Reviews

By Ikumi Katagiri and Ai Ninomiya. Released in Japan by Ichijinsha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Zero-Sum. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I have often joked in the past about how North American licensors will pick up any manga with the word ‘Vampire’ in the title. It’s now looking as if that may apply to two other genres that are exploding over here: Alice in Wonderland pastiches, and survival games. Alice in the Country of Hearts sells quite well, and BTOOOM!/High School Of The Dead/Battle Royale/Doubt stuff has been in Yen’s wheelhouse for some time. As such, this book may be one of the least surprising licenses of all time. Shame it’s so dull.

In its favor, the book does seem to get the dreamlike atmosphere and the sense that it would make more sense if only you could figure out the rules of the world. It’s also drawn quite well, with lots of pretty boys being crafty and/or manacing while looking really hot. (This ran in Zero-Sum, one of those “BL only not really” magazines Japan has.) Unlike Alice from the ‘Country Of’ series, this Alice seems to have a very clear awareness of his past in the real world, and is quite willing to do anything to escape it. That said, he’s running into problems, mostly as everyone else in this world is so smug and aggravating.

I’ve read books that start off with everyone being unlikeable before, but never have I had such a sense that this is where they’re going to be in 5-6 books time. And Alice is 7+ volumes and still running in Japan, so that’s quite an investment to have in these guys. For a lead character, Alice sure does come across as a whiny brat. The Mad Hatter’s stoicness seems more like malaise, the Cheshire Cat is amazingly two-faced… I did like The Duchess, but not only does it look like we won’t see much more of her, but it’s somewhat aggravating that the only female character in the entire series is the one placed in peril, and indeed Alice is specifically told “Your weapon cannot protect her, it can only kill”.

But my biggest problem with the series is that 200 pages later, I’m still not really sure where this is going beyond a cat and mouse game. Alice has to kill the White Rabbit in order to stay in this land (presumably Wonderland, though the backgrounds look more like an Italian cityscape than any Wonderland I’ve seen before), but they don’t meet here, so there’s no emotional investment behind it. Indeed, Alice doesn’t seem emotionally invested in much of anything, which is fine if you’re bouncing off a bunch of freaks and weirdos in the cast (say, like the Country Of series), but in a series like this where everyone else is equally detached, it leaves the reader with nothing to grab.

If I was a BL fanfic writer, I’d probably love this series. There’s lots of hot pretty guys who could get into a relationship, and none of that pesky character development that makes writing canon fics harder. They’re just two-dimensional enough to make flesh9ing out an appealing choice. I hope that in future volumes the authors might also try to do something with them, because for now, this is all flash, no substance.

By Isao Miura and Kotaro Yamada. Released in Japan as “Seiken no Katanakaji” by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Alive. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

In general, the review of Sacred Blacksmith is simple. This is a fantasy manga that takes place in a world recovering from a Demon war, which features girls with swords, bandits, elf-girl companions, etc. If you like fantasy like that, this is probably right up your alley. It doesn’t seem to have too much problematic content so far – the hero completely and utterly outclasses the heroine, but she also gets her share of badass things to do. If I have any complaints, it’s that I wasn’t really ‘wowed’ by anything in it – “a pretty good read” is not a bad thing, but doesn’t add up to 500 words very often.

There is the old standard “the anime changed things and made male fans hate the girl more” discussion, which I’ve used before in talking about Zero’s Familiar. Cecily as seen in the manga is an OK swordswoman who gets by on guts a lot, but doesn’t back away from an enemy and has a few badass moments towards the end of the volume. In the anime, I’m led to understand, she’s a lot less competent, because… well, no idea. She’s also a tsundere, and we know how much male Western fandom hates them. The manga at one point does the “it’s my fault I’m naked in front of you but I’m embarrassed so will hit you anyway” standard, and I was amused that Luke immediately called her on this.

As for Luke, he clearly has a tragic past, and does not suffer fools gladly, but at least isn’t outright horrible to Cecily, possibly as this isn’t a shoujo manga. His familiar Lisa is there to be adorable, and she is indeed cute as a button. The art is also very good at showing the awfulness of the demonic casting, and several scenes made me wince as people were basically possessed (and sometimes consumed) by monsters. There’s sort of a tense peace going on as the book begins, and the plot is no doubt going to be attempting to stop that peace.

There’s also a lot of discussion of katanas, which are unknown to this fantasy world that is no doubt supposed to be Western Europe. Lisa even has a long, mostly textual discussion at the end of the book on how they are made and why they are superior to straight Western swords. The katana is a nice weapon, but there’s just a touch of ‘and this is why Japan is better’ to the whole thing (not that this is exclusive to this series – off the top of my head, Attack on Titan is doing similar things as well). The action scenes are solid as well, which speaks well to the artist. I never had to go back and reread to figure out what was happening.

So while there’s nothing really wrong with Sacred Blacksmith after one volume, I’m not sure it has enough oomph to really excite me either. It seems like the authors are making tick boxes on a ‘fantasy anime franchise’ checklist. Hopefully a second volume will give me a bit more to chew on.

By Mitsuru Hattori. Released in Japan as “Sankarea” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

I have been running into the same sort of problem lately with many new manga, even though most of them are completely different on the face of it. They all seem to boil down to the same thing when I review them, which is “quite readable and even better than I expected, the big downside being crushing unoriginality”. This probably does the title a disservice, as originality, particularly in recent Japanese manga, is what DOESN’T sell. In general, what readers want is “something familiar with a slightly new spin on it”. And Sankarea provides that in a perfectly readable way.

I should note that the cover you’re seeing is one created by the artist especially for the North American market. The original Japanese cover just has Rea staring at the reader in that sort of cute seductive ‘girl posing’ way, with absolutely nothing to suggest what the content within is like. Except, of course, the title, which is a play on words based off of a very popular zombie movie (seen over here as Zombi 2, and one of the most terrifying movies of the late 70s, if I recall.) Kodansha decided that they’d need more than ‘generic cute girl staring at reader’ to sell this, so asked for the more… gruesome shot. I approve. It’s a better cover.

As for the content, it’s mostly a fairly standard romantic comedy. Nice if somewhat weird hero, who has a cousin who’s busty and secretly likes him, as well as a younger sister who’s an emotionless stoic. At his all-boys school, we see him with his two friends, one of whom is girl-crazy and overdramatic, the other pleasant and unmemorable. They are most impressed by the perfect Japanese princess girl who’s going to the all-girls’ school across the river, who is gorgeous and popular. Except that it turns out she has a secret, which our hero quickly finds out.

So far so boring, but it’s the nature of the secret, and the nature of our hero’s weirdness, that perks things up. Rea’s father is not so much possessive as disturbing. We don’t see a lot of him in this volume, but given she’s talking about him taking nude pictures of her and his increasing paranoia at Rea being touched by other men, I think Daddy’s shaping up to be our main villain here, with a side of incestuous creeper. (To the book’s credit, this ISN’T played for laughs at all – after all, he’s not an older brother.) As for Chihiro, he’s trying to resurrect his dead cat using a magic potion that turns things into zombies. Which is presented as mildly eccentric – he’s a normal guy at heart, he just wants to bring back his cat. From there, things start to go desperately wrong.

Rea is probably the best part of the title – she’s written very well. Her sheltered upbringing is warring with her desperate Attempts to get away from her father’s smothering. Her immediate attraction to Chihiro could be read as romantic, but could also be read as a little bit unnerving – fitting for a title like this. Her zombification (yeah, sorry if I spoiled that for you, as if the cover didn’t) reads almost like a rite of passage – she demands Chihiro “accept responsibility” in a seductive voice, equating death/resurrection with loss of virginity.

The question is which direction this goes in. If it continues to do fanservice and comedy (and there is quite a bit of fanservice – particularly from Chihiro’s cousin Ranko), I’m not sure it would keep my attention. But there’s a lot of potential for both depth and darkness here. If it manages to mine those two veins, Sankarea could be a real winner.

By Naoko Takeuchi. Released in Japan as “Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

First off, this review has spoilers for the volume, as it’s kind of hard to discuss it without them. Second, this volume is a first for me. I’d never seen the dubbed Sailor Moon anime, and for the most part always read the manga before I saw the subbed anime – probably one reason I like the manga so much. Stars is the one exception, and I worried that I would inevitably find the manga wanting, as I seemed to when I first read it years ago. And to be fair, there is a bit of ‘let’s drag this out for one more apocalypse’ to the story. I also found it hideously rushed, even more so than usual for Takeuchi, but am putting that down to seeing the anime first. All that said, there’s still piles of stuff I want to talk about.

I always recalled this being the most depressing arc, and there is certainly a lot of bleakness and death. But I liked how the volume began with everyone happy and content. Minako has now joined the others in high school (Rei is still at her private school), and everyone’s getting involved in club activities and various things that aren’t being senshi. It’s peaceful days, folks. Also, the introduction of the Three Lights leaves room for humor, particularly Yaten’s catty remarks to Michiru, leaving her in a rare instance of losing her cool. And much as I find Chibi-Chibi as puzzling as the rest of the cast, I was amused at everyone’s attempts to figure out who the hell she was.

And now on to the trauma. This is a vicious volume of Sailor Moon, probably the worst to date. By the end of the volume, all the senshi bar Sailor Moon are either dead or presumed dead. Indeed, Mercury and Jupiter get taken out so early they barely get a chance to appear. What’s more, these deaths look deadly, if you’ll pardon the expression. Takeuchi uses the same “flesh melting off” death mask she’s used before when minor villains are dispatched, and having it happen to folks like Mars or Venus seems wrong. Worst of all is Mamoru, who’s killed in front of Usagi at the airport, something so trauma-inducing that she blocked it out for months afterwards. And while Seiya and the others do note that if the Senshi Star Seeds survive, they can be reborn, it honestly feels like he’s talking about reincarnation. Or heaven.

Mars and Venus do get a few cool things to do before they’re dispatched. Rei infiltrates Minako’s school, a nice mirror to the short story where Minako did the reverse – or at least it would be if the re-release didn’t shuffle the short stories off to the end. They draw out the Three Lights, amusingly, by Minako going over the top about finding herself a man. Yaten calls her on this, noting that their duties to Usagi mean there will never be room for love in their lives (Minako in particular has heard this before – see Code Name: Sailor V). Minako smirks, and admits that this is true. She then leans into Rei and notes that the two of them have no use for men. It’s meant to be “duty over love” and threatening the Lights, but can easily be read as homoerotic if one chooses. And many do.

Speaking of senshi in general, one interesting thing going on here is the use of innocents from other planets as a sort of “failed Senshi” – their planets were destroyed by Galaxia and they’re being brainwashed/forced into attacking Earth. It’s interesting because of the Lights’ insistence that they’re all just as genuine as our heroines – on another planet, for example, Iron Mouse was Sailor Chu (yes, yes – it’s Nakayoshi, folks). Tying Lead Crow into Phobos and Deimos and Tin Nyanko into the cats thus works even better – I loved Luna’s accusation to Tin Nyanko that she’s defiling Planet Mau’s ‘One True Hero”, Sailor Mau. The Sailor Moons of other worlds are being used to kill off the cast of Sailor Moon. Which is really horrible if you think about it.

Even more than previous volumes, I find this one works best when you immerse yourself in it rather than try to understand each nuance. There’s too much going on here. But for the Sailor Moon fan, there are always so many rewards that the experience is never dull. It all ends next volume (except for the short stories).

By Nagaru Tanigawa and Puyo. Released in Japan as “Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoushitsu” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press.

This volume of Nagato Yuki-chan is pretty much impossible to review without spoiling the major plot twist that happens in the first chapter, be warned.

So, when we last left Yuki, she was about to be hit by a car, ending our cute little AU spinoff before it really began. Luckily, it doesn’t do major physical damage. That said, there’s something… odd about Yuki after the accident, which Ryouko, being the perfect best friend and oneesama, figures out right off the bat. Yuki seems more serious, speaks more precisely, isn’t a giant goofball, and acts more like another Nagato Yuki that readers may be far more familiar with. Yes, that’s right, this series that is an AU spinoff of a movie where Kyon crossed over into a world where Yuki was a shy adorable human is now crossing back over with the canon and dealing with a very different Nagato.

Please note that nowhere in the actual text does it say this. Indeed, there’s very little ‘explanation’ given at all. Yuki has an alternate personality due to the accident, which acts much like Nagato from the main Haruhi series, and everything resolves at the end of the volume with a similar lack of explanation – her mind re-orients itself and Nagato essentially says goodbye. Indeed, some may argue it’s not the canon Nagato due to the amount of emotions shown by this version – ranging from embarrassment at her stomach growling to a full-on body blush when Ryouko suggests that she may be in love with Kyon. But then again, Nagato in canon is an alien whose emotional growth is deliberately stunted by her masters. Here, she’s in a real human body and has no such tethers. So dealing with these feelings makes sense.

More to the point, Ryouko and Kyon’s reactions to this new Nagato are pitch perfect (Haruhi and Koizumi are conveniently absent for tests, so this book is pretty much just Kyon, Nagato and Ryouko). They’re both worried about what’s happened to Yuki, but both instinctively realize – even if Kyon’s much better at expressing it – that this Nagato is also her own person and shouldn’t just be treated as a clone or as if she’s “taken over” Yuki’s body. (Ryouko worries even more than usual here – also, great meta-joke about her saying she’ll just stab Kyon to relieve her stress.) There is a lack of conflict here that in most series would serve to make things rather boring – but this is the light and fluffy Suzumiya Haruhi spinoff, so it makes sense that there’s no accusations or attempts to return Yuki to her head – just calm acceptance, patience, and watching Nagato grow as a character of her own – to the point that she also falls head over heels for Kyon.

I’m not sure what the fallout from all this will be – whether Yuki will have memories of the time she spent as Nagato (it seems unlikely from what little we see) or whether Kyon will be able to deal with a love confession that wasn’t really – but I will admit that this volume really is a major step forward by Puyo, and the best in the series. Which is still light and frothy, but now deals with its characters on a level equal to its source.

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

Note: this is only available digitally right now.

As I have mentioned before, sports manga and North American have a very iffy relationship, with none of the contenders really hitting the heights of Naruto or One Piece sales. That said, there’s a lot of sports manga out there, and I’ll give credit to Viz (and let’s be honest, it’s pretty much just Viz, unless I count Sasameke, WHICH I DON’T) for continuing to experiment with them. Especially as such series are HUGE in Japan, and tend to run and run. Slam Dunk was 31 volumes, Eyeshield 21 was 37. Kuroko’s Basketball is 20+, and continues to succeed despite terrorist threats (though it’s sadly not licensed here, possibly as Slam Dunk is still ongoing.) And of course we’ve had Cross Game on the Sunday side of the fence.

And now we have Cross Manage, one of Viz’s ‘we’ll try a new weekly series and see if it dies in 2 volumes’ attempts they’ve had recently, and easily the most successful, given it actually seems to have survived the most recent round of cancellations in Japan. I particularly like the cover, which has Toyoguchi’s beaming face (and oh boy, does it beam – sometimes her face gets so happy it’s almost surreal) right in the foreground and Sakurai’s passive gaze in the background. Because this is about a female lacrosse team, and Sakurai is signed up/blackmailed into being their manager.

There’s a lot to love here. Toyoguchi is just great, being a perky, naive girl who looks like she could burst into a Disney song at any moment, but is also fueled by pure determination and smiles just as widely when threatening to tell everyone our hero accidentally groped her. She’s so relentlessly upbeat and caring that when Hayami shows up and attempts to guilt-trip Toyoguchi into letting Sakurai return to the soccer team (and her arms), not only does Toyoguchi not get it, but the other girl finds herself automatically trying to comfort and reassure her. That needs to be weaponized somehow.

Then there’s the team itself, which is made up of…. drum roll please… girls with all sorts of body types! Yes, the other main girl we get to know is the tall butch tomboy, but we also see pudgy girls, and tiny girls, and girls that sort of look like Sumiyoshi in Excel Saga. And they’re some of the best players. I like the fact that the team is not going to be used simply as an excuse to see a lot of hot girls changing constantly (imagine if the Cage of Eden artist drew this manga… *shudder*) and hope we get to know everyone better. And, of course, we have a classic Bad News Bears team – they’re newbies, with some ra2w skills, but mostly horrible, and they get curbstomped in their first match.

As for Sakurai, our hero, the goal of the first volume is to get him to rediscover the passion he lost to a knee injury, and mission accomplished. He’s a fairly subdued and diligent young man, which contrasts nicely with Toyoguchi’s perkiness and the hotheads and airheads that are also on the team. I think he’ll be an excellent manager, provided the soccer girl doesn’t pry him away. Not that she has any chance… she has ‘unsuccessful rival girl’ written all over her.

I’m pumped to see more of this series – its mood is pretty infectious, and it makes me want to learn more about lacrosse. Roll on Vol. 2!

By Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and GAINAX. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Viz Media.

Well, the party’s over. As if it weren’t obvious from the events at the end of the previous omnibus, the light and fluffy ‘everyone is slightly more tolerable’ manga antics end here, as these three volumes are a brutal kick in the teeth reminding us over and over again that humanity is desperately fighting to survive… and that most of the people in charge actually have a different agenda OTHER than fighting to survive. And, just as we finally add our last major cast member, we also get the first of our major cast deaths. There will be more.

The Evangelion fandom doesn’t use “I mustn’t run away” as a meme for no good reason. This volume sees Shinji in a constant cycle of attempting to flee from his destiny and the responsibilities being thrown at him, and constantly being drawn back as he’s unable to just let everyone else get annihilated. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he gets to accomplish anything here – he returns, but is basically “sat in the corner” by his father, who punishes him by having him watch everyone get annihilated without his help ANYWAY. The manga is less emotive than the anime, with characters at times seeming to underreact to horrible crises, but that’s unsurprising – the pace of the manga is such that there is a state of constant danger, and I imagine after a while the senses just get numbed.

There’s a lot of backstory here. Kaji’s is designed to make him both more likeable and more vulnerable. For all that we like to pretend that we wouldn’t crack under the threat of death, the reality is that we probably would. And so much of Kaji’s life has revolved around finding out the real reason that things happened the way they did – an attempt to expose what led to his own actions. Shinji at one point notes that Misato still loves him, and indeed he’s clearly in love with her, but these are two people, like the rest of the cast, who are unable to grasp at the happiness that could be theirs. As for the other flashback, Fuyutsuki seems to be the perfect “follower”, and Gendo seems even worse than we’d originally suspected. As for Yui, I suspect that she’s being idolized in the memories of both Fuyutsuki and Shinji when we see her, but I agree that it’s easy to see Gendo could have genuinely loved her.

And then there’s Asuka and Rei. I’ve said before that I find manga Asuka far more likeable, and the counter argument to that is that she’s involved in the manga plotline so much less than in the anime, so doesn’t get the time to be irritating. Asuka’s backstory is also shown to us, which is bad news for her, as backstory in this manga is always followed by trauma. Asuka’s attempts to take out the Angel are interrupted by it raping her – yes, yes, mentally, but given that she screams “don’t come inside me” at one point, I think the distinction is fairly irrelevant here. It’s the most horrific we’ve ever seen the Angel attacks, and she comes away from it basically comatose. Rei, meanwhile, is struggling with a distance growing between her and Gendo as she and Shinji grow closer. Ritsuko seems to realize that Rei is growing more human and less doll-like, something that nearly drives her to murder. This, naturally, leads up to the cliffhanger for this omnibus, showing Rei’s “last stand”.

As for Kaworu, it’s interesting that he arrives right as Kaji departs, given his presence as “the mole”. He’s shipped with Shinji a bit harder than in the anime, with Shinji’s “have some sense of personal space” going unheeded. And the scene with the kitten shows a somewhat unbreakable wall between his own value system and that of the First Child. Nevertheless, you can even see Kaworu getting caught up in the struggle against the Angels, and wonder if he’s oing to be a double/triple/quadruple agent the way Kaji was.

The plot may be going places I don’t want it to go, but the writing is still top notch, with a complete inability to put the book down. The news that the manga will end with Chapter 95 in June means that this is likely to be 5 omnibuses (14 volumes) long, and thus this volume begins the second half of the story. It’ll be hard to make things even more tense after this, but I’m sure we’ll find a way.

By Noboru Yamaguchi and Nana Mochizuki. Released in Japan as “Zero no Tsukaima” by Media Factory, serialized in the magazine Comic Alive. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

I must admit to disappointment. Again. Not with the manga itself. Zero’s Familiar actually turned out to be much better than I’d given it credit for. No, I’m disappointed with anime and manga fans, who once again have labeled a young tsundere love interest as “the worst person ever, and deserving of all the epithets thrown at her!”. I found that she’s just a normal teenager with far too much going on in her life, a spoiled background, an entire class of students calling her a failure, and her familiar is not only a disrespectful commoner, but he also tries to molest her in her sleep at one point after thinking they’d grown close enough. Honestly, I felt the most sympathy with Louise through most of this omnibus. I’m sure I will hear, as I have with Ranma 1/2 and Love Hina and other harems featuring love interests men hate, “BUT IN THE ANIME” and “SHE NEEDS TO BE NICER TO HIM” and the usual chatter. And indeed, she may be worse in the anime and in the light novels, neither of which I know. But for now, my experiment to find a harem tsundere who’s genuinely loathsome and not hyper-exaggerated by fandom continues.

I suppose I should actually get around to reviewing the manga. The basic premise cries out for crossover fanfiction – indeed, I understand there’s more Zero’s Familiar crossovers in fanfiction than there are stories with the hero. The aforementioned Louise (who *is* a spoiled brat who tends to hit Saito in frustration whenever she’s upset or embarrassed, in case people thought I read the wrong manga) is at a magic school somewhere in Fantasy Europe, trying to summon her familiar – a lifelong spell that can only be done once. To everyone’s surprise, she summons Saito, a young Japanese high school student. this is not the usual frog or owl. This is unfortunate, as Louise is well-known for being a failure as a witch, and this only expands her reputation. Now Saito has to get used to living as a familiar in a magical world, and gradually accumulate girls who fall in love with him, as this is a standard harem series. No worries, though, he’ll end up with Louise. This is not a GROUNDBREAKING harem series, after all.

Indeed, the lack of originality is the series’ main failing. Louise and Saito are straight out of the stock cliche factory, though Saito is a bit more of a smartmouth than I’m used to, and also more of a lech – that scene where he said “you smiled at me, so I assumed you loved me and we could cuddle” made my jaw drop. We get the shy young maid, the busty rival, the stoic Ayanami clone. The villains especially disappoint by being lampshaded – I think the story would have had more suspense had the two bad guys not been signposted as “SECRET BAD GUY HERE”. Particularly the mustachio’d guy. Guys with mustaches in harem manga are evil, ESPECIALLY if they’re also fiancees.

But there’s stuff here to like. The series has a good feel for humor, knowing when to be funny and when to be serious, and the comedic violence that so offends young male anime fans is actually fairly mild compared to what I had been expecting. I like the backstory and world building going on, showing it’s not just a magic school divorced from the outside world. I also liked Henrietta, who shows us that it’s not everyone vs. Louise after all, and provides a good female friend for her. And the entire action scene with the Staff of Destruction’ was fantastic, and added intrigue as you wondered how the heck it got there.

I’d still only read this if you happen to like harem series with tsunderes, but if you do enjoy that genre, this should be right up your alley, and I find myself surprisingly wanting more. Also, that cover reminds me that every Japanese fanart we got of “Hermione Granger” back in the day seems to have been Louise instead – and that this story deserves the title “Harem Potter” more than Negima ever did.