Monthly Archives: April 2012

Higurashi: When They Cry, Vol. 18

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Story by Ryukishi07; Art by Karin Suzuragi. Released in Japan as “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Tsumihoroboshi-hen” by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Gangan Powered. Released in North America by Yen Press.

This is a revelatory volume of Higurashi, both in the way that it wraps up the plotline with Rena and Keiichi, and in the way that it affects Rika, who is turning out to be the real star of the series. Of course, we have a ways to get there. First off, we deal with Rena’s continuing slide into madness, which culminates in her holding the entire school hostage and dousing it with gasoline. (Thank heavens this isn’t Naruto-level popular, I have to say, or the censors might wake.)

There’s not as much creeping paranoid horror as there was in the previous three volumes, mostly because Rena’s all the way there. That said, there are some impressive visuals from artist Karin Suzuragi. The way the panels and pages are set up and flow from one to another is very well done, and there’s lots of ‘turn the page and be shocked’ moments, particularly when Keiichi realizes he’s been tricked with the fake bomb. And, of course, Rena’s ‘Higurashi faces’ are impressive as well, though the best and most terrifying of those is at the end of the next arc.

Rika had mentioned last time that it was too late to save this world, but Keiichi is trying to make her realize that it’s not just about ‘how do I avoid getting disemboweled’ but about trying to prevent the little tragedies. She was already stunned that he remembered a previous world where he was the instigator. Now, in teaming up with Keiichi and Satoko to stop Rena, she decides after so long to try to stop fate even if it is impossible. (I love her cynical face as she faces off against Rena – we’re seeing more and more of the Rika that remembers every single go-round, and must be far older than 10 years old.) Incidentally, when Rika tells Keiichi that last time she didn’t try hard enough and Rena succeeded? We’ve seen that world too, in the Beyond Midnight arc.

Satoko is also impressive here, and it’s nice to see an arc where she’s less physically and mentally abused. Mion also gets a fantastic moment at the very start of the volume, reminding you that she is indeed the heir to a huge yakuza family and has no intention of doing anything else when she grows up. Mostly, however, she is the abused one in this volume, getting the blunt end of Rena’s billhook to the head in a mistaken belief that her family is behind everything that’s happened for the last few hundred years. In the end, though, this is about Rena and Keiichi.

There really aren’t as many “ship wars” as you’d expect from a harem series in Higurashi fandom. Partly as it ends up being about friendship, partly as little is resolved one way or the other. Keiichi/Rena fans, however, can be happy that the most shippy of their arcs was adapted for manga – Keiichi/Mion fans have to say “But hey, we got the PS2 arc!”. It will be hard to top this, though. The fight on the roof is fantastic, the best Keiichi has ever been, showing him finally breaking through to Rena not by pleading and making sense, but by the game they started with. This arc has been very cyclical, with Keiichi’s need to atone going back to the first arc. Now we end as we began, with a battle between friends – only instead of water, they have lethal weapons in their hands. But lethal weapons are only lethal if they’re used.

Rena’s been very clever through this volume – she’s one of the smartest in the cast, and implied, like Keiichi, to be playing stupid much of the time. But perhaps her finest hour is being able to break through the madness that has gripped every antagonist in this series to date, before killing him. Keiichi realizes how amazing this is, praising her for it in text. By distracting her with the roof battle “game”, he was able to remind her of the fun they all had – and also of her love for Keiichi, and his love for her. They both seem to know it’s not to be – there’s still a certain fatalism here – but Rena cries, and repents her earlier actions. She’s no longer crazy.

And so this arc ends, with the schoolchildren safe, Keiichi and Mion alive, Rena sane, and a final speech by Rika and Keiichi about finding the strength to fight fate, and that they’ll kick back against it as many times as they have to. Which is good, as after this happy ending (the chapter is called “Happy Rena”, anotehr cyclical bookend), we turn the page… and the whole village is dead again. Yes, we’ve managed to resolve Rena’s issues, but Rena was never the one who was disemboweling Rika on an altar, and the main villain is still unknown (though I can hazard a guess). The manga actually makes our irritation at another bad end explicit, with “The End” appearing 25 pages early, and then someone (Bernkastel?) chiding us for ruining the happy ending by turning the page. And so we’re left with Akasaka, 25 years later, wondering what could have stopped this horrific tragedy.

Overall, this arc was one of the best of the series, especially for fans of Rena, its iconic character. Higurashi now takes a summer break, but Yen Press will return in September with what I’m sure will be the final arc in the series, in which everyone lives happily ever after.

After all, how could the “Massacre Arc” possibly be bad?

Durarara!!, Vol. 2

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By Ryohgo Narita, Suzuhito Yasuda, and Akiyo Satorigi. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the magazine GFantasy. Released in North America by Yen Press.

In this second volume of Durarara!!, I was reminded once more of how mentally unbalanced the entire cast is. In Volume one we had Izaya and his ‘I will pretend to murder wannabe suicidal teens’ schtick, but here we manage to get our cover boy Shizuo, who seems to have a bit of a rage problem; Erika and Walker, who turn out to not just be crazy otaku but *really* crazy otaku; and the creepy incestual text (to call it subtext would be wrong; the bathing sequence speaks for itself) between Namie and Seiji. It’s enough so that when you see the supposedly three normal teenagers in the cast, your first reaction is to say “I wonder how warped we’ll find they really are?” rather than assuming they’re there as relief.

I’m also impressed with the way this series handles metatext. The characters aren’t necessarily aware that there is a fourth wall – there’s no talking to the reader or anything – but you can see the artist and writer playing around a bit with the medium. Walker’s monologue about how he and Erika are simply insane naturally, and that it has nothing whatsoever to do with all the anime and manga they consume, is a clever stab at Japanese moral guardians (even as the scene itself can be deeply disturbing – if you dislike implied eye torture, you may want to be warmed, even though it doesn’t actually happen). Likewise, Anri’s description of Mika’s past activities are done as a cute 4-koma, helping to show the dissonance between Mika’s looks and personality and her creepy stalker reality.

Celty gets the first chapter to herself, but otherwise takes a back seat until the cliffhanger. The main plotlines we seem to be following now are a) Celty and her head, and b) the Dollars gang that everyone seems to either be interested in or a part of. Kadota suspects the gang is Izaya’s doing, and you can certainly see why – it’s exactly the sort of thing he *would* do. But isn’t it a bit too obvious? Then we also have Mikado and the high schoolers, who, while interacting with the others, don’t seem to be getting drawn into their plots just yet, aside from Minako’s continued curiosity about Dollars. I quite liked Mikado during his meal with Anri – we see him reject the blunt, vicious reply he’d like to say, but when Anri shows she’s aware of her own flaws (and her own tendencies to use others), he doesn’t hesitate to be direct. They’re good kids.

Someone once told me that Durarara!! is a superhero comic where there aren’t any actual heroes, only supervillains going about their daily life. The word ‘villain’ might perhaps be a bit too strong, but not by much. These eccentrics are not your wacky moe harem cast, and the cliffhanger, which implies that the missing Mika Harima has been put to a very, very bad use shows us that things may only go downhill from here. Despite all this, however, Durarara!! remains a fun, breezy ride. It’s just a ride filled with sociopaths.

Manga the Week of 4/25

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Well, this shouldn’t take long. There’s a tiny, tiny amount of manga out next week (from Midtown Comics, a fact I try to emphasize every week when people say “But what about X, which Amazon released this week?”). In fact, there are two titles.

Stare into this girl’s soulful gaze and try not to buy Air Gear 23, you heartless monster. (At least I hope it’s a soulful gaze. It could be drugged to the gills for all I know.) The series is ending in Japan this spring, this reducing our number of manga with surprise Obama cameos in it by one.

Then there’s Volume 12 of GTO: The Early Years, aka Shonan Jun’ai Gumi. In the recent Shonan 14 Days, Onizuka had to really do his best to avoid violence (well, until it happened anyway), noting he is supposed to be a teacher. None of that here – Onizuka may be a Yankee with a heart, but he’s still a gang leader, meaning there’s lots and lots of fights. And more fights. And still more fights. It’s fantastic.

That’s it. Given the last three weeks, I for one welcome the break (though I’m getting SJG anyway). How about you?