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Reviews

Water Dragon’s Bride Vol. 4

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Water Dragon’s Bride Volume 4 by Rei Toma

One of the reasons why this manga is so fun to read is that each volume starts out with a slight change in circumstances for the characters. In volume 4 the Water Dragon is now undercover as a human, and Asahi is looking at him as a odd experimental subject, as she teases him into eating human food, even though it isn’t going to have an effect on him. Subaru is a bit creeped out by this new arrangement, but still determined to serve as Asahi’s human protector.

As Asahi completes her yearly ritual, she requests that the Water Dragon God take her and Subaru on a trip during her usual three days of disappearance after the ritual is completed. One of the areas on narrative tension in this series is contrasting the Water Dragon God’s basic inhumanity with the inhumane behavior of humans to each other. When the trio travel to a distant country that happens to be under threat from a natural disaster, the villages there try to offer up a girl as a sacrifice. Asahi can’t get the Water Dragon God to intervene, so she offers herself up as a substitute. She relies on her power to make it rain when she cries to fend off the threatening fire.

Asahi’s powers end up placing her in a priestess role again, and she has to intervene in an outbreak of illness and contend with the local boy emperor. Toma’s illustrations, which often contain little to no backgrounds when the characters are experiencing emotional turmoil, help the reader appreciate the symbolic and otherworldly nature of the situations Asahi finds herself in. Asahi attempts to shield Subaru from her intense sadness, but he understands what she’s trying to hide from him. The Water Dragon God gradually seems to be taking on more human emotions, so it will be interesting to see how his personality continues to evolve, and if Asahi will ever be able to find her way home.

Yokai Girls, Vol. 1

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By Kazuki Funatsu. Released in Japan as “Youkai Shoujo -Monsuga-” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Young Jump. Released in North America by Ghost Ship. Translated by Jennifer Ward. Adapted by Bambi Eloriaga-Amago.

I have in the past been somewhat hard on manga that are fanservice for fanservice’s sake, particularly when it’s coming from Seven Seas, who for a while had the reputation of picking up that sort of series. (They’re growing out of it, and in fact the creation of Ghost Ship may have been partly to give said titles their own forum.) That said, like almost all genres, I’m not against a particular type of manga provided it’s written well. And, much to my surprise, Yokai Girl is written well. It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, as this is by the author of the legendary (if unlicenseable) Addicted to Curry, which ran for almost 50 volumes in Young Jump between 2001 and 2012. It’s basically a foodie manga, only it has, well, an excessive amount of fanservice, enough to make it hard to put out over here even if it weren’t incredibly long. For a followup, the author tries the same thing – this is essentially a yokai manga, only with an excessive amount of fanservice.

Yatsuki is our hero, looking somewhat sheepish on the cover. He’s a recent graduate who seems a bit of an “ordinary normal harem protagonist” sort, though there’s more to his backstory than meets the eye. He works part-time, lunches at a maid cafe with a cute girl waitress he’s attracted to, and has a younger sister (we think) back at his apartment. One day he runs into a girl stuck up a tree, and after getting her down in the classic ecchi tradition (crotch to the face, then an accidental grope of the substantial chest), she ends up passing out and he takes her back to his place. Though nothing happens, they’re clearly both attracted to each other… which is why he’s very surprised to find that she’s a yokai, a rokurokubi, or the girl with the really long neck that you’ve seen in some titles. And of course this proves to be only the beginning of his troubles, as soon more girls arrive, and more girls we thought we knew turn out to be related to supernatural origins. Fortunately, Yatsuki seems to be hella tough and also good at dealing with yokai.

As you’d expect, if you don’t like fanservice, stay away. Not only do we have a ton of panty shots, nudity, and mildly sexual situations (i.e. don’t expect any sex), but even the yokai are racier than I’d seen it titles like Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan. The Kakiotoko is not a yokai who I want to describe in the confines of this review, except that he looks like a very buff Freddie Mercury and is hilarious. More importantly, there’s an actual serious plot behind all the not-quite-porn shenanigans, as Yatsuki has a very good reason to want to seek out and work with both yokai and yokai hunters, and the fight scenes can be bloody and vicious. So, while there are a fair share of groanworthy moments (the running gag of his offending the maid cafe waitress gets old fast), for the most part this is a very good example of what you get when an established author with a good sense of timing and character turns his hand to “let’s titillate the teenage reader”. Recommended for fanservice fans.

That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime, Vol. 1

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By Fuse and Mitz Vah. Released in Japan as “Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken” by Micromagazine Publishing. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kevin Gifford.

I may simply be tired of the genre. God knows a lot of fans say they are – isekai and reincarnation titles have drawn more groans than cheers lately when new licenses are announced, though sales of the popular ones still seem to be good. It could also be that this comes only a month after publication of “So I’m a Spider, So What?”, a series with which it shares a ridiculous amount of details. That said, the spider book entertained me throughout, whereas this had me constantly checking to see how many pages there were until the end. It features most of the things that are overdone in these sorts of stories – endless discussion of RPG-style attacks and level ups, goblins, elves and dwarves all present and correct, and of course an incredibly overpowered hero whose bland narration does not help the situation. It does have an interesting side story about a young girl possessed by an Ifrit, which I wish the book had been about.

Our hero is a somewhat jerk-like middle manager who is killed by a random goon one day in Japan, and ends up being (try to contained your surprise) reincarnated as a slime monster living in a cave. That said, he’s immediately given two amazing skills to start with, and those allow him to quickly become very strong even as his viewpoint tries to assure us he has no idea about his power. When you’re befriending the equivalent of Smaug within the first few pages, you may be a bit ridiculous. Leaving the cave, he runs into a race of goblins and starts powering them up as well – names have power, something he belatedly realizes after naming everyone he sees willy-nilly. He decides to civilize them, which involves getting some materials from a dwarf city, and showing off more of his awesome slimeness (he’s not like other slimes, you see).

Far more interesting are the occasional looks at humans in this world that we get. The Ifrit girl is also from Japan, transported after a WWII bombing raid that killed her mother and severely burned her. The demon who called her seems to have been looking for something else, but her sheer desire to not die is so strong that he binds an Ifrit to her anyway – which is a curse and a blessing, as she’s not dead but the Ifrit controls her – whether she likes it or not, as one of her first friends finds out. Her long struggle against this takes a lifetime until she is (hold onto your hats) saved somewhat by the titular slime. I also liked the idiot trio of adventurers who the slime meets, who provide amusing comedy whenever they’re on the page – more amusing than the “idiot goblin” assistant, who also gets a short story that seems to be about his simple yet likeable ways. I found it more the former.

There’s some interesting world building here once you get past all the attack names and level descriptions, and I’ll probably give it another volume to see if it improves. But let’s face it, when your book is titled That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Smile, and the Slime is the least interesting thing in the book, there’s a real issue here.

Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty, Vol. 1

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By Megumi Morino. Released in Japan as “Ohayou, Ibarahime” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Dessert. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Alethea and Athena Nibley.

We’ve all seen the type of story where you meet someone, start to fall in love with them, and then find out that either a) they have a terrible secret that they’ve been hiding, or b) they actually turn out to be completely different from how you thought they were. And sometimes it’s both, as is the case with Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty, which actually has the guy as the viewpoint character for once, and the girl as the one around whom the plot revolves. It’s a good plot, one that draws on the supernatural but doesn’t overly drown in it, and the story is dramatic and serious without being too angsty. I would argue that the heroine suffers from something of a lack of presence… but given that’s almost the point, it seems churlish.

Our hero is Tetsu, a bright young lad who has some tragedy in his life that is driving him to earn money, over the objections of his father, who doesn’t think he’s mature enough to move right into the workforce. (Dad is right, but Tetsu’s the hero, so he’s going to get away with it.) Tetsu ends up becoming a housekeeper at a mansion owned by a rich family. They’re under orders not to go into the small house at the back of the garden, where the family’s reclusive daughter, Shizu, lives. So, what does Tetsu do within the first few pages? Goes out to the garden and meets Shizu, who at least seems nice. Sadly, he also loses his bankbook at some point, and desperately goes to search for it. Shizu has it, and turns out to be a lot less frail and willowy than she first appeared – in fact, she’s a bit of a hyperactive terror. Is there a reason for the difference? And will Tetsu be able to keep being friends with her once he finds out the truth?

It’s sort of hard to discuss the manga without discussing its gimmick, but I will do my best. Shizu’s nature means that she is very different at different times, and for the most part we follow Tetsu as he finds out about it, falls into a state of shock, recovers, tries to be friends with her anyway, has a disastrous outing, tries to distance himself, and finally returns to the “be friends” with greater resolve. He’s a good kid, and I like his family as well – thank goodness that he’s fighting with his father but it’s not the standard evil uncaring manga dad. (I also love one of the sisters, Ryo, but I admit she barely appears – she just fits a type I really like). The book balances out mystery, romance and pathos in equal doses, and the leads are nice – you want them to overcome their problems. Also, it’s only 6 volumes, so should not wear out its welcome. If you want to try a new shoujo series with a sweet male lead who’s working hard, Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty is a good choice.

Yona of the Dawn, Vol 9

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Yona of the Dawn Volume 9 by Mizuho Kusanagi

Excellent manga continues to be excellent isn’t the most earth shattering reaction to the latest volume of Yona of the Dawn, but it is absolutely true. This latest episode swings between pathos and humor with the ease that I expect from Kusanagi. After meeting up with the Yellow Dragon, all of Yona’s guardians are assembled. What’s going to happen next? They wander into a village that Yun had adopted in the past only to find out that their food stores are low. Yona’s group immediately starts competeting to see who can deny that they are hungry the longest as they help to fix up the village, despite plenty of evidence of rumbling stomachs. Yona wants to see how the people are living as a manifestation of the poor choices her father made when he was king. The villagers are being preyed upon by a local gang of bandits, and Yona promptly proclaims that she’s the head of a rival gang called “The Dark Dragon and the Happy Hungry Bunch” in order to banish the bandits.

This is all pretty hilarious, especially the way the new gang starts threatening the villagers by forcing them to take extra portions of supplies and candy. But the local bandits once driven off come back in force, and things get serious. Sinha ends up confronting his terrible destructive power with Yona’s help. He’s drawn in shadow, with the focus on his eyes that allow his powers to manifest, seeming almost monstrous until Yona prevents him from using his powers in a way that he might later regret. As always with this series, while Yona has been training to build her capacity to fight, it is her insight into human nature and her genuine support of her companions that allow them to get through difficult moments.

This is such a pleasure to read, and I’m happy that Viz decided to all in on a multi-volume fantasy manga series. Seeing how the characters evolve in a series where there’s time for the mangaka to do slow and deliberate character development is extremely rewarding.

The Best Manga You’re Not Reading: Star Wars

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I was five years old when Star Wars: A New Hope blasted its way into movie theaters. Like most members of Generation X, the film cast a long shadow over my childhood, dictating my Halloween costumes, afterschool play, Happy Meal purchases, toy collections, and clothing; I had Princess Leia action figures, Star Wars drinking glasses, Star Wars t-shirts, and a Star Wars beach towel. One of the few tie-in products I didn’t own, however, was a comic book adaptation of the movie. I’d purchased The Star Wars Storybook at a Scholastic book fair in 1978, but never knew that Marvel Comics or manga publishers were peddling something similar.

That’s a pity, because Star Wars has a long and fascinating history in print. Marvel’s six-issue adaptation of A New Hope, for example, was cooked up by a Lucasfilm executive to drum up business for the film — in essence, it was a trailer for comic geeks, arriving on newsstands a month before the movie opened. Though Marvel executives had been reluctant to license Star Wars — according to former editor Jim Shooter the “Prevailing Wisdom” at Marvel was that “science fiction doesn’t sell”  — it proved one of the company’s best business decisions of the 1970s. “The first two issues of our six issue adaptation came out in advance of the movie,” Shooter observed:

Driven by the advance marketing for the movie, sales were very good. Then about the time the third issue shipped, the movie was released. Sales made the jump to hyperspace. Star Wars the movie stayed in theaters forever, it seemed. Not since the Beatles had I seen a cultural phenomenon of such power. The comics sold and sold and sold. We reprinted the adaptation in every possible format. They all sold and sold and sold.

By contemporary standards, Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin’s version is skillful but a little stodgy, relying on voice-overs to introduce key characters and explain plot points, rather than allowing the art to shoulder the responsibility of telling the story. Nonetheless, as Star Wars fever crossed the Pacific, Weekly Shonen Magazine republished Thomas and Chaykin’s comic, touching off a Star Wars manga blitz in Japan.

Japan caught Star Wars fever again in 1997, when the Special Edition trilogy hit theaters across the globe. Kadokowa’s MediaWorks division churned out a new set of Star Wars manga, hiring Hisao Tamaki (A New Hope), Toshiki Kudo (The Empire Strikes Back), and Shin-Ichi Hiromoto (Return of the Jedi) to handle the adaptations. And while all three are good, faithfully reproducing the main beats from each film, Tamaki’s version of A New Hope is that rarest of tie-in products: it captures the look and feel of the movie without slavishly copying it, offering both a fresh perspective on a canonical text and a point of entry for someone wholly unfamiliar with Star Wars. 

Part of what makes Tamaki’s version so fascinating is how he compensates for the absence of a soundtrack — no mean feat, given how noisy the Star Wars universe is. While Tamaki uses plenty of hand-lettered sound effects, he never uses them as a crutch, instead finding nifty ways to help us imagine the sound of a landspeeder skimming the desert floor or a Stormtrooper firing his blaster. Tamaki’s most effective tactic is careful attention to the velocity and direction of moving objects; through deft placement of speedlines and artful manipulation of the panels’ shape and size, he conveys the same information that a well engineered roar, squeak, thud, or electronic rumble might.

Then there’s the film’s lush, Wagnerian score, the kind of movie music that had been fashionable in the era of Ben Hur and Lawrence of Arabia but was considered unhip in the gritty, naturalistic world of early 70s cinema. The opening fanfare and dense web of leitmotifs are unquestionably part of A New Hope‘s appeal, goosing fight scenes and capturing the melancholy of a young Luke Skywalker as he gazes at a Tatooine sunset. Absent those musical prompts, however, Tamaki is forced to think about how to elicit the same emotions in words and pictures. One of the most dramatically successful attempts to bridge sound and silence occurs in volume one of Tamaki’s adaptation, right after R2D2 and C3PO land on Tatooine:

In the film, John Williams accompanies C3PO’s trek with music cribbed from The Rite of Spring — a decent choice, as Stravinsky’s dour ostinati and octatonic harmonies imbue the harsh landscape with an otherworldly quality. Tamaki, however, distills this two-minute scene to an evocative two-page spread in which a wide-angle view of the Tatooine desert unfolds beneath the individual panels, reminding us just how small and vulnerable both droids are. These images track closely with Lucas’ own vision, but the implied silence of the first and final panels in this sequence more powerfully conveys C3PO’s isolation than any musical gesture could:

The absence of sound has another unexpected benefit: minus the actors’ desperate attempts to make George Lucas’ dialogue sound… well, like conversation, the script has more room to breathe. Tamaki plays the earnest stuff straight and ramps up the comedy whenever someone is surprised or indignant. Luke, in particular, benefits from such an approach, given his age and naivete; in Tamaki’s hands, he’s Monkey D. Luffy with a lightsaber, freaking out over chores, the Millennium Falcon’s shabby appearance, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s death, a kiss from Princess Leia… you get the idea. Tamaki’s elastic deformations of Luke’s face transform him from blandly handsome farm boy to Shonen Jump hero, equal parts brave and ridiculous:

One of the manga’s other great virtues is its ability to expand and contract time in ways that a purely temporal medium like film can’t. The ability to speed up and slow down the unfolding the plot isn’t unique to comics, of course; filmmakers can use slow motion imagery or cross-cutting to manipulate the viewer’s perception of time, but a good manga artist takes advantage of the fact the reader can, in fact, stop time by poring over an image or a scene for minutes, savoring small but telling details that would otherwise get lost in the cinematic flow. Writing for Animerica in 2004, Patrick Macias offered a thoughtful explanation of how this kind of creative expansion of time adds new layers of meaning to Tamaki’s story:

It is in Tamaki’s take on destruction of the planet Alderaan that he really shows off his stuff. A scene that took mere moments to depict on-screen is drawn out to fill half a dozen pages. He inserts images of the Alderaan populace looking up to the heavens, and you can almost hear those “millions of voices suddenly crying out in terror” with more dramatic impact in the manga than in the film.

Of course, none of this would matter if Tamaki lacked the precision to bring Lucas’ vision to life on page. Again and again, Tamaki delivers amazingly detailed drawings of space ships, aliens, and weapons that pulse with the same life as Katsuhiro Otomo’s AKIRA and Shirow Masamune’s Ghost in the Shell; if you’d never seen or heard of Star Wars, you might reasonably infer that Tamaki dreamt up this world on his own. Tamaki proves equally adept at staging deep space dogfights, too, conveying both the dizzying speed with which the ships are moving and the maze-like surface of the Death Star:


For readers coming to the manga from the films, the biggest stumbling block will be the character designs: did Tamaki get them right? The short answer is yes, if you can tolerate a little artistic license with hairdos and body types. Not surprisingly, R2D2 and C3PO look most like their big-screen counterparts — no pesky noses or mouths to draw — but the rest of the cast bear a passing-to-strong resemblance to the actors who portrayed them, though Obi-Wan Kenobi looks and moves more like Chuck Norris than Sir Alec Guiness. Tamaki does an even better job of bringing Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers to life on the page, adding an extra touch of menace in the way he draws their helmets; you can almost see the soldiers grimacing under their plastic armor from the way he draws their browlines.

If I’ve sold you on manga Star Wars, you’ll be happy to know it’s a relatively inexpensive way to relive the original trilogy. The digital versions — currently available through Amazon and ComiXology — retail for $1.99 per volume. There’s also a Phantom Menace manga for the morbidly curious; Kia Asamiya is the author, and he’s been given the truly thankless task of condensing that stinker into two volumes. At least it won’t be as interminable as the movie.

WORKS CONSULTED

Macias, Patrick. “Star Wars, The Manga.” Animerica, VIZ LLC, 7 Apr. 2004, https://web.archive.org/web/20040407180902/http://www.animerica-mag.com/features/starwars.html. Accessed 27 Dec. 2017.

Rickard, Ron. “Retro Foreign: Japanese Weekly Shōnen Magazine #18 – 23 (1978).” Star Wars Comic Collector, 20 May 2016, http://swcomiccollector.blogspot.com/2016/05/retro-foreign-japanese-weekly-shonen.html. Accessed 27 Dec. 2017.

Shooter, Jim. “Roy Thomas Saved Marvel.” Jim Shooter, 5 July 2011, https://web.archive.org/web/20150912134444/http://www.jimshooter.com/2011/07/roy-thomas-saved-marvel.html. Accessed on 28 Dec. 2017.

Spellman, Ron. “A Long Time Ago: The Strange History of Marvel’s Original Star Wars Universe.” Comics Alliance, Townsquare Media, 28 Jan. 2016, http://comicsalliance.com/original-marvel-star-wars-comics-history/. Accessed 28 Dec. 2017.

Tamaki, Hisao. Star Wars: A New Hope, adapted from an original script by George Lucas, Marvel Comics, 1998. 4 vols.

The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 9

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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.

Sometimes there’s one scene or chpater of a book that has more impact than the rest of the volume. This is not uncommon, and does not mean that the rest of the book is lacking in any way. It just means that the chapter or scene in question is JUST THAT GOOD. In Vol. 9 of this series, we get that in a chapter entitled “The Hero Discovers That She Can’t Go Home Again”, which flashes back to show us Emi arriving back on Enta Isla and how she ended up in the position we saw her in at the end of Vol. 8, captured by Olba and being blackmailed. We see her being a detective, we see her learning more about her parents (indeed, possibly far more than she’d have liked), and we see that the bond she has with Alas Ramus may not be as direct as she’d though,. though to her credit she doesn’t reject Alas Ramus in any way because of this. And we see her longing for Japan, and modern times. If this light novel series ends up with the main cast back in Enta Isla, they’re going to need to modernize.

As for the rest of the cast, well, they’re back in Japan, getting ready for a rescue mission. This is not as easy as it seems – Maou has to get people to cover his shifts for a week, so that he doesn’t get fired from his McRonald’s job (the way I suspect Emi is going to be fired from her call center one). He and Suzuno need to buy supplies, which leads to them clashing over everything, as he’s a penny-pinching scrounger, and she has enough cash that “just buy the best thing” is always the first option. And they also have to deal with Rika, who after the events in Vol. 8 now knows their secrets. Do they erase her memory or let her in on the full story, which might put her in danger? The answer is not surprising, but it’s nice to see them asking the right questions. It’s also nice to see Chiho has come so far in nine books, and even though she can’t come along on the rescue mission her intelligence and calm is a great help.

Of course, Chiho is in love with Maou, and we see some jealousy flare up here, mostly as Acieth has the appearance of a clingy 14-year-old who keeps going on about being inside Maou. More seriously, though, Suzuno begins to realize that she may also be developing feelings for Maou. This is something of a surprise, as the ‘harem’ aspect of this series has really mostly been a love triangle before now, with Emi and Chiho – not that Emi will admit it, but she’s still the clear favorite. But when Suzuno hears the backstory explaining why Maou raised up a demon army to invade Enta Isla, she begins to realize that he’s not the demon she’d thought. Combine this with the ongoing revelations that the Angels may be the actual villains of this story, and she has the classic example of a maiden’s trembling heart. The sleeping bag helps take the edge off that, though.

Unsurprisingly, things end in a cliffhanger here, with every single character in Enta Isla about to get involved in something nasty. I’m not sure how long this arc will be, but I am sure that if you’ve been reading Devil Is a Part-Timer, you absolutely will not be disappointed with this book.

Graineliers, Vol. 1

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By Rihito Takarai. Released in Japan as “Grainerie” by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the magazine GFantasy. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Jocelyne Allen.

There are some series with a complex plot and deep, developing characterization, and then there are those series that want to get along just by style or mood. Graineliers definitely feels like one of the latter, and fortunately it’s very good at portraying the style and mood to keep a reader turning the pages. The author has mostly done BL series before, and in fact is well known here for the series Ten Count and Only the Flower Knows, but this is not a romance work. Instead it’s (I know, try to contain your surprise) something of a supernatural thriller (GASP!)set in a world where plant seeds can given superpowers of a sort… well, honestly, it seems more like a curse than anything else. In this world we have our handsome and tortured hero, who is seen on the cover baring his chest to show off that instead of manly, virile chest hair he has manly, virile plant roots growing there.

The cast is pretty likable. Luca is our cover boy, who actually becomes a cover man after escaping from the coma being exposed to a seed puts him in. He’s curious but sensible, and it’s actually his father’s experiments that lead to the plot going forward. His friend Abel (the traditional handsome blond to be the best friend of the hero brunet, though there’s no shoujo heroine here, and in fact GFantasy straddles the line between the two genres) rescues and hides him, and finds after he awakens that he now has some characteristics of plant life, including apparently just needing water. Unfortunately, the vaguely evil government is not likely to look kindly on this, so Luca has to hide his features. He’s also not alone, as a cute young girl trying to help her beloved grandfather turns out to share a similar fate, in what’s probably the big “startle” panel of the volume.

It’s always hard for me to review books like these, where nothing really wowed me but there are no crippling flaws either. It’s a solid, readable manga that knows what its fans want to read and gives it to them. Luca and Abel are close and slashable, but can also be read as regular old best friends. For the most part the book is fairly serious, though there was an amusing joke at the end that surprised me, mostly as I wasn’t expecting anything of the sort. There’s also a fair bit on the seeds that this world contains, and why the government might be trying to suppress knowledge of them. Basically, it’s the first fifty pages of a mystery, setting things up but hard to read on its own.

But the setup is good, and leaves you wanting to see what happens next. That said, we’re almost caught up with Japan already, and after Vol. 2 drops early next year there may be a bit of a wait. Definitely a series to grab if you like mystery with a dash of fantasy and a heaping teaspoon of pretty boys.

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!: You Good-for-Nothing Quartet!

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By Natsume Akatsuki and Kurone Mishima. Released in Japan as “Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!: Chūnibyō demo Majo ga Shitai!” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

KonoSuba returns with its fourth light novel, though unusually there’s plenty of manga in this volume, which adds an extended ‘what you will see in this book’ manga chapter (none of it is seen), as well as a two-page spread in the middle. This is perhaps not surprising given that our heroes spend much of their time at a town devoted to hot springs. The subtitle this time around is a parody of the manga Yozakura Quartet, started by Del Rey and finished by Kodansha Comics digitally in North America, from the artist behind DRRR!!. You would think, given Wiz’s presence on the front cover, that she is the fourth member of the group to merit the title, but no, Wiz is sensible (and quite powerful) throughout, except for her horrible shopkeeping skills. No, Kazuma is just as bad as the rest of his crew, and this volume is happy to emphasize that.

We’re on a vacation this time around, ending up, as I indicated, at a city renowned for their hot springs. Sadly, Aqua keeps turning their springs into plain old hot water whenever she uses them, so things aren’t going well. You’d think she’d be happy, given that the town is filled with Axis Church followers – i.e. HER followers – but she’s as whiny and put upon as ever. Darkness, meanwhile, is having a ball – as a follower of Eris, she’s treated like absolute dirt, which makes her incredibly happy (and by happy I mean aroused). She’s a bit less happy with the fact that the group is now perfectly willing to use her family name to get their way, something she’s really rather avoid. As for Megumin, aside from a few stray moments, she’s the sensible one this time around. Kazuma may seem a better candidate, but not only does he die AGAIN, but he also gets everyone in trouble by not realizing that this ISN’T a transported-to-a-game world and that some “easy-level” monsters are in fact not so easy.

No one really reads KonoSuba for the plot, which is good as there isn’t much. Our villain is seen meeting with a busty woman who is never seen again, so I imagine she’ll pop up as an antagonist in future books. No, KonoSuba is read for the humor, and there are many, many wonderful jokes here – the dog food and “Legendary Sword Excalibur” being two of my favorites. (Let’s take a moment to realize that Kazuma, who is on the verge of being allowed to reincarnate into a nice life on Earth, is literally annoyed into returning to the KonoSuba world.) The cast are all terrible, with the exception of Wiz, and possibly Yunyun, who shows up at the end to deliver the ridiculous cliffhanger. We’re now caught up with the anime, meaning Book 5 should be new to most readers. (I’m going to take a wild guess and say the anime did NOT end with Yunyun’s request.) If you like tremendously silly light novels, KonoSuba is exactly what you’re looking for.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Vol. 1

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By CLAMP. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Devon Corwin.

I won’t lie, it can be a bit disappointing to see CLAMP return to the well of old hits. Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle was a menage of most of their series with a few new characters, xxxHOLIC ended only to return as an ongoing sequel, and now we have that old standby, Cardcaptor Sakura, getting a sequel with the characters in middle school. Now admittedly writing brand new material is not a guarantee of success – Gate 7 is an excellent example of that, and is still on hiatus. As a result, I can’t blame the creators for returning to a guaranteed draw. That said, there’s not really much here that’s new or innovative – instead, it’s the same old favorites back again. Sakura’s here, her family, Tomoyo, and yes, Syaoran has returned as well, and can now go to school with his “we’re too young to be dating” girlfriend once more. Except… the cards are changed.

Sakura’s having prophetic dreams of mysterious hooded enemies, and they’ve essentially blanked all her cards. But she gets a powerup as well, so now (you knew this was coming, admit it) she will have to go around collecting cards again, though they seem to be the Cool Millennial version – they’re transparent and fancy, and the sweet, mild ‘Windy’ has now apparently become ‘Gale’, and there’s a ‘trapped in a room’ card that becomes ‘Siege’. The cards sound more mature. Tomoyo is mostly delighted, as this means she gets to film Sakura in new costumes – though she misses her catching the first card, which seemingly devastates her. (As with the first series, Tomoyo’s motivations tend to be deeper than they outwardly seem. Also as with the first series, Tomoyo is the main reason I’m reading this.) As for Eriol, he still seems to be keeping things from Sakura, no doubt “for her own good”, but sigh. Didn’t we learn this lesson before?

I mentioned the gang’s all here, but that’s not entirely accurate – while most of Sakura’s muggle friends have returned to her school, Rika has gone to a different school and will presumably not be appearing. Given that her relationship with her adult teacher, complete with a pseudo wedding ring, was easily the creepiest aspect of the original series, it’s no surprise that CLAMP decided to quietly push her out the door rather than give it more attention. (Kaho is still with Eriol, but that’s far vaguer, and in any case Eriol is one of those “I’m really decades older than I look” sorts.) Everyone else gets a “greatest hits” appearance – Sakura’s father is still kind and widower-ey, and mentions he hasn’t seen Nadeshiko’s spirit lately. Touya and Yukito are still very vaguely gay, and while Yukito seems a bit more savvy as to his true nature, it’s still Yue in the driver’s seat when that nature is needed. And Yamazaki is still making up amusing and obvious lies for Syaoran to fall for.

If you enjoyed Cardcaptor Sakura, there’s no reason not to read this – it’s cute and fun. I do hope that it at least tries to go to some new places, however.

The Saga of Tanya the Evil: Deus lo Vult

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By Carlo Zen and Shinobu Shinotsuki. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Emily Balistrieri and Kevin Steinbach.

The first thing I noticed when I saw the first volume of Tanya the Evil on my phone is that it is long. Really very long indeed. You could fit four volumes of Kagerou Daze into one volume of Tanya the Evil. I noticed that this volume has two translators, and I wonder if the main reason for it is that each volume is so long. (I double checked – the second volume is actually longer.) The second thing that I noticed about Tanya the Evil is that it is, at heart, a military novel with a dash of magic and “reincarnated into another world” as its gimmick. If you’re reading it for the reincarnation or the magic, you may be disappointed – if you’re reading it for the military maneuvers, you’re in luck, this is absolutely the book for you. This is the story of not-Germany, its new war hero who has the appearance of a small girl but the mind of a cynical, calculating HR director, and the evil God who sets things in motion.

OK, “evil God” may be stretching the point, as it’s more petulant hissy fit God, but once again we have a book I’d ask the hardcore religious to stay away from. Our hero is a ruthless HR director who is pushed in front of a train after laying off someone with a grudge. He meets God, who is upset at the lack of faith in him these days, which our hero can’t help but snark back at him for. In response, God reincarnates him in a world that is on the brink of war, as a young orphan girl. He keeps all his memories, though, and apparently in addition to being an HR director he was a bit of a military nut. As now we have Tanya von Degurechaff, a 9-year-old child prodigy sent to the front line to battle as a mage because, well, the Empire is mostly OK with this. The problem is that Tanya is just a bit too brilliant, and also somewhat disturbing…

One of the more interesting aspects of this book is also one of its most aggravating: the narration, which is mostly first person from Tanya’s perspective with a few exceptions, alternates between “I” and “Tanya” constantly, as the HR director still tends to think of himself as being slightly separate from the little girl’s body he now inhabits. This really shows off the disconnect that should normally be there for most people who go through the standard reincarnation schtick, but it’s also very disorienting, and by the end of the volume I was wishing the author had chosen a different way to achieve this. The gimmick that works much better in the book is Tanya constantly doing things as a way to ither a) stay alive or b) get herself assigned away from combat, and having her actions misinterpreted as insane gung-ho soldiering by the generals and powers that be. It doesn’t help that her main weapon that makes her even more powerful literally runs on the power of prayer, much to her bitter chagrin.

The author says at the end of the book that those who like happy endings should stay away from this series, and indeed I’m not sure I can read this on a regular basis. For this one volume, though, it was fascinating, even with all the military jargon. Yes, we have yet another Japanese author fascinated with World War I/II Europe, and our heroes are yet again essentially Germany with the fascism toned down (you’ll likely think of Legend of Galactic Heroes as you read it). But I just liked the back and forth between Tanya and the rest of the cast, and also liked the occasional glimpses we saw of her judging humans as something other than meat shields. Well, OK, one human. Pretty much just Visha. But you have to start somewhere. The Saga of Tanya the Evil is a rich and rewarding read, provided you spend the time to plough through it, and don’t mind Tanya’s constant first/third person perspective switches.

Angels of Death, Vol. 1

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By Makoto Sanada and Kudan Naduka. Released in Japan as “Satsuriku no Tenshi” by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Gene. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Ko Ransom.

I’ve mentioned before that I will sometimes dip back into a genre that I’m not fond of to see if a new series might catch my eye. With horror, this has been something of a mixed back. When it works, it works seriously well – see Higurashi or Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. But for each one of those there are five or six “let’s gather a cast of people together and winnow them down one by one” that leaves me cold. Angels of Death is my latest look in to the horror/survival game genre. It’s based on a game which I believe you can actually get on Steam, and has an amnesiac heroine waking up in an abandoned building, where she’s informed she has to go from floor to floor and avoid being killed. What makes Angels of Death more interesting than most others of this sort is that the cast is kept to a bare minimum, which allows us to skip piles of introduction and get right to business. And also Rachel looks a bit more interesting than most faceless game protagonists.

The moment we see an adorable wounded bird get brutally slaughtered in a giant two-page spread, we know the emphasis here is not going to be on friendship, training or victory. She first runs into Zack, who is an absolute cliche of a serial killer and the sort of character you’d expect to get killed off pretty quickly in this sort of series, but somehow she manages to escape him. She then ends up on a different floor with Dr. Irie… sorry, Dr. Danny, who is very much like what Dr. Irie from Higurashi would be if he was deeply sociopathic and awful. To the manga’s credit, it doesn’t bother to try to convince us that he’s really another good guy – we already know there’s a killer on each floor, and he’s already so shady that it barely raises an eyebrow when he starts going on about eyes. Eventually Zack ends up chasing Rachel once more, but Zack is now put off by her personality so allies with her to try to get out.

As I said, the odd moments when Rachel shows off how broken she is are the best in the book. They manage to combine hidden tragedy and loss with a truly scary feeling, particularly when dealing with the bird. The artist, in fact, is very good at showing off the strengths of this genre – scary scenes, over the top faces, and a lot of bloody action. On the downside, unlike, say, Higurashi or Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, I doubt the final goal here is to show how a team can become true friends and band together to defeat the bad guy. The goal here is to frighten and shock. This first volume does a decent job of that, and therefore if you like survival horror, I’d definitely recommend it, though I likely won’t be reading further.

Kigurumi Guardians, Vol. 1

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The first ten or so pages of Kigurumi Guardians are a gas. Hakka, a cheerful fifteen-year-old, comes home from school to find a kigurumi (animal mascot) in her kitchen. Though Ginger looks like the product of a Holstein/penguin tryst, no one in Hakka’s family is fazed by Ginger’s appearance, treating him like one of Hakka’s classmates. And if the Sasakuras’ warm embrace of Ginger wasn’t strange enough, Ginger’s method of communication puts things over the top: he’s reduced to scrawling short messages on cue cards since he can’t speak. Not until Hakka attends a school council meeting does she learn that Ginger is one of three animal-shaped guardians defending Earth from a race of puppet masters, and she’s his new handler.

So far, so good: the oddball premise, brisk pacing, and tart exchanges between Hakka and Ginger are executed with comic zest. As Hoshino begins laying the groundwork for the magical combat, however, it becomes clear that she’s making it up as she goes along. That tendency is most pronounced in the fight scenes, which are devoid of any tension, surprise, or humor, since it’s a forgone conclusion that Hoshino will think of a new rule or magical power that helps her heroes win the day.

More problematic is the dynamic between Hakka and Ginger. Bickering leads are a staple ingredient of romantic comedies, but the main point of contention between girl and mascot gets hammered into the ground by the end of chapter three. That joke — if one can call it a joke — is that Hakka must kiss Ginger to activate his magical powers; when she does, he immediately transforms into a dashing young warrior. Hakka hates kissing Ginger, but is repeatedly forced to go against her own wishes because, y’know, Earth’s future hangs in the balance. In our current #MeToo moment, this gag is an unpleasant reminder of how many books, movies, television shows, and manga reinforce the idea that women who refuse unwanted hugs and kisses are difficult, confused, or selfish.

It’s a shame that this gag is so central to the story, as Hoshino clearly intends Guardians to be naughty fun for teen girls — why else would all three mascots transform into tousle-haired bishonen?— but gets too caught up in drawing costumes and mascots to pay careful attention to the plot or consider the full implications of Hakka and Ginger’s relationship. By the end of volume one, the story has traded wacky hijinks for messy fight scenes and sappy conversations, losing its screwball zing in the process.

The verdict: File under D, for disappointment, and S, for squandered potential.

KIGURUMI GUARDIANS, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY LILY HOSHINO • KODANSHA COMICS • RATED: TEEN (13+) • 160 pp.

Accel World: The Red Crest

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By Reki Kawahara and Hima. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jocelyne Allen.

Why do we play fighting games? That’s the question being asked many times over the course of Accel World, and the idea of winning and losing seems to linger in some people more than others. Certainly in the case of Wolfram Cerberus, it’s a matter of life and death, especially as, for some odd reason, his Accelerated form seems to have multiple personalities, a la the legendary dog it’s named after. For others, it’s a way to bond with friends, such as the new character we meet here, Chocolat Puppeteer. Sadly, her friends have been infected with ISS kits, which leads to a chilling new revelation: you can now be infected against your will. Fortunately, Haruyuki and Chiyuri (and it’s nice to see the two of them team up without an overdose of sexual tension) manage to help her and temporarily save the day. Unfortunately, that just means that the enemy changes their focus, and the reader realizes that yes, this is another 4-5 book arc.

As for Kuroyukihime, we finally get the answers we’ve been waiting for since the first book – why did she kill Red Rider, and what drove her to leave her family? The answer turns out to be the same thing, unsurprisingly. Kuroyukihime may be strong and a guiding light to Haruyuki, but she’s also horrible at anything regarding subterfuge, much less outright lying, so it’s no surprise that she’s played like a sucker by White Cosmos. It’s nice to see Haruyuki has matured enough to take this calmly and offer support, even when she’s sobbing on his shoulder – a few volumes ago he would have been a total wreck. (It’s possible the author saved all the total wreck parts for the short story at the end of the book, which features 200% more Fuko teasing than normal, but also goes into the circumstances of her birth and dealing with being born without legs in the real world.)

It’s looking as if things might come to a head at the school’s culture festival, which may turn out to be a disaster as they’re all supposed to be keeping their real-life identities secret. As is usually the case with Accel World, the battles are well-written and concise, and I rarely find myself getting lost in technobabble. (It’s very clear that he wrote a lot of this after he had more experience, whereas Sword Art Online sometimes shows off his immaturity.) I’m not entirely sure if this will wrap up in the 13th book or not – at least, this particular arc, I’ve no doubt that White Cosmos is the Big Bad and will be part of whatever final End Kawahara has in mind – if he has one, the series is well over 20 volumes in Japan. That said, I’m perfectly content to let him slowly spin his tale – the fanservice may occasionally grate on me, but for the most part Accel World has developed into one of the most solid, dependable light novel series being put out by Yen.

Sweet Blue Flowers, Omnibus 2

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By Takako Shimura. Released in Japan as “Aoi Hana” by Ohta Shuppan, serialized in the magazine Manga Erotics F. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by John Werry.

Shameful confession to make: while I always enjoy Shimura’s series when I read them, I will note that it’s sometimes hard for it to stay in my memory, particularly when so much other yuri is already coming out. Not helping the matter is the fact that, while I do love her art, I sometimes have trouble telling her characters apart, particularly secondary characters. And thirdly, this particular omnibus seems to have backloaded the more interesting material. (There is a very helpful “Let’s meet the cast” list at the start of the second half/4th volume, which I realize is meant to be something of a parody but which I could honestly have used at the beginning.) Add all these things together and I’m left with a volume that I did not enjoy as much as the first. I suspect Sweet Blue Flowers may be a series that rewards marathoning the entire series in one gulp.

The first half, Volume 3, has the cast invited to Kyoko’s summer home for a vacation, which has horseback riding, and scary stories, and one of the secondary girls falling for Akira’s brother, which I’m honestly happy about because he gets so much abuse from his sister that he could use some nice things happening to him. Akira, meanwhile, is stricken with a cold, as is Fumi. This means that Akira is there to overhear some of Kyoko’s family drama and also with Fumi finally admitting that Akira was her first love, with all the awkwardness that comes with it. And we write Yasuko out of the story, at least for now, as she comes to terms with the fact that her crush is marrying the girl he loves (which isn’t her), and tries to apologize to Fumi for what happened between them (which doesn’t go well), then flies off to England. And so the fourth volume introduces new first-years, new potential relationships, and more and more of Fumi being a bit of a wreck.

This is not an easy yuri series, one that goes down smoothly and leaves a smile on your face. And it’s also not a series that seems to magically have no men in it whatsoever. Men are here, and they get into relationships with some of the cast. Girls have crushes on other girls, and then get over them. But we also have their teacher Yamashina-sensei, who gets a chapter devoted to her which seems to be about the bitter, unrequited love of youth – followed by the bitter, unrequited love of a student with a crush on her – but ends in a sweet way that shows us that it’s not ALL going to be angst and drama. I think Shimura may have realized that she was laying it on a bit thick – in the second half we get Haruka and Ryoko, two students who seem so far to be a bit less burdened with baggage than others. But we still have Fumi, and her attempts to try to be a bit more outgoing – which doesn’t work well – are very true-to-life but also painful.

Sweet Blue Flowers is a good series. That said, it’s exhausting as well, and I suspect that it’s best enjoyed either in one gulp – waiting till the other two omnibuses are out – or in smaller quantities, such as reading only half and then coming back. There is such a thing as too much Fumi. (And too be fair, too much Akira, though that’s slightly less pressure-heated.)