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Occultic;Nine, Vol. 2

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By Chiyomaru Shikura and pako. Released in Japan by Overlap, Inc. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Adam Lensenmayer.

This volume of Occultic;Nine does what it needs to do, which is begin to draw together the many and varied elements of the first book and show they’re all part of the same main plotline. It does actually shift genres a bit, as signposted by the end of the first book; that one may have been a mystery, and there are certainly still mysterious elements, but this second volume crosses over into outright horror much of the time. Unfortunately, its faults are still carrying over from the first book as well. While it does begin to draw together said elements, everything still changes viewpoints and tonal shifts a bit too much for my liking. And it’s still left with Yuta Gamon as the protagonist, and he’s really, really aggravating – yes, it’s deliberate, but that doesn’t actually make it easier to take.

To be fair, he’s had a bad day – he’s right in that any sane police officer who has his presence in the room and his fingerprints on the murder weapon would have arrested him by now. Luckily we have another one of the eccentric cast members as the detective, and he enjoys playing with his food, I guess, preferring to torment Yuta with cryptic conversations. Unfortunately, Yuta’s coping mechanism is to double down on being obnoxious, something which is fine by Ryoka, who still gets nothing to do this volume, but is starting to worry his new friend Miyuu, who was already somewhat wary of him (her friend basically says he’s a creep and why do you care?), but he’s falling back into familiar behavior patterns to cope, even if they’re bad ones. Also, he clearly hasn’t read any genre fiction at all, or he’d know that introducing everyone to the mystery radio voice only he can hear was never going to fly.

As for the main plot, the corpses in the lake that were briefly signposted last time become a big deal when they’re discovered this time around, and the clever reader will start to realize what’s actually going on when it takes forever and a day to actually identify said corpses. There’s a lot of somewhat interesting talk about acceptance of the occult versus looking for an actual realistic reason for said corpses, but the fact that said reason also sounds ludicrous and the reader is also getting the mystery organization of evil talking about their corpse plans tends to ruin it. Again, as with the first book, the ending is the strongest part – first, the darkest and most horrible part of the book (which completely rips off the movie Se7en, but is still well written), and second, the final revelation that Yuta figures out when he gets all the names of the bodies in the lake. What will Volume 3 bring us?

Good question, but one we’ll wait a while to answer – the third volume is not out in Japan yet, and I suspect the author is concentrating on finishing the visual novel, which is due out this year. In the meantime, there are bits of good and bad here. I’d recommend it to fans of this creator.

Dissolving Classroom

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The title of Junji Ito’s latest work is a nod to one of his seminal influences: Kazuo Umezu, author of such bat-shit classics as Cat-Eyed Boy, Orochi Blood, and, of course, The Drifting Classroom. Using the same techniques as Umezu — shocking imagery, gross-out humor, and far-out plot twists — Ito spins an elaborate yarn about the mysterious Azawa siblings. Yuuma, the handsome older brother, seems like a model teenager: he strenuously avoids conflicts with peers, and is unfailingly polite to his elders. Younger sister Chizumi, by contrast, is a hellion. With her kohl-rimmed eyes and Cheshire-cat sneer, she looks like a junior Harley Quinn as she gleefully stalks classmates, harasses her brother’s girlfriend, and vigorously disputes her brother’s claims of parental neglect.

Each chapter of the Dissolving Classroom hinges on the discovery that Yuuma and Chizumi are not who they seem to be. In “Dissolving Apartment,” for example, the Azawas’ new neighbors are initially impressed by Yuuma’s composure and maturity, and are moved to intervene when they overhear nightly rows at the Azawas’ unit. Though appalled by Chizumi’s crude pranks and bizarre comments, the neighbors see her behavior as evidence that Mr. and Mrs. Azawa are abusing their children, an impression confirmed by the parents’ secretive behavior. Only when the neighbors interrupt one of the family’s heated skirmishes do they realize the true parent-child dynamic in the Azawa home — knowledge that comes too late to save them from a gory fate.

Other stories approach the question of false appearances from a different angle. In “Dissolving Beauty,” for example, Yuuma behaves like a teenage girl’s fantasy of the perfect boyfriend: he’s attentive and reassuring, always ready to declare, “Your beauty is exceptional.” What his girlfriend doesn’t realize is that Yuuma’s flattery is toxic — that in appealing to her vanity and insecurity, Yuuma’s words are warping her into a grotesque caricature of her former self. And when I say grotesque, I mean it; the poor thing resembles Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz, right down to the boils and pointy chin.

Although Ito’s scenarios lack the visceral weirdness of Kazuo Umezu’s, Ito’s superior draftsmanship serves him well in Dissolving Classroom. Yuuma provides an instructive example: as Ito draws him, he’s the epitome of the nice young man, a blandly handsome canvas onto which adults and teens can project their own desires. His exaggerated gestures — downcast eyes, supplicating posture — initially register as desperation, as if he’s apologizing for a political scandal or an international diplomatic incident. Look closer, however, and we see a note of eroticism in the way Ito draws Yuuma’s face; those rolled eyes are more expression of ecstasy than shame, hinting at Yuuma’s real reason for bowing and scraping.

Ito seeds the narrative with other visual clues about what’s motivating Yuuma: demonic eyes peering through a veil of fog, a clandestine animal cemetery. When we finally learn Yuuma’s not-so-surprising secret, Ito pulls out all the stops. The climax is a molten flow of brains, limbs, and entrails that’s amusingly reminiscent of the Ark of the Covenant scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The effect is less scary than preposterous, but suggests that we’re all too willing to believe that a grand display of manners is evidence of good character, rather than an effort to deflect attention away from egregious behavior.

It’s only in the bonus story “Children of the Earth” that we see Ito at his most Umezian — the Ito familiar from Gyo, Uzumaki, and Tomie. In this brief vignette, parents frantically scour the woods for a missing kindergarten class. What they discover is genuinely unnerving: their children have transformed into something not quite human, not quite animal, and not quite vegetable, sitting uncomfortably between these three planes of existence. Ito’s nightmarish imagery harkens back to the yokai prints of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Utagawa Kuniyoshi in which ordinary creatures — catfish, tanuki — became monstrous through the addition of exaggerated human features. But “Children of the Earth” also has affinities with Umezu’s manga; like Umezu, Ito is good at excavating the subconscious, making us confront our most disturbing thoughts and dreams in Grand Guignol fashion.

If the rest of Dissolving Classroom doesn’t quite reach the same Umezian heights — or is that depths? — as “Children of the Earth,” it still makes a fine introduction to Ito’s work. It’s coherently plotted, crisply drawn, and provocative enough to make all that gory excess meaningful. Recommended.

DISSOLVING CLASSROOM • BY JUNJI ITO • VERTICAL COMICS • NO RATING (SUITABLE FOR TEENS 13 AND OLDER)

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, Vol. 6

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By Izumi Tsubaki. Released in Japan as “Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun” by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the online magazine Gangan Online. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Leighann Harvey.

In terms of the Nozaki-kun fandom, one of the fortunate things about it is that there really aren’t very many ship wars. For the most part, this is because the main pairings in the manga, even though none of them are actually romantically paired, are so blindingly obvious – Nozaki and Sakura, Hori and Kashima, and Seo and Wakamatsu. The one wild card has always been Mikoshiba, and it’s therefore no surprise that fan writers love him. I’ve seen him used as an alternate pairing with Sakura, just in case she ever tires of Nozaki (doubt it will ever happen, but hope springs eternal), and I’ve also seen quite a few Nozaki/Sakura/Mokoshiba OT3 fics. But the addition of Nozaki’s brother Mayu gave BL fans someone new to focus on, and this volume must have delighted them, because not only are Mikoshiba and Mayu comedy gold but they’re also very, very shippable.

A lot of the humor in Nozaki-kun relies on building from previous gags and characterizations, as you’d expect. Mikoshiba is the inspiration for the heroine in Nozaki’s manga, so when Nozkai discovers he’s getting cute texts from someone else, and that he’s responding as “Mamiko”, he gets fired up in the best Nozaki way. Meanwhile Kashima is having trouble dealing with her new role, which requires “wistfulness”, and when given the choice between Sakura’s practical advice and Nozaki’s romantic, thinking like a writer advice, she knows exactly who to turn to. Nozaki has the brilliant idea (no, really, it is this time) of having her avoid and not speak to Hori for three days. Sure enough, this nearly kills her just by the end of one day – and, even better, Hori is somewhat poleaxed by it as well.

Elsewhere, we get Wakamatsu’s amazingly inept acting, the dangers of playing a visual novel and not using the default names, and Miyako’s fellow mangaka relationship with Nozaki continuing to be misunderstood by the guy who’s crushing on her… who, because this manga is very close-knit, turns out to be Seo’s big brother. We also meet several other author’s in the magazine that Nozaki’s published in, and they all seem to have their own eccentricities, though they can all agree on one thing – Nozaki’s manga is generic and dull. Honestly, it’s something of a surprise it hasn’t been cancelld by now, but I think that the ‘Nozaki tries to find the idea for a new series’ plot is being saved for a rainy day – that and the tie-ins to real life are too much fun to drop. Possibly best of all, Mikoshiba needs to have someone pretend to be his girlfriend, and each of the three main options are hilarious.

Nozaki-kun remains hilarious, and the hilarity is because of its character-based humor. Unless you can’t stand anything to do with 4-koma or tsukkomi-0style humor, you should be reading this every time it comes out.

Very few tanukis this time around – we are running a tanuki defecit.

The Water Dragon’s Bride, Vol. 1

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The Water Dragon’s Bride Volume 1 by Rei Toma

I remember being delighted when I heard that another Rei Toma title was going to be released by Viz. Then many months passed between the announcement and actually getting the volume in my hand, I totally forgot about it and then was delighted all over again! I do enjoy fantasy manga and this volume was an excellent start to the series.

Asahi is a modern girl who has the misfortune of standing too close to a pond, where she is promptly whisked away to a village with no technology whose inhabitants don’t quite know what to make of her. A young boy named Subaru stumbles across Asahi and takes her home despite his sister’s protests. Unfortunately the village has a habit of offering up human sacrifices to the Water Dragon, and when Subaru brings home his new friend his mother decides that the odd girl will be a great way to ensure the prosperity of her family. Asahi is a bit stunned by being catapulted into another world and she doesn’t realize that she’s going to be a sacrifice until it is too late. Subaru tries to prevent the ritual but is unable to do anything to save his new friend.

Asahi finds herself in the Water Dragon’s realm. He’s a cold, stoic sort of god who says that he’ll wait to make Asahi his bride until she grows up. She asks him if he’s wearing cosplay and accuses him of being a pervert. The Water Dragon seems to find Asahi mildly entertaining, but he takes away her voice and then sits calmly while she starts to starve. Asahi finally realizes that the world she’s lost in is horrible. Other gods intervene to see some drama when Subaru and Asahi are reunited, but the humans in Subaru’s village prove to be even more terrible than the gods.

I think that Toma’s art, which was always good, has improved since Dawn of the Arcana. Her clear and simple style does a great job highlighting all the variants in facial expressions and reactions as the characters deal with the extraordinary. Subaru’s mother shows hints of evil in her smirk, and then devolves into full-out evil as she takes on the role of putting Asahi to trial for being rejected by the gods. Asahi’s personality is inherently bubbly and open, and it takes her a while to realize the truth of the world that she’s found herself in. Her body language completely changes after meeting the Water Dragon and the villagers. There aren’t a lot of detailed backgrounds in this manga, but the absence of setting is used to great effect when Asahi is in the Water Dragon’s world because the lack of detail in Asahi’s surroundings just makes everything seem even more surreal.

The inhumanity of the humans and the possibility that a god might change due to having to take care of a small girl are interesting themes for this manga to explore. This is a solid shoujo fantasy title and I strongly recommended it for fans of the genre.

A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 10

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By Kazumi Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “To Aru Majutsu no Index” by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

This picks up immediately after the end of the previous volume, as befits a two-part arc. In fact, Kamachi helpfully provides a recap for anyone who may have somehow skipped the previous book. I had wondered if we’d get more athletic events for the festival, but no, sadly the festival is mostly offscreen for Touma, as he spends 4/5 of the volume chasing after Oriana Thomson, watching her nearly kill his friends, and arguing with her on the nature of doing good and how it’s impossible for everyone to share the same view, ethics, or religion – it’s all influenced by their own head. Luckily, the Roman Catholic Church is coming to the rescue to change everyone’s minds into their own! For some strange reason, Touma objects to this…

Introduced in this volume: no one! Given this is the second in a two-parter, we get no new characters. That said, Lidvia certainly gets a lot more to do here, and she’s really not a pleasant person at all, though when given Lady of the Tiger choice she at least attempts to do the right thing by choosing Lady AND Tiger. We also see Laura Stuart (or rather hear Laura Stuart) at her most devious and cunning – Lidvia has a long way to go to get to Laura’s level. Himegami also gets a larger role in this book, and it once again reflects on her status as a “failed heroine” – she wants to do romantic things with Touma, but he’s too busy saving the world, and in the end she ends up an innocent victim who Touma doesn’t even have the time to rescue – Stiyl and Komoe-sensei have to do it. (I will simply ignore the ship tease between Stiyl and Komoe in this book, because eurgh.)

Luckily she’s cheered up by Index, who also gets very little to do this book, but that’s by design, as most of the Magic Side know that Index is a plot maguffin and so they have to keep an eye on her to see what’s going to happen. Of course, finding out Touma is once again getting himself hospitalized without her knowing anything makes her grumpier. I find Index far more tolerable in prose form – no offense to Yuka Iguchi, but I think Index herself simply sounds less stupid in the books as opposed to the anime. She’s the emotional core of the series, and it’s her purity that inspires many other characters – most obviously Touma and Stiyl here. (She also gets a great line about Peter Pan when looking at the youthful looks of Touma and Mikoto’s mothers, which the anime sadly cut.)

The book itself does its level best to conceal its big secret: this entire runaround was pointless, and chasing after Oriana was meant to be a distraction. Luckily, like follows like, and pointless follows pointless – for all that Lidvia succeeds in her ritual, it’s useless due to Academy City’s fireworks show lighting up the sky. I think one reason Index is so upset is that she could have saved him a lot of running around and injuries by simply having hm ask her, but then when you’re a walking magic wikipedia… In any case, a good volume, and less magic theory than the 9th book (though we still get some, mostly related to astrology). Next time, Index Does Italy!

Hayate the Combat Butler, Vol. 29

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By Kenjiro Hata. Released in Japan as “Hayate no Gotoku!” by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by John Werry.

Hayate Ayasaki is a very good butler. That’s pretty much the premise of the entire manga. As a butler, he’s smooth, always knows what to do, and provides the girls he waits on with whatever they desire. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that’s why they fell for him, as in fact each of them has different, non-butler reasons for that. But it’s striking if only because in Hayate’s other role as a harem protagonist in a romantic comedy manga, he’s absolutely terrible. He’s very good in terms of what Hata needs to convey in the writing. But much of Hayate’s so-called “bad luck” can also be put down to wishy-washiness, cowardice, and the complete inability to understand the trembling of a pure maiden’s heart. It’s why we’re 29 volumes in and disasters keep piling up for him.

The disaster doesn’t happen in this particular volume, but we know that at some point in the near future, Ruka is going to discover that Hayate is a guy, and there will be hell to pay. Of course, this is played for max comedy – every time he thinks he can confess, she says the one thing that stops him from doing so – but it’s still a case where you want to put your face in your hands. She also, by the way, is trying to earn a large pile of cash to get herself out of debt because her parents are suckers – a similarity Hayate is quick to catch on to. It’s not the first time Hata has done this – Hina, too, has lost her birth parents due to “we abandoned you because of our debt” – but that at least had the excuse that it was part of his original outline for the series. Ruka’s past seems more like overegging the pudding.

The rest of the volume is for the most part a series of one-shots focusing on the cast, which I think Hata enjoys best. Alice talks with Hayate, and there’s some discussion of who she is, but not much – she says she’s lost her memories of Athena, but clearly knows she *is* Athena in some way. Also, don’t let dogs eat chocolate. Wataru and Saki also have money troubles, and even Sayaka literally loaning them a giant pile of money doesn’t help, particularly when Hayate gets involved. Speaking of Sayaka, she’s rather annoyed to find that the position of “Nagi’s (relatively) sane best friend) has been stolen by Chiharu, particularly since Chiharu is HER OWN MAID. As for Maria, well, she gets nothing to do except pose naked for the camera as pre fanservice, something Hata lampshades almost immediately. These are all pretty good chapters, not hilarious but quite amusing.

In the end, though, the plot will have to advance soon. Ruka will find out Hayate’s gender. Athena will eventually stop being a girl. And, one assumes, the manga will end. It’s coming to a close in Japan, but Viz still has a long way to go. See you in the fall for another volume.

Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? On The Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 2

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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.

After a first volume that was good but a bit too much side story by the numbers, the second volume of Aiz’s book series ups the ante, and really shows us how similar and yet totally different Aiz and Bell both are. This is less tied into the main series than the first book was – we can tell it’s at the same time as Book 2 due to Aiz giving Bell a lap pillow (at the suggestion of her companion) when they find him collapsed. And that’s all for the best, as we begin to develop the rest of Loki’s badass crew, including Loki herself, who is allowed to become a bit of a detective as she tries to track down who’s responsible for the plant monsters we saw in the prior book. That said, the core of this book is all Aiz, as she finally finds someone she can’t defeat, and it nearly breaks her.

Frustratingly, at last for the reader, we never get a name for this mystery assailant, who is clearly set up to be an ongoing antagonist. She’s definitely in charge of the plant monsters, though, and is strong enough to take out Aiz, though to be fair she’s already injured when they fight. Their main battle happens barely halfway through the book, though, so it’s not the point. The point is not just that Aiz lost but that Aiz lost to someone who knows the name of her mother, Aria. Aiz’s past is a mystery to the reader, though we know she’s been dungeon crawling since she was seven. Here we see a flashback to happy family times before that, and can sense there’s a tragedy here we haven’t quite heard about. More to the point, that trauma combined with the loss drives Aiz to make a suicidal charge on one of the lower floor bosses, which she insists on taking out all by herself. It’s an absolutely brutal sequence, and it’s also fascinating to see Aiz actually struggle given how perfect she’s seen to be in the main series.

As for the rest of the cast, they all get their cool moments. Lefiya still has a tendency to need rescuing, but is less self-deprecating here, and helps out Aiz more than once. (She’s also still very gay for Aiz, something I doubt will ever go anywhere but I also suspect will continue as the books go on.) They have their own murder mystery to solve, but unlike Loki’s the murder is not that mysterious, just gruesome, and the culprit shows herself almost immediately. There’s also some nice little world building and ties to prior books – Hermes’ follower who pops up here as an incidental part of the murder investigation reveals that Hermes is having her hide her higher status, something that doesn’t surprise me at all knowing him, and we meet Ouranos, the God who rules the city, and he’s one mysterious character.

Honestly, not much else to say beyond this is a really good, enjoyable book from one of my favorite light novel authors. Also, lots and lots of cool fights. Fans of the series have to pick it up. It does have a typo in regards to Lefiya’s level at the very end (she’s a 3, not a 5), but I’m ignoring that because the book was so much fun.

Fruits Basket Collector’s Edition, Vol. 10

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By Natsuki Takaya. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Sheldon Drzka.

Yen Press’ rush release of these omnibuses has been a bit disorienting at times, and because I’m giving each of them full reviews it sometimes feels like I was only just talking about the last book and here’s another one. (It’s been about 3 1/2 weeks since I reviewed Vol. 9). That said, one can never, ever run out of things to talk about when discussing Fruits Basket, so no worries on that end. As Takaya herself says, we’re beginning the home stretch here, and many mysteries are being cleared up now that the biggest of them all has been revealed. We see why Kakeru has been so on edge around Tohru, and finally meat his semi-mythical girlfriend Komaki (who for a moment looks as if she may stay with a ‘hidden face’ before getting revealed a bit later), and we get Kyo starting to explain exactly why he feels tremendous guilt and pain when he thinks about Tohru’s mother.

Speaking of Tohru, this volume is probably her low ebb. Her inability to reveal the fact that she loves Kyo is shown to have explicit ties to her idolization of her mother and the trauma of her passing, as well as a somewhat understandable complete misunderstanding of how loving someone actually works. Shigure, who in the past gave her nice, calm, friendly advice, is perhaps getting a bit too attached to her, as he now proceeds to slam at all of her buttons at once, trying to break past her traumas and get her to admit what she doesn’t want to. It hasn’t worked on Akito, and there’s no reason it’d work on Tohru, but it does show how he may feels about her now, and winds up with Shigure wondering, to the reader’s horror, what might have happened if he’d dreamt of Tohru rather than Akito.

As for Akito, well, much of the book is spent with her holed up and avoiding everyone, having a massive sulk after recent events. We finally get some backstory regarding his father (who reminds me of Yuki quite a bit, something I think Akito herself is also aware of), as well as, unfortunately, more insight into Ren, who we see Akito seems to get her selfishness and tendency towards insane tantrums from. Akito at least is seeing the cursed Sohmas gradually break away from her – more on that later – but Ren is given no real reason for her abusive nature beyond being a petty, selfish and violent person. Her attack on Akito is unfortunately, not so much for her as because it gives Akito a knife, which leads to bad things later on.

I’d mentioned two more curses break here, one right after the other – Momiji and Hiro’s. Hiro, possessing an actual warm and loving home life and with his angst over Kisa and Rin mostly being resolved, is not much of a surprise, and the revelation is quite heartwarming. Momiji is more startling, particularly in the somewhat unrealistic way he’s grown up and, frankly, become almost unrecognizable – I’ve talked before about when Takaya’s art morphed from its early Furuba faces to late ones, and despite her hurting her hand after Vol. 8, I think it’s more around here that we see it. Momiji is no longer cursed, but of course he can’t return to his family, and he already knows he’s not going to win Tohru’s love, despite his words to Kyo. So what’s left is a deep loneliness, but also a yearning to make a brilliant future for himself.

More to discuss, as always! Ayame angering an already angry BL fandom by admitting that Mine is his girlfriend, and showing off some casual cruelty towards a love confession when he was in high school that will make your jaw drop (Hatori is appalled, Shigure just amused). Kagura may barely appear in the series anymore, but she makes her appearance count, getting upset at Tohru waffling about her love for Kyo to the point where she belts Tohru in the head – which a) should give Tohru a concussion and possibly hospitalize her, given this is Kagura, and b) leads to a wonderful bit where Rin witnesses this and loses her shit, screaming that Kagura has no right to hit anyone. (Kagura, very pointedly, apologizes to Rin but not Tohru.)

And now everything is terrible, basically. (I didn’t even talk about Shigure’s scenes with Ren, in which acid meets… well, even more corrosive acid.) Kureno is stabbed (and hey, that maid wasn’t fired after all!), Akito is walking around town with a knife and not in the best frame of mind, and Kyo is telling Tohru that he a) thinks he killed his mother, and b) thinks he killed HER mother. Can things possibly get worse? Hell yes. In any case, Fruits Basket: still wonderful.

Psycome: Murder Maiden and the Fatal Final

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By Mizuki Mizushiro and Namanie. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nicole Wilder.

The good news is that this is a much more tonally consistent book than the first two, and has a better idea – most of the time – as to when to be over the top funny and when to have the reader genuinely disturbed. Renko remains the best character, getting in so many hilarious lines I can’t even bother to count them but also getting a really surprising amount of character depth (though I could have done without the epilogue telling rather than showing us all that character depth). Eiri continues to be the girl that Kyousuke SHOULD end up with, and I am very happy to hear that she’s the focus of the next book. Maina was less annoying as well this time around, and though Shamaya is back she seems to have lost the unpleasant implications of the end of the last book and just become another garden variety psycho. What I’m trying to say here is that I enjoyed everything about this except for the two lead characters and the main plot.

I knew going in that I wasn’t going to warm up to Ayaka. The “little sister obsessed with her big brother to an unnerving degree” is something already greatly exaggerated and overused by anime in general, and so turning the dial to 11 is not as successful as I think the author wants it to be. We’re meant to be amused at first and then gradually horrified as we realize that Ayaka is far more mentally unbalanced than she really should be for a “comedy” light novel, but since she enters the book hitting the high note and then only gets higher after that, we’re merely exhausted. That said, the larger issue here is Kyousuke.

There are hints, particularly at the end of the book, that Kyousuke’s entire family is, shall we say, a bit unusual, but even so, his reactions to Ayaka’s behavior beggar belief. I could be wrong here by dint of being an only child, but I’m fairly certain even the most doting brother would have noticed what was going on with Ayaka long before he did. It’s one of those cases where the revelation can’t come until the climax of the book, and so the hero ends up being unnecessarily stupid. The plot – when it arrived – was actually quite interesting, involving Ayaka deliberately being recruited into the school by their teacher, who can see a future assassin in her no doubt, but the fact that we didn’t find out about that until 90% of the way through the book is frustrating. And the subplot – involving everyone studying for finals, which have awful punishments for the bad students and setups for the next volume for the good students – was simply dropped at the end, making the “Fatal Final” a giant anticlimax.

And so, having spent much of this review being annoyed, let’s return to my original paragraph. This is a better book than the first two. The writing is more consistent, and there were some nice heartfelt scenes almost despite itself. But I don’t think Psycome will ever stop teetering on the edge of being a flaming ball of disaster, as seen in the Kamiya Family this time around. As long as it teeters and doesn’t fall off, I’ll keep reading.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Vol. 2

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By Hirohiko Araki. Released in Japan as “Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by Evan Galloway, original translation and adaptation by Alexis Kirsch and Fred Burke.

I had worried with the last volume if I wasn’t going to like Jotaro as much as his predecessors, and indeed that still seems to be the case, though I’ve somewhat come to terms with it. Things are still “we must do as many cool things as possible”, but there’s a notable element of humanity missing from this new series, instead relying on set piece after set piece and slowly moving the story around the globe, presumably ending up confronting Dio, though he barely shows up here. I also noticed the first major “we have to change this or the band will sue us” adaptation fix, as Soul Survivor (a Santana reference, so clearly the translators did an excellent job there) replacing the Japanese Devo. (Couldn’t they just say Deevo or Divo or something? They did with Kars, after all.)

It’s always worrying when I’m discussing translation choices in the first paragraph of a review. JoJo’s is one of those series I decided to write full reviews for every volume, but that was much easier in the days of Jonathan’s histrionics and Joseph’s amusing banter. The trouble with Stardust Crusaders is that while it’s not exactly bad, there’s nothing to really grasp and think deeply about. It’s all surface. Now, to be fair, Araki does surface very well. There are some striking fights here, and some of the gory deaths are both horrifying and somewhat amusing, in the best JoJo’s tradition. But even when a major plot point does appear, such as Kakyoin supposedly still being under the influence of Dio, it ends up being a bit too confusing for its own good, as it turns out that the Kakyoin that’s betraying them is actually a spy. (Also, is he named Rubber Soul or Yellow Temperance? Was the name adapted out as well?)

We also pick up a bratty little kid along the way, which I don’t really have too much of an objection to – bratty kids hanging out with heroes is very much a shonen manga trope. I was rather annoyed when she randomly decided to take a shower in the face of ever-present danger, which seems to have been solely to have her be named when faced with such danger. She looks to be about 11 years old, so this was especially annoying. We don’t need that kind of fanservice. I’m not sure how long into the series she’ll last – she doesn’t even have a name to date – but she certainly seems to have taken a shine to Jotaro. As for everyone else, they pose, they shout, and I can’t even remember most of their names.

After spending its first two volumes influencing the majority of modern Jump manga, Stardust Crusaders seems to be coasting, confident that it’s popular enough not to worry about getting cancelled, and relying on violence, set pieces, and attempting to look cool. I miss the earlier style.

A Springtime With Ninjas Vol. 1

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A Springtime with Ninjas Volume 1 by Narumi Hasegaki

I had high hopes for this title because I greatly enjoy both ninjas and shoujo manga, but I was underwhelmed by A Springtime With Ninjas. I think part of my disappointment was because I was hoping that the heroine and hero of the manga were both ninjas, but it turned out to be a decently executed manga that had some funny moments with a very conventional clueless rich girl heroine who was unfortunately not a ninja at all.

Benio is a sheltered rich girl who lives with the a horrible curse – she has to marry the first man who kisses her. She’s trapped in her home, at the mercy of a procession of tutors and she longs to go to school and experience normal life as a high schooler. Her uncle announces that he’s found a friend for her, and produces Tamaki, a flirtatious ninja bodyguard. Benio immediately finds him offputting, cherishing the memory of a friendship she had as a child when a boy who came over to play with her. Surprising no one who has read a shoujo manga before, it is pretty clear that Tamaki is her long lost friend.

Benio and Tamaki eventually get clearance to go to school, and he fends off Benio’s would-be suitors with his elite ninja skills. There were some amusing lines of dialogue like “The sanctity of this princess’s lips bears more weight to me than your lives.” Also, it was fun to see random high school club presidents suddenly manifest ninja abilities. The art is attractive, and the action scenes are clear and easy to follow. But there isn’t really any distinct quality or style to the art that would help offset storylines that kept giving me a sense of deja vu. I ended up putting down this manga being reminded of all the other shoujo manga that I’ve read that cover some of the same story tropes but end up being a little bit more funny, or have a more interesting take on ninjas or sheltered heiresses.

A First Look at We Never Learn

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We Never Learn follows a tried-and-true shonen formula: an ordinary joe finds himself at the apex of a love triangle with two pretty girls. The points of this particular triangle are Yuiga, a bright, hard-working student from a poor family; Ogata, a math whiz whose classmates call her “Thumbelina Calculator”; and Furahashi, a budding literary talent whose classmates call her “Sleeping Beauty of the Literary Forest.” (Something tells me those nicknames were funnier in the original Japanese.) In keeping with the dictates of the genre, Ogata and Furahashi are physical and temperamental opposites: Ogata is petite, cold, and disdainful, while Furahashi is lanky, spazzy, and cheerful. Both girls initially appear to be out of Yuiga’s league, as they outperform him in the classroom and outclass him in looks.

The story takes an interesting turn midway through chapter one: Yuiga’s school hires him to tutor Ogata and Furahashi, both of whom are blissfully unaware of their natural strengths. Ogata dreams of enrolling in a prestigious liberal arts school, while Furahashi hopes to attend an engineering college. In trying to help Ogata and Furahashi achieve their goals, Yuiga discovers that his high EQ is a better asset than his book smarts. Yuiga knows how to cope with failure: as we learn in a flashback, he was once a mediocre student who gradually improved through trial and error. Ogata and Furahashi, by contrast, are portrayed as naturally brilliant in their respective fields but lacking the experience or maturity to master their weaker subjects.

Of course, there are plenty of elements you’d expect to see in a shonen rom-com: gratuitous shower and bath scenes, melodramatic proclamations, and a supporting cast of interchangeable classmates, none of whom make much of an impression. The manga’s generous portrayal of its principle characters and its genuine sincerity, however, suggest that We Never Learn has the potential to be sweetly funny without making Yuiga into an insufferable know-it-all or a dweeby doormat.

The bottom line: Try before you buy! The first chapter is available free on the VIZ website; readers wishing to continue the story can do so through the digital version of Shonen Jump. 

WE NEVER LEARN • BY TAISHI TSUTUI • VIZ MEDIA • RATED T, for teen (13+)

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!: Oh My Useless Goddess!

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By Natsume Akatsuki and Kurone Mishima. Released in Japan as “Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!: Aa, Damegami-sama” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

In the current light novel boom that North America has been experiencing, there have been many novels that fall under the broad category of ‘funny’. They either take a relatively serious plot and give it a funny touch (The Devil Is a Part-timer!), expand on a completely ludicrous situation (Psycome), or are an outright parody (I Saved Too Many Girls And Caused the Apocalypse). KonoSuba’s first volume is most like the latter of these options, but I have to say as I was reading it that I can’t think of a single series, even Little Apocalypse, that was as dedicated to wringing as many laughs out of everything as KonoSuba is. Never mind plot complications or depth of characterization. This series is damned funny, and that’s why you should read it.

The archetype being parodied will be most familiar to readers of the manga Mushoku Tensei. A young man who is something of a loser dies performing one noble act, and is given an option to reincarnate in a fantasy world so he can be a hero. Except here, Kazuma’s death turns out to be so pathetic that even the doctors who tried to save him and his own parents laughed when they heard about it, and the young goddess who wants to send him to a fantasy world seems to be doing it so that she can fill her quota more than anything else. She’s so annoying, in fact, that Kazuma, rather than wishing for a fantastic sword or unbeatable magic powers to go along with him into this world, wishes for… the goddess herself. Fans of Oh My Goddess will be especially amused, showing that the subtitle of the first volume isn’t just for show. Kazuma and Aqua could not be more different than Keiichi and Belldandy, though, and when they both arrive in Generic Fantasy world X, he finds this goddess to be a lot less help than he’d hoped.

Everything that follows amps up the comedy, as it should be. Kazuma, because he didn’t pick an insane superweapon but a useless goddess, as average stats and minimal weapons to defeat a giant demon king. He has luck… but that merely seems to allow him to use thief abilities to steal girl’s panties. (Yeah, sorry about that, it’s still written for guys.) We meet Megumin, a teenage overdramatic girl who likes explosions and not much else. We meet Darkness, a knight with elite defensive powers who can’t hit the side of a barn door with her sword, and who seems to get off on just about anything. Together, these four take on giant frogs (which I won’t spoil), supposedly evil lichs (another great scene), and in the end a demon general who is a dullahan (were these always in anime even before Celty, or is their resurgence all Ryohgo Narita’s fault?). And what’s more, they win!

It’s tricky to review this, because I don’t want to give away the best gags. I will note that, while I’m sure this will change, I was pleasantly surprised at the utter lack of romance in this first book. Kazuma and Aqua act like bratty siblings, Megumin is too young for him, and while Darkness is basically what he finds attractive, her masochism creeps him out. That plus his tendency to yell at everyone and everything makes this party dynamic more family than harem, and I appreciated that. But when all is said and done, you read this book because it will make you laugh. Even if you aren’t familiar with the tropes of isekai and reincarnation novels, you’ll still like this.

Chihayafuru Vol. 1

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Chihayafuru Volume 1 by Yuki Suetsugu

Around a month ago, there were a few things I knew about Chihayafuru. It was a josei title about a Japanese card game. It has had an anime adaptation. I was interested in reading this, but I was convinced it would never be licensed. I have also been living under a rock, or at least totally unaware of what Kodansha was doing because I didn’t realize until several days ago that Chihayafuru was being released in English albeit just in digital format. I clicked the preorder button so quickly!

Chihayafuru is a josei manga, but it also is a sports manga centered around karuta, a poetry matching game that requires literary knowledge, memorization, quick reflexes, and strategy. From the start, the reader gets a few panels of the middle of an exciting game. Then the manga catapults into the past, to six years earlier. The main character is Chihaya, a girl who has buried her ambitions in supporting her older sister’s dream of becoming a supermodel. While Chihaya doesn’t seem to have any goals for herself, it is clear that she’s kind and a bit of tomboy at school. When a new kid arrives in her classroom and is promptly bullied, Chihaya sticks up for him. Wataya might talk funny and be poor, but he is a master at the game karuta, which the class plays from time to time. Wataya’s first enemy is Taichi, a popular boy who is dedicated to his studies and comfortable always winning the school kuruta tournament.

Wataya is a genius level kuruta player, and when he gets put at a disadvantage in a challenge match because his glasses were stolen, Chihaya substitutes herself for him. She doesn’t have all the poems memorized, but she has an incredibly dynamic and aggressive playing style that when combined with her reflexes enables her to eke out a win. She becomes inspired to pursue kuruta as her own interest. Taichi, Wataya, and Chihaya end up forming an odd friend group centered around kuruta, even visiting a local club to play practice matches and learn from a local teacher. The personalities of the three main characters create an interesting dynamic and dramatic tension.

I’m assuming with the flashback opening to this volume, the characters will be shown at their current ages soon, but the reader is set up to being able to feel all nostalgic when the trio gets together again outside of middle school. Chihayafuru reminds me of Hikaru No Go in the best way, because it takes a topic that might seem overly cerebral and invests it with a great sense of pacing and action. Chihaya’s dynamic personality and habit of slapping down cards whenever she gets a sudden insight makes everything exciting. Suetsugu’s paneling using multiple perspectives as angles on the game action also creates plenty of visual interest. I also liked the way romanized Japanese was presented along with the translations for the poems, because it was easier to get a sense of the rythm of the game, and how the players greet matched poems as “old friends”. In a digital release I suppose one can’t expect too many extras, but if print volumes of this series ever come out, it would be fun to have some of the poems and cards featured in more depth in notes at the back of each volume.

Paying to Win in a VRMMO, Vol. 1

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By Blitz Kiva and Kuwashima rein. Released in Japan as “VRMMO wo Kane no Chikara de Musou suru” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis.

You would think after reading all of the light novels currently out in North America about games, either with people trapped in them, transported to them, or having worlds based on them, that I would be used to things by now, but Paying to Win in a VRMMO reminds me once again: I’m not really a gamer. I get the aggressiveness of microtransactions due to playing Candy Crush Saga, but that’s as far as it goes. And while it’s refreshing to actually see a book where people play a game they can actually log out of at the end of the day, it also means that more than the usual amount of prose was expended in regards to items, levels, attack names and types, and the like. Don’t get me wrong, the fights were exciting, especially the final one, it’s just hard for me to get into it as much when I’m seeing “he swiped his inventory to grab another sword”. But I suppose that’s VR for you.

Our hero is the man on the right, Ichiro, a young obscenely rich man who is also a genius, having graduated Harvard at age 13 (which is the usual requirement for fictional geniuses). Sadly, the fact that he can easily do anything has led him to be bored by almost everything. Then his second cousin Asuha asks for his help with a problem she has, one that needs to be solved by playing the popular VRMMO “Narrow Fantasy Online”. Ichiro has no reason to refuse, so agrees, pays an obscene amount of money to get an arcade version of the game put into his highrise penthouse, pays an obscene amount of money to get the cool character traits he wants, and pays an obscene amount of money to level up to obscene levels. He does all this rather coolly and stoicly, with the occasional bemused grin. Luckily, he finds something in the game that, for the first time perhaps ever, really challenges him. That someone… is Kirito.

Pardon me, my apologies. That someone… is Kirihito, one of many gamers who base their stats and appearance on “a certain famous light novel hero”. The main reason to get this book is probably for the almost-litigious-but-not-quite parodies of Sword Art Online, which keep coming fast and furious – the idea that most newbies play as Kirihito (this book’s version of WcDonald’s), the high-level Kirihitos who team up and become a sentai team, complete with pose (the illustration alone is worth the price of the book), all the way to “King Kirihito”, who may not like that nickname, but is the only other person in this game who can challenge Ichiro, and is also the source of the problem that Asuha would like to solve. (Also, if you’re going to be broadly satirizing SAO that much, perhaps choose a name other than “Asuha”, maybe?)

To be honest, while I enjoyed the book somewhat, I found the characters wanting. Kirihito’s real-life self was probably the most interesting, and I approve of the author leaving it up to the reader to choose their gender. Ichiro unfortunately grates a little too much with his “I earned this money myself, so can use it to solve all life’s problems and none can complain” ways, which get called out a bit in-book, but are mostly shrugged off. Asuha is very passive throughout the book, which is very frustrating given that one of the major cores of the book is getting her to stop being so passive – I didn’t really feel the satisfaction I was supposed to. And the otaku maid just wasn’t over the top enough for me to find amusing. The writing is good, and the jokes are excellent, but Paying to Win needs some better character development stat.