Sinha appears just in time to rescue her, and as she recuperates Hak is constantly by her side. Yona being Yona, as soon as she is slightly mobile she decides to continue her mission to track down the source of the drug trade that is decimating the Water Tribe. Seeing Yona’s determination, Riri challenges herself to do what she can as well, stealing her father’s seal of authority and traveling to the coastal city of Sensui. Riri’s overtures of friendship to Yona as they part ways are adorably awkward, as she shoves a box of sweets at Yona and attempts to help her with her sash.

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One of the reasons why I like Yona of the Dawn so much is the way Kusanagi builds in short character development moments into a larger, more complex story. Seeing Riri on her own standing up for what she believes in shows the depth of Yona’s influence. Jaeha has a few quiet moments with Yona that show how much of his breezy womanizing persona is actually an act. The larger conflict between Yona and Su-Won appears again, as their paths continue to intersect as Yona’s actions on behalf of the people intersect with his travels through his kingdom. Kusanagi is building up to a dramatic confrontation, and while I have no doubt that Yona and her companions will eventually leave the country of the Water Tribe in better shape than it was when they arrived, seeing the pathway to fixing the problems of the people is what makes this series so consistently interesting.

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!: 110-Million Bride

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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.

For all that KonoSuba is occasionally called a harem manga, it’s more clearly a love triangle. And having given Megumin her due again in the 5th book, we’re back to focusing on Darkness, who is dealing with the realities of being the daughter of a noble. As the title may imply (it’s a parody of the “My Bride Is a Mermaid” series), she’s getting married off in order to clear a family debt, one that hearkens back to events of the previous books. This is actually very well handled, as it looks more closely at the “we saved the world but there was massive property damage” trope from various fantasy titles. Knowing Darkness’ sense of duty, it’s no surprise that her first thought is to sacrifice herself for the sake of everyone else. Of course there’s no way that Kazuma is going to let her get away with… oh, he’s sulking. OK, he may actually let her get away with it. Fortunately, Megumin and Aqua are on the case. (Fortunately?)

Before the wedding, Darkness is trying other avenues to earn cash, including taking out a hideously dangerous (and thus high bounty) monster, which naturally likes to attack and eat people, leading to Kazuma dying – again. This helps to emphasize something that we saw in the previous book – Kazuma and his partners work better in a large group than they do as a quartet. Unfortunately, this also means the reward is divided among various adventurers, so she has to go through with the wedding. Which is, naturally, to the evil Lord we’ve seen before, who is pretty much the bad guy behind nearly everything in the series. To Kazuma’s credit, he does try to rescue her from this plight, at first, but he simply cannot resist running his mouth off, which leads to a fight, which… well, you know. Kazuma.

This is one of those books that’s all about the climax, though. It’s also very much about Darkness’ specific masochism fetish, which is on display throughout the book. It can be very difficult for both her and Kazuma to draw a line between “you are being mean and embarrassing me and I find it really arousing” and “you are being mean and embarrassing and I am pretty furious”, and after the events of this book, I don’t think either one has really gotten closer to figuring out where that line is. In terms of the reader and KonoSuba’s sense of humor, though, nothing can quite top Kazuma’s declaration that she’s his property now and he plans to use her body to the fullest. This is in the middle of the wedding, and is essentially followed up by Darkness having an orgasm. It’s strangely heartwarming too, in that KonoSuba way. Also heartwarming is the way that everyone in the town arrives to help Darkness.

This series has been very consistent lately, which I’m quite happy with. And the cliffhanger shows that Kazuma has finally figured out who Chris is, which is nice. The next volume seems to feature both Eris and Aqua, so I’m expecting less romantic comedy and more just plain comedy. KonoSuba will make any reader who likes funny stuff happy.

Ojojojo, Vols. 1-2

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By coolkyousinnjya. Released in Japan by Takeshobo, serialized in the magazine Manga Life. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Ben Robert Trethewey. Adapted by Clint Bickham.

Well, this was a pleasant surprise. We’ve seen a lot of this author’s works over here recently, including Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, which I dropped after a few volumes as I found it overrated, and Mononoke Sharing, which I didn’t like at all. Here, though, in a 4-koma series that lacks either monster girls or fanservice, I’ve found a series I can get behind. It helps that this handles the ‘4-koma slice of life’ genre very well. There’s always a danger in these sorts of titles that it will end up being plotless and lacking in forward motion, moving through the school year, festivals, etc. and ending up at graduation. Ojojojo, though, seems to actually care about character development, and things do, in fact, happen. Indeed, our leads end up dating by the end of the first book, which surprised me a great deal. That said, it’s not a surprise, as they complement each other perfectly.

…OK, perhaps they don’t complement each other perfectly immediately. As you can see by the cover, where they stand as far apart as they can and still exist, there’s a bit of awkwardness. This is because Haru Jikogumeguri (you can tell she’s rich because the name is *six* syllables) is socially inept and therefore acts like an arrogant rich princess, and Tsurezure Kawayanagi (who seems to be of modest status, despite also having a “rich” last name) is sopcially inept and therefore doesn’t really interact at all, preferring to stare at nature. When she transfers into his class, they bond almost despite themselves, and the joy of this book is watching the two of them grow close and learn how to communicate honestly. They’re helped by Akane Tendou, Haru’s first female friend in class and the relatively “normal” one of the group, Haru’s acid-tongued butler, and Chris, an English transfer student who has a similarly arrogant introduction as Haru did, but gets away with it more (probably as he’s a guy.)

Haru is the sort of arrogant rich girl you can’t help but love, especially once you get her semi-tragic backstory and see her earnest yet awful attempts to change her ways. The first volume is fairly normal 4-koma stuff, as we learn about our heroes via various quick gags and the occasional sweet moment. (The author says he planned to end it with the first book.) In the second half, he starts to deepen things, particularly the relationship between Haru and Akane, which turns out to involve a lot of misplaced guilt on Akane’s end. (The last name is a bit unfortunate – be assured she is not crossing over from Ranma 1/2.) By the end of the 2nd volume our leads have progressed to holding hands (which, given their personalities, is a big jump), and Chris is beginning to get over his own arrogance. There is one more omnibus to go, though, and since we know next to nothing about Tsurezure (who is unrelated to the Children of the same name, speaking of which) I suspect the next book will go into his past in an effort to move things along further.

Add to this next to no fanservice (Akane is jealous of Haru’s large chest at one point, but it’s a normal large chest, not the massive bosoms we see in Dragon Maid and Mononoke Sharing) and you have a title that’s a perfect introduction to casual fans who want to read a nice romantic comedy and don’t mind the “gag comic” format. A nice pleasant surprise.

Baccano!: 1934 Alice in Jails: Streets

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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.

At the end of this volume Narita announces that they’re making an anime (which we have all already seen, of course), and also that after a Prison volume consisting mostly of old favorites, the Streets book mostly features either new cast members or relatively new ones, such as Christopher. That said, while they may have been new to the reader, I’m sure that the anime watcher is finally relieved to see Gustav St. Germain, his assistant/student Carol, and Graham Specter, who were cameo’d in the last book but show up in a major way here. Narita wrote Gustav and Carol into the anime as bookends commenting on the story in a metatextual way, which fits with what they do, and Graham showed up in one of the OAVs, whose events are described here but not shown. Well, at least I assume that folks are enjoying Gustav and Carol. Graham has a few people who just don’t like him, and I get it – like many, many other Narita characters, he won’t shut up.

Miria is in the foreground of the cover, but doesn’t show up till the end of the book. Same with Huey, whose ominous face takes up the background on the left side. Instead we see Renee, who is introduced to us as almost a parody of the “dojikko” type – busty and gorgeous, but always tripping and bumping into people, and constantly apologizing. Of course, just as we were introduced to Elmer C. Albatross as a smiling, likeable guy and then realized that this was not really correct, it turns out that Renee, like Huey, who she seems to have a connection to, is a bit of a horrible monster. Graham, Gustav and Carol are on the cover as well, in addition to Christopher Shaldred, last seen getting the crap kicked out of him on the side of a building in The Slash. Turns out that had a big effect on him, so in the meantime he’s playing bodyguard to the heir to the Russo family, Ricardo, who turns out to also have some big secrets. Not pictured is Lua Klein, Ladd’s girlfriend, who the Russos have locked up, presumably as leverage. Given Lua’s ultra-passive personality, you’d think they could just tell her to leave, but she does make an effort to escape when it presents itself.

That said, though, I think the most important part of the cast (also not pictured) is Rail, also one of the Lamia/Larva group we’ve come to know, and (as all of them are) one of Huey’s homunculus experiments. Huey’s view of everyone as an experiment tends to dehumanize them, and Renee clearly feels the same way. Add this to their not being “born” the way normal humans are, and the horrific tortures they’ve been forced to undergo, and it’s no surprise that most of Lamia are a bit eccentric. Rail is not sure about such basic things as humanity, and the events in this book really don’t help. That said, the majority of this book, as with a lot of Narita’s works, is a big series of fights and battles, combined with explosions (Rail loves to use bombs, although they are apparently not as good as another bomber we’ve seen in this series).

At the end of the book Miria and Jacuzzi’s gang are back in Chicago, trying to meet up with Isaac, who can only afford rail fare to there. So no doubt Peter Pan in Chains will bring the old and new cast together for a big finale. In the meantime, despite being filled with new characters you’re still learning about, this is a typically fun volume of Baccano!.

My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong As I Expected, Vol. 6

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By Wataru Watari and Ponkan 8. Released in Japan as “Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabukome wa Machigatte Iru” by Shogakukan. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jennifer Ward.

This volume was pushed back a month or two, and when it finally did come out I didn’t have the time to read it except in short chunks. This is probably one of the reasons that I feel so exhausted after reading it, but the other is the subject matter. For a book that’s supposed to be a “romantic comedy”, which does have a generous helping of humor, it can be extremely depressing. It doesn’t help that this is exactly what the author is going for – after yet another problem is solved by Hachiman getting everyone to unite in hating him (and thus supporting the girl with the problem), his teacher reminds him that while Hachiman may not care about everyone’s bad feelings, there are others that worry about him. This includes her, as well as Yukino and Yui, but learning this lesson is, I think, going to take a few more volumes. Meaning that I may still be glum about this humorous series.

The subject of the book is the school’s Cultural Festival. Hachiman’s class is putting on a production of The Little Prince, which is not BL despite the best efforts of its adapter. Hachiman himself is on the festival committee, despite his best efforts, in the “Records and Miscellaneous” department, which rapidly becomes “defer everything we don’t want to do to here”. The supposed Festival Chairman is Sagami, a young woman with confidence issues who tries to get herself back in the “cool kids” group by taking this on, but in reality everything is being done by the vice-chairman, Yukino, almost to her physical and mental detriment, because since the chairman is flaking on things, everyone else decides to flake as well. And there’s also Yukino’s older sister lurking around the festival, making things worse in the way that only family can. Is this festival really going to be OK?

Well, yes, it pretty much is. There are no major festival disasters on this watch, mostly as Yukino is very good at organization (delegation, not so much). We are gradually seeing her warm up to a few people, particularly Yui, who remains the bright ball of sunshine in this series despite not having all that much to do in this book. The trouble, of course, is Hachiman, who once again narrates the book in a jaded, cynical and otaku-ish tone that serves to belie the fact that he really does care about these people and, when push comes to shove, wants to help them. But because of his self-image, he feels that it’s fine to solve a problem by throwing himself under the bus. Which is ironic, given how our three leads’ lives interacted at the start of the series. Despite being reminded that there are people who value him, the book ends with Yui taking a reluctant Yukino to the after party, while Hachiman resolutely doesn’t go.

I realize that once Hachiman learns from his past mistakes, we’re reaching the end of the series. And this is still very well written with interesting characters I want to see succeed. But man, it’s a slog, and right now I don’t really want either Yukino *or* Yui to end up with Hachiman. (There is a yuri fandom for it, right?) Definitely recommended for fans of the series, however.

Dr Stone, Vol. 2

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Dr. Stone Volume 2 by Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi

The second volume of Dr. Stone featured fewer scenes of crazy science action, but it did spend a more time on world building and setting up the conflict between the friends Senku and Taiju and newly revived but reactionary classmate Tsukasa. Senku is determined to push technology forward by manufacturing gunpowder, in order to give his group an advantage. The gunpowder sets off a plume of smoke which is answered by another smoke signal, indicating that the teenagers might not be alone in their post-apocalyptic world where everyone has been turned into stone.

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There was a flashback chapter showing Senku, Taiju, and Yuzuriha when they were young and pursuing Senku’s childhood dreams of rocketry. It was nice to see a glimpse of this mini friend group as little kids, and it played in well to how they work together to survive a hostile environment. Taiju and Yuzuriha have to figure out how to rescue their mad scientist friend, and we also get a glimpse of what Senku went through on his own, when he was the only human to wake up. There’s still plenty of dynamic science action in Boichi’s art, and while the second volume was a little less entertaining for me than the first simply because I was no longer as diverted by the initial premise of the manga, I’m curious to see how the conflict between Senku and Tsukasa is going to play out over the long term.

Female characters who exist mainly to be decorative and supportive is one of my shonen pet peeves, and at the end of this volume Dr. Stone seems to be heading in that direction. I’m not sure if all the genuinely enjoyable yelling about paleolithic science will be enough to offset those sort of plot developments, but I’ve liked the series so far.

Sword Art Online, Vol. 15: Alicization Invading

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By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

I was expecting that this volume would be a bit of a letdown after the highs of the previous work. Sadly, it’s even worse than I had anticipated: I actively don’t like this volume. Well, parts of this volume. We can divide the books events in half. Half of it involves Alice, having run away from the Integrity Knights at the end of the last book, living in the woods with Kirito, who is unresponsive and seemingly braindead. She’s struggling to find a purpose to fight, and various circumstances seem to give her that. This is not great writing, but it’s at least decent, and helps to set up the next couple of books. Alas, we then have the other half of the book. Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga discusses Shonen Power Creep, but there’s another aspect that Kawahara really suffers from, Shonen Villain Creep. Each villain has to be worse and more monstrous than the last one, doing even more evil things. So, ladies and gentlemen, meet Gabriel Miller.

Gabriel is introduced to us as a young corporate executive type, and we then flash back to his childhood, where he lived a comfortable life, met a nice sweet young girl to be his childhood friend, and then… well, Gabriel is a sociopath, like so many other of Kawahara’s villains, so you can probably guess. He’s part of a terrorist squad invading the ocean turtle, where Asuna and Kirito’s body are currently, in order to get the results of their experiments – Alice. He seems to regard humans and bugs exactly the same way, and is a thoroughly unpleasant individual. (He is assisted by another evil guy named Vassago, and I suspect that we may be familiar with him from previous volumes, though I will hold off till it’s confirmed.) Gabriel and Vassago are locked away from the Underworld, but they can still become “characters” in it. Which they proceed to do, as Gabriel is now the Demon Lord invading the human world.

The main problem with this book, and it’s teeth-grinding, is that half of it is from Gabriel’s POV. Given I already hate the way Kawahara writes villains, having to experience their thoughts for so long is unbearable. There’s also a couple of horribly violent deaths in the book, both women of course, there to make the reader feel sad and also make me wonder if the author had recently watched Se7en. (Speaking of which, Kawahara is rewriting his webnovel and editing it, and he changed events in Book 11 so that Ronie and Tiese are not, in fact, raped – however, dialogue towards the end of this book shows that he isn’t very good at cleaning up the mentions of it after the fact.) This may come as a surprise to the casual SAO fan, but I really miss Kirito’s POV here. Alice’s uncertainty and Gabriel’s loathsome villainy just make this book very hard to read. Oh yes, and Gabriel has also been in Gun Gale Online, and wants to do nasty things to Sinon as well. So that’s just great.

This was originally written when Kawahara was a much younger man, and it shows – it reads like the sort of thing an emo guy would write in order to be grim and gritty. The author, I think, realizes this – after the anime adaptation of Vol. 11, he publicly apologized for the rape scene, and said he wouldn’t write that sort of thing anymore. Unfortunately, it does mean we still have to plow through this book, which is filled with setup for cooler events to come, as well as appalling sadism. I won’t say to skip it, but you won’t enjoy it.

Dead Mount Death Play, Vol. 1

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By Ryohgo Narita and Shinta Fujimoto. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Christine Dashiell.

Sometimes you get so used to a specific author’s tropes and themes that you can tell from a cursory read that a work happens to be by that author. That said, it took a while for me to feel like this was written by Narita, the creator of Baccano! and Durarara!!. Starting in a fantasy world with a battle between a paladin and a skeleton lord is not really his deal, at least not in what we’ve seen over here. But once we move back to the modern world, and the “hero” starts describing people as toys? Once you see a sociopath who commits the most horrible crimes with a smile on her face? A ganster-like organization with a “family” feel and cops who are not afraid to use suspicious methods to get justice? Yeah, that’s Narita all right. Here he’s doing a “reverse isekai”, as the death lord from the prologue ends up inside the body of a young man in our world.

Polka is that boy, and his actual self seems to have been moved out of his own body so that the corpse lord can take it over. (It’s OK he ends up inside a plushie shark.) You worry Polka will start up his old ways, but it turns out he was a misunderstood corpse lord with friends who were killed because they associated with him, so it’s all good. Unfortunately, the real Polka has an assassin’s contract out for him, and the assassin, Misaki, is a smiling high school girl who is rather annoyed that the kid she stabbed through the throat sn’t dead. That said, she gets over it rather fast, especially once he kills and then revives her as a corpse – which, honestly, she’s much happier being. Along with a young man who doesn’t seem to leave his control room and communicates through drones, he’s here to figure out this magicless world, though he can still use plenty of magic.

Polka, in his “possessed” form, reminds me not a little of Huey Laforet, who also considers people his toys. That said, he’s not QUITE as morally nihilistic as Huey, and can tell right from wrong. Which is more than Misaki, who seems like what you’d get if you fused Anri from DRRR!! and Elmer from Baccano!, horrifying as that thought is. The rest of the cast are still unfolding, though the two police officers seem like they stepped off the pages of Gangsta. For the most part, this is a fun little action manga with a few mysteries, mostly content to coast along on mood. Be advised it’s a rated M title, though you get the sense that this is more the editors telling the creators “insert lesbian sex here” than any real plot relevance. It’s very Murcielago-ish in its lesbian sex scenes.

If you like DRRR!! and Baccano!, you’ll want to pick this up. Fans of reverse isekai and mindless sex and violence might also enjoy it.

Kagerou Daze VIII: Summer Time Reload

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By Jin (Shinzen no Teki-P) and Sidu. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kevin Gifford.

(This review gets even more spoilery than I normally do, FYI.)

I will admit, those who are only familiar with Kagerou Daze via the light novels themselves, rather than the franchise in general, may be a little dissatisfied with the ending. It’s not really that the villains win or even that most of the cast die, it’s that it all ends with a big old reset button. We tried a cool plan, it didn’t work, and so we’re going back to try something else – which, it turns out, they’ve been doing for a long, long time. Kagerou Daze is not a visual novel, but like Higurashi and Little Busters, it revolves around repeating a sequence of time to try and fix things. In the case of the light novel, things don’t get fixed. Oh, there are some survivors – the “side story” in this book deals with Seto and Marie after everything else has already happened, and Hibiya is still around as well – but no one really wins. Not even the villains.

That said, the novels are not all there is to Kagerou Daze. The books are based on a series of songs, and the final song in the “main” series, Summer Time Reload, is also the title of this book. It implies the majority of the cast survive, though they may forget about all this. There’s also the manga, which is just about to wrap up in Japan, and clearly tells a different version of events from the books and the songs. And there’s also the anime, Mekakucity Actors, which may annoy fans for various reasons, but also arguably provides the most closure. All the spinoffs are different kinds of flavoring to the main plot. Here, with prose, we get a lot of monologues showing off the emotional state of the cast – in fact, I would argue that Jin is better at this than he is at actual plotting.

There’s also an awful lot of shipping in this last volume, which surprised me. Kagerou Daze has a large shipping fandom – it’s got about 2.5K fics on Fanfiction.net – both het and otherwise. You don’t see much of the otherwise here, but other shippers should be pleased. Haruka clearly ships Shintaro and Ayano, and is visibly upset when their reunion in the Daze is less about “Sorry I forgot to say I love you before you killed yourself” and more “how do we stop the villains”. Hiyori, who I suspect the majority of readers may have forgotten about, pops in at the end too, and she’s just as tsundere as ever, though she does manage to spit out words very few tsunderes ever have. And the entire book is about Seto and Marry’s relationship, and how they’re family but also clearly want to have more, at least on his side. Sadly, his desire to protect is sort of destroying anything else they might have.

Jin’s afterword is very self-deprecatory, and I get that. These aren’t the best written books, especially in translation – there were several times when I could have used a “this character is now our narrator” slug at the top of the section. And Seto really did get the least focus of any character, coming off as a bit wet in the process. That said, in terms of emotion and character, Kagerou Daze was a fast favorite for me. The books make me want to listen to the songs, read the manga, and watch the anime all in a marathon. Which is all you can ask from a franchise spinoff.

Danganronpa 2: Ultimate Luck and Hope and Despair, Vol. 1

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By Spike Chunsoft and Kyousuke Suga. Released in Japan by Mag Garden, serialized in the magazine Beat’s. Released in North America by Dark Horse. Translated by Jackie McClure.

I tried to play the first DR game, but never got far due to frustration over a “gatcha” system giving you random pointless things. In other words, a typical game experience. I do know enough about the franchise, though, to know that the second in the series was more popular than the first, at least over here. As such, licensing the manga seems like a lock. That said, I think that once again this is a manga to read if you’ve already played the games – there’s very little help given to the newbie reader, and the character introductions come fast and furious. Given the large cast, and the complete lack of holdovers from the last game/manga (mostly), it’d normally be hard to get a handle on who we should be following. The player character is clearly Hajime Hinata, a weird fusion of Naegi and Kirigiri from the first series, but being a player character he’s pretty blank and dull. So the manga focuses instead on Nagito Komaeda, who… isn’t.

Danganronpa 2 takes place on an uncharted desert island, where the cast wake up after being in school previkously. They’re supposedly led by a rabbit bascot named Usami, but Monokuma quickly takes over by force and decides to restart the usual killing games. Quite how Monokuma’s mastermind is alive after the last game is not clear, but oh well. Everyone tries to make the best of it with a party, but midway through the power cuts out, and when the lights come back on, oh look, somebody’s stabbed. It’s Byakuya Togami who… seems different from the last time we saw him, and also a lot heavier. OK, frankly, the discerning reader knows it’s NOT Byakuya Togami, but as to why someone is impersonating him… we don’t really find that out either. There are very few answers in this book, but a lot of setup, and a lot of Komaeda. The conceit of this manga is that it’s from Komaeda’s “POV”.

Komaeda is a piece of work, and reminds me quite a bit off Izaya Orihara from the DRRR!! series. He says that he’s trying to prove that hope exists in a world of despair, but seems to want to accomplish this by getting everyone around him to despair and see if someone manages to beat him. He has a lot of “laughing crazy” faces too, as well as a heap of bromantic tension with Hajime. As for the rest of the class, so far there aren’t many standouts. One tanned athletic girl gives me memories of Aoi Asahina. There’s a nurse whose personality and looks are reminiscent of Hinata from Naruto, though Hinata never quite fell and exposed herself quite the way Mikan does constantly. (This seems to be a fanservicey running gag, and it’s awful, frankly. DR is still written for teenage boys in Japan, no matter how much ho yay may be in it.) And there’s a gamer girl who may be the Kirigiri to Hajime’s Naegi. But yeah, mostly still a faceless mass.

I believe this series is only three volumes in Japan, so I’m not expecting much in terms of coherence. That said, if you like Komaeda, it’s an easy purchase. He is all over this manga, and he is dramatic as fuck. Which is all the player wants, really.

Der Werwolf: the Annals of Veight, Vol. 2

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By Hyougetsu and Nishi(E)da. Released in Japan by Earth Star Entertainment. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen.

I’m always pleased when a second book in the series proves to be even better than the first, and that’s definitely the case with Der Werwolf. I enjoyed the first book quite a bit, but the second volume steps up its game, showing off Veight’s political and diplomatic skills in the first half, then pulling the rug out from under the reader with a plot twist I wasn’t expecting for a few more books yet. Perhaps best of all, there’s virtually none of the typical isekai cliches in this book – probably as the “I’m from Japan” part is still mostly irrelevant. There’s no gamer terminology, dungeon levels, and the romance is kept very much on the back burner – i.e. there isn’t any yet, though there’s clearly a few women who like Veight. Instead, we are simply reading a fantasy book. It reminds me a lot of The Faraway Paladin, and fans of one should enjoy the other.

At the start of this book, Veight is interested in expanding his allies on the Southern half of the continent, so reaches out to a pseudo-Arabian city along the coast. As with the first book, we occasionally get the viewpoints of other characters (though I wish they were marked off in the text a bit better – it can be tough to tell when we’ve left Veight’s viewpoint and when we return), and that helps here to show off the rock and the hard place that the other city is caught between, and also how Veight thinking that he’s being calm and reasonable is seen by other people as Veight being threatening and terrifying. In fact, there’s a running gag here, even more than the first book, of Veight saying he’s “just a vice-commander” and denying that he’s anything special, despite constant evidence to the contrary. It would be annoying if he were doing it deliberately, but he means it, so it’s just funny.

The second part of the book is much darker. We’d been introduced to the concept of a Hero arriving and challenging the Demon Lord at the start, but this proved to be a false lead (though it did get us another cute girl character, the stressed-out mage who can do illusion magic). Then a real hero does show up, and things go badly very quickly. It’s great to see how the concept of a hero here, in a book essentially narrated by “bad guys”, is that of a fiercely destructive force that none can stand against except the Demon Lord himself. Even more intriguing, there’s clear backstory between the hero and the Demon Lord, apparently involving a woman… but we never really get to find out what it is, except it’s made the hero hell bent on revenge. Actually, I’ll be honest here, I was expecting things to get even MORE dark, but thankfully things got a little better at the end, and Veight gets to go on being the most humble yet awesome vice-commander ever.

This is a pretty long-running series in Japan, so we have a ways to go. This pleases me, as reading these volumes is a treat. I highly recommend Der Werwolf to anyone who enjoys good light novel fantasy without the “light novel” cliches.