Reviews

By Milk Morinaga. Released in Japan by Futabasha, serialized in the magazine Comic High!. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

First off, this is clearly a series meant to be marketed to the same group that loved reading Girl Friends, and is touted as a top new yuri series. All I can say is, unless things progress a whole lot in Vol. 2, some folks might wonder what the fuss is all about. Midori occasionally blushes or wonders why she feels a need to connect with Aoba despite everything, Aoba sometimes reflects on her overly touchy-feely hijinx, but honestly, this is a high school comedy far more than it’s a yuri series. That said, everything ELSE people liked about Morinaga Milk’s manga is here – cute art, over the top characters reacting in funny ways, and a core of serious story underneath it.

Our hero is Aoba, a naive yet vibrant girl who grew up wanting to be a defender of justice and, since magical girls and sentai warriors are hard to come by in real life, has joined the police while still in high school to still defend what’s right. For her first assignment, however, she’s sent to a school that seemingly has no issues – the most that happens here is girls fighting over a diet. She runs into the seemingly stoic Midori, a stoic girl whose stoicness lasts about five seconds in the face of the overwhelmingness of Aoba. Midori has a tragic past where her partner was hurt because of her actions, and has been sent to this school to sit tight until she graduates (her dad is chief of police, so they can’t just fire her). Naturally, she’s a bit sour on justice, and wants nothing more but to sit quietly and draw her yaoi manga. Hands up, who thinks that’s going to happen?

There’s no real attempt to move these characters beyond their obvious stereotypes – Aoba in particular is cheerful, naive, acts before she thinks, mood swings wildly, etc. But that’s OK here, really, as this is a series where you want to watch Aoba do dumb stuff and slowly bring Midori out of her shell of tragic past. They’re supposed to be secret police – the school doesn’t acknowledge their jobs exist – which of course leads to Aoba whipping out her badge at the slightest provocation. It also allows the series to touch on the difficulties of reporting things to the *real* police – discussion of a train groper notes that since all the girls say the groper is a “ghost”, the cops wouldn’t do anything, and in a later story involving a stalker, Aoba feels that he got let off far too lightly. It’s noted that different officers respond to cases differently, and that’s certainly the case with our heroines.

By the end of this fist volume Midori seems to have taken it upon herself to ensure that Aoba maintains her idealistic demeanor, something that may be disrupted by the cliffhanger, which shows us that her old partner is returning to the school to reunite. (Please don’t be evil, please don’t be evil… she’s gonna be evil, isn’t she?) Gakuen Polizi is not going to win any awards for depth of yuri feelings. But it has more depth of character than I was expecting, and I hope its second volume continues to touch on how Aoba and Midori can bring out the best in each other as partners.

By Takaya Kagami, Yamato Yamamoto, and Daisuki Furuya. Released in Japan as “Owari no Seraph” by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Jump Square. Released in North America by Viz.

I’m always a little bit wary when I see more than two names on a book’s cover, particularly when it’s a manga and yet one of the names is credited for ‘storyboards’. I checked to see if this is based off of an anime or video game property, but apparently not. Its author does specialize in light novels, however, most recently Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi, which got an anime. The artist seems to specialize in adapting light novels as well, having drawn Kure-nai for Jump Square as well. And now we get Owari no Seraph, which already has its own spin-off light novel focusing on the commander we briefly see being an ass to our hero. The manga itself, though, focuses on three core people.

Of course, they aren’t the three people that you might expect when you pick up this volume. We meet our antisocial hero, Yu, as a young boy growing up in an orphanage along with several other children. They live in a world where vampires have taken over after a virus killed everyone over the age of thirteen. Together with his strategist best friend, Mika, and his likely love interest, Akane, he will find a way to fight back against those who… oh wait, everyone except him just died. Nevermind. What this is actually about is Yu four years later, forced by the military that he hooked up with upon escaping to attend school in order to cure his jerkass tendencies and make friends. And perhaps kill a few vampires along the way.

It’s hard to read this series and not be reminded a little of Attack on Titan. The vampires aren’t nearly as impossible to kill as the Titans, but that’s made up for by Yu’s berzerker rage whenever he sees them – he’s not quite as bad as Eren, but it’s a close thing. He’s also part of a friendship trio, though they don’t have the strong bond Eren, Mikasa and Armin do – at least not yet. Shinoa, who seems to be his minder, exists mostly to point out when he’s being stupid and watch him do it anyway. Yoichi is the stock earnest, bullied character, whose idealism will no doubt contrast with the cynical viewpoint of the other two. They’re all likeable, or at least will be once Yu sheds a lot of the walls he’s put up around him, which I suspect will happen soon.

Amongst this background, there’s some interesting worldbuilding (the world’s population has been decimated, so everyone is encouraged to repopulate the Earth – this is mostly an excuse to have Shinoa get away with calling Yu a virgin constantly), some well-choreographed fight scenes (perhaps this is where the storyboarder came in), and some disturbing horror, as you’d expect from a series where the vampires are, for once, the bad guys. Though the cliffhanger for this volume makes me wonder how long that villainy will truly last. If you like Attack on Titan, or maybe Blue Exorcist, another series which this seems similar to, give Seraph of the End a try – it’s a strong, solid first volume.

By Eiichiro Oda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

One Piece may go beyond the typical shonen manga most of the time, but that doesn’t mean it’s above many of the standard cliches. Being a Jump Manga, it is firmly in the cliche of “Friendship, training, Victory”. Oda is not above fanservice for fanservice’s sake either, as we see in the Gulliver’s Travels parody with Robin and the Tontattas. That said, when you read this volume and realize that Oda is beginning a Tournament Arc, it’s somewhat surprising to see that he waited this long. Technically, I suppose the Davy Back Fight may count as well, but no one really thinks of that anymore except to remember Afro Luffy. This one is clearly in it for the long haul, with dozens of named contestants, many of whom look to actually be important so we will have to try to remember them. Oh dear.

Most major arcs in One Piece start with a lot of stuff all happening at once, but Dressrosa’s arc manages to top that, as we’re also dealing with fallout from the last arc. Law is bringing Caesar Clown to Donflamingo for a hostage negotiation, and decides the best way to do this is for the Straw Hats to split up. Naturally, it takes about two seconds for everyone to go off and do their own thing, but hey, he tried. By the end of the volume Zoro is running through town with a Tontatta, getting lost as usual; Sanji has hooked up with a gorgeous woman who will no doubt take advantage of him but I suspect he doesn’t care; Franky is busy actually findning out about the plot and backstory needed for this arc (there’s something very odd about this being an Island of Toys, some of whom seem far too human); Nami, Chopper and brook are back on the ship having little to do (I hope more happens next time)…

And then we have the other two groups, who get the lion’s share of what’s going on. Law, Robin, Usopp and Caesar are headed for the rendezvous point, and increasingly are becoming aware this is a trap. They get split off even more when Usopp and Robin are captured by Tontattas, the One Piece version of Liliputians, who actually manage to achieve something major by forcing Robin to have pop-eyed reactions at their naivete. It’s still within the realm of human normal, but for Robin it’s the most emotive we’ve ever seen her, I think. As for Luffy, he’s disguised (poorly) as Lucy, a gladiator taking part in the tournament. As I said, we meet dozens of competitors (I suspect the gorgeous female fighter will be relevant later), but the most interesting is the return of one of Luffy’s earlier enemies. Remember that jerk that Luffy one-shot KO’d in Volume 25? Yes, Bellamy the Hyena is back, and he’s matured – Luffy even roots for him! He doesn’t win, but it’s always nice to see characters at least go from villainous to less villainous.

If there’s a drawback to this volume, it’s that there’s almost too much going on – I suspect I will enjoy it more when the arc is over and I can go back and find all the foreshadowing that I’m not picking up right now. But even a chaotic overcomplicated One Piece is still one of the best titles out there. Don’t stop yourself from picking this up.

By Bisco Hatori. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine LaLa DX. Released in North America by Viz Media.

This release of the third volume of Millennium Snow, along with an omnibus re-release of the first two volumes, gives us a unique glimpse into the world of manga publishing. Here we have a small series by an author which, halfway through, stopped for 10 years as suddenly a one-shot by the author blew up into a much MORE popular series (Ouran High School Host Club). After Ouran finished, the author returned to Millennium Snow, but brought with her ten extra years of talent and experience. What’s more, Viz has a similar arc – the first two volumes of this series came out seven years ago, but that was all there was until just last year, and it’s been long enough that they can’t rely on the buyer having the old volumes. So how does the older half of this supernatural shoujo series match up with the new volume?

Hatori admitted that she had a great deal of difficulty re-reading the old volumes to refamiliarize herself with the plot and characters, as she was taken aback by how poor it seemed to her now. I can see her point, though it’s certainly readable enough. The differences between the first chapter and one of the chapters in the third volume are startling. This can even be seen on the omnibus covers, as the three leads are drawn in a very sharp, angular style with wide mouths that is also typical of early Ouran, but which she gradually softened over the years. The cover to the third volume, with Toya lying on the ground being tortured and gorgeous, is far more mature – and also far prettier.

The changes don’t just limit themselves to the art, though. The first two volumes of this series are pretty good – I really love the heroine, Chiyuki, particularly after she recovers and starts to act like the energetic, snarky girl she’s always wanted to be. but you get the sense that Hatori wasn’t quite sure where she wanted to go with this series. Clearly it will end next volume with Toya and Chiyuki together for the next thousand years, as is fairly blatantly signposted from the start. However, the first half reads like a shoujo romance, with various young men coming into (or returning to) Chiyuki’s life to make things difficult for her and Toya. It’s told fairly well, but it’s pretty standard.

The third volumes switches gears, turning more towards an examination of Toya himself, as well as the supernatural world around him. Instead of potential boyfriends swarming around Chiyuki, we how have almost a yokai series, as Toya and Chiyuki investigate various supernatural events. Toya is also opening up his worldview, not just to Chiyuki but in general, and becoming less lonely as a result. It’s no coincidence that Satsuki, the werewolf boy who’s introduced as the main rival for Chiyuki in the early parts of the series, has a much smaller role in the third volume – there’s no real need for him to be there anymore.

Millennium Snow is a good read if you’re a fan of Hatori’s Host Club series, or like supernatural romances. But it’s also a great read because you see an artist return to a work she had to abandon for so long and not only pick up seamlessly where she left off, but raise it to a higher level. It’s not perfect (I just didn’t care for Yamimaru, whose cutesy accent didn’t help things), but it’s still above-average shoujo.

By Girls Und Panzer Project and Ryohichi Saitaniya. Released in Japan by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

I wasn’t sure what to think of this title when I first saw it. It’s based off of an anime, though the fact that the story is by a ‘Prroject’ team clearly says they had multimedia franchise planned from the start. It’s also a moe manga about tanks, and I had assumed it would be similar to Strike Witches, a moe anime about fighter planes. This time, though, the girls are not anthropomorphic personifications, there’s no horribly gratuitous fanservice, and the cuteness actually welds itself into the story with no great effort. By the end of Volume 1, I was surprised to see how much I had enjoyed reading it.

This is not to say that the premise is not inherently RIDICULOUS. In fact, its very ridiculousness was one of the things that appealed to me before I read it. It takes place in a world much like ours except that, similar to flower arranging and tea ceremony, tank driving is a feminine art that all proper young ladies must know. Our heroines form a tank team at their high school and engage in mock combats, all the while extolling the virtues of tanks. If you can’t buy into this premise, this is definitely not the manga for you. It’s also not shy about its fetishing of tanks – there’s minimal fanservice of the girls here, but that’s possibly due to the long, lingering shots of treads and turret guns we see here – for once, we may have a moe manga where the cute girls doing cute things is just a spice.

I understand that the anime follows Miho, the shy but determined girl who seems to have some sort of tragic tank backstory. In the manga, however, she’s more of the cool and awesome sempai of the group. The manga’s viewpoint character is Yukari, who likes tanks a WHOOOOOLE lot, to the point where she’s alienated all of her old classmates. Thus she is over the moon to be attending a school where she can gush about tanks and not be shunned (though the others do think she goes a bit overboard). Yukari is fun, a loud, energetic tank otaku who gets to react a lot, just what you like in a typical cute heroine. The rest of the main cast includes Saori, who is on the lookout for cute boyfriends; Hana, who is the yamato nadesico of the group, and Mako, who seems to be combining the emotionless stoic and the odd weirdo into one cast member. I like her best, probably.

As I said before, what I think I like most about this manga adaptation is that it doesn’t do what I expected (note: this is Volume 1. Future volumes may make me eat my words). There are no long nude bath scenes, no one is groping everyone else’s boobs, no one trips and falls over all the time. It’s just girls and tanks, and mock battles (with hopefully mock ammo – it’s never made clear how injury is avoided). More to the point, the fact that it’s not focusing on the obvious lead character – Miho – gives it a sort of off-kilter perspective I enjoyed quite a bit. It may become more cliched later on, but for now, if you like a gonzo premise, girls being pretty awesome, and don’t mind a lot of tank warfare, this is a title for you.

By Hikaru Suruga and Gun Snark (Nitroplus). Released in Japan as “Shingeki no Kyojin Gaiden – Kuinaki Sentaku” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Aria. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Given what the fandom is like, both in the West and in Japan, a spinoff of Attack on Titan featuring Levi is possibly the most obvious moneymaker in the history of time itself. He’s the most popular character by a factor of two over everyone else, and his backstory has not been covered by the main manga itself (though that may be changing soon). Based on a visual novel that was released with one of the DVDs, this manga tells the story of how Levi came to join the survey corps, what his motivations may have been, and his complicated relationship with Erwin Smith, the other lead character shown here.

Not that those are the only two characters. Levi is shown to be living in the underground slums as we open this volume, surviving with the help of some purloined vertical maneuvering gear and two other friends. The friends are a lot of fun. Isabel is young, full of spunk and energy, and a tomboy that Levi probably sees as a younger sister type. Furlan is more sensible, and seems to be the one with the plan the three of them come up with – Levi is a bit too pinpoint obsessed to really be far-thinking. The three of them make a very good team, both before and after they join the survey team. That said, the narrative is telegraphing Isabel and Furlan’s deaths by the end of the next volume, so I will be VERY surprised if they both make it past Volume 2.

The other half of the narrative is Erwin and his political machinations, which is something that we already get plenty of in the main story, but it’s always nice to see. The Survey Corps is constantly in danger of being dissolved, so he has to resort to scurrilous means of getting what he wants (including blackmail and threats). His recruitment of Levi and his friends is important – he needs people not only talented enough to kill titans, but driven enough to kill them. Levi certainly qualifies – the final battle with the titan at the end of this book is riveting, and shows off how talented Levi and his friends are in comparison to everyone else.

You could argue that Levi is a little too perfect and awesome, and you’d be right – but given this is a title dedicated to showing him off, and it runs in the shoujo magazine Aria, what did you expect? (Yes, No Regrets is a shoujo title. Shelve it next to Kitchen Princess.) There’s not only a lot of fast, thrilling action but scenes such as Levi getting dressed up in his ‘cleaning clothes’, which serves no point except to have the reader go ‘kyaa!’. You just roll with it, and you’ll find it’s a lot of fun. For those looking for other cast members, you won’t find many – Hange is here, but she only appears a couple of times and has no lines. But that’s OK, as Levi and Erwin can carry this on their own.

For Attack on Titan fans, particularly those who like Levi, this is a must-buy. For anyone else, it’s worth a shot – the Titans themselves only pop up towards the end, and most of the volume is devoted to setting up the odd mentor relationship between Erwin and Levi. It should end with Volume 2, so I’m expecting a lot of bad things to happen next time.

By Ichihei Ishibumi, Zero Miyama, and Hiroji Mishima. Released in Japan by Fujimi Shobo, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dragon Age. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Given that the front cover of this new series features a cute young woman with bat wings, and the back cover features that woman plus another one hugging a slightly drooling young man, you can possibly guess not only the genre of this series, but also the plot. It’s your classic harem comedy, with lots of added fantasy this time, where the goal is to see how many different types of women you can have fall in love with the hero without any actual fornication occurring (as even Dragon Age would likely pass on that). So given that, what does High School DxD offer that separates it from Haganai, or Haruhi Suzumiya, or Zero’s Familiar, etc.?

Issei, our hero, seems fairly typical. He’s more at the lecherous end of the scale, constantly going on about breasts and talking about the fact that his dream is to one day have his own harem. Typical loser high schooler, which is why it’s something of a surprise to see him on a date with a gorgeous beauty as the story opens. Who then grows huge black bird wings and stabs him through the chest with a spear made of light, killing him dead. Luckily, he’s in the right series, as he manages to get resurrected and turned into a devil by Rias, the queen of the school and also, as it turns out, a devil. He’s now recruited to her team, along with several other stereotypes, in order to grant wishes for people in exchange for a price.

There’s a bit of discussion of Angels, Fallen Angels and Devils, and, as is typical with Japanese manga that discusses wars between Heaven and Hell, the narrative is firmly on the side of the devils. To be fair, our villains are all carefully chosen to be ‘Fallen’ – a Fallen Angel and an excommunicated exorcist – But I’m fairly certain that when the Angels themselves are introduced, we’ll be seeing them as the enemy as well. I was less impressed with the discussion of Sacred Gears, which is essentially the superpower that each devil has. Humans have them too, and it’s noted that all the really famous people through history are famous because of their Sacred Gear, rather than through, y’know, actual human effort. I’ve always disliked this school of thought, and didn’t like seeing it here.

There is a LOT of fanservice here, as you would expect. Rias is naked quite often through this volume, and does not appear to be remotely embarrassed about Issei seeing her naked body. We also have Akeno, a classic yamato nadesico type who turns out to be a sadist deep down (another common trait in hentai manga, and thus in this toned down harem variant), and Koneko, an Ayanami Rei clone. Interestingly, the last member of our team so far is Kiba, who is male, and reminds me of Koizumi Itsuki from Haruhi a whole hell of a lot, right down to Issei constantly denigrating him in his narration. I assume Kiba will NOT be joining Issei’s harem, though I could be surprised.

At the end of this volume, notably, Issei has not saved the day even once, and his power is shown to be so low that everyone boggles at it. This will change. It’s that sort of story. Not sure if we’ll add victim of the volume to the harem team (she’d fit right in, being a clumsy nun sort of character), but we will no doubt find out in the next volume. As for the series itself, it’s recommended to those who like harem fanservice series with a light fantasy tinge, though given the pages expended on worldbuilding here, the fantasy may be more important than I expect.

Also, I have no idea what the DxD is supposed to mean.

The Darkest Night Vol 1 by Earithen and Gena Showalter

available at: https://www.emanga.com/detail?itemid=1397

Usually when I read Harlequin manga, I haven’t read the books they’ve been adapted from, but in this case I have read a few volumes of Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld series before trying out the manga adaptation. As you might expect from the title, this is a contemporary paranormal romance. Ashlyn is hanging out in Hungary, intrigued by local rumors that angels live in a mysterious castle in the woods. She’s tormented by her psychic abilities and is seeking peace. She’s been alone almost all her life due to her psychic powers, and was raised as a bit of a lab rat as opposed to growing up with a normal family. Alone in the woods, Ashiyn encounters a tall, dark, brooding, and handsome man who seems to enjoy lurking about while carrying a variety of weaponry. Ashlyn thinks that Maddox is extremely hot despite the blood he is splattered with, and she notices that the voices in her head go quiet when she’s near him. True love!!!!

Maddox takes Ashlyn back to his castle, only for her to discover that his large group of roommates are also equally hot and tormented. It turns out that they are suffering various eternal conditions due to a curse, and each embody a negative so Maddox has to be chained up and killed every night, only to be resurrected the following day. Even for someone familiar with the source material, there’s too much backstory to be contained in just one manga volume, and the explanations of the Hunters the Lords of the Underworld fight, the women that tempt them, and something about Pandora’s box sort of derail any forward momentum with the plot and make the motivations of the characters a bit opaque. I don’t remember this being quite as much of an issue in the novel, so I think it is just very difficult to shoehorn that much worldbuilding into the number of pages allowed by the manga format.

The adaptation by Earithen is good, with distinct character designs for all the Lords of the Underworld. Maddox looks appropriately tormented and Ashlyn is charming and innocent. I was amused by the number of panels where Maddox totes Ashlyn around by balancing her on one of his arms. There are a few panels here and there with awkward poses, but for the most part the art is better than usual for a Harlequin manga adaptation. I feel like generally historical or contemporary Harlequin manga get translated into English a bit more often than paranormals, so it is nice to see emanga branching out a bit more into various romance subgenres.