Monthly Archives: December 2010

Kamisama Kiss Volume 1

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By Julietta Suzuki. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz.

I’ve been greatly pleased with the release of Suzuki-san’s prior series, Karakuri Odette, so this new one was a must buy. It’s doing pretty well in Japan, already being her longest series to date, as it passed Odette’s volume length earlier this year. As for the story itself, it seems to be a lot more traditional shoujo than Odette was, but that’s not to denigrate it – this is a lot of sweet fun, it’s just fairly fluffy.

Well, as fluffy as a series that’s about yokai can be. For those who were reading Natsume’s Book of Friends but wanted less melancholia and more romantic overtones, this may be the series for you. Nanami finds herself homeless after her deadbeat dad abandons her, and after saving a man from a dog, somehow ends up as the deity of a local temple. (If it seems I went by that too fast, I was merely imitating the author – the backstory is dealt with in 10 pages at most.) There we meet two cute will-o’-the-wisps who are delighted to see her, and a fox-spirit named Tomoe who is far less so. But he’s cute.

Nanami and Tomoe’s relationship is very much out of the old-school book of manga cliches, with both of them being the sort who will overhear each other at the worst possible time, be stubborn about any feelings they may have, and secretly worry. Of course, a lot of this may have been deliberate – Karakuri Odette was notable for having very little romantic interaction, so it’s possible that this is for all the readers who had demanded that Odette and Asou get together. Tomoe in particular seems to be very jealous and possessive of any other guy he sees as flirting with Nanami – even if they’re actually bullying her. Clearly softening his prickly character is one of the goals of this book.

There are some healthy doses of humor in the book – I particularly liked Tomoe’s stunned face when he’s forced to do as Nanami says – but this is more of a sweet and mellow work so far, despite the two leads doing their best to shout at each other. Judging by what Tomoe says, it would appear a great deal of the series might be helping out with romantic entanglements, and we see that towards the end of the first volume, as a yokai princess requests help in reuniting with a human boy she met years ago.

I will admit, this feels slighter than most series, but it is Volume 1, and I usually give these sorts of things a while to win me over. But if you like yokai, or typical Hana to Yume romances (stubborn positive girl x grumpy negative guy), you’ll like this.

Gakuen Alice Vol. 13

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By Tachibana Higuchi. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

After the huge emotional gutwrench of the last volume, it was obvious that this one would be a breather, and it is, for the most part. There are no major villains here, and the plot is mostly about recovery from the last adventure and school shenanigans. We see how Valentine’s Day operates at the school, we watch Mikan’s class try to pay tribute to those graduating, and we meet a young boy whose Alice has left him as he grows up – as some Alices do – and so he has to leave the school.

This last one struck a chord with me, as it becones another reminder of how horrible this whole setup is regarding the school and Alices. Mikan is at first consoled by the fact that Hosshan (the boy who’s lost his Alice) will be going home and reunited with his happy family. Then she’s promptly informed that his family hasn’t been spending as many letters recently, so he’s wary of that, and more importantly, the community he’ll be going back into will likely resent him. Towns are apparently paid a government stipend for having an Alice at the academy, and when they leave, that’s less money for the community.

Then of course there’s Valentine’s Day, which Mikan thinks will be normal and sweet, but is anything but. I was surprised to see the manga talk so blatantly about all the students trying to use mind control candy to get another to like them, but then again, Gakuen Alice is a title that mines its humor and heart from hideously traumatic ideas and events. This doesn’t even count the girls wanting Luca to wear rabbit ears, or ex-girlfriends trying to give a little payback revenge, or even Hotaru, who simply wants revenge with no feelings behind it whatsoever.

There are some nice character moments in here. I liked Hotaru being mildly more tolerant of Mikan’s clinginess after seeing her near death the last volume, something that Mikan then proceeds to abuse horribly. Tono also seems to have worked out Mikan’s past, and is justifiably worried for her. Sometimes this doesn’t always work – the graduation story was the weakest of the volume, and I felt that the backstory between Curly and Mindreader-kun felt rather tacked on in an effort to give that chapter more emotional depth. I did like seeing his blank smiling face with an ‘angry mark’, though.

After the high point of Volume 12, this inevitably seems a bit of a letdown. But hey, it’s only brief – the next volume will introduce Luna, who is the next big challenge for Mikan and her friends. As I think I’ve finally grown used to this deconstruction of ‘superhero school’ and its close look at bullying and manipulation, I am looking forward to more. Which is good, as I’m behind, and Vol. 14 is sitting here waiting to be read.

Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei Volume 8

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By Koji Kumeta. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Del Rey.

As always, pretend I took a while here to bitch about the shoddy editing job on these volumes. I don’t blame the adaptor, who mostly does a pretty good job, but it’s clear the series (and Del Rey’s manga in general) has no editor at all. They get Harumi’s last name wrong. One of the main characters. That’s sad.

Moving on, it’s another funny observational humor volume of Zetsubou-sensei. Even though we’ve evolved to the point where the characters aren’t really that relevant except as stock gag pieces, we still get another ‘regular’ introduced here. In fact, Manami has been around since the very first chapter, she just hasn’t done much. This happens a couple of times throughout (Mayo was also around at the start), and we’ll see it again in a much later volume with Kanako Oora. And of course, because Zetsubou-sensei is now observational rather than character-based, she doesn’t even get a full-blown intro. She shows up, reveals her quirk, and leaves.

Her quirk is that she’s a married high-school student, which is possible in Japan but generally frowned upon. The ‘attendance list’ picture at the end notes that she’s working to pay off her husband’s debt, neatly giving us far more than we got within the actual chapter. We never do meet her husband, which is likely a good thing, as from what we can work out, he’s rather scum-like. In any case, Manami is there now if people need jokes about being either married, working 8 jobs at the same time, or being very gullible, all of which she excels at.
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As for the others, they all do their part. We don’t get any major Chiri freak outs or mass murders here, but perhaps she’s taking a brief break after the last few volumes. Seeing Abiru’s other eye was rather startling (and, as Nozomu notes, creepy). Kiri’s utter devotion to caring for her teacher, even if he’s taking advantage of her, is sad in its very true to life aspects. I laughed with recognition at Nozomu pointing out Harumi’s infection with ‘pointy chin’ syndrome, wherein her characters get more elongated faces with pointier chins as the months go by. And Chiri does get a wonderful spotlight where she is told by a Brain Age parody that her brain is 28 years old, and so decides to live like a ‘Christmas Cake’ OL, listening to Miki Imai and riding strange exercise machines.

This volume does very well in having things discussed that are fairly universal, rather than just relevant to Japanese culture. We’ve all gotten presents that we don’t want but don’t quite have the heart to simply toss. I can identify with self-imposed duties myself, feeling a need to post a review a day even though people probably don’t care as much as I think they do. And I loved the whole chapter about being an extra in someone else’s life story, which was one of the few chapters from this book that was used in the anime series.

Zetsubou-sensei will never be a big seller – I suspect the third volume hitting the NYT list was an aberration – and in fact it even reads like a cult hit rather than a mainstream shonen manga. But it’s a lot of zany fun, and the characterizations are broad and yet likeable for the most part. Certainly I hope that Kodansha USA continues it with Volume 9 when they start up their own line, though I do hope they add a copy editor to staff.