Reviews

By Masahiro Totsuka and Aguri Igarashi. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Young Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Throughout the 14 volumes of Bamboo Blade, we’ve seen its heroine, Tamaki Kawazoe, grow and evolve. She’s always been an amazing kendo student, but that’s not her goal, or her passion, or even her hobby – it’s just what she does. Meeting with Kirino and the others has helped bring her out of her shell, and she’s learned the value or true friendship, but they aren’t able to challenge her enough in regards to kendo. Now, after her defeat by Erina in Vol. 13, we come to the final volume, where Tama-chan spends half of it asking: why do people do kendo?

Everyone’s answer is slightly different, but they all end the same. Azuma uses kendo to improve herself (and make up for her hopeless study habits); Miya-Miya, in addition to finding beating the hell out of everyone fun, wants to see how strong she can be and how far she can go. Saya, who’s suffered from being the ‘comedy character’ in a manga filled with them, finally admits that kendo gives her discipline she needs to grow up. Kirino, of course, simply lives and breathes kendo. It’s surprising to realize that, like Tama, she hasn’t had a real reason for doing kendo beyond “I love it!”, but given her simple and direct personality, this fits. Yuuji and Kojiro-sensei both chime in briefly, but are savvy enough to note that Tama-chan has to find this answer by herself.

Everyone’s final ‘real reason’ for doing kendo is elided out at first, and we only hear it once Tama-chan is back in her bedroom, watching a tape provided for her of her mother on a kendo TV show years ago. Her mother is asked the exact same question, and notes that she wants to make everyone feel the same joy and satisfaction in kendo that she does – its ideals, it’s disciplines, its purity – and that she teaches to to this. And then we flash to the end of everyone’s answer, the one thing all the other girls said. They want to be like Tama-chan. She is their goal, what they are pushing themselves to. And as she breaks down in cathartic tears (part grief over her mother’s death, part simply feeling the weight of everything, and part because she now has that goal), she knows what it is she wants to do kendo for. To be a teacher.

And this ties back in with Kojiro-sensei. I’ll admit, when the series began I had little time for him, putting up with his waffling and goofball tendencies because I liked the rest of the cast so much. But he’s grown just as much as Tama-chan has, and it’s also due to kendo. Seeing him strive to teach the girls how to use kendo to further themselves, and realizing what he can and cannot do in that regard (much of the series has been his angsting about not finding the right way to teach something), he knows he wants to keep doing this – but not with these girls, who he feels have learned all they can from him. He’s leaving for a different school to start with a new class of beginners. We only see Kirino’s reaction to this (and she outright says she’s refraining from saying what she thinks…), but I think they’ll understand his reasoning, just like they did with Tama-chan.

Despite the comedy throughout (even the last climactic battle features Saya (of course) getting herself in trouble by not having eaten for 48 hours prior out of nerves), Bamboo Blade has been almost the pinnacle of idealistic sports manga. If someone is at a loose end in life, or trying to make a change, or needing to find something within themselves… all this can be found through kendo. It’s a trend we see in a lot of sports manga, be it baseball, soccer, or what have you. but despite the idealism (or because of it), this is a manga that really makes you feel good about yourself, and have confidence in the lives of its cast. And it’s not just our 5 heroines – even the ‘rival’ characters such as Sakaki and Erina find strength and fulfillment in kendo, and in bringing kendo to others. Filled with emotional moments, goofy comedy, and of course awesome sports battles, anyone who likes to see humanity striving for a goal should read Bamboo Blade, where kendo will have the answers.

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.

As we get into Vol. 5 of Railgun, it strikes me how many sociopathic killers are really in this series. It’s a whole lot. Misaka has found out about the experiment where 20,000 of her clones are killed off in order to force a Level 5 to get even higher, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Academy City and its dedication to science clearly continues to have a dark and sordid underbelly, and I doubt that the enemies this time will be as misguided but ultimately likeable as in the Level Upper arc.

First we have Accelerator, this arc’s “Big Bad”, who just finished brutally murdering Misaka 9982 at the end of last volume. The real Misaka is understandably upset by this, and does her best to try to make Accelerator see reason, or at least beat the shit out of him. This is especially true when she hears his motives are simply power, thus making the killings even more appalling. There’s a short battle, but a) it becomes clear that Misaka is severely outclassed by her enemy, and b) the clones stop things fairly quickly, pointing out that if he defeats the real Railgun now, that sort of ruins the experiment.

So now Misaka knows about the experiment, and has to stop it. The clones are of no help at all, as they don’t value their own lives so can only point out how easy it 9is to build new ones. She briefly has the help of Shinobu, a scientist who is trying to fix things after realizing that the clones are more than just lab rats. But for the most part it’s just Misaka straightforwardly trying to destroy the experiment by destroying every single site where it takes place – all 10 of them, supposedly used to combat muscular dystrophy. Yes, it’s Misaka the terrorist. Given that the hero of the main series, Touma, tends to solve problems by simply punching them very hard, it’s somehow fitting that our heroine is cut from the same cloth – if there are no more labs, there will be no more experiment.

Of course, things aren’t made that easy, as we also meet ITEM, the anti-terrorist group sent off to take Misaka out. These are basically child soldiers, with a slightly older leader, and are, like Accelerator, rather blase about all the people they have killed. The team is actually balanced nicely between two hotheads who glory in killing and torture, and two cool stoics who seem more blase about the whole thing. Naturally, it’s the hotheads who get most of the focus, and as we see a 10-year-old girl brag about the number of people she’s killed, we are reminded again what kind of environment this is.

And so in the end Misaka thinks she’s won, but somehow I doubt it. Blow up 10 labs, and 10 more will spring up. This is about defeating an entire scientific culture, and that will take far more than electroshock therapy. Luckily, we have an exciting cliffhanger, where… she sees Touma at a vending machine! Gasp! (This is actually more exciting to those who have read or seen A Certain Magical Index, as the two stories now join up, all of the past two volumes having been prelude.) Will she ask Touma for help? Or just be tsundere at him? It’s been a while since we’ve seen that side of her…

By Kouichi Kusano. Released in Japan as “Oniichan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki ja Nai n da kara ne!!” by Futabasha, serialization ongoing in the online magazine Web Comic High!. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

People follow trends. It’s just a way of life. When something is popular, the first instinct of a business looking for profit, or writer looking for a surefire seller, is ‘what did it do and how can I use that to replicate it?’ And this is fine sometimes. I’ve known many derivative works that have been very good and sometimes even surpassed the original. But too often someone goes too far. Either they miss the original point that was being made, or they deviate in an unacceptable manner, or they add too many other, equally trendy things to make a giant stew of trends that all cancel each other out.

And incest as a sexual thrill is, god help us, popular these days. Especially in Japan. Naturally, *genuine* incest seems to be saved for the actual porn magazines, but there’s no end of manga and (more importantly) anime that feature guys crushing on their sisters, and girls worshiping their brothers. Usually at some point they find out they aren’t related after all. Other popular trends in anime these days include the tsundere type who says mean things and hits the object of her affection as she’s too embarrassed. And let’s not forget the pretty, reserved princess type who secretly turns out to be a stalker and pervert.

If all this sounds like a lot of moe animes seen in the past five years, it’s by design. I’ll be honest, I had initially confused this title with ‘My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute’, which comes out next month by Dark Horse, and has a somewhat better reputation. IDLYAA,BB!! features Nao, who loves her older brother a lot (the title may have given that away), despite his being a somewhat perverse non-entity in these two volumes. She goes to wake him up every day by hitting him (and giving him calculated panty flashes) and throws out anything in his porn doujinshi that it’s brother/sister incest. In fact, when told that she’s actually not related to him after all, this *depresses* her briefly, as it ruins the incest fantasy she’s been going for for so long.

This may seem rather hardcore for what’s meant to be a typical seinen title for horny guys, but rest assured there’s no actual sex, merely piles and piles of suggestion (though I note this is the author’s first ‘mainstream’ work after years of drawing adult titles). And to be fair, Nao’s obsession is treated in-story as immature and wrong. Then we meet our second heroine, Iroha, a long-lost childhood friend who meets Nao’s brother after all these years and proceeds to sexually assault him. This is actually one of the few interesting scenes in the book – it’s presented as incredibly disturbing (after all, we’re meant to root for Nao), and her brother’s horrified reaction to it, and realization that he may have led to her turning out this way, is a brief moment of soul searching that could be interesting… if it weren’t undone by Nao and Iroha’s determination to make sure that their man stays perverted and does not ‘turn over a new leaf’.

There’s a couple more things to like here – Nao’s two female friends are meant to function as a Greek chorus of sorts, and their reactions towards the end of the book at all the slapstick are well done – but to be honest, I have rarely seen a manga that seemed to calculated to hit as many fetishes as possible as this one. If you enjoy perverse moe harem comedies, well, I think you’ll get a big kick out of this, though even the most hardcore fan might finish the volume and say, “Erm, isn’t this a bit over the top?”

By Moyoco Anno. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Evening. Released in North America by Vertical.

The oiran, or high-ranking courtesan, is a very popular character in manga of the Edo period. We’ve seen them solving crimes, manipulating high level politicians, and craftily playing one side against another. We have even, occasionally, seen them entertaining clients. However, a lot of those plots have been typical manga fodder, and the life of a typical Edo brothel worker is far more painful, degrading and tortuous. Sakuran shows us the story of Kiyoha, a strong-willed and rebellious girl who must be broken (but not completely) into the role of a courtesan.

We meet Kiyoha when she’s a child, and a good deal of the book is witnessing her grow up. Well, to a certain degree. One good thing about Anno’s characterization of her heroine is that Kiyoha can be quite unlikeable at times – willful, stubborn, quick to violence. They’re qualities that *also* make for a good oiran – the job is so grinding and will-breaking – this is forced prostitution we’re talking about – that only the strong can hope to survive. (Note that Kiyoha makes friends at one point with another cute and lively girl, and briefly bonds with her… before the other girl dies (the dialogue makes it unclear if she killed herself or was beaten to death). And indeed, once Kiyoha comes of age and rises to the level of oiran, she is noted for both her young beauty and her cynical smile.

We see Kiyoha try to escape quite a few times, but it’s made clear that the ideal way to escape is to have a man take so much notice of you that he proposes – buys out your contract. We see this with Kiyoha’s mentor Shohi, who I think comes off the best out of everyone in this manga. She’s certainly cruel and sadistic to Kiyoha, but it’s that sort of ‘it’s in order to make you stronger’ mentoring that always seems to pay off in the end. There’s nothing Shohi can *do* for Kiyoha in this environment except that. Notably, Kiyoha’s own love affair, which is made out to be more ‘illicit’, does not end nearly as well.

The ending of Sakuran can be seen as a bit bleak. After her most successful escape attempt yet, Kiyoha realizes that things on the outside are not any better for her than life in the brothel. She says in dialogue that she returned on her own, and in her inner monologue (showing us scenes of her being punished and tortured) that she feels better now that she knows there’s no ‘better world’ to go to. Kiyoha, unlike Shohi, does not seem to be the sort who can simply gain the favor of a rich man in a way that would get her out of there – I think she’d sabotage it. At least in the way she is now. The manga is open ended in that you question how broken she really is. I like to think that she still has a lot of strength in her.

The tension between what is needed to be a good oiran and the fact that it also makes a person realize how awful their life is and yearn for freedom is the core of Sakuran. Combined with Anno’s stunningly gorgeous artwork (you can argue everyone looks too similar, but that’s more a function of the time period than the artist), you have a manga whose images and ideas will stay with you long after you read it.

By Toru Fujisawa. Released in Japan as “Shonan Jun’ai Gumi” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Vertical.

It always seems as though there’s more dumb comedy in the Early Years manga than comes up in its sequels featuring Onizuka. Now, I’m sure if I went back and checked all of GTO this would not be the case – GTO has some monumentally silly things going on, and I’ve noted just last week how much dumb fun is in 14 Days in Shonan – but here Onizuka has the better excuse of actually being an immature high schooler, meaning that he and his friends lend themselves even well to situations that make one cry with laughter and weep at the stupidity of all involved.

First, though, we get some more epic fighting, as Onizuka still has to resolve his rivalry with Mafuyu, who is determined to take on Eileen, the one that killed his brother. Now, I figured out that Eileen was actually the name of a tropical event right off the bat, meaning it can be grating seeing everyone going around just NOT GETTING that Eileen isn’t a woman. But it leads to some interesting situations, as well as some epic surfing. We also get a very shonen moment where Onizuka is taking on a group of washed-out ex-military Americans, as he notes that saying ‘dreams will die’ and ‘know your limits’ is something that happens to other people. Oh, and showing them the wrath of a true Japanese person, of course. (It almost reads like the U.S. and Japan are rival gangs here, probably deliberately.)

After this, which takes half the volume, the other half is devoted to far shorter and sillier situations. We are reminded that this manga takes place in the late 80s/early 90s with Onizuka’s obsession with bootleg video porn. We see a chapter devoted to Onizuka’s mother, and realize just how horrible it must be trying to deal with a kid like him. There’s an amusing parody of Kindaichi Case Files where Onizuka and friends try to solve the murder of one of their own (spoiler: he’s not really dead). And after his mother finally throws him out, we see Onizuka and Danma moving into a roach-infested rathole of an apartment, which brings its own levels of disgusting humor.

And then there’s the Russian night vision goggles. First off, I really like how Onizuka and Danma are shown here as the leaders of their gang. Even though everything spiraled out of control because of their underlings being stupid and not getting the point, they still don’t back down from a fight, because, well, they’re leaders. Secondly, the idea of a shonen title spending this long discussing night vision goggles being used to masturbate while watching a neighbor strip through a peephole is simply mind-numbing. I’ve noted before that Shonen Magazine seems more ‘mature’ than its rivals Jump and Sunday, and apparently that was the case 20 years ago as well. This leads to an amazing finale, which for once features Danma as the stupider one. He likes to pretend he’s the more mature, especially given he actually has a girlfriend and has gotten lucky, unlike Onizuka, but the peephole situation (which I don’t care spoil) shows he can be even more perverse when it gets right down to it.

I can see why this was such a big success for teenage boys in Japan. Even though I doubt that’s the market for it here, fans of Onizuka should really pick up this prequel, which features less teaching but just as much badassery.

By Toru Fujisawa. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Vertical.

It may come as a surprise to those reading GTO 14 Days, and noting its onging bevy of nudity and sexual situations (without any actual sex, of course), that it runs in Weekly Shonen Magazine, a title that supposedly has the same age 10-13 dynamic as its competitors Shonen Jump and Shonen Sunday. But Shonen Magazine skews much older than those two in reality, as readers of Akamatsu’s love comedies and the romantic hijinks of GE Good Ending could tell you. That said, talk to any 10-13 year old boy and I think you’ll find ‘boobies!’ is high on their list of priorities. And it’s not just the nudity: some of the pasts revealed in 14 Days are dark and definitely seem not for kids, but kids their age *do* deal with abuse and abandonment. Best not to sugarcoat it… or at least sugarcoat it with Onizuka’s brand of goofy humor.

It’s all about keeping a balance, and knowing when it’s OK to do action-adventure suspense stuff and when perversion is needed. Onizuka’s own life is balanced this way, as we’ve seen him use toilet humor and lechery as a mask to hide behind when he wants to avoid discussing serious situations. In the case of this volume, however, it’s Ayame and her shattered illusions that provide the humor. She’s gotten a biased sense of Onizuka through Fuyutsuki’s image of him, and was rather taken aback at Shinomi’s violent reaction last time. But here, seeing him ogling her in the bath, running around with his “tackle out”, and seemingly unable to take on assassins in a desperate emergency simply as they’re dressed like strippers, Ayame realizes that Onizuka really is just a horny guy after all.

Which is for the best, as now she can appreciate his better sides even more. It’s not as if knowing the ‘real’ Onizuka stopped Shinomi from falling in love with him, and seeing the brief instance in the hospital when she thinks he’s dead is rather touching, even if it quickly leads back to humor of the “how dare you make me reveal my emotions” variety. And his dogged persistence in helping these kids no matter what, getting them to see that they don’t have to turn out bad, and sheer nigh-invulnerability to physical attacks are also on display here, for those who love it when Onizuka gets badass.

Likewise, the situations these kids are in have to be deepened, or else their lives will be seen by the manga reader as a checklist. “Well, he’s solved Seiya’s problems, so who’s next?” But he hasn’t solved Seiya’s problems. He’s gotten him to think seriously about them, but there’s been pressure Onizuka doesn’t know about (not just twins, but evil twins!) and the end of this volume seems to have come full circle in that we see Seiya ready to confront his stepfather with violence. It’s also a good thing that we not only see a flashback showing the abuse that he suffered at his mom’s boyfriends hands, but also another showing his mother’s abandonment, and how it affected him just as hard. These are complex situations that Onizuka can’t just solve by punching people and giving inspirational speeches. Well, not ENTIRELY by that, at least.

Another cliffhanger for this volume, but I expect that nxt time we’ll move on to the twins Riko and Miko, who look to be even harder to get through to. (The twins are apparently popular in Japan – they got their own spinoff after 14 Days ended.) But for manga about inspirational, never say die teachers who nevertheless cannot resist looking at naked women, there’s no better than GTO.

By Mizuki Nomura. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen Press.

This volume of Book Girl does not introduce a new situation of tragic consequences that resonate with our hero’s own past and causes him to grow and change a little more. We’re done with that. Instead, we tie the previous four books together and bring things full circle, as Konoha must confront his past head on, deal with the return of his objectified girl, and realize that despite all the growth he’s made in this last year, he still has quite a ways to go.

These books are all told from Konoha’s point of view, and thus sometimes things can happen around him that he is unaware of. This is especially true of this volume, but Nomura-san is very skilled at letting the reader in on things that Konoha either doesn’t know or is deliberately deluding himself about. Those who have been frustrated by Konoha’s attitude in the past are not going to find this book any easier to delve into. Indeed, as a reader I found myself identifying more with Akutagawa, who is clearly sympathetic to Konoha, but also can’t stand what he’s doing to Kotobuki (and himself). There’s a wonderful scene where Akutagawa lays everything out for Konoha to see, with an expression on his face that says “you aren’t going to believe this or care but I am doing it anyway, dammit.” When his frustration boils over into violence, it’s very cathartic.

Speaking of Kotobuki, I think I’m finally coming to like her. It’s taken a while – she was very stereotypical to start with – but as she’s opened up we’ve seen more of her inner turmoil, and here we see her risking everything in order to protect Konoha. It’s inspiring, but also rather sad, as I think by the end of the book, despite what he may say, he’s no closer to Kotobuki than he was when the book began.

And then there’s Takeda. I’d mentioned in my review of the third volume that it was rather refreshing seeing how in this series, people’s issues aren’t magically fixed by page 235. And indeed, we see that sometimes they aren’t fixed at all. Takeda still puts on a mask of happiness to hide her confusion and sorrow, and now has even taken to self-harm. It’s quite interesting how she actually takes up with Ryuto, a boy who seems to delight in girls with issues, so to speak. Even by the end of the book, after another cathartic moment, we’re not sure if she’ll be OK.

And then there’s Miu. I was predisposed to liking her because of my nature (I find myself drawn to and supporting unlikeable characters), and felt that I was correct when I read the scene with a young Miu meeting Konoha, and telling him a story. Konoha’s narration of it is beautiful, and you believe that it shows you the real Asakura beneath all the anger, hatred and manipulation we’ve seen. And then, later on, that beautiful scene is thrown back at us, as we get it from Miu’s point of view and see the horrible pedestal Konoha has placed her on, leading to writer’s block and her desperate cribbing of stories from other sources. I’m not sure it makes up for everything she’s done, but at least I look forward to seeing if she can finally move on and begin to heal.

I haven’t talked all that much about the book as a book, but that’s mostly as I’m so drawn into the character’s lives. It’s a good book. Frustrating at times, but that’s the frustration of a reader towards the characters doing dumb things, not the author. I do wish we’d had more of Maki – she’s the only supporting character whose story didn’t tie into the others, and her presence at the end seems to be nothing more than ‘I need the whole cast here’ – but she apparently features heavily in Book 6, so I’ll let it go. I also haven’t mentioned Tohko, the titular Book Girl, but that’s because Tohko’s story is still so diffuse. Yes, she’s studying to get into university – barely – but she’s the one who helps others, the detective who puts everything together. We haven’t had her own story yet – clearly that will be Books 7 and 8, the finale. For now, all we get are suggestions and small tastes.

By Touya Tobina. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazines Hana to Yume and The Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz.

Those who follow my reviews know that I tend to be very fond of shoujo manga published by Hakusensha, despite the fact that most of my favorites were put out by companies which them folded. Astute readers may also recall my #1 complaint with said Hakusensha manga, which is that the artists need more editing than they are really given, and that much of their work, especially in early volumes, tends to be messy, unfocused, and uneven. Unfortunately, Jiu Jiu is a classic example of this sort of manga.

The author, Touya Tobina, has been seen here briefly before – her story Clean Freak: Fully Equipped had one of its two volumes put out by Tokyopop before they shuttered down. That story was more grounded in the real world. Jiu Jiu is a full blown fantasy, featuring a girl who aspires to be a demon hunter and her two wolf pets/bodyguards/whatevers, who can assume human form when they want to. It ran for two volumes in Hana to Yume, then for reasons unknown moved to the quarterly publication The Hana To Yume, where it recently ended last month with Volume 5. The premise involves a young woman who’s trying to block herself off from emotions in order to deal with her tragic past, and the two wolf boys, who want to be helpful and discover these new feelings of love within them, but are foiled by their playful natures.

I think I make that sound better than it actually it, unfortunately. Takamichi ends up being more of an emotional wreck than a stoic hunter. While this makes sense given she’s a teen who’s undergone a traumatic experience (which we still don’t get all the details about in this volume), it is a bit of a disappointment seeing her fall into the traits that I’ve associated with the basic ‘tsundere’ type. As for the two wolves/wolf boys, this falls more into the sort of shoujo romance tropes that were cliched 15 years ago. She constantly wakes up with them naked in her bed, they continue to act like wolves (well, OK, dogs really) even when in human form, etc.

The biggest problem, I think, is that this ends up being far more comedic than I’d assumed given its premise, and the comedy just isn’t all that funny. When it turns to serious matters, its quality improves significantly. Snow and Night, the two wolf boys, have a tough job, given their mistress is trying to shut out anyone close to her but they need to protect her (and make her understand why they want to). My favorite scene in the volume is where the three have to track down a werewolf (an evil one, let’s make that clear) who has been killing people during full moons. After reaffirming their devotion to their mistress, who seems to want them to remain innocent puppies, we cut back to the now defeated and transformed werewolf, who is a salaryman type. He begs for mercy, but Takamichi coldly informs him that her family are killers, and orders the man executed. It’s chilling stuff.

Unfortunately, there was more ‘wacky high school comedy with hot guys behaving like dogs’ and less ‘family of demon slayers’ here. Now, given that I am a big proponent of ‘never judge a series by its Volume 1’, I am hoping that things improve down the road. For the moment, Jiu Jiu is an excellent example of average Hakusensha shoujo – good plot, interesting ideas, but desperately needs an editor to take a firm hand.

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

It didn’t really dawn on me until I’d finished the first volume how accurate the title would prove to be. It sounds odd, given it’s a Soul Eater spinoff with many of the same characters, including cameos from the two heroes, and that it takes place at the same Academy. But this is an altogether different type of reading experience, and I felt that the author was smiling at me as I finished it and saying, like a little kid, “Enjoy Soul Eater – NOT!”

This is not to say that the manga is bad. The author has skills, and I was entertained throughout. The basic premise is that we follow the life of a new Japanese student, Tsugumi, who’s found out that she’s a weapon, and therefore transfers to the Academy (which is in Nevada, something I’d forgotten – you keep thinking Soul Eater is on a different planet with that sun and moon) in order to meet her partner and find her place (and not be thought of as a danger to others). There she meets two new friends, the bubbleheaded yet strong Meme and the tsundere princess Anya. They have cute classes, run into occasional cute danger, and in the end Tsumugi is even confessed to! … well, not quite, but a guy asks to be her partner.

This seems to begin shortly before the actual Soul Eater manga does. Sid, their teacher, isn’t dead here, and Medusa is still the school nurse (although apparently her younger sister will be the main antagonist). The first volume consists entirely of what I’ve come to think of as typical shoujo situations – the three girls have to deal with some classroom jerks; the three girls get part-time jobs as waitresses; etc. All of the heroines are drawn with very broad strokes – Tsumugi is polite yet worried and with low self-esteem; Anya is such a cliched tsundere that I wouldn’t be surprised if she were artificial. Even Meme’s ‘big-breasted airhead with secret skills’ has been seen before.

There’s also what I tend to call ‘fake yuri’, i.e. close female friendships with lots of hugging and lovey-dovey feelings without the actual relationship behind it. Meisters and weapons tend to be thought of as couples, and both Anya and Meme want to pair up with her. (This is in addition to Akane, the serious-looking young man who asks her to partner with him at the end. So yes, Tsumugi is also the star of a harem manga as well, something else that Soul Eater proper most decidedly isn’t.)

This is the big problem with the series to date. There’s nothing new or challenging here. And for those who enjoyed Soul Eater for its weird design or its occasional graphic horror, so far there’s none of that either. It reads as if Square Enix asked the creator to rewrite the series, only make it more like K-On!. There’s nothing bad about this – it’s a fun story well-told. But compared to its parent series, so far it feels like there’s nothing there.

By Kent Minami and Nozomu Tamaki. Released in Japan by Flex Comics, serialization ongoing in the online magazine Flex Comics Next. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

It has to be said, despite my ongoing joke that it succeeds because it has the word ‘vampire’ in the title, Seven Seas’ license of Dance in the Vampire Bund has proven to be one of their big successes. And as you’d expect when there is a big success, they likely decided to look around and see what else the artist had done that might pick up a similar audience in North America. After filtering out titles the author did that are too pornographic to really be licensed hre… you’re left with very little. Tamaki-san seems to specialize in various kinds of ‘adult’ work, a lot of it running in the borderline H magazines such as Takeshobo’s Vitamin. However, he also recently teamed up with an author to do an online serialization for Flex Comics, which seems to be more about action and religion that showing off the female body.

As readers who follow my site likely know, if I spend almost 200 words talking about the background to a manga rather than the manga itself, it means I’m already reaching for things I can say. But let’s get down to brass tacks. This series introduces us to Mitsuru, a young, pretty, and very emotional young man who is apparently also the key that will bring about the final apocalyptic war between heaven and hell. Protecting him are a team of angels, including Archangel Gabriel, aka Kyrie, his ‘older sister’ figure who recently disappeared, and Revy from Black Lagoon… um, sorry, I mean the Archangel Azrael. They are battling against a group of nasty demons, who want Mitsuru dead so they can bring about the war on their own terms.

The religious terms come thick and fast in this series, and may grow to be more relevant later, but honestly the war in heaven is really just a plot hook on which hangs a bunch of action and things blowing up. Gabriel/Kyrie can call down heavenly fire, the various demons can turn into slavering Cthulhu-like horrors, and of course everyone can fire guns. There’s even a few sequences of roof hopping. As for the other, non-action type of fan service, Gabriel and Azrael are seen nude often (especially Azrael, who walks around topless most of the time) and we are told they are androgynous and also have male members. It’s all just for show, of course – Mitsuru is far too innocent to bother thinking of taking advantage of anything, and spends most of this volume in a constant state of trauma in any case.

There were one or two moments in this manga I felt worked pretty well – the description of how humans let angels or demons possess them, and seeing it work on a sweet young thing at a coffee shop was well-handled and rather chilling. For the most part, though, I don’t think the first volume of this series really cohered all that well. There was a lot of theoretical plot tossed around – and we meet Uriel, a third Archangel who is (of course) in the body of a little girl – but for the most part it can be summed up as ‘Mitsuru gets menaced, then rescued, then lots of things blow up, get shot, or catch fire’. Hopefully it will gain more depth later on.

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.

It is noted in the ads at the back of this volume shamelessly plugging the rest of the Haruhi franchise that in order to get maximum enjoyment from this work, you need to have read the original books, particularly the 4th novel, Disappearance (which was made into the Haruhi movie). I think this is quite accurate. Without the context of Haruhi, this seems a lot fluffier and pointless than it really is. Not that it isn’t already light as air – this is not a manga for those who seek the sci-fi adventures the original sometimes gives us. But knowing the original series as we do helps us to see what the artist is trying to achieve here by, in effect, changing Kyon’s decision in the 4th book. What if he’d stayed, and his memories were also rewritten? How would that universe have kept going?

As you might guess by the cover, the focus here is on Yuki, who is back to being the meek and shy but far more human Yuki we saw in that novel. Luckily, she’s not a complete wallflower. One sensible thing this manga does is start ‘in media res’, as it were, showing us several chapters of Yuki, Kyon and the other interacting before going back at the end and giving us a flashback as to how they met. This allows us to see a Yuki more comfortable with Kyon (although she’s still awkward around him) and even lets her have the occasional snarky line, although that’s mostly directed at Ryouko, who fires right back.

Ah yes, Ryouko. Fans have a tendency to influence other people’s creations, as many writers will tell you. Especially when this is a spinoff once-removed sort of series. The artist, Puyo, is also writing the Haruhi-chan gag mangas for Shonen Ace, which feature his own conceit of Ryouko coming back as an adorable plushie-like creature and basically losing every trace of evil in her. Likewise, fandom in Japan read the first Haruhi books (and Disappearance) and theorized that Yuki and Ryouko would be eating meals together and such before Haruhi showed up and Ryouko went insane. Combining the two, here we see Ryouko as a pure onee-san figure. She has a quick temper, and gets easily frustrated, especially by Yuki’s indecision, but this is a Ryouko who is not going to be stabbing Kyon anytime soon – a genuinely good-hearted character who really is Yuki’s best friend. It’s quite sweet.

There are a few flaws here, of course. As with Haruhi-chan, Puyo’s art can be highly variable, especially when he draws faces. Unlike Haruhi-chan, he isn’t allowed the luxury of going super-deformed all the time. So sometimes we see some very awkward poses and art. In addition, our hero Kyon, deprived of Haruhi’s antics giving him a cynical and sarcastic inner monologue, comes off as being a bit dull, the standard romantic lead for the shy girl who wins her heart by… well, by actually interacting with her. His sharpest moments are actually with Ryouko, who is trying to nudge the two leads together, much to Kyon’s clueless bafflement.

Even with the universe having been rewritten, and Kyon and Haruhi not meeting each other, she’s still not very far away. This time around, an older Haruhi gets Yuki to draw figures on the ground – this time sending out a message for Santa. It’s another example of what this series is trying to do. It’s taking the characters of the Haruhi franchise (including Haruhi, who will get more to do in the next volume) and putting them in situations that make you go ‘Awwwww’ and smile. If you enjoy the sharp, caustic comedy of the original franchise, it would be best to stick to that. As an AU alternative, though, this is simply cute as a button.

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.

Having defeated Death Phantom and the Black Moon Clan, and briefly saying hi to their 20th century selves, Usagi and friends have returned to the present, ready to prepare for their final year of middle school, with all the test-taking that involves for typical Japanese students. But this is Sailor Moon. More importantly, it’s the Sailor Moon manga, where filler is hard to find. There’s barely any time to breathe before a new enemy has made its presence known. But… who *is* the new enemy, anyway?

It has to be said, the senshi are getting better at finding and stopping threats. There is no flailing around the way we sometimes saw in previous volumes. The trouble is that while they can find beings of power, they aren’t quite sure if they’re bad guys or not. Sometimes it gets obvious right away. Possessed schoolgirl has huge lumpy monster leap off her back? That’s a bad guy. (Well, the lump anyway, try not to kill the girl.) But there’s also a couple at the newly formed Private School For The Awesome, Mugen Academy. He’s a cocky smart-aleck who seems taken with Usagi, but also gives off a different kind of aura. She’s a cool and self-possessed gorgeous teen who seems to like Mamoru. And together… well, they have their own agenda.

Of course, I am talking about Haruka and Michiru, who (along with Hotaru) make their debut here. It’s interesting in hindsight to see how much time Takeuchi-san devoted to making the main cast doubt the two new cast members, mostly as, of course, from our perspective, we know they’re good guys, if ones with ambiguous ethics. They’re helped out by a deliberate stylistic art choice. Haruka, when she’s being her normal Academy student self, is not only drawn in the male uniform but is drawn as a male. The judo practice in particular shows this. Whereas when she’s Sailor Uranus, there are far more curves. As I said, though, this is mostly stylistic (Naoko admitted as much in an interview), and Haruka does not appear to be a sex-changer like Ranma or anything. The anime didn’t even bother to deal with this at all, and just made Haruka obviously female for all but her very first episode.

There’s a lot of gender identity stuff here. When Makoto gets hurled to the ground in the judo match, the other senshi yell at Haruka, but she replies that gender shouldn’t matter if you have something you want to protect. Likewise, later on Usagi asks Haruka (who she suspects of being Sailor Uranus) point blank if she’s a woman or a man, and Haruka asks “Does it matter?”. Being a woman and the strength that it provides are a core theme of the series, of course, but Haruka’s dual identity adds a dual thrill to the whole thing. As for the agenda of Sailors Uranus and Neptune, it seems to be partly ‘this is our fight, not yours’ and partly ‘we are better at this and know better’. Though thankfully not quite as obnoxious about it as they would be in the anime.

And there’s also Hotaru, one of my favorite characters, who at this point seems to be shaping up to be a tool of the big bad more than anything else. As opposed to the other senshi (including Uranus and Neptune), Hotaru’s true identity actually *does* remain a surprise in the manga proper, though this is slightly spoiled by the start of the volume having a giant color picture of all ten senshi. Hotaru here mostly gets ill and bonds with Chibi-Usa (who is quite cute here, and also very much like her mother). There is an interesting scene where she is clearly unhappy with Kaolinite, her father’s new assistant, accusing her of breaking up their family. Unfortunately, I think she is going to be disappointed on that front. Despite her initial standoffishness, though (much like the other Outers), there is a core of empathy to Hotaru that makes us sympathize with her.

I do still have a few issues with the manga proper. The anime, particularly this arc, spoiled me for real villains. Yes, the Witches 5 are present and accounted for, but they’re one-offs who do their schtick and get killed off. We don’t even get Eudial driving her car! Likewise, I’m afraid that the main villain behind the scenes, Pharaoh 90, is another nebulous black miasma of evil. Not to be confused with the previous two nebulous black miasmas of evil. (I think Takeuchi eventually realized what she was doing and ‘fixed’ this, if I recall the Stars plotline correctly.)

Still, overall a fantastic volume of Sailor Moon. And hey, who’s that we see at the cliffhanger? Gosh, she looks very familiar…