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Reviews

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer, Vol. 3

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By Yu Okano and Jaian. Released in Japan as “Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha” by Overlap, Inc. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Shirley Yeung.

Last time I complained about the dullness of Rentt’s POV, and though the cast remains as small as ever, it appears the author remains cognizant of it, as we get Rentt thinking about the fact that since he became undead, he’s become relatively flat and emotionless. Fortunately, though Rentt is still undead, he does level up a bit here, so at least we don’t have to read his halting, shambolic speech anymore in the second half of the book. In fact, I found the book very much felt like an inverted U as I read it. The middle two sections are easily the best, and I genuinely enjoyed them. I was not as enamored with the first section, which was essentially wrapping up events from the last book and meandered quite a bit, and the final section, which features far too many magic lessons. There are times when you can tell that the author is still learning the craft.

As I noted earlier, we pick up where we left off, with Rentt getting the flower that will help heal the woman in charge of the orphanage. While there, he meets an adventurer who turns out to be a butler (not named Sebastian, alas) and gets a request to visit the butler’s master… or mistress, as it turns out. This second section sees Rentt navigate a confusing hedge maze and then search through a pile of valuable magic artifacts for his “reward”, as well as making a contract to get more of that healing flower. Due to events in that section, Rentt is able to evolve further, becoming… sort of vampire-ish? He has bat wings, and is very pale. But he’s not QUITE exactly what the textbooks say, and he can still use his divinity, mana, etc. Finally, the young girl at the orphanage who hired Rentt to cure their caretaker is made a magic pupil of Lorraine’s, and she and Rentt attend a magic class which is made up of equal parts amusing pettiness and boring worldbuilding.

The best parts of the book are the ones where Rentt is allowed to wander outside the “boring old undead adventurer” narration. The sequence with the toy airship, and Rentt’s nerd infatuation with it, made me smile, and is absolutely terrific. That whole section was good, as Laura, the head of the family hiring Rentt, is intelligent and fun without being a brat (and knows the value of good tea). I also liked the aftermath of Rentt becoming a vampire-like being, as he and Lorraine take turns going over his body and exactly what he can and cannot do now. (I was disappointed that Lorraine didn’t ask if he was “fully functional”, so to speak, but then she seems just as shy as he is in many ways.) This was one of the sections where the worldbuilding and back and forth conversations worked quite well.

The end of this volume implies things may not go nearly as well for Rentt in the fourth volume, as we’re getting new characters who I suspect won’t take kindly to heroic vampire adventurers. That said, it may be a bit of a wait – the 4th volume is out in Japan in November, so I expect at least 3 or 4 months. Till then, The Unwanted Undead and Uneven Adventurer is still mostly keeping my attention.

Black Torch, Vol 1

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Black Torch, Vol 1 by Tsuyoshi Takaki

I was surveying my stacks of manga and decided that I needed to make more of an effort to get into the Halloween spirit. I figured that Black Torch was an ideal candidate since it features supernatural beings and a black cat, who is also a supernatural being. Spooky!

Jiro is the plucky protagonist of this manga, who has some unique abilities. He has the ability to talk to animals and is descended from a long line of ninjas. He also has absolutely no tolerance for animal cruelty, as the opening scene in the manga shows him driving of a gang that was bugging a stray cat and raven. Jiro’s Grandfather seems to mainly enjoy yelling at his grandson about ninja traditions. Jiro finds out about a cat in distress and goes to rescue it. He finds Rago, a demon (or mononoke) trapped in the form of a black cat. Jiro learns that Rago was caught up in a demonic struggle, and doesn’t remember all the details of his past. Jiro is determined to help Rago, even though the demon attempts to leave Jiro, he is relentless in his desire to help. This is one of the more endearing aspects of Black Torch, even though Jiro ends up getting trapped in a deadly mononoke battle. Rago and Jiro end up being fused together, as Rago goes to help his reckless ninja friend. There are elements that are somewhat predictable in most shonen manga, like a supernatural protection agency and the hints that Rago and Jiro will soon join a team fighting evil.

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The art in Black Torch has a slightly scratchy quality that I enjoyed. Rago’s surprised cat faces were hilarious, and when his mystical powers manifest in the form of swirling black tendrils surrounding his cat form, the effect is suitably dramatic and mystical. The action scenes are dynamic. While Black Torch doesn’t stray far from the typical shonen manga formula, Jiro’s devotion to animals, the odd couple relationship between him and Rago, and Rago’s hilarious cat expressions go pretty far in making it an enjoyable supernatural action manga.

Futaribeya: A Room for Two, Vol. 1

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By Yukiko. Released in Japan by Gentosha, serialized in the magazine Comic Birz. Released in North America by Tokyopop. Translated by Katie McLendon.

I haven’t reviewed a Tokyopop title in nearly seven years, I believe, ever since its founder decided to rearrange his priorities. But the priorities are rearranging themselves back a bit, it would seem, and so here we are with a new Japanese manga. Futaribeya seems to be a fairly safe choice to leap back on this train (given they’re doing a massive Aria release next year that may, God Willing, actually finish the series, I was always going to board the train eventually) as it’s light, fluffy, slice of life with a few yuri tease bits. There actually are more of the latter than I was expecting – honestly, given the number of series that folks say are yuri that merely feature two girls who stand near each other, my expectations were low. But this series is pleasant and amusing enough, mostly due to the strength of its two leads, who may not be a couple but who bounce off each other perfectly.

Sakurako is a nice, upright, studious young woman who’s starting high school and given the choice of living in a dorm or in an apartment complex nearby. There she meets Kasumi, who is beautiful but pretty much lives in the dictionary under the definition of “my pace”. The two get along much better than you’d expect, and the first volume seems rather Sunshine Sketch-y, reasonably free of major drama and content to have us watch the two girls live their high school life. We get to see everyone struggling to study, except Sakurako, who apparently has a photographic memory and gets straight A’s (except the one time she fills in the answers all over one place by accident). We see Kasumi struggle to… well, stay awake and exert energy, really, but she’s also the one I bonded most with over the course of the volume. We also meet some relatives and fellow classmates, but honestly the series is mostly about these two girls and their growing friendship.

As I said above, the yuri in this one is there, but if you don’t want to see it you won’t. Sakurako and Kasumi have a very close friendship, sleep together in the one bed, and Kasumi rejects guys who ask her out by saying she’s dating someone while describing Sakurako. That said, I certainly wouldn’t mind if the yuri actually went somewhere. It would not take a lot for these two to go from high school to college to just living together as a couple. Both girls admit they’re each other’s “type”, at least to themselves. And there’s a valentine’s day chapter and a subsequent white day chapter, which features Kasumi buying Sakurako… well, not a refrigerator, and they don’t shop for it together, but it’s a microwave oven/toaster oven combo that is a really serious thing to get a girl for White Day. I was impressed.

This is cute, mild yuri that left a smile on my face and I liked everyone. I’ll read more.

An Archdemon’s Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride, Vol. 2

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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.

The color illustrations of most light novels tend to spoil, and a lot of readers who hate spoilers know that they should avoid them before reading the book. That said, even if you looked at the color pages for the second volume of Archdemon’s Dilemma, you can’t have been TOO surprised. Having used Vol. 1 to set up the premise of adorable ‘villain’ and his even more adorable ‘slave’, with them essentially being a married couple, the fact that they gain an adopted daughter is not exactly a surprise if you’ve read any sort of manga or light novels. Seeing Chastille dressed up as a maid might be more of a surprise, but given what happened to her in Book 1, and the fact that this volume begins with her execution being discussed, it’s not hard to connect the dots either. Archdemon’s Dilemma is trying to balance out the cute found family stuff with the badass archdemon stuff, and so far… well, so far it’s a bit overbalanced on one side, I will admit.

Speaking of Chastille, I hadn’t mentioned her at all in the last review, probably as she very nicely filled the ‘other girl who likes him but isn’t going to get anywhere’ slot. That said, Zagan was impressed with her power, and I appreciated the fact that although she spends most of this book either at the peril of the Church, an Archangel who has supposedly arrived to kill her, or a dragon girl with a grudge against Archangels who keeps pranking her, she eventually does get over her deep depression and manage to take up her sword again – and once she does, she manages to kick ass. (It was also nice to see that it was Nephy, not Zagan, who was the one to talk her out of her funk.) I’m not sure how well she’s going to do at trying to get the angels and demons to talk to each other, but I’m rooting for her, despite her basically being Emilia from The Devil Is a Part-Timer! with a few serial numbers filed off.

As for Zagan, there are a few moments in the book where we get him and Nephy being adorable together (helped along by the illustrations, which do a much better job than the text of conveying his emotional awkwardness), but I wish there were more of them, as most of the rest of this book is devoted to showing off how super-ungodly powerful Zagan is. He’s still saying the wrong thing most of the time, but the things he says are designed to make him sound cool and brooding, and there’s not enough of his inner self NOT being cool and brooding. In other words, he feels too much like an OP protagonist. Things aren’t helped by the fact that the final battle sees Nephy staying behind at the castle like a dutiful wife, waiting up and preparing his dinner. Nephy helps make Zagan more down to earth.

Still, overall it was a good book, provided you don’t mind the battles being a bit boring because Zagan is always in control. And we even get a butler at the end, who I’ve decided I will call Sebastian. As with most fantasy light novels, recommended for those who like these sorts of books.

I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse, Vol. 10

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By Namekojirushi and Nao Watanuki. Released in Japan as “Ore ga Heroine o Tasukesugite Sekai ga Little Mokushiroku!?” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Mana Z.

More volumes, more girls. And perhaps a sneak peek at the bad future that R keeps talking about. No, we’re not actually seeing said future – since the author is nothing if not predictable, I suspect that we’ll get that in Books 15 or 16, the final ones – but thanks to a ditzy and morally questionable angel, we do get a sneak preview of what the war of Rekka’s fiancees would be like. It’s not a pretty sight. Rekka’s girls have never been as tight-knit a group as, say, Rokujouma, but jealous glaring is all we’ve previously been a party to. Unfortunately, the girls he’s saved who are in love with him also happen to possess insane amounts of power, power which could easily be destructive in nature. And so when the limiters are taken off… well, thank goodness it’s limited to property damage this time. As for Rekka? Still acting clueless, though even he is finding that front hard to keep up with Iris in full throttle mode.

The girls in this book are: the aforementioned Angel, who needs “love energy” to survive, though “jealousy” might be more accurate, and too much of it leads to the plot; an intergalactic producer trying to have another big hit by producing a sentai show, which sounds like a good idea till Rekka falls on her lead actor and puts his back out; and a magical girl dedicated to love and justice, not in that order (at least not at first), who is somewhat started to find herself in the wrong genre when a kaiju starts to wreak havoc. Unlike the last big and dramatic arc, this one is fairly easy to resolve – indeed, the book’s very much on the short side, so one might say it’s a bit too easy to resolve. Since Little Apocalypse runs on cliches, it’s good to see they’re all present and correct here, as the magical girl, now in a sentai/kaiju story, powers up by others believing in her, a la “clap for Tinkerbell”. Unsurprisingly, Rekka believing in her has far greater an effect.

How much you enjoy this book might depend on how much you enjoy harem antics at their most obvious. This takes place on the first day of school, but we don’t even make it there, as Iris (helped along by the love angel) decides to take Rekka on a date to an interstellar amusement park. Iris hasn’t gotten as much to do lately, so this gives her some good face time, and as one of the most “forward” of the heroines she comes very close to actually, if not scoring with him, at least making him acknowledge her love. But it’s Vol. 10, not Vol. 16, so instead we get half a volumes of girls attacking each other (and Rekka). R spends much of the volume frustrated, and you can see why.

We have six books to go till the end, and I think even the author knows he can’t string this along forever. But he’s strung it along enough. This is a decent Little Apocalypse, with two of the three heroines being pretty likeable. I also enjoyed the theater references. Sides!

Captain Harlock: The Classic Collection, Vol. 2

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By Leiji Matsumoto. Released in Japan as “Uchuu Kaizoku Captain Harlock” by Akita Shoten, serialized in the magazine Play Comic. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Zack Davisson. Adapted by Snati Whitesides.

This second omnibus of Captain Harlock settles down a bit, with a lot less goofy comedy but also without the tragedy that I was expecting. What we end up getting are a series of scenes/arcs of the Arcadia and its crew going after the Mazon in deep space, and having adventures. It reminds you that manga titles back in the day were far more concerned about any casual reader being able to pick up and follow along even after missing the previous seven months. There’s not a lot of intercontinuity here. That said, it’s certainly not dull; once you get your head around the Harlock pacing and remind yourself that these characters don’t speak, they declaim, you can see why Captain Harlock is still a beloved character today, even as he spends the entire book talking with his computer or getting upset about (seemingly) being saved by his hated enemies.

The cover art has the Mazon Queen, who spends most of this volume standing in her place of power and trying to get more inside information on Harlock and company. At one point a Mazon pilot, who seems to be not quite as fanatical as the others, boards the ship and speaks briefly to the crew, finding them “united in body and heart”, much to the horror of the seemingly heartless Mazon Queen, who in reality is about as cold and ruthless as the Cybermen in Doctor Who’s 80s period, which is to say not at all. A lot of the conflict in Harlock tends to be glossed as “men” (Harlock and his crew) vs. “women” (the all-female Mazon), and we get to see the men be the ones who are stronger because of their emotions and bonds, while the cool, heartless women are doomed to never understand. Harlock’s crew does have two women in it, of course, and possibly my favorite sequence of the book was seeing Kei pretending to be in trouble and letting herself get rescued by Daiba to satisfy his grumpy male ego. This is laid out explicitly so that the reader gets it. That said, I’d feel better about Matsumoto’s handling of women if he didn’t draw most of them looking the same.

At one point the Arcadia is almost destroyed by a gravity planet, and is rescued at the last second. Harlock thinks it was the Mazon who did it, and is suitably angry and humiliated – it’s not just Daiba, Harlock too has an ego that is easily bruised. The Mazon Queen, though, is also wondering who it was that saved Harlock, because it didn’t seem to be them either. As a result, there is a tiny bit of forward plot motion in this volume that is otherwise a series of static paintings. I think there’s one more omnibus of this series, and I’m interested to see if it wraps up nicely and neatly, or if its ending is open. In the meantime, if you like classic manga, you should give this a read.

Added bonus for Doctor Who fans: the Sontaran fighter who makes an appearance. (OK, he’s not meant to be Sontaran, but come on, look at him.)

Clockwork Planet, Vol. 4

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By Yuu Kamiya, Tsubaki Himana, and Sino. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by fofi.

This volume gives a lot of attention to Halter, who has tended to serve as the realist and voice of reason for our little band of terrorists. To be fair, this role seems to be his by default; Naoto and Marie are such shiny idealists it’s a wonder you can look straight at them without going blind, RyuZU would destroy the world if Naoto asked her to, and as for Vermouth… yeah, let’s not. So it’s fallen to Halter to explain that, in fact, the world does not end up being sweet and caring just because you wish really hard. Especially when they’re in the steampunk Thailand, where anything and anyone can be bought and sold. So it’s not a big surprise when he turns out to “betray” Naoto and Marie in order to make sure that they aren’t, well, killed in eighteen different ways. That said, while Halter may be the sensible one of the goup, that’s only by a matter of degrees. Because this group is, to a man, utterly broken. In a gaming sense.

The cover girl is TemP, the newest of RyuZU’s siblings to show up, but she’s arguably the weak point of the book, being something of an airhead and lacking a purpose in life beyond “get revenge on her sister” and “be silly”. No, as ever, it’s the main group that commands the most attention, particularly the way that they react to each other. We’ve seen this before, but it’s spelled out explicitly here: Naoto, Marie, AND Halter all think of themselves as being “normal” people surrounded by insane geniuses who do the impossible every day. Since Naoto thinks of his hearing as something that’s typical, he can’t appreciate that he does what no one else can do. Marie’s own self-deprecation frequently gets in her way whenever she runs into a fresh new obstacle. And, as we really see in this volume, Halter is not merely a bodyguard and mercenary, he is possibly THE bodyguard and mercenary, able to take out whole divisions by himself with ease. Each of the three help each other in this book (indeed, Marie helping Halter is almost framed religiously), and are reminded that they can’t stop chasing in Y’s footsteps, but have to create something new. Be artists, not artisans.

At the end of the book we’re headed further west, and it’s definitely open ended. The afterword talks about the anime that was being made, and does mention the 5th book being written in among its goofiness. That said, it’s now nearly three years on, and there’s still no 5th book in Japan. One of the two authors has been dealing with health issues, and also writing the (more popular) No Game No Life books, which have also had lots of delays. The other author (who you get the sense wrote most of this book, if only as it’s slightly less lewd than the other three) started another series for Kodansha in 2017, but that also seems to have stalled out. And so we may be left with this as the final volume, and it’s not too bad a way to go out. You get the sense that Naoto and Marie will eventually achieve the heights they dream of, and manage to have the whole of RyuZU’s siblings around them. As to how that happens… well, the reader is invited to spin their own tale.

Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 14

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Yona of the Dawn Volume 14 by Mizuho Kusanagi

I always put down each volume of Yona of the Dawn feeling like Kusanagi has just served up a master class in plot and character development, but I felt that way even more in this volume, which shows Yona traveling to visit the Water Tribe and confronting some very serious issues along the way. As soon as they arrive on Water Tribe land, Jaeha takes the opportunity to invite Hak along to visit the Red Light District, because the women of the Water Tribe are legendary for their beauty. Yona’s cloaked reactions as this conversation unfolds underscores how much she cares. Hak turns Jaeha down, and Jaeha heads out to explore the city solo, sensing that something is very wrong with the town. He meets up with a couple ladies, who burn some suspicious incense and offer him some of the special local rice wine. Jaeha goes along with everything, as he suspects that someone is watching both him and the girls.

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Yona and her crew rescue Jaeha and go out to investigate, learning that the Kai empire is flooding the town with a drug called Nadai. Yona is determined to stay and fight the drug traffickers, even though Jaeha urges her to leave. The leadership and confidence Yona has developed over the course of 14 volumes has me confident that she’ll leave the Water Tribe lands in a better state than when she arrived. Yona’s group also attracts the attention of some local dignitaries, Ladi Riri and her two companions Ayura and Tetra. Riri first thinks that Yona is suspicious, but eventually realizes that the groups have similar goals. Seeing Riri’s assessment of Yona shifting as she learns more about her just serves to underscore Yona’s strength. There’s time for a little bit of situational comedy as Riri is horrified that Yona routinely sleeps outside, surrounded by men.

After some army battles in the last volume, there’s a return to close action sequences featuring Yona’s determination as well as the unique abilities of her protectors. This volume ends on a cliffhanger, but I’m very curious to see how Yona and her companions change and grow after being challenged by the situation in the Water Tribe kingdom. I’m also happy to see Yona getting some more female friends as she continues her travels.

MachiMaho: I Messed Up and Made the Wrong Person into a Magical Girl!, Vol. 1

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By Souryu. Released in Japan as “Machigatta ko wo Mahou Shoujo ni Shite Shimatta” by Shinchosha, serialization ongoing in the online magazine Kurage Bunch. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by David Musto and Wesley Bridges. Adapted by Jennifer Geisbrecht.

Longtime readers may be rather surprised I’m reviewing this at all, as I’ve made no secret of my distaste for the current genre of “Magical Girl Splatter”. Technically starting with Madoka Magica (which I have far less of a problem with), the more recent Magical Girl titles – all meant to be read by teen or adult men – seem to have an audience that wants to see cute girls get mentally broken and then killed off in gory ways. It’s not so much a deconstruction of the genre as a carpet bombing of it – “see, girls? THIS is what happens to magical girls! Dream of something else!” So I was not all that thrilled when I saw that Seven Seas had picked up another take on “magical girls for men”. And indeed, for the most part that’s exactly what this is. Still, there’s at least something here that made me finish the title and be curious for more.

Myu, one of those classical magical girl mascots who speaks cutely and acts as a catalyst for the plot, is being chased by a killer demon. Myu needs to find a magical girl fast, and spots a seemingly cute young girl with princess girls. Quickly it makes her the chosen one… whereupon she pulls out a cigarette and starts smoking, complaining about her teacher and acting like a stereotypical delinquent. Whoops! The demon shows up, and honestly she’s able to give it a good pounding just using her own power and lust for violence. She’s not really all that happy with the transformation either, given it strips her in the classic magical girl tradition. Now Myu has to deal with a grumpy, video-game obsessed heroine and continue to fight the bad guys… whose attacks now center entirely on Earth, allowing other mascots to take a vacation and leave it all to Myu. Even worse, the class president of another school has been turned into a dark magical girl… maybe? Who’s the dark one here?

First things first: after reading only about 15 pages of this title, you will have more panty shots than most other series put in an entire volume. If you thought “this is one of those authors where everything else he’s ever done has been porn”, you’d be absolutely correct. There’s also a relatively high body count, as (typically for the “male” magical girl genre) there are lots of victims gorily killed by the demons… or indeed by the magical girls… who don’t magically come back to life later. All of that said… it is nice to see that Kayo, the titular magical girl, is not here to be anyone’s tragic victim, and the delinquent guy who’s in love with her is essentially her lackey and whipping boy. (As a sign that this is not meant to be taken entirely seriously, the “pointy delinquent hairstyle” he sports is a wig, and he’s actually a bishonen underneath it.)

I don’t recommend this to anyone but the intended audience, let’s get that straight. That said, if you’d like a somewhat lighter, or at least more amusing, tone of nihilism in your magical girl splatter manga, MachiMaho is entirely up your alley.

Invaders of the Rokujouma!?, Vol. 16

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

We’re now in the 2nd half of this long series of light novels, and the author is taking the time to wrap up the plots. Sanae was first, mostly as her plot tied into others and was fairly easily resolved. Yurika and Maki’s has honestly barely been touched beyond introducing various strata of evil magical girls, and there’s a sense there’s much more to it. Theia’s is, most like, the main plotline, and thus is not wrapping up anytime soon. And that leaves Kiriha’s, and unfortunately, it’s really not as good a climax as I’d like. I mentioned last time that Kiriha’s antagonist was a classic laughing villain type, and thus he’s pretty dull. He’s so dull that the more interesting villains assisting him just wander off when it becomes clear he’s going down. We’re also introduced to “surprise villain”, but he barely ties into the cast and no one really cares. The battle scenes are cool, though.

The plot is divided into two parts, as Kiriha and Koutarou head underground to deal with the villains trying to use a giant earthquake machine to destroy the world (the fact that I had to type that sentence out in a review that is not about MST3K says a lot about this arc), while Theia and her group head to the machine itself to try to destroy it. Everyone gets to use their powers to do something cool, and we get to see that the reason our heroes are always able to succeed so easily is their empathy and compassion. There’s a lost of discussion of justice in this book (actually, there’s a lot of lecturing about justice in this book), and the idea that justice means you are doing the right thing only works if you’re not, say, a cackling madman convinced that the right thing is to RULE THE WORLD!

Honestly, when all is said and done this feels like the ending to a sentai series or something like that. Even Kiriha is not immune to the tropes, giving Koutarou her trading card back in a blatant “I am going to sacrifice myself and die so that you can all be happy” ploy, which the reader will be unsurprised to hear gets her yelled at by EVERYONE afterwards. The addition of the sentai rangers also helps to sell this as being along the lines of a pastiche, which is fine in and of itself, but if we’re genuinely resolving the issues that make up Kiriha’s arc in the series (as we seem to here), it feels rather undercooked. There is a very nice scene at the end, despite some Yurika abuse for comedic affect again (could be a concussion… eeeeh, she’ll be fine) where Kiriha essentially proposes while admitting the status quo has to stay the way it does. The romance in this series is still well handled.

The next volume appears to be a “let’s do a lighter book” type, as it’s summer and we’re all going on a vacation. I look forward to that, but I also look forw3ard to getting back to the alien and magical girl plots, both of which seems to have more dramatic heft than the underground dwellers did.

Plus-Sized Elf, Vol. 1

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By Synecdoche. Released in Japan as “Elf-san wa Yaserarenai” by Wani Books, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Gum. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jennifer O’Donnell. Adapted by David Lumsdon.

As those who follow me on Twitter know, I frequently make comments about manga as I’m reading them, before I do a review. This are usually glib, off-the-cuff, and not meant to be taken seriously. Case in point: while reading Plus-Sized Elf, I noted that it was an odd combination of a fetish manga and an exercise manual, and several people actually sounded more interested in it than they were. So I want to clarify here: we’re talking about 85% fetish manga and 15% exercise here. You have to really, really like seeing large breasts, large butts, and the women who possess them, as they’re on pretty much every page. That said, when I heard that this was a title that ran in Comic Gum, I was actually expecting much worse than I actually got. Plus-Sized Elf is, in the end, goofy fun, and far more interested in gazing at plump girls than in doing anything sexual with them.

That’s our heroine on the cover, clutching her McDonald’s fries and glaring at us. She’s Elfuda, an elf (the names are not exactly world-beaters in this title) who has come to the human world to eat, because additives and preservatives are unheard of in fantasy land, and things TASTE SO GOOD with them. Unfortunately, this means she’s gained more weight than she’d really like. She ends up at an osteopath clinic and meets Naoe, a young man who does a combination of massage therapy and diet/exercise advice. After taking care of her horribly out-of-alignment bones, he recommends a diet that works… at first, but Elfuda quickly backslides. As the title goes on, we meet more fantasy creatures that are hanging out in Naoe’s town, all of whom have various reasons for being on the hefty side: a dark elf who’s standing at her job all day, a mandragora girl whose large flower on her head (and possibly other large things) leads to poor posture, an ogre who loves booze, etc.

As I said above, there’s something that so far is very obviously missing from this title, and that’s any sense that it’s a “harem” series. Naoe clearly appreciates full-figured women, and he can be seen blushing a number of times. But none of the girls who he helps and meets up with really seem to be that into him. This is not about a guy amassing a bunch of women, it’s about a bunch of women and the guy who hangs around them. The manga also manages to walk that fine line between finding amusement in Elfuda’s inability to resist junk food and keep weight off without actively mocking her for it. And a lot of Naoe’s advice is pretty good, too – there is a BIT of exercise manual in here, as I said. Again, this is still a title you should only get if you don’t mind fanservice – there’s several shots of the women eating food and getting massages that are basically orgasm face art. But if you don’t, Plus-sized Elf proved to be more fun than I expected.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, Vol. 7

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By Dojyomaru and Fuyuyuki. Released in Japan by Overlap, Inc. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sean McCann.

This is a strong volume of Realist Hero, getting back to what most people reading the series are here for. No, not harems, though there’s a lot of that going around. No, not sex, there’s none of that here. But diplomacy gets to be front and center again, as Souma and his entourage end up traveling to not-Turkey to see what that nation is all about. There they find themselves designing syringes and scalpels, dealing with a boisterous yet forward-thinking young prince, heading off the discovery of quite a nasty dungeon (and seeing what it does to the poor villagers who lived next to it), and negotiating a three-way trade agreement involving doctors, drugs, medical tools, and the power of HOVERCRAFTS! And all this is only in the first two-thirds of the book, so there’s plenty of time for short stories involving things like dragon meteorologists and Juno (from the group of adventurers) finally learning the truth about her mysterious adventuring companion.

Sadly, our main heroine, Liscia, is totally absent from the story. She’s pregnant, you see, and so has gone off to live away from all society in case something should happen to the child. In reality, I do sort of wonder if she’s been exiled due to her Saberface. Probably not, though, given that this volume sees the introduction of Yuki and Mikuru from the Haruhi Suzumiya series. Well, OK, not really, but close enough. They’re childhood friend and bodyguard, respectively, of the Turgis prince, who is filled with fresh new ideas and also a head full of teenage stupid, which is what leads him to doing things like proposing to 12-year-old fox girls. You’re meant to get the sense that when he matures he’ll be an excellent leader, and there’s hints of that here, though you can also see why not-Yuki calls him dumb all the time. You also get the sense his polyamorous relationships are shaping up nicely. Speaking of which, Hal has recovered nicely from accidentally getting a dragon bride last book, only for us to find that he’s adding an elf soon as well. the book does not have to pair off Souma with EVERYONE.

The worldbuilding is the highlight of the book, once more. There’s a real feel that the author remembers what he wrote before and is building on and adding to it constantly, which is not only the case in books adapted from webnovels, where often you get the sense the author is just thinking “what is the next cool thing?”. Admittedly, sometimes I could do without the worldbuilding – Komain’s refugees are meant to echo the plight of Native Americans, but having her literally look like a Native American stereotype, complete with war paint and feathers, is a bit much. Still, for the most part I am happy and content to see where the book leads me next. Will we finally deal with the demons? Will Souma be reaching out to yet another country? Will he ever work up the nerve to go to bed with another one of his fiancees? This is apparently a big seller for J-Novel Club, and it’s easy to see why. Go get it.

Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 14

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By Mizuho Kusanagi. Released in Japan as “Akatsuki no Yona” by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by JN Productions, Adapted by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane.

As I’ve mentioned before, Jaeha is my favorite of the Dragons, and I suspect I’m not alone there. He fits into a lot of characterization buckets that appeal to me. Indeed, he frequently puts himself in those buckets, behaving a specific way either because he wants to be seen that way, or in order to distract from how he’s really feeling. And traveling with Yona and company is troubling him, as he’s falling for Yona hard, which would be fine except that a) he totally sees the writing on the wall with Yona and Hak, and b) he worries that it’s his dragon blood MAKING him feel this way for her. As a result, in this volume we see Jaeha at his most reckless, sneaking off to a brothel partly to piss off Hal but mostly as he senses there’s something wrong about the new town they’re in. And unfortunately, Jaeha’s “always save the girl” mode also kicks in, leading him to be drugged with something quite potent.

Fortunately for Jaeha, his attempts at acting like everything is TOTALLY FINE and he is just being a horndog are doomed to failure, so Yona ends up rescuing him. Unfortunately, rescuing the town will take some doing, as its residents are in various stages of addition. Once again, Yona decides to stick around to see if this is something that can be fixed, with relatively little argument for once. Indeed, for part of the volume Yona and company are seen as they might be from the outside – as the most obviously suspicious ones. This is because we’re introduced to the young and idealistic princess of the water tribe, Riri, who is there to remind us of what Yona used to be like back at the beginning of this series. Indeed, she’s even got her own female equivalents of Hak and Jaeha as her bodyguards, though one of them might not survive an end-of-volume stabbing.

I do find it amusing that no one seems to recognize Yona, but instead Hak is the one that they find familiar – he’s not exactly an unknown face either. This ia a fantasy world with little modern technology, which is probably why The Dark Dragon and the Happy Hungry Bunch can get away with as much as they do, but they’re getting famous too, and eventually Su-Won is not going to be able to run into Yona on the battlefield and just go “whoops”. This series is long-running, and we’re nowhere near finished, but I am wondering what the endgame for it is going to be. In the meantime, Yona is far more concerned with saving Tetra (the Jaeha-ish bodyguard who was stabbed) and showing off that, even if her sword skills are rough and unpolished, facing off against Hak is a lot harder than facing off against nameless goon #2.

I feel like I’m ending each review the same way, but it’s always true. Yona of the Dawn is one of the best series Viz is putting out. You should be reading it.

In Another World with My Smartphone, Vol. 10

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By Patora Fuyuhara and Eiji Usatsuka. Released in Japan as “Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson.

Three-fourths of this volume is a fairly typical Smartphone volume, with the added bonus of actually resolving some long-standing plot developments and introducing a “new” character who, while I may not love her, certainly has the ability to put a lot of things in motion. Unfortunately, that leaves one-fourth of Smartphone which is absolute garbage, having all the worst tendencies of this series wrapped up in an awful bow. Touya’s sociopathy, villains who sneer and cackle but are also cowardly and ugly, barely disguised hatred of China. It’s all here, and it sucks. I’ve talked before about how I sometimes wonder if Touya is meant to occasionally be a deconstruction of some sort, but it just doesn’t hold up all that well. The author thinks that having the occasional character remind Touya that he’s in danger of becoming a monster, and Touya essentially going “Oh, OK”, will take the curse off of it. It does not.

The cover features Sakura, whose backstory is finally revealed as Touya, hilariously, realizes he could have cured her amnesia all along with a simple spell. The recovery of memories allows us to be introduced to yet another smothering father type, a running gag in this series (to the point where the girls all admit that Touya will certainly become one of those as well), and also allows Sakura to join the harem, which is now “complete” at nine wives, though some of them girls are a bit wary of accepting that it’s a closed circle now, given Touya is, well, Touya. They’re more concerned about succession than actually jealous, though. The cover also features a young girl who, I’m sad to say, is Professor Regina Babylon, now in the present day and also in the body of a child-sized gynoid because, I think, the author finds it amusing. She’s just as perverse as ever, and when she and Cesca team up it’s bad news for everyone. I could have easily done without the spanking, though.

Touya also finally admits to his wives that he’s not from this world, something which they accept fairly easily. He also starts to show them anime, which may be a mistake, especially with the Professor watching Gundam. We also get a short story developing Ende and the Phrase, and explaining what happened in the past and why the Phrase keep on attacking Touya’s world. It is, at heart, a love story, and I liked Touya admitting that, despite the hideous loss of life, if it were him he may have been the same. (This is not hard to imagine given how much Touya doesn’t care about Yulong or anyone in it, though admittedly he only seems to meet bad guys there due to the whims of the author.) I suspect the majority of the Phrase are still evil, though, which means expect to have more giant robot battles in the near future. Which now include Sue, who is getting into the swing of things very fast.

Despite wanting to punch Touya and the author in the face for the Daydream Believer chapter (which also ruins one of my favorite Monkees songs), I’m still somehow still reading Smartphone. It’s one of the rare series which is at its best when doing dumb harem slice-of-life, as Touya needs to be constantly belittled by near everyone or else he becomes a monstrosity. Oh yes, added points to the illustrator, as the first three black and white illustrations in the book each made me laugh out loud, combining the text and a picture perfectly.

The Promised Neverland, Vol. 6

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By Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu. Released in Japan as “Yakusoku no Neverland” by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Satsuki Yamashita.

For all that Ray insists that he’s not going to sacrifice his life at the end of the last volume, he is a small child running at full speed against a number of demons who are essentially horses in this scene. Sure, he’s rescued, but it was an impetuous thing to do. And of course there’s also Emma, who is almost literally working herself to death to get this escape on the road. So I really enjoyed the scene in this volume where Dona, Gilda and the other kids tear into the two of them for taking everything on themselves. The Grace Field kids are ALL smart – sure, Ray, Norman and Emma were the tip of the top, but they’re all bright lads and lasses who can see what’s really going on here. If you’re going to escape with everyone, everyone has to work as a unit and decide things as a unit. Which is good, as when they get to the map coordinates it’s a big bunch of nothing.

We also get a lot of answers this volume as to how this world works, and while Emma tries to paint it in as optimistic terms as she can, it’s not good news. They’re on the wrong side of a great divide, this has been going o0n for a thousand years, and I suspect if they do make it back to humanity, they may have to watch out for being killed there as well. Despite that, Emma is right, there is some hope. And honestly, we learn that being at their own farm was possibly the best place to be, given that most demons seem to eat the equivalent of fast food – which is to ay humans kept in tanks and barely cognitive, there to be eaten and forgotten. It’s a chilling sight. There’s also the demons who rescued them at the start, who seem to be “religious converts” but may be a lot more sinister than that. I wonder about them…

In the meantime, there’s a new area to explore, and to no one’s surprise, it’s not quite as barren as expected. Now they’re in an underground shelter, and meeting an actual adult human who… seems to be one of those “I am a jerk on the outside, but wait till you see my soft core” types. Sadly, he’s the cliffhanger, so we’ll have to wait for next time to see what his deal is. Ray and Emma are pretty good about having a healthy level of suspicion about their “saviors”, but also being willing to trust people. When you don’t have much choice, that’s where you are. I suspect that the next volume of The Promised Neverland will begin a new “arc”, but I also suspect it will involve a lot of almost getting captured and escaping, because that’s why we read the series. Well, that and seeing the kids be cute.