Reviews

By Tetsuo Uesu and Miyakokasiwa. Released in Japan as “Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha” by Kadokawa Shoten Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

First of all, that is one awkward title. I’ve accidentally written it sa “New Sister Devil” at least twice, and it is very much in the genre of ‘random words strung together’ that we’ve seen so often these days. Looking at the title, you’d immediately guess it was based on a light novels, and you’d be correct. As for the manga itself, it shares similarities with a few other titles released over here lately. The premise could be vaguely interesting, some of the characters are promising, and there’s a whole lot of non-consensual sexual assault as fanservice that makes me ultimately rejecting recommending it to others.

As I said, I did enjoy the basic premise and backstory. Each of the main characters is introduced as a normal person to whom wacky plot points keep happening, only it turns out that they’re actually far from normal and have been hiding secrets of their own. Basara is actually from a village of heroes who are there to fight demons – a fight that he’s run away from after his powers got out of control as a child. His father, who appears to be the one complete dupe in the series, turns out to have also known all along. the one innocent in this, ironically, is Mio, who is the daughter of a demon – a fact she was totally unaware of until her entire family was slaughtered one day. Each of them has a very good reason for wanting nothing whatsoever to do with the war to see who gets to rule Hell, and yet they’re drawn into it anyway, because they’re fundamentally decent people. This is a good premise.

Sadly, we also get fanservice, to the point of near explicitness here, mostly due to Mio’s attendant Maria, who is a succubus, and who uses her powers “accidentally” to bind Mio as Bassara’s underling. This means she has to obey his orders, and if she doesn’t, her body gets more and more aroused. The only way out of this is, of course, to grope and otherwise assault her till she climaxes. Add to this and we have the usual ‘waking up with my fake sister lying on top of me’, ‘bath scene with lots of jiggling and bouncing’, and ‘let’s lick the arm in suck a way that it resembles giving head’. Honestly, half the time I’m amazed this isn’t in Young Ace instead of Shonen Ace. But to be fair, this is exactly the sort of thing that would interest teenage boys.

So if you can put up with the humiliation of the female lead (Maria seems to have no shame, so no worries there) and enjoy fantasy along the lines of Devils and Realist and some of the other ‘war in hell’ titles we’ve seen, this may be for you. As for me, I feel I can resist the call.

By Gakuto Mikumo and Manyako. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I’d mentioned in my review of the first volume that Strike the Blood reads like a series that was written in anticipation of being made into an anime. Having now completed the second volume, I’ll go a little further – it reads almost like a novelization, as if the anime had come first. This is actually good in many respects – the fight scenes are excellent and highly easy to visualize, and the normal pauses you see in these sorts of series where the plot is slowly explained are kept to a minimum. It does mean that I have the same issues I had with the first volume, though – the character types are all too predictable, as are the plot twists.

As a case in point, we have Sayaka, Yukina’s former roommate and friend and the orphanage devoted to taking girls and making them into magical superstars. She has a giant hate-on for Kojou, of the sort that we know will turn to love by the end of the book, because of course he’s not like those *other* evil vampires. She also has a pseudo-lesbian obsession with Yukina, which I expect will be promptly dropped now that it’s fulfilled its function as minor yuri bait. It’s disappointing, because while Yukina and Asagi also have elements of cliche written into their characters (elements which are exaggerated a bit more in this second volume), they both manage to feel like read young teenage girls, while Sayaka reads like a caricature.

The worldbuilding here fares better, as we once again see a series that knows it won’t be cancelled for a few volumes, so is content to spin out a few interesting subplots and not actually do anything with them. Koujo’s younger sister is clearly possessed by something, but we never quite find out what. Likewise, Asagi’s hacking abilities are starting to go beyond ‘teen genius’ and into legendary abilities. We meet another powerful vampire here, Vatler, and while he also has his share of cliched behavior, his smug “I did it for the lulz” attitude is more tolerable than Sayaka’s angry not-lesbian.

I will likely be reading more of this, despite my grumping. The prose is some of the smoothest we’ve seen in a Yen On release, with very little of the awkward narrative stuttering you see with a lot of first-person light novel narratives. And as I said earlier, the action scenes are genuinely exciting and not confusing, which is impressive given how much destruction is racked up here. The villain is a terrorist, and you get the sense that the author had seen Die Hard before writing him, as he’s very much in the Alan Rickman vein of “polite yet murderous”. There’s also a character from the first volume who returns – that did surprise me, though sadly it also involved maid fetishism. So it’s a good series, but I do wish that I wasn’t able to see the blueprint it works off of so easily.

By Eiji Masuba. Released in Japan as “Jitsu Wa Watashi Wa” by Akita Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Champion. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

I’ve been a little wary of the recent influx in “monster girl” manga, even though I do enjoy several of the titles. It can be a fun genre, but its nature lends itself to a sort of fanservice that I’ve grown out of over the years, and so I always approach new titles wondering how many of them are all large-breasted succubi and accidentally spilling milk all over someone’s face. Thankfully, there are also exceptions, and to its credit Seven Seas has not really leaned one way or the other in licensing the monster girl genre, but simply spread its net wide to gather up everything. And this means that we have titles like My Monster Secret, which has the subtitle “Actually, I Am…”, a literal translation of its original title. Which is just a fun silly comedy with no fanservice in sight.

The literal title is presumably meant to be followed by a fill-in-the-blank, with the first girl on the cover conveying “Actually, I Am… a Vampire.” She’s Shiragami, who is supposed to be cool and aloof, and who our hero has totally fallen for. In reality, she’s mostly cool so that people don’t see her fangs, and the aloof becomes goofy fairly quickly, though at times you can see the author struggling to see how “ditzy” he should make her. Acting as her foil is Asahi, a boy whose poker face is entirely absent, to the point where he’s actually shunned a bit by the class for his total inability to keep anything a secret. The trouble is that Shiragami’s secret isn’t just a love letter, she’s in big trouble if it’s found out. What’s a boy who can’t lie to do?

The plot and characters spin out as you’d expect. There’s the teenage newshound girl we’ve seen in many an anime, only this time she’s portrayed as straight up evil, which is refreshing. We also see another supposed stoic cool girl, only this one turns out to be an alien – something that should have been more obvious from the giant screw on the back of her head, which opens up to reveal her much tinier self. If you think all of this leads to over the top reactions and lots of falling over, you’re absolutely right. The goal here is comedy, with I expect some heartwarming interspersed as the series goes on.

The main reason I really enjoyed the first volume of the series is the art style, which is appealing yet odd. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, with very wide mouths and expressive screams. No one’s really attractive here, which is not what I was expecting – I’d thought the vampire and alien would be standard “beautiful”, but even they’re drawn to look strange more than anything else. Basically, the art helps the comedy. If you’re looking for a “monster girl” title just to say that you’ve read one… well, wait a month and get Franken Fran. But if you want two, this is a good choice. It’s relatively clean, especially for a Champion series, and genuinely amusing.

By Rumiko Takahashi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

Ranma fandom these days is a different beast from where it was in the halcyon days of 1996-1997. Then it was striding the anime world like a colossus, at least in North America, and not even Sailor Moon seemed to have quite as many people discussing or writing fanfics about it. Nowadays it’s a small fish in a big pond, somewhat forgotten but retaining a nostalgic glow. This has, however, allowed some newer aspects of fandom to infiltrate, notably the BL fandom. Back in the day there was BL, but it seemed to get drowned out by all the male fans arguing about which girl Ranma should end up with. The idea that the best man for Ranma might be Ryouga is something that is dealt with in this volume, albeit not in a serious way.

Ryouga comes across yet another magical item that will help him to win Akane, this time a fishing rod whose mark on a body leaves it with ever-increasing feelings of love. To be fair to Ryouga, he does seem to have moral qualms about using such a device to win Akane over. To be unfair to Ryouga, he tries it regardless. And when it hits Ranma, Ranma starts feeling very friendly indeed towards Ryouga. It starts off as washing his clothes and cooking for him, But as the mark expands, things get more serious, to the point where Takahashi feels obliges to urn Ranma female for the rest of the story. Akane, of course, becomes convinced that Ryouga is using the rod on Ranma because he can’t confess to him. Not exactly progressive, but honestly, this is exactly the sort of plot hook that many a BL story could work with. It’s also the best story of the first half of the book, which otherwise deals with annoyances such as Pantyhose Taro’s return (boring), Akane’s cooking (very boring), and Gosunkugi winning an enchanted suit of armor (really super boring and bad).

Luckily, the second half of the volume, is fantastic, and consists of one long story – indeed, there’s a cliffhanger, so it will carry over to the next volume. Herb is a villain who gives Ranma a challenge that he hasn’t really had to face in a long time, and his goofy yet deadly sidekicks Lime and Mint are just as dangerous – Ryouga is even brought to the point of death, though thankfully is able to triumph due to his super-depression. It allows Ranma to be clever and analytic again, one of my favorite sides of him, as he’s unable to see how Herb’s martial arts works – and how it’s actually LESS powerful than expected – without knowing the secret – like Ranma, Herb changes to female in cold water. This is the first time we’ve seen someone with the same exact curse as Ranma, and it helps to showcase their different styles – Herb has modesty, for one, something Ranma does not care about a bit. We also briefly see Ryouga and Mousse work together with Ranma, even if they have murderous motivation at the start. They make a good team.

Ranma sometimes seems a bit hoary and sexist (and homophobic as well) compared to some of the more popular works today, but Takahashi’s creativity usually shines through, and fans of the series will find most of this omnibus highly rewarding.

By Amu Meguro. Released in Japan as “Honey” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Margaret. Released in North America by Viz.

In general I try to avoid reading back cover copy when I get a book, as it frequently tends to spoil the entire volume, particularly with manga titles. That said, I wouldn’t have to worry about that with Honey So Sweet, which wastes absolutely no time telling us what our premise is. Bad boy delinquent is secretly a big sweetie pie. We’ve seen this before, and not just in shoujo, and if that’s all there was to this title I’d likely be saving it fro a Brief review and moving on. But it also has the heroine, Nao, who is shy in all the worst ways – life has left her with an intense desire to avoid conflict, and so when Taiga confesses to her the initial reaction is “if I say no, he’ll kill me’.

I’ve talked before about how difficult it can be to keep readers from abandoning a series when you write someone with major character flaws. To be fair, it is easier to do so when your heroine is of the wallflower variety than if she’s a selfish ball of temper. But Nao is the early parts of this volume is someone that is seemingly making all the wrong choices in an effort to just slide by in life – and she knows it, as she keeps repeating it to herself. Her parents have passed away at an early age, and much of her narrative monologue is done as communication with their souls in heaven. Her She’s living with her mother’s younger sister, who she has a massive complex for since he took her in and has sacrificed quite a bit for her. And she (not surprisingly) always seems depressed.

So it’s great seeing Taiga slowly manage to get Nao to have fun, and show actual effort, and elicit feelings from her that aren’t “go along with him because SCARED!”. We learn less about him in this volume, except that he tries a bit too hard to help out everyone, particularly Nao, but that’s the point – he’s the nice guy at heart, and you have to look past his face. By the end of the volume, Nao’s uncle is remarking on the fact that she’s smiling a lot more these days, and it’s a great thing to see, as now we can see her moving forward in life and doing things she’s good at.

In many ways this is very typical shoujo romance – we’ve seen Taiga’s sort in hundreds of other titles. We have two others who form a core group with our hero and heroine, and one is the tsundere hothead guy who speaks before he thinks, which again we’ve seen before. The other is Kayo, who’s grumpy, stoic, and seemingly written as a gift to me – I really want to see more from her in future volumes. Together they don’t make this title unmissable, but they make it enjoyable, and by the end Nao has developed enough so that you’re rooting for her as well.

By nanao and HaccaWorks*. Released in Japan by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Gene. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I’ve spoken before about how it can sometimes be difficult to review a new volume of a shoujo romance whose basic premise is ‘girl in high school likes guy, feelings ensue’, as there’s just so many of those out in North America. I am very happy to say that I’m starting to feel that way about the influx of yokai manga over here as well. We have all different types of yokai titles over here, including those for kids, for young adults, for men, for women. After a year that saw the loss of Shigeru Mizuki, it’s heartwarming to see his legacy, and that of Japan’s folklore, carry on. And so we have this new series, which is actually based off of a visual novel, and brings together the yokai genre with mystery, horror, and a bit of not-quite-BL – exactly what a shoujo reader would enjoy.

Our hero is Yue, a name that longtime readers of manga will know always seems to be connected to the supernatural in some way. (I believe in Chinese it means moon.) He’s a yokai, and seems to be very important, but is unfamiliar with much of the world beyond the temple area in which he lives. So he and his friend/familiar descend the mountain to attend a festival, and run into two contrasting humans, one quiet and serious, the other angry and a bit over the top. As the series goes on, and he gets permission to visit his new wannabe friends, though, we discover the village where this is taking place is slightly off to begin with, and that there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

This series is an excellent example of what you want in a first volume. It gives you enough backstory and characterization to satisfy while making you want to read more to see what happens. Yue is sweet and naive without seeming foolish, and Tsubaki is reserved but shows a genuine love of family. As for Akiyoshi, he provides some of the series’ few laughs with his stalker-ish ways, but also gets to carry the bulk of the exposition, as he knows about the yokai without being part of them. Honestly, the three leads make a good team.

As for the horror and mystery, well, it would appear the danger is not just of having your life taken, as if a typical vampire manga, but having your very existence removed from the world. An old kindly elementary school principal vanishes one day, and those connected to the school deny he was ever there – or that they even had a principal. It gives an extra frisson of creepy to the whole deal. For more old-fashioned horror, there’s also the standard scary black ghosts that try to eat you, which also pop up a lot in these sorts of manga. Basically, AkaAka (its fan nickname) may not tread all that much original ground, but it hits all the right notes and really makes you want to read on. A definite good read, despite a double bad sign of both a name all in lowercase *and* a name with a special character in the authors.

By Kaoru Mori. Released in Japan in two separate volumes by Enterbrain, serialized in the magazine Comic Beam. Released in North America by Yen Press.

The entire first half of this omnibus gives the reader the opportunity to watch a giant other shoe dropping, and the back half then shows the shoe’s impact, with horrible consequences for many people, but mostly for Emma. Last time I talked about how well the repressed yet burgeoning love between William and Emma is, and it flowers here, with Emma visibly getting happier and less repressed. William too is different now that he accepts his feelings and is determined to do something about them. Sadly, that determination runs up against absolutely everyone – his own family, who are determined that he not make the same mistakes they made, and more importantly his fiancee’s family, who may cross over the line into actually being evil, or at least willing to commit slow murder.

The author is very fond of big, dramatic moments – you see it in her Bride’s Story series as well – and you can see why, as she’s fantastic at handling them. The arrival of William at the Molders estate, and Emma running out to embrace him (the the surprise and amusement of the ENTIRE household) is fantastic, and reminds you again that it’s nicely coincidental that Emma ended up in the one household in Britain that wouldn’t be appalled at this. That said, that’s why William came up to meet her – the rest of society is not going to be quite as forgiving. The volume starts off with a flashback showing us how William’s parents, Richard and Aurelia, met and married. Aurelia is not of a lower class like Emma is, but she’s still “eccentric”, and that’s deadly for the time. More to the point, she’s introverted, and the pressures of society exhaust her to a damaging degree. Which is why they now live apart. It’s very bittersweet.

As for Eleanor’s father, wooooow. It’s rare we meet someone in a manga like this who gets to be pure evil. He’s really well handled, too, being extremely polite to William’s father, then throwing away his gloves in disgust afterwards, as he had touched someone of a merchant class – horrors! When William breaks off his impetuous and foolish engagement to Eleanor, to her horror, the Viscount calmly sees what needs to be done – Emma needs to disappear. Luckily, he knows some thugs who can fairly easily trick and abduct her (though the cliffhanger seems to hint she may be rescued soon). This sequence may be the weakest in the book – it’s a bit overmelodramatic, to be honest – but it’s earned, at least, and the true high point of the last half of the book is Williams’ screaming match with his father in any case.

I expect things to be resolved soon, even though we have two full omnibuses to go – the last three volumes of Emma were side stories and sequels, so these two wacky kids should get their happy ending soon. Which is good, as this volume could get pretty depressing at times – as Mori herself notes in the afterword. No worries, the journey is still very much worth the effort.

By Ritz Kobayashi. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Gangan. Released in North America digitally by Yen Press.