Reviews

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

Since my last review of Oh My Goddess back in December, the manga has finally ended in Japan after 26 years, and will be 48 volumes total. For those who were reading this entire arc and noting it felt like a grand finale, congratulations, you are correct. There’s still some stuff to do before we get to what will no doubt be a final chapter with a wedding, not least of which is that Keiichi and Belldandy have to be reminded of something really obvious: she is a goddess and he is mortal. In fact, this is something that has happened to lovers in the past, as we see in the first have of this volume.

The flashback is painful, as you’d expect, but is also suffused with the selfless love we’ve come to expect from Keiichi and Belldandy, to the point where once the bard dies, the goddess is determined to see what he sang about even if it means her life. Unfortunately, due to the nature of contractual promises, she can’t even get peace in death. They’re being shown this to remind them that love is not worth all this pain that you’ll see in the end, but Oh My Goddess has spent 46 volumes so far showing us that yes, it absolutely is, so this argument doesn’t really hold up.

After last volume’s rewrite of its continuity, where we see that Keiichi was being repressed by heavenly forces to stop him getting it on with Belldandy, we get even more discussion of the original wish that began everything back in Volume 1. The wish: “I want a goddess like you to be with me always” – was said without being serious, but here we see a devastated Keiichi realizing what the burden of such a wish was on Belldandy, and cursing his past self for not being serious enough. Meanwhile, Belldandy confesses to Keiichi that, far from being surprised to see him when she descended to grant his wish, she’d actually been watching him from heaven for some time, and had fallen in love with him before they’d even met.

Fans of the anime won’t be surprised at this, as it also did a ‘we were destined to be together long before that wish’ plotline. It is nice, though, that Fujishima actually goes back to draw Belldandy somewhat like he did at the beginning – a larger marking on her head and her hair darker – to show us how she’s changed since then. (Keiichi, notably, does NOT get seen as his Vol. 1 self, which is fine, as that was more ‘the artist still needs work’.) And so finally Keiichi and Belldandy have pretty much taken every test of their love that can be thrown at them. We’ve even met her mother. And, as it turns out, her father – Gate turns out to be Tyr, Belldandy’s father and the ruler of Heaven.

Needless to say, he decides on one more test for Keiichi to be worthy of his daughter’s love, and even cheerfully frames it as ‘because a dad has to be a jerk to his daughter’s boyfriend’. Any reader of Oh My Goddess will be unsurprised at what happens next – the final battle involves a motorcycle race over an incredibly dangerous path, with K1 even driving a recreation of his regular bike. He also has to do it by himself, without Belldandy in the sidecar. Can he manage it? We’ll find out in March.

By Setona Mizushiro. Released in Japan by Akita Shoten, serialized in the magazine Princess. Released in North America by Viz.

I’m usually quite fond of series that try to get by on pure mood, even if the plot is not one that reaches out and grabs me. This odd shoujo series definitely falls into that category. It’s not exactly something I would read to see what happens next – the entire time I was reading the first volume, my thoughts were “Didn’t I read this in a Kaoru Yuki title 5 years back?” – but the aesthetic is glorious and gruesome, with the corpses stacking up and anguish present on every face. It’s dark, gothic grand guignol shoujo, and marks a welcome return of Akita Shoten’s titles to out shores (as well as the author of After School Nightmare).

Most of the first volume is prologue to what we’ll be seeing from now on. One hundred years earlier, we meet Dimitri, who is not of noble blood but is possessed of a remarkable singing voice. He loves Agnieszka, a young and innocent noblewoman, but she’s betrothed to his friend Theodor, who, while he has been doing his best to advance Dimitri’s vocal career, will only go so far. It’s the sort of storyline that makes you await the inevitable tragedy, and sure enough, a runaway horse seems to kill our hero. But he’s not really dead, as it turns out that his body is now being used by Bradley, a vampire! If the plot sounds melodramatic, well, I hope you knew that when you purchased it.

This is a horror title, by the way, in case my use of the words ‘gothic’ and ‘vampire’ did not clue you in. There are many, many mass suicides about halfway through, and some grotesque shots of blood. Oh yes, and there’s the spiders, which is the way that Dimitri acquires blood after his victims have obligingly offered themselves to him. They’re supremely creepy, but also very effective at showing the horror of what Dimitri is becoming. There’s also a sexual assault, as a desperate Dimitri, who wants nothing more than to die when he hears what he has become, rapes Agnieska to try to achieve this. It doesn’t work.

The main part of the book looks like it’s set in present day Japan, and features a more prosaic teacher-student romance, which is no less forbidden and yet intoxicating than the previous one. Koya is trying to convince his teacher Azusa that she is not merely a schoolboy crush to him, and she’s trying to push him away but desperately unable to. This leads to her making quite a nasty bargain, whose effects we don’t quite see in this volume but I’ve no doubt will prove to resonate down the line. Also, Dimitri, who was so horrified at the prospect of turning evil in Vienna, seems to have warmed up to it now that he’s in Japan. Ah well.

I’m not sure that I’m the audience for this book, really. But I’m sure that there is a huge audience for it. Those who enjoyed the darker, more sensual side of Shojo Beat’s titles, and want another supernatural romance with vampires who are likely quite bad for you, won’t be able to put it down. The spiders may be horrible, but it’s the doomed yet overpowering love that will draw them in.

By Sadanatsu Anda and CUTEG. Released in Japan by Enterbrain, serialized in the magazine Famitsu Comic Clear. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

Generally speaking, if you’re going to be releasing a manga series based on a light novel that stars a group of high school students in a strange club, you’d better have something extra to bring to the table in order to distinguish yourself from packs of similar series. And Kokoro Connect does have a premise that shows promise, particularly if it goes the dramatic direction that it seems to be hinting at. Three girls and two boys are friends in a club, till one day they discover that the five of them have begun to randomly switch bodies, without warning and for unknown periods. After having the reason explained to them by an exposition who happened to be walking by, they have to figure out how to deal with this, particularly as they are all rather fragile teens, and many have hidden secrets.

The leads are all likeable but flawed. In fact, in possibly the most annoying part of the volume, we have the flaws explained by Himeko, the ‘serious student’ of the club. Our hero is told how he tends to put the needs of others before himself, and in fact is directly called a “self-sacrificing bastard”. The trouble is we’ve only known him for about 90 pages before this, and the only evidence we see is that he volunteered for cleanup duty because no one else wanted to. Likewise, one somewhat insecure, thought-provoking monologue does not really measure up against the previous scenes of a girl being happy and outgoing, so hearing that Iori is “the most likely to crack” seems a bit out of nowhere. Kokoro Connect has a “tell rather than show” problem.

This is a bodyswap manga, and so it can sometimes be difficult to recall who is in which body at the time. The usual manga shorthand is to see either a ghostly presence of the real person behind the swapped one, or to show a SD-caricature of the real person in the speech balloon. This volume does both, and I think the latter works better, as the doubling can look confusing. Other than that, though, the artwork is appealing and cute. There’s also a healthy dose of humor scattered throughout. I could have done without the ‘oh my god teenage boys are perverts’ stuff, but if I wanted to avoid that I’d have to drop manga altogether. And the “solution” to Yui’s issues with men did make me laugh, I will admit. As for romance, it seems to be a ‘one guy and two girls who kind of like him’ story, with a ‘backup couple’ thrown in. The backup couple get the most development here, which tells me that the majority of what’s to come will likely focus on Iori and Himeko.

Mostly, though, I think this first volume made me hope that things improve in the next four (It’s a 5-volume series). It’s an intriguing premise, and I think it does show promise that it could take advantage of that, but right now it feels like it’s trying too hard. Let’s hope it finds its feet in the next volume.

By Tomoya Haruno. Released in Japan by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Alive. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

An action manga can get away with a chapter or two with no fighting. A romance manga relies on there being little to no resolution for volumes at a time. But a gag manga has to have gags, or else it runs the risk of failure even after only a chapter. Being funny, on a long-term basis, can be quite difficult. Most writers therefore try to balance out their humorous manga with other elements, such as the aforementioned fighting or romance. When you do see an author that tries to pull off straight-up gag manga, then, it’s an impressive thing. Particularly if it’s been licensed in North America, whose gag manga litter the shores of the river Styx. D-Frag! is not quite PURE gag manga, such as Bobobo-bo Bo-Bobo or Cromartie High School, but it comes pretty damn close.

I’m not exactly sure what the title is supposed to signify, as the manga has nothing to do with defragmenting your hard drive. Instead it’s a variation on ‘straight man guy joins a really weird club’, only without the strong personality of a Haruhi or Kyon. Kazama wants to be a delinquent, but is honestly too nice and well-meaning. He’s tricked into joining the “Game Development Club”, whose members include a thug (who’s also student council president), a jock, a space cadet, and the teaching advisor, who is usually mistaken for one of the students. The plot, such as it is, starts when he finds out there’s already a Game Development Club – the ‘real” one, so to speak – and that the club he’s now joined is a fake offshoot.

If this doesn’t sound like much to hang a plot on, well, you’re right there. The only member of the real club who matters is Takao, who fell out with one of the fake club members and is trying to make up with her by being stubborn and screaming a lot, in the traditional manga way. She also has a large chest which is frequently commented on, lest you worry that Comic Alive had suddenly turned into some other magazine. Seeing her interaction with Roku is nevertheless a highlight of the volume, and leads to the only (very brief) serious moments. Much of the rest of it is the eccentric personalities of everyone involved, and Kazama’s tsukkomi reaction to their antics.

Another impressive aspect of this first volume: there’s little to no romance suggested. Now, this may change, but I greatly enjoyed that this manga is not a harem manga with gag elements, but devoted entirely to being weird and silly. Kazama is far too busy trying to figure out how to deal with anyone to find them attractive (his preferences are apparently towards big breasts, but even this is used as gag fodder), and girls such as Roku seem more content to simply have him around then have an unrequited crush.

This sort of series is dangerous to read, because if it loses its humor and pacing, it could crash very fast. But Vol. 1 is a solid start, and I laughed out loud several times. I’m interested in seeing where it goes.

By Yuuki Kodama. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I said last time that it was the small character moments that were the best in Blood Lad, and that’s still true. But it can’t be denied, the main plot has become increasingly more readable even as it becomes more deadly. There’s an awful lot going on here, and if it seems to be the sort of thing that you always see happen in manga series like this one, well, there’s a reason for that. Blood Lad not only breaks the fourth wall, but sits around it and examines why it’s a wall at all, with the help of all the lampshades it’s hanging to shed light on the subject. (This tortured metaphor is brought to you by the letter R.)

At the end of the last volume, we saw the culmination of all of Braz’ clever schemes and manipulations, as he manages to resurrect his dead father to regain the kingdom. Naturally, everything goes completely per-shaped not twenty minutes in, because Braz is not the star of this manga, and therefore the world does not run according to his rules. This is brought home to him over and over again by Staz, who is the star, and discusses the virtues of things like just attacking without thinking in order to save everyone. Blood Lad may run in a seinen magazine, but at heart it’s all shonen.

This leads to the big event of the second half; having been forced to retreat from the big villain, Staz has a clever plan: read his vast collection of manga to find a way to defeat Akim. It’s the sort of twist that makes you groan, even in a manga this meta. But then Staz starts to explain his reasoning for this. Due to the way reincarnation works between the human and magic world, he thinks that manga published in the modern day might be subconscious memories of what actually occurred years ago in the demon world, involving powers and objects now lost. Therefore, it is vitally important to read that 86-volume series.

Actually, my favorite manga-related joke in this volume is everyone getting so worked up over shoujo love comedy Marmalade Boy… sorry, Lemonade Boy. (The covers look identical, so this is just “wait, I don’t write for Shueisha” at work here.) It could be argued that the romance is the weakest part of Blood Lad, mostly as Fuyumi still tends to be a bit of a drip. We’re helped here by focusing on Bell, who’s got it bad for Staz but suffers from the inability to express herself and a colossal case of poor timing, plus (as the reader knows) the fact that Staz loves Fuyumi but isn’t quite aware of it yet. There’s plenty of comedic moments, but her feelings aren’t belittled at all, which I appreciated.

We do still get the small character moments in this book – Liz’s reaction to Braz’s fate, and the followup to it, is wonderful – but there’s no denying that things are getting darker and more deadly. It looks like we’re headed for a major battle in the next volume, which is a shame as it will be a while – Vol. 11 came out in Japan this May, meaning we don’t even have enough for half a release yet. In the meantime, though, we have this volume. There are probably better manga series out there, but there are few series as compulsively readable as Blood Lad.

By Cocoa Fujiwara. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the magazine Gangan Joker. Released in North America by Yen Press.

This is one of those volumes where I recommend that if you enjoy the series and haven’t read it, you avoid reading my review so that you aren’t totally spoiled. Just an FYI. In fact, let’s put an image here to block it off.

Admittedly, much like Higurashi, I suspect that the spoiler of “everyone dies” is something that most fans of the series knew before they picked this up. There is an anime, and it’s the type of series that appeals more to hardcore fans than casual ones, I think. This is not to say this isn’t a good volume – it is pretty good, and I think has done a nice job of telegraphing things. But we now know that this was meant to be a prologue to the main story, which presumably takes place in the future when everyone is reincarnated again. And as such, I think the odd pacing of the first few volumes make sense – the author wanted to have enough volumes so that this had an emotional impact, but didn’t really have enough for everyone to do so stretched a lot out.

It’s not helped that I feel the cast is a bit too big for a series that depends so much on emotional two-hander relationships. Sure, we get lots of time devoted to our leads, but I still can never quite remember the names when they’re all said in a group, particularly as they’re all fancy 4-5 syllable rich and hard to remember names. And we get more people introduced here, as we see the old woman who seems to be in charge of the yokai group, her young assistant, and the evil kid who seems to be behind the attacks that kill everyone off.

This leads to the other issue I had with this volume – the author is much better at either dumb comedy or romantic drama than they are at actual action scenes. The final battle is somewhat confusing and brings in too many elements, and is not helped by it fading out once Soushi dies. This does lead to what I think are the strengths of both this volume and the series – the comedy and the romance. Both are not for everyone – they depend very much on being familiar with and not minding the standard Japanese romance tropes, where the girl is flustered and the boy is smooth and skilled. Better written is the relationship between Watanuki and Carta, where he pleads with her not to give up after she’s found she can’t change out of her skeletal form, and that he loves her no matter what she looks like. It’s my favorite part of the book.

In the end, I expect that how I feel about the first four volumes will be affected by what comes next, i.e. how much do the actions of the past weight on the seemingly reincarnated heroes? Certainly the last few pages play up the fact that reincarnated Ririchiyo is exactly the same as the one we’re familiar with, to the point of using the exact same starting gags. As for Soushi, he now wears glasses, but will he still have the uber-devoted attitude? What changes and what stays the same will make or break a series like this. And while I think it’s flawed, I’m interested enough in Vol. 5 to check it out.

By Ema Toyama. Released in Japan as “Watashi ni xx Shinasai!” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

I do enjoy mocking Missions of Love when I discuss it in my Manga the week of and Pick of the Week posts, saying that it’s gleefully trsahy and soap-operaish and that it’s like mainlining shoujo heroin. Which is true, but I worry that people may think this means that I’m enjoying it ironically in a Sharknado sort of way, and that could not be further from the truth. Trust me when I say that Missions of Love is an excellently crafted title that is a lot of fun to read. It just happens to also be gleefully trashy, etc. This new volume is particularly good in showing off the reasons why I enjoy it.

The big development in this volume is the return of Yukina’s preschool teacher, the one whose remark about her eyes led to a major breakdown by our heroine. Toyama has come back to this occasionally over the course of the series, usually when trying to give Shigure the upper hand by having him take off Yukina’s glasses. Now she runs across her former teacher (who looks as if he hasn’t aged a day in the last 10-11 years), and everything comes rushing back… including her old feelings, as she now realizes that the reason that his comment hurt so much is that she was in love with him. This is then followed by Shigure realizing that, although he’s dated a lot of women casually before, Yukina is the one who is *his* first real love.

Part of the reason this manga is so addictive is that the characters can turn personalities on a dime. This makes sense; they’re middle schoolers in love, at just the right sort of age where all that is still malleable. I know there were a few reviewers (possibly including me) who were very happy with Yukina as the ‘snow princess’ sort who did not understand this Earth thing called kissing, but she’s merely emotionally repressed, not emotionally stunted. When she loses control, as we see a few times in this volume, it can be quite explosive. (And quite erotic, as Shigure also finds. I’ve noted before that the style of this work seems to edge towards the top end of Nakayoshi’s readership… there’s nothing explicit, but there’s some very hot and heavy kissing here.)

The major surprise of the book comes towards the end, however. Yukina is now determined to repair the relationship with her old teacher, or at least tell him what happened. A jealous Shigure goes to confront him first… and finds the teacher is very adept at finding out who Shigure is, and equally adept at a ‘false front’. It’s menacing to Shigure, yes, but I appreciated the teacher noting that it’s Yukina’s decision about what to do with her life, and that neither Shigure nor Akira can make it for her. This is something you don’t often see in this genre, and it’s appreciated.

I didn’t even mention Akira and Mami much, who provide what is both the funniest and most heartwarming scene in the entire volume. (They’d clearly make a great couple once they get over their first loves.) Mami’s Yukina impression is AMAZING. And let’s not forget Yukina attempting to ask Mami’s advice by dragging her headfirst out of a classroom window. In case you were worried about the cast turning normal now that the romance has heated up, don’t worry, they’re all still strange. So while this still feels like it should be bad for you, read it anyway, because it’s damn tasty.

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

This is the other major series that Kawahara has written, after Sword Art Online, and it’s interesting to see how the two series compare and contrast. SAO was written 6 years earlier and published online as a web novel, and only picked up for publication once Accel World won a major award. So it’s likely that this is the series that really kickstarted his career, with SAO along for the ride, though I’d argue that SAO is currently more popular than Accel World. And I can see why this book did well: it’s a strong first volume, barring a few hiccups, with a hero who is meant to be a definite contrast to the generic male lead that Kirito proves to be much of the time.

And right there is hiccup Nunber One, as we get yet another volume I can’t read on public transit. The cast of Accel World are all 13-14 years old, this time mostly for plot reasons, but there’s still the same amount of fanservice and sexualization you tend to get in series like these. Just as the Fairy Dance manga had Kirito’s younger sister showering for the benefit of readers, here we get the hero imagining Kuroyukihime in the shower. While I’m at it, I might as well bring up hiccup number two, which is the presentation of the villain of this volume, Cyan Pile. Kawahara seems to have trouble with villains in general, but here in particular it suffers from us barely getting to know this character at all before the big revelation, and therefore the emotional torture that should be there (and is written as if we feel it) simply isn’t.

That said, there’s a lot to like here as well. Let’s start with the hero. The author has apparently said in interviews that Kirito and Haruyuki were meant to contrast with each other, and that’s certainly evident here. Short, fat, and with an incredibly negative self-image, Haruyuki is so far away from the typical harem protagonist that he is completely unable to notice that he has two girls crushing on him over the course of this volume. His only skill (which, given this is another series about a virtual gaming world, proves to be highly important) is his speed and agility when playing virtual squash in a court no one ever goes to (so he doesn’t have to deal with people). This brings him to the attention of Kuroyukihime (real name deliberately not given, though there are hints), who tells him about a game, Brain Burst, that may allow him to achieve amazing things.

The game is the other success of this series, after seeing the generic RPG world of Sword Art Online. Much time is devoted to how to play it and strategy, and we see right away that Haruyuki is very good at thinking on the fly and coming up with solutions in battle. (Well, almost right away… he gets his ass kicked the first time. There are rules.) That said, I think that the main reason I liked this so much (and I did really enjoy SAO too, if you’ll recall), is that it’s a book that shows the skills the author has developed in the 6 years between that book and this one. It just reads easily. It’s a light novel, with all the cliches that this entails, so don’t read it if you dislike those sorts of cliches. But most fans of the genre should enjoy this, and I’m interested to see where it goes with Haruyuki.