Monthly Archives: December 2017

SP Baby, Vol. 1

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By Maki Enjoji. Released in Japan as “SP x Baby” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Petit Comic. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by JN Productions.

The cover for SP Baby (the ‘x’ has been removed from the North American title, for reasons that are unclear, particularly as the SP is not particularly obvious – I think it stands for Security Police) is meant to be viewed horizontally, I think. with the front and back together showing us the lead couple. It’s a good summary of the power dynamics of the couple itself, like many manga romance covers. Tamaki is the heroine, and she has her hand extended to stop some unseen person from coming closer, while the other is shoved up against the wall. Her face doesn’t make it clear if she’s guarding her charge from an attack or trying to stop anyone seeing him with his arm around her. Meanwhile, Kagetora is the hero, and is a ninja who… wait, he’s not a ninja? Nonsense, he’s named Kagetora. All manga characters named Kagetora are ninjas, it’s a rule. In any case, he’s standing there with one arm around Tamaki’s waist and the other posed artfully in the air, staring at the reader with a smirk that makes me worry he’s going to say something like “My bodyguard – I think I’ll keep her”. It is a great cover for showing exactly what you get in the manga itself.

Despite the occasional snark in the above paragraph, I found SP Baby enjoyable more than I expected. Tamaki is fairly hapless, but it’s in a likeable, realistic way. She’s looking for work but has an extreme case of bad luck, and it has a tendency to get others hurt. Her only close people seem to be her younger brother (who’s a non-entity) and her childhood friend Natsu, who is tall, good-looking, likes the heroine but seems to be unaware that she is into him. He’s also a blond in a josei series, never a good sign. One day while looking for work, she spots a man being chased and attempts to stop his attacker… who it turns out is actually the man’s bodyguard, trying to get him to do some unpleasant task. Turns out Kagetora is the nephew of the prime minister, so has a lot of people after him for various reasons. And whatever bad luck Tamaki may have, she can also kick. So Kagetora hires her to be another bodyguard for him. But is this really the first time they’ve met?

The author previously did Happy Marriage?!, and I get the sense that if you enjoyed that you’ll like this, and if you didn’t it’s probably not your thing. That said, I did enjoy Happy Marriage?!, and I liked this as well, forced kisses aside. For one, I liked the fact that the forced kiss was immediately called out. I also enjoyed the various bits of bodyguard training we saw – Tamaki can kick, but she needs to learn more if she’s going to be able to protect anyone. And the couple is cute. You hope they get together. In fact, they’d better get together soon, the second volume is the last. Josei fans should have fun with this.

Also, if Kagetora is revealed to be a ninja in Vol. 2 I will laugh and laugh.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Mobilization

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By Yoshiki Tanaka. Released in Japan as “Ginga Eiyū Densetsu” by Tokuma Shoten. Released in North America by Haikasoru. Translated by Tyran Grillo.

These novels seem to have been alternating between political intrigue and space battles, and as you might guess that means the majority of this volume is the latter. And some fantastic space battles they are, showing off good strategies, the horrors of war (one of Those Two Guys is even killed off), and a battle of wits between Yang and Reinhard. As for who wins, well, as you can imagine, it’s not as clear cut as all that. There is a decisive winner of the war, though, and that leads to the scene that everyone has been waiting five books for, which is Reinhard and Yang meeting face to face. It’s not a very long scene at all, and the two respect each other but don’t really change their mind about much of anything. Still, it’s iconic, and I imagine must be one of the highlights of the anime series. Of course, there’s still five books to go in the main series, so the question is where does LoGH go from here?

Perhaps a romantic comedy? Unlikely, but it’s not an accident that each main character has a capable and beautiful young assistant. That said, Frederica’s feelings for Yang have been far more noticeable, whereas it’s harder to get a read on Hilda (as the two generals mirror each other, so do their aides). Given that, it’s unsurprising that Yang takes the plunge here, with perhaps one of the most awkward proposals ever recorded on paper. It’s still nice to see, and combined with the war being over you sort of hope that Yang gets his wish to settle down, retire, and become a historian as he’s always wanted. That is highly unlikely to happen, sadly. As for Hilda, she’s far more active in the plot, but any potential romance (which, given the differences between the Empire and the Alliance, I expect would be more a political than romantic arrangement) is scuppered by her actions here to ensure Reinhard’s safety, which are very clever, work 100%, and absolutely infuriate him. Reinhard has never grown up in many ways, and it’s never more clear than in the scenes at the close of the battle, where he can’t accept what’s actually happened.

As always with LOGH, there’s about twenty other things also happening. Much to my surprise, the bratty child Emperor has not yet been terminated with extreme prejudice, but he has been made completely irrelevant, which works just as well. Julian is back with Yang, though that also means he has to deal with Yang and Frederica getting together, which (as a teenager with a crush on Frederica himself) is vexing. And there is still politics and intrigue, mostly on the Alliance side – in fact, given this is the midpoint of the series, it seems appropriate that a decisive and crushing final victory… is completely averted, leaving everyone pretty unhappy.

As you may notice, I’ve been trying to be less spoilery than usual, because the joy of this volume really is trying to guess what’s going to happen. Of course, the amusing thing is that the main audience for these novels may be fans who have already seen the anime. That said, if you’re on the fence and you like dense, verbose space opera, you absolutely have to be reading this.

Forbidden Scrollery, Vol. 1

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By ZUN and Moe Harukawa. Released in Japan as “Touhou Suzunaan ~ Forbidden Scrollery” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Comp Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by ZephyrRZ.

Seemingly this manga is simply another in a long, long line of titles that can be summed up as “supernatural experts deal with the yokai problem of the week”. The star of the show, or at least the character who the events revolve around, is Kosuzu, a perky and slightly ditzy seller of rare books. The land she (and the rest of the cast) live in, Gensokyo, seems to exist somewhere in yokai land, and finding books that actually exist “in the human world” is a big deal. Of course, just because the books may have existed in the human world doesn’t mean they can’t be big trouble. There’s letter-eating bugs, and sentient smoke, and all sorts of yokai that are not precisely evil but are definitely troublesome. Fortunately, Kosuzu has a group of friends to help her out whenever things get too out of control. In fact, at times it feels as if the friends are the real stars that the reader paid to see…

Yes, as most readers are no doubt aware, this is not merely another generic youkai manga, but in fact that first manga licensed here in the West based on the hideously popular bullet hell game Touhou Project. And the reason that so much attention is devoted to Reimu and Marisa is that they are the overall stars of the franchise – Kosuzu was created specially for this title. There are, thankfully, some explanatory endnotes detailing who’s who of the major characters. Sometimes this isn’t needed – the vaguely antagonistic friendship/rivalry between Reimu and Marisa is pretty self-evident from the text, but sometimes things can be a bit confusing. When Reimu meets Mamizou, the unsettling supernatural tanuki girl, it’s clear they have a past history, but that is presumably part of another piece of Touhou lore.

So the question remains, is this readable and enjoyable to someone unfamiliar with the Touhou franchise? I think so. Pretty much all I know about Touhou can be summed up as “Cirno’s Perfect Math Class”, but I was able to move along here, mostly as I have considerable experience reading youkai manga. The cast are new to me, but their character tics are pretty well established – Reimu seems very lazy, for example. That said, I think I found Kosuzu the most interesting character – which makes sense, since this series is supposedly about her. It’s unclear how aware she is of the dangerous qualities of her books – certainly she seems to be hypersensitive to anyone damaging then, but that reads as “obsessive book lover” more than anything else. I want to see more of her.

I think Yen Press seems to agree with me that the series can be appreciated without any previous knowledge, as the Touhou references are limited to the endnotes – not even a “based on the hit game Touhou Project!” on the back cover. It’s supposed to succeed or fail on its own. There seem to be about 7 volumes, and I’ll certainly see how the next one is. For Touhou fans, obviously, but also yokai fans and fans of cute girls.