Monthly Archives: May 2019

Ojojojo, Vol. 3-4

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By coolkyousinnjya. Released in Japan by Takeshobo, serialized in the magazine Manga Life. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Ben Robert Trethewey. Adapted by Clint Bickham.

I feel a bit guilty about this, as the author admits that this was one of their earliest series. But frankly, Ojojojo is easily the best thing we’ve seen licensed by this author, and it’s not even close. Dragon Maid is OK, but this was really, really good all the way through, keeping up the “plotless 4-koma” st5yle while actually having quite a good plot. There isn’t much of a plot, but that lets the series breathe, and allows its characters to drive things. We move towards a climax, taking in Haru’s little sister (who tries to be the bad guy, but isn’t, something that is cliched but works well), Tzurezure’s past (which reminded me a lot of Sousuke in Full Metal Panic!), and their attempts to communicate with each other better so that they can be better partners. Which, despite rich gossips and inheritance struggles, is the real enemy of this series, as the two of them just aren’t really good at communication.

(I’m using the color cover for Vol. 4, which annoyingly is not included in the omnibus, as I like it better.)

As noted, the only major addition to the cast here is Aki, Haru’s younger sister, who arrives from overseas and immediately sets out to make her sister’s life hell because, well, she’s decided she wants to play the villain for her sister’s sake. It’s amusing that almost everyone gets this immediately, despite the author’s attempts to drawing Aki with the world’s most ridiculous evil grin. As it turns out, she and Haru are both lonely rich kids at heart, so once everything is resolved they are allowed to rediscover the affection they have for each other… and Aki is allowed to tease Haru shamelessly by flirting with her man, something that works mostly as Tsurezure is so stoic about the whole thing. Akane and Chris also reach an agreement, though I’ll be honest, I like these two better as a “greek chorus” to the rest of the cast than I do as a couple. Akane as the only normal person is also very amusing.

There’s a lot getting in the way of the main pairing, though. Haru is a noblewoman, Tsurezure is a commoner. What’s more, he has a secret past, one which, if it gets out, could pose a lot of danger for them. (I forgot to mention his adopted family, who are both sweetie pies. Honestly, everyone in the series is a sweetie pie.) And Tsurezure is clearly brooding about this, to the point where he tries to run away and live in the woods, a sign that he’s not nearly as mature as he sometimes appears. Naturally Haru follows after him, in helicopter no less, and belts him across the chops for daring to decide everything for both of them. Her solution, oddly, also reads as very immature and ill-thought out… but actually works out for the best for everyone involved. In the end, they make a great couple.

So everyone lives Happily Ever After. (Well, except Aki. Sorry, Aki.) If you want a sweet romantic comedy with great characters who grow over the course of four volumes, I really recommend this. Plus Haru is frequently straight up hilarious. Especially when cooking.

I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, Vol. 4

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By Kisetsu Morita and Benio. Released in Japan as “Slime Taoshite 300 Nen, Shiranai Uchi ni Level MAX ni Nattemashita” by Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jasmine Bernhardt.

In general, when you have a series that runs on “slow life”, a light novel subgenre where the characters in another world decide that they’re going to take it easy and do things at their own pace (whether this succeeds or not is, of course, a question for the author to decide), the book rises and falls on the narrative voice of its main character. Slow Life protagonists tends to be relaxed and easygoing to begin with, but it’s dangerous to make them too bland, as you risk the reader wandering off. Fortunately, that’s not going to be a problem with Azusa, whose internal tsukkomi is stronger than ever in this volume. As her bond with her extended family grows stronger, she’s becoming more “mom-like”, but that doesn’t mean that she’s above screaming at people Osaka-style, and that happens a lot here. As for the plot itself, well, we spend most of the book outside the house, believe it or not.

As with previous volumes, we get a lot of interconnected short stories here. Azusa eats a mushroom that turns her into a child, and struggles against everyone wanting her to act like one as well. The solution to this involves climbing to the top of a 108-story tree, which ends up being a hilarious parody of tourist traps. Then they meet a death metal bunny-girl musician (not making this up) who is down on her luck, possibly as her death metal is terrible. Azusa and company convince her that changing her genre would not be the end of the world, and it turns out that when she calms down and gets more introspective, she’s actually really fantastic. Azusa then finds a rice field, which inspires her to make manju and mochi for the locals, something that might get her rebranded as a sweets maker rather than a witch. Finally, she and her slime daughters go to a convention and meet… Azusa’s mother?

For the most part this volume hit all the right buttons. There were a few things I didn’t care for (the mom chapter felt a bit odd to me, though it fits in with the “found family” concept of the series in general), but for the most part we get to see a) Azusa snarking at everyone and everything around her, and b) Azusa also helping everyone and everything around her. She’s still the strongest in the land (at one point she has to fight the entire Blue Dragon tribe, who she compares to a group of high school delinquents, and mops the floor with them), so growth has to come from other directions. I was particularly pleased with the translation this time around – it’s a new translator, but the narrative voice seems unchanged, and there was a joke involving a hashtag that made me grin from ear to ear.

Yen Press has recently licensed two other series by this author for the fall, and you can see why – Killing Slimes for 300 Years is a fun, breezy read, and makes trying to do nothing interesting.

Snow White with the Red Hair, Vol. 1

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By Sorata Akiduki. Released in Japan as “Akagami no Shirayukihime” by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine LaLa. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Caleb Cook.

When I mentioned this title in Manga the Week of, I compared it to Yona of the Dawn, but on reading the first volume the two are more different than similar. Both have red-haired heroines, and they start out much the same, with a haircut and our heroine leaving her home. But Yona has rich backstory to detail right up front, while Snow White with the Red Hair is a typical LaLa series, meaning the first volume is essentially a bunch of one-shot tryouts that eventually resulted in a full series. This does not, however, mean that I did not fully enjoy Snow White with the Red Hair, as its heroine is a lot of fun, and the references to the fairy tale/Disney cartoon are also cute. Moreover, Yona is out to save the kingdom, but she has a lot of help from the guys around her. Shirayuki, however, is very much Herbs Over Boys, and despite the constant presence of Zen, the prince (there had to be a prince, it’s Snow White), this does not appear to be a romance. Yet.

I almost laughed at how fast the plot kicked off. By the fourth page Shirayuki has been told she’s been chosen to be the prince’s concubine (different prince), responds with a hearty “hell no”, cuts off her hair (which is highly unusual in this kingdom), and sets off into the woods. She finds a house and sleeps up against the side, but luckily is found by some dwarves… OK, no dwarves. Instead we mete Zen and his friends/bodyguards Mitsuhide and Kiki, who take her in and get to know her. Unfortunately, Shirayuki tends to stand out, so is discovered almost immediately, and gifted a present of I Can’t Believe They Aren’t Poisoned Apples. After a series of reversals, we discover that Zen is ALSO a prince (he’s one of those “I’m constantly under cover so I can see how my kingdom really works” types) and Shirayuki is safe… for now. This leaves her free to chase her dream of being an herbalist… and maybe one day she can be herbalist to Zen.

As you’d expect given the source of this story, Shirayuki tends to be in peril an awful lot. The good news is that the author takes pains to show Shirayuki doing her damnedest to get out of this peril herself, particularly in the second chapter, where she’s kidnapped and brought to a nearly escape-proof house, which she escapes from nevertheless. And then there’s the arrows being fired at her, and the Marquis who doesn’t trust Shirayuki and dislikes Zen’s attention to her. As I said earlier, this isn’t a romance yet on Shirayuki’s end, but we can see that Zen is already getting pretty smitten with her, and the two have a nice friendly bond and are both clever but overworking people. We didn’t really get to see quite as much of the supporting cast, however, two of whom I thought were simply bishie-looking men but are apparently women.

That said, the series is 20+ volumes in Japan, and so I’m sure as the cast expands everyone will get plenty to do. For the moment, I take pleasure in reading a series with a heroine who’s down-to-earth and nice, and a hero who is much the same.