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Reviews

The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan, Vol. 10

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By Nagaru Tanigawa and Puyo. Released in Japan as “Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoushitsu” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Paul Starr.

And so we come to the end of the Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan, and it feels thematically appropriate that Yuki doesn’t exactly disappear but she definitely takes a back seat in this final volume, entirely devoted to Ryouko’s decision to move to Canada to live with her parents and go to college there. It feels appropriate because, no offense to Puyo, but Kyon, Yuki and their relationship have been the weak part of this title. Yuki’s been OK, and I’ve enjoyed seeing her gain a certain level of confidence, but Kyon is a pale shadow of his self from the main series. They only shone in the amnesia arc, which featured what was essentially Yuki from the main series crossing over.

No, the big achievement of this series has always been Ryouko Asakura, written off as a villain in Haruhi proper (and don’t get me wrong, she made a wonderful villain), then turned into a comedy punchline by Puyo in his other Haruhi series,the gag manga Haruhi-chan (which is still running, by the way – Vol. 11 comes out here in December), but in the Nagato spinoff she became the main reason to watch it, easily having the most depth and emotional pull while also gaining an alternate characterization as Yuki’s “mother” figure who is also overly stressed and worrying to the point where, when being around her, Haruhi ends up being the deadpan straight man figure.

Ah, yes, Ryouko and Haruhi. Folks who’ve read my other reviews of this series know that I’ve shipped them almost as soon as they had significant scenes together, and the tenth volume, while not, of course, making anything canon, is written as if the author read my reviews and said “let’s see what I can do with that”. Being unable to tell Yuki straight away about her decision to move, Ryouko opens up to Haruhi, who alternates between being a sounding board and being a complete goofball (trying to stand on the exercise ball, and the goose egg punchline that follows, was amazing). Haruhi immediately says she will fly to Canada to visit Ryouko – her “free room and board” line implying she’ll just stay at Ryouko’s – and when Ryouko does eventually fly off, Haruhi’s farewell is given a full page, as is Ryouko’s response – more than Yuki!

We then get the epilogue, where Haruhi ends up being the only one who picks up Ryouko at the airport returning from college. There is a brief attempt at heterosexuality, but it’s almost laughable – Haruhi had absolutely no idea Koizumi liked her till he confessed, her “try to make me fall for you!” line implies she hasn’t yet, and Ryouko points out it sounds like she’s just trying to dodge the entire issue. Koizumi is, of course, nowhere near the finale, which is composed of the four “main” character finally meeting again after so long – Kyon and Yuki, now living together (though, despite Ryouko’s fervent imaginations, not with child) and Ryouko and Haruhi, who may not be an explicit romantic pairing but certainly are given as much canon teasing as is humanly possible.

So, in the end, is The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan worth it? It certainly was to me, but as I’m sure you noticed, I wasn’t really concentrating on the main plot. The art improved as it went on, but that does mean it starts as “very mediocre”. In the end, I recommend it to Haruhi fans who want to see a different side to Haruhi, one that is milder and more mature but still clearly her. I also recommend it to Ryouko fanatics, but honestly I’d hope they were already reading it. I enjoyed some volumes more than others, and it could have been shorter, but I adored the final volume.

Yokai Rental Shop, Vol. 1

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By Shin Mashiba. Released in Japan as “Yokai Nii-san” by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine GFantasy. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Amanda Haley, Adapted by Julia Kinsman.

Those who are familiar with this author’s previous series, Nightmare Inspector (released by Viz, though I think Yen Press has the digital rights now), will be very familiar with the sort of series this is. There’s a mysterious shop where people come to have wishes granted that they can’t quite achieve using normal means. An eccentric shopkeeper hooks them up with a yokai monster that will theoretically give them what they want. In reality, of course, almost all the customers are selfish and warped individuals who need to get what’s coming to them instead, and karmic retribution is not all that far off. Into this fairly typical setup walks Hiiragi, a salaryman who’s just found he has a half-brother – who turns out to be the proprietor of said shop. His heartwarming meeting with his brother instead becomes a long stream of reaction takes as Hiiragi slowly realizes who that brother really is.

There are two very good reasons to read this series. The first, as with the artist’s other series, is the compelling artwork, which draws the eye in and entertains you even when the story being told is predictable. I especially liked Karasu’s overdramatic dynamic entry, as he drops into his shop from the ceiling for no apparent reason other than to look cool (which honestly, given he’s almost totally covered in bandages, I think he has going for him anyway). And the yokai look scary when they need yo, also important given this is at heart a horror sort of series. The other big plus is Hiiragi, who starts off somewhat nebbish but gets better as he reacts against the supernatural events going on around him. His inner tsundere comes out when he’s dealing with his brother, who he immediately tries to force to eat healthier, and it leads to some very funny situations. He also can drive the plot due to pigheaded stubbornness, always a valued trait in a straight man protagonist.

The downside is that there’s not much in these stories that you haven’t seen done elsewhere many times before. It’s an anthology of “be careful what you wish for” stories. I’d joked that this was something of a gender-reversed xxxHOLIC, and the two do share similarities, but unfortunately Karasu just isn’t as interesting or funny as Yuko was, though he tries. And the fact that all the customers have, for the most part, unlikeable and selfish motivations makes it pretty hard to root for anyone – even the bully who wants something to help him avoid getting beaten up breaks the rules the moment he gets a chance to. You’re left only caring about our heroes, which is not what you want to see in a horror anthology manga.

Still, overall the good outweighs the bad, and the series is only four volumes long, which is about right if you’re doing a shop with the customer-of-the-week. If you like hot supernatural guys who makes bad things happen to bad people, or just like cool art, Yokai Rental Shop is worth picking up.

Also, it gets bonus points for the “Fake news!” translation/adaptation.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, Vol. 4

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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.

Realist Hero continues to keep my interest even as my teeth grind more and more at the mindset of the author and his characters, which is to its credit. Certainly there are similar isekais that did not hold my attention and have since been dropped (hi, Death March). It’s even more impressive given that, for the second volume in a row, this feels like a setup book, putting various things in place, introducing new technology that will no doubt be needed down the road, and (at last) finally answering one of the lingering questions of the series: why on Earth did the former King abdicate to Souma after merely having one conversation with him? And for fans of the romances, you not only get a new queen added to the mix, but Souma finally comes to terms with the fact that he is in this world for good, and that he is worthy of being loved, and is able to take that next step.

The girl on the cover is Roroa, who we’ve seen crop up in cameos before this book, here to save the day (despite Souma completely ruining her planned overdramatic entrance). Roroa is, in many ways, an Osaka stereotype transferred to the fantasy world: she not only has the sort-of-Southern accent, but is also far more of a merchant than she ever is a Princess. Yes, she’s the Princess in Amadonia, which is now fully incorporated into Elfrieden (which means the new name of the country is Friedonia, which I refuse to believe is by accident) and has presented herself as a prospective bride, Like other prospective brides we’ve seen in these sorts of series, she runs rings around Souma till he gives in. That said, she does look like a good addition, and it will be nice to see Souma try not to juggle economics quite as much. Oh yes, we also get a mad scientist girl, though she won’t be part of the harem. She is very much in the “ditzy teen genius” mode.

There is an extended plot here regarding slavery in this world, which I was less happy with. I accept that slavery in this fantasy world does not carry with it the baggage that it does in our own world, and that it seems to be more indentured servitude. But both Souma and the author seem to treat slavery as an intellectual problem to be solved, rather than as a monstrous evil. This is not unique to the isekai realm, of course, and I should be grateful that the protagonist doesn’t simply say “oh, slavery exists here” and shrug his shoulders like some others. It does add to my biggest beef with this series: it can be as dispassionate as its hero is, and as I’ve said before, seems like it’s one of those “dark/grey/independent” fics you always saw in Harry Potter written by teenagers who wondered what the world would be like if everything were more badass. (Hint: it involves hating Weasleys.) I like books to be fiction. I am less happy when they are thought experiments.

That said, when the book concentrates on its harem cliches, such as the relationship between Souma and Liscia, it may be less original, but it makes it more human. I hope we get a bit more of this going forward. I also hope the demon realm invades soon, as I really need Book 5 to not involve puttering around making new roads and discussing the Helsinki Accords. Mildly recommended to isekai fans.

Until Your Bones Rot, Vol. 1

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When Lois Duncan passed away in 2016, fans and critics alike fondly remembered her as the author of I Know What You Did Last Summer, the first great psychological thriller for teens. Duncan’s story took a tried-and-true plot and retooled it for younger readers, focusing on a quartet of teens who commit and conceal a crime, only to be stalked by an anonymous avenger. While the plot was pure potboiler, Duncan’s characterizations were remarkably realistic, convincingly depicting the confusion, uncertainty, and rashness of the teenage mind under extreme duress.

Until Your Bones Rot explores similar terrain as I Know What You Did Last Summer. Bones’ teen protagonists — Shintaro, Akira, Haruko, Ryu, and Tsubaki — are bound by a gruesome crime they committed when they were eleven years old. Artist Yae Utsumi doesn’t immediately reveal what, exactly, they did, though he plants tantalizing clues throughout volume one: a fleeting glimpse of a nighttime ritual, a nightmarish vision of a bloodied face. The plot is set in motion by an anonymous phone call threatening to expose the group unless they meet the caller’s demands. Though the five initially work together to protect their secret, fault lines soon develop within the group, particularly between Akira — the group’s alpha male — and Shintaro, the odd man out.

Utsumi handles the set-up with finesse, but his tone is less assured. Some passages feel like they’ve been ripped from Love Hina, with bikini-clad girls fawning over the nebbishy Shintaro; other passages read more like MPD Psycho, with characters doing disgusting things to dead bodies; and still other passages play out like a Very Special Episode of The OC in which one character silently copes with an abusive boyfriend. None of these scenes feel like they belong to the same story; about the only common thread that binds them is Utsumi’s fanservice, which gratuitously eroticizes a scene of sexual assault.

It’s a pity that the first volume is so uneven, as Utsumi makes a game attempt to create believable characters. Tsubaki and Shintaro, in particular, behave like real teenagers whose emotional and sexual attraction to one another is so overwhelming that they don’t know how to have a normal conversation or behave like friends; their one-on-one interactions suggest that both were deeply scarred by their participation in the murder, but lack the words — or the maturity — to say how it effected them, instead turning to each other for physical comfort. That’s a level of psychological nuance that Lois Duncan herself might have appreciated, even if Utsumi takes a few narrative shortcuts to establish the dynamic between Tsubaki and Shintaro.

And that, in a nutshell, is what makes Until Your Bones Rot so frustrating: Utsumi clearly understands the teenage mind, but can’t decide if he’s writing a finely observed psychological thriller or a junior-league Saw. The push-pull of these two different storytelling modes robs the most gory scenes of their horror and the most dramatic scenes of their poignancy, yielding a muddled stew of blood, boobs, and tears. Someone should make him read I Know What You Did Last Summer for a few pointers on how to walk the line between Grand Guignol and Afterschool Special more convincingly.

UNTIL YOUR BONES ROT, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY YAE UTSUMI • TRANSLATION BY URSULA KU • KODANSHA COMICS • RATED 16+ (SEX, PARTIAL NUDITY, GRAPHIC VIOLENCE)

Chihayafuru, Vol. 4

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By Yuki Suetsugu. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Be Love. Released in North America digitally by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Ko Ransom.

The sign of a good series is that you care about the characters as if they were real people, and take joy in their triumphs and grieve at their setbacks. This can sometimes backfire, however, when you see the setbacks coming and think to yourself “Oh noooooo!”. The moment I saw Chihaya’s head throb, I knew immediately what was going to happen by the end of the volume, and it hurt. This is why this review is running somewhat late, because I really did not want to read what I knew was going to happen. It comes after a half volume of small triumphs and achievements, as they quality for the National Tournament, win over their faculty adviser, and slowly come together as a team, each character getting a little bit more to do and more for us to identify with. Then I saw that throbbing head. And I said “…she’s sick.” And yep. SO FRUSTRATING.

Arata gets the cover this time around, and fortunately also gets a chunk of the narrative, as we get to see the strong relationship he had with his grandfather from his POV, helping to explain why he was so devastated he abandoned Karuta. It’s portrayed very realistically: his grandfather is a vibrant, active guy who loves Karuta, but then he has a stroke, which brings memory loss and rehabilitation. And of course, this being a manga and thus obliged to observe the occasional cliche, he goes to the tournament and leaves his grandfather alone for a few hours. We all know how that’s going to turn out. It really helps bring Arata into focus and remind us that he is eventually going to be a major player in this series again, and I imagine seeing Chihaya and company here will act as a catalyst.

As for Chihaya, she does her best, and tries hard to hide her illness form everyone, but in the end they have to forfeit after she collapses. Naturally, after waking back up, she’s completely devastated, and I suspect Vol. 5 is going to have a lot of depression and self-hatred. We’ve been seeing a lot of sports titles over here lately, and usually when there’s something like this it’s a physical injury, such as a sprained ankle or somesuch. Of course, they usually deal with physical sports such as basketball or volleyball. When you have something like Karuta, which is a lot more physical than I expected but still played seated and relying primarily on memorization and strategy, a fever or nasty cold can be just as bad as that sprained ankle. It’s to the credit of the team that they kept playing after she had to forfeit, but I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll pick up after the tournament and deal with the fallout.

Chihayafuru remains one of the best digital titles Kodansha is releasing at the moment, and I hope my review of Vol. 5 (already out) will come sooner rather than later.

The Faraway Paladin: The Lord of the Rust Mountains

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By Kanata Yanagino and Kususaga Rin. Released in Japan as “Saihate no Paladin” by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by James Rushton.

I’m reviewing this as one giant book, but it actually came out as two books here, called ‘Primus’ and ‘Secundus’ – in fact, Amazon thinks that those are the titles, and forgot about the whole Rust Mountains thing. It works better to see them as one big book, though, which is what the author intended. The first volume simply stops, and the second picks up right where it left off – there’s no real attempt to separate them. As for the plot, our square-jawed hero and his elf friend are here to take down an ancient dragon, helped out by some old friends and some new dwarves, including one who becomes Williams’s squire, despite being of royal blood. He is told repeatedly that if he fights the dragon now he will die, and he should gain more power and influence by letting a few people be killed so he can take it down more easily. As you might imagine, that is not how William rolls.

William is the star of this series, and the narrative fits itself around him, meaning it too tends to be like he is – straightforward, a bit humorless, and painfully, PAINFULLY earnest. This is actually the main selling point of The Faraway Paladin, which is miles away from any other fantasy light novel we have out there – there’s not an ounce of cynicism or irony in it. William is Good and True, and he can do impossible things thanks to the help of his friends, the training of his parents, and MUSCLES, which he points out are awesome several times throughout the book. The closest we get to cynicism is the villain, who is a very well-done ancient dragon, and would very much like to tempt William into allying with him to that he can sow chaos. He should know better.

The book reads quickly, and the action sequences are very well done, with no confusion about what is happening at any time. I was a little annoyed with the introduction of a tsundere elf girl, whose sole purpose seems to be to get rid of the ho yay that existed between William and Menel (there’s a lot of teasing of William for not having found a girlfriend yet, further driving the point home). Al is a good addition to the cast – it fits that someone like William gets a squire that’s almost as serious-minded as he is, and the two work well together. The translation is also good, though the Kindle version I have has both the dragon and the Gods speaking in bold text, which can get very confusing when three of them are all speaking at once – perhaps one should have been italicized instead.

Again, if you want to read a light novel but are thoroughly sick of the cliches of the genre, this is an absolute must-read. It’s the Lord of the Rings starring Superman, basically. I look forward to seeing where it goes next.

Juni Taisen: Zodiac War

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By NISIOISIN and Hikaru Nakamura. Released in Japan by Shueisha. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Nathan A. Collins.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this when I first heard of it, and now that I’ve finished it, I’m still not quite sure. It was written two years ago, and the anime is just coming out now, so it seems like it wasn’t written solely to be a TV tie-in (Nisio has done those before, writing books in the Death Note and xxxHOLIC franchises). But honestly, it doesn’t have the same strong authorial voice that I’ve grown used to from the Monogatari and Zaregoto series – if nothing else, it has far fewer puns. If I’m going to be honest it feels like it’s a book that was written because a bit of cash was needed, and someone said “can you write us a battle royale-style book that we could potentially use later?”. Even Nakamura’s illustrations are a bit disappointing, as they’re basically just character design – if you’ve seen the cover, you’ve seen the illustrations.

That said, this isn’t that bad a book, and it gets better as it goes along. As I mentioned, the plot is essentially a Battle Royale, as 12 fighters of various types and backgrounds, all seemingly connected with the Chinese Zodiac, have been brought together to fight each other to the death, with the last one standing getting anything they wish. At first it seems like the morality discussions we get, both via internal monologue and external dialogue, are merely padding while we wait for the battles, but as the book goes on it becomes clearer that the battles are padding for the morality discussion. This should not be a surprise, given this author – even in this book, which does not feature too many incredibly talkative people, there’s still a lot of discussion about the nature of good and evil, and what it means to be a good person.

The nature of the series means that even talking about what a character says towards the end of the book can be spoiling, given it’s a ‘kill someone off every chapter’ sort of book. I will say that it’s exactly as advertised – the start of the book said 11 of the 12 would end up dead, and sure enough, that’s what happens. This includes the worst of the bad guys and the most sympathetic of the good guys. It does seem to indicate that, while wars are bad, pacifism is not necessarily the best ideal you can strive for – one of the characters, Monkey, reminds me an awful lot of Tsubasa Hanekawa, and that may be intentional. My favorite chapters were towards the end, as two of the better fleshed-out fighters discuss doing the right thing, and it’s the only time in the book you actually want to see more than one person survive – for the most part, these aren’t nice people.

Watchers of the anime will likely get even more out of this series – Nisio gave each fighter a one-page “biography” in the book, but the anime is expanding said biography to give a lot more backstory to everyone. Likewise, there’s a sequel manga running at the moment in Jump, which I believe Viz has also licensed. And they just announced a sequel novel to this book, with (presumably) a new cast. So in the end maybe this was meant to be work-for-hire to create a franchise. Still, it’s not without interest.

H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories

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If you admire the fecundity of H.P. Lovecraft’s imagination but not the turgidity of his prose, you might find Gou Tanabe’s manga adaptations of The Hound and Other Stories an agreeable alternative to the originals. Tanabe sticks close to the source material while pruning away the florid language characteristic of Lovecraft’s writing, offering more polished — and, frankly, unnerving — versions of three early works: “The Temple,” first published in 1925, “The Hound,” from 1922, and “The Nameless City,” from 1921.

Tanabe is no stranger to literary adaptations; he’s also tackled works by Maxim Gorky (“Twenty-Six Men and a Girl”), Franz Kafka (“A Hunger Artist”), and folklorist Lafcadio Hearn (“The Story of O-Tei”). Lovecraft’s writing, however, occupies a unique place in Tanabe’s oeuvre, as he’s published adaptations of other Lovecraft stories — “The Color Out of Space” (1927) and “The Haunter of the Dark” (1935)” — and expanded Lovecraft’s novella “At the Mountains of Madness” into an ongoing, multi-volume series. Reflecting on his fascination with Lovecraft, Tanabe reverentially describes him as a “priest of his own Mythos,” capable of summoning “unknowable darkness” on the page. “By illustrating his stories,” Tanabe declares, “I intend to become an apostle of the gods he made” (172).

And while Tanabe’s sentiments are a little purple, his affinities with Lovecraft are evident in his artful translation of words into images. Consider “The Temple,” a tense drama set aboard a German U-boat in the waning days of World War II. While Lovecraft’s narrator baldly ascribes the crew’s irrational behavior to “peasant ignorance” and “soft, womanish” dispositions, Tanabe focuses instead on the extraordinary claustrophobia of their environment, cramming every panel with ducts, pipes, valves, levers, and gauges; the walls of the ship seem to press in on the characters as their disabled submarine plunges to its doom. That sense of entombment is heightened by Tanabe’s stark use of tone in the story’s final act, when the light emanating from the ship barely pierces the jet-black depths of the ocean. A fleeting glimpse of a dolphin — normally a symbol of innocent playfulness — becomes a sinister omen when lit from below, its smiling visage transformed into a sneer.

Tanabe also demonstrates a flair for drawing lost cities, evoking the grandeur and mystery of ancient civilizations through sheer scale: his temples and monuments are so large that they spill off the page, while their interiors are cramped and dark, more cave than castle. In “The Nameless City,” for example, we follow the narrator through a labyrinth of dark tunnels, his torch briefly illuminating objects and surfaces that hint at the true nature of the city’s inhabitants. These panels culminate in an extraordinary two-page spread revealing a Romanesque fresco that, on closer inspection, is populated not with demons, angels, and men, but reptilian monsters arranged in concentric circles around a Christ-like figure.

The revelation of who lived there — and how they treated their human subjects — provides a moment of thematic continuity with the other two stories in the anthology. As writer Robert M. Price explains in his forward to The New Lovecraft Circle, Lovecraft’s heroes seek forbidden knowledge, “gradual[ly] piecing together… clues whose eventual destination one does not know.” Price elaborates:

The knowledge, once gained, is too great for the mind of man. It is Promethean, Faustian knowledge. Knowledge that destroys in the moment of enlightenment, a Gnosis of damnation, not of salvation. One would never have contracted with Mephistopheles to gain it. One rather wishes it were not too late to forget it. (xviii–xix)

At the same time, however, the narrator’s terrible discovery exemplifies another important strand in Lovecraft’s writing: a sense of cosmic indifferentism, the idea that the universe is, in Lovecraft’s words, “only a furtive arrangement of elementary particles” that “presage of transition to chaos.” As Lovecraft observed,

The human race will disappear. Other races will appear and disappear in turn. The sky will become icy and void, pierced by the feeble light of half-dead stars. Which will also disappear. Everything will disappear. And what human beings do is just as free of sense as the free motion of elementary particles. (Riemer)

Viewed in this light, the rendering of the fresco seems less like a simple artistic choice by Tanabe than an expression of Lovecraft’s own cosmic indifferentism. By parodying the Christian iconography enshrined on Medieval cathedral walls, ceilings, and portals, Tanabe points both the futility of belief — it didn’t save the monsters, after all — and the inevitability that mankind will repeat the cycle of birth, life, and death that the monstrous fresco depicts.

And if all of this sounds like the ruminations of a freshman philosophy major, fear not; The Hound and Other Stories can still be enjoyed on its own merits. All three stories are well paced and vividly rendered, each embodying the Romantic definition of the sublime — “all that stuns the soul, all that imprints a feeling of terror”— while offering the kind of satisfying twists that pulp fiction readers craved in the 1920s. And for those more invested in the Lovecraft mythos, The Hound provides an opportunity to revisit these stories afresh, seeing them through the eyes of an artist who has dedicated his career to finding the poetry, the mystery, and the weirdness in Lovecraft’s words. Recommended. 

References

Price, Robert M. “Introduction.” The New Lovecraft Circle. Del Rey, 2004, xiii-xxvi.

Riemer, Andrew. “A Nihilist’s Hope Against Hope.” Sydney Morning Herald, 28 June 2003, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/27/1056683892274.html. Accessed on 11 Oct. 2017.

Tanabe, Gou. H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories. Translated by Zack Davisson, Dark Horse, 2017.

Spirit Circle, Vol. 1

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By Satoshi Mizukami. Released in Japan by Shonen Gahosha, serialized in the magazine Young King Ours. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jocelyne Allen, Adapted by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane.

I greatly enjoyed Mizukami’s last series to be published over here, Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, and so was definitely looking forward to this. The first volume is very much a manga of two halves. In the first half we set up the situation and meet out heroes and find out what grudges they may have against each other. That said, this is also a tale of reincarnation. And so the second half of the manga is seeing Fuuta’s past lives, which are various types of tragic so far, and seeing him grow as he slowly starts to remember things. Being a first volume, I’m unsure whether the bulk of the series will be the war between Fuuta and Kouko or the flashback lives – hopefully it will continue to be somewhat balanced – but it’s off to a pretty good start, and is only six volumes, so is unlikely to wear out its welcome.

Our hero, as seen on the cover, is Fuuta, a nebbish dude who can see spirits. Our heroine is the girl on the BACK cover, Kouko, a new mysterious transfer student ™ who initially seems rather cool and standoffish but once Fuuta gets to know her proves to be much worse. Because after she throws him headfirst down a flight of stairs (as you do), he suddenly finds himself flashing back to his previous lives, reincarnation style. No, they aren’t long-lost soulmates – in fact, long-lost enemies is a better term for it, and in the two lives that we see in this initial volume, Fuuta’s past selves make life miserable for Kouko’s past selves – or in some cases simply kill her outright. Helping the two of them are two ghostly familiars – hers is older and serene, his is the bubble pinkette on the cover.

The familiars are a weak part of the book so far – Juno, the pink girl, seems to fulfill no function Except to be bubbly and cute in a series with two rather dour leads. The strong part of the book are the previous lives – the second one in particular could almost be a different, separate manga, and shows Fuuta’s rather bitter and cynical past self, cursed by the witch he killed (Kouko, of course, who was literally making a medicine to save a village, but hey, witch) and living a rather desolate and depressing life, till he is redeemed to an extent by an abandoned child. I’m not actually sure if Kouko and Fuuta will get set up romantically, by the way – certainly she’s not fond of him right now, and the past lives both seem to hint of a connection to some other girl (who, if she’s in the present, we haven’t seen yet). Indeed, a romance may not be the point of this at all.

This first volume does its job quite well – it’s good, and I want to read the next one. That’s really all you can ask for in a new series.

Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 8

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Yona of the Dawn Volume 8 by Mizuho Kusanagi

If I had to come up with a brief phrase to describe this volume of Yona of the Dawn, it would be “clever subverted expectations”. Kusanagi explores this theme in a couple ways, first with a brief introductory story focusing on the Yellow Dragon, and then followed by a closer look at King Su-Won.

I was fully expecting another detailed quest storyline as Yona and her companions sit around debating how to search for the Yellow Dragon, but then a mysterious man shows up at their campsite, announcing himself due to his intense stomach gurgling. It is Zeno, the Yellow Dragon, and he is hungry! What follows is one of the comedic interludes that livens up the series as everyone attempts to adjust to the new stranger in their midst and try to figure out what to do next once all the guardian dragons are gathered together. While Zeno initially acts goofy and mysterious, as Yona is trying to figure out what to do next he switches over to serious mode and is incredibly insightful. As one naturally expects from this series Yona’s next direction is not to take back the throne in a grab for power, she wants to help her people who are currently repressed.

The first part of the manga played with the reader’s expectations by subverting the quest narrative that they have come to expect. The second half focuses on king Su-Won and his relationship with his greatest general, Yi Guen-Tae. The general isn’t sure what sort of king Su-Won is, and he’s initially not impressed, as Su-Won appears to be cheerful and ineffectual, without the emphasis on force as a means to an end that Yi Guen-Tae would expect. Reports keep arriving of little problems within the kingdom, and Su-Won appears to be unconcerned. Su-Won ends up proposing an elaborate war game to give the general the action he craves, and Yi Guen-Tae gradually realizes that he’s severely underestimated his king. In this story particularly Kusanagi’s ability to shift between different moods from panel to panel and her facility with facial expressions showcases the real Su-Won as opposed to the mask that usually hides his emotions.

I always put down each volume of Yona of the Dawn feeling a little in awe of Kusanagi’s storytelling abilities. She’s always able to pack so much character development into a single volume, while still giving the reader the feeling that the plot is unfolding in an unhurried, natural way. This is quite tricky to pull off successfully, and one of the reasons why Yona of the Dawn always ends up at the top of my to-read pile as soon as it comes out.

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, Vol. 3

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By Ryo Shirakome and Takayaki. Released in Japan as “Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou” by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen.

This was a relatively good volume of Arifureta provided you understand what genre you are reading – it’s a teenage power fantasy of the strongest kind – so let me get the weak point out of the way straight away. It’s not hard, she’s sitting on the cover. Judging by Arifureta fans’ reaction, I’d expected to dislike Shea, introduced last time, but instead I really found myself taken with her. Tio, introduced in this volume, is not nearly as fortunate, mostly as she’s a walking sex joke (it’s a sad state of affairs when the buxom bunny girl is NOT the walking sex joke). She’s a dragon person who is mind controlled to kill the party that Hajime and company are tasked to rescue, and is unsurprisingly very hard to kill. Hajime, who as we know prefers overkill anyway, ends things by shoving a giant spike up the dragon’s bottom… which apparently not only dispels the mind control, but triggers her masochistic side. She spends the rest of the book making the standard “your abuse turns me on” jokes. Also, if you’re going to develop a heroine, don’t do it at the end in an extra story. It just looks like you forgot to.

Leaving Tio aside, the rest of the book is much better. The teacher of this sent to another world bunch, Aiko, gets the bulk of the development, and honestly probably should have gotten the cover, especially as I suspect she’s eventually going to be part of the inevitable harem, though I’m not happy about that. She still has a tendency to be a bit too much of a ripoff of Komoe-sensei from Index, but her desperate idealism and desire to help everyone she meets – as well as all her students, even when they’ve turned totally insane or (in Hajime’s case) become cynical and bitter. In fact, she’s far stronger than you’d expect, and when she goes up against Hajime to convince him to do the right thing and save the town, it’s him who blinks first. Yue also helps here, saying that the Hajime she fell in love with is not someone who will kill for no reason. Having taken the hero as dark as we can, it’s time to start bringing him back to the light.

That will take some time, and may never completely happen, though I particularly liked his reasoning for killing the villain at the end, even though he was dying anyway. Hajime, Yue and Shea continue to be the most broken trio ever, and Shea has now fully integrated herself into their little group (though he still won’t sleep with her.) If you read a series in order to see the hero overcome hardships and struggles, this is so not the book for you. If, on the other hand, you enjoy seeing a ridiculously overpowered twink waltz his way through a fantasy world and occasionally be reminded that he once had an actual soul, and don’t mind him abusing nearly the entire cast, you should enjoy this quite a bit. I would not go as far as Yue and say that Hajime is a tsundere, though. Maybe he’s a tundra.

Anonymous Noise Vol. 4

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Anonymous Noise, Volume 4 by Ryoko Fukuyama

I feel a bit conflicted about this series. I found the first volume a bit uneven, but was gradually won over by all the performance scenes in the manga, even though some of the drama in the manga seems a bit far-fetched at times. This volume featured fewer performances, which maybe accounts for me feeling somewhat impatient in some of the plot resets that happened. In the first few pages of the book an event occurred that made me think, “Hell no!” and then I put the manga down and proceeded to read a few other things before picking it up again. Yuzu kisses Nino when she’s in the throes of emotional turmoil (her usual condition), and her reaction is to say “Don’t talk to me for awhile.”

Just a few pages later Yuzu clarifies that she was upset because she didn’t realize that being with her was causing Nino so much pain, and yet she continues to be fundamentally clueless about the idea that someone might have a crush on her. Yuzu promptly walks back on the idea that he has any romantic feelings for Nino, telling her that it is her voice that’s important to him. This type of emotional reset button with the storyline is what I find frustrating sometimes about this series. It just doesn’t seem like there’s a great deal of character change or growth five volumes in. In Everyone’s Getting Married, for example, no one is getting married, but the relationships between the main characters has grown and evolved so much over just a few volumes, I’m confident that the series is going somewhere, and all the drama will pay off for the reader in the end. I don’t have that same feeling for Anonymous Noise, but at the same time, it is still compelling to read.

Once I got past the romantic drama, I was able to settle down more with the secret backstory of the formation of Yuzu’s band. The next volume promises to have more of a focus on music, as everyone is gearing up for a battle of the bands. I think I enjoy this series most when it is emphasizing music more than romance, so I’m hoping for some dramatic scenes of Nino doing her rock star scream soon.

Kamisama Kiss, Vol. 25

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By Julietta Suzuki. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by Tomo Kimura

I haven’t done a full review of Kamisama Kiss in over 7 years, but it’s always been near the top of my want to read shoujo titles, and I’m impressed with it for lasting 25 volumes, which is more than four sets of Karakuri Odette. (Does anyone recall that series? It’s been about one fandom generation since it came out.) I was wondering what the author was going to do with this final volume, given that almost everything was resolved in the previous book. And it’s true, this is a victory lap of a sort, a light and cheerful final volume devoting itself to wrapping up the romances and getting Nanami and Tomoe married and living in the human world. It’s well worth the read, though, as it’s a well-told victory lap, and will put a smile on your face.

You’ll note the cover art is a bit different from the ‘wedding pose’ cover that the regular edition had. I picked up the Limited Edition, which comes with this alternate cover and a separate, hardcover minibook that features all the color pages from the series, as well as an epilogue chapter taking place several years later. I think it’s worth shelling out for the extra edition – the art is gorgeous, even if pretty small (this is still the size of a regular manga volume) and we also get one of those ‘extra chapters’ that always tend to happen in Hana to Yume series but so rarely get collected into North American (or indeed Japanese) volumes. Without spoiling anything, fans of Akura-Oh and Ami will absolutely want to pick up the Limited Edition.

As for the main event, I like how it shows that even after all this time, Nanami still has a tendency to sublimate her own desires if she thinks Tomoe will be uncomfortable or dislike anything, and I like the fact that the entire cast serves to clamp down on that and give her the epic wedding that she (and the series) deserves. As for the other human x supernatural pairings, Ami and Kurama is left up in the air, mostly as Kurama has not gained as much experience with human emotion as Tomoe has, but it’s pretty clear that she’s not going to be moving on. As for Himemiko and Kotaro, they’ve got a few more things conspiring to keep them apart, including some of what Nanami has dealt with before (the “they must be unhappy, it would be best if I left them” feelings), but they also have a very good reason to stay together, and the result is dealt with subtly but will put a smile on your face.

As will the entire volume, really. Kamisama Kiss has had its fair share of drama, and so after all the near deaths and trips to the afterlife it’s a relief to see such a sweet ending. Admittedly Mizuki may not agree with me, as Nanami and Tomoe becoming human means a parting from the spirit wold, but even that may be only a temporary thing, we discover. As with most really good manga, finishing this series makes a reader want to go back and start over from the beginning.

Invaders of the Rokujouma!?, Vol. 7

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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.

For the most part this book is just a straight up sequel to the fourth volume, with the drama club getting together with our heroes to put on a second play featuring the Blue Knight and the Silver Princess. Like the fourth book, there’s a lot of focus on Theia and Harumi, who compare and contrast even more with each other. And like the fourth book, everything gets derailed by Theia’s rival Clan, who’s out for revenge and has a better gun now. Oh yes, and can fly. That said, for about 4/5 of this book there’s not really all that much happening, and it seems to be content to be a Christmas-themed book showing how well everyone gets along now while seeding possible things for future books, such as Ruth pointing out that serving Theia as her Knight would involve Koutarou moving off-planet.

Ruth is on the cover of this volume, so you might expect to see her get a story in Vol. 8. That said, she does get plenty to do here, mostly acting as support for Theia and trying to nudge Koutarou in the right direction, though there is an amusing side plot of her wanting to get stronger so she can defeat the sentai warrior from last book – who was, of course, Shizuka, who feels uncomfortable about all this. That said, neither Ruth or Shizuka are part of the harem (yet), and so the bulk of the development goes to Harumi and Theia. Harumi is still trying to get Koutarou to treat her as less of a sempai and more of a friend – i.e., the way he treats Theia, which she explicitly is jealous of. Theia does not think about Harumi that much, but that’s likely because she’s unaware of the plot twist we all saw coming: Harumi is in some way possessed by or a reincarnation of the Silver Princess from Theia’s past, and as the end of the book makes clear, Koutarou is literally the Blue Knight.

The climax of the book involves the performance of the 2nd play, complete with Yurika as the most pathetic dragon ever (she’s back to being useless here, though smartens up when actual danger arrives, and the fact that she hasn’t realized her feelings for Koutarou yet helps her keep it together more). The play is, as I said above, interrupted by Clan, who remains petty, spiteful, and very easy to dislike. And then comes the climax of the book, which was a big surprise. Not the actual events, those were the least surprising thing ever. No, I was surprised that the book kept going past where I expected it to. Let’s just say there was a really obvious place for a cliffhanger, but the book chose to go a few more pages and actually resolve most of its built-up tension. It actually worked quite well.

I’m enjoying reading each volume of this series as it really puts an effort into showing how each of the characters is slowly maturing and gaining confidence and strength, as well as bonding with each other. Technically it’s a harem comedy, but the harem all get along, and there’s no real rush to confess, mostly as few of them have even admitted their feelings to themselves. It works very well as an ongoing series, doing the #1 thing such series should do: make you want to read more. That said, I’m pretty sure the next volume won’t feature Ruth, as it’s Vol. 7.5, and tells the story of what happened to Koutarou and Clan during the climax of this book. Be careful when searching Amazon to get the right order.

Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 8

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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.

This volume of Yona can be divided into two parts. The first sees Yona finally fulfill the first part of the prophecy, gathering the last dragon, and then trying to figure out where to go from here. The second takes us back to the kingdom where we see what Su-Won is up to, and figure out that he’s a far more ambiguous figure than everyone may thing (both reader and characters within the series). Both parts work equally well, and you get the sense that the author is declaring this the “end of Part 1/start of Part 2′ for the series, as Yona gets a new purpose that will still manage to keep her wandering around from town to town, and Su-Won shows that he is not a pacifist like Yona’s father, but that doesn’t mean that he’s gearing up for blood and carnage either.

After the epic adventures to find the various Dragons in prior books, it is very much an anticlimax to have the last one, Zeno, just pop up and say “OH HAI!” to our heroes, then join them on a whim. It’s intended on the author’s part, of course, and the rest of the cast are just as thrown off their game by this guy who seems like a giant flake but can occasionally show a flair for the serious, and also does not seem to have the deep emotional bond with Yona that the others do. Honestly, it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise if he turned out to not be what he seemed later on, but for now I’m content to go along with Zeno as he’s fun. We also return to Ik-Su the priest once Yun realizes that they’ve fulfilled the prophecy but nothing has actually happened. This leads to Yona questioning what she wants to do – does she want to regain the kingdom for her father? Well, no, she wants to help other towns in need. I suspect that’s what we’ll be doing for a while.

Meanwhile, back in the kingdom, we see a rather grumpy general, Geun-Tae, who is depressed that even though there’s a new, supposedly not pacifist king, he’s STILL not fighting in great battles. This allows us to see Su-Won’s too clever by half manipulation from another point of view, and that other point of view paints Su-Won as a clueless idiot. The audience already knows that’s not true, of course, so the chapters instead show how, in a mock war game, Su-Won can win the trust of an important ally, and also how he listens and pays attention to everything and uses it to better the kingdom. Su-Won is turning out to be a really good king, and therefore Yona’s decision is going to be even more difficult. (Also, I must resist calling Su-Won Henry IV.)

As always, there’s even more that I didn’t get to talk about, like Geun-Tae’s adorable tea-loving wife, and Yona deciding to learn how to swordfight by stealing Hak’s sword in his sleep, which goes about as well as you’d expect. The series remains compulsively readable, and even though it’s on the fasttrack with a release every two months, it still feels too long between volumes. More!