Reviews

By Wataru Karasuma. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

Once you see something make it big, be it here or in Japan, you’re going to see variations on the same basic theme in the hopes that a company can get some of that sweet profit. Be it vampires, zombies, Alices, or whatever, the media are ready to give you something that’s essentially the same with a few palette swaps. Even better is if you can mash more than one genre together – you get the chance to try to court multiple markets. Enter Not Lives, whose cover screams out that its’ a date sim, complete with an actual dialogue box, but it also ends up being ‘person ends up in a game world’ as well as the ever popular ‘survival game’ genre. The result isn’t terrible, but it feels like a title where stuff is thrown at the wall to see what sticks.

Oddly, despite being the most obvious thanks to the cover, the datesim/high school romance part is the least developed of the bunch. Our hero, for a change, is rather extroverted and talkative, and also has a genius for making and marketing games of any kind, but is somewhat useless about matters of the heart – not realizing that his long-suffering childhood friend is in love with him, for instance. One day he accidentally gets a copy of a mysterious game called Not Lives, and when he tries to play it it loads itself into his chest rather than the CD drive, downloading him into a VR game where he’s playing a young woman. The catch being that the young woman actually exists, and is rather frustrated with this newbie losing in his very first game.

So far so cute, but the survival game aspect takes precedence as the series goes on, and we discovers the players are trapped in a rather nasty way. First time losers become ‘avatars’, i.e. somewhat less than human, and are forced to recruit other players. If the avatar then loses again… they’re ‘deleted’, which seems to involve severed body parts. Needless to say, things get a bit cutthroat, especially since it becomes apparent that some of the players/avatars can use game powers in the REAL world to, say, throw a bunch of thugs in front of a truck and kill them all. Our hero may be a genius gamer, but will he be able to level up and beat this game where the rules are still a bit vague? Especially once his avatar ends up transferring to his class, thus neatly taking us back to the datesim in the very end.

There’s nothing overtly wrong with this – there’s some fanservice, but honestly I was expecting worse, and the avatar, Kyouko, manages to be emotionally repressed without being a stoic robot. That said, nothing in it screamed that I absolutely had to get the next volume. It plays to folks who like “trapped in a game” (me), “survival game” (not me), and “dateim romance” (it depends). My main concern is the 2nd, as I worry that, like almost all survival game titles, we’ll be introduced to likeable, sympathetic people who will then meet horrible ends. Childhood friend, I’m very worried for your future…

By Satoko Kiyuduki. Released in Japan as “Hitsugi Katsugi no Kuro – Kaichu Tabi no Wa” by Houbunsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Manga Time Kirara. Released in North America by Yen Press.

It can at times be rather hard to believe that this mostly dark and surreal fantasy series can come from the same author as GA Art Design Class, a 4-koma series about the adventures of five girls in art college. But there are moments when the two series seem to connect more than you’d expect. Kiyuduki frequently believes in “show, don’t tell” in regards to not only her plot but also her characterization, leaving the reader to guess much of what’s going on; we sometimes see this with The Professor in GA. Likewise, Kisaragi’s surreal and sometimes unnerving dream sequences could easily fit into Kuro – indeed, Kisaragi and Kuro look similar enough that you could headcanon this as one long nightmare she’s having. Because it does feel more and more like a nightmare – Kuro’s not getting as many fluffy stories as it did back in Volume 1.

Part of the reason for that might be that this volume gives us a lot more background on the witch that has supposedly cursed Kuro – we see what may be a sort of origin story for her, and a story where we see her own journeys, which appropriately mirror Kuro’s. But I think it’s simply that almost all the stories in this volume deal with death and being unable or unwilling to move on. Three very different young women meet unfortunate ends but want to leave something behind. A balloon race seems to literally end up in heaven. Kuro, Nijuku and Sanju end up in a valley where perspective and illusions seem like an optional extra, and Kuo once again cannot let go of what she regards as the things that make her what she is – her hat and coffin. Even the happiest story in this volume involves a cursed painter whose subjects all seem to die right after they’re painted. Luckily, Kuro can’t seem to die, so that’s one problem solved.

The second half of the book gets even more chilling, at times almost seeming to descend into pure horror. Two sisters are offered a grim bargain by the Witch, and Kuro has to deal with the consequences, once again taking on someone else’s suffering into her own body. b The last story introduces us to what seems like another in Kuro’s long line of spunky female merchant girls she seems to run into, only to find that reality is murderously different. And this also gives us the reason for Kuro’s journey. Yes, she’s trying to seek death, but in order to do that, she has to take in life as well, because without life death is meaningless. It’s something that the witch doesn’t quite understand, and even Kuro isn’t really confident in her feelings till the end of this book. But it’s true, and also a reminder of the depth and quality of the stories in this volume. Anyone who likes dark, thoughtful fantasy should be reading this, no exceptions.

By Keiichi Arawi. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Vertical Comics.

I have a weakness for gag manga, as some of you may have noticed, and also a weakness for high school slice-of-life starring a bunch of quirky high school girls. It should be no surprise, therefore, to learn that I have been awaiting the release of Nichijou for some time. It was initially licensed by Bandai Entertainment about 5 years ago, but they folded their US manga division before it could even get a volume out. That said, the anime did appear over here, and was quite popular – in fact, arguably far more popular than it ended up being in Japan. And so Vertical, which has been dipping its toes into the surreal gag world with titles like My Neighbor Seki, now introduces us to a very unordinary manga.

Nichijou has quite a large ensemble cast, but for the most part is the adventures of five girls. Three of them, Yuuko, Mio, and Mai, are classmates at the local high school. Yuuko is peppy, somewhat dense, and very fond of attempting to make jokes that no one finds funny but her. Mio is the “normal” girl in the csat, but that’s only a matter of degrees, as we discover when she realizes her secret yaoi manga doodle is about to be discovered and becomes Superwoman. Mai is my personal favorite, a quite and shy girl who loves to bait and get reactions from Yuuko, I suspect as it’s the only way she can really show her feelings. There are apparently fans of Nichijou who dislike Mai for her gadfly nature, but these people are objectively wrong, so there’s no need to worry about them.

The other two main cast members are Nano, a robot girl who also attends class and her child genius inventor Professor, who’s a genius at making robots but an immature child in almost every other sense. Those familiar with the anime might be taken aback by Nano appearing in class right away – the anime decided to move all the stories with her in class to the second half of the series, the better to separate the ‘school’ and ‘Professor’s house’ segments of the show. We also meet a few other amusing minor characters here, like the farmer’s son who acts like a stereotypical rich boy, and the parody of tsunderes who can be seen literally blowing people’s brains out (though they’re fine a panel later – this is essentially a cartoon, in the Western Looney Tunes sense).

There’s not a lot to review in Nichijou beyond the gags, which I don’t want to spoil if you haven’t seen them. As with most manga of this sort, the humor can be found in facial reactions, and Arawi is very, very good at these – check out Chapter 9 for the best example. The girls are cute as well, but there is a blissful lack of fanservice that I also greatly appreciate, and there don’t seem to be any obvious romances besides the one-sided crushes Mio and the tsundere parody have. Nichijou is content to make jokes and be strange, and if it has to choose between being funny or being strange, it will pick the latter. If you like laughing, or if you like tilting your head and going “wuh?”, either way you’ll enjoy this.

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

As I’ve said many times before, Log Horizon has a bit of a fandom war with a similar series, Sword Art Online. It’s something of a one-sided war, given that SAO has about 10 times the number of fans LH does, but being #2, Log Horizon fans try harder. And one thing that comes up in complaining about SAO is how Kirito is the sort of self-insert perfect hero type who always gets all the attention and the girls. This contrasts with Shiroe in Log Horizon… somewhat. Shiroe’s not a front-line combatant, being more of a general and tactician. And there are many girls in the series who seem totally uninterested in him. This is perhaps balanced by the events at the end of this book, in which he reveals that with a properly written contract, he appears to have the power to resurrect the dead and create life. Which is something Kirito could never do. (Isn’t it sad, Sachi?)

Of course, Shiroe’s role in this book is not as big as it has been, mostly as the cast continues to be fleshed out and expanded. On the cover we have Crusty and Reinesia, two similar characters who are able to project a veneer of serenity and competence even though they’d rather be doing something else. And, as we find in this book, both are able to supporess their lazy impulses when the need arises. Reinesia impressed me the most in this entire book, showing off impressive political acumen in cutting through all the red tape and ego tripping of the Council arguments and realizing what had to be done. And then she goes and does it, despite being forced to dress in a revealing Valkyrie costume “for morale reasons” and getting exposed to horrific battles (and, even more terrifying, Crusty loving those battles). I really hope to see more of her soon.

Meanwhile, we discover the terrible secret of Rundelhaus, though admittedly we don’t get the extensive background story I was expecting. He’s an NPC who desperately wants to be a hero, and has tried even harder than the others, despite the fact that the game itself won’t let him level up as much. So, naturally, he’s killed in combat, which leads to Shiroe doing what I said he did in the first paragraph. I had sort of hoped that this would lead to Isuzu finally treating him like a man instead of a big dog, but to no avail. Actually, shippers will be happy-yet-left-wanting with the ending, in which no less than four ships get teases but that’s about it. Also, I am amused that it became so obvious Akatsuki had done next to nothing since the first book that she actually whines about it here.

Log Horizon continues to do a very good job of building a world logically based on “what if we were trapped in a game” mechanics, with the plot of these two books being particularly clever, as it relies on the adventurers not doing something due to the crisis, and the consequences being horrible. I do wonder if we’ll ever see the original core trio battling together again, though. Perhaps next time.

By Akiko Higashimura. Released in Japan in two separate volumes as “Kuragehime” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Kiss. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

This is another one of those titles where I haven’t seen the anime that was based on it, but sheer word of mouth has made me incredibly excited for its release. First of all, it’s very rare to see Kodansha Comics taking a chance n josei over here at all – lately they’ve been licensing some Dessert, but that’s still shoujo for older teens. Kiss is for young women, and it shows – this title features adults, even if much of the cast are jobless and living off their parents. Its humor and energy are absolutely worth a read, though I found more flaws in it than I was expecting.

Our heroine is, as you may have guessed, the girl in the braids in the foreground, not the pink-haired pretty thing behind her. Tsukimi is a shy introvert with an obsession for jellyfish, who has to force herself to go outside her apartment – an apartment she shares with similar-minded women, all of whom are obsessed with something (kimonos, trains, older men, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms). Then one day, while trying to work up the nerve to tell a fish store employee that the ways he’s put the jellyfish into the tank will kill one of them, she runs into Kuranosuke, who she assumes is a gorgeous, extroverted young woman who helps her out and ends up back at her apartment. Then it turns out that Kuranosuke is a man.

The main reason to read this title, and it’s absolutely worth it, is the humor. Tsukimi may be a massive introvert, but her reactions are nicely over the top and horrified much of the time, especially trying to deal with this new free spirit in her life. Of the rest of the female cast, Mayaya is the one that stands out the most, something she brings on herself with all of her posing and dramatic declarations. Kuranosuke’s own frustrations at his family, his new friends, and his growing realization that he actually likes Tsukihi is also highly amusing. The art is also excellent, helping to show off the humor and being distinct but not overly busy.

That said, I do have a few issues. This is a little progressive, but not overly so – Kuranosuke emphasizes he’s not gay a couple of times, and there’s some slangy ‘homo’ refs sprinkled throughout, which the endnotes helpfully tell us isn’t as caustic as it sounds here, but is still very defensive. The main villain of the piece, meanwhile, is almost a cliche, and it doesn’t help that she uses sex as a weapon to get what she wants – this is likely meant to contrast with the ‘pure’ Tsukimi, and I was happy to see one or two times when she didn’t act like a cartoon character, but it was only once or twice. Lastly, Kuranosuke’s attempts to drag these women out of their shells and have them ‘don armor’ to deal with the real world is both inspiring and frustrating – I sense he’s of the school that feels that introverts just aren’t trying hard enough to be extroverted.

All that said, this is still a definite title for your collection. Tsukimi is sweet and a bit over the top, and I look forward to seeing her Cinderella-type story, while hoping that she still retains the parts of her that are why we fell for her in the first place. Want to see more of this.

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

One of Accel World’s strongest points is its ability to built on plot and themes from prior books without overwhelming the reader too much. The last book showed us that the Disaster Armor had not entirely left Silver Crow, and much of this volume is about the fallout from that. We worry about what such a thing would do to the game itself, and then later on find that crude copies of it may be racing out of control via other people, making the question moot. Or it would be moot if this wasn’t in may ways a desire for the others to punish Kuroyukihime through Haruyuki, as by now everyone can see their bond. We’re also asked to see one of the core tents of her past in a different light, as it’s hinted that there’s more to her killing off the Red King than just wanting to get to Level 10.

As for Haruyuki’s self-loathing, it’s gotten slightly better. We get a minimum of school here, and I was a bit faked out when we were introduced to two fellow classmates who I thought Haru would either bond with or get bullied by, but who ended up being mostly irrelevant, another way of showing that Haruyuki is not like the normal “cool” kids, who skive off their club work the first time we see them. Of course, this determination to get better and discover new things is what makes him such a success in the game world, as is pointed out by Chiyuri. One reason that Kuroyukihime, Fuko, and even Ash Roller like him to much is that he’s always seeking ways to get better, ways to play the game that are more than just “get strong and then stop”.

We also get a new character, the titular shrine maiden of the title. She’s around 9 years old, and half of the somewhat tossed off fanservice in the volume is dedicated to accidentally getting her wet with a garden hose (the other half being Kuroyukihime changing in front of Haru – and the cover, if we’re going to be honest). For once, though, it looks like the lolicon is not meant to be the primary driving force. Utai is interesting, from her game persona’s Sailor Mars-style powers, to the Incarnate she unleashed somehow being related to Noh Theater, or simply because she can’t speak – something prevents her from getting the words out, so she types all her dialogue in ways that would be very difficult if people in this universe didn’t already have neurolinkers. And, of course, by definition of the fact that she’s playing Brain burst, her home life is somewhat broken, though we get few details.

And, of course, there’s still the best reason to read Accel World: Kawahara writes excellent battle scenes. They’re understandable, easily visualized, and emotionally raw. They may also make you scream at the ending, as yes, this is a cliffhanger that will hopefully get resolved in the next book. It’s not as popular as Sword Art Online, but Kawahara’s other series quietly goes about telling its story well, and if you can get past Haru’s beating himself up narrations, well worth your time.

By Ryohgo Narita and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On.

Anyone who reads any of Narita’s two main series, Baccano! and Durarara!!, knows how much he likes his gangs and gangsters. Be it yakuza, mafia, camorra, or just kids wearing colors and yelling about territory, it’s a huge theme in his books. And with the teenage gangs he does a very good job showing off how much the desire for control and power is motivated by simple fear, and how easy it can be to let situations spiral out of control. We learned at the end of the last volume about who Masaomi Kida really is, but this third volume shows us that, of the three teens who have been our protagonists so far, he may be the weakest… which of course makes his comeback and true strength just that much more satisfying.

I think Narita’s habit of creating a bunch of divergent situations and then arranging them so that they all crash into each other at the end is something that might work better in a novel than in an anime – a lot of people have complained about the episodes of DRRR!! where nothing happens, but of course it’s all just required setup. the book doesn’t really have this problem, and so you enjoy seeing more and more information get revealed as time goes on. Both to the reader AND to the characters – the reader has been aware of the true identities of Mikado, Anri and Masaomi for some time, but it’s not till the climactic battle that each of them sees the truth.

We also meet Saki, Masaomi’s not-quite-girlfriend and the target of much hatred among the fan pairing community, mostly for existing. I like her, while acknowledging that we aren’t supposed to at first. She’s almost Izaya’s thrall, and as with everything Izaya touches, we’re automatically leery of her. Her constant smile is also not helping. It’s only towards the end of the book that we see the other side of her, the one that genuinely did fall in love with Masaomi, and see her crying and showing emotions. Honestly, it’s easier to blame Izaya here, who loves emotionally manipulating people just to see what happens and because it amuses him. He remains the most punchable person in the entire cast, and given this cast also has Namie, Seiji and Mika that’s saying something. Except wait, there’s someone more punchable.

Yes, this is the volume where we meet Shingen, Shinra’s even-more-eccentric-than-the-son father, who immediately establishes himself as an impulsive freak designed to give Celty migraines (except, of course, she does not have a head, but I suspect Shingen gives them to her anyway). As with Shinra, it’s never really clear when he’s decided to turn serious or not – or how much of his goofing was done to deliberately throw Celty off her game. In any case, a word to the wise, he can be teeth-grindingly annoying, and I know a few people who skip past him in the anime.

This is the longest book in the series to date, and the extra words work well. We get someone of the other minor characters fleshed out a bit, such as Kadota, Erika and Walker. The translation is smooth, only faltering a bit when it has to deal with the Japanese prose habit of never identifying who is speaking, so you have to make more contextual judgments than is strictly necessary. And the art is finally starting to mature a bit and be less flat-faced, with a bold, striking cover. If you enjoy DRRR!!, and can put up with Shingen, then this is definitely an excellent purchase.

By Spike Chunsoft and Takashi Tsukimi. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Dark Horse.

I have made my opinions on the glut of ‘survival game’ manga well known by now, I hope. In general, if you’re writing a survival game manga, you need a lot to keep me interested, as teens locked in a school and killed off one by one has zoomed WAY past vampires and sadistic shoujo boyfriends in the things I avoid sweepstakes. And yet sometimes I do hear so much about a title that I feel the need to check it out anyway. Such a title is Danganronpa, which was originally a game and then got adapted to an anime. The manga wears on its sleeve that it’s adapting the anime and not the game, which is likely why it’s only 4 volumes instead of the 9-10 I’d expect otherwise. That said, what makes Danganronpa stand out?

Well, for starters it’s far more overdramatic than the usual glumness I’ve seen from survival game manga before. Monokuma, the bear lurking in the background on the cover, seems to be both the manga’s mascot and its villain. He’s a ludicrously cruel and over the top figure, making bear puns as he gleefully executes people. He’s just a lot of fun, and stands out in particular because the rest of the cast of students are stereotypes, many deliberately so. Our hero is the average “player character” type, we get the jock, the idol, the fashion plate, the overweight otaku, etc. With a cast like this, that sort of shorthand is necessary as you’ll know at a glance what they’re like and how they’ll react. Plus, of course, the cast starts getting killed off fairly quickly, so you don’t have to remember all of them.

The other interesting aspect of this title is the trial sequence. Basically the kids are told they can escape the school if they kill someone – but they have to get away with it. There’s a trial, and if the killer isn’t found, the rest of the cast will get punished. Of course, the killer is found, as our hero is very good at deductions, and is helped out by a stoic girl who seems to be a detective, and I suspect may be a love interest except this is one of those series where everyone tends to die, so I won’t commit to that just yet. And the kids aren’t complete sociopaths either, mostly killing out of terror and fear of blackmail. I was also amused at how easy it was to solve the first murder’s ‘written in blood’ clue, and the manga must have agreed with me, as the cast also figures it out immediately.

This is a title that’s pretty much marketed to fans of the gmae or anime, and they should find it quite enjoyable. If you haven’t seen either, it’s still pretty good, keeping in mind the usual irritations of the genre. The comedy and dramatics help make that less of a poison pill this time around, though.

By Kosuke Fujishima. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Afternoon. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

For all that Fujishima’s Oh My Goddess! was a series with angels, devils, and everything in between (that is when it wasn’t just about vehicles and those who love them), there was an awful lot of what is generally termed ‘slice-of-life’ in the series. And before that we had You’re Under Arrest, which also took a basic premise (female cop buddy movie) and used it as a springboard for everyday amusing situations. As a result, it should not come as a surprise that his new series details the rather everyday, slice-of-life adventures of a girls’ dormitory way up a hill, and the eccentric characters therein. Of course, the problem with this is that the series needs to rise and fall on said eccentric characters, and so far we don’t really get a good handle on any except one or two.

Our two heroines are on the front cover posing for us, and they are very much of the Miyuki and Natsumi school of personalities. Takanashi is brash, sleeps late, loves to eat, is not very good at school but makes up for it with energy and heart. Misawa is her best friend, the straight man of the group who exists mostly to react to Takanashi’s antics and sometimes sigh. The dorm they’re in is old and tends to fall apart easily, but its residents all love it, particularly when defending it against their all-girls’ school’s other dorm, which is modern and state of the art. We get the overly sadistic sempai, the elementary schoolgirl who acts as a dorm mother (she’s the daughter of the REAL, almost never seen, dorm mother), the overseas student, the otaku, the eccentric artist, etcetera.

The volume begins pretty much in media res, showing off the group’s everyday school and dorm life. We see how Takanashi deals with dogs, heat, and typhoons, as well as what appears to be a rivalry with a stuck-up girl from the otehr dorm. After this volume, we get as an extra “Volume 0”, a collection of the initial chapters that ran as one-offs in the spinoff good!Afternoon while Fujishima was still working on Oh My Goddess!. I can see why it was put later, as the characters are not quite in character yet, but it does give a better introduction to everyone than the initial first volume does. There’s also a short story featuring Takanashi’s parents, about the springtime of youth, etc.

This is light and fluffy fun. If there’s a flaw it’s that that’s all it is. There’s not as big a hook to draw people in as there is with Oh My Goddess!, and I doubt we’ll get serious plotlines here. The pacing can be slow, as you’d expect with this genre. And sometimes there’s a gag thrown in that just doesn’t work, such as one girl comedically falling into another girl’s breasts during a blackout, as if Fujishima is reminded that fanservice has moved on since 1985 and tried to imitate it. But if you like Fujishima, and his art is very nice here, this should appeal to you. It’s also over in Japan, so should wrap up pretty soon.