Reviews

Created by Ken Akamatsu, manga by YUI. Released in Japan as “Negiho (Ito) Bun” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Some of you may recall that this is actually the 2nd Negima spinoff. Negima Neo came out in seven volumes, and was essentially a cuter, more comedic Negima with most of the action and threats to our heroes removed. Somewhere down the road, though, some editor at Kodansha must have decided that this was simply not adorable enough, and came up with this. I assume they asked Akamatsu, and he looked up from where he was creating the actual Negima manga and nodded vaguely. And so we have Negiho, which takes place in a universe where Negi and Kotaro are young adult men teaching a class of 31 five-year-old girls.

I will be fair, this series was not nearly as creepy as it sounded. There are no panty shots of pre-pubescents throughout, which I was kind of expecting. And no one gets their clothes sneezed off, mostly as magic doesn’t seem to exist here. Asuna has a giant crush on Negi, who hits her ‘older man’ buttons this time around, but it’s clearly the crush of a 5-year-old girl on a teacher, and is never meant to be serious except in a ‘look at how freaked out she’s getting’ sort of way. There’s even stickers in the front of the book! Of course, the book is still rated OT, probably because of the chapter where Asuna and Ayaka try to make their non-existent breasts grow so they can seduce their teacher… Have I mentioned it’s hard giving Japan the benefit of the doubt sometimes?

The main reason this manga exists is for the comedy. Characterization attempts to happen, and a lot of the characters are sort of like their canon selves (Setsuna still crushes on Kanoka, Kaede is a ninja, Chao invents things) but are basically slaves to the gags. Heck, gag humor is actually the point of Chachamaru this time around, who has decided that the best way to become closer to the rest of her class is to be a manzai comedian. I will give credit to the Nibleys, who as translators had to deal with this and try to work out Chachamaru’s terrible Japanese jokes and turn them into terrible English jokes. The endnotes are also helpful here, mostly as even translated it still feels that we’re missing something.

Then there are the characters who don’t translate to ‘adorable preschoolers’ so well, and that’s Evangeline. Which is ironic, given she’s an undead vampire with the body of a 10-year-old in the original. But here, in the body of a 5-year-old, she doesn’t have the ability to be evil or malicious in any successful way, and instead merely becomes the buttmonkey of the entire series. Which, in a series with Asuna in it, is impressive. That said, I suspect the number of Negima fans who thought “I like Evangeline, but wish she wasn’t as awesome and terrifying and did more anteater impressions” numbers in the single digits.

There were one of two other things I sort of smiled at – it’s nice to see Rakan and Theodora get married in some continuity, even if it isn’t the main one, and Konoka and Setsuna’s attempts at death metal are possibly the funniest thing in the book. But at the end of the day, I came away wondering who this was written for? I can’t imagine fans of the original, especially in the West, being enthralled by preschool comedy adventures. And the romance and occasional sexual gags means it’s not for kids either. Even the artist, in his afterword, notes that this series had a lot of flaws. If you love everything Negima, give it a shot. It didn’t actively offend me most of the time, but it’s pretty inconsequential.

Also, how are a 5-year-old Chao and Hakase building Chachamaru anyway? Did anyone think this through at all?

By Yumi Unita. Released in Japan as “Usagi Drop” by Shodensha, serialized in the magazine Feel Young. Released in North America by Yen Press.

This review contains spoilers for this volume. Please avoid discussing future Bunny Drop volumes in the comments.

So, right around the time Bunny Drop 3 was released in North America, you may have noticed a very quiet panic on the part of those following the Japanese release, as many fans tried to freak out while simultaneously not spoiling anything. Which is sort of impossible. I mean, what do you say? “You know that series on heartwarming parenting you read? Aaaaagh! But I can’t say why.” You know, the mind can only go to a few obvious places. I haven’t seen Vol. 9 yet, which should be out here in late summer, but I have a sneaking suspicion I know how things are going to turn out. Let’s delve.

When we last left Rin, she was pondering her future. And more importantly, pondering a future without Daikichi in it. Meanwhile, the two relationships that the reader had maybe hoped might happen – Rin and Kouki, and Daikichi and Kouki’s mom – are both torpedoed big time, and indeed Kouki’s mother is getting remarried to someone else in this volume. Kouki is trying to handle this with aplomb, but only partly succeeding – this time, rather than throw a fit, he simply flees to Rin’s house. But this is the typical reaction of a son. Rin doesn’t have to deal with something like that – Daikichi’s social life is still as empty as ever – but she’s still pondering her future.

She’s also getting into fights with Daikichi, and chafing rather uncomfortably at his continued parenting of her. It’s clear that she wants to be free of that role. They get into a fight regarding her contact with her mother (which is quietly resolved here, with Rin basically settling things in her heart) and her mother’s new baby, something she kept from Daikichi as she knew he’d freak out. Which he does. These two still clearly love each other deeply, but Rin is growing up, and they are moving into previously untouched arenas.

Which brings us to Rin’s own love life. Honestly, Rin’s realization of who she loves isn’t as interesting to me as Rin’s complete horror when trying to date someone else. Her attempted date with Yasuhara is the best part of the book to me, a trainwreck that she doesn’t want but can’t quite get out of. Rin is so passive much of the time that it’s great to see her struggling, and her facial expressions here are a stitch. But of course, Rin has realized who she’s in love with. And is dealing with that fact that it’s, well, impossible. And by the end of the volume, Kouki is pretty sure about it too, and (confronted once again with a problem he can’t really do much about) he flees.

The topic is being handled maturely, and it’s not meant to be saucy or titillating. But with all its ups and downs, what the reader takes away from Bunny Drop 8 is “Oh crap, Rin’s in love with her adopted father!” (Anna Russell voice) She’s his aunt, by the way. A story that began with an unconventional family forming looks like it may end (Vol. 9 is the final ‘story’ volume, though there is a Vol. 10 with short stories from across Rin’s life) with yet another unconventional family. And I’m pretty sure we all feel more uncomfortable about it than the author intended. But let’s see what the next book brings.

(This review shamelessly spoils the entire volume.)

And so Negima ends, at least for now. This volume gives me very complicated feelings. It starts off with some of the most teeth-grindingly annoying chapters we’ve had in ages. We then get possibly some of the best chapters in the entire series. And it all ends with a flashforward that answers everything we didn’t really want answered, avoids answering things we did, and undercuts the moral that it had just given several pages earlier. In short, while there’s a ton to adore here, this volume is… a bit of a mess.

Let’s start off with the end of the Battle Royale to beat Negi up for toying with girl’s hearts. Which only gets worse when the cheerleaders manage to force out of him that he does have romantic feelings for someone. The fact that Negi is way underage (as are all the girls, really, but 15 isn’t really all that underage in terms of fandom shipping, whereas ten is) has been a point of contention throughout the entire series, with many fans finding the fact that people are making jokes about seducing Negi vaguely discomfiting. As such, laying it all out in the open makes it even worse, since it’s clear from the writing (good on Akamatsu showing this) that Negi simply isn’t mature enough to handle something like this. It really makes the reader dislike characters like Yuna (who I quite like apart from this) and Haruna (who I don’t really like much at all, to be fair) who keep pressing things, especially as it’s all done just so they can have another melee chase sequence and a gratuitous last-minute pactio.

We then get the sequence with Asuna. This is the polar opposite of what I talked about above. It’s subtle, well-handled, and almost perfect. Asuna says that she’s come to terms with being a magic ‘battery’ for 100 years (which everyone thinks will erase her personality, by the way), but coming out of it in the future and discovering that yes, indeed, everyone is dead by now is absolutely devastating for her. The emotions in the scene where she reads the time capsule are amazing, and it makes the climax (and sudden appearance of the two obvious characters to suddenly appear) even more awesome.

There was some controversy about the ‘easy’ resolution to Asuna’s fate when this first came out, mostly as Western shonen manga fans are always desperate for a ‘dark, unhappy’ ending for some reason I can’t quite figure out except they’re all teenagers or something. I was very happy with it, mostly as it made perfect sense given everything we’ve seen before. Negima has abused time travel shamelessly ever since Chao was introduced, why shouldn’t it resolve the entire thing by using time travel? It makes everyone happy, solves the ‘how do we get enough magical power for 100 years’ question, and is a giant emotional pile of tears. Win all around, this part of the manga was fantastic.

Right after Asuna’s return, when Negi and everyone else are asking future-Eva and Chao about what happens from now on, Eva points out that the future is a blank page, and that they don’t have to rely on knowing what will happen. And I really wish Akamatsu had taken his own advice. He says that this is ‘one possible ending’ and that ‘this world is possibly the happiest’ – though given only 7 years or so have gone by, it still has a ways to go. And, well, it ‘ship sinks’ the four main fan pairings. Now, to be fair, harem manga, especially lately, are well-known for having inconclusive endings. Authors and editors don’t want to upset fans who are invested in one particular girl, so they like to leave things vague. That said, we still don’t know who Negi ends up with when he grows up… but we know it’s not the girls he had the most character development with. Which… suck, really. I suppose it’s my fault for getting emotionally involved in the ship tease despite everything.

More annoying, however, is laying out the fates of every single main girl. The future is a blank page… now let’s write in it. If you’re going to do an open ending, leave it open! Special mention must be made of Chisame’s future, by the way. It’s absolutely, 100% in character… and all the more depressing because of it. Why would you do that? She had possibly the most character development, along with Nodoka, of the entire cast! And now, in the future, she’s a hikikomiri shut-in who helps Negi behind the scenes. We see her staring grumpily at her computer… just as we did at the start. She’s not even cosplaying anymore. Having seen the possibilities, she has chosen to stay the hell away from them. Bleah.

Oh yes, and we still have no idea what happened to Negi’s mother. Akamatsu hints that it may be left to the anime (which, given the anime’s final movie was FAR WORSE than this manga’s ending, is not something I look forward to.) We do, at least, hear that Setsuna and Konoka get married… though in typical ‘must be as vague as possible’ tradition, it’s left uncertain (but obvious) if it was to each other. The reason for this car-crash ending, by the way, is rumored to be that Akamatsu and Kodansha got into a fight about materials and he cut the manga short. They presumably patched things up, as he’s preparing a new series for them, but that doesn’t really help Negima. Maybe he’ll come back to it, but then I’m still waiting for Shirow to return to Dominion too.

So in the end I remain dissatisfied, but I will try to remember all the great fun I had reading this series. Given Ken’s goal was to avoid doing just another Love Hina-style harem comedy the way Kodansha wanted him to, I think he succeeded admirably. We grew enamored and invested enough in this world, its hero, and its many, many heroines that we are allowed to get up in arms when it all falls apart. Love it or hate it, few were indifferent to this volume of Negima.

By Q Hayashida. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Ikki. Released in North America by Viz.

This bright pink volume of Dorohedoro feels very much like the calm before the storm, or the sort of thing that ends with the tag ‘End of Part One’. There’s not as much pulse-pounding action here, and the revelations are still mostly hinted rather than stated outright. But we’ve almost got Caiman’s past, and we’re starting to learn Nikaido’s, and it’s going to turn out SO BADLY for both of them, isn’t it?

I especially feel as if I may have seem the last of Caiman, at least as Caiman, and that’s a shame, as he’s such a big, lovable doof. With a lizard head. But he’s always wanted to retrieve his memories, and is now starting to see the downside to all of that. Unfortunately, it’s not really something he can stop doing, either. Hayashida, by the way, does a terrific job of showing just how agonizing Caiman’s ongoing headaches are – including giving us an x-ray of his brain to drive it home!

Meanwhile, Shin and Noi are also hot on the trail of the cross-eyes’ boss, despite him possibly being dead. This leads us to the funniest moment of the series, where we meet the boss’ grandfather, and react to his appearance. Even in the most horrible moments, Dorohedoro still finds a way to be completely ridiculous, and it’s a big reason why I love it as much as I do. If this series didn’t have a high level of comedy and weirdness, it would simply be too bleak to function.

Meanwhile, I can’t really feel bad for Chota – who brought it all on himself, and makes things even worse towards the end. What we do get via his character, however, is the start of Nikaido’s backstory, as she began to keep a diary while at En’s so that she didn’t lose herself. (I’ll be honest, at first I thought the diary would be a giant fakeout, but the flashbacks do seem to make it genuine.) Little Nikaido is absolutely adorable, and you know her backstory is going to be amazingly wretched, so I’m just enjoying the tiny kid messing around with time magic while I can.

And of course I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the omake chapter at the end. Shin and Noi are my favorite characters in the series, and I also tend to ship them. So far, though, any in-series romance has been just tease. It’s clear that Noi has a crush on Shin, but his feelings for her have been more ambiguous. Now we get a flashback to Shin from ten years ago, forced to attend a masquerade ball by En where he has to dance or get poked by devils with a pitchfork. (This sounds like most of the junior high dances I attended, only everyone usually chose the pitchfork over dancing with girls.) Shin looks adorably cute here, and his dance partner even more so. I love seeing side stories like this.

All in all, another solid volume of Dorohedoro. I see in addition to Scott Pilgrim’s creator giving a blurb, the man behind King City is also praising the series. Viz should be happy. It may not generate Naruto sales, but Dorohedoro has become one of their prestige series, and needs more love. And gyoza. It always needs more gyoza.

By Kaori Yuki. Released in Japan as “Tenshi Kinryouku” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz Media.

It’s worth noting that this came out in the mid-to-late 90s in Hana to Yume, which these days is better known as the home of series like Oresama Teacher and Skip Beat!. It evolved rapidly in the early years of the 21st century, because back in the late 80s-early 90s there was a lot more darkness and a lot more androgyny in the magazine. And one of the best examples of this is Kaori Yuki’s Angel Sanctuary, a 20-volume series about angels, demons, impossible relationships, and above all strange things happening so fast the cast cannot get proper time to angst (but they manage to work it in anyway).

First of all, yes, as my Manga Bookshelf colleagues have noted, this first volume is a bit tedious at times. There’s a lot of setup, a lot of putting pieces in place, and a lot of backstory that really doesn’t make much sense. We also don’t get enough time to like Sara’s friend as herself before she’s immediately possessed/killed/whatever. That said, I think that the volume manages to succeed anyway, almost entirely on mood. Everything is tense here as we wait for horrible things to happen to our lead, Setsuna, who is a typical troubled teenager with an atypical love for his sister, Sara. He’s having enough trouble trying to shut out his own lustful desires, he really does not need folks coming down and saying he’s the reincarnation of an angel. In fact, his hotheaded and impulsive personality is very reminiscent of a shonen protagonist. But boy, is he in the wrong series.

I mentioned the incest elements, and it’s worth noting how they’re handled. Given that here in 2013 there is an overabundance of incest in almost every manga or anime designed for the otaku, you’d think it would lose its thrill. But this is not here to titillate. Setsuna’s feelings are powerful and deep, and they horrify him. I loved that the first thing he did was check the family register to make sure that one of them wasn’t secretly adopted – he’s read other shoujo manga, I see! But no, he doesn’t get an out that way. And of course Sara feels the same way, though I don’t think either of them is quite aware of the depths of their love just yet. It helps that, familial relationship aside, they make the cutest couple in the book – which, to be fair, is not about romance. Well, not shoujo schoolgirl romance anyway.

The art is another strong point here – at times, it’s the only humor in the series, and I love some of Setsuna’s facial expressions and asides. Given that the series is about angels and demons, there’s also a lot of androgyny on display here, and I guessed wrong about the gender of two of the characters TWICE before nailing it down. (Kurai and Arachne also provide much needed humor here, I should note.) But overall, if I was to use a word to describe this series, it would be overdramatic. And I don’t necessarily mean that just in a bad way. It’s a great series for teenagers – particularly, I think teenage girls would eat this up – as everyone is pretty and your forbidden love is, literally, the end of the world.

By Katsumi Nishino and Rin Yamaki. Released in Japan as by Media Factory, serialized in the magazine Comic Alive. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

As I’ve noted before, in general these days I try to give every new Vol. 1 a chance and a review. Sometimes, though, I suspect on seeing the advance solicit that I know I’m just hurting myself. Kanokon was that sort of title. Moe foxgirl on the cover. Runs in Comic Alive. Harem title. Lots of overt fanservice and sexuality with little actual sex. Male lead whose sole good quality is his endearing niceness. That said, I was hoping at least for a chance to write a scathing review with lots of amusing vitriol, a la Sasameke or Qwazer of Stigmata. But the manga doesn’t even hit those levels of bad. It’s simply a mediocre-to-fair yokai harem manga.

The title is another of those abbreviations that are becoming increasingly needed in a world where every book coming out has a title like “My Light Novel Can’t Possibly Be This Awkwardly Phrased” (AwkPhr for short). In this case, Kanokon stands for “Kanojo wa Kon to, Kowaiku Seki wo Shite”, or “She Coughed With a Cute Little “Yip”. (eeeeurgh…) Seven Seas does helpfully have a couple notes at the back explaining this, as well as a few other culture notes. As for the plot, if you were asked to write a harem manga for comic alive and given the premise of yokai, this is probably what you’d come up with. New transfer student Kouta is from the country, and thus attracts the attention of the popular girl Chizuru. She turns out to be a fox yokai, and has not only fallen for Kouta but can also merge and take over his body to a degree, though it depends on their feelings for each other. Cue angry brother, angry classmate, angry fellow yokai, and teachers, all of whom would like to see Chizuru be a bit more reticent and a lot less horny.

From what I understand, the anime got a lot more blatant, or perhaps this just feels worse when you see it as moving images. In any case, I was not nearly as horrified as my friends who saw the anime said I would be. Instead, it was more of a malaise. There does appear to be an ongoing plot that has potential to get interesting (and thank God this was in omnibus format, as if it had just been the first half it might have been unbearable). That said, the story has some very dumb stuff in it in order to allow the plot to function, particularly how, in creating a juvenile delinquent school for troubled yokai, they then allow totally normal humans to attend, for reasons I cannot fathom. (Yes, yes, learn how to blend in, etc. Still, highly dangerous.)

With all that said, I went into this knowing it was not a series for me. It does, however, have a fanbase of people who love this sort of thing. Cute fox girls, titillation, some fights, and a lead non-entity they can project themselves on who has a girl falling all over herself to sleep with him (and I’ve no doubt there will be more girls added later on). It does its job well for those readers, and thus is not actively radioactive. It’s simply not my thing.

By Osamu Tezuka. Released in Japan by Sanrio, serialized in the magazine Lyrica. Released in North America by Digital Manga Publishing.

Here’s an unusual one: a Tezuka title that read left-to-right originally. Unico was apparently written for a magazine that was going to come out in the West, so was drawn in the Western way. It’s also full-color, and (given it’s Sanrio) features an adorable, thoroughly marketable creature on the cover and throughout the story. But it’s also Tezuka, so you know there’s going to be some darkness in there, even if it’s for kids. The question is, how does the story hold up?

The main plot is basically a MacGuffin to let Tezuka tell whatever story he wants, as the goddess Venus, pissed off as usual that she isn’t the fairest in the land, banishes Unico for basically being too adorable and awesome. He’s whisked all over space and time, and whenever he shows signs of being happy or achieving something, the West Wind whisks him away again. He’s also mindwiped so he never remembers anything. It’s really pretty horrible if you swell on it. Luckily, Unico is nothing if not earnest, and knows enough about himself to help others with his unicorn magic… though occasionally that help goes sour.

The stories themselves are basic children’s fairy tales, with talking animals and mythical beasts, a place where Unico will not have much trouble at all fitting in. The saddest is the first one, a tale of a forbidden love between a young Native American boy and a white settler girl, who become older via Unico’s magic so they can experience adult passion. The concepts behind that are staggeringly fascinating (and creepy), and it’s no surprise that everything goes wrong. Honestly, I was pleased that the rest of the volume didn’t get quite that morally ambiguous… or political.

The rest of the stories are slightly less ambiguous. The longest one is about a cat who yearns to belong to a witch, and I believe it was adapted into a movie. It features a man who is so over the top evil that I had to laugh. All he lacked was a mustache to twirl. That said, the shots of him massacring the animals of the forest are quite dramatic, and small children might find them quite scary. Other highlights include a young girl being kidnapped by a sentient factory that has fallen in love with her (didn’t Demon Seed come out around the time Tezuka wrote this?) and a young Russian thief who secretly wants to be a shy princess, but can’t quite pull it off as she’s simply too awesome.

As you’d expect, the translation is quite good, being simple without sounding childish. There are footnotes for the few culture references in here, most of which have to do with the band Pink Lady, who were becoming superstars at the time Tezuka was writing this. And a few of Tezuka’s ‘star system’ characters can be glimpsed in here, in different roles. But even if you aren’t a Tezuka fan, Unico is worth checking out. it’s family friendly, straightforward, and cute. It doesn’t have much of an ending, but that’s what you get when your lead character drives the plot but isn’t really the plot himself.

By Kazuma Kamachi and Motoi Fuyukawa. Released in Japan as “Toaru Kagaku no Railgun” by ASCII Media Works, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

First off, in case I forget to actually review the book, this was a fun volume of Railgun. The Sisters arc was wrapped up, we started a new one about the city-wide athletic festival, and there’s lots of awesome, heartwarming, and funny.

Now, let’s talk continuity, aka “Wait, when the hell did Kuroko get put in a wheelchair?!?!”

First, a brief timeline:
1) A Certain Magical Index Light Novels: April 2004-present. The “Sisters” book came out in September 2004, and the “athletic festival” books (which didn’t focus on Misaka entirely) in April-May 2006.
2) A Certain Scientific Railgun (manga): April 2007-present. It runs in a monthly magazine.
3) A Certain Magical Index (manga): May 2007-present. Also in a monthly magazine.
4) A Certain Magical Index (anime): October 2008-March 2009. This includes the “Sisters” arc, from Touma’s perspective.
5) A Certain Scientific Railgun (anime): October 2009-March 2010. Note that the manga had only just barely started the Sisters arc (from Misaka’s perspective) when the anime began. Which is why you didn’t see it.
6) A Certain Magical Index II (anime): October 2010-April 2011. This has the athletic festival from Touma’s POV, but likely won’t crossover with the Railgun storyline much.
7) A Certain Magical Index (film): February 2013.
8) A Certain Scientific Railgun S (anime): April 2013-present. Judging by the OP credits, this *will* have the Sisters arc, including the battle with ITEM.

For the most part, the Railgun manga has been pretty good about letting casual readers follow along, and explaining things as they go. The only time the storyline ever really connects with index is during the Sisters arc, and other than that, Railgun has its own plots and its own problems. There are, of course, little bonuses for those who follow the books. ITEM are given a major role in the Sisters arc as the child soldiers Misaka battles, right around the time they were becoming very important in the Index books proper. (This is why Rikou, who really wasn’t all that active in the battles, gets a larger picture on the cover than Frenda, who was. She’s more important later.)

Around Vol. 7 is where the continuity starts to snarl, though. First of all, the anime, needing to fill up episodes since they couldn’t animate the Sisters arc (as the manga hadn’t finished it yet) introduces Mitsuko Kongo much earlier, and gives her different plotlines to play around with. Not that the manga is ready to introduce her, it doesn’t really have the time to. So Mitsuko’s introduction takes about 2 chapters, where she sets herself up as the rich rival character and is very quickly humbled. (This actually has the added benefit of making her more likeable, and I thought she was pretty cute.)

And sometimes the manga simply has to abandon even explanations, and just trust the reader will go “OK, something happened.” The athletic festival takes place about a month after the Sisters arc ends, and somehow Kuroko is now in a wheelchair (and Uiharu is blaming herself for the injuries.) What happened? Well, the 8th Index novel, in which Kuroko, as a member of Judgement, goes after a fellow teleportation expert who is trying to steal valuable plot macguffins. In the midst of this, she nearly gets killed, and thus is now in said wheelchair for the duration of the festival. Unfortunately, the series is not called “A Certain Perverse Teleporter”, so Kuroko’s story is just elided away.

There’s also lots of other little things: Accelerator appears again, and seems to be crippled (from Touma’s beating? Actually, no.) and also not, apparently, in any trouble for the experiments. Actually, the manga does a nice little flashback showing how Accelerator was manipulated by scientists just as much as Misaka was, and makes you ponder if “I was only following orders” might be a valid excuse for someone so young. It gets to the point where when we see characters who actually ARE appearing for the first time (such as the “Queen”, or the Aztec girl at the end of the volume), we wonder if they’ve been in the main source and we missed it.

More accurately, I wonder this. Most casual readers likely are fine with reading this typically exciting and fun Railgun volume. But Kuroko’s injury and its out-of-nowhere appearance has been mentioned as confusing, so I thought I’d talk about it a bit.

Oh yes, and Saten is still awesome. But you knew that.

By Mizuki Sasakibara, based on the franchise created by Sunrise, Masafumi Nishida, and Masakazu Katsura. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Newtype Ace. Released in North America by Viz.

I will admit up front that I haven’t seen the anime series this is based on, which Viz is obviously selling hard. I am familiar with Katsura’s work via Video Girl Ai, DNA^2, etc., but aside from Blue Rose looking a bit like Karin Aoi (naming her Karina doesn’t help), there’s not really much influence here. As a result, for once I can ignore all the other variations and alternate continuities I’m familiar with and enjoy this for what it is – a goofy Japanese take on superheroes and mass media, with a very compelling lead duo.

The artist for this manga seems to have worked for Marvel Comics before, and it shows – this is a Japanese take on American superheroes that knows what it’s doing, and can get behind the ridiculousness of people in spandex running around as well as the awesomeness. But as much as it’s a take on superheroes, it’s also examining the state of mass media and marketing in the modern age, with the superheroes being sent out at precisely the right time to grab ratings, and having to work together in pre-scripted ways… while still actually trying to capture the bad guys, who aren’t (so far) pre-scripted. The fact that they’re actually trying to do good helps this title avoid the cynicism of, say, a Max Headroom, but it’s still all a bit false.

Naturally, Tiger, aka Kotetsu Kaburagi, is an old-school hero who doesn’t hold with all this televised ratings crap. Not that he doesn’t actually go along with it… after all, a hero’s gotta work. His working-class superhero attitude not only contrasts with the rest of the superheroes we see, but also with his new partner, Barnaby Brooks, Jr. Barnaby looks to be the classic insufferable genius, who regards ‘teamwork’ as a dirty word and fights crime with a sneer on his face. Actually, this doesn’t seem to be the case, as when he’s in action he seems to be quite friendly and smiling to those he rescues. He just dislikes Tiger. I have no doubt he will have a horribly tragic past.

I was rather surprised that both Tiger and Bunny have the same power – an unusual thing for a superhero team-up, but one that helps to show why they don’t get along at first. As for the other superheroes, we don’t see much of them here, but they have moments where it seems they’re chafing against the script as well. The sooner we get away from heroes-as-wrestling and into serious character drama, the better. As for the fights, they looked fine. The action was easy to follow and exciting, and definitely showed some Marvel influence.

This is a very good first volume, leaving you wanting to go hunt down the anime to find out more. Even the character bios intrigue me – Tiger having a daughter means his tragic past can war with Bunny’s. (How sad is it that my first thought on seeing “guy with daughter” is “how did his wife die in the backstory”? Heck, maybe he’s just divorced. But I doubt it.) I’ll admit I was expecting this to be just another tie-in, but it’s quite worthy on its own. Recommend it to friends who want to try manga but have never ventured beyond the X-Men.

By Rikdo Koshi. Released in Japan by Shonen Gahosha, serialized in the magazine Young King OURS. Released in North America by Viz.

I have to remind myself at times, when Miwa or Kabapu are making master plan after master plan and putting different personas in different robot bodies of other characters, that Excel Saga is still predominately a satire. Yes, the plot and characterization are a cut above the anime (and again, I remind readers that when the anime was licensed, Shonen Gahosha’s caveat was that the show would NOT use Rikdo’s plots), but it’s still making fun of everything, be it the fall of Japan’s bubble economy, the everyday 3-jobs-a-day week of the Japanese working girl, sentai shows like Power Rangers, or power-mad villains stockpiling schemes like Aizen. To a degree, the inability to truly understand what’s going on may be hard-wired into the format – that’s the joke.

That’s not to say there aren’t points of interest here. Il Palazzo has always been the hardest character to get a grip on in this series, even more so than Hyatt, and even Miwa is having difficulty figuring out what he’s doing. Indeed, he may not know himself – we’ve seen he is having a war with some other personality in his head. And for that matter, how many people are possessing Iwata at any one time, and re any of them Iwata himself? It gets bad enough that even Misaki is taking to making guesses – she picks Shiouji’s father, and is informed that she’s incorrect (if fan theories prove to be correct, she’s more wrong than she knows). For that matter, how much of ACROSS’s base runs on ancient technology?

This being Excel Saga, there are many moments of hilarity here. Elgala’s crucifixion, The meta commentary on Iwata and Excel being the sort who would “be the hero of a manga” (notably, Hyatt is absolutely correct, but for the wrong reasons – I’m afraid we’re at the point where Excel is simply never going to climb that pedestal Hyatt puts her on), and almost everything with the Department of City Security folks imprisoned in ACROSS’s base with, theoretically, minimal food and water. Even Misaki, who is usually out Only Sane Woman, finds herself losing it a bit here. One of the more serious parts of the book is her self-awareness of how close she’s coming to a total nervous breakdown, and trying to calm herself and stop it from happening – or at least put it to good use for things like blowing up walls.

Then there’s Umi, the one remaining innocent in this series, who’s been sent/lured down to ACROSS’s base by Miwa in order to see if Excel will break. It works, to a degree – Excel’s berserker rage is distracted for a moment – but I think as long as Excel still thinks that Robot Body allows her to be more useful than Human Body she’ll continue to make the same decisions, whether Teriha’s memories are still talking in her head or no. Of course, this may all be moot now that she has a giant hole blown into her. The thoughts in her head about “not wanting to be alone” are odd – are they Teriha’s, or is she picking up Umi in some odd way? Honestly, we’ve never seen Excel have much of a problem with solitude, and I think as long as Il Palazzo was with her, she’d be absolutely fine being alone.

(Great seeing Shiouji SUPER PISSED, too – for all that he finds Umi annoying, he doesn’t want to see her hurt in any way – indeed, a large part of his actions in the series are to avoid Umi getting emotionally damaged.)

And of course there’s the endnotes by Carl Horn, which are marvelous as always. They contain actual info about obscure references, meta-commentary on the series itself, they have their own in jokes (Carl is right – that line absolutely should be read by George Takei), and there’s a long endnote afterword discussing Rikdo’s current series, which he is drawing and Masamune Shirow is writing. Yes, Ghost in the Shell Shirow. As for Excel Saga 25? It was great, though the plot was not advanced a whole lot, and there may not be as much to advance as I think – see point #1. And it’s good to see all the Ropponmatsu vs. Ropponmatsu battles, after so long apart. Can’t wait till August, for the penultimate volume!