Reviews

By Natsumi Ando. Released in Japan as “Waltz no Ojikan” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Natsumi Ando’s back again, this time with a shorter series – this is only three volumes long, I believe. Which is good, as I felt the pacing was very rapid for a shoujo manga like this – it would only make sense if it was going to be wrapping up fairly quickly. I’m not sure if this was deliberate or not – her previous series, Kitchen Princess and Arisa, were both double digits. But short doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a failure, and there’s much to like about Let’s Dance a Waltz, with its grumpy hero held back by an incident in his past, and a self-deprecating heroine with an unfortunate first name.

First off, a word of warning: the moment I saw that our heroine, Hime, was overweight and a bit frumpy, I thought “she’s going to lose all the weight and be gorgeous by the end of this volume, isn’t she?” And sure enough, that’s exactly what happens. She too has a tragic backstory, as her mother, who was the one who named her (Hime means princess, something that gets hammered home quite a bit in this series) passed away from tragic backstory disease when she was just a little girl. (This is a common disease befalling young women in manga – young men tend to have dads disappear (the scum), not die off.) Still, the mother may have had good intentions, but it’s left Hime teased her entire life thanks to the wonderful world of Japanese schools, whose bullying is always important for character development.

Our hero, Tango (no, I’m not making these names up), is dealing with similar peer pressure problems, but from the opposite direction – he’s handsome and popular, and in accordance with his name actually is an amazing dancer. But he doesn’t dance competitively anymore due to a mistake he made in his childhood that haunts him, and prefers to be the class clown, breakdancing and avoiding any mention of the fact that his mother runs a dancing school (because dancing is not “cool”, and kids turn on cool kids who are now uncool faster than anyone except perhaps girls with the name ‘princess’. Tango can be quite the jerk through this volume, but we know he just needs his true love to make him straighten up.

Though there were a few times I was surprised through the first volume – secondary couple Yusei and Sumire, who have no issues whatsoever (possibly as they have standard Japanese first names) are dedicated to helping the two wannabe lovebirds rather than, say, getting jealous, which is what I was suspecting of Sumire when I first saw her – but for the most part this is a manga that runs on timeworn cliches. But this is fine – Ando is an expert at this sort of thing, and it’s nice to sit back and just let a skilled artist take you where she wants to go. At three volumes, this seems like exactly the right length for a sweet manga about a couple who can connect to each other though the wonders of ballroom dancing.

By Miki Yoshikawa. Released in Japan as “Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

The debut volume of this series has a war between a plotline I love and a plotline I always find discomforting and embarrassing, and ends up taking it in a rather sedate direction. Of course, this is clearly a slow burner – we’re already a volume in and we have no idea who the seven witches are. But in the meantime we get to see the titular lead, Yamada-kun, make all sorts of amusing faces, and see various high school romantic comedy hijinx. This has been out on Crunchyroll for a while now, so I know that things will ramp up soon, but I was actually surprised at how little happened in this initial volume.

Yamada is a delinquent, which I always love, although he’s sort of a sanitized delinquent. Even Onizuka (who appeared in the same magazine 20 years ago) was allowed to have bad habits. Here he’s just a guy with bad grades who sulks around the school wondering why things aren’t more interesting. He also may seem slightly familiar to those who know of Yoshikawa’s former series Yankee-kun to Megane-chan, which also featured a lead delinquent (of a sort) and their supposedly straightlaced female equivalent. The plot kicks in when he accidentally falls down the stairs, dragging a young girl down with him and forcing them to swap bodies, because they fell down the stairs in a high school manga and that is what inevitably happens in these sorts of things.

Urara is more interesting, if only as she takes much of this in stride. While Yamada is busy freaking out, her reaction is more sedate. Of course, she might be quite happy to take a vacation from her body, as we see (through Yamada’s eyes) that she has a lot she has to deal with. She seems fairly stoic, but as she warms up over the course of the volume it becomes apparent that it’s more repressed emotions than anything else. The dynamic between the two of them is interesting but fairly mild, except, of course, for the kisses that allow them to swap bodies at will. As we gain more cast members (Miyamura, whose attempts to convince Urara to continue high education by trying to find blackmail material and ogling her cup size, did not impress me) we will no doubt gain more dynamics.

At the end of this volume, even with the addition of a new girl who promises to make life miserable for everyone, we’re not one step closer to knowing what’s going on. We haven’t met a witch, and we’re not sure why Yamada suddenly can swap bodies with anyone he kisses. Given the author’s success with her prior work, I imagine she has a lot more leeway to develop things the way she wants without the fear of getting cancelled after 15 chapters. Which is fine, but it does lead to a first volume that’s merely average, even as I know it gets better later. Still, if you like school romantic comedies with an emphasis on the comedy, and want to step in before the inevitable harem plot starts up, this is the volume for you.

By Touya Mikanagi. Released in Japan in two separate volumes by Ichijinsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Zero-Sum. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Karneval is, I believe, one of those titles that is expected to coast by on style alone for the first few volumes, while it lovingly sets up its plot. And to be fair, it has quite a lot of style. There was never a point in reading this omnibus where I was bored and slipping ahead, though there were perhaps a few times when I desperately wanted an organizational chart or a “here’s how this world works”. But that’s not how immersion goes. In the meantime we have a pretty young boy and his grumpy yet also pretty friend/babysitter/audience identification character, running afoul of the bad guys and being rescued by a crack squad of eccentric superheroes who pose as a circus when they’re not causing major property damage or freaking people out.

I believe that’s Nai on the cover there – I say “I believe” as he’s staring out at the reader confidently, something the Nai in the books would never do. I said Gareki was for the audience, and he’s desperately needed – in fact, I think he’s the main reason I enjoyed this title as much as I did. He stomps through the whole thing carrying Nai around as if he’s in a manga version of Midnight Run, and also manages to be the one member of the cast with no superpowers that we know of, though he gets by well enough with explosives. As for Nai, I actually thought the revelation about who he really is what the best part of the volume – it actually makes his moeblob tendencies make sense in context, even if it ends up giving us more questions than answers.

As for the rest of the cast, there are several men whose characterization seems to involve looking cool and making passes at each other, though I suspect the genuine BL content in this series will be zero. And they are pretty damn cool, if also ridiculous to a large degree – something I’ve come to expect from Zero-Sum titles. There are also a few women in the cast, who range from stoic to overly affectionate to full-on tsundere, but honestly none of them get as much attention as the guys this time around – hope that changes later on. Oh, and we also meet a set of twins and childhood friends who have “I am here to be tragic and motivate our hero” written all over them, which the cliffhanger seems to agree with me on.

There’s a healthy dose of humor here as well (the nurses’ reaction to their obnoxious doctor boss was probably my favorite), which also helps the medicine go down well. There’s nothing here that’s revolutionary or new, but for a manga that knows what its target audience wants, Karneval delivers quite nicely. Don’t try to think too hard about what’s going on, just sit back and enjoy the snarking, acting cool, and one-liners. Recommended for fans of Zero-Sum.

By Atsushi Ohkubo. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Shonen Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press.

And so here we are at the end of another long-running shonen series. And it’s a good, solid ending, wrapping most plotlines up neatly, giving readers a big battle scene with lots of awesome moves and attacks, and resolving Crona as much as Crona was ever going to get resolved. The cover, as you can see, has Crona looming over our protagonists, and that seems appropriate, as in the end the fight is not so much to defeat Asura as it is to get a chance to try to talk Crona down one last time. And, of course, it would not be long-running shonen without the death of one of the main characters, which is done in such a way that even Excalibur is briefly not annoying. (It’s only briefly though.)

It’s also interesting to see the attention paid to Soul and his growth. Soul’s struggles as a weapon have always been closely tied to Soul’s struggles as a musician, and he clearly has a life-or-death performance here. That fact that his music works most effectively when he accepts the madness that roils within himself, and the black blood within, is actually quite well done, even if it makes me wonder if Ohkubo was trying to say something about jazz artists and recreational drugs. But that’s probably just me. More to the point, he and Maka now trust each other completely, which after everything they’ve been through, is a relief. I liked his support when Maka is trying to convince Crona – he says “we believed in what Maka believed in”.

There’s a lot left open after this ending. Kid’s now the new Shinigami, and has already shown that his OCD is not going to magically go away anytime soon. Crona may be rescued someday, but today is not that day, and given all the crimes committed by Crona, it seems appropriate to end with moon sealage. (I have been endeavoring not to gender Crona through these reviews – unlike, say, Hange in Attack on Titan, where an author’s casual joking has spiraled completely out of control, I do believe Crona is quite deliberately not shown to be male or female, and that it works with their character.) As for romance, it was always on the back burner, and remains so – the only couples at the end are Kim and Ox, who get a dance, and Stein and Marie, who are creating new life. You could argue other things might happen in the future (I was rather startled by Maka’s response to Blair’s comment), but for now, things are up in the air.

This wasn’t a perfect ending – the boob jokes at the end fell totally flat with me, even if they do try to justify it in plot as Crona’s subconscious desires, and the “Noah-samas” were just as bad. But it made me happy overall. Eruka Frog was a character I always felt sorry for, so it was nice to see her pardoned and at peace. Rachel had been dropped from the manga the moment she was unpossessed, so it was fantastic to see her with her parents and showing she wasn’t completely broken by what happened to her. And it ends with a party, with everyone singing and dancing in the best One Piece tradition. Well, that and a shot of the city, with its bizarre sun and moon still hovering in the sky. Soul Eater’s world is still strange as hell, and it’s the world that is the main reason I recommend reading every volume of this series.

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

I’ve already discussed some of the ideas behind this concept in my review of the first manga, so I’ll try to skim over that and discuss what I enjoyed about SAO:P as a novel. Again, I don’t think it’s a sort of ‘reboot’ where you can read it in place of the original – I think knowing the characters already adds to the depth. But the main reason to read this is to see how Kawahara develops Aincrad, a world he introduced and essentially abandoned in the first book, sequels and side stories aside. And we also get the addition of Asuna’s POV narration, though sadly only for part of the first arc, after which it’s back to all Kirito all the time.

Despite this, Asuna benefits enormously from the added face time. We see her at the start, having essentially decided that she wants to attempt to die with dignity, or at least on her own terms, something that Kirito is able to talk her out of. As the book goes on (and it is a BIG book – at 360 pages, almost as big as Fairy Dance put together) and Asuna starts to actually pay attention to the rules of the game and how to succeed, she becomes just as good if not better than Kirito – the skills she’s used her entire life as a girl who has to be in the top of the class for everything now benefit her in the RPG environment, and she also has more socialization than Kirito, meaning she can see people in a way that he’s unable to – this really becomes apparent in the second half of the book, where Kirito has pegged himself as an evil person, and Asuna has to side-eye him several times and go “really?”. Kirito, meanwhile sees potential in Asuna, and wants her to be the role model for the game world that he feels unworthy of being himself. They’re not a couple here, but you definitely see why they’re perfect for each other – they’re both quite similar, and their differences complement each other.

There’s no Klein, Lisbeth or Silica here, and Agil is mostly just support. The new addition is Argo, though she’ll be familiar to fans of the anime. She doesn’t vanish after the first few pages, however, and actually gets to show off some character depth and an awesome ‘to the rescue’ bit. In addition, the “Interlude” focusing on her and Kirito is hilarious, the second funniest part of the book. (The funniest part of the book involves Asuna’s inventory and Kirito’s complete ignorance of a maiden’s true heart, as well as measuring rage in gravitational units – I’ll leave it at that.)

The most interesting part of the book takes place right at the end, where a scheme is uncovered that led indirectly to the death of a player (or so they hear), and the concept of PKing comes up for the first time, this time as capital punishment. When does justice become vigilante justice? Kirito has definite views on the subject, but he’s already burned so many bridges (or at least he thinks he has) that he doesn’t want to make any rallying speeches. Luckily, things defuse before we can go there, but everyone is now thinking about it. We’re not at Laughing Coffin just yet, but the seed has been planted.

This book covers the first two floors of Aincrad, and the afterword says there should be 2 floors per novel, so things will likely continue to move quite slowly. This is the main goal of this series, of course, and I’m greatly enjoying what it’s trying to do. And of course there’s also an additional bonus – this is 8 years after the author first wrote SAO, and his prose has improved a great deal. Sword Art Online fans will love this. (Also, I appreciate that ‘Kuroko’ was likely impossible to translate without a footnote, but ‘Blackie’? Geh.)

By Osamu Tezuka. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Digital Manga Publishing.

Say what you will about Osamu Tezuka, he certainly knows how to write for his specified audience. This doesn’t dumb anything down, but it is absolutely 100% for boys around 7-12 years old, and almost every single page is filled with chases, fights, gun battles, etc. The conceit here is that this is a Western on the planet Mars, and indeed if you changes the Martians into Native Americans, little about this book would have to change. There’s a plucky young hero, a hotheaded teenager (usually the same person, but Tezuka generally liked his heroes to be very shiny, so the anger gets offloaded onto Mamoru here), a cute young thing with a mysterious past (well, in this case, that’s not quite true, but I don’t want to spoil). It’s classic boys’ adventure.

Tezuka was churning out manga at an incredible pace at this period in his life, and there are times when it shows. I’ve seen Tezuka manga where you can tell he has no idea where things are going from chapter to chapter, or even page to page, but this was the first one where I wondered if he drew one panel at a time and then figured out what would happen next based on that. Sometimes this works to the series’ advantage, though. Apparently Tezuka’s plan had been for Ken and Kenn to be the same person (a la Princess Knight, a series he would revisit two years after this one), but so many people immediately wrote in guessing it that he called that off, and instead made it a competition to see what the real connection between Ken and Kenn was. This works well with the narrative, which starts with it being ‘obvious’ that Kenn is finding excuses to go be Ken, but as the excuses become more outlandish and impossible, we become suspicious along with Mamoru.

Those who enjoy Tezuka’s ‘star system’ of recurring characters will be pleased to see that Mamoru is basically Rock, his young hothead from several other titles. He’s fairly straightforward here, not much like the young man we’ll see in titles such as Alabaster later on. Lamp is also there as a villainous gunslinger. Lamp is actually one of the more interesting characters, not being motivated by greed or power as the other villains are, but simply out of a need to be the best at what he does. Sadly, Captain Ken bests him immediately, and later on it’s shown that he’s actually the worst at the style of fighting he specializes in! Poor Lamp, still no respect.

These two volumes are a lot of fun, and really don’t let a reader catch their breath at all. The message of ‘fighting each other is bad’ is a bit heavy handed at times, but that’s not untypical of Tezuka. There’s also quite a bit of Japanese nationalism tucked in here, which is also not untypical of Tezuka. Still, for the most part this tale of Cowboys ‘n Aliens is on the mark, though those who know Tezuka’s tendencies won’t be too surprised at how it ends. Those who only read his titles for older readers might want to give this one a shot.

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

The final volume is not going to have much time for this, so it’s very fitting that this penultimate one is devoted to the greatest love affair in the entire series. No, not K1 and Belldandy, though they’re cute too. I’m referring to the love affair between Fujishima and motorcycles, one which reaches its obvious zenith here as we wrap up a mini-arc where Keiichi must justify his life and earn the right to love Belldandy by driving a really difficult motocross race, something that would sound a bit ridiculous to anyone who hasn’t read Oh My Goddess! before. In fact, ‘really difficult’ may be underselling it – Keiichi’s failure at one point leads to his limbs being broken and his organs tearing apart, something he feels every bit of.

That said, he ends up perfectly fine, even if his bike is totaled. But wait! A new arrival comes on the scene, who wants to play up the old ‘did you drop this gold motorbike or this silver motorbike’ schtick, but K1 and Bell aren’t having any of that – it’s the Lake Goddess, fresh from the tragic story of Vol. 46. Yes, she is now freed, and yes, it was due to the sheer power of the feelings Keiichi and Belldandy had for each other. This may seem like a hoary old cliche, but honestly, it’s exactly what readers of this title wanted. No one wants to read a grim and gritty Oh My Goddess where our heroes learn that life is pain and suffering.

So yes, she’s free, and able to make fun of Tyr as well. Yes, he’s still testing the couple in his guise as the Gate, even after Keiichi wins the final race, possibly due to the sheer joy of being on a motorcycle – it wouldn’t be the first time he’s won a race for that reason. But there’s one final test, and it’s one that many Oh My Goddess fanfiction writers have theorized about – Tyr offers Keiichi a chance to be a god, so he can stay with Belldandy forever, according to the terms of his deal. Naturally, though, Keiichi is never going to accept that – he is a living embodiment of all that is good about humanity. Take that away and you waste it a bit. Of course, that was a test as well.

The ‘cliffhanger’ ending has Hild explaining exactly over a game of Koi-Koi (and Skuld reading what appears to be Nakayoshi) how she managed to get pregnant with Urd despite losing the same contest that K1 and Bell are going through. But really, the real cliffhanger is knowing that this all wraps up in Vol. 48, and we’re still in the middle of Hell. Will everyone be able to get out? Will K1 and Bell live happily ever after? Is this series really as optimistic as it seems? Yes, yes, and yes. Again, what series have you been reading that these questions aren’t a surprise?

By Naoki Urasawa, Hokusei Katsushika, and Takashi Nagasaki. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Big Comic Original. Released in North America by Viz Media.

This is another solid volume of Master Keaton, with a bit more attention paid to the mysteries and a bit less to the leading man this time around. As I kept reading, though, one thing kept coming back to me. There were stories of a man stealing to try to help the poor in Italy; Olympic runners who also fell afoul of running for money so they could give to charity; old revolutionaries who have found that betraying a cause or lying for the sake of a woman doesn’t make one happy; and even Keaton’s class, unable to finish its final lesson as the school is being shut down and evil bureaucrats want the mural on the wall behind him. Only occasionally tragic, what this manga really is deep down is sad. It’s about chasing dreams, even as you realize that it destroys your life and you likely won’t succeed very well in any case.

This is likely not a surprise to anyone who has followed the career of Urasawa, a man who wrote one of the most depressing manga ever and called it “Happy!”, or Katsushika, who wrote for Golgo 13, another series that tended to end in death and disappointment, just with less focus on the emotions involved. But Master Keaton seems to go that extra mile. it’s the tail end of the Cold War in these stories, and everyone is simply weary. Even the terrorists are giving themselves up as they’ve had enough. The bounty hunters are ex-cops who got tired of letting the criminals get away. Little girls are cynical before their time as they see adultery and cruelty in their daily lives. And even Keaton, a man who loves his ex-wife but let her go anyway because he thinks it helped him grow up.

There are moments of triumph here, but they’re less in the emotions and more in the action and deduction. You see Keaton figure out the story behind a “werewolf”-inspired serial killer, or fend off neo-Nazi assassins to save some Turks in West Germany. There’s also one emotional high point in the story, where Keaton reminisces about his old mentor, who he named his daughter after, and finds his friends and family have managed to track him down for a reunion. Even then, though, the event is muted: Professor Scott looks at Keaton and says he’s turned out well, which brings the man to silent tears. I get the feeling as I read this series that despite being an archaeologist/insurance investigator/ex-SAS soldier/detective/awesome guy, Keaton really doesn’t like himself all that much.

But for this sort of series, I think that’s OK. It’s evocative of a mood, one that fits its time: Europe in the late 80s, with the Soviet Union starting to crumble and the last vestiges of the old guard left with nothing but regrets. I will even forgive this volume for trotting out the old “a man has his dreams” cliche. Keaton is the type of series you want to read while swirling around a glass of brandy and listening to Sonny Rollins. Just don’t be surprised if you’re counting your own regrets after you finish it.