Manga Bookshelf

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Reviews

Manhwa 100

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As a reviewer, I’ve found Manga: The Complete Guide (Del Rey), Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga (Stonebridge Press), and Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics (Laurence King Publishing) indispensable references, whether I’m searching for information about a series’ publication history or looking for insight into a particular artist’s style. I hoped that Manhwa 100: The New Era for Korean Comics would provide a similar perspective on the Korean comics industry. Unfortunately, Manhwa 100 turned out to be an ambitious but poorly executed attempt to highlight the medium’s most popular, influential series.

In terms of organization and metholodgy, Manhwa 100 falls somewhere between Manga: The Complete Guide and Dreamland Japan, offering summaries of one hundred books, some of which have been translated into English. Each entry includes basic information about the series’ print run (e.g. number of volumes, magazine of serialization), its author, and its crossover into other media (e.g. videogames, television programs), as well as a plot summary and an assessment of the work’s artistic merit. Entries are grouped according to audience, with sections devoted to sunjeong (girls’) comics, boys’ comics, adult comics, and “webtoons,” comics that debuted online but were later anthologized in print.

We learn in the introduction that a committee of thirty industry professionals chose the books featured in Manhwa 100. The exact selection criteria are never satisfactorily explained, though it’s obvious the committee made a concerted effort to represent a broad spectrum of styles and subjects; no artist has more than one entry devoted to her work. Most books are of recent vintage, with only a smattering of titles released in the 1970s and 1980s.

And here I have a confession to make: I was sorely tempted to call my review “Manhwa 100: Cultural Learnings of Comics for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Korea.” Why? The text is awash in awkward phrases, grammatical errors, egregious typos, and ill-advised attempts to keep it real with slangy, conversational phrases that clash violently with the prevailing tone. The entry for Blue, a title by Lee Eun-hye, is typical of the book:

Comic book characters are used in many character merchandises now, but it was [sic] not very actively used in the 1990s. However, the comics of Lee Eun-hye were widely used in character merchandises, even in the 1990s. This is because the author has the knack of using colors as one of her main themes. As she said in her own words, “color in itself is a story.”

As she proclaims in Jump Tree A+, her previous work to Blue, the teenage years are the “Green Age.” Her new story, Blue, represents the young adult age. The color blue in the comic has two sides. It represents a bright fresh side of youth, and it also represents sadness and gloom. The twenty-somethings in the comic are both fresh and youthful, but at the same time lonely and nostalgic.

A rich man’s illigitemate [sic] son Seung-pyo, passionate dancer Hae-joon, his faithful follower Yeon-woo, smart but cold Hyun-bin, and strong charismatic rocker Ha-yun: Blue revolves around these five characters. The loneliness in Blue was sprouted from self-pity and narcissism. Like in many of her other comics, author Lee Eun-hye pushes her characters into their own narcissistic world disconnected from each other.

That is why Blue is beautiful. The earnest characters express their life honestly. And the poetic narration and symbolic monologues add to its beauty. In 1997, an OST disc, inspired by the comic, was…

Yes, the entry really does end with an incomplete sentence.

If I’m reading the text correctly, this confusing verbiage could be boiled down to three talking points: (1) Lee’s manhwa was among the first to inspire “character goods” (phone cards, figurines, stationery, keychains, etc.); (2) her books feature beautifully drawn, emotionally stunted characters; and (3) her books are popular enough to be adapted into TV shows, CD dramas, and the like. Though it’s obvious she views color as a metaphor for age and mood, it’s not clear how or if she uses color in her work–a crucial point, given the increasingly important role that color is beginning to play in manhwa. It’s also unclear what distinguishes Lee’s work from other sunjeong titles, as symbolism, emotionally-charged conversation, and interior monologues are staples of the medium, not personal idiosyncrasies.

If the book synopses are frustrating, the contextual essays are downright obtuse. With titles such as “Open a Manhwa Book, Become a Friend of Korea” and “Manhwa in America: The New World of Charms Yet to be Discovered,” their stilted language and boastful claims for manhwa’s international importance make them sound like Pravda articles. Anyone hoping for insight into the differences between manhwa and manga (or other sequential art traditions, for that matter) will be frustrated by the maddeningly vague, jingoistic text which acknowledges stylistic similarities between manhwa and manga while arguing for significant differences in subject and approach. As manhwaga Lee Hyun-se explains:

While the Japanese samurai pulls out his sword for the completion of his skill, the Korean warrior draws his sword in revenge of his family or to fight against his or her sworn enemy. The Japanese hero walks the glorified path of the hero, which is as clear as the blood he spills, but the Korean hero trudges, stumbling upon his own defects.

Lee attributes the difference in approach to Korea’s lengthy history of occupation, contrasting it with Japan’s long period of isolationism and political intrigue. “The endless internal strife of the Japanese builds up a sense of hubris and elitism,” he argues, “while being on the defense instills a sense of humility and compassion for others… The hero of Japanese manga is ‘I’ while the hero in Korean manhwa is ‘We.’” It’s an interesting but flawed thesis, akin to suggesting that Howard’s End and Finnegan’s Wake are utterly different because one was written by a British imperialist and the other by a downtrodden Irishman. Lee seems to forget that avenging one’s family (or village, or sweetheart, or mentor) is one of the most basic manga plotlines, transcending genre and time period. He also overlooks the important role of community in manga; for every Lone Wolf, there are just as many characters who discover their purpose when they join a particular group, whether it be the school council (a la Love Master A) or the Shinsengumi (a la Kaze Hikaru).

Given Manhwa 100‘s limitations, I’m reluctant to recommend it; anyone hoping for an indispensable reference or an introduction to Korean comics will find this book baffling. For those already enchanted with manhwa, however, I’d suggest reading Manhwa 100 in the same spirit that our grandparents and parents flipped through the Sears Roebuck catalog: as a book of possibilities, a wish list for readers who enjoyed Shaman Warrior, One Thousand and One Nights, Bride of the Water God, or Dokebi Bride. I’ve already spotted dozens of great candidates for licensing, from Be Good, a comedy about a gangster who goes back to high school at 40, to Buddy, a sports drama set inside the ultra-competitive world of women’s golf.

POSTSCRIPT, 2/3/09: I corresponded with the editorial staff at NETCOMICS, who explained that they had a contract with the Korea Culture and Content Agency (KOCCA) to distribute Manhwa 100 in North America. The book was written and produced by C&C Revolution, a private company. (No individuals are named as authors.) NETCOMICS is not responsible for the book’s editorial content, just for its distribution.

This review originally appeared at The Manga Curmudgeon on February 2, 2009.

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: The Power of Negative Thinking, Vol. 1

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Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: The Power of Negative Thinking may not be as relentlessly intertextual as Ulysses, but this Japanese import is nearly as rich in puns, social commentary, pop-culture parody, and allusions to TV shows, novels, movies, and manga. I can’t imagine adapting such a culturally specific text for Western audiences, yet the folks at Del Rey have made a game effort to do just that. Given the scope and complexity of the task, I think translator Joyce Aurino has produced an eminently readable script that captures the darkness and absurdity of Koji Kumeta’s original. I just wish it were, y’know, funnier.

The premise seems ripe with comic potential. High school teacher and profound pessimist Nozomu Itoshiki lands the gig from hell: an all-female class of stalkers, hikokimori, obsessive text-messagers, bossy perfectionists, panty-flashers, and perky optimists. Try as he might to escape his obligations, his students foil his repeated suicide attempts, compounding his sense of despair and driving him to more extreme, ridiculous measures.

Through a series of interconnected vignettes, we begin to grasp the true extent of Itoshiki’s negativity as well as the sheer nuttiness of his students. In “Zetsubou-Sensei Returns,” for example, Itoshiki instructs his students to complete a “Post Graduation Career Hope Survey” by listing the three dreams they’re least likely to realize, e.g. playing baseball for Yomiuri Giants, recording a best-selling pop album. His sour-spirited effort quickly backfires, however, when the school’s guidance counselor reads the responses and praises Itoshiki for encouraging his students to dream big. In “Before Me, There’s No One; Behind Me, There’s You,” Matoi Tsunetsuki, a.k.a. “super-love-obsessed stalker girl,” develops an unhealthy attachment to Itoshiki. Matoi pursues her teacher with steely determination, adopting his trademark yukata, building a shrine to him, and following him everywhere. The chapter ends with a brilliant stroke, as one of Matoi’s former love interests begins tailing her to find out who’s replaced him, only to discover a chain of stalkers trailing in Matoi and Itoshiki’s wake.

Unfortunately, many of the stories require too much editorial intervention to elicit real laughs, as Kumeta’s panels abound in the kind of small but important details that resist easy translation: brand name parodies, puns on famous literary works, misspelled words, and so forth. The story titles, too, require explanation; “Behind Me, There’s No One,” for example, is a riff on a poem by Kotaro Takamura, while “Beyond the Tunnel Was Whiteness” appropriates a line from Yasanuri Kuwabata’s Snow Country. Absent this rich network of cultural references, Kometa’s comedy loses some of its fizz, playing more like a mild satire of shojo manga conventions than a scathing commentary on contemporary Japan.

If the text sometimes disappoints, the artwork does not. Kumeta uses a stark palette with large patches of pure black and plenty of white space. His highly stylized character designs have a pleasing, geometric quality about them, as do the patterns in their clothing. Though his faces are the essence of simplicity— just a few lines and two dark coals for eyes—Kumeta animates them with skill, registering the full gamut of emotions from anger to joy. His students are virtually interchangeable, save for their accessories and hairstyles: a black eye and a sling for the class masochist, blonde hair and strawberry-print underpants for the class exhibitionist. Again, Kumeta’s economy of form works beautifully, underscoring the extent to which Itoshiki views all of the girls in the same light: as nuisances.

I wish I liked Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei better, as I think Kumeta is a terrific artist with a fertile imagination. But it’s awfully hard to laugh when 70% of the jokes require footnotes. (If you disagree, try this exercise: watch an episode of Seinfeld, The Chapelle Show, or South Park with someone who’s new to the United States. Then try explaining why the jokes work. You’ll quickly realize the degree to which the creators rely on your knowledge of literature, politics, movies, and pop music for laughs.) I’m also a little uncomfortable with the way Kumeta depicts the female students, as he skates a thin line between poking fun at stock manga characters and portraying teenage girls as desperate, manipulative, boy-crazed hysterics. I wouldn’t go as far as to label the text misogynist—that term seems much too strong—but I would feel more at ease with the material if Kumeta’s cast was comprised of troublesome girls and boys—equal opportunity neurosis, if you will.

That said, I’m not ready to declare Zetsubou-Sensei a dud; I’m just not sure how invested I am in a series that requires its own set of cultural Cliff Notes to decode.

This review originally appeared at The Manga Curmudgeon on March 4, 2009.

The Horror! The Horror! Comic Books the Government Didn’t Want You to Read

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In the early 1950s, horror comics were big business. Out of the eighty million floppies sold each month, nearly one in three featured a vampire, a zombie, a cannibal, a werewolf, a parasitic alien, or a vengeful spirit. The comics were as sensational as their titles and were popular with kids—that is, until the Comics Code Authority effectively banned them in 1954 with its prohibition against “lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations.”

The Horror! The Horror! Comic Books the Government Didn’t Want You to Read focuses on horror’s brief renaissance in the 1950s. The first third of the book provides a historical overview of the genre, tracing horror comics’ roots back to the popular crime serials of the 1940s. The rest of the book explores the numerous subgenres and tropes found in series such as Tales from the Crypt, Tomb of Terror, The Thing, and Dark Mysteries. Each chapter is organized around a theme—vampirism, werewolves, zombies—and copiously illustrated with full-color reproductions of covers as well as complete stories ranging in length from one to twelve pages. Rounding out the volume is a 25-minute DVD containing “Confidential File,” a 1955 television documentary meant to show the harmful effects of comics on children.

Author Jim Trombetta is an excellent curator, selecting some of the era’s most memorable stories for inclusion in the book, from “Foul Play” (1953), a short piece in which a baseball team punishes its uppity pitcher, to “Some Die Twice” (1954), a longer story about a modern-day slave trader who falls prey to a tribe of cannibals. Through short but trenchant analyses of each story, Trombetta makes a persuasive case that horror comics gave readers a way to thumb their noses at polite society. Authors challenged the social emphasis on conformity, normalcy, and knowing one’s place by depicting all sorts of taboo behavior, from garden-variety criminal acts (e.g., extortion, robbery) to necrophilia. The stories were lurid, exciting, and decidedly un-PC, often reinforcing racist and sexist stereotypes, even as they lashed out at traditional authority figures.

Trombetta’s writing is lively and full of interesting observations, especially in his efforts to show the connection between America’s emerging military might and civilian reservations about the Korean War. His chapters on brainwashing and zombies, in particular, reveal the extent to which the plight of American POWs captured the popular imagination. Stories like “The Brain-Bats of Venus” (1952), for example, depicted pilots falling victim to a race of mind-controlling aliens—a thinly veiled allegory for the kind of reprogramming that Chinese captors allegedly conducted on American prisoners. Likewise, Trombetta’s chapter on vampirism does an excellent job of examining the way in which latent fears of miscegenation were embodied in the vampire’s unique mode of reproducing: swapping blood with the victim.

The only drawback to Trombetta’s approach is that his interpretations aren’t always as explicit or convincing as they could be. By lumping vampirism and cannibalism under the common heading of “The Hunger,” for example, Trombetta misses an opportunity to explore the very different ways in which these two categories reflected American anxieties about racial integration. His critique of horror comics’ not-so-latent sexism, too, would have benefited from more historical context, given the large numbers of women displaced from wartime jobs.

On the whole, however, The Horror! The Horror! is a beautifully designed, carefully researched book that chronicles one of the most important, vital genres in American comics while capturing its pulpy spirit.

This review originally appeared at The Graphic Novel Reporter on November 1, 2010.

Fruits Basket another, Vol. 1

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By Natsuki Takaya. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Alethea and Athena Nibley.

There are some stories that cry out for sequels, leaving loose ends and plotlines that would easily carry a new series forward with exciting, fresh ideas. Then there are series that ended nearly perfectly, with pretty much everything resolved, and the idea of a sequel fills you with foreboding and a sense that it’s going to ruin the franchise. Such a series, I’m afraid, it’s Fruits Basket another, the next-generation sequel to one of the most beloved manga of all time. Note I said next-gen: apart from one or two minor characters in small roles (Hanajima’s brother is a teacher, for example), don’t expect any of the original cast in this first volume. Instead we see the sons and daughters of Sohma, who are blissfully not cursed, happy and content, and living the good life at the same high school their parents went to. There’s even a Sohma fan club run by the daughter of the Yuki fan club president. Into this lovely arrangement comes Sawa, our heroine.

The late, lamented Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei introduced a girl named Ai Kaga, who thinks everything that she does is a bother to someone else and makes her feel tremendous guilt. It’s meant to be a parody. That said, if you took Ai and made her 100% serious, you’d come close to Sawa in this first volume. Sawa lives alone with her mother, whose absence is hinted to veer towards actual neglect. She suffers from amazingly low self-esteem, not helped by various childhood incidents that have only reinforced it. Now she’s in high school, but she’s late her first day because her landlord yelled at her for something that’s her mother’s fault. If Tohru was a ray of sunshine and hope into everyone’s lives, then Sawa is a black cloud floating overhead. Fortunately, she soon runs into Mutsuki and Hajime Sohma, the sons of Yuki and Kyo respectively. Soon she’s blackmailed into being on the Student Council and hanging out with more and more Sohmas, incurring the wrath of the girls of the school even as she wonders “why her?”.

The biggest question I have with this series is “why was it written?”. No, seriously. What new story needed to be told here beyond “oh look, Sohma kids!”? If Fruits Basket sometimes felt a bit like “every new Sohma gets to reveal their backstory and angst before being healed by the power of Tohru”, this is meant to be the exact opposite – despite the occasional stab at Mutsuki and Hajime having a “rivalry”, the fact is that the next-gen Sohmas are happy and content. Which is good, y’know, because we don’t exactly want to Fruits Basket main characters to be horrible parents, but it’s also fairly boring. As for Sawa, you can tell that Takaya is trying not to simply write Tohru Mk. 2, but her self-hatred really is through the roof – she’s not plucky like Tohru (or, for that matter, Sakuya and Liselotte) and so she simply grates.

There is a hint in the cliffhanger ending that we may see a Sohma who is not happy and content (Shigure and Akito’s kid – gosh, what a surprise), but for the most part the first volume of Fruits Basket another commits the cardinal sin of being deadly boring. And while normally I wouldn’t be pissed off about that sort of thing, the fact that it’s a sequel to one of my favorite shoujo series AND it’s also put Liselotte & Witch’s Forest (which I’d rather be reading) on hiatus just makes me more annoyed. If you loved the original Fruits Basket, preserve your memories and give this half-baked sequel a miss.

Kenka Bancho Otome, Vol. 2

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Kenka Bancho Otome Volume 2 by Chie Shimada

Kenka Bancho Otome, with a storyline about a girl who is forced to dress up as a boy and attend a high school for juvenile delinquents, is an excessively silly manga, which one would expect from an otome game adaptation, but in just two volumes it manages to pull off being a fun summer read as long as the reader isn’t looking for deep thoughts.

In the concluding volume Hinako continues her misadventures at Shishiku Academy, where most of her new friends seem to be on the verge of falling in love with her in her top-secret disguise as her brother Hikaru. Yet another emotional minefield is introduced with the arrival of Houou Onigashima, an upperclassman with a tough-guy jacket that he constantly wears slung over his shoulders like a cape. Houou just happens to be Hikaru’s older brother and Hinako is overcome at the idea that she has yet another brother! But when she returns to tell Hikaru about her discovery he inexplicably becomes extremely upset. The rest of the volume consists of a summer vacation episode with plenty of shirtlessness, school sports day, where Hinako has to cross-dress as a cheerleader with provocative results and a bonus giant schoolyard fight where Hinako further strengthens her platonic friendships with Kira and Totomaru, much to their mystified chagrin. At two volumes long, this series wraps up more nicely than most two volume series, which sometimes suffer from the author being forced to resolve a bunch of plot points quickly in a final chapter. I would have been fine with 3 instead of 2 volumes, if there might have been a little more time to delve into the hints about Hinako’s unconventional family and have her embark on an actual romance. Overall, the art was attractive if a bit generic. I enjoyed the story enough that I would totally play the Otome game that the manga was based on if it came out on android!

kenka bancho otome 2

The Voynich Hotel, Vol. 1

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By Douman Seiman. Released in Japan by Akita Shoten, serialized in the magazine Young Champion Retsu. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Alethea & Athena Nibley. Adapted by David Lumsdon.

I had heard buzz about The Voynich Hotel before it was licensed, mostly that it was dark and funny. Weird probably also came up, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I probably should have been. Before it is dark or funny (though it is both of those things), The Voynich Hotel is STRANGE. A lot of the time it’s content to be a mild gag comic about the staff and residents of a hotel in the South Pacific, but then people start getting killed, or selling drugs, or investigating the secret legend of the three sisters from this island’s past (one of whom seems very familiar). And in amongst this we manage to have the start of a vaguely sweet romance between a guest who’s hiding from… something, and one of the maids, who is cute and innocent and one of those is a lie. I’m not even sure where this series is going, save the fact that I suspect there will be more deaths soon.

Our hero is Taizou, a Japanese man who arrives at the hotel hiding from his old way of life. He ends up passing out, but is taken care of by the two maids who run the day-to-day affairs of the hotel: Helena is cute and spunky and excitable and also Maria from Zetsubou-sensei, and Berna is stoic and deadpan also also a Rei Ayanami clone. The cook is trying to kill herself and anyone else she can get to go with her, the owner wears a Mexican wrestling mask, and the residents are equally eccentric – you might say the manga artist was normal, except he’s trying to write a manga and make deadlines while living on this island. There’s also an assassin, and three more arrive during the course of the first book. The assassins are mostly what drive what there is of a plot, but for the most part you’re here to see weird people be funny.

Fortunately, I found it very funny, though you’ll need to set your sense of humor dial to ‘sick’. Leaving aside all the deaths, I have to say that Berna’s ringtone grossed me out but also had me in hysterics – let’s leave it at that. There are also a lot of “shout out” references in this volume, most of them blatant. Helena takes Taizou’s temperature with her head, which he says is so cliched even Mitsuru Adachi wouldn’t do that anymore… wait, no, he would. The police officers who parody Isaac Azimov’s Bailey and Olivaw are also a hoot, though they remind me that Seven Seas has once again rated this series T when it clearly isn’t – there’s no nudity, but reader beware. Possibly the strangest thing in the book, though, is that Taizou and Helena’s growing relationship is rather sweet – well, once she puts on a different shirt, that is.

The Voynich Hotel was very popular scanlated, so I worry that it will suffer the fate of other popular scanlated series licensed over here (I’m looking at you, Franken Fran). It requires a strong stomach at times, but the skewed tone of this series tickled me, and at only three volumes, I’m quite willing to read more.

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer, Vol. 2

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By Yu Okano and Jaian. Released in Japan as “Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha” by Overlap, Inc. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Shirley Yeung.

Last time I mentioned that I found Rentt fairly dull, but the story being told around him fascinating. Unfortunately, this second book sticks with Rentt the entire time, and suffers from it. It’s divided fairly evenly into fourths, each of which sees Rentt telling us about what’s going on very matter of factly. And speaking in that “I… am a zombie… sort of tone…” to boot. The stronger part of the book is at the start, as I really enjoyed the Bronze Adventurer test he took with the young adventurer couple. And the chat he had with Sheila was also good, though signposted something that I was hoping this book would avoid. (It’s a light novel series, guess what? It’s not avoided.) Unfortunately, the last two stories aren’t as interesting, and by the end of the book I found myself skimming, never a good sign when the ending features a fight to the death against a giant dragon creature.

The start, though, is very good. The test that Rentt and the adventurers he’s paired with take is quite vicious, which is fair given what adventurers of this level have to go through. More monsters than expected, ambushes from guild members, and also ambushes by other adventurers trying to take them out, given that only the one team who gets there first passes. This allows Rentt to show off his knowledge and experience. The adventurer couple are cliched (they reminded me a bit of the brother/sister team from Log Horizon) but cute. After this, we see that, as expected, Rentt’s attempt to hide himself by taking on a different last name and putting on a cloak and mask are not QUITE as effective as he’d imagined. Unfortunately, this then leads to the thing I thought we’d avoided. Sheila is clearly in love with Rentt, and when brought back to the house to meet Lorraine, Lorraine immediately knows it. I don’t really need undead harem adventures.

The third story has Rentt going to a village whose ritual sacrifice festival has gotten a bit too literal about its ritual sacrifices, and she steps in to save the day and figure out what’s going on is not as supernatural as people would think. The final story is the one ending in a cliffhanger, as Rentt takes on the task of finding a rare plant to help heal the head of an orphanage (the orphans are the ones hiring him). The most interesting part of this is when Rentt tries to kill a giant rat creature and instead finds himself getting a familiar, and a rather snarky one at that. Unfortunately, this is almost entirely Rentt by himself and Rentt without other people to bounce off of is far, far too dull. Things aren’t helped by the fact that, due to a rumor of adventurers disappearing, he has to stay out of the dungeons to avoid being suspicious. As a result, he’s stagnated a bit.

So now that we’ve had that dreaded second album syndrome, can things pick up? I believe they can, but I suspect it relies on how large the cast is for the third book. Too much Rentt can be deadly.

Kakafukaka, Vol. 1

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By Takumi Ishida. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Kiss. Released in North America digitally by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Erin Proctor & Molly Rabbitt.

I’ve talked before about the fine balance that some titles need to walk with character development. It’s good to have characters with notable flaws, so that you can show them growing, learning, and changing. On the other hand, particularly in manga where a casual reader can drop a series after the first volume (when most stories have only just laid out the basics), if a character is too unlikable they risk annoying the reader too much. Kakafukaka is a josei series with two people who, at separate points and together, may grate on the reader’s nerves. The supporting cast also has its own issues, and there isn’t really a character that I can hang my hat on here and say “well, at least they’re sympathetic”. On the other hand, this sort of cast and plot is the reasonIe’ve been wanting more josei in the first place, and seeing these broken twenty-somethings blunder through life is why I’m here.

Aki is a young woman who feels it’s been a bit of a downhill slide since middle school. She’s drifting through life, can’t find a steady job, and has a self-loathing complex a mile wide. Oh, and she walked in on her boyfriend screwing another woman. Which means she’s now looking for a new place to live as well. Fortunately, one of her friends is getting married (which comes as a surprise, as she hadn’t told Aki yet) and is looking for someone to take her room in a share house she’s living in with three other boarders. To her surprise, she knows someone else who lives there: Tomoya was her classmate in middle school… and also the boy she lost her virginity to. That said, everything got awkward after that and they drifted apart. Now we’re ready to pick up where we left off? Not quite. Tomoya, it turns out, has erectile dysfunction… something that seems to be cured when he’s around Aki, much to his surprise and Aki’s discomfort. As a result, they reach a very uncomfortable agreement.

Kakafukaka’s issues are front and center, and also the point. Tomoya asks Aki to sleep in the same bed with him, both so that he can get a good night’s sleep (he’s been dwelling on this) and also so that he can see about curing himself. He promises not to “do anything dirty”, but as Aki herself notes, the entire premise kind of revolves around his getting hard when in contact with her. In addition, Tomoya is not all that happy with Aki’s super-low opinion of herself, one of the other flatmates has a crush on Tomoya to a disturbing degree, and Tomoya himself is simply hard to read – one of those “mild-mannered” mellow but stoic types that you see a lot of in titles like this, so Aki can’t help but receive mixed signals.

And so you have a series that shows a lot of promise, but has working against it the personalities of the two leads and the basic premise of their needing to be together. I’m optimistic that the series is going in a positive direction, but the reader might want to wait till a couple more volumes are out and read them in one big gulp.

Durarara!!, Vol. 10

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By Ryohgo Narita and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

I had assumed that this would be another of those “all the plot guns fire off at once” volumes, but I was wrong. Indeed, Narita suggests he’s saving everything for the endgame, which is coming up soon. That is not to say that what’s in this volume is without interest. For one thing, we’re introduced to a new Big Bad, who not only lets all the Yodogiri Jinnais (yes, multiple) get crushed, but also gets to crush Izaya as well, something that always pleases me. What’s more, she seems to have a Saika’s power. This makes THREE independently running Saikas who can control people, as we have Anri, Haruna Niekawa (whose absence from her family life is a large plot point here as well), and now Kujiragi, the cliched “secretary secretly running everything behind the scenes”, who is also apparently older than she seems. She also has a fondness for cat puns. She’s a cool new character.

Thought Erika and Walker are hamming it up, Kadota’s presence on the cover is no accident, though it’s his absence that drives most of the plot. What’s been happening in Ikebukuro lately has been like a grenade about to go off, and the two things that stop it going off are Shizuo (because of sheer physical strength) and Kadota (because he’s the Only Sane Man in this entire series). So when Kadota is hospitalized by a passing mystery car, and Shizuo is arrested by cops for… well, they’ll think of some crime or another… all hell is ready to break loose. That said, it’s made clear in their scenes together that Erika is on a more even keel whenever she’s with Anri. She may be a fangirl of Anri’s supernatural powers, but she also knows that Anri needs a big sister, and when she fulfills that role she can avoid running around town threatening everyone with a car and a motive, the way Walker and Togusa do.

It’s been a while since we checked in on the three ‘main’ cast members (though, as always, Narita insists the star of Durarara!! is Celty). Mikado continues his downward slide, though at least we see he hasn’t gone full villain when he gets totally terrified on meeting Akabayashi. It’s hard to sympathize with Mikado, and I get the feeling that if he admits that he’s doing this so that he can feel excitement and be “special”, he’ll have lost. So he blunders on, not really caring that Aoba is just using him. Masaomi seems to be thinking that the best way to get through to Mikado is to kick the crap out of him till he’s a sweet boy again, and has mobilized the Yellow Squares to do this. As for Anri, all she wants is for things to go back to where they were so the three of them can have their talk. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen, and I suspect the presence of two other Saikas will goad her into more definitive action next time.

So the pot is still simmering, but the stew inside it is smelling even more delicious. DRRR!! proper ends with the 13th book (please don’t ask about SH yet, I beg of you), so we’ll see how much more setup can be forced in before Narita simply has to serve it all up.

Teasing Master Takagi-san, Vol. 1

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By Soichiro Yamamoto. Released in Japan as “Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san” by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Gessan. Released in North America by Yen Press.

It’s a cliche, and a controversial one these days: “Boys just tease the girls because they like them”. And so naturally some enterprising young manga artist wondered, “what would happen if the genders were reversed?”. Well, as it turns out, it’s adorable. The premise here is that Nishikata is a desperately over-earnest young man with a propensity for blushing at anything who is trying desperately to prank his classmate Takagi-san, who sits next to him in class. The trouble is, he’s pretty easy to read. Also, he can’t keep his emotions in check. He’s also far too nice to seriously prank anyone. But mostly he fails because Takagi-san is simply too good at it. In a contest of who can make the over blush first, she wins every single time. Fortunately, all she asks for (mostly) is that he react the way he does. What we have here is My Neighbor Seki if there actually was any romantic tension between the two leads.

There is a certain risk here, which I think the author knows. Takagi-san’s teasing has to go so far and no farther, i.e. she can’t just be mean. You can argue she gets Nishikata in trouble with the teacher, but honestly that’s mostly his own inability to keep himself grounded. We also see her lay off when she thinks that he’s genuinely sick – something which actually seems to bother him. The reason that this sort of thing is all acceptable is that it’s clear that Takagi-san is over the moon for Nishikata. Indeed, her teasing in the final chapter of this volume relies on her being able to lie when she tells him “secretly” that she likes him – because the lie is that’s it’s secret. Others in the classroom wonder if they’re a couple already, and were this a traditional romance manga I bet the guys would be jealous of the “lucky bastard”. We’re meant to see this as courtship – and yes, it does work mostly because the genders are reserved.

The manga ran for about three years in “Gessan Mini” before moving to the main magazine, and the first volume’s chapters do seem to be the sort that can be enjoyed in any order and whether you know the characters or not. The teasing ranges from typical middle-school stuff (making funny faces, tossing aluminum cans) to more personal things (why Takagi-san isn’t swimming in PE today, sharing an umbrella in the rain). Throughout it all, Nishikata remains 100% oblivious to any affection that Takagi-san may have for him, and the one time that he does seem to get it when she tells him directly, she backs off. You get the sense she wants him to figure his feelings out first. You also get the sense there’s no real rush. They’re only middle-schoolers, so she has all the time in the world to watch his face.

The series had a recent anime (which is likely why it moved to the main magazine), so readers may go in knowing what’s going to happen to a degree. Don’t let that stop you from getting this. The pacing is excellent, and the characters are cute. Nishikata is the hero, but you get the sense that if he ever won the manga would end, so you’re rooting for Takagi-san. Mostly as those faces ARE pretty adorable.

The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins

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By Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy, and Carey Pietsch | Published by First Second

I’m a newcomer to The Adventure Zone podcast (only 24 episodes in at this point, so no spoilers, please!) but quickly fell deeply in love with it. My timing was good, actually, because it just about coincided with the release of the graphic novel based on the first arc of the podcast’s first season (also known as the Balance campaign). Initially, I thought I’d simply enjoy the graphic novel instead of reviewing it because the podcast is so important to me. It’s been a really tough year and The Adventure Zone made me laugh and gave me something new to feel enthusiastic about, and for that I will be forever grateful. Happily, however, the print adaptation is just so damned good that I find I have to talk about it!

The Adventure Zone started as a special episode of the McElroy brothers’ long-running and much beloved podcast My Brother, My Brother and Me, but proved so popular that it became a series in its own right. Summed up by eldest brother Justin McElroy as “the story of four idiots that played D&D so hard that they made themselves cry,” it’s the story of a human fighter named Magnus (created by Travis), an elf wizard named Taako (created by Justin), and a dwarf cleric named Merle (created by the boys’ father, Clint) who find themselves working for an organization that’s trying to round up and dispose of dangerous magical relics. They’re guided by youngest brother Griffin, who serves as Dungeon Master and portrays a fantastic array of NPCs. The improvisatory results are hilarious, profane, and wonderfully endearing. And, eventually, capable of evoking tears, though I haven’t gotten to that part yet. I love that the family known for a goofy advice podcast started The Adventure Zone as a lark and ended up creating something genuinely moving.

The graphic novel adaptation is not a word-for-word copy of the podcast. Most of the out-of-character moments have been omitted, and what remains almost reads purely as a fantasy story, except that Griffin occasionally pops in to request perception checks or give out inspiration points, which reminds readers that there are unseen players behind the characters on the page. It’s a neat way to focus on the world the McElroys created without completely shutting them out of it. Some of the dialogue is different (though many favorite quips have made the cut) and some of the names are different (licensing issues, one assumes) and a couple of pivotal events play out a bit differently, but the feeling is the same.

Plot-wise, at this point in the story the trio of adventurers is doing a job for Merle’s cousin, Bogard, who has hired them to convey some of his belongings to another town. Along the way, they come upon evidence that Bogard and his bodyguard, Barry Bluejeans, have been abducted by gerblins. Now our heroes must save them! Along the way, they discover a mine renowned for its mystical ore, an evil drow named Magic Brian who is after something particular that our heroes can’t seem to make out, and an orc woman named Killian who is so impressed by their skills that she takes them to meet her employer. Also, Taako gets a cool umbrella staff! (Really, Taako is the best.)

What’s neat is that, given that the McElroys started working on the adaptation after the Balance campaign concluded, they’re able to add some foreshadowing along the way, like a certain character’s cameo appearance or a seemingly very significant pause when Killian’s boss sees the guys for the first time. (I haven’t finished Balance, so I don’t know what this is foreshadowing, but I’m sure it’s something!) Too, Carey Pietsch’s art (so fun and expressive throughout) includes some in-jokes for McElroy fans, the most adorable travel montage ever, and a dramatic reveal that literally gave me goosebumps. I especially appreciated getting to actually see Magnus engage in various foolhardy exploits. This volume ends with a teaser for the adaptation of the next arc—Murder on the Rockport Limited—and I’m really looking forward to seeing how Pietsch depicts Magnus’ more inspired feats from that adventure.

Ultimately, I’d say that the podcast is funnier, whereas the graphic novel presents a more cohesive story. Both are fantastic, and I recommend them heartily. Lastly, I’ll close with this excellent fan film made using audio from the podcast. If you’re not familiar with The Adventure Zone, this will give you an idea of the lovable silliness that awaits.

The Magic in This Other World Is Too Far Behind!, Vol. 4

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By Gamei Hitsuji and himesuz. Released in Japan by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

You get the sense that this is the book where the author and publisher realized that it was enough of a success to start planning larger plots in the future. This isn’t as easy to assume these days since most of the light novels put out lately tend to be based on webnovels that are already 7-8 volumes ahead of publication, but it does have that feel. Suimei finally reunites with Reiji and Mizuki here, if only temporarily. We resolve the plots from the previous book, and gain a new “harem” member. And we get introduced to a whole buttload of villains at the end of the book, including one who had seemingly been an ally before. Yes, if Suimei is able to take care of villains with ease, and if Reiji’s party is hiding a secret master swordsman, then you also need to step up on the villain game. In the meantime, though, this gives the reader what they want: Suimei being cool, lots of fighting, and Lefille not being a loli anymore. Well, at least *I* wanted that.

The book can be fairly simply divided into its good and bad points. As usual, I like to start with the bad and work towards the good. So it has to be said, Liliana really loses out here. On the run, getting the crap beaten out of her by mooks, and finally rescued by Suimei, she’s not allowed to help out in clearing her name because of the nature of dark magic and how she’s essentially been brainwashed by the villain into using it. Understandable, but it does make her an absolute damsel in distress. Also, unless you’re a hardcore gamer or fantasy buff, the endless lectures on magic theory are going to numb your mind fast. They may be coached in different terms, but this is absolutely the equivalent of those isekai books where the heroes talk about leveling up their XP in morbid detail. So I’m a Magician, So What?

On the bright side, where Liliana falters Felmenia shines. She too got a bit of a raw deal in the first book, and has mostly been following Suimei out of a bit of lovestruck crushing. But she’s clever and very quick to learn, and is also a magic powerhouse, something that Suimei is well aware of. I didn’t like his endless lectures, but I very much did like his trusting her to hold off the cavalry (Graziella, who reminds me a bit of an evil Olivier Armstrong, and the other hero Elliot, who is much less of a womanizing creep here). And as I indicated, we get the return of regular-sized Lefille, kicking ass and taking names. Not sure if she’s still cursed (I suspect yes), but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I also liked the poignant relationship between Liliana and her adopted father.

There’s more I could get into (the idea that no one bothers to search Suimei’s place for Liliana for several days beggars belief, and I didn’t even mention Little Miss “I’m hiding my super awesome fighting skills so I can seem more girly and attractive”), but you get the idea. I’m less wild about Too Far Behind than I was when it first came out, but it’s still pretty solid, and the books are also fairly lengthy, so you get bang for your buck. Light novel fans will enjoy this.

(Note: the lack of illustrations beyond the color pages was apparently a feature of the Japanese version as well, in case you were wondering.)

Go for It, Nakamura!

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By Syundei. Released in Japan as “Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!” by Akaneshinsha, serialized in the magazine Opera. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

It may come as a surprise that I’m reviewing a title like this – I try not to be one of those “girl on girl is hot, but guys ew!” fans, but it has to be said that BL is not a genre I generally cover. But there was a big buzz about this title and its style, and it’s also done in one. The main reason I likely picked it up to review was that it made me nostalgic for the old days of manga. The art style is right out of the Ranma 1/2 and KOR playbook, and I was pleased to see that once I started reading the book, the humor was as well. Indeed, Ranma fans might find themselves thinking that if you took Gosunkugi from that series and made his obsession a guy rather than Akane, it wouldn’t be too far off from our titular hero here. The main reason to read the book is Nakamura, who is a big introvert, has an otaku-esque obsession with octopuses, and is, overall, a bit of a hot mess.

Nakamura is also gay, which is probably why you’re seeing this series run in the BL magazine Opera rather than, say, Weekly Shonen Sunday. The object of his affection, who you see dotted around the front cover, is Hirose, who is a nice, extroverted, upbeat young man – he’s the sort who’d be the “best friend of the hero” in a typical manga. Nakamura wants to be more than friends, but he can’t even work his way past that first hurdle. As the volume goes on, we see Nakamura work himself into a frenzy trying to get the courage to have a normal conversation with Hirose. There’s drawing him in art class. There’s helping out with the school play. He’s even getting dating advice from a BL manga. Admittedly, it’s a BL manga involving anthropomorphic train bento, so he’s not having much luck there. It takes a class trip and an aquarium to finally get Nakamura and Hirose to communicate properly, and though there’s no relationship at the end, the friendship step has finally been conquered.

As you may have gatehred, the main reason to get this book is the humor. It’s simply very funny in a lot of places – Nakamura’s imagined smooth conversations leading to romance are also fun and relatable, and it’s also great to see him fretting. As the cast expands (I liked the author’s note where they said they were worried about adding girls to a BL manga) we also get new veins of humor that aren’t just Nakamura’s somewhat obsessive personality – poor Kawamura has a crush on Nakamura, but he’s only interested in her sketches of him and Hirose, and the occult club president is scheming and clever – in most other titles she’s the sort who’d be the newspaper club girl. That said, the main reason to read this is Nakamura, and seeing his fumbling attempts to get closer to Hirose, which do finally pay off. The ending is rather sweet.

In the end, I’m glad I picked this up. It was entertaining, and if you want to start off your BL reading on the milder side, it’s a good choice.

The Isolator, Vol. 4

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By Reki Kawahara and Shimeji. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

This is the first time we’ve had a villain as the cover girl of this series, though it is not the Stinger of the subtitle, who we never quite get a good look at and may not even be completely human. Instead it’s Liquidizer, who was the evil mentor to our hero’s evil counterpart Trancer in the third book. Both of them have major roles in the fourth book as well, which seems designed to show that it’s not merely a case of Good Guys vs. Bad Guys here. This is, frankly, much appreciated, as whenever Kawahara tries to show off how evil his bad guys are the result is never all that good. I’m all for nuance if it keeps us away from mad ranting and rape threats. Even better, as Minoru’s overall psyche improves so does the series. He angsts here, yes, but far less than the previous books. There are even good things happening! Overall, it pleases me, as it means that, while not a book filled with happiness and sunshine, The Isolator is no longer a depressing slog.

We pick up right where we left off (like Accel World, Isolator is not really interested in down time), right after the last big battle with Trancer and Liquidizer. Minoru is jogging around, awkwardly chatting with his high school friend Tomomi (who may have lost her memories of their traumatic battle, but still has a giant crush on him), and getting some New Year’s mochi, which he shares with the Professor. If you think this may sound a bit like a harem protagonist, you’re not wrong, but Minoru’s Charlie Brown-ish sort of personality keeps things from getting too cliched. At the same time, Trancer and Liquidizer are licking their wounds and talking about what to do next. We get this from Trancer’s viewpoint, and also get a bit of his backstory, as he has a frozen childhood friend in a warehouse that he’s sort of hoping the Ruby Eyes can fix, even though she’s pretty dead. You get the sense that the choice between “jet eyes” and “ruby eyes” may be purely arbitrary.

The main problem – for both groups – arises with The Stinger (another lame Jet Eyes code name), whose gender and appearance is unknown but who can apparently do absolutely anything with insects, including gruesomely killing several soldiers and civilians, and trying to kill both Minoru AND Trancer. The most interesting thing about this half of the book is seeing Trancer’s hatred and self-loathing get the better of him, as he becomes convinced that this is an assassin sent by his organization because he failed them. This leads to a wonderful heartwarming moment, which is all the more amazing given it’s Kawahara writing villainous depth, where Liquidizer shows she does, in fact, care about Trancer’s well-being. It all leads to a cliffhanger, and who knows where we’ll go from here, but it’s a wonderful thing to see.

There are other things going on I didn’t talk about much, such as whether Minoru’s shell can heal the comatose and possibly have a connection with his sister in heaven (I’m winning to bet “no” on that second one), but I’ll save that for the next book, which may come out in 2020 given the author’s other projects. Still, this was probably the best book in the series, and Minoru proves to be an excellent protagonist when he’s not moping. Worth the wait.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 1

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

It has to be said that the title of this series is not its strong point – you get the sense that they kept the Japanese title as a subtitle in order to make it searchable on Amazon, separated from the countless other demon slayers. The premise, too, seems to be fairly traditional and straight down the middle. A young man living with his family out in the boonies (it’s later shown this is the Taisho era – around the 1910s or so) returns home one day to find his family slaughtered and his sister a demon. A demon hunter also shows up to take care of the sister, but her brother defends her, and proceeds to try to a) learn how to get stronger so he can protect his sister, and b) try to find out how to stop her wanting to eat humans. The latter is easily done as she simply comas her way out of the story after a bit, so the former takes precedence. This means the series lives and dies on its action sequences.

The good news is that the action sequences are good. There’s lots of horrific images, and this is not a manga to read if you don’t want to see limbs flying off and people you love lying in a pool of their own blood. Tanjiro is a very earnest young lad in everything he does, and he takes on his training in that mode as well – he is here to SAVE HIS SISTER and kill demons, and he’s all out of sister. He’s a nice kid at heart, which proves to be a bit of a stumbling block for everyone teaching him about demon slaying, as they think he’s not suited for it. He proves to be far more effective than they’d expected, though. His training is not the most original in the world (I have to split that giant boulder in only one blow?), but I was never bored, and the demon we meet in the cliffhanger is pretty damn awful. You want Tanjiro to succeed and be able to save his sister.

The sister, unfortunately, is the weak link here, as once she’s a demon she doesn’t really get to speak. There was a brief moment when I thought she might actually be the comic relief – the bit where we see her bottom half sticking out of the far-too-small basket Tanjiro brought to carry her made me laugh out loud. Sadly, it’s about the only comedic bit in this otherwise very serious series, and once he actually starts his training she rather conveniently slips into a coma so that she’s not off trying to eat people while he gets stronger. I am hopeful that she will wake up, and slightly less hopeful that she might gain some character depth as well. The series is 11+ volumes in Japan, so clearly we have a ways to go. But this is a good start, if a bit straight-laced and serious minded. I’d read it if you enjoy horror/action in an about equal ratio.