Reviews

By Hiro Fujiwara. Released in Japan as “Kaichō wa Maid-sama!” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine LaLa. Released in North America by Viz Media.

It’s hard when things that you enjoyed in the past suddenly seem more problematic to you. That hilarious maid from the old sitcom turns out to be a pretty bad stereotype. The running gag in the old British radio show is basically sexist as hell. That heartwarming childhood movie is teaching messages that are disempowering and stultifying. And yes, it even applies to license rescues, as Maid-sama!, the portrait of a gung-ho Type-A high school girl and the stalkerish guy who loves her and keeps saving her from various types of sexual assault… isn’t as funny as it used to be.

To be fair, looking back over my past reviews of this title back when Tokyopop was releasing it, I wasn’t too wild about Usui then either. But in six short years he’s gotten less tolerable, mostly because the narrative frames him as correct all the time. Part of this is the comedic conceit that he’s perfect at everything – to the point where Misaki begins to wonder if he’s actually human. But part of this is because the narrative enjoys having Misaki be strong, smart and try to rescue herself from danger but also can’t help put her in danger all the time in order to get rescued by the guy who likes her. It simply can’t avoid the standard cliches, and they’re not cliches for a good reason (and yes, there will be more sexual assault attempts as the series goes on.)

Luckily, the title has one big plus going for it, and that is Misaki herself. She’s loud, angry all the time, and can’t understand why boys exist, but at her core is a good heart and a girl who wants to help everyone – which is why she became Student Council President. She’s of a type I personally am very fond of, one that comes up often in Hakusensha titles – see also Special A and I Hate You More Than Anyone. And I do agree with Usui on one thing – teasing her and seeing her blush is adorable, and we will be seeing more and more of that blush as the series goes on. She’s stubborn as a mule (the “keep my job secret” thing isn’t even due to the traditional “no part time jobs” school rule – they’re allowed, she’s just embarrassed), but that’s also presented as a positive.

As for the rest of the cast, we still haven’t seen enough of them to really get an impression. Misaki’s trio of lovestruck idiots are pure comic relief, and the less said about the arrogant rich rapist from the rival school the better. I seem to recall when I first read the series that I liked it more when it was telling stories revolving around the maid cafe more than the school, so I look forward to reminding myself why – particularly Honoka. In the meantime, I am pleased that Viz picked this up, as I do want to see how it ends. But man, Usui is a lot harder to take in 2015 than he was in 2009 – particularly when the author agrees with him.

By Yoshitoki Oima. Released in Japan as “Koe no Katachi” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

After the pressure cooker that was the first volume of this series, it was somewhat inevitable that things would slow down and get a bit less traumatic with this second one. this is not to say that nothing happens, but we need to take a step back from the brink and see where our hero and heroine are now. Indeed, taking a step back from the brink is exactly what Shoya does, as after seeing Shoko again he makes a decision not to kill himself (which leads to one of my favorite parts of the book, where his mother confronts him about it and accidentally burns the money that he saved up for her. She’s presented as sort of a grown-up airhead much of the time, but I loved her reasoning in this scene as to why it was fine she burned the money.

As for Shoko, there’s a nice bit of narrative fooling that makes us think that we’re hearing her fairly negative thoughts about seeing Shoya after all these years. but in fact after a brief moment Shoko proves to be as sweet and understanding as you’d expect from a manga like this, and it turns out the narrative voice we heard hating on Shoko was her younger sister Yuzuru, who understandably thinks that Shoya ruined her sister’s life. This leads to her amusingly pretending to be Shoya’s boyfriend, which I didn’t buy for one moment, mostly as I assumed she was just a young tomboy from the start. Unlike Shoko’s mother (who not only does not remotely forgive Shoya for what he did to her child, but seems to have the ability to literally teleport in order to slap someone across the face), Yuzuru finally sees that Shoya really is making an effort to make amends, and starts to warm up to him by the end of the book.

Of course, it’s not as easy as that. I was impressed with how Shoya can still be resolutely unlikeable at times, even as we see him trying to deal with the fallout of various events (including serving a suspension for leaping into the river to save Shoko’s notebook), he’s still bad at understanding other people to a great degree. He makes friends with Tomohiro, who also seems to be bullied in his classroom, though that’s more for the traditional “I am pudgy and a bit of a nerd” than anything else, but we still get his POV of his fellow students as having X’s over their faces, which is a stark reminder of how in many ways his basic worldview hasn’t changed much. His guilt about Shoko drives him to learn sign language and apologize, but he needs to make more effort with everyone else. And that’s hard, given what happened in Volume 1, as no one will allow him to make that effort.

I’m not sure if this is going to go in a romantic direction – the ending seems to imply it might, but I’m not sure if that’s the best thing for this series, and in any case the two leads still have a lot more to sort through before that can happen. In the meantime, the second volume builds on the success of the first, and is not nearly as discomfiting.

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

One of the issues with Sword Art Online, particularly as it goes on, is that we keep seeing these deadly MMORPGs that wind up being abused for nefarious purposes, yet somehow more of them continue to be made, and are not banned or made illegal in any way (at least so far). I think Kawahara understands that, as in Accel World we have Brain Burst being very much an isolated thing, only playable to a certain (very young) age and unknown to the greater populace or government. And then there’s what happens at the end of this book, which helps to explain why revenge and real-world consequences of battles are not an issue here, even though it feels like Nomi wasn’t really punished enough for what he did. Indeed, the worldbuilding in this series is intriguing me more than the characters.

The Brain Burst system, in fact, is starting to look more like a form of therapy than anything else. We’ve already seen how Haruyuki’s wings represented his own personal demons from reality. Now we see how even the powerups – which do so much damage to the psyche they’re practically forbidden – take their form based on childhood traumas, something bluntly stated by Niko, who shows up again in this book to mentor Takumu in how to properly use this technique (and by mentor I mean “beat up”, but this is a shonen fighting series, basically). Also, we finally figure out what Chiyuri’s ability is – not healing, but literal reversal of time – which is an amazing game power but also really depressing when you think about her relationship with Haruyuki and Takumu – she wants to return to when they were happy kids.

Chiyuri also showed the most sense in actually calling Kuroyukihime so that she could join the final battle – Haruyuki and Takumu are too invested in personal revenge and in not wanting to rely on her that they lose sight of how fatally dangerous this situation is. It’s always best to remember in situations like these, when you want to grit your teeth and beat some sense into the protagonists, that these are teenagers – not even that in some cases – dealign with needs and desires they’ve never felt before. Particularly Haruyuki, who has Chiyuri strip down and offer herself to him (something I id not like at all) and Kuroyukihime accept his accidental proposal (with a heavy blush – SHE at least gets it), but still too tied up in self-hatred to notice.

There’s definitely some seeds of future plotlines laid out here, as Nomi is backed by some sort of shadow organization that doesn’t like Kuroyukihime much, and I still get the sense that the psychotic sentient armor from Book 2 is not entirely formant, judging from some of Haruyuki’s OOC moments. On the down side, I’m fairly certain the resolution of the “Haruyuki is a peeper” plotline was far too easy, and there’s no way his reputation would be repaired that fast normally. Also, the reunion of Sky Raker and Kuroyukihime was far too abrupt and last-minute, and there had better be more to it in the next book. A good solid volume overall, though, and I will see what new twists the next in the series has – and hope Haruyuki continues to gain real-world confidence.

Also, for those who only saw the anime, this catches up to it, so Book 5 will have unanimated content.

By Nami Sano. Released in Japan as “Sakamoto Desu Ga?” by Enterbrain, serialization ongoing in the magazine hertz. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

I’ve been waiting for this series for a long time, and it’s been worth the wait. This may be surprising, given that on the surface, the title seems like a simple gag manga. But the execution of its one gag is what matters, and, like its eponymous character, Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto does it with coolness, flair and style. This is not a manga to be read ironically – if you go into this waiting to see the jokes getting undercut, you will be sorely disappointed. This is a straight up look at one of the coolest kids ever, and how not even his enemies can possibly stand up against his sheer force of personality. The humor comes from what Sakamoto does and how he does it – and the realization that he’s not only incredibly cool, but also incredibly strange.

Of course, Sakamoto on his own is only half of the joke. Because of his very nature, he inspires frustration, jealousy and desire in those around him. We see the school bullies, angry as all the girls have totally fallen for him, trying to teach Sakamoto to know his place. We also see one of the bullied ones, who gets training on how to develop self-respect and fight back from Sakamoto (who also makes the most amazing McDonald’s clerk you’ll ever see). Another classmate wants desperately to stand out, be it via trendy fashions or just being the class clown. And though all the girls may swoon over Sakamoto, they’re not any better off – his total obliviousness to subtle love overtures leads to frustration and jealousy among the female classmates.

It’s interesting to think about how much of Sakamoto’s straightforward cluelessless is just an act. Clearly some of it is – he seems to get that the girls are fighting over him and tries to resolve it in his usual eccentric way, and early on has reactions to the attempted bullying that almost seem like a sneer. But as the book goes on we begin to realize that Sakamoto is not merely the coolest man alive, but also incredibly bizarre and sometimes incredibly obtuse. Keeping the balance is important – you’re never quite sure in the final chapter whether he’s driving another bully into fending for himself by being over-solicitous, or is genuinely, terrifyingly unaware of how creepy he’s getting.

Nami Sano’s art is also excellent, and fits the type of humor she’s trying to tell – this wouldn’t work if the art were more cartoonlike. Sakamoto’s poses, seen throughout, are drawn to look as amazing as possible, and he can make even the most trivial task seem easy – though he’s at his best when the tasks are almost impossible, such as skewering a hornet by its stinger with only his compass point. There’s not really any character development or plot to speak of here, but this isn’t that type of manga. Instead we are here to be amazed at Sakamoto, watch his antics along with the rest of his class, and wonder if he really is human after all – and if so, how can we be more like him? Even if you aren’t normally a fan of gag manga, give this a try – I guarantee you’ll laugh out loud at least once during the volume.

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

This second volume of Log Horizon improves on the first, doubling down on its world-building and showing us what it would be like to have to set up an entire governing body from scratch, particularly when there’s a limit to what penalties you can enact for immoral but not technically illegal behavior. Some folks, such as our heroes, regard abusing the rules of this new world for profit and ruthlessness to be no fun. Others are perfectly happy to enslave children to mass-produce what they need. And, despite the obvious black-and-white morality on display there, there’s a long argument that talks about what can actually be done given the resources and authority they have.

The young kids seen on the cover are the twins that Shiroe occasionally mentioned in the first book. He had happened across them when they were just starting out, and helped them slowly advance through some beginner quests. Now they’re trapped in slavery, sleeping on hard cement floors and going out to get ingredients for useful potions which are then sold to those who DON’T need them. That said, they did agree to join the Hamelin guild, even in trickery, so, unless Shiroe can buy the entire building and kick who he wants out (which is prohibitively expensive), there’s not a lot that he can do. Which frustrates him intensely. Shiroe’s brilliant tactics keep getting undercut by his own self-hatred, as he keeps justifying making this world a better place as his own selfishness, and framing everything in the worst way.

I hadn’t thought that one of the minor aspects of the first book – food is bland and tasteless, so unenjoyable – would wind up being the main plot point of the second book. Once Nyanta, the Obi-wan Kenobi of this series (though not dead yet), discovers how you can make tasty food, suddenly endless possibilities spiral outward. It’s up to Shiroe and the Crescent Moon Guild to corral those possibilities and make sure that they can be used as a negotiating tool. I really love the look we get at the Crescent Moon Guild here – Marielle proves to be an emotional center, and we see a lot more of her self-doubt here even as she tries to cover it up with her dazzling smile. Meanwhile, Henrietta proves to be even smarter than Shiroe when she’s not busy trying to molest Akatsuki.

I had one or two niggles – when discussing what the new government should make illegal, rape was mentioned only as ‘between those of the opposite sex’, which left a bad taste in my mouth, especially given the aforementioned molestation being used as a running gag with no actual concern about Akatsuki’s lack of consent. And again, for non-gamers there really is a lot of technical detail in this book that goes over my head sometime. The Round Table meeting also introduced a bunch of people all at once, and I hope that we’ll see more of them in future books, but I could barely match names to lines – only Soujiro Seta made an impression, and that’s because he got to be the cute bishie.

Overall, though, this novel expands on the possibilities of the first and gives us a lot more cast, along with introducing a few ‘regulars’ – I look forward to seeing how the twins do in Shiroe’s new guild. I also look forward to more of Naogetsu and Akatsuki, who had surprisingly little to do in this book. Definitely recommended.

By Yuu Kamiya. Released in Japan by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On.

I am starting to come to terms with No Game No Life. All the problems I had with the first volume are still there, with underage nudity, pointless ecchi fetishes, and another token loli added towards the end. But all the strengths are still there as well, this being a world with two strong lead characters, a fascinating premise, and enough humor that doesn’t revolve around panties that I found myself laughing quite a bit. More to the point, all the questions I had at the end of my first review are actually answered, always a plus for a light novel series. And unlike the first book, this one ends on a nasty, if rather sudden, cliffhanger that will leave you wondering what disaster has befallen Shiro and… um, was there someone else?

The girl staring saucily at us from the cover is Jibril, who is essentially an Angel, and probably the best addition to the cast this volume. She has a lust for knowledge (pretty much literally), a surprisingly vicious streak (the angels used to do mass slaughter till the ‘game board rules’ were enforced, and she misses killing), and a truly flaky personality that leads to the funniest section of the book, where she greets our heroes in broken gratuitous English. (The translation, by the way, gives this as broken gratuitous Japanese, which works, as well as a Kyoto dialect (Southern US) and ‘l33t-speak’ to convey just how silly and irritating Jibril is being.) The shiritori battle which follows is jaw-dropping, once again showing how smart and forward-thinking [ ] are (Here the translator is forced to simply give the Japanese word right after the translation, as it simply can’t be translated).

Stephanie, as you might expect, is mostly used as a figure of humiliation and humor, though she does get a few chances to shine, as she’s basically running the entire country while Sora and Shiro research how to possibly win against any other race. Speaking of which, we’re introduced to the first big challenge, the Werebeasts, who supposedly can read minds and also have animal attributes that make them scary, but to someone like Sora, that means only one thing – cute girls with animal ears and tails. And that’s exactly what he and Shiro get, as they meet the ‘ambassador’ of the Werebeasts, an 8-year-old with a tendency to swear copiously as she’s not used to the human language and doesn’t know better. She’s such a fetish figure that I almost have to shake my head and laugh, but I hope she gets character development later as the others here do.

I said in my first review that I wish the series could just drop the service and get on with it, but I suspect that part of the reason why No Game No Life is so successful is its ability to balance the two sides equally. The game theory is interesting, the plot twists usually surprising and well-thought out, and Sora as a large ham is fun. Shiro has less to do, but she’s far more introverted, and given the cliffhanger, I suspect a lot of Book 3 will have to feature her taking charge. And the fanservice is truly ridiculous (the chance of something pornographic happening, as with most Japanese ecchi series, is below zero), clearly not taking itself seriously – Sora even gives the naked girls Barbie Doll Anatomy at one point. If it weren’t for the fanservice, I’d happily recommend this to anyone. As it is, I recommend it to people who already know the series.

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

As you may have noticed from the ugly 2 at the end of the URL, I’ve reviewed a DRRR!! Vol. 1 before, when the manga first came out in 2012. And now we have the novels, something I was not expecting. Those familiar with the anime and manga won’t find any major changes to what they already know, though there was a character building scene that was deleted from the anime (which actually came back to bite them recently when a girl from said character building scene showed up again). For the most part, though, reading this novel if you’ve already seen the anime or manga gives you greater depth of characterization, as we get inner monologues and narrations that help to flesh out Mikado, Celty, Izaya, and the rest of the cast.

I will warn you in advance: don’t buy this novel for the illustrations. Yasuda-san has improved in the ten years since this was released, as readers of Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? can see. But this first volume of DRRR features some very ugly characters with flat, dead faces staring at you from the front cover. The cover, however, does illustrate one of the main draws of this series (and Narita’s series in general): there is a huge cast of characters, all of whom play some part in the narrative and there is no one ‘main character’, though in this first book I’d argue Mikado comes close. Mikado benefits most from the light novel perspective, as you realize just from watching and listening to him just how much he desperately wants excitement in his life, and what he is willing to go through to achieve it.

As for the rest of the cast who have large roles in this first book, DRRR!! is also known for having no ‘normal’ people in its cast, as everyone ranges from mildly eccentric to flat-out crazy. This is best illustrated by our antagonist for this book, Namie Yagiri, her brother Seiji, and Seiji’s stalker Mika. The three compete to see who can be more messed up and make you want to put the book down in disgust. Namie is incestually attracted to her brother, her brother is in love with a severed head, and Mika wants to eat said severed head so that she can then gain Seiji’s attention. They truly deserve each other, as Mikado says, and give the book a nice frisson of creepy.

Compared to them, folks like Celty, who may be a supernatural headless Dullahan but is possibly the nicest, most normal person in the series, or Izaya, who tries to be a villain but mostly ends up just being an asshole, are more relaxing and easier to take in. It actually may surprise folks how much of the cast don’t get much focus in this first book – Shizuo barely shows up, Anri mostly functions in terms of her relationship with Mika, and Masaomi turns out to be mostly irrelevant except to contrast with Mikado. Of course, this will change – despite Narita hoping the book goes beyond one volume, I’m fairly sure this was commissioned as a 3-volume series to start, and the next book will definitely be focusing on Anri.

Fans of the DRRR!! anime and manga will definitely want to check this out. If you watched it for the Shizaya, there’s a nice fight here for you. If you avoided it because of the Shizaya, they barely interact except for that fight. Something for everyone! Stephen Paul’s translation is also smooth and non-obtrusive, with the narrative being wordy as Narita usually is but lacking that ‘light novel’ feel some other series have had (hi, Index). And the art will improve in a few books time. And it’s out digitally as well, for folks who’ve watched me hammer on about that on Twitter!

Oh yes, sorry, Baccano! fans, Isaac and Miria’s cameo was anime-only. You will see the Nebula Corporation here, though.

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

A word of warning here: I love Nabiki Tendo. Love love love her. I don’t deny that if I were ever to meet her in real life I’d run away, but she’s fictional, so I am free to openly admire a confident confidence trickster who decides to mess with Ranma and Akane purely because it amuses her… and also to get some of Ranma’s cash, of course. This volume is the first one where she’s really had an arc focusing on her, and she’ll only have one more after this (about 7 omnibuses from now). So most of what folks consider ‘canon’ comes from the 6-chapter story in this volume, where, after a huge fight – again – Akane decides that Nabiki can be Ranma’s fiancee instead.

Of course, like every other story in the series, Nabiki’s presence here is to help show how Ranma and Akane are perfect for each other, while also demonstrating why it’s taking forever to get them to admit that. Akane’s hair-trigger temper is seen here several times, topped only by Ranma’s amazing tendency to say exactly the wrong thing and not understand why anyone would get angry. If you combine this with their mutual innocence and gullibility, it’s no wonder that Nabiki can play them both like fiddles. It helps that Nabiki is one of the few women in the series not attracted to Ranma – at one point she decides to wrap things up, thinking “wouldn’t want him to get TOO attached to me.” I also like that she’s not perfect – her plan to sell Ranma to the highest bidder is done in by Shampoo, Kodachi and Ukyou deciding that killing Nabiki would achieve the same end (yes, Ukyou is also there, just slightly less murderous), and she misreads Ranma as genuinely trying to hit her towards the end. She should know better. She also shows a bit of concern that her plan might genuinely break Ranma and Akane up, which is sweet.

Of course, there’s a lot more in this omnibus than Nabiki, but it’s not quite as interesting. Picolette Charin’s story is wrapped up in a fairly weak way, though the force-feeding was pretty clever. The entire second half of the volume, though, is taken up with a new minor villain, who has the unfortunate name of Pantyhose Taro. In fact, his name drives the plot – he got the name from Happosai, who happened to be at the springs where the young baby had drowned and christened him as if it was a baptism – and his tribe forbids name changes unless it’s the one who gave the name. So Pantyhose Taro has a grudge, and is also possessed of possibly the most ridiculous Jusenkyou curse of all, a yeti riding an ox carrying an eel and a crane spring. This translates to a hideous huge monster, but Pantyhose Taro is fine with that – it’s the name he hates.

Most of this volume is taken up, unfortunately, with a lot of fights and with Akane getting kidnapped and used as bait – again. Luckily, there’s also some sharp humor as well, mostly at Taro’s expense. Pantyhose Taro ends up being the inverse of the usual manga villains – usually they never appear again in the manga, but the anime has them return. Here it’s the anime that didn’t bother to bring Pantyhose Taro back, but we’ll see him again soon. We’re halfway through Ranma 1/2 now, and next time we’ll get a few more amusing one-shots, as well as the development of two new devastating attacks for Ranma and Ryouga.