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Reviews

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, Vol. 2

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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 is definitely a stronger volume than the first one – as with many authors, you get the sense that this is the story he wanted to tell all along, only he had to spend an entire volume giving us actual plot and backstory. But Hajime has hit world’s strongest already, and together with Yue he can pretty much carve up anything. So what’s left is the two of them snarking their way through various confrontations, beating nearly to death anyone who wrongs them, and attacking their second dungeon, which thankfully is very different from the first – in fact, the dungeon may be the highlight of the book. And of course they meet a new girl, the bunny girl on the cover. Admittedly, a lot of the plot points we had in the first book get short shrift (the rest of the class have approximately 20 pages of the book), but in a book this ridiculous that’s fine.

One of the reasons that the book works so well is the addition of Shea (whose name I think is meant to be pronounced Shee-ah, but sorry, I’m likely going to be saying Shay due to romanization habits), a loud, hyperactive, overly dramatic bunny girl who is the polar opposite of Hajime and Yue. I suspect Arifureta fandom may disagree with me on this – I haven’t verified it, but I’m pretty sure that Shea is the sort of character that readers came to Arifureta to get away from, and I bet that they winced with every whining complaint out of her mouth. These readers are wrong. Shea is quite funny and amusing, and while she starts off as the abused whiner of the group, the book is in many ways about adding her to the ‘harem’ naturally – I was relieved that Yue warmed up to her relatively quickly, as I don’t need genuine love triangle drama in my unrealistic harem fantasy – and by the end she is, if not an actual love interest, at least a valued party member.

As I mentioned in my review of the first volume, Arifureta tends to work better the more ridiculous it gets, though this is not an ironclad rule – Hajime’s training of the rabbit clan, and subsequent overdoing it, left just as sour a taste in my mouth as it did in his – and that’s likely why the best part of this book is Hajime, Yue and Shea conquering their second dungeon, which features zero monsters but eleven million kinds of traps. There’s hallways that turn into slides, there’s the ever popular washtub to the head, and there’s even a boulder rolling towards them down a slope, which is so cliched it’s remarked upon. This is added to by the constant taunting messages of the dungeon master, Miledi, who we never see (her spirit is inside a golem), but whose personality shines through with every teasing abusive message she writes for our heroes. This whole section was very fun, and the fight scenes were good.

As always, know what you’re getting into – this is still wish fulfillment fantasy of the highest order, with a ridiculously dark!grey!independent Hajime and his two companions, a gorgeous loli and a busty bunny girl. There’s no sex this time around, but that’s mostly due to lack of opportunity. It is still for fans of these sort of light novels only. But if you are one of those fans, and can get over Shea’s hyperdramatics, this is a very good addition to the series, and a definitely improvement over the first book.

Waiting for Spring, Vol. 1

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By Anashin. Released in Japan as “Haru Matsu Bokura” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dessert. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Alethea and Athena Nibley.

One of the things I am very fond of repeating over and over again is that a manga does not have to be new, exciting or revolutionary to be enjoyable. Yes, it’s always nice to see something that doesn’t follow the same well-worm path, but the well-worn path is comforting. A lot of people walk it every day. You know where you’re going. It’s the same with shoujo manga, and I know that a few people might be looking at Waiting for Spring and thinking “is there anything here I couldn’t read in a dozen other shoujo titles I’ve seen in the past?”. And the answer is, nope. It is thoroughly predictable in every way, and features character types you are not only familiar with but overfamiliar with. It is the well-worn path. I quite liked it.

Mitsuki is our heroine a first year high school student who’s trying to move to a school without too many of her old classmates to be more popular, but we know how well that works out. She’s pretty isolated, though she does at least have a part-time job at a cafe. The cuties of the school are Towa and his three other friends (who have names, but let’s face it, Towa is the one to remember), who are up and comers on the basketball team and have huge fanbases already. Things then start to go wrong as a) she gets a confession from one of the guys… who then actually looks at her and realizes he’s got the wrong girl; they’re likely going to start going to that cafe, meaning it will be overrun with their female fans; and worst of all, they’re generally nice guys if a bit insensitive, and they have that Mitsuki wants: self-confidence. Gradually she begins to hang out with them, despite the inherent dangers, and finds herself falling for Towa.

As you can see, this is not breaking any new ground, but it’s sweet. Mitsuki is likeable and awkward without being a doormat. Towa is nice and friendly without being bland. I don’t like the guy who accidentally proposed, but he’s meant to be the butt monkey of the series anyway, so that’s fine. Mitsuki also does eventually make a friend of another girl, which reassured me as sometimes these reverse harems can be fairly skimpy in that department. Reina also obsesses about the four guys, but not for the same reasons as the rest of the group – we, the reader can tell she’s a BL fanatic fantasizing about them, but Mitsuki herself doesn’t get it. And Mitsuki is slowly becoming more outgoing and forceful, reminding the fanclub why you go to a basketball game in the first place – to cheer the guys on. Her grades are bad, but even that is made into a decent plot point.

This hits a lot of good emotional beats, and there was no point at which I sighed and had to go “well, every shoujo series has a scene like this.” The guys may be overly insenstive at times, but none of them seem to be the sneering ass type. In short, if you just finished a comforting, easy to read shoujo series and were thinking of getting another one, Waiting for Spring will suit you fine.

ME

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MEAuthor: Tomoyuki Hoshino
Translator: Charles De Wolf
U.S. publisher: Akashic Books
ISBN: 9781617754487
Released: June 2017
Original release: 2010
Awards: Kenzaburō Ōe Prize

My introduction to the work of Tomoyuki Hoshino was through We, the Children of Cats, a volume containing a selection of his short stories and novellas which left a tremendous impression on me. Since encountering that collection, I’ve made a point to seek out and read everything of Hoshino’s that has been translated into English. (Sadly, there hasn’t been very much.) I was very excited to learn that Akashic Books would be publishing Charles De Wolf’s translation of ME, a book which quickly become one of my most anticipated literary releases of 2017. After Lonely Hearts Killer, ME is only the second of Hoshino’s novels to be released in English. Originally published in Japan in 2010 under the title Ore Ore (It’s Me, It’s Me, a reference to a common telephone scam), the novel would go on to win the 2011 Kenzaburō Ōe Prize and was later adapted as a live-action film directed by Satoshi Miki in 2013. In addition to the main text, the English-language edition of the novel also includes an afterword by Kenzaburō Ōe as well as a brief essay from the translator. Hoshino’s works can be challenging and demanding, but in my experience they can also be powerfully rewarding and meaningful; I was looking forward to reading ME a great deal.

When a stranger accidentally leaves his cellphone on the wrong food tray at a McDonald’s, the novel’s narrator Hitoshi Nagano makes an impulsive decision–he simply walks out of the restaurant with it. As a joke he calls the mother of the cell phone’s owner, pretending to be her son Daiki Hiyama. But he ends up taking the prank a little too far, not quite intentionally convincing her to transfer ¥900,000 into his bank account. Much to Hitoshi’s surprise, a few days later Daiki’s mother suddenly shows up at his apartment acting as though he is in fact her erstwhile son. Understandably and extraordinarily confused by this turn of events, Hitoshi makes a point to visit the home of his own mother only to discover that there’s already a Hitoshi Nagano there. And what’s more, he isn’t the only one to have recently visited claiming to be Hitoshi Nagano. With multiple people seeming to be posing as him, the only identity that remains available for Hitoshi to take appears to be that of Daiki Hiyama. And that’s when things start to get really strange.

Themes of identity and the fluidity of self can be found in many of Hoshino’s translated works, but they are particularly prominent in ME where they form the absolute core of the story being told. Both Hoshino’s long fiction and short stories can often be fairly surreal and ME is certainly no exception, although I do feel that the novel is probably one of his more readily accessible long-form works. Granted, none of the characters are especially likeable, but the basic premise of ME, while incredibly and increasingly strange, is still straightforward enough to follow at the surface level. However, to truly and fully appreciate the entirety of the novel and its depth not only demands but requires a particularly careful and close reading of the text. It would be very easy for readers to get lost if they don’t pay close attention to what is happening and how the novel and its language subtly shifts and changes along with the narrator’s identity. Even the genre isn’t fixed and transforms as the story progresses–ME begins as a peculiar comedy but by its end has dramatically evolved into dystopic horror. The narrative development of ME is both fascinating and perplexing.

Similar to other works by Hoshino, reading ME is an immensely thought-provoking but disorienting experience. The novel’s narrator, who is always himself but not always in the ways he expects to be, is enduring a fantastical identity crisis which, on occasion, still manages to be oddly relatable. He encounters more and more people who are him but not him, their backgrounds and personalities slowly blending together with less and less to differentiate among them. At first there is a sense of euphoria in finding like-minded people, but eventually a tremendous uneasiness begins to develop–hatred of others becomes hatred of self and vice versa, ultimately erupting in a violent confrontation which is part of a vicious cycle that is extremely difficult to escape or nullify. ME is intensely psychological and philosophical, the story using speculative fiction to outline a cerebral exploration of self, society, and the relationship between them. The novel can be simply read for entertainment, but if allowed it also prompts readers to examine the volatile nature and meaning of identity. Hoshino’s work tends to stick with me and I know I’ll be thinking about ME and the ideas it presents for quite some time.

Thank you to Akashic Books for providing a copy of ME for review.

Aho-Girl – A Clueless Girl, Vol. 1

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By Hiroyuki. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Karen McGillicuddy.

Do you know, I actually tried to research the difference between Aho and Baka as I read this? Thanks to Ranma 1/2, I think ‘baka’ is far more prominent in my mind as the default meaning for ‘stupid idiot’, and I’d assumed that ‘Aho’ was a stronger, cruder variant. Turns out it’s just regional differences – Aho is Kansai, Baka is Kanto. Whichever one you use, though, you know coming in what sort of series this is going to be. And it does not disappoint. Featuring the incredibly clueless Yoshiko and a supporting cast who seem to be her foils but turn out to be just as weird as she is, this is a series designed purely for the 4-koma format. You will laugh, you will get frustrated with the lead, you will want to strangle her and then realize that her childhood friend is already doing it. It lives up to its title – “what if Haruhi Suzumiya were an idiot and Kyon had no impulse control?” might be a good descriptor.

There’s no real plot to speak of beyond ‘high school’. Yoshiko is the titular girl, who can be defined by the title. Akkun is her perpetually angry childhood friend, who thinks he’s the tsukkomi here but in reality is just as broken and likely would be arrested for abuse if this series weren’t so silly. There *is* a straight man, fortunately, in Sayaka, a nice and sweet girl who you feel bad for for having to appear in a series like this. Other characters include Akkun’s younger sister, who also has bad grades but unlike Yoshiko just seems to have normal attention problems; Yoshiko’s highly desperate mother, who despairs of her daughter ever getting a man and is not above date raping Akkun in order to get Yoshiko to achieve this; and the as-yet-unnamed Head Monitor, who has fallen for Akkun but seems completely incapable of dealing with it like a normal person.

That last descriptor seems to apply to the series, which runs on comedy, and therefore features people missing points, doing incredibly dumb things, and making amusing faces. Yoshiko is so out there that even the neighborhood elementary school children think she needs to stop playing and study. One gets the sense that she got a lot of this from her mother – Yoshie may be my favorite character, as what seems to be just “oh, my daughter is strange and I want to fix that” gets increasingly perverse – drugging Akkun so that she can teach her daughter how to rape him would be a line one should not cross except 1) it fails immediately, and 2) it’s completely ridiculous. Technically the weak point here is Sayaka, who is the standard cute shy young thing, but the series needs SOMEONE to be the baseline, so I’m fine with her too.

I’m not sure how well this will work on a regular basis – I was already pretty worn just reading one volume. It’s the sort of series that works best in a weekly magazine – collecting it is a bit too much at once. Still, lacki9ng a weekly magazine for Kodansha, here we are, and I think it’s amusing enough to satisfy readers who like funny 4-koma series.

Honey So Sweet Volume 7

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Honey So Sweet Volume 7 by Amu Meguro

Between My Love Story!! and Honey So Sweet, English manga readers certainly have some stellar current shoujo series that are standouts for being adorable and benign. I was struck by just how Nice with a capital N Honey So Sweet is with the seventh volume’s take on a typical shoujo plot of the girl who gets a crush on main girls boyfriend and attempts to drive a wedge between them.

Miyabe has a crush on Taiga, and she proceeds to pursue him in the relentless and clueless way that only someone in the grips of first love is capable of. She shows up when Nao and Taiga are about to share some precious time alone, and she even starts trying to copy Nao’s hairstyle and outfits in an attempt to get Taiga’s attention. Nao at first doesn’t bring up her own feelings of jealousy, because she’s afraid of being viewed as petty and selfish. But she eventually realizes that it is much better to be honest. Taiga is fairly clueless about what Miyabe is up to for far too long and things start getting out of hand. It is heartwarming to see Futami trying to intervene to distract Miyabe from her poorly executed boyfriend stealing plan.

As the ineffective boyfriend stealer, Miyabe ends up getting treated with a great amount of compassion when all her strategies don’t end up working out. A marginal character in a situation who would serve as a distraction or be quickly forgotten in a less benign manga ends up having her feelings and friendship acknowledged. There’s something so human and hopeful about Honey So Sweet, it is the perfect manga to read if you need something to offset any cynicism you may be feeling.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Stratagem

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By Yoshiki Tanaka. Released in Japan as “Ginga Eiyū Densetsu” by Tokuma Shoten. Released in North America by Haikasoru. Translated by Tyren Grillo.

Well, I did ask for more politics, and we get it here, though there’s not really a lot of political backroom dealing. Instead, what we get is Reinhard sitting back, letting everyone else hang themselves, and then strolling in and taking everything over. I’m still not quite sure we’re supposed to like Reinhard or not, and certainly his casual lack of empathy as he sacrifices people for his own ends can be chilling, but there’s no doubt that at the end of the day he can make the decisions that lead to the Empire gaining power, whereas Yang Wen-Li is never going to be that person (much to Yang’s own relief, I suspect). It can be a bit uncomfortable to read – “what if the Space Nazis were the best option?” is essentially where were’ going with this current plot – but it’s certainly fascinating.

Yang in particular is not having a very good book. He’s back at his Death Star, but the fight that comes to him is just a diversion, and he knows it. Moreover, Julian has been transferred away from him , and though Yank knows that right now it’s the best thing to do, particularly as he needs someone he can trust on Phezzan, it’s not doing wonders for his psyche. Julian is not only the son he never had, but also his minder, and Yang is now required to do things like wake himself up. The horror! Sadly, while Yang can figure out exactly what’s going to happen, he can’t do much to stop it – indeed, the first third or so of the book doesn’t even have him in it. Julian does get to be awesome when he gets to Phezzan, but it’s preventing further damage control more than anything else.

Speaking of Phezzan, the trouble with trying to play both sides against each other in a never-ending war while you sit back and make money off of it is that sooner or later you may get called out by one of the sides. The scenes where The kidnapping of the emperor occur are probably the most amusing in the book, as Reinhard solves almost all his problems by literally doing nothing, allowing the resistance to escape with the World’s Brattiest Emperor, a 7-year-old child with no impulse control and a tendency to bite. This of course gives Reinhard a good excuse to send every ship he has to attack the Alliance, and install an 8-month-old girl on the throne as the new emperor. Even his enemies are sitting back and staring at how much everything just comes together for Reinhard here.

You may notice we have a new translator, though I didn’t see any appreciable difference in quality. A lot of the time Legend of Galactic Heroes is written like a musty old history textbook, and that comes across very well here, though it may annoy some people not used to this sort of narrative. Legend of Galactic Heroes is never going to be a series that inspires obsessive love, but it is noble and staid, and wears its empire building on its sleeve. We’ll see how the chips fall next time. And will Reinhard and Yang ever meet face to face?

Oh yes, and Rupert dies, probably because he’s in a Wagnerian novel series and his name is Rupert.

Anonymous Noise Vol. 3

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Anonymous Noise Volume 3 by Ryoko Fukuyama

I’ve found Anonymous Noise both intriguing and frustrating due to some of the overly contrived coincidences (even for shoujo manga). However with the third volume either the storytelling has settled down a bit or it just took a couple volumes for my suspension of disbelief to kick in, because I found myself smiling more while I was reading this manga instead of feeling snarky.

One of the things that I found a bit frustrating in the earlier volumes is that there were some characters functioning in silos to a degree that seemed somewhat ridiculous. The love triangle in the manga is clear, but if the three sides of the triangle haven’t each had a conversation with each other, it seems like the reader is just waiting around for the plot to progress. In this volume people actually talked to each other! They might have been lying dramatically the whole time, but a conversation happened. First, Nino and Miou hash it out a bit, as Nino has taken on Miou’s previous role as singer in Yuzu’s band while Miou moves on to work at a more professional level with Momo. Nino starts learning the guitar after Momo’s (female) manager gives her an old guitar of his. Nino continues to be incredibly inarticulate about her own feelings, and Miou helps her out by pointing out that she’s jealous of any woman who is close to Momo.

Yuzu’s angst is dialed up to 11 as usual as he struggles with his hopeless infatuation for Nino, and when he and Momo meet they finally figure out that they’ve been obsessed with the same girl/muse all along. Nino and Momo finally have a conversation where they confess that they USED to have crushes on each other. I enjoy the way Yuzu is in tune with his feelings far too much and while Momo might be experiencing a torrent of emotions, she’s much less self aware. So much angst!!! While the pacing of all these plot points still doesn’t feel as measured and natural as most of the other shoujo manga I read, the scenes of the characters performing have a tremendous energy that makes up for a lot. Really, one of the main things that won me over was the name and the costuming of Yuzu’s new band, which is hilarious. I’m looking forward to a band showdown coming soon.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Vol. 1

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By CLAMP | Published by Kodansha Comics

It’s been a long time since I read anything by CLAMP. After failing to love Kobato. and Gate 7, I just sort of drifted away from paying attention to what they were doing. When a beloved favorite got a new arc, however, my interest was piqued. And when Kodansha Comics not only licensed it, but released the first volume digitally months ahead of the print release, I might’ve squeed.

We rejoin Sakura Kinomoto as she begins her first year as a middle-school student. To her surprise and delight, Syaoran Li meets her on her way to school and announces that he’s back from Hong Kong and will henceforth be a permanent resident of Tomoeda. Everything seems to be coming up roses, except Syaoran looks troubled…

Soon, Sakura has a dream in which the cards she’s captured turn transparent and wakes to find it’s true. Her texts (yes, we’ve entered the modern age) seeking advice from Eriol in England go unanswered, and the next night, she dreams she receives the key to a new staff, which also comes to pass in reality. A couple of supernatural attacks follow, and Sakura is able to “Release!” the new key into the Staff of Dreams, with which she acquires two new cards. Kero and Yue are as clueless as Sakura is about what’s going on, but by the end of the volume, it’s clear that Syaoran and Eriol know more than they’re letting on and are probably colluding to keep Sakura in the dark about something.

It’s a cute start—not very different from what we’ve seen before, but it sure is nice to spend time with these characters again. What surprised me most, actually, was how much I loved seeing Kero-chan again. I seriously adore him, especially when he’s being sweet and supportive. Plus, the art is so lovely and familiar. I grew fond of the art style in xxxHOLiC, but this is the kind of art I associate more with CLAMP. I am a little worried this will turn out to be a disappointing sequel, but for now I’m keen to see how it develops.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card is ongoing in Japan, where two volumes have been released so far. Kodansha has made the first English edition available now in digital format, but it won’t see a print release until November.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Kounodori: Dr. Stork, Vol. 1

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By You Suzunoki. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Morning. Released in North America digitally by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Erin Procter.

Despite occasionally feeling overwhelmed by new titles, I am grateful to the publishers putting out digital-only series for choosing some series that are clearly experiments, titles that would not have a remote chance of being licensed in print over here but can perhaps reach some kind of an audience digitally. We’re seeing long-running sports titles, some experimental josei, and now we have Kounodori, a series from Kodansha’s flagship seinen magazine about an obstetrician who helps expecting families when he’s not busy being a secret, mysterious piano player. Back in the day, I used to go buy a random Japanese manga magazine from Kinokuniya, crack it open, and see what was in there that we weren’t getting here. This is a classic example. It’s episodic rather than having a continuous plot, goes in for dramatic lectures and births rather than fight scenes, and the art style has characters whose looks are less cute and more natural.

“But is it good?”, I hear you cry. I’d say yes, it definitely is good, provided that you come at the series aware that at its core, this is a melodrama. In fact, it pretty much verges on soap opera. There’s little humor, and those who dislike authority figures moralizing over people in difficult circumstances may dislike the first story especially. But I’d say overall I really enjoyed reading it. The overdramaticness and small stakes help to give it a tense feel that goes along with the plot, as the story is basically “what new crisis is putting a pregnant mother in jeopardy?” over and over again. We start with a poor mother, abandoned by her boyfriend, who has not had any prenatal care until she’s ready to give birth – she is dressed down rather sharply by our titular doctor. The longest story in the book has a wife giving birth prematurely, with all the dangers inherent in that process, and lots of discussion of what’s safest for the mother and the child. A chapter on gonorrhea shows us the dangers of adulterous guys, particularly when their cheating causes harm to their unborn children. Lastly, we get a stripper who needs to have a C-section, and is horrified as she says it would ruin her career.

I’ll be honest, I’m still not quite sure why he also moonlights as a piano player, except to make this something other than a standard medical drama. We do get a bit of Kounodori’s past – he grew up as an orphan, and was bullied – but that mostly serves to show us how he’s grown into a fine compassionate man. There’s also a lot of emotions in this, with the exception of Kounodori himself. The husbands are twitchy, the wives are yelling, and his fellow obstetrician looks to constantly be on the verge of breaking down. And at times the moralizing that Kounodori is prone to can be annoying. But for the most part, I really enjoyed reading a type of series I never thought I’d see over here. I suspect, given its ‘story of the week’ nature, that you can dip into the books at any volume, but the first is always a good place to start.

Bluesteel Blasphemer, Vol. 2

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By Ichirou Sakaki and Tera Akai. Released in Japan by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

In general, I tend to divide up books to review on this site into four categories: Great, Adequate/Good, Adequate/Bad, and Bad. The first and the last are obviously the easiest to review, as there are any number of things that you can say about them to show why you think they’re worth reading (or, in the case of the bad books, not worth reading). Adequate/Bad is tougher, but at least you can usually get away with a laundry list of things that the title is doing wrong. But oh dear, those books which are good but that’s about it. You really have to work at the review, because “good but that’s about it” makes the reader not want to read a book. But they *are* good, and very readable. It’s just there’s really nothing that stands out and makes you go “wow, that made buying this book worth my time’. Such a series is Bluesteel Blasphemer, which is adequate. HIGHLY adequate.

This second volume picks up (after a short setup prologue) right where we left off. Yukinari is settling in uncomfortably as the new erdgod of Friedland, and trying to figure out how to make the village prosper, less by sacrifices and more by irrigation and trade. He’s accompanied by Dasa, who fulfills both the Rei Ayanami clone and Clingy Jealous Girl types in one; Berta, whose love/worship of Yukinari continues to be vaguely disturbing – it makes sense for her character given how she was raised, but I’d really like her to get a hobby or two; and Fiona, the de facto mayor of the village, who sometimes acts as a tease but more often fills the straight man role. We also add Ulrike, who is the main familiar of the erdgod the next village over, a giant forest/tree who uses humans whose lifespan is at an end to become its familiars (Ulrike is seen in the prologue, a cute young kid who dies by getting impaled on a tree. Fortunately, she was impaled by the right tree). Together, they fight against a cadre of grumpy priests whose job is suddenly gone, and some grumpy soldiers who are still trying to be zealots.

If I were to pinpoint things I didn’t care for with this book, it would be the same as the last – the harem stuff feels false and tacked on, and I wish it would go away. Other than that, this is a very smooth, easy to read book. I enjoyed the motivation of the other erdgod, and how a village that doesn’t have much beyond LOTS OF WOOD might turn to it as an alternative to more modern-day thinking like medicine. I liked the examination of what happens to the priests after Yukinari takes over, particularly in regards to the orphanage that suddenly doesn’t have villagers paying to feed its orphans. I liked the vaguely evil foreshadowing going on between the evil old priest and his stacked alchemist which will clearly become the climax to the final book. And the slingshot was hilarious.

So this is a good, solid book that fans of the light novel genre will enjoy, particularly if they like Kamen Rider-style books. But if you’re thinking “I need to cut back on light novels, what would be good?”, this series also comes to mind immediately. I’m happy it’s not 20+ volumes, I can tell you that.

Plum Crazy! Tales of a Tiger-Striped Cat, Vol. 1

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By Natsumi Hoshino | Published by Seven Seas

It is definitely a good time to be a manga fan, particularly if you (like me) are fond of niche genres like food manga, sports manga, and cat manga. The latest entry into that final category is Plum Crazy! Tales of a Tiger-Striped Cat and, predictably, it’s cute.

Plum lives with the Nakarai family, including a woman who teaches traditional Japanese dance and her teenage son, Taku. One day, Plum brings home a kitten in distress, and what follows are her efforts to help take care of the kitten while said kitten (soon named Snowball) is more interested in administering chomps.

With the exception of a few pages of 4-koma comics at the back of the volume, Plum has no internal dialogue, but her actions and expressive face convey her thoughts well. She does typical cat-like things, but she’s far from ordinary. For example, not only does she actually listen to her owner’s directives, but she actually complies. Snowball is more realistically temperamental, only cuddling with Plum when she feels unwell and otherwise tormenting her until another cat shows up, at which point Snowball is jealous of their playtime.

Really, there isn’t a lot of plot here. The only thing that comes close is the Nakarai family learning valuable lessons about keeping a clean litterbox, or the dangers of heatstroke, or the fact that cats don’t like wearing reindeer antlers and posing for pictures. To all of these I give a big “duh!,” and it’s somewhat frustrating to see people so cavalier about these and other topics—they don’t seem to worry about a tiny kitten wandering the neighborhood, for example—but I guess part of the point of the manga was to be educational.

At any rate, this was an enjoyable addition to the roster of cat manga available in English, and I plan to continue with it.

Plum Crazy! is ongoing in Japan, where sixteen volumes have been released. Seven Seas will publish the second volume in English in September.

Infinite Dendrogram: The Beginning of Possibility

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By Sakon Kaidou and Taiki. Released in Japan by Hobby Japan. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson and Nick Nomura.

The cliche has become that every single light novel released over here in the past four years or so has been a variation on “fighting monsters in a fantasy role-playing game”, but each of them have had their own little variations to separate them in some way. There’s the old ‘trapped in the game’ variation, like Sword Art Online or Log Horizon. We’ve had ‘the mechanics of the world are game-oriented but it’s just a fantasy’ like Danmachi and Death March. We’ve had ‘resurrected into fantasy worlds that are clearly based around cliches’ like KonoSuba and Isekai Smartphone. It’s been rare that we’ve actually seen a light novel that is just ‘let’s watch the hero play a new VRMMO game’. Playing to Win is closest, but even there the conceit is not that of the average guy playing a game, it’s that Ichiro is a arrogant rich guy. With Infinite Dendrogram, we finally have a book that (at least so far) is only ‘let’s explore the new game’.

Our hero is not playing the game the day it comes out – he had to study to pass college exams first. So it’s about a year and a half later, and he’s well behind his older brother, who’s been somewhat impatiently waiting for him to join. Once he does, Reiji (aka Ray in the game) picks out his weapon, his home base, and his Embryo, which is basically a sentient weapon/defense that grows along with the player’s character. His turns out to be a sword (later a halberd) which can also become a cute girl (because of course – come on, it is still a light novel) who essentially serves as his partner – though sometimes reluctantly, especially when dealing with zombies and the like. Together they try to level up while dealing with player killers, the fact that the home base they chose is rapidly losing its population due to wars, and the usual inconveniences that come up in a game.

The idea is that the game has more variations than almost any other known to man – we see a journalist as one of the minor characters, not a normal character type in a game like this, and one player is even a pimp with his own succubus. (This is actually the most amusing part of the book, as the player is underage, so his succubus specializes in things like really soothing backrubs because of the age restrictions). That said, Ray and Nemesis (his Embryo) are fighting types, and while there are indeed signs that he is a Very Special Hero indeed, for the most part we see him fight, explore, learn, and fight some more. The fights are quite well done, and the book as a whole reads very well. If there’s one thing that disappointed me, it’s that I was expecting more of a twist, I suppose? There are suggestions that the game is meant for some higher purpose, but here in the first book it’s just a lot of cool fights, RPG exploring, and endless bear puns. There’s no ‘gimmick’ yet.

Still, if you like this genre, and want something uncomplicated, this is an eminently readable book. Recommended for light novel and RPG fans.

Oresama Teacher, Vol. 22

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By Izumi Tsubaki. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by JN Productions.

After the previous volume’s ups and downs, I’m pleased to say that this Oresama Teacher is back on target with a very strong entry, as we discover just who has been impersonating Super Bun. It’s not exactly a surprise, particularly once you realize the evil doppelganger is not all that evil. The rest of the volume is devoted to the graduation of the third years, including Okegawa (at last), and Hanabusa, who this volume is really all about. Because yes, spoiler, he was the Super Bun impersonator. We finally get a lot of answers in this book regarding just what he was planning to do and why the Student Council is filled with so many broken people. And throughout it all we get Mafuyu, running forward no matter what as always, showing off the qualities that make her one of my favorite shoujo heroines.

The best scenes in the volume, as I said, revolve around Hanabusa. He’s always been a somewhat ambiguous villain, and the reason for that is that he’s not really much of a villain at all. The revelation that the Student Council members, with a few exceptions (Momochi, who’s still recovering from events of the last few books, and Shinobu and Wakana, who luckily fit the bill anyway) are there to be PROTECTED rather than to be the PROTECTORS turns a lot of events in the series on their ear. It also shows how far Hanabusa himself has come, as now he feels it’s safe enough to leave his friends behind and go to school in Tokyo. The final scene in the book with Mafuyu, where he thanks her for everything she did the past year and says she’s his hero, is one of the two scenes in the book that made me choke up (the other being the ending to the hide and seek game).

As for the rest of the cast, Takaomi once again takes a back seat except to provide helpful advice. Hayasaka is also not given much to do, but that’s fine as I’m assuming that the finale, which should be in a few more volumes, will feature him heavily. Okegawa gets more focus, though, mostly as he too is moving on, though I have a feeling we’ll see more of him in future volumes than Hanabusa. His relationship with “Morse” has always been subtly different from all the others, and I felt that if this is the last we see of him, it got a good sendoff. And of course there are any number of hilarious moments here – it’s no Nozaki-kun, but it acquits itself admirably, especially with the various alternate Super-Bun masks and the over the top reactions to everything.

We don’t get this series all too often since it’s caught up in Japan, but I always enjoy each volume we do get. I have a feeling it may be wrapping up in 2-3 more volumes, but for now we have this. Go get it.

Log Horizon: The Larks Take Flight

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By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

After spending the 6th book with Akatsuki and the other women of Akiba, and the 7th book with Shiroe and Naotsugu and their heist movie, this book continues the trend by turning to the rest of Log Horizon, the junior members. And for the most part it succeeds admirably, not only telling a good story and going into greater depth about what it really means to be trapped in a game, but also giving added depth to four out of the five main characters. (Apologies to Serara, but you still haven’t risen much above the level of a moeblob.) This goes doube for Isuzu, who has the biggest picture on the cover and arguably grows the most throughout the book, as she tries to overcome her amazingly huge amounts of self-loathing and realize that she can go past her limits and do something to save the People of the Earth.

Much of this book goes into greater depth about the People of the Earth; how they live their day-to-day lives, what life is like now that the adventurers are inventing so many amazing things (many of which the adventurers regard as commonplace or unimportant), and how they react to a girl going around singing music they’ve never heard before. Isuzu not only thinks that she’s a crappy musician (thanks to something her father told her, which we later learn she may have misinterpreted, and seeing her father’s own skills) but also that what’s she’s doing now isn’t even her skill as she only plays cover songs. It’s up to her not-boyfriend Rundelhaus (who is amazing in this book, and is about ten times more serious than the anime) to tell her the truth: this world only had 42 songs – the 42 pieces of BGM for the Elder Tales game. ‘Music’ and ‘the forty-two’ literally mean the same thing to them. So Isuzu really is changing lives. And when she finally begins to sing a song she composed herself, well, she cam move mountains. Or at least buildings.

Meanwhile, Touya and Minori are not left out. They’re both dealing with growing up as well, Minori trying to be the team strategist and thinking on her feet, and Touya by essentially being the team heart, and being able to see the true feelings behind a faked smile. We also get two new characters… well, sort of new. Roe2 is clearly related to Shiroe in some way, to the point that I was a bit aggravated that no one observed “isn’t that just Shiroe with breasts?” when they first saw her. As for Dariella, the book keeps her identity a secret till the very end (the complete opposite of the anime, which showed who she was from the start), and in retrospect you can see and feel a little bad for who she is and what she’s trying to escape. And for those who like a darker flavor to her Log Horizon books, we get the Odysseia Knights, who seems to have been driven half-mad by being trapped in the game, unlike Akiba’s “welp” sort of player, and Mizufa, a warrior who is a Person of the Earth, but just as terrifying as any adventurer.

It’s rare that I, a spoilerholic, say “I don’t want to spoil more”, but it’s true. This book is a delight, with many passages you’ll want to go back and reread immediately, and has Log Horizon’s usual depth of worldbuilding and characterization. I love Sword Art Online too, but if you’re going to read only one trapped in a game light novel, this should be the one.

Also, Isuzu says she sang a “Snoopy” cover to the People of the Earth, which makes me think it has to be “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” by the Royal Guardsmen. It even works well with lute, drums and keyboard!

Ravina the Witch?

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Cute characters behaving badly — that’s been Junko Mizuno’s MO since her professional debut twenty years ago. Her latest work, Ravina the Witch?, is more picture book than manga, eschewing panels and word balloons for glossy, full-color illustrations, but the story it tells is pure Mizuno: a young woman meets a witch, inherits her wand, and then wanders the countryside meeting depraved men whose hobbies run the gamut from S&M to binge-drinking.

There’s a little more to the story, of course, since Mizuno loves to embroider a simple narrative with odd details. Ravina, we learn, was raised by crows in a junkyard, impervious to human custom and language. Once exiled from her home — by eminent domain, no less! — Ravina uses her new-found powers to cure disease, embarrass a cruel tyrant, and make mushrooms dance. She also finds time to work as a dominatrix and do crossword puzzles with an enormous owl. Oh, and she’s almost burned at the stake for being a witch.

As the plot suggests, Ravina sits somewhere between fractured fairytale and feminist rumination. Mizuno clearly recognizes the way in which female healers are viewed as both powerful and subversive; why else flirt with the idea that Ravina might be a witch, the quintessential symbol of dangerous femininity? Yet Mizuno’s obsession with food complicates any understanding of Ravina as a feminist text. In almost all of her works, from Pure Trance to Ravina the Witch?, Mizuno’s female characters binge, purge, and pop diet pills with ferocious abandon. Mizuno plays these scenes for uncomfortable laughs, blurring the line between criticism of the characters’ self-destructive behavior and critique of the cultural attitudes that fuel it. Ravina, for example, doesn’t just eat a meal; she gorges herself on animals, pies, and bottles of wine, with Cabernet-stained drool seeping down her chin. It’s not clear if Mizuno is showing us how the other characters see Ravina — as a repulsive, unstoppable force of nature — or if Mizuno is celebrating Ravina’s obvious pleasure in eating, defying social expectations that she be restrained, demure, or self-abnegating — in short, refusing to be lady-like in the presence of food.

The ambiguity of these binge-eating scenes stems, in part, from Mizuno’s trademark Gothic kawaii style, which subverts the true horror of what’s she depicting; even the most ruthless characters have soft, round faces that belie their rotten natures. (Heck, her maggots are cute.) Her illustrations are framed by a pleasing assortment of pastel doodles, with flowers, ravens, curlicues, and smiley-faced cabbages filling the nooks and crannies of every page. Although Mizuno is no stranger to full-color comics — all three of her VIZ titles are printed in color — Ravina is printed on glossy paper stock that enables Mizuno to exploit the natural shine and texture of metallic paints to striking effect, mitigating the flatness of her character designs and backgrounds with tactile accents.

Though Ravina the Witch? feels like a step forward for Mizuno’s artistry, story-wise it reads more like a remix of Cinderalla and Princess Mermaid. There’s nothing wrong with mining the same vein of inspiration to produce new works, but when your storytelling approach is this mannered, there are only so many times you can rehearse the same schtick before it feels tired. I’m not sure where Mizuno goes from here, but a gonzo sci-fi adventure, a crime procedural, or even a high-school comedy might give her fresh opportunities to stretch herself without rehashing the same Grimm plotline.

RAVINA THE WITCH? • BY JUNKO MIZUNO • TITAN COMICS • NO RATING (MATURE THEMES) • 48 pp.