High School DxD: Funny Angel of Christmas

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By Ichiei Ishibumi and Miyama-Zero. Released in Japan by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Haydn Trowell.

Yes, that’s right, we finally get a volume dedicated to Irina… well, a bit. She’s still not really getting as much screen time as the main cast, but at least there are events here that rely on her being who she is, which is a step up from “random girl says dialogue X”, her role in the last eight or nine books. Irina is very fortunate in that this is a harem series that we already know is going to end with multiple wives, and therefore she should be fine. Because really, she is the definition of the Unlucky Childhood Friend from these romcoms, the sort who shows up again and the hero doesn’t even remember much about them. Or mistakes them for a boy. Fortunately, Issei’s memory is getting better, and the two of them have possibly the second sweetest relationship in this entire series. (Asia still exists.) Unfortunately, since he’s a demon adn she’s an angel, sex is out of the question, right? Well, surely there are ways around that…

So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun. And looking to the future, of course, because it’s only just begun. Issei and company are getting ready to celebrate the holiday by giving out presents to folks in the town, which has started to get a bit hammered by constant demon vs. demon battles. Helping out in this will be Irina’s father, who is a higher-up in the Church and is very much in favor of Issei x Irina – to the point that he and heaven have developed a separate dimension just for her and Issei to safely get it on. Unfortunately, sex will have to wait, not just because this is the sort of series that only relies on edging the reader, but also because someone is going around killing Church personnel, and it turns out to be connected to a cover-up in the past. One that might impact Issei and Rias in the future.

I’d mentioned in the last couple of reviews that Issei was getting a bit less perverse, and clearly the author noticed this as well, because it’s lampshaded here, with people wondering why he wasn’t busting out the humiliating sexist moves on his female opponents. But it’s because Issei, like the rest of the cast, is getting better at fighting, and can usually skate by with just punching things really hard like a normal shonen battle manga. As for Irina, she’s here to be the shiny innocent one – indeed, that’s ALSO lampshaded, as Michael says the reason that he picked her to head up his angel task force is she’s so kind and pure and etc. And dull, frankly, but they can’t ALL be like Akeno. As for the plot, well, erm, bad guys doing very well, actually. In terms of the fights the good guys win because they coordinate, but in terms of results achieved, not great.

We’re heading closer to the end of the series (I’ll believe Yen has the spinoffs and sequels planned when I see it). Asia’s the new club president. And so now it’s time for Xenovia to see if she can also become president… student council president. That is if the world doesn’t end first. We’ll find out!

Spy Classroom Short Story Collection: From Inferno with Love

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By Takemachi and Tomari. Released in Japan as “Spy Kyoushitsu” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nathaniel Hiroshi Thrasher.

We may have finally drained the Avian well dry (or maybe not – I hear there’s another spinoff just started that features them), but that doesn’t mean we’re going back to the main girls for these short stories. In fact, as the cover might suggest, the main girls, with one or two minor exceptions, don’t appear in this story at all. That’s because, despite the formatting, this really isn’t a short story collection at all, it’s a prequel, dealing with Inferno, the spy group Klaus was drafted into years ago, and how they trained him to be what he is today, as well as hinting at their tragic downfall. It honestly may be the best collection to date, and despite the ending being as sad as you’d expect (I am thankful the writer did not go full Se7en on us, but it was close enough that I did not like it), most of this can best be described as heartwarming or funny. Mostly as Inferno have adopted a feral cat. Named Klaus.

In a prologue, we see Guido, who we know well from the start of this series, coming across a terrifying monster who steals food and leaves it with kids. This turns out to be Klaus, who is ten years old and turns out to have been named by Guido. Klaus is feral, and I mean that sincerely. Over the course of the book, we get the other members of Inferno giving their brief opinions of Klaus (they like him, with the exception of the tsundere in the group), we get four stories. 1) Guido takes Klaus on his first mission, taking out a gang, as well as its leader who is busy trying to train his eldest daughter Sybilla to be a murderer; 2) Gerde takes Klaus on a mission to see who is killing a politician’s allies, and Klaus starts to gain empathy; 3) the twins take Klaus to another country to learn how to read people and also the fine art of triple crossing, and 4) Heide and Klaus go to see why their agents keep disappearing, and Klaus learns some unfortunate things. Well, unfortunate for him, Heide seems happy.

Heide was probably my favorite part of this book (and I was highly amused at the author writing it so that it made emotional and storytelling sense that they had sex, while at the same time leaving an out just in case it needs to be taken back later). Heide is an annoying older sister-style brat, but like a lot of those she is annoying out of love. Really, the whole group is great. Unfortunately, as Veronica points out, Klaus has gotten TOO close with them, too involved, and throughout this book we see her and Guido yelling at each other in the background, and we know how that turns out. The final story, written for this book (the other four were in Dragon Magazine) shows us where Klaus was when Inferno were wiped out, and the answer is “in a horror movie” essentially. Still, Klaus ends up taking the right lesson from his time with Inferno, and resolves to build a new family for himself. It’s really sweet, in a tragic spy sort of way.

Also check out the afterword, which has the author’s “stories that will never be written”, some of which are funny, and some of which are kind of creepy. The anime may have tanked this series,l but the books are still great.

Otherside Picnic, Vol. 10

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By Iori Miyazawa and shirakaba. Released in Japan as “Urasekai Picnic” by Hayakawa Bunko JA. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Sean McCann.

(More spoilers than usual in this review.)

Since the famous Book 8, I’ve felt that this series is riding on a newfound confidence and swagger, and this volume does nothing to disabuse me of that feeling. Divided into three stories, the first shows us Sorawo’s conflicted and muddled feelings about her relationship with Toriko, and how normal tokens of affection such as a lap pillow can not only be twisted by jealousy but also turned into an Otherside encounter. In the second story they discuss Kozakura’s AI ghost story teller (which may be influencing things a lot more than expected), and then go meet Runa, who’s being let out of supernatural jail and being taken in by Tsuji, who still feels a bit dodgy. The final story decides things have not been scary enough, and makes up for that, with a terrifying journey into the Otherside involving bears, crows, lots of corpses, and the worst underground subway station out there. Fear not, though, they’re still constantly flirting with each other. In their own way.

I left out one part of the story, which is easily the funniest bit in the book. Toriko has decided she wants to meet Benimori, who Sorawo describes as a yokai who eats love stories. The idea that Sorawo finds a “normal” romance with Toriko to be scarier than any ghost story, to the point where she has in a way fashioned their relationship *into* a ghost story to make it palatable to her, really appeals to me. But that’s just from her point of view – we’ve talked before about how to others Sorawo and Toriko are just shamelessly flirting in front of everyone all the time. To Benimori, who lives very much in “the real world”, theirs is not a nue, it’s just a new love between two shy, awkward girls who still dance around their own pasts and their own feelings. Just because Sorawo doesn’t like to see it as a normal relationship doesn’t mean that normal relationshi0p advice can’t be good.

As the series has delved into a lot of the backstory back in the “real world”, we’ve seen the Otherside treks a bit less, so the back half of this book was a welcome change. That said, whoa baby a lot of that was pretty unnerving for me. It doesn’t help that it ties into Satsuki Uruma and her past with Toriko, who feels a bit ashamed of it but doesn’t deny it. And then there’s just the horror imagery – this is something else where I wonder how the manga will handle it, as there’s a lot of things that work best in the mind’s eye here. And it ends with a nasty little cliffhanger as well. Over the past few months, no one has made more of an impact on the Otherside than our two heroines, so naturally there are people who regard them as the greatest threat. They’re good at defending themselves against random horror – or not so random horror – but this feels more like they’re going to need to fend off assassins soon, which is a step up. Fun times!

And now we wait another 16-18 months again. Still compelling as hell.