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Reviews

Invaders of the Rokujouma!?, Vol. 4

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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.

I’m not certain if this is deliberate or accidental, but so far in Rokujouma each starring heroine has been the one featured on the PREVIOUS cover. Sanae features on the cover of Book 2, and gets most of her development in 3. Theia features on the cover of 3, and gains the most development (and a rival) in this book. And, judging by the cliffhanger ending, the next volume will focus primarily on Yurika, who’s on the cover of this volume. Of course, given this is a harem comedy with a large cast, everyone gets something or other to do in this book. But there’s no doubt the main thrust is the play that Theia writes using her own planet’s history, and how much it resonates with some of the cast. And, as I noted above, we get another candidate for the throne as well, who seems to be the mad scientist type, and is perfectly OK with killing others if she can get away with it. Fortunately, this is a comedy.

The other beneficiary of this school play is Harumi, who is a knitting club member rather than a drama club member, but everyone agrees that she has the look and feel of the princess that Theia has “creates”. The gag, of course, being that she only turns into a good actor – only identifies with how the princess is feeling about being separated from her knight – when it’s Koutarou who’s playing opposite her. In fact, it feels like a bit more than a gag, and there are hints that there may be some serious reincarnation or something similar going on here. Of course, this makes for a great excuse to have Koutarou, also not a Drama Club member, play the Blue Knight, which allows Theia to give him rigorous knightly training with a suit of armor that fits him abnormally well. I;ve often said that Vol. 4s tends to be the ones where the plot is greatly expanded as the publisher tells the author it won’t be cancelled immediately, and that seems to be the case here.

The others don’t get as much to do – though I noted that Yurika saved the day without anyone realizing it again, a running gag that suits her misfortune. We do see that after the events of the previous volume, everyone is getting along much better – aside from the occasional abuse of Yurika because, well, that’s what happens to her – there’s little jealousy or typical harem antics going on here. I suspect the ship here may end up being a poly one (in fact, many of J-Novel’s current licenses have legal or implied polygamy – coincidence?), but it’s handled well enough, and poly ships also help to avoid all that “who is best girl?” nonsense. Rokujouma is never going to win any awards for originality or good writing, but it’s like a good beef stew, a meat and potatoes sort of book you can read anytime. Recommended to fans of the genre.

Appleseed Alpha

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By Iou Kuroda, based on the manga create by Masamune Shirow. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Morning Two. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Lillian Olsen and Stephen Paul.

It has been an awfully long time since I read Appleseed, even with the recent digital release. And I haven’t seen the 2014 movie that this is apparently a spinoff from, though I understand the manga and anime may only be loosely based off each other anyway. But that’s OK, because Appleseed Alpha is still a perfectly enjoyable, if occasionally too busy for its own good, story. All you really need to know is that the human woman is Deunan Knute, and her lover/companion is Briareos, a former human who is now mostly cyborg. (How far they go as lovers is, as always, left mostly ambiguous.) The main series proper saw them living in, and rebelling against, the utopia of Olympus. The Alpha story is a prequel, so naturally we get to spend it in a dystopia – the remains of New York City, run by a cyborg who is half mayor and half mafia boss.

Shirow is not writing or drawing this, by the way, but the artist is not unknown to North American readers – it’s Iou Kuroda, creator of cult classic Sexy Voice and Robo. That felt like more of an indie comic than a manga, and this feels much the same, which makes sense as it ran in Kodansha’s experimental manga title Morning Two. The art has thick lines and less detailed faces, though trust me, there’s just as much detailed background and cityscapes as you’re used to with this title. The main plot separates our heroes early, as Briareos, by nature of his not only being a cyborg but one of the awesome cyborgs, is lauded by the mayor (whether he likes it or not) and Deunan is left out in the cold. She ends up outside the city, meeting a group of farmers who may have more links to the city than she had expected. Meanwhile, Briareos has, of course, NOT abandoned Deunan, and ends up heading out to see her.

This one-volume omnibus has a few cool battles, though the artist seems more suited to drawing the effects of the fights than the fights themselves. There’s also some amusing humor, the best of which involves several trains filled with cows all heading into the remains of Penn Station with drivers asleep at the wheel. Deunan and Briareos feel in character – both somewhat removed from society, yet still highly involved it it – and Deunan still gets to be a hothead at times. As for the mayor, Two Horns, he is a hoot, a giant parody of all mayors with a sinister side to him as well – and a mysterious past that gets revealed right at the end of the book. I’d definitely recommend this if you’re a fan of Appleseed. For others, even though it’s technically a prequel/alternate universe, I’d recommend starting with the four main Appleseed books themselves.

Full-Time Wife Escapist Vols 1 and 2

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Full-Time Wife Escapist Volume 1 and 2 by Tsunami Umino

Kodansha seems to be putting out so many digital titles, I’m having a hard time keeping track of them all. I’m always curious to check out josei titles and Full-Time Wife Escapist is a unique title, as it isn’t as overtly focused on romance as some of the other josei titles that have been translated over here.

Mikuri is in a bind after attending graduate school in psychology. She’s having difficulty finding a full-time job, and makes ends meet as a temp. When her temp job ends, she’s caught in a difficult situation because her parents are moving to the country, where there will be even less work for her. She picks up some shifts here and there doing housework and meets a man named Tsuzaki, and she becomes his regular part-time housekeeper. They become closer when she takes care of him during an illness. Mikuri and Tsuzaki come up with the solution where Mikuri will move in as his platonic paid wife, taking over housekeeping duties, making him lunch and dinner, and generally making his bachelor apartment more comfortable.

Tsuzaki is a bit of a loner at work, and somewhat emotionally stunted and has a way of relating to other people that make them assume that he’s cranky, but it seems more like he just hasn’t developed his social skills very well. The transnational nature of the relationship is one of the aspects of this manga that makes it both interesting and refreshing. When Mikuri and Tsuzaki go to visit his parents, they set the terms of Mikuri’s overtime by negotiating back and forth. It is interesting to see tasks that would be unacknowledged emotional labor in a real relationship being assigned a dollar value in this one.

Mikuri’s background in psychology shows her observing other people as opposed to getting real insight on herself. She does have some amusing daydream sequences when her mind wanders and she projects herself into some dream tv interviews that offer some commentary on her life choices. Her aunt Yuri, an unmarried career woman, serves as a counterpoint to Mikuri’s more aimless lifestyle. I enjoy manga when it gets a little didatic, and there are some great asides in Full-Time Wife Escapist where the characters start discussing the economic conditions facing younger adults in Japan, providing some real world background and context to Mikuri’s unconventional lifestyle choice.

The first volume sets up the unique relationship situation in The Full-Time Wife Escapist fairly quickly, and the second volume shows some of the issues that happen when the couple continues to try to portray their relationship as real to friends and colleagues, who sense that something is a bit off in the way the couple relate to each other. At the same time, the close proximity of the fake couple is showing some awareness developing between them. This series has a nice slice-of life pace to the storytelling, as everyday activities like preparing dinner have a new slant due to the unique relationship. At the same time, there are some moments of pathos, as Tsuzaki reflects that if Mikuri ever decides to get married for real, he’s going to be alone for the rest of his life.

Tsuzaki’s friend Kazami starts appearing a bit more and more, and he and Mikuri have a few easy friendly conversations. Kazami starts envying the married lifestyle, but he’s not interested in settling down at all. Intriguing changes are signaled for the next few volumes. I enjoy a good josei romance series, but one of the things I appreciate about The Full-Time Wife Escapist is that it is focused more on transactions and slowly developing friendships than overt romance. It’ll also be interesting to see if Mikuri’s unconventional wife for hire lifestyle is sustainable over the long term.

Demon King Daimaou, Vol. 1

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By Shoutaro Mizuki and Souichi Itou. Released in Japan as “Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by David Musto.

While I would not go so far as to say that it was terrible, or that I won’t get more (I am curious to see what happens next), there’s no getting around the fact that Demon King Daimaou is a deeply flawed book. It knows what it wants to do, but sometimes skips necessary steps to get there. Its setting is bog standard, and most of its characters hew to the cliched stereotype. In fact, when this fairly old light novel series was made into an anime several years back, fans called the heroines by their hair color rather than their name. That’s harder to do with a textual book, even with illustrations, so I will try to use actual names – I apologize if this makes things confusing. The most interesting part of the book is the hero, but that’s not always to its benefit either.

Our hero is Akuto, seen here on the cover showing more expressiveness than he does in the entirety of this book. He’s a young orphan who arrives at Constant Magical Academy in order to start a path towards changing the world by becoming a high priest. Unfortunately, like the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter only much worse, there’s a machine at the school that lays out your perfect career path for all students. And Akuto’s is Demon King, which disturbs almost everyone since the last Demon King was defeated at that very school years ago. Of course, Akuto doesn’t believe in fate, and a simple explanation to his fellow students should do the trick. Unfortunately, while he may be overly serious, studious, and have seemingly noble intentions, he cannot help but stick his foot in his mouth every time he speaks – partly as he genuinely isn’t paying attention to how his words come across till after he’s said them, and partly because, well, he really would make a pretty nifty demon king.

Akuto is interesting as a hero mostly as he’s not really the hot-headed, fiery type or the “harem protagonist” type – the book runs on his total inability to say the right thing in any given situation, but skewed just enough so it doesn’t seem familiar. The same can’t be said of the heroines. Keena, the girl on the cover, is meant to be the ‘airhead’ sort, but also has a mysterious past, and spends a lot of the book away from events. Junko is our standard Akane Tendo heroine, who likes Akuto at first before he’s chosen by the machine to be demon king, but afterwards alternates between humiliated rage at being played for a fool and growing feelings of love (that frankly grow far too fast given their interaction). The best of the girls so far is Korone, an android bodyguard with a stonefaced expression and a tendency to tease the bejabbers out of Akuto – she was my favorite part of the book.

I should also mention the ending, which features another girl, who is secretly evil, getting her comeuppance at the end in what is meant to be a humorous way. Sadly, this involves her getting gangraped by her other female classmates, who are under the influence of a drug. It’s implied and offscreen, but I don’t care. It’s ugly and awful. It helps to make this first volume something of a hot mess, and while I’m not abandoning it just yet, it’s on thin ice. I’d recommend it to those who enjoyed the anime only.

Land of the Lustrous, Vol. 1

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Land of the Lustrous is a gorgeous trainwreck, the kind of manga that doesn’t make sense on a panel-by-panel basis, but ravishes you with artwork so beautiful and strange it’s hard to look away.

I’ll be honest: I read the first volume three times, and found it almost impenetrable. As best I could tell, Land of the Lustrous depicts an interplanetary war between two races: the Gems, whose androgynous, humanoid appearance belies their true, rock-like nature, and the Lunarians, who frequently raid Earth, hoping to capture Gems for decorative purposes. (What kind of decorations remains a mystery; my vote is for bedazzled jeans and hoodies.) Since there are only 28 Gems, they’ve organized themselves into “fighter-medic” pairs to defend Earth from the Lunarians. One Gem — Phosphophyllite, who registers only 3.5 on the Mohs scale — is too weak to perform either task, so the group’s leader pronounces Phos their official naturalist, and tasks Phos with writing a history of Earth.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Land of the Lustrous was a satire on the dissertation-writing process, given how much time Phos spends procrastinating and grumbling about the book, but these scenes are interspersed with awkward flirtations, violent combat, and a brief episode in which Phos turns into a cute, sentient space slug. These abrupt shifts in tone frustrate the reader’s ability to get a handle on what, if anything, Land of the Lustrous is trying to say — a problem compounded by the dialogue, which is sometimes so windy that it’s a drag on the story, and sometimes so burdened with exposition that it barely passes for conversation.

When the characters stop talking and start doing things, however, Land of the Lustrous is a show-stopper, a testament to the richness of Haruko Ichikawa’s imagination. The Lunarians’ first appearance, for example, establishes them as an inscrutable menace. Their soldiers glide silently above the ground, led by an enormous, stone-faced Bodhissattva who’s flanked by undulating lines of archers with bows drawn, their arms and arrows criss-crossing the horizon to form a graceful lattice. (Busby Berkeley would have approved of the Lunarians’ formation.)

What happens next is even more astonishing:

In this sequence, a Gem slices through the general’s head, only to reveal a lotus pod filled with lethal “seeds” — a beautiful but unsettling moment reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley’s work in its commingling of the sensual and the grotesque; we’re not certain if the Lunarians are animal, vegetable, or mineral. Making this sequence even more disorienting is the dramatic shift in perspective: we see the impending attack from the general’s point of view, then shift to the attackers’ for the moment of contact and its aftermath. The eerie stillness of the final two panels reveals the extent to which the Lunarian general’s transformation has confounded the Gems, who are transfixed by the viscous flow of blood — or is that sap? — from his head.

Looking at these images, I wonder what a more assertive editor might have done to reign in Ichikawa’s worst storytelling tendencies: would the tone and pacing have been more even? The world-building more coherent? The dialogue more revelatory? In the absence of such editorial interventions, however, the most original aspects of Ichikawa’s work sink beneath a torrent of banal conversation and stale comic bits that pass for character development. A few moments of unnerving imagery interrupt the tedium long enough to make an impression on the reader, but are too brief and scattered to yield a truly satisfying experience.

LAND OF THE LUSTROUS, VOL. 1 • BY HARUKO ICHIKAWA • TRANSLATED BY ALETHEA AND ATHENA NIBLEY • KODANSHA COMICS • RATED: TEEN (13+) • 192 pp.

The Combat Baker and Automaton Waitress, Vol. 1

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By SOW and Zaza. Released in Japan by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by Bookwalker. Translated by David Musto.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this series, the first to be licensed by Bookwalker directly from Japan. I had seen it on HJ’s site a while back, and thought it might make a good license at the time due to one specific reason: it didn’t appear to be an isekai, which light novel licenses were currently drowning in. (Still are, to be fair.) I wondered if it would end up being something of a foodie book, focusing on the making of the bread and daily life of the bakery. In fact, it’s nothing remotely like that. But that’s OK, because I genuinely enjoyed what we get, which is a darker story about a country recovering from a vicious war that spanned the continent, the scars it left behind, and one of its veterans trying to repent for his sins with delicious bread.

The baker is Lud, a former soldier who was responsible for much of the devastation and death, and also happened to be on the winning side. He was never happy with it, though, starting off as a child soldier, and his biggest regret is being unable to save the bakery he had stayed in for a spying mission at one point. After the war, he settles into one of the neighboring countries and decides to open his own bakery. There are a few problems with this. 1) He has a face like a hardened combat veteran, and has trouble making his smile not seem like a threat. 2) The town in question is avoiding him and no one will buy his bread. His only friends are Jacob, a young man who stops by on occasion to buy some bread and snark at him, and Marlene, who is the nun in charge of the orphaned kids. Things are looking pretty bad, that is until he hires a young, highly enthusiastic, and extremely odd waitress named Sven.

Sven’s true identity is not unknown to the reader, as it’s the first scene we see in the book, but it is unknown to Lud, who finds her a good employee and friend, but doesn’t connect the dots to his former life till the very end. Sven herself has a very easily triggered jealous and possessive side, but given who she is and her newfound state, this is actually a bit more acceptable than most clingy jealous girls. The large majority of the book is dedicated to the fact that the war may technically be over, but there are still aftershocks spreading through this continent that is clearly meant to be Europe, only not. Neighboring countries that sound suspiciously like Russia are sending in terrorists as moles, or using old men with a chip on their shoulders to repair tanks, or searching for evidence of the old, world-conquering civilization that used to exist a thousand years ago. The book does a very good job keeping the reader’s interest through this, and it reads more like a thriller than a wacky romantic light novel.

Translation was good, on the whole – there were a few times I saw Lud’s name as Luke, but apparently Bookwalker are already fixing that (the benefits of being a digital publisher). As for the heroine being named Sven, well, that’s the Japanese author’s fault – if you can accept Jacuzzi Splot, you can accept this. I will note that I think the book’s formatting works better on a larger tablet than it does on a phone, so Bookwalker readers may want to try reading it that way. On the whole, though, a very good debut, and I look forward to seeing more of the series, which is 6 volumes in Japan.

Land of the Lustrous, Vol. 1

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By Haruko Ichikawa. Released in Japan as “Houseki no Kuni” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Afternoon. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Alethea Nibley & Athena Nibley.

This was a trip. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, as I didn’t know much about it beyond “fighting gems” and that it’s been nominated for awards. Indeed, Kodansha even says it’s for fans of Steven Universe, presumably because, well, gems. I can see some similarities, but really, this manga is its own thing, and calling Phos and Steven similar lead characters seems a bit insulting to Steven. As for the plot, I honestly found it to be somewhat confusing much of the time, not really a surprise when it’s the first volume. But there are a few very good reasons to read this. The first is that the author is very good at depicting tension and frustration between two different characters, as our lead goes around and annoys everyone into submission. Secondly, the art is really nice, and conveys a sense of wonder and a sense of horror depending on where you are in the story.

The basic premise is that gem people are fighting against Moon creatures. They seem to fight based on the hardness of their base gem – the harder the better. Our lead gem is Phosphophyllite, who is most assuredly NOT on of the hardest gems – indeed, they’re known for being rather fragile and brittle. Phos is also a bit of a ditz, whiny, selfish, and lazy, which makes it very diffifuclt to find them a job. Fortunately, the sensei who’s in charge of the gems has come up with something: Phos will compose a natural history of their world. This seems, on the face of it, a idea that is both good and bad. Good because it’s the sort of this that plays right into Phos’ skill sets, and bad because Phos really has no skills sets beyond “people seem to like them”. Really, what it is is an excuse to have Phos wander around and interact with the other gems, such as the reclusive Cinnabar or the beautiful yet secretly self-loathing Dia. In the second half of the book, Phos accidentally gets eaten by a slug creature, and after everyone spends a long time figuring out how to get them back, now has… the ability to communicate with it? Maybe?

As I said earlier, this isn’t really a title I’m reading for the plot. It also has to be said, for those who get easily annoyed at selfish characters who clearly are going to grow and change as the series goes on, Phos starts out REALLY irritating, and you can easily understand some of why they’re treated so poorly. But not entirely all of it – Phos is also bullied in many ways, and the excessive verbal abuse heaped on them seems a bit much. Even those characters who do seem to like Phos, such as Cinnabar, show this affection by being even meaner than the others, though that ties more into Cinnabar’s self-hatred and suicidal tendencies than anything else. (The gems seem to be genderless, and I’ve done my best to avoid gendering them when writing this review.) To sum up, I’m not entirely sure where this is going, but I find the character interaction excellent and the art captivating. Which is all you can ask of a Volume 1, really.

Nisemonogatari: Fake Tale, Vol. 1

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By NISIOISIN. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by Vertical, Inc. Translated by James Balzer.

The afterword of this volume of the Monogatari series says that Nisioisin never intended for it to be published, but just wrote it for his own amusement. I hate to call an author a liar, but just reading the text of this first volume of Nisemonogatari makes me think he’s full of it. The book is filled with efforts to make this short series into a much longer one, adding onto running gags and deconstructing them, taking existing characterization and flipping it on its head or making it more ominous, setting the stage for new plot points to be carried over to future books, and the endless references to the fact that the books recently had an anime greenlit, right after the first set of books kept joking about the idea of the characters being in an anime. Nisemonogatari’s metatext is thick. Fortunately, its text is also good, showing off Araragi’s sisters, and how they’re far more like him than he’s comfortable with.

Fitting given that he has two sisters, the Nisemonogatari series is split into two books, and this is the first one, Karen Bee. Karen is his “older younger sister”, and is almost the definition of ‘dumb muscle’, a karate black belt devoted to justice and righting wrongs who seems to forget that she’s just in middle school and that actual villains can run rings around her. She’s a nice kid, but you can see why Nisioisin spent so much time re-introducing the rest of Bakemonogatari’s cast; there’s just not enough in her to justify the 300 pages or so that this book consists of. We also get a better glimpse at Tsukihi, the “younger younger sister”, who Nisio is clearly far more fond of writing, mostly as she’s able to go toe-to-toe with her older brother in the only battle that really counts in any works by this author: wordplay. Tsukihi’s mood swings and temper tantrums will be looked at in more depth in the following book.

As for the rest of the cast, again, they’re shifting from “this is a series of short stories, each about a different girl” to “this is a long-running series that will have several books after this. That doesn’t change the fact that Araragi and Senjogahara are still a couple – indeed, some of the best scenes in the book feature the two of them. But we see that Hanekawa and Senjogahara have clearly had “a chat” in between books, and that – despite Sensjogahara’s attempts to exaggerate it in order to make us dismiss it – there is clearly major tension between them. Possibly because, as Kanbaru states midway through the book, Araragi and Hanekawa are the more obvious couple. Hanekawa herself has cut her hair and gotten contacts in order to show she’s moving on from Araragi, but I’m not sure how much I buy it – she’s willing to say she loves him to his face, but it’s not a confession per se.

Oh yes, can’t forget Shinobu, who has finally decided to stop sulking and become the extremely talkative haughty vampire we met in Kizumonogatari, and she’s not going to let looking like an eight-year-old stop her. She gives Araragi a way to discuss oddities now that Oshino has left town – she gives advice on the supernatural, while Mayoi, who is a wandering ghost, ironically gives advice on more down to earth things like love. And Nadeko is here as well, and her fumbling, overly obvious attempts at seducing Araragi (obvious, that is, to everyone except him) show us that she’s not just a shy, blushing girl in love with him. More on that much later. And then there’s Kaiki, one of the most popular characters in the entire series judging by Western fandom. He’s very good at playing the evil villain, and does like to drone on endlessly (as every character in Monogatari does), but there’s a hint that there’s far more to him than that, and I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of him.

You’ll notice that this volume has a new translator (yes, I’ll mention it). Vertical apparently decided, given the aggressive release schedule, to divide the series up into chunks, so James Balzer is doing the Nise series and Ko Ransom will be back with Nekomonogatari Black and White. For the most part, the change is not all that noticeable. The series is well translated (hang on, getting to it), keeping most of the culture references – I was very pleased to see Araragi’s Read or Die comment left in – and adapting the wordplay and Japanese puns so they are mostly not noticeable. And Shinobu sounds like her old-world vampire self – which may come as a surprise to anime watchers, as most subbers decided not to bother translating her into “old school” speech. Two things, though. First, the book keeps the scene where Hanekawa mocks Araragi for using the -chan honorific to refer to his sisters, which seems odd in a series so otherwise aggressively devoted to avoiding honorifics (My Senior, etc.).

The second thing is a bit more egregious. In the original Japanese, Tsukihi says (in English) that she is “Platinum Mad”, which is a take off of puchi and purachina/platinum. She uses the phrase a few times in the series, and the anime turned it into her OP theme song, “Platinum Disco”. It would not be exaggerating to say that when you think of Tsukihi, you think of “Platinum Mad”. The translator, however, decided that since it’s weird Japanese wordplay it had to be changed to weird English wordplay – as he has done throughout the book. So “a bit” becomes “dagnabbit”. There are several issues here. First off, dagnabbit sounds to a Western ear like something Yosemite Sam would say. Secondly, almost no one noticed the wordplay itself, and just saw that “Platinum” had been changed to “Dagnabbit” for no reason (remember, Platinum is IN ENGLISH in the original). Most importantly, though, it seems to show that the people in charge of translating the series for Vertical are translating the books without paying attention to the other media – anime, singles, or the fandom. I get that – these were books first, and you want to make sure that they can also sell to casual readers. But try not to drive the hardcore fans off. Platinum Mad is a meme, fer chrissakes. Dagnabbit Mad just makes Tsukihi sound stupid. Which she very clearly isn’t – intellectually, she’s her brother’s equal.

OK, rant over. Aside from that, I felt the translation was excellent, and I didn’t really notice a major change between Ko and James. More importantly, for anime fans, there’s still a lot of new stuff here – you’d think given that it got adapted into 7 episodes that they didn’t leave much out, but there’s still many extra and lengthened scenes in here that got adapted out. Fans of Araragi and company will want to pick this up, as it’s excellent. Though be prepared to write “platinum” in your copy with ballpoint.

Alice & Zoroku, Vol. 1

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By Tetsuya Imai. Released in Japan by Tokuma Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Ryu. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Beni Axia Conrad, Adapted by Maggie Cooper.

I spent most of this first volume mostly enjoying what I was reading, but something felt off, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It was reminding me of something else, but I wasn’t sure what. Then I realized it was reminding me of Madoka Magica. Not for any plot or characterization reasons, but because the art in Alice & Zoroku does not match up with what is actually happening on the page. Madoka Magica always felt weird to me because I read Sunshine Sketch first, and had trouble reconciling the uber-moe art with the events on the page. The same sort of thing happens here, and to a degree it’s helped along by the premise. This SHOULD be a series about a young mysterious girl who ends up living with a grumpy old cuss and together they learn to open up to each other. It should be (pardon my age showing here) Punky Brewster. As it turns out, there’s a lot more going on.

The girl on the cover is not Alice – at least not literally. She’s certainly a figurative Alice, though, and there’s Wonderland quotes and motifs throughout the work. Sana is an experimental child who has the ability to make anything she imagines into reality. She’s escaped from her evil research center where she’s been kept (which we’re already starting to see may not be quite as evil as she painted it) and is on the run in the middle of the city. There she runs into Zoroku, an old man who works as a florist, lives with his granddaughter (who seems to be in high school – I’m assuming dead parents here), and seems to spend each day going around being vaguely pissed off. She is, of course, a child who grew up in a lab, so has no sense of social skills or any ability to be sensible. But she’s cute. Oh yes, and who other kids, twins, are trying to kill her, and caring very little about collateral damage. Will she melt his stern heart and be taken in?

The series is eight volumes and running in Japan (I think it got an anime as well), and this first volume definitely feels like a lot of setup for a future payoff. We get a few other cast members introduced, most of whom don’t make much of an impression, with the exception of the granddaughter Sanae, who seems to be an odd mix of airhead and motherly type and is a lot of fun. Zoroku is probably the strongest character here – stubborn as a goat, but he has a strong sense of right and wrong, and is not afraid to tell off a child when he sees them running roughshod over it. As for the research center Sana is escaping from, we get a few flashbacks and expository scenes that hint that Sana’s nature is more that of a tactical nuclear weapon than an actual child – again, metaphorically speaking.

Overall, while I still didn’t quite get past the cognitive dissonance of the artstyle, which says this should be a fluffy slice-of-life series (it isn’t), I enjoyed enough of Alice & Zoroku to try a second volume.

Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? On The Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 3

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By Fujino Omori and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka? Gaiden – Sword Oratoria” by Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Gaippe.

The anime adaptation of this series has just ended as I type this, and from what I’ve gathered from various forums and Twitter feeds, was not a success among fans. In fact, that’s putting it mildly. Hate may not be too strong a word. This is a shame as I’m really enjoying the light novel, which continues to show off what Omori does best – writing combat scenes – while also giving development to Aiz and the rest of Loki’s crew. Yes, it also has Lefiya fretting about being useless, but that’s the sort of character she is. You knew she was going to end up doing something awesome by the end, which she did. There’s also a much stronger ongoing plot to this than to the main series, with the main antagonist of the previous book finally getting a name – Levis – and the creepy foetus thing they retrieved in the last book possibly setting itself up as the Big Bad.

The main DanMachi books have tended to show Aiz as an emotionally repressed, hard to read young woman. As such, it’s both a relief and a surprise to see how much of a complete loose cannon she is in these side stories. I feel that my old reviews where I noted Bell loved her but she didn’t quite feel the same are coming back to haunt me. She may not love Bell, but she’s clearly obsessed with him, falling into a purple funk when he keeps running away from her (even achieving Level 6 doesn’t snap her out of it all the way), and going off to the dungeon on her own because, well, that’s how she clears her head. Sadly, she meets up with Hermes Familia, who got hired/bribed/blackmailed into going to the 24th Floor to see what’s wrong with the dungeon there. The answer is that an evil conspiracy has taken it over, and they’ve got lots more of the giant plant monstrosities from last time, along with a group of religious terrorists to help out/be cannon fodder.

As I indicated above, the main reason to read these books is for the author’s fight scenes, which are a treat – and brutal. No named characters die in this one, but it’s a close thing, and there’s an awful lot of horrible wounds taken and crushing despair. (Actually, I’d have liked to see the deaths that do get mentioned – at the end, we’re told some of Hermes Familia were killed, but it’s not the ones we know, and it seems to be there as the author realizes that there needed to be SOME casualties.) Aiz is actually kept out of the main fight till the very end, which works well, and shows off Bete (still an asshole most of the time, honestly) and Lefiya (the Shinji Ikari of DanMachi) to great effect. There’s also a nice subplot of an elf in Dionysus’ Familia, Filvis, and her (undeserved) reputation as a jinx.

So I’m not quite sure what the anime got wrong, but the novel itself is a strong addition to the DanMachi series, and recommended for all fans of same.

Otome Mania!!, Vol. 1

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By Tsukigase Yurino. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks, serialized in the magazine Sylph. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Angela Liu, Adapted by Rebecca Scoble.

It can be very hard to separate what a person wants as a fan of a genre, or title, and what makes for a good product and good business sense in the real world. Things that make perfect sense talking about them on twitter or in forums suddenly become impossible to navigate as there are sixty extra steps that have to be done first because you’re the ones creating the content. And this only gets compounded when the content is being created by a group. And that’s the concept of Otome Mania!!, a short manga series about a young woman who loves otome games and has finally achieved her dream job of working for a company that creates and makes them, only to find that she has a long way to go before her dreams can come true. And, appropriately, she’s also involved in her own real life otome harem romance (not that she realizes this, of course.)

Yuzumi, as you can imagine, is a very typical otome romance heroine. She’s not very intuitive and has tr4ouble reading the room, and can’t catch up to the high level of speed and decisiveness her colleagues have. Plus she’s learning from the ground up, and thus can’t understand why a 13-page written treatment is something that’s going to be rejected without even looking at it, as opposed to a snappy 2 page treatment with art and character designs. But she has spunk and a tendency not to give up, like every single shoujo manga heroine ever, and that’s good enough. Her colleagues include the stern immediate supervisor who yells at her and puts her down constantly, but may have her best interests at heart after all; the foreign graphic artist who is cheery enough to help Yuzumi out when no one else will; and the reserved and nervous scenario artist looking for a chance to prove himself, who has a hidden core of hotness that comes out at the best times.

The gimmick of this title is that it’s an otome manga about making otome games, and it’s done rather well. It’s not above lampshading its own flaws – there’s a larger cast of guys than there is time for, so we don’t see a few of them for more than a few pages this time – just as in the game Yuzumi is developing, where romantic leads 4-6 are ‘secret content to be added later’. There’s also a little hint of backstory as well, as there’s a much more popular and successful company – also run by hot guys – that seems to have a past with Tachibana, the constantly irritated male lead. It wraps up in two volumes, so I’m not sure how much it’s going to be able to fit into the remaining time, or even if Yuzumi herself will end up with a guy (if she does, my money’s on Tachibana). For for readers who enjoy light romantic titles with a lot of cute guys and a decent reader stand-in, Otome Mania!! gives you what you need.

Accel World: Elements

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

Despite the cover (two of the three people on the cover don’t even show up in the book), there’s not a lot of wacky harem antics going on tin this volume, much to my relief. Instead, it’s the first Accel World to be composed of short stories – impressive given that by Book 10 Sword Art Online already had 2 volumes of short stories to its name. I also think that for those who saw the anime, this is the last volume with material that was used for it, as the middle story was broadly adapted into a couple of episodes, likely to give Kuroyukihime more to do. As with most short story volumes, quality here is variable, but there should be something for most Accel World fans here. A word of warning, though: if you like Accel World but hate Sword Art Online, this may not be the volume for you.

The first story here takes place sometime after the first volume, so we get to see a less experienced Haruyuki. Unfortunately, having made a beginner’s mistake when leveling up, he’s now in danger of being wiped out the next time he logs on. And so Takumu helps him out, saying that there is a “bodyguard” who can protect him till he gets enough points back to stand on his own again. The whole story seems like an excuse to introduce the bodyguard, Aqua Current, who is clearly one of Kuroyukihime’s old team, though it’s never explicitly stated. The second story is the best, mostly as it’s from Kuroyukihime’s perspective, as she’s on school vacation in Okinawa and finds, much to her surprise, that there are Burst Linkers even out here. The most interesting thing about this story is Kuroyukihime’s friend Megumi, who turns out to not quite be what she seems. The more I hear about the Brain Burst program the closer it gets to fantasy hand-waving, but I’ll let it go if it allows for cool and heartwarming scenes like these. I also liked the comparison of lost memories to a book you forget the beginning of.

The final story is the most well known, and possibly the most notorious – a crossover between Sword Art Online and Accel World, as Kirito is doing VR experiments and somehow ends up in the Accelerated World, where he confronts Silver Crow. Those who think that an armored suit that can fly would take out Kirito, a young man wearing a leather coat for armor, are doomed to disappointment – Kirito is still Kirito. Inevitably, we don’t really get to see who’s “better” per se, as the whole thing ends in a draw. Probably for the best, honestly. The author in the afterword tells us that he prefers if we think of SAO and AW as being two separate series, which tells me that the “Kuroyukihime is Kirito and Asuna’s daughter” theory might have hit Japan – given Kuroyukihime’s upbringing in AW< I think it's a terrible theory, but hey.

So three decent stories here, and next volume should take us back to the main plot, as well as take us back to cover art of Kuroyukihime wearing leather bustiers. Not that this cover was any less fanservicey. As always, Accel World is a lot of fun and impossible to read on public transportation.

Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Vols. 1-2

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By Canno | Published by Yen Press

I haven’t read a ton of yuri manga, but even I have encountered the “all-girls school with multiple couples” setup before. Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl is another example of the same.

We begin with Ayaka Shiramine and Yurine Kurosawa. Shiramine has always been the perfect student, but she works hard for her grades. Enter Kurosawa, the lazy genius, who shows up and immediately takes the number one spot. Squabbling ensues, with Kurosawa going all sparkly when a furious Shiramine calls her “just a regular person.” It seems she’s been waiting for someone who might beat her. My problem with this couple is that Shiramine is not very likable, even if I sympathize with her frustration. Plus, I ended up comparing her “there’s no way anyone could love me when I’m not perfect” angst with that of Nanami Touko in Bloom into You, where the idea is executed with more depth and originality.

Thankfully, these characters soon rotate into the background as focus shifts onto Shiramine’s cousin, track star Mizuki. Kurosawa also happens to be great at running, and Mizuki is upset when the team manager, Moe, avidly attempts to recruit her. Moe is supposed to watch Mizuki the most, after all. It all turns out to be for a cute reason, and I like the M&M pairing much more.

Volume two introduces still more characters. Ai Uehara doesn’t endear herself to me by whining about the availability of third-year Maya Hoshino—“Mock exams are more important to you than I am!”—and the chapter where she tries to make her friend stay in town rather than going to the university of her dreams and then realizes that this makes her friend sad and then promptly trips and starts blubbering just about had steam coming out of my ears.

But, again, thankfully, we move away from the annoying character to someone more mature. Chiharu Kusakabe is Hoshino’s roommate and is in love with her. Hoshino seems to be aware of this, particularly after a clichéd “locked in the storeroom” incident, but doesn’t return her feelings. While Chiharu is busy pining for a sempai, she encounters a younger girl who begins pining for her. And, again, some cuteness ensues.

I’m definitely on board for volume three, but I wonder… will each volume introduce someone I profoundly dislike in the first half and then give me a couple to really like in the second half? I suppose I can deal with that, and I also want to see more of Mizuki and Chiharu.

Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl is ongoing in Japan, where six volumes have been released so far. The first two volumes are currently available in English; the third will be released in August.

Review copies provided by the publisher.

Golden Kamuy, Vol. 1

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By Satoru Noda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Young Jump. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by Eiji Yasuda.

Among my many thoughts on finishing the first volume of Golden Kamuy, the strongest one was “the author must be from Hokkaido”. And sure enough, that seems to be the case. Indeed, his other major manga series seems to be a sports manga devoted to the love of ice hockey. The show-covered woods are practically a major character in the series, adn they’re conveyed well, both in their beauty and in their ability to be deadly. And of course, they’re only one of the things that can kill you in this rather violent title. From the hero on the cover page, to various escaped convicts, to vicious bears and wolves, this is a series with the potential for a lot of gore. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be about that. Rather, it’s about a young man and the Ainu girl he meets trying to avenge her father and find some hidden gold.

The story takes place after the Russo-Japanese War, but not that far after, so I’m guessing 1906 or 1907. Our hero is a veteran who says he was discharged from the army for killing a fellow soldier, though honestly the way he frames the story makes it sound like he could be making that up. He’s prospecting for gold in the wilds of Hokkaido, only to find, like most prospectors, that easy money schemes don’t actually work in real life. The supposed reason he’s looking for gold is because the wife of a (now dead) war buddy of his needs eye surgery, and the gold will pay for it, but I suspect the real reason is that Sugimoto is one of those soldiers who can’t really survive well without a life of adventure in some way. And survive is what he does – he’s somewhat famous for being alive after several injuries that would have killed most men. He’s also a lot of fun, being written much like a standard “dumb but likeable jock” type from a sports manga, only older and filled with battle experience.

Asirpa is the other star of this manga, a teenage Ainu girl whose father was brutally murdered by the man who theoretically knows where this hidden gold is – in fact, it’s Ainu gold, as the man who is now a convict killed six men and stole the gold from them. Sugimoto frames their journey as her getting revenge for her father, but it’s notable that she doesn’t seem to frame it that way herself, being content to silently going along with him. As first I thought she was going to be one of those emotionless Ayanami Rei types, but she turns out to simply be naturally reserved, and also very competent at living and surviving in the woods. She’s an excellent foil to Sugimoto. The rest of the cast consists mostly of ex-soldiers who are also here to search for hidden gold, ex-prisoners who have a coded “here is the gold” tattoo on their backs, though it doesn’t quite work the way they’d like it to, and of course the appearance of a clearly despicable villain at the cliffhanger of this vo0lume.

Golden Kamuy is a bit of a bunny movie with less comedy, as Sugimoto and Asirpa contrast with each other but work well together. If you don’t mind a lot of death and blood, this is a solid action story, and a good addition to the Signature lineup for Viz.

The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up: A Magical Story

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First published in 2011, Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing became an international phenomenon, selling over seven million copies in 40 languages. The book inspired a two-part television drama, a follow-up called Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Tidying Up, and a veritable tsunami of related products and experiences including apps, seminars, and journals for documenting “what brings you joy every day.” In an effort to bring her message to even more readers, Kondo recently collaborated with artist Yuko Uramoto (Kanojo no Curve, Hanayome Miman) to create the most quintessentially Japanese tie-in product of all: a manga version of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

Uramoto’s strategy for transforming a how-to book into a manga is simple: she turns the decluttering process into a narrative, using a fictional character, Chiaki, to lead us through the process step-by-step. When we first meet Chiaki, she’s a single, 29-year-old career woman living in a filthy apartment strewn with clothing, papers, sports equipment, dirty dishes, and bric-a-brac of every description. After her handsome next-door neighbor chastises her for leaving garbage on the balcony, Chiaki vows to change her life by calling — who else? — Marie Kondo herself.

Over the next nine chapters, Kondo gently but firmly helps Chiaki get control of her apartment. Before they tackle the clutter, however, Kondo asks Chiaki, “What kind of life would you like to live here?” Chiaki is taken aback by the question, but this visualization exercise is a cornerstone of the KonMari system, encouraging the client to think about decluttering not as a one-time effort but a first step towards living a more joyful, less harried life. Kondo then shepherds Chiaki through the discard process, helping Chiaki systematically assess all of her belongings, starting with the three biggest sources of clutter — clothing, books, and paper — before moving on to komono (odds and ends) and sentimental objects. Guiding all of Chiaki’s decision-making are two questions: “Does this item give me joy?” and “Am I using this item right now?”

As an adaptation, The Life-Changing Manga largely succeeds in teaching the KonMari method without recourse to talking-head panels. The graphic format allows Uramoto to show the reader how to store things, arrange a closet, and fold items into small rectangles that can stand upright in a drawer — one of Kondo’s signature organizational techniques. As befits a manga about decluttering, the artwork is both simple and cute. Though the character designs lack strong personality, they’re winsome enough to carry to the story and convey the emotional impact of using the KonMari method; by the story’s end, we appreciate just how elated Chiaki feels after liberating herself from the Tyranny of Stuff.

The manga’s most glaring fault lies not with the adaptation but the source material. Kondo frames de-cluttering as a one-size-fits-all remedy for life’s biggest problems, a point reinforced by the fictional Kondo’s conversations with Chiaki. As we learn in chapter two, Chiaki has a bad habit of falling for guys with hobbies, buying snowboards and tea sets so that she can get to know them better. Every time she breaks up with someone, however, she can’t bear to get rid of her newly acquired gear, developing elaborate rationales for keeping it. Kondo counsels Chiaki to get rid of these items, telling her, “If you hang onto things because you can’t forget an old love, you’ll never find a new love.”

There’s unquestionable value in Kondo’s insight that clutter accumulates when we’re not fully invested in the present, yet her philosophy is too reductive. A messy apartment might be a sign that you need to reconsider your approach to dating, but it could also be symptomatic of working such long hours that cleaning and organizing feel like a second, unpaid job. There’s also a whiff of sexism in the way Chiaki is depicted as a failure for being disorganized, messy, and single; it’s hard to imagine a salaryman character attributing his romantic shortcomings to a sinkful of dirty coffee cups or a jumbled closet, or viewing the KonMari method as the key to living a better, more fulfilling life.

That lingering note of sexism makes it hard for me to unequivocally endorse The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up. I think Kondo’s basic advice is sound, but I can’t quite shake the feeling that perfectly folded undies are being held up as a badge of true womanhood, rather than an artful way to organize your drawers.

THE LIFE-CHANGING MANGA OF TIDYING UP: A MAGICAL STORY • BY MARIE KONDO, ILLUSTRATED BY YUKO URAMOTO • TRANSLATED BY CATHY HIRANO • TEN SPEED PRESS • NO RATING • 192 pp.