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Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, Vol. 1

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

First of all, it is very hard for me to read this book and not have ‘Arifureta, gentille arifureta, Arifureta, je te plumerai.” in my head, so I want you all to have it there as well. Secondly, this book in many ways reads like Isekai Smartphone’s dark mirror. They’re both intensely serious attempts at the classic isekai, but while Smartphone is content to be light as air and coast along on the awesomeness of his hero and the goodwill of the reader, in the grim darkness of Arifureta there is only hatred and revenge. Except, of course, we never see the actual revenge that we expect, and the hatred mostly manifests itself as our hero getting impossibly overpowered and badass. It’s a teenage power fantasy, but it has not gone the way most of those types of fantasies go – at least not yet.

The first third of the book starts you off on the wrong foot, leading you to believe this will be a far more traditional isekai than it actually is. Our hero is Hajime, a normal high school student who happens to be bullied by the majority of the class, mostly because the cutest girl in the class, Shirasaki, has taken it upon herself to interact with him every day. This becomes seemingly irrelevant when the entire class is transported to another world, there to become heroes and fight for the sake of the new country they’re now in. All of the class has cool adventurer stats and awesome powers… except Hajime, whose stats are awful and who is basically a blacksmith. So he’s bullied AGAIN, physically and emotionally. Worse, Shirasaki is still interested in him. And so one day, when the class are fighting a horrible battle far above their skill level (which Hajime actually helps out with more than anyone else), one jealous classmate turns to murder and Hajime falls into the deepest, darkest depths of the dungeon.

So far so dull, but then the plot and the writing take a dive off a cliff, just like our hero. Hajime, due to the happenstance of various things I won’t bother to get into, ends up leveling up so much his stat level is ???, acquires innumerable powers, and uses his basic blacksmith stats so do amazing things, and also build lots of guns, because kids who get transported to another world tend to be gun nuts. This is the point of the book where the reader has to throw up their hands and just go with it, because it is absolutely overblown and ridiculous, and the prose verges on the hilarious. It also may be the best part of the book, because he shortly meets a vampire princess trapped in the dungeon with him, and after rescuing her the series (again) becomes far more predictable.

That said, I expected by the end of the novel that he would get back to the surface and get revenge on those who once wronged him. This doesn’t happen, though we do cut back to the surface occasionally to check in on the rest and show how Shirasaki was very, very much in love with dull ol’ Hajime. Instead, the last third of the book relies on long battle scenes (which are done pretty well) and the interaction between Hajime and Yue, which is done less well. Hajime has a tendency at times to act as tsukkomi to Yue, which is a shame as it makes him sound like Araragi from the Monogatari series, especially bad given Yue is a blonde loli vampire. Another surprise, and a warning of sorts: Hajime and Yue have sex, several times. It’s implied rather than shown, but it is worth noting, simply as that sort of thing rarely actually happens in isekai harems like this, and likely shows off its web novel roots. You will have to trot out the old “it’s OK as she’s really hundreds of years old, she just LOOKS nine” chestnut.

Arifureta was less terrible than I was expecting, but there are better isekais out there. I’d only recommend it to those who really like this sort of thing and don’t mind overpowered, overserious heroes.

My Brother’s Husband, Vol. 1

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By Gengoroh Tagame | Published by Pantheon Books

Yaichi is a single dad who works from home managing the rental property his parents left to him and his brother, Ryoji, after being killed in a car accident when the boys were teenagers. He considers his real job to be providing the best home he can to his daughter, Kana. On the day the story begins, Yaichi is expecting a guest—Mike Flanagan, the burly Canadian whom Ryoji married after leaving Japan ten years ago. Ryoji passed away the previous month and Mike has come to Japan to try to connect with Ryoji’s past and see for himself the many things he’d heard stories about from his husband.

Initially, Yaichi is reserved and wary around Mike. It’s not to his credit that the first thing he thinks when effusive Mike moves in for a hug is “Let go, you homo!,” though he at least mostly keeps a lid on his feelings. Mike is never anything but lovely, and Kana quickly comes to adore him. It’s through her openness and innocence, untainted by prejudice, that Yaichi comes to rethink some of his actions concerning Mike. Why did he hesitate to invite Mike to stay with them, when he’d recently insisted a visiting cousin do the same, for example? Kana is able to ask Mike things that Yaichi feels unable to, and he benefits from Mike’s super-patient explanations, eventually realizing how wrong he’d been about various aspects of the gay experience.

Not only wrong, in fact, but willfully ignorant. When Ryoji came out to him as a teenager, Yaichi didn’t object but never talked about it with him, either. He never considered how difficult that conversation was for his brother, or what other kind of turmoil he might’ve been experiencing. Too late, he’s realizing that he missed the opportunity to truly know his brother. I did appreciate that Yaichi is willing and able to recognize his own failings, and that he vows to protect Kana from others’ negative opinions about Mike and from being as closed-off as he was. True, he’s still not able to introduce Mike to an acquaintance without downgrading his relationship to Ryoji, so he’s got a ways to go. But at least he is headed in the right direction.

“Heartbreaking yet hopeful” is how Anderson Cooper describes My Brother’s Husband in his endorsement blurb, and he is definitely right. MJalso wrote movingly about the series in our latest Off the Shelf column.

My Brother’s Husband is complete in four volumes. Pantheon Books is releasing the series in two-in-one volumes.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

A Silent Voice, Vols. 1-7

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By Yoshitoki Oima | Published by Kodansha Comics

asv1In elementary school, Shoya Ishida often engaged in foolhardy stunts to stave off boredom. When hearing impaired transfer student Shoko Nishimiya joins his class and causes disruption within the class, she becomes Shoya’s target. Initially, the other kids laugh at Shoya’s antics but when he goes too far and destroys several hearing aids to the tune of $14,000, they swiftly condemn him. Now he’s the one who’s ostracized and this status continues into high school, long after Shoko transferred out again. Full of self-loathing, he’s preparing to commit suicide, but a chance reunion with Shoko inspires him to try to change.

One of the first things Shoya does is accept the friendship of a tubby, pushy classmate called Tomohiro Nagatsuka. Tomohiro doesn’t have much depth or subtlety as a character, but he proves to be a reasonably faithful friend and helps Shoya become more sociable. Soon, he meets Yuzuru, Shoko’s tomboyish sister, and reunites with more girls from his elementary school class. Many of the middle volumes involve frictions between this group of people, particularly between a volatile girl named Naoka and Shoko. Shoya tries to help patch their relationship, but things do not go well at all. There is a lot of punching and hair-pulling, in fact.

asv4Back and forth things go, with this group continuing to try to establish themselves as friends without seeming to genuinely like each other much. Eventually, they decide to film a movie together. For one scene, they need to acquire permission to film at their old elementary school. Shoya is the unwilling emissary, and an encounter with his odious former teacher leaves him feeling so awful about himself that he ends up lashing out at all his friends, seemingly trying to drive them away as he feels he deserves. This has the unintended side effect of causing Shoko to feel like she’s the cause of his unhappiness, prompting a desperate act.

Throughout, I enjoyed Shoya’s arc. I like that gaining some people to hang out with is not enough to immediately banish self-hatred or prevent negative feelings. Only at the end of the series does Shoya gain the courage to face people honestly, accepting criticism for his faults and misdeeds while also being open to the possibility that not everyone is hostile towards him. I do wish we got more emphasis on Shoko’s inner life, however, even though I liked the direction she’s headed at the end of the series.

asv7Less clear is what Oima was aiming for with their group of friends. Even though Naoka was far more outwardly nasty to Shoko, at least she was open about it and expressed a great deal of self-loathing because of her behavior. With the help of another friend, Miyoko, she is encouraged to have a bit more optimism, and will probably end up doing okay. Even though she could’ve been fleshed out further, I do like Naoka as a character. But man oh man, do I hate Miki. She makes everything about herself—at one point revising the bullying narrative so that she and Shoko were co-victims—and doesn’t seem to grow at all. Everything she does seems fake, because most of it is, and I was baffled when the boy she fancies declared her to be “kind” after some weepy episode. Miki should get hit by a bus.

Lastly, there were some thoughtful depictions of how characters perceive the spoken word. In later volume there’s a chapter from Shoko’s point of view where all of the dialogue in the speech bubbles is only about sixty percent legible. It’s a neat effect. Too, on several occasions Shoya seems to overhear his classmates making derogatory comments about him. The scenes are depicted in such a way that the reader has doubt—is he just imagining what they’re saying, or are they really saying it? This struggle to interpret conversation is something he and Shoko have in common.

Despite a couple of complaints, I’d say A Silent Voice is well worth reading!

A Silent Voice is complete in seven volumes, all of which are now available in English.

The Emperor and I

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The Emperor and I reads like a Sunday comic strip: it has a faintly absurd premise that’s easy to grasp, a small cast of characters, and a well-honed repertoire of jokes that it trots out with clockwork precision.

The story begins with Kaho, an ordinary teenage girl, discovering an extraordinary thing in the refrigerator: a penguin. Without a second thought, she coaxes him out of the crisper drawer, feeds him a snack, and persuades her mom to let him stay. Emperor turns out to be less a pet than a weird houseguest, however, doggedly pursuing penguin behaviors — carrying eggs on his feet, sliding across the floor on his belly — while assiduously ignoring his human companions.

What gives the series its odd comic energy is the artist’s fierce commitment to depicting Emperor as a wild animal. Emperor doesn’t talk or have a winsome face with big, soulful eyes; he’s a silent, hulking presence who molts and sleeps standing up. The gulf between Emperor and his human hosts is further underscored by the full-color artwork. As Mato draws him, Emperor looks like an illustration from a biology textbook, with every patch of orange and feather rendered in meticulous detail. By contrast, Kaho and her family look like stock characters from a Shonen Sunday manga; you’d be forgiven for thinking they were part of Kagome Higurashi’s extended clan. Color also enables Mato to conceal Emperor in plain sight so that he’s visible to the reader but plausibly hidden from the characters, a gimmick that proves essential to one of the series’ better running gags: Emperor’s talent for disappearing inside Kaho’s very small house. (That’s no small feat, considering he stands four feet tall and reeks of mackerel.)

Perhaps the best thing about The Emperor and I is that it wears its conceit lightly. We learn a lot about penguin behavior and anatomy over the course of the series, but other critical details are left to the readers’ imagination. Although Kaho and her family acknowledge the bizarreness of their situation — remember, they found a penguin in the crisper drawer — none of them seem particularly bothered by it, or curious to discover how Emperor arrived there. By keeping the focus on Emperor’s natural avian behaviors, Mato mines a richer comic vein of material, highlighting the incongruity between the setting and Emperor’s attempts to carry on as if he were still living in Antarctica.

Like any Sunday strip, The Emperor and I is best in small doses, as the “Where’s Emperor?” jokes grow tiresome when read in rapid succession. Consumed in weekly doses of three to nine pages, however, The Emperor and I works well; the routine jokes have a pleasantly familiar ring that brings the genuinely novel gags into sharper relief. You won’t forget the silent encounter between Emperor and a neighborhood cat, or Kaho’s frantic efforts to turn her bathtub into a salt-water pool, even if the comic bits that surround these sequences are pat.

How to read The Emperor and I: VIZ is serializing this manga on its website, making a new chapter available every week. Access is free, though expect to see at least one or two pop-up ads for VIZ’s digital edition of Weekly Shonen Jump.

THE EMPEROR AND I • BY MATO • VIZ MEDIA • RATING: ALL AGES

The Irregular at Magic High School: Nine School Competition Arc, Part 2

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By Tsutomu Sato and Kana Ishida. Released in Japan as “Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei” by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

I’ve been very nice to Irregular at Magic High School in my last three reviews, despite being well aware that the series is very polarizing, and that there are many, many people who vehemently dislike it – not as much as Sword Art Online, I mean, let’s not get crazy, but a whole lot. This is the first volume that, while I still enjoyed it to a degree, I’m beginning to see their point. Everything that’s normally annoying about Mahouka is just that much more so here, and the book even has a huge page count to get it all in there. Tatsuya’s perfectness, the vague incestuous implications, the cartoon nature of the villains, who make even other anime Chinese mafia cringe. And most of all, the endless, endless “magicbabble”, as the reader begins to suspect that without each detailed explanation of what magic is used and how it works in that context, this book would be about 70 pages long.

The games themselves show off our first-years to the best of their abilities, and their are few surprises – there is one game-breaking injury (literally – we’re told she won’t be able to use magic anymore), but it’s to a minor character we haven’t seen much of, and it’s never even brought up again. What we mostly see is First High’s girls beating the snot out of their competitors (the rookie guys don’t have Tatsuya as their engineer, so of course they do badly and seethe at him all the time for being so Tatsuya). Indeed, the competition with the most tension is the one between Shizuka and Miyuki – it’s over far too quickly, and I’d like to have seen more of it, but again, Miyuki is so far above everyone else, I suppose there’s not much we can do. The Honor Student side manga should help.

Of course, Tatsuya is forced to compete himself due to various circumstances, and of course he is amazing, though Leo and Mikihiko are also allowed to show off their chops a bit. (Erika, sadly, gets very little to do beyond be jealous of her brother’s relationship with Mari, though that does give us the funniest moment in the book, as Miyuki teases Erika about her brother complex, and Erika just loses it because it’s MIYUKI doing this. The student council for the most part are there to be a Greek chorus, with Mayumi occasionally showing off her crush on Tatsuya and Azusa gradually realizing Tatsuya’s secret identity due to his complete inability to hide his amazing engineering skills (though he tries, multiple times in the book, not to take credit for things.)

The book is not bad per se, despite my complaining – the action sequences are well paced and work despite all the magic explanations woven into them. Tatsuya’s past and his devotion to Miyuki makes the book take a very dark tone towards the end, as he shows no mercy towards anyone who would hurt Miyuki, and the narrative points out – perhaps a bit too much – that it’s ONLY Miyuki he cares about, not anyone else. So it’s still a good series to read for fans, but I can easily see casual readers deciding that this is the point they may want to abandon ship.

Peach Heaven Vol. 1

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So far, I’m having a mixed experience with Kodansha’s digital line. I like Chihayafuru and The Full-Time Wife Escapist (review of that coming soon), but I am not thrilled with A Springtime With Ninjas or Peach Heaven. In a way this is good, because I’m not having to set aside funds for so many digital series!

Peach Heaven treads familiar ground as the hapless heroine Momoko is blackmailed into being a slave to an evil male model – is there any other type of model in shoujo manga? Momoko has taken over her father’s writing persona and is cranking out erotica books in order to support her sick mother and younger brother. She toils on her writing all night, only to fall asleep in school the next day. Her friends think she’s hopelessly addicted to online gaming. Through a series of events that I no longer remember, Ranmaru the male model finds out about her double life and starts blackmailing her. Momoko is forced to bring Ranmaru lunch every day at school, and he continues to berate her for her life choices and makes fun of her for being a virgin.

Of course, various situations come up when Ranmaru has to rescue or intervene in Momoko’s life, indicating that he might be not so terrible after all. There isn’t really any suspense or dramatic tension in this manga. While I generally enjoy trashy romance manga, that’s usually only in cases where there’s a bit of a sense of humor or some over the top soap opera element to the storylines, and I don’t see anyone in Peach Heaven, say, abruptly deciding to become a priest or dealing with the aftereffects of personality-changing hypnotism. I was hoping that Peach Heaven would be another fun guilty pleasure manga, but it is just not very interesting. The rote plotting isn’t really complimented by the art, which is competent but doesn’t exhibit any individual sense of style.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Vol. 3

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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.

This is a stronger volume of JoJo than the previous two, and don’t think I haven’t noticed that Jotaro is barely in it. Instead, this focuses on Joseph for an extended period, and coincidentally has some of its more exciting, amusing, and terrifying fights. Indeed, terrifying may be a good word for most of the volume, as this book reminds you that as much as JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is an action manga, it could also be classified as horror. Leaving aside the obvious gore, which is horrific enough, we get body possession/disguise (it’s not actually clear which it is), and the villain being able to appear only in reflections as he advances slowly on our hero, something that is right out of the horror movie handbook. Araki is very good at this sort of thing.

I suspected I would enjoy this volume more than the previous two right from the start, as everyone worries about the cliches they’ve heard about India, and Avdol reassures them that those are just stereotypes… only to enter the city and see exactly what they were afraid of. Stereotypes are there for a reason, after all. Sadly, Avdol doesn’t last very long in this book, sacrificing his life to protect the dumbass Polnareff, who is hell-bent on revenge and so therefore not listening very well. To be fair, Polnareff has a good reason for revenge, and the villain Centerfold (changed from the original J. Geil – we should be grateful Nena wasn’t renamed 99 Red Balloons, I suppose) is a loathsome creep, bringing up Polnareff’s sister (who he raped and murdered) again and again. You’re happy when he dies.

The second half of the book, as I said, mostly deals with Joseph and his battle against Centerfold’s evil mother, who was disguised (or possessed?) as Nena and has now taken control of his arm via a gruesome “bug bite” that turns into a Basket Case-esque monster. Fans of the 2nd arc will find a lot to smile about here, as Joseph runs all over the city trying out various plans that don’t work very well (and also being framed for murder) before finally getting the upper hand and saying his trademark “you’re thinking” line. And we end up in the middle of the Himilayas, as our heroes battle what appears to be a guy whose car is a Stand, and also pick up the annoying 11-year-old girl they had dumped the book before – she’s back, and she’s still comic relief. There’s even some amusing meta, as the villain, who has seemingly burned Jotaro alive, shouts that this is the end of Part 3!

It’s not, of course, and Jotaro points out that no one is going to be replacing him anytime soon, much as I might want them to. In the meantime, this is a good comeback volume for Stardust Crusaders, which does what I always like best about JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, in that it has an equal amount of both bizarre and adventure. But will we ever get to Dio again?

In Another World With My Smartphone, Vol. 2

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By Patora Fuyuhara and Eiji Usatsuka. Released in Japan as “Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson.

First of all, yes, as expected, this volume is not quite as gloriously readable as the last one. It’s hard to keep lightning in a bottle, especially when it’s trying to hit that sweet spot of “awful yet immensely readable”. (I am aware the author is not going for awful, but just work with me here.) And so there are moments where the reader rolls their eyes rather than smiles, and one large section at the end where the reader may be actively pissed off. But given the absolute low bar this series is trying to clear, it manages pretty well, and occasionally even evolves by pointing out its own silliness. Smartphone will never be good, but it can still be fun.

Despite the presence of the not-Fujibayashi twins on the cover, this is still very much an ensemble work, though the ensemble mostly watches Touya show his stuff. Let’s see here… first of all, the smartphone is in fact used more in this book, as promised. Mostly what he does is combine it with his magic so that he can take out multiple enemies via the map function. He’s also rewarded for the events of the first book by the King, which means moving to the royal city and setting up house in a giant mansion, complete with butler, two maids, a gardener and cook, and two security guards. The maids are combat ninja maids, because of course they are. The gardener and cook are married, because of course they are. The two security guys are called Tom and Huck, something so amazing that even Touya can’t look past it and comments on it. Given the book also features characters named Linze, Lim, Leon, Laim, Leim, Lapis, Lyon, Leen, and Renne (who I can only imagine is romanized with an R because the translator finally got completely fed up) we should count ourselves lucky.

The book works best when it revels in its cliches. Touya is overpowered as all hell, though even he needs a tiny bit of help to take down a giant dragon (but only a tiny bit). He gets a mansion to live in with his harem, but is oblivious to all of them. (They at least seem to have come to terms with their feelings for him, and Yumina seems to be organizing them.) His magic impresses even the Queen of the Fairies, he can defeat the battle-crazy King of Beasts (who looks like Prince Phil from Slayers if he were a giant snow leopard), he can invent email in his spare time, and he can also take in adorable orphan thief girls who are clearly also long-lost royalty and make them maids. The reason this works, for once, is because Touya is such a blank. If he were confident he’d be insufferable, if he were mopey he’d be unreadable. It’s only because he’s casual about literally everything that he gets away with it.

That said, when he ISN’T like that things go south fast. There are two short stories at the end of the book. My guess is they were taken from the early days of the webnovel, and it shows. Leaving aside the fact that the premise of the second story is “let’s melt the clothing off all the female cast”, Touya is actively seeking this, thinking that he’d actually like to see their semi-naked bodies. This flies in the face of the rest of the book, where Touya’s lack of awareness of his harem as anything but family is lampshaded repeatedly by Yumina and the others. I get that sometimes you need to pad the novel out, but not at the expense of the main character. Skip this story. But otherwise, Smartphone 2 is pretty much a lot like Smartphone 1: cliche-ridden but fun to read.

Oh yes, and he makes an extendable gun sword from scratch. Because of course he does.

One Piece, Vol. 82

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By Eiichiro Oda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by Stephen Paul.

This is another one of those volumes of One Piece in which so much happens that you begin to wonder where to begin when writing the review. There’s revelations about Sanji’s family’ discussion of Gold Roger and Raftel, the final destination where One Piece lies; the aftermath of what happens on Zou, and the splitting of the crew (again!) to deal with the myriad problems; a meeting of fifty Kings and Rulers from all over the Grand Line, which means we get to see Vivi sailing again; and starting off a new arc as the reader, of course, follows Luffy, who takes his merry band to rescue Sanji from his impending wedding. Which, amusingly, Sanji wants to have no part of, though seeing the amazingly pretty bride to be might change his mind. And this is all mixed in with the usual One Piece humor and fighting.

It is rather interesting seeing Vivi on the cover in the background there, given she doesn’t really get all that much screentime (though she certainly flaunts the time she gets). One of the drawbacks of Oda writing a constant pirate’s journey is that it’s very difficult to go back and visit anyone again, which is why we only see Kaya, Nojiko, etc. in occasional “what are they doing now?” scenes. But the upcoming meeting will, I suspect, give an opportunity for Vivi at least to rejoin the Straw Hat Crew, which would be awesome, even though the crew itself continues to be unwieldy. In Dressrosa we had Nami, Sanji, Chopper and Brook sidelined for volumes at a time. Therefore, for this new adventure, Luffy takes Nami, Chopper, and brook with him to go bring back Sanji, leaving the others behind to deal with the other threads of plot that will involve less of Luffy rushing in where rubber doesn’t really to treat. And what’s more, he adds some people from Zoul, some on purpose (Pedro, Pekoms), and some by accident (Carrot, who I suspect is there for comic relief).

But Sanji and his family are currently where Oda is directing attention, and luckily that coincides with the arrival of the Big Mom Pirates. Big Mom may be stereotypical, but she’s certainly dangerous, especially given the final vision of the volume, as she parties along with the Worst Teletubbies Episode Ever. We also meet two of Sanji’s siblings (one outrageous, one sensible, in the best tradition of meeting siblings), and find out a bit more about their family, including their being used as the basis for a group of comic strip villains popular all over the Grand Line. And we meet Charlotte Pudding, Sanji’s fiancee, who seems nice and sweet and makes chocolate, and I think I’ll leave it at that, as the volumes are a good year behind the Weekly Shonen Jump chapters released every Monday.

So it’s all over the place, but in a good way, and Luffy gets to be monumentally stupid, which we haven’t seen for a while, and Nami upgrades her weapon in a very amusing scene and… look, it’s just a good volume of One Piece, OK? That said, read the other 81 first, as this is a bad volume to jump off from.

The Faraway Paladin: The Archer of Beast Woods

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

I’d mentioned in my review of this first volume of this series that it had more of a high fantasy feel to it than a light novel feel, and that continues in the second volume, which sees William making his way back to civilization and discovering what said civilization actually is. (Also as I said in the first volume review, the fact that he’s a reincarnated Japanese guy is completely irrelevant to the story. I suspect it was added in order to draw in fans of that genre.) He immediately runs into the character we see on the cover page (and in the title), a half-elf who is both bemused and amazed at Will’s combination of superpowers and stunning naivete. In fact, mentioning superpowers, I am reminded of what Will feels like in this second book. He feels like Superman.

There are, obviously, a lot more characters in this book than the last one, as Will and Menel are going around saving villages, battling monsters, and meeting up with Antonio from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, who I was rather surprised to find in the middle of a light novel. (It gets even worse later in the book when Bishop Beesley from Michael Moorcock’s Cornelius series arrives, though thankfully this is a less evil version.) It helpfully shows off how bad Will can be at not only actual human interaction, but understanding consequences in this new world – he needs to be bailed out several times by his companions. Fortunately he’s aware of this, as he keeps worrying about social ostracism, but that doesn’t make him any less bad at it. His pureheartedness may also remind the reader of Dudley Do-Right at times.

The writing on this book continues to be excellent, with the better scenes towards the back half of the book. William has a bit of a breakdown near the end as he realizes the distance between himself and his colleagues, and the way that we get to see this happen from his narrative point of view and scream “no, stop, you’re being an idiot!” is really well done. Luckily, he is stopped for being an idiot, and other characters get to show off that just because he’s super pure and strong does not always mean he saves the day – cunning and experience still has its place. There’s also a bit more humor this time around as well, mostly due to a) Will’s po-faced reaction to things, b) Menel being a massive tsundere; and c) the presence of Bee, a hobbit (in all but name) who regales everyone with song and stories. This also leads to the most touching moment in the book, where she narrates an epic song that turns out to be about Blood, Mary, and Gus – Will is so happy they weren’t forgotten he starts to cry.

In the end, this remains a very good fantasy novel, with a distinct lack of harems, little sisters, or other light novel cliches, and the main character’s overpowered nature is balanced out enough in the text that I don’t think it matters. To me, this remains the J-Novel Club release to read for those who don’t like J-Novel Club releases. That said, we’re almost caught up with Japan, so I’m not sure when the next release will be.

My Brother’s Husband, Vol. 1

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By Gengoroh Tagame. Released in Japan in two separate volumes by Futabasha, serialized in the magazine Gekkan Action. Released in North America by Pantheon Books. Translated by Anne Ishii.

This has been a book I’ve been waiting to see for a long time. I was at last year’s TCAF panel with the author, where he discussed his works and the challenges of a serialization like this one. It has since finished (at four volumes, meaning there will be one more omnibus), and this first omnibus is a handsome hardvoer with great reproduction and quality translation. But most importantly, the story and art are top notch. Fans of Gengoroh Tagame who know him for his Bara work (n.b. – Bara is gay manga, as opposed to yaoi/BL, whose primary audience is women) will love this, and those who aren’t into the gay bondage thing but want a good story about sexuality, grief, loss, and the intermingling of the three will also be delighted with this story.

The story deals with Yaichi, a single man raising his young daughter Kana. He’s a twin, and his twin brother has recently passed away. His twin brother was also gay, and his husband, a Canadian man named Mike, has come to visit Yaichi. What follows is partly slice-of-life – they go to visit places in the town, they make breakfast, they go to a gym – but there’s a lot more to it. Yaichi has inbuilt “ew, gay” prejudices that can’t simply be shrugged off, even if he is basically a nice guy at heart. Moreover, having a gay man living openly in their household is starting to make the neighbors talk, and the talk isn’t good. That said, Yaichi knows how he should be behaving despite his prejudices, and Kana simply adores Mike. As for Mike, he’s seemingly a happy-go-lucky guy, but is still dealing with grief over the loss of his husband, which is not helped by Yaichi being his identical twin.

My favorite thing about this release is how well the art and story complement each other. Tagame’s characters have amazing expressions, sometimes written all over their face (Yaichi), and sometimes seemingly poker-faced, but always drawn in a way that you know just what they’re thinking. The start of the story has an artistic conceit where the top half of a page has Yaichi acting out his (homophobic) thoughts, while the bottom half has the reality of his reserved Japanese response. I wasn’t expecting Yaichi to be as likeable as he is – yes, he’s a bit creeped out by the idea of Mike being gay at first, mostly due to how it ties into his brother, but he’s also prioritized being a good dad to his kid. (Taichi’s ex-wife shows up at one point – leading to a very funny reaction from Mike, who assumed she was dead by the photos in the house – and they get on quite well despite being divorced – it’s implied they broke up as she’s devoted to her work more than anything else.)

Mike can sometimes be a cipher, but that goes away as the book progresses, and we realize just how much he’s dealing with (and repressing, to a certain extent) his loss. His relationship with Kana is fantastic, as she’s constantly curious and trying to figure out things that adults haven’t really explained properly. And while some in the neighborhood call him a “negative influence”, that goes the other way as well, as he’s able to advise a young teen who comes to him and reveals that he’s gay. (This is right at the end of the volume, and I worry it may lead to bad things next time – I hope not, but the drama has been very low key so far.) And, as I said before, Tagame’s art is just terrific, giving added depth to characters just from a knowing look or a stressed out sigh.

To sum up, this book is simply compulsively readable, with its sole flaw being that we don’t know the date for the next volume yet. I was expecting to enjoy the series, but I was amazed at how much I enjoyed it, and how great all the characters were. And “being a gay foreigner in Japan” is treated just right. An absolute must-read.

Everyone’s Getting Married, Vol. 5

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I still very much enjoy Everyone’s Getting Married, but this volume was a little bit of a letdown, mostly because I’m not terribly fond of the way the “suddenly a rival appears!” storyline is being executed.

At the end of the last volume Kamiya, a work colleague of Asuka’s decided that she would be his ideal wife. He was not put off by the fact that she’s dating Ryu, and Kamiya’s persistence was one of the most annoying things about this volume, even though he did bring up some good and rational points about Asuka and Ryu’s counterproductive relationship. Asuka is mostly reduced to a bargaining chip between the men, and her actions are a little bit too passive, although I suppose it is an accurate portrayal of where a woman might end up when she has been thoroughly socialized to be nice all the time. The volume opens with Ryu and Kamiya getting a drink together, and even though Ryu warns Kamiya to stop his pursuit of Asuka, Kamiya is undeterred, pointing out the futility of a relationship where one person wants to get married and the other is set against it. Kamiya is convinced that the couple will eventually break up, and when that happens he will be there, ready to scoop up Asuka and take advantage of her innate intelligence and competence to have the supportive live partner of his dreams.

Kamiya proceeds to both threaten and manipulate Asuka into spending time with him, and I started feeling very annoyed that Asuka was so passive that she got thrown into situations with Kamiya when she didn’t really want to spend time with him. Ryu and Asuka always do reaffirm their relationship, and a brief trip away with a break from work serves to smooth things over. One of the reasons why this manga is so interesting to read is the fact that either one of the main characters is going to have to fundamentally change, or they will have to break up, and that dramatic tension is intriguing. This volume felt like a bit more of a placeholder, and I hope there’s a more satisfying story in the next volume.

Several from Seven Seas

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In the past couple of months, Seven Seas has published several new releases of interest to me!

Bloom Into You, Vol. 1 by Nakatani Nio
Koito Yuu has just begun her first year of high school. Pressured by her friends to participate in club activities, she ends up assisting the student council, where she meets elegant second-year student Nanami Touko. Yuu has been trying to figure out how to reply to the male friend who confessed his love for her at their middle school graduation, and when she overhears Touko rejecting a confession with the words “I don’t intend to go out with anyone, no matter who asks me,” she thinks she’s found someone who’ll understand how she feels.

Or, rather, doesn’t feel. Yuu wants to experience a soaring, sparkly love like she reads about in manga. She tried, but she couldn’t, and with Touko’s support, she’s finally able to let the guy down. What she isn’t prepared for is for Touko to reveal that they’re not alike after all because “I think I might be falling in love with you.”

At first, I was annoyed by Touko’s declaration. It was too soon; it felt unearned. However, the more we get to know her, as Yuu spends more time with her while working as her campaign manager for student elections, it becomes clear that Touko has devoted a lot of time and effort into projecting an image that isn’t really her. She wanted to be special, and now she must maintain that perfect facade. Around everyone, that is, except Yuu, who is seemingly incapable of finding anyone special. For you see, Yuu doesn’t feel anything when Touko confesses either, nor when the other girl steals her first kiss. She’s not excited, and she’s not upset. She feels nothing. I actually began to wonder… has she suffered some kind of deep, psychological trauma?

I like both Yuu and Touko, I like the Maria-sama ga Miteru sort of atmosphere, I like Yuu’s continued detachment, and I have high hopes for how this story might unfold going forward.

Bloom Into You is ongoing in Japan, where three volumes have been released so far. Volume two comes out in English on May 16th.

The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún, Vol. 1 by Nagabe
It doesn’t happen all that often that I read something and conclude, “This is a five-star manga that everyone should read.” So, please keep that in mind when I say… This is a five-star manga that everyone should read.

The back cover blurb sets up the tone of the series marvelously, so I’m going to quote it. “In a land far away, there were two kingdoms: the Outside, where twisted beasts roamed that could curse with a touch, and the Inside, where humans lived in safety and peace. The girl and the beast should never have met, but when they do, a quiet fairytale begins.”

I knew I’d adore this series the moment a black-as-pitch creature approaches a little girl who’s snoozing unaware and instead of menacing her, he scolds her for wandering off. Indeed, the creature—whom Shiva, the little girl, refers to as “Teacher”—is gentle, gentlemanly, and valiant, protecting Shiva both physically (when paranoid human soldiers think she must be cursed and try to kill her) and mentally (by shielding her from the truth that she has been abandoned). He also possesses medical knowledge but forgot that he told Shiva he’d been a doctor. Was he once human himself? His concern for Shiva radiates from him—I was particularly struck by a panel depicting his fists clenched in worry—and I love him deeply.

While humans and their fear are one threat, we’re introduced to another at the end of the volume, making for a chilling cliffhanger. I can’t wait for volume two of this lovely and captivating series!

The Girl from the Other Side is ongoing in Japan, where three volumes have been released so far. Volume two comes out in English on May 16th.

Kase-san and Morning Glories by Hiromi Takashima
Kase-san and… is a series that is technically comprised of a succession of one-shot stories. This first volume, entitled Kase-san and Morning Glories, includes the title story as well as interludes like “Kase-san and the Bicycle,” “Kase-san and Sneakers,” and “Kase-san and the Spring Breeze.”

Yamada doesn’t fit in with her classmates well. Though she has noticed popular Kase-san, the boyish star of the track team, she never thought she was on the other girl’s radar. But it turns out that Kase-san admired Yamada’s dedication to the thankless task of weeding the school grounds. The girls eventually start hanging out together and it isn’t long before Yamada is having Feelings with a capital “F.” There ensues the typical angst about “but she’s a girl.”

There are a couple of other moments that I’ve seen elsewhere, too—an indirect kiss via a shared thermos, the first real kiss in the nurse’s office—and it’s certainly fluffy and insubstantial, but it’s still really cute. The art style is pleasant, and I wonder whether Yamada’s friend—who warns her about Kase dating girls—might provide some drama down the road. In any case, I’m on board for the next volume.

Kase-san and… is ongoing in Japan, where three volumes have been released so far. The second, Kase-san and Bento, comes out in English on May 23rd.

Kindred Spirits on the Roof: The Complete Collection by Hachi Ito, Aya Fumio, Toitentsu, and Liar-Soft
I was initially under the mistaken impression that the manga version of Kindred Spirits on the Roof was a retelling of the storyline from the yuri visual novel. Instead, it focuses on new girls attending Kokono-Tsuboshi Girls’ Academy of Commerce with some of the original couples returning as side characters or cameos.

In side A, written and illustrated by Hachi Ito, we are introduced to shy Shiina Shiori, who is in the art club. She comes out of her shell a bit while helping to create scenery for the play her class is putting on for the school festival, and by the end of the volume—after much dithering and conversations about “what does it feel like to love someone?”—has decided to stop running away from the feelings of her childhood friend, Kanda Mako. The moment where they become a couple is the only time the original kindred spirits are glimpsed, buy they don’t do or say anything.

Side B, written by Toitensu and illustrated by Aya Fumio, has a little more meat on its bones, but only just. Hase Chiharu and Ichiyama Tokino are fans of “friendly girls,” and decide to join the quiz club so that they can squee over the relationship between their sempai, Tomoe Natsuki and Sasaki Rika. They endeavor to help cool Sasaki admit to her feelings, and there is, of course, the implication that they themselves will form a couple someday. There were very brief glimpses of the girls at their quiz tournaments, but it was very far from being the focus of the story.

Ultimately, I didn’t hate Kindred Spirits on the Roof. It’s sweet and not lecherous. But it’s also a very frothy concoction without much depth. I can’t see myself ever desiring to reread it.

Kindred Spirits on the Roof is complete in two volumes.

Review copies for Kase-san and Morning Glories and Kindred Spirits on the Roof provided by the publisher.

Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers, Vol. 1

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By Ishio Yamagata and Miyagi. Released in Japan by Shueisha. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Jennifer Ward.

(contains mild spoilers for the end of the novel, meaning I don’t use the guilty party’s name but still make it obvious who they are)

For a book that is supposed to be about the gathering of six warriors to traverse the country and defeat the evil demon lord, there’s surprisingly little fighting of demonic creatures in this first volume of Rokka (which is the one that was adapted into an anime). The reason for that is fairly simple; there’s actually seven brave warriors who show up, and thus one of them is a fake. What follows is pure mystery, as we spend time gathering clues, suspecting other people, and watching our hero get the ever-loving crap beaten out of him by the rest of the cast. Fortunately, as he tells us constantly, he’s the Strongest Man In The world, so he can take it. All of this, plus the series’ rather abstract art, makes it a nice change of pace in the ‘swords and dragons’ novels we’ve seen so much of in light novels lately.

Adlet is the aforementioned Strongest Man, and is very much your prototypical shonen manga protagonist, being filled with confidence, pluck and a burgeoning optimism. He is joined by an eccentric princess and her sullen bodyguard; a cheerful yet immoral child who can control Earth (think Toph but slightly evil); a serious-minded priestess; a big, seemingly goofy cat-eared assassin; and the girl on the cover, Fremy, who is stoic and suffering and also half-fiend, which makes her everyone’s natural suspect as the seventh evil Brave. She isn’t, of course, but she is a bundle of complexes, and seeing her and the eternally perky Adlet banter and flirt is one of the high points of this book. The action is also well-told, showing off everyone’s abilities and superhuman strength and endurance, though honestly Adlet’s endurance stretches disbelief a bit by the end.

If there’s a flaw in the book it’s the actual mystery itself. It wasn’t too obvious, at least not for me, but I don’t think we had enough development of the character for it to really make an impact, especially given that the character is supposed to be somewhat schizophrenic to begin with. (Actually, the ‘I am a gadfly with no real sense of how to actually behave’ made them my favorite character for a bit, though it goes away when everyone has to act seriously and track down the mole.) It’s unclear whether we’ll see them again, and the cliffhanger is very much a “The End… OR IS IT?” situation, as we get ANOTHER Brave showing up late meaning there’s ANOTHER mole among them. That promises to be the main plot of book 2.

But overall I enjoyed myself reading it, though at times the back and forth betrayal accusations can get to be a bit much. It’s a serious book, but not as dour as some other light novels in this genre; you don’t get the sense that their lives will be terrible forever, even though they’re going to battle the Evil God. If you enjoy light novel fantasies, especially ones that aren’t ‘sent from another world’ sorts, this should meet your expectations.

Dreamin’ Sun, Vol. 1

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By Ichigo Takano. Released in Japan originally by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Margaret. New edition released by Futabasha. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Amber Tamosaitis, Adapted by Shannon Fay.

The manga orange was one of the big hits of the last couple years, and even spawned an anime. Therefore it’s no surprise that the company that put it out is dipping their toes into the author’s other works. Dreamin’ Sun is her other significant series, and so far, while it doesn’t have the immediate emotional heft that orange had, it makes up for it with quirky characters who are fun to read about. The basic premise may strain my suspension of disbelief a bit, but I’ll put that down to it being more acceptable in Japan and just roll with it. And of course there are love triangles galore, which are the main reason to read these sorts of shoujo titles. It’s a cute series.

When we first meet Shimana, she’s not entirely sympathetic, being wrapped up in the frustrations of youth. She hates her weird name. She hates that her father has remarried and had another child, seemingly moving on from her mother faster than she’d like. And the family doesn’t seem to pay attention to her anymore. But everything changes when she skips school and runs into a drunk guy passed out in the street, which (this being shoujo manga) immediately leads to him offering to put her up at his boarding house – provided that a) she tell him why she’s ACTUALLY upset, b) find his key, and c) get permission from her father. Through the course of the manga, she actually manages to do all three things, and we also meet the other students in the boarding house – hot guy Asahi, who Shimana falls for immediately, and goofball Zen, who presumably will get more depth later but for now is here entirely for comic relief.

If you’re thinking there’s something a bit Fruits Basket-ey about the setup, you’re not alone – in particular, Taiga’s vacillating between responsible adult (she’s a prosecutor, something Shimana is as yet unaware of) and goofy silliness is very Shigure, though he seems to lack Shigure’s more evil qualities. Asahi is less Yuki and more the stock Shueisha shoujo guy, clearly nice and thoughtful but a bit distant, and himself in love with someone who isn’t returning his feelings. As for Shimana, she can be frustratingly self-absorbed at times, but of course that’s the point, and it feels very realistic and teenage. It’s unclear who will be the winning guy in this reverse harem – she has the most chemistry with Taiga, as well as the “we’re not dating!” running gag, but I think he’s too old for her. On the other hand, Asahi is clearly trouble.

As with orange, this actually got licensed via Futabasha rather than Shueisha – when the author jumped publishers, she took this series with her as well, and the version we’re reading is a new release with an added afterword that mentions orange, as well as introducing the new characters who will pop up in future volumes. It’s very silly (silly afterwords in a shoujo manga? Inconceivable!), but also tells us that this title is going to play out across ten volumes. In other words, we’ve barely started, and I think that Dreamin’ Sun is one of those books I will feel more confident in liking once I’ve read more of it. For now, though, this is a cute start and shoujo fans should definitely check it out.