Monthly Archives: November 2012

Haganai: I Don’t Have Many Friends, Vol. 1

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By Yomi Hirasaka and Itachi. Released in Japan as “Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai” by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Alive. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

It can sometimes be very difficult to practice what I preach. It’s all very well and good for me to offer advice to others, but sometimes a situation comes up where I have to take it. And so it goes with this first volume of Haganai, where I can’t help but hear the voice in the back of my head reminding me of Teru Teru x Shonen, where I urged bloggers who read Vol. 1 and then stopped to not judge an ongoing character arc by its first volume. And so it goes with Haganai, where I feel obliged to note that the plot is likely meant to be ‘this characters grow better and learn to be nice as the series goes on’. Or at least I hope so, as Haganai has some of the most irritating leads you’ll ever meet.

As if you had not been able to guess by the title and cover, Haganai is based on a series of light novels. The basic premise seems like some odd fusion of Haruhi Suzumiya and Toradora: a young man who has trouble making friends due to his natural blond hair and his squinty eyes meets an antisocial young woman who has trouble making friends with anyone. After a brief discussion, she gets the idea to form a club, supposedly devoted to learning how to make friends but in reality most likely just an excuse to hang out. Of course, she doesn’t count on the club actually gaining new members, all of whom are just as socially maladjusted as she is.

One thing the manga does that I enjoyed was have a ‘Chapter 0’ which takes place several months after the events of the rest of the book, a flash-forward of sorts showing us what the club will eventually be like. It helps to introduce the major players (including several who then don’t show up again for the rest of the volume) and shows off the basic plot and how it leads to cringe-inducing humor. Seeing it, I felt a bit more prepared for the rest of the volume.

Unfortunately, Haganai is also part of a brand of ‘moe’ that I’ve never really come to love. The old ‘harem genre’ of shonen manga used to have the nebbish hero choosing between nice girls, tsundere girls and the occasional bottle fairy, but there was never any indication that the girls weren’t able to function in society as a whole. But manga lately, mostly due to the related boom in light novels, has seen a huge increase in socially maladjusted high schoolers who simply can’t interact properly with anyone (except of course our hero… and even then). And you’re left exhausted as you see them blackmailing people gleefully as it would be fun to abuse them (as Yozora does here) or getting offended that the male lead refuses to act as her slave/footstool (as Sena does). It’s a love triangle of two girls who re all tsun and no dere. And what that leaves is basically a somewhat nondescript hero listening to two loud and obnoxious women yell for 200 pages.

That said, as I noted, clearly the premise will be (besides which girl gets the guy) about seeing the nice and sweet side of these girls. But it’s getting harder to justify digging for it. Even Haruhi Suzumiya eventually mellows out. Can I expect the same for Yozora and Sena?

Young Miss Holmes, Casebook 3-4

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By Kaoru Shintani. Released in Japan as “Christie High Tension” by Media Factory, serialized in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

The second omnibus volume of Young Miss Holmes, I will admit, did not thrill me quite as much as the first. Shintani is starting to have more difficulty inserting Christie and company into the Holmes stories, and I suspect, given there’s 3 volumes (one omnibus) to go after this that he might veer off the canonical road soon. He also has that odd habit that most manga writers who started in the 70s and 80s do of inserting humor – usually quite low humor – at the oddest points, something he no doubt got from Tezuka (you can see traces of this in Adachi and Takahashi’s writing as well). That said, this is still a lot of fun, with Christie being incredibly precocious while avoiding cloying qualities, and some much needed backstory for her two maids.

The first half of the book is taken up with The Hound of the Baskervilles, quite possibly the most famous of the Holmes stories. There are no attempts to alter the outcome of the story such as we saw before, and it spins out (with much compression) as expected. As I noted above, we get lots of opportunities to see Christie be brilliant, making deductions and logical leaps. At the same time, though, she has the patience and drive of a 10-year-old girl, and her maids realize this – though they’re still not able to corral her very well. And, as Shintani knows what’s popular and what isn’t, we get some nice opportunities of seeing Nora using her whip, including a battle with the Hound (which doesn’t go well, but luckily she has an unseen rescuer.) And again, thankfully, Holmes arrives at the solution faster than anyone else, including Christie.

The second story adapted here is The Adventure Of The Six Napoleons, which has a solution that is obvious enough that Shintani can easily write Holmes out of the tale and have Christie solving everything. This also reintroduces Detective Dexter of Scotland Yard, who we briefly saw in Hound, and who pops up every now and then from now on. He has an immediate attraction to head maid Ann Marie, something Christie notes and is quick to take advantage of. Again, the case plays out much like the original, but makes for a nicely entertaining adaptation.

A brief short story, The Memories of Nora, follows, and is what it sounds like: an original story by Shintani showing Nora’s life to date and how she became a maid at the Hope Estate. It’s not a pleasant childhood to say the least (and has some annoying ‘evil gypsies’ stereotypes to boot), but lets us see that Nora has no regrets as to where she’s ended up.

The final Holmes story adapted for Christie is The Five Orange Pips. Wisely, Shintani leaves the main mystery to Holmes, if only so that Christie doesn’t have to feel responsible for the fallout. Christie’s plot rests with Ann Marie, who has a complete freakout when she hears about the pips. As with most modern North American readers, the solution is far more obvious these days – we know what KKK stands for – so the storyline concentrates on Ann Marie’s own tragic childhood, and her change from a sweet little child to an instrument of God’s vengeance (as Holmes rather awkwardly puts it).

I must note once again that Seven Seas’ All Ages rating for the book is entirely inappropriate, in my opinion. Leaving aside the brief non-sexual shots of underage nudity, there’s simply a giant pile of violence here, including lingering shots of corpses with their throats slit, as well as a young girl killing an entire mansion full of people. I get that ratings can sometimes drive sales, and that it’s very hard to sell books starring 10-year-old cuties to adults. But come on.

That said, I am very grateful to Seven Seas for bringing out this series, which is a fast-paced and fun mystery series with a cute and sharp as a whip protagonist, and can’t wait (though I will have to, as it’s not out till September 2013) for the conclusion. And note with amusement that even Christie herself has started to call her maids ‘Herculean’.

Cross Game, Vol. 8

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By Mitsuru Adachi. Released in Japan in 2 separate volumes by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

And so, at last, after two delays (this was supposed to be out in July), we have the final volume of Cross Game. And perhaps the final Adachi in North America or a while, though I hope I’m wrong. If it is the last, though, at least we got this, a terrific story which both encompasses exactly what Adachi does best and also plays with his own cliches. Plus it’s one hell of a final game.

There’s a lot of flashbacks and flashforwards throughout the entire volume, as despite this being the big winner goes to the Koshien game, there’s a lot on everyone’s mind. Wakaba, her dream for Ko and Akaichi, and Akane’s surgery, all of which we are aware of. And Ko and Aoba’s conversation before the game, which we only get half of. Though I think we might be able to guess, especially given that Ko prefaces it by asking if he can lie. The flashbacks are all revelatory even as we reach the final volume. The old man who remembers Ko throwing baseballs against his wall with tears in his eyes is touching and sad, then we get Aoba’s own memories, as she catches him doing it. The manga has made it seem at times as if Ko coasts and doesn’t put in the work – this shows that he’s been doing it all along, but it’s a secret. Or a lie. Take your pick.

Some folks have noted they felt that the Akane plot was superfluous, but as I’ve stated before, I think that Adachi did that deliberately to contrast Aoba, so unlike his usual heroines, with Akane, who’s a carbon copy of the type he normally writes. Akane’s quite never-give-up attitude towards her surgery, her waking up to the satisfaction of seeing Akaishi hit an RBI for the first run of the game, and just generally being sweet. This is probably another reason why Cross Game was the perfect license for North America – we are a land which favors the Aobas of the world.

The game itself is a pitcher’s duel, of course, and Ko gets to show off both his batting and pitching chops. It’s the perfect game for a manga narrative (despite Aoba literally walking over to Adachi to suggest a plot at one point – it’s nice to see the 4th wall being broken right to the end), and the outcome is satisfying on both sides, even if one finds it bittersweet. And all that’s left is the realizations – not just Junpei and his marriage proposal/bet, but also Aoba, who understands as Ko walks towards her that Ko and Aoba were able to satisfy Wakaba’s dream. It’s a very emotional moment, and played as one.

But life goes on, and the final chapter is a scene of everyone getting ready for another trip – even if things have changed between the leads. Ko has always described himself as a liar, but it’s Aoba who gets the last word, with the biggest lie she’s ever told Even after she wonders to herself why she and Ko have to be so alike. A fitting end to a terrific series.