Reviews

By Tsukasa Fushimi, Sakura Ikeda, and Hiro Kanzaki. Released in Japan as Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai by ASCII Media Works, serialized in the magazine Dengeki G’s. Released in North America by Dark Horse Comics.

After reviewing I Don’t Like You At All, Big Brother!, I have to admit that I was not particularly looking forward to OreImo, which does not quite swim in the same waters but is in the same general area, featuring a sister who may harbor closer feelings for her brother than most would be comfortable with. So readers may be pleased to know that I didn’t really hate this, it cleared the low bar that I had set it when I came into it. That said, there’s a lot here that I found awkward, overdone or creepy too. Japanese harem manga lately seems to not only find originality unnecessary, but positively revels in its cliches, and you can see that going on here.

The premise of this work, which is also translated as “My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute!”, is that our generic everyhero Kyousuke discovers that his pretty, popular and standoffish younger sister Kirino has a secret fetish for anime and otaku stuff. Specifically, she loves H-games. And even more specifically, she loves H-games based around older brother/younger sister incest. When confronted about this, she’s upset, but even more she’s relieved that she can finally talk to someone about it, even if it’s her brother. Kyousuke is (of course) a Really Nice Guy, so he tries to find ways to get her to make friends and be able to not repress everything until she’s unhappy. This is hard, as she’s a massive tsundere (see the cover image), but eventually she bonds with a grumpy goth and a busty Gundam fanatic, and all seems well. At least until their father finds her porn…

Let’s start with the things I liked. All the characters are more likeable than IDLYAA,BB. Kyousuke may be a generic everyhero, but at least he *is* the nice variety, trying to do his best for his little sister, bonding with his childhood friend who clearly has a massive crush on him (that he doesn’t see), and so forth. The emphasis in this title is clearly meant to be about the two kids growing closer and opening up as family, with the incest providing a plot setup but (I hope) not really the main thrust of everything that happens. It’s lower-key and sweeter, and the humor is more character based. I also liked the Gundam Girl, who seems poised to be this series’ Cool Big Sis, and who I suspect is hiding something behind those huge otaku-parody glasses.

Now for the bad. The art is terrible. This is not all that uncommon in light novel adaptations these days, but unfortunately it really caught my attention here. All the girls are 14 but look about 4-5 years younger, and the artist has this very odd habit of drawing smiling happy girls as if they’ve just been drugged. Also, I suspect someone took Ikeda aside after the first four chapters and said “Yo, tone it down”, as the overemphasis on asses and the incestual imaginings vanish rapidly when we reach the halfway point and things get less big brother-ey.

The other problem is simply that there’s not really much here that’s new and exciting. A harem comedy with a tsundere lead and a generic male who will, no doubt, get involved in all sorts of wacky misunderstandings, with the ‘gimmick’ being that the supposed cool and beautiful younger sister character is actually an otaku with a slight big brother fetish. The brother-sister incest thing is very big in Japan right now, as a quick look at the bestsellers charts may tell you, but in and of itself it’s not all that interesting. Indeed, I Don’t Like You At All, Big Brother! is at least upfront about its perversions. OreImo’s attempt to be the kinder, gentler incest title comes off as more boring than anything else.

By Aya Kanno. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Hana to Yume (“Betsuhana”). Released in North America by Viz.

Note that I say ‘serialization ongoing’ up there. One might be forgiven, after reading the final two chapters here, in thinking that Otomen ends with this volume, wrapping up on a high note where we finally see a bit more into Ryo’s psyche and see Asuka struggle with what he wants to do with his future. But fitting as it might be, it’s not the end – these chapters ran in early 2011 in Japan, and the manga is still going in Betsuhana, so we have at least three more volumes to go, including one Viz has scheduled for January.

This is not, however, to take away from what might be one of Kanno’s best volumes in this series. It was deliberately written to focus on Ryo, who also gets the cover, albeit disguised as a boy. 3/4 of the book has her meeting up with a judo club that’s being taught poorly by its physically skilled captain whose frustrations make him completely incapable of leading. After seeing him attack one of his students, Ryo throws him into a wall, where he “breaks his arm”. Now Ryo has to dress up as a boy and lead the judo team to victory against their opponents… who happen to by her own school. This means she will have to fight Asuka.

If this sounds incredibly cliched, clearly you haven’t read Otomen before, which specializes in taking the most hideously cliched plots imaginable and doing something with them. In this particular case there are two plots interweaving, both involving Ryo. The main one has her making the judo team into a force of awesome. They have skills, as Sakata (the captain Ryo took over for) has drilled things into them, albeit poorly. Seeing what she can make of them sends Sakata spiraling into despair and self-loathing (not helped by the fact that he doesn’t realize the boy teaching them is Ryo at first, so we get a standard ‘why do I have feelings for this guy?’ reaction) and declaring he’s quitting. Ryo, who can see the good guy underneath, asks if he’ll stay if Odo is victorious. Eventually we *don’t* get our expected Asuka vs. Ryo match, as Sakata breaks his cast (showing he was faking, as we suspected) and demands to fight Asuka himself.

Asuka has a smaller role here, but it’s important – Juta plants a seed of uncertainty in his head about Ryo, and Asuka can’t stop thinking about it. Even after he learns what Ryo is doing, he still puts on a false front in front of her. Because let’s face it, Ryo is not the most demonstrative of people. He’s said he loves her three times now, as well as dated her, and her reactions seems to be more of a cheery “Okee doke!” than anything else. Here, helped out by her father and Sakata, Ryo is starting to realize that her lack of direct expression is bothering Asuka, and she does something about it. THIS. This is what I wanted from this series all along – a direct, honest statement from Ryo that she is also in love with Asuka, as well as some insight into her inner thought process. Very well done.

Then there’s the last chapter. It’s Valentine’s Day, but this is Otomen, so naturally the guys are the ones giving out the chocolate. In between this, we see them all discussing plans for their future, as he’s expected to inherit the family business… but isn’t sure he really wants to do that. Making matters worse, everyone else seems to have a firm goal in mind – including Ryo, who is following in her father’s footsteps in becoming a police officer. This is another chapter that’s more about the heart than the laughs, though I did laugh at Asuka’s realization of what it is he truly wants – or more accurately, what he’s focused on when it happens (truly an otomen to the end). His response, however, is fantastic, and leads to that ending which I told you feels like the end of the series, but isn’t. I hope (and pray!) that finally we can move away from “are we truly a couple?” stories and show Asuka and Ryo growing and getting closer.

Of course, Asuka’s mother probably has a few things to say about this. We’re not done, and I will look forward to Otomen 14 in January. But this particular volume put its foot on the ‘heartwarming’ pedal and never let up, and finally gave focus to one of my favorite characters in the series. Very well done.

Also, anyone notice that the guys in Otomen blush constantly, and Ryo never does? There’s only one time in the volume we see her blush, and it’s not at either of the two places I expected.

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

Please do not discuss Bunny Drop beyond Vol. 6 in the comments. At all.

When I reviewed Vol. 5, I noted that I couldn’t wait to see what direction Unita would take things, even though I thought it would make me cringe. And I was 100% correct – this entire volume is like a giant train wreck, where both of the main ‘ships’ we could be rooting for are faced with tortured reality.

Last time around, we had been told about Kouki’s ‘bad boy’ period in middle school, and now we get to see it in the form of an extended flashback. Which is good, as it really gives us insight as to why Rin has decided that she’s no longer ‘romantically’ inclined towards him. The two of them walked that fine line between ‘like brother and sister’ and small crush last time, but seeing Akari’s wholehearted efforts to drive Rin away, you can’t help but feel horrible for her. Cyber-bullying isn’t just an American thing.

This is paralleled with the ongoing not-relationship between Daikichi and Kouki’s mother, who still doesn’t have a first name (and likely never will, sadly). Their conversation at the end of the volume is all about wishing things could be different but having to move forward anyway, and it almost feels like Nitani-san cares about Daikichi too much to get involved with him. They’ve been there for each other in order to raise their children, but this has perhaps led both of them to be too self-sacrificing – Nitani-san is marrying someone else so that Daikichi can move on and find anotehr as well. The whole scene is heartbreaking.

Rin and Kouki aren’t as sad, but they’re equally hemmed in by feelings that things have moved beyond a point where everyone can go back to how it was before. This is helped, of course, by Akari, who Rin confronts when she tricks Kouki into thinking she’s pregnant. There’s a nice effort to show Akari’s side of things, which isn’t sympathetic at all, but it’s quite understandable – and mercenary. Akari wants to be her own woman, and if that means abusing the love of a gullible high schooler for money, well hey. Unfortunately, all this seems to have done is shown Rin that she needs to get over Kouki, and she tells him so – though notably getting over him is not as simple as she thinks, judging by her red-eyed face the next day.

We all make bad choices in life, and wish that we could turn back the clock and do things better. But we can’t, and that’s what this volume is all about. There’s no going back in time so Nitani could meet Daikichi when she was younger. There’s no do-overs so Kouki isn’t sucked in by Akari’s schemes. And sometimes you can’t fix things, and you have to accept it and move on. Which is where we are now in this series that, while it still has a lot of quiet and cute moments, has come an awful long way from the saga of a young guy raising an adorable daughter.

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.