Monthly Archives: January 2018

Juana and the Dragonewts’ Seven Kingdoms, Vol. 1

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By Kiyohisa Tanaka. Released in Japan as “Ryuu no Nanakuni to Minashigo no Juana” by Mag Garden, serialized in the online magazine Alterna pixiv. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Adrienne Beck. Adapted by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane.

The immediate gimmick of this series, one that’s not uncommon in fantasy but which I haven’t seen too much in manga, is that of a foundling story. The world we’re in is populated mostly by dragonewts, including the hero on the cover, who seems to spend his days scavenging the immediate area for old relics of the previous long-dead civilization, the Muernandes (or “humans”, as we would call them). He finds an egg, and inside is Juana, which is very odd. She comes out of the egg looking about six years old and speaking Spanish, which is even odder. Nid, the dragonewt who found her, is determined to see if there are others like her, so sets off on a journey to the northern lands where they might find a bit more evidence. That is, of course, if they can get past Nid’s naivete, Juana’s tendency to run off when she’s curious, and very dapper villains.

While Nid is not much of a mentor, being the equivalent of a young adult himself, this series feels very much in the mold of other gentle Seven Seas fantasies like The Ancient Magus’ Bride and The Girl from the Other Side. The worldbuilding is done by showing, not telling, which I always approve of, and while Nid has a tendency to be ostracized (again for the meat-eating thing, which I found quite fascinating – a reminder that this is indeed a dragonewt world with dragonewt prejudices) he does have one or two allies… \or at least boisterous loudmouths. As for Juana, she spends the entire book speaking untranslated Spanish, which means (unless you also speak Spanish, which I admittedly do not) that the reader is as much at a loss as Nid as to what she’s saying. That said, she’s pretty good at making her needs known anyway. And at least even I know what “Me gusta!” means.

There are, honestly, a LOT of mysteries still to discover here. We need to know more about this world, which is so different from ours and yet has many similarities i9n terms of the types of people in it. The cliffhanger reminds us that there are still bad guys floating around, though with a top hat and cane it has to be said that the bad guys look fabulous. And of course, everything about Juana is simply odd, though she’s fairly unconcerned herself. In addition to the mysteries, though, I’d argue the main reason to read this is it’s simply pretty well written. There’s elements of comedy, involving the large and boisterous dragonewt who makes Juana her clothing for their long journey (a spacesuit – it’s much hotter on the planet now). There’s elements of sadness, such as running across a dying old dragonewt in the middle of the forest, and realizing that there’s not much they can do except listen to his story. And there’s honest to god terror at the end, as Mr. Smith shows his true intentions and Nid appears to be headed towards a rapid death.

Juana is only two volumes and counting in Japan, so we’ll catch up pretty quickly, but I’m definitely on board. Another well-crafted and likeable fantasy manga is always welcome.

My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong As I Expected, Vol. 4

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By Wataru Watari and Ponkan 8. Released in Japan as “Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabukome wa Machigatte Iru” by Shogakukan. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jennifer Ward.

I think I have to come to terms with the fact that the pacing of this series is going to be glacial at best. Much as I have been clamoring for a bit less isekai and a bit more real world in my light novels, I’m pretty sure that other slice of life books must have plots that move faster than the main one in OreGairu. That said, the author is clearly settling in for the long haul, and I’m not sure if I’m just used to him or if he was less appalling, but Hachiman was not nearly as punchable this time around. He’s still a cynic and misanthrope of the worst order, but his analysis of group dynamics, once unpacked from his own mindset, is very clever and not entirely wrong. He works best when paired off with Yukino, who is very similar to him though I think they’d both rather not admit that. As for Yui… I want to give her a hug and send her to a different series.

Despite Komachi starring on the cover, she’s more of a supporting character this time around. The premise, which is actually quite a good one, is that over summer break the teacher gets the Service Club and its auxiliaries, as well as the Cool Kids group, to help supervise an elementary school camping trip. While they’re there, they notice, as often happens with a class of students, that one girl is being shunned by all the others. Hachiman sees her attempts to power through it and be cool and uncaring as Yukino; Yukino sees her desire to be one of the gang but awkward failures as Yui; Yui just sees a sad young girl she wants to help. That said, the attempts to try to fix the group dynamics are somewhat terrible, and it’s only after Hachiman comes up with a clever but incredibly cruel plan that things are even vaguely helped. And even then you aren’t sure if it did any good.

We get a bit more development of Hayama and his group here, and see he has a past with Yukino that I think makes him a bit jealous of Hachiman. And yes, Saika is here as well and we get endless accounts of how attracted to him Hachiman is, which I’ve come to accept is simply never going to go away. But as always, the best reasons to read the book are the prose, particularly Hachiman’s twisted narration, which can be utterly hilarious, brutally on point, or just plain pathetic – sometimes all three at once. In particular, his strange desire to tell stories of his incredibly pathetic childhood, with only the occasional “this happened to someone else” attempt at a cover up, borders on the needy. But it’s what makes this series compulsively readable, and it’s another good, solid volume for this series. That said, the only major plot development happens on the last two pages. Perhaps that bodes well for the next book.

Made in Abyss, Vol. 1

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By Akihito Tsukushi. Released in Japan by Takeshobo, serialized in the online magazine Manga Life Win +. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Beni Axia Conrad. Adapted by Jake Jung.

The idea of doing serious and sometimes dark and deadly plotlines with adorably cute characters is not new to manga – in fact, one might argue it’s been around since manga first began. The last few years, though, particularly since the advent of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, we’ve seen a number of series that deliberately want the dissonance to be part of the point, showing us young happy people and then having very bad things happen to them. In general in some prior reviews I’ve tended to be more annoyed at the plotline than the art style; I tend to like happy endings, as people know, and don’t like characters put through the ringer just for the sake of being mean. Fortunately, Made in Abyss is not that series. You can tell there’s a lot of care put into the basic concept of the world, and the darkness of the first volume is balanced out by the cheerfulness of the heroine.

We are in a fantasy world that exists on the edge of a giant pit, wherein are treasures beyond compare but which is also super lethal, especially as you get further down. Our heroine is Riko, who delves to the shallowest depths of the pit with her fellow orphan children in order to be trained to be an actual adventurer and go deeper. She’s an orphan as both of her parents went into the pit and haven’t returned… that is, until the city gets a message from Riko’s mother. Most of the city chooses to treat this as confirmation of her death, since she was clearly in the “if you go to this level you will die” area. Riko, though, takes it as a sign that she needs to disregard the slow, filled-with-rules training and go down the pit to find her mother, accompanied by Reg, an amnesiac robot boy who wants to find out who he really is. The volume ends with their illegal descent.

Riko and Reg are the best reason to read the series. Riko is a great heroine, being impulsive and bratty but without tipping over into obnoxious, and she’s balanced well by the thoughtful, withdrawn Reg. You sense that her descent is clearly a bad idea and I have no doubt things will get much worse, but she’s the heroine and I want to root for her anyway. Also, the concept of the pit and the levels therein is quite well drawn, being overly complex without requiring the reader to actually remember all of it. If there’s one big drawback, it’s that this time around I *am* more annoyed at the art style than the plotline. I think the series might have worked better for me if the cast looked a bit more realistic and a bit less, well, Madoka Magica. It does not help that the artist at one point as a gag shows us Riko naked and strung up as “punishment” for rule breaking; it’s not as explicit as I feared, but please, do not show naked children in your fantasy adventures, PLEASE. Especially for the lulz.

Despite that, I will be trying another volume of this, mostly as I am very curious to see what happens next, and I hope Riko succeeds.