Monthly Archives: March 2017

Re: ZERO ~Starting Life in Another World~, Vol. 3

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By Tappei Nagatsuki and Shinichirou Otsuka. Released in Japan by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by ZephyrRz.

I was actually rather surprised to see that we don’t get another loop in the middle of this book. Subaru has managed to slowly figure out what’s going on, and is able to finally fix it, though not without great cost to life and limb. As I expected, this volume focused more on the fan-favorite maid Rem, and showed off her tremendous powers, her truly top-tier hatred and loathing of herself, and her realization that Subaru is not a bad guy – which he isn’t, though he can be rather frustrating, as always. Given that we know that Subaru snarks and makes comebacks in order to cover up his true feelings, I suppose I’d better get used to it, though I still say that he’s at his best when the mask comes off. His manic desperation, and subsequent sobbing breakdown, may be the highlight of the book.

Beatrice is on the cover this time, and I like her the more I see of her, though I do sort of wish she’d yell “YOU ARE INCOMPETENT” to Subaru just once. She’s the classic reluctant mentor who acts grumpy but helps you far more than is necessary. Emilia does not get much to do here, but makes her scenes count, realizing that Subaru is losing his mind a bit at the beginning, and towards the end giving him an epic dressing down (the revelation of how Beatrice and Puck stopped her chasing after him is the best gag in the book). As for Ram and Rem, the Higurashi fan in me could not help but see similarities between their background and that of Mion and Shion Sonozaki, with one twin forced to take up the mantle of the other due to circumstances, and feeling horrible about it. Rem falls for Subaru hard here, and I look forward to seeing how this is handled in the next book, particularly as Subaru is still A. A. E. (All About Emilia).

Beneath his wisecracking, tendency to kill himself to solve things, and sheer bullheadedness, Subaru is actually rather clever, and uses the loops to find just the right questions to ask his loli Wikipedia. The revelation of the mastermind is not one I’ll spoil here, but it should make TV Tropes happy if nothing else. And then there’s Roswaal, who again seems to be secretly evil, particularly given the final scene. Ram is over the moon for him, and seems totally fine with being a pawn, which is never good. Here’s hoping Subaru can figure out what’s going on with him. In the meantime, there are a few teasers for what may happen next. Emilia is still one of the candidates for ruler, and Subaru actually looks back at the first volume and tries to figure out why on Earth she’d use the name Satella given he now knows who that is and the stigma it carries. I am hoping that we get Emilia’s tragic backstory (she must have one) soon.

Re: Zero continues to improve with each volume, though this one was helped along by the back half being one massive battle. That said, I’ve no doubt the next book will feature Subaru being an idiot, and probably dying. Definitely recommended for those who enjoy fantasy thrillers with wisecracking leads.

Clockwork Planet, Vol. 1

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By Yuu Kamiya, Tsubaki Himana, and Kuro. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Sirius. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Daniel Komen.

I came into this series knowing next to nothing about it, except that, judging by the cover, it seemed to be sci-fi of some sort. It’s based on a series of novels co-created by the guy who writes No Game No Life, but thankfully seems to mostly lack the overly perverse aspects of that series. The premise is that a young, bullied teenager who lives on his own in a decaying apartment is actually an engineer savant, able to fix anything provided he can “hear” where the problem is. This is made easier by the fact that things in this world run on gears and clockwork (hence the title), though the aesthetic seems to be more Blade Runner than steampunk. The story starts when a broken robot girl comes crashing into his apartment, and after he fixes her takes over much of his life. Oh yes, and everyone in the city is about to be destroyed by an evil conspiracy.

The manga adaptation of the series is mostly functional, but there are several very nice pictures of the city itself and its gears, showing that the artist is quite capable when she sets her mind to it. The male lead is OK, I guess, suffering at the moment from being a bullied kid who sort of assumes he’s a loser, as he has no idea how rare his engineering talent is. The main reason to get this series, though, is the robot girl, Ryuzu, who is amazingly rude in regards to humanity as a whole and says so frequently. Once she discovers what Naoto is capable of, she’s prepared to do anything for him, leading to the funniest scene in the book, as she tries to get him to have a wonderful school life without bothering to take into account the other students around her at all. Every time you turn the page you can expect her to say new horrible things, and it’s a major selling point.

I was less enthused by the other main characters, who are introduced halfway through. Marie is an engineering prodigy from a well-known family, already with a doctorate despite still being a teenager. She’s also rude, but in a typical “I am arrogant and don’t have time for you” way, so it’s not as amusing. Admittedly, it isn’t supposed to be – it quickly becomes apparent that Marie and her bodyguard are dealing with the evil conspiracy I mentioned above, which is the sort of evil conspiracy that deems 20 million lives as acceptable losses. I think this simply suffers from being less interesting than the first half rather than any major character faults, and I think I will like Marie better when she interacts with other people, but it does leave the book a bit unbalanced.

But overall, a very good start. I want to see more of the world itself, and flesh out Marie and her bodyguard, but I definitely want to keep reading more. And I definitely want to hear more of Ryuzu’s sharp-tongued dialogue, which is the main selling point of this series so far.

Log Horizon: The Gold of the Kunie

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By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

Confession to make: I’m an extrovert. It’s actually been difficult for me to accept this, as most of my close friends are introverts, as are most of the people I interact with on Tumblr and the like. But much as I whine “but sometimes I don’t like interacting with others either”, there’s no getting around my extroverted nature. As such, I find Shiroe very frustrating and hard to take at times, and I empathized very much with Naotsugu in this book, who knows there’s not much he can do but be there for Shiroe and let him work things out at his own pace. Of course, Shirou is trying to pull off an even bigger scheme than usual – this is essentially the Log Horizon equivalent of a heist movie, only with the true objective not being piles and piles of money – well, not DIRECTLY. The true goal is freedom and security.

The majority of this book is a raid, and once again I am painfully reminded that I don’t game. More than any other light novel that details game-like aspects of a world, Log Horizon depends on its readers being gamers. This means there’s lots of discussions of balanced parties and of HP and MP and the like, to the point where we need extended appendixes just to discuss MORE of it. Thankfully, it’s not completely incomprehensible, and enough of it is written in standard action movie terms that I was never lost. But we’re not allowed to forget that the people trapped in this world are all hardcore gamers. This goes double for William Massachusetts (I will never get used to that name) and his guild Silver Sword, whose close bonds are a reflection of a group of people who found real-life interaction difficult but were able to find true bonds online – and also learn more about how to interact offline. His speech of anguished frustration is a highlight of the book.

There’s a new regular introduced here, and I’m not sure how I feel about them. Tetora is a self-proclaimed “idol” who also happens to be a Level 93 cleric, and for a while you suspect has been added to the book in order to replace Akatsuki as someone to bounce off Naotsugu properly. The gender reveal – that Tetora is actually a boy, though it’s not clear if they just dress as a girl or have a female game body – seems rather odd and last-minute, and I assume that we will get a bit more of this later beyond “I just like acting overly cutesy and annoying”. Interestingly, Taylor Engel uses female pronouns the entire book till the reveal, then has Shiroe switch to male ones. How does Tetora see her/his gender? To be honest, I found Tetora a bit grating, but that’s possibly as I’m a massive Naotsugu/Marielle shipper, and don’t want someone horning in on their slowly developing couplehood. Luckily, we see a bit of that relationship here as well.

There’s a bit more going on here that will impact future books – Krusty has vanished, and his lieutenant seems to have permanently lost her right arm. This likely ties into the “flavor text” from the previous volumes. But the majority of this volume had the same goal as the 6th did for Akatsuki – get Shiroe to open up, explain things, and stop trying to take the entire world on his shoulders. Whether that will stick is something we’ll have to see about in future books. In the meantime, next book we’ll focus on the younger members of Log Horizon again. This is a good, solid light novel series that may appeal to the reader who finds Sword Art Online a bit too outgoing.