Monthly Archives: November 2017

Slumbering Beauty, Vol. 1

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By Yumi Unita. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Rakuen Le Paradis. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Angela Liu, Adapted by Marykate Jasper.

It can be difficult sometimes when your name becomes synonymous with something notorious. Slumbering Beauty has a lot of things I love. A snarky, emotionally repressed heroine who gradually opens up to other people even as we see that her home life is a wreck. A premise that can involve “situation of the week” yet still have an ongoing plot. Twists that become much darker when you think about them. And some very amusing humor. That said, it’s still hard for me to get past “from the creator of Bunny Drop” and not think “uh oh”. Fortunately, so far there seems to be absolutely no sign of any imbalanced and unsettling relationships here, though I felt the same way when I started Bunny Drop. It’s a good series with a dollop of fantasy, and I’m interested to see where it goes, though we appear to have caught up with Japan already.

Our heroine is Yaneko, a high school girl who really loves to sleep – in fact, it’s difficult for her to get up every morning. This is a problem for the sleep spirit Nerimu, whose job it is to ensure that humans get enough sleep and wake up on time. Yaneko has one of these things down. She can also see him, for reasons that aren’t quite clear yet, and over the course of the series becomes an apprentice as she accompanies him on his rounds to quiet flailing babies, ease the brains of constantly texting young ladies, and otherwise become the Japanese Sandman (it’s not clear whether she has to sneak out with the dew as well). In her interactions with him, Yaneko begins to make real human friends – she was very much the loner no one talks to before – and develop a bit more empathy, and Nerimu, the sleep spirit, is there to guide her.

One of Nerimu’s fellow spirits suggests that he take her on as an apprentice, and this was the part of the book that fascinated me the most, as it almost feels like a metaphor for suicide. Yaneko is making a couple of friends now, but her home life is so oppressive – the reason she seems to sleep so much and so deeply is her parents fighting all the time – that at one point she readily agrees to take on Nerimu’s job. He has to talk her down from this, saying that in effect she will be vanishing from the world, and pointing out his own tragic situation from centuries earlier – it’s not that he misses his mother, it’s that he can no longer even remember her face. I am hoping that Yaneko resists the urge for a volume or two longer, as I’m liking the way she’s gradually opening up and starting to care about others.

As I said earlier, this is the only volume out in Japan, so be prepared for a wait for the next one. It’s pretty good, though, and shows off the author’s innate skill without having any of the disquieting plotlines of her prior series. Give it a look.

A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 13

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By Kazumi Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “To Aru Majutsu no Index” by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

Last time I bemoaned my dislike of the author trying to be funny, which he does every once in a while. Fortunately, this book is the sequel to Book 12, which had all the funny stuff front-loaded, and so it is content to be a giant series of fights, showing off Touma’s stubborn drive to help people, Accelerator realizing that no, anti-hero doesn’t quite fit yet, he’s still a villain, and Crowley using people as unwitting pawns to such an extent that he’s actually called out on it at the end. In short, it’s doing the things I like to read A Certain Magical Index for, and therefore I would argue it’s an excellent volume. It also features a significant role for Index, who contrasts with Accelerator so much that it boggles the mind that their paths keep intersecting. Still waiting for her to be useless and annoying, that must be anime-only, I swear.

Introduced in this volume: Acqua of the Back, Terra of the Left (voice only). Compared to the ranting, deeply broken Vento of the Front, whose hatred and fury at anything related to science has literally been weaponized by the Catholic… geh, by the Orthodox Church, Acqua looks to be fairly sensible and calm. Of course, he still threatens Touma with death, but honestly, Touma can be a bit overbearing. And frankly, Acqua was right, Vento can’t just say “wait, I was wrong all along” and switch sides the way so many other opponents Touma’s dealt with have done. In terms of chronology, we’re directly after the events in Book 12, and the two read as a two-book set. Uiharu is slightly less out of character here at least, in her one scene before she collapses like most of the population in the city.

We also see Hyouka Kazakiri as well, and honestly it’s been so look since the 6th book I won’t blame anyone who had forgotten her. Sadly, she’s mostly used as a walking plot device, and I have a sneaking suspicion will continue to be irrelevant after this book is finished. Presumable she and Index are out having burgers and Cokes whenever the focus is not on them. The really important plot here, though, is Accelerator, who gets his first real spotlight since his “rehabilitation” in the 5th book. It wasn’t much of a rehabilitation, to be honest, and those who like their heroes and villains to be black and white won’t like this book at all. Most of his victims are mooks who also seem to be happy to kill innocent civilians if it serves them, but it’s the WAY Accelerator kills them – in one case punching a woman’s jaw off and then crushing her in a hydraulic press – that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Not that I think it’s bad – it’s exactly what the author wants to do, showing us how much of Accelerator’s goodwill is entirely tied to Last Order, and when she’s not around or captured, god help everyone. I will leave the mysterious black Angel Wings he sprouts before sending Kihara into the sky like a rocket for a later date.

If you have been reading Index, this is a good one – no surprise given it’s an odd number. Good fights, Index gets to actually do things using the magic the narrative keeps insisting she doesn’t have, Touma gets to alternately talk and punch a villain down to size, and the frog-faced Doctor draws a line in the sand – and also shows us how close he really is to the heart of Academy City. And next time we take another European field trip, this time to France, and finally see why fandom loves Itsuwa so much.

Nekomonogatari: Cat Tale (Black)

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By NISIOISIN. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by Vertical, Inc. Translated by Ko Ransom.

I had to reread my review of the Tsubasa Cat volume to make sure I didn’t repeat myself, as this book goes over a lot of the same ground that one did, even as it expands (and sometimes contradicts, as Nisio says himself in the afterword) on the story of Tsubasa Hanekawa and Golden Week. Indeed, it’s still not done, and Hanekawa’s tale will continue (and, for the most part, conclude) with Nekomonogatari (White) next time. But while Tsubasa Cat was more showing off Hanekawa’s stress due to her repressed love for Araragi, and ensuing jealousy at all the women in his life, particularly Senjogahara, this volume wants to examine what Hanekawa is like as a person, and how deeply screwed up and damaged she really is. And I’d also argue it’s even more about Araragi and Hanekawa’s deep-seated lust and passion for each other which never does blossom into anything more. This volume shows off why that’s probably a good thing.

The trend of “the heroine of the previous volume has a long scene with Araragi at the start of the following one” ends here (unless you count Hanekawa following herself), but man, what a way to bring it to a close. The conversation between Araragi and Tsukihi at the start of the volume may be the most rambling, pointless conversation in the history of the series, and that’s really saying something. It has such a reputation that Vertical actually sell it in the cover leaf copy. It is almost precisely one-quarter of the entire book. I don’t think it disappoints, though as always with Monogatari you’d better be prepared for some fanservice. The siblings’ conversation about love was used in the anime, but the conversation had to be cut to the absolute minimum – meaning the long dissertation taking in Anne of Green Gables, panties, more panties, and still more panties was left out. There’s also even more metatextual stuff than before – this was inevitable given that he wrote this as the anime was becoming really popular, but we get cute narrative mentions of Senjogahara, Hachikuji, and Kanbaru (who aren’t in the book, this taking place before the events of the main series) as well as Tsukihi saying, in response to a bad impersonation by her brother, that her voice sounds more like Yuka Iguchi.

As for the main plot, we’ve seen the prologue to it in Tsubasa Cat. Hanekawa was hit by her step-step-father – and the narrative makes it clear he really belted her, to the point where she hit the opposite wall – and subsequently, along with Araragi, buried a dead cat lying by the road. This ends up getting her possessed by an Afflicting Cat, which goes about “relieving her stress” by beating her parents nearly to death, cutting off Araragi’s arm, and going on a spree of draining energy from the town’s residents. The gimmick here is that in reality, it’s Hanekawa who is more of an aberration than the Afflicting Cat ever was, and the synthesis of the two of them has made her so powerful that even Meme Oshino (still around, this being a flashback volume) gets the crap beaten out of him. This is interesting as a look into Hanekawa’s broken psyche, though I found it less appealing when Oshino tries to excuse her abusive parents by saying she’s essentially asking for it. And Araragi’s solution, as one might expect, is overly violent and lethal to him, and doesn’t really achieve anything whatsoever except a temporary fix. But at least, in the end, he’s able to realize that repressing his love for Hanekawa is the right thing to do for both of them. Because trust me, he’s lying like a rug about not loving her. At least at this point in the series.

This is the end of the “first series” of Monogatari, and the next few books have a few minor but significant changes. The most obvious being the narrative voice. Next time we’ll see the White side of Nekomonogatari, which resolves Hanekawa’s story with her own first-person narration, and is also the first “Araragi-lite” book. Till then, enjoy the Black side, which is not only Araragi-heavy, but a heavy book in general. It’s depressing to see how screwed up everyone in it is. Honestly, Senjogahara will end up being the most well-adjusted of the cast once she comes along.