Monthly Archives: June 2019

Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? On The Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 9

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By Fujino Omori and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka? Gaiden – Sword Oratoria” by Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Dale DeLucia.

I’ve talked before about how I regret that the publisher talked the author into using the title this series has, as opposed to the original title Familia Myth. Granted, I see the publisher’s point, Familia Myth is not the most eye-catching title in the world. But DanMachi’s title puts the emphasis on Bell and his harem, even in these side stories dedicated to Loki’s crew. Whereas Familia Myth emphasizes the family aspect of the series, and I honestly think that that’s handled better than the harem. This 9th volume of Sword Oratoria interlaces with the 8th volume of the main series, showing us some scenes we’d seen from Bell’s POV in a new light when we get Aiz’s inner monologue. Interspersed with this are flashbacks to the time when Aiz first joined Loki Familia, and… let’s just say that “she was a little terror” doesn’t even begin to describe little Aiz and her desire for strength above all else, including her own safety.

Given that the cover art heavily implied it, I was expecting this volume to be heavy on Aiz’s backstory and emotional journey, and I wasn’t wrong. We’re still not quite sure what happened to her parents or precisely who they were, but we definitely get her first year with Loki’s familia sketched in here. Aiz is driven by a desire to kill monsters and get stronger, and does not care about anything else. She’s a bratty kid, and a lot more emotional than you’d expect from the stoic Aiz we know and love. In fact, this also applies to the current Aiz, who is in the dragon-scale worshiping village that she, Bell and Hestia ended up in the 8th DanMachi. In my review of that book I said I wanted to find out someday why Aiz was so FURIOUS at this village worshiping the scale, and here we find out exactly why… and maybe also why she has such trouble with Bell’s “not all monsters are evil” fight, which I’m fairly certain will be the subject of the next Sword Oratoria book.

I was expecting Aiz to get development, but I was also delighted with what this book did for Riveria. The “team mom” of the Familia, she’s been that way for so long that it’s easy to forget she wasn’t always that way, and nothing brings out her more emotional and angry sides quite like a 7-year-old with a death wish who won’t listen to a word she says. Little Aiz does not understand what everyone else does, which is that the look in her eyes is not only worrying but terrifying, and Riveria does not want her to go into the dungeon and get massacred by a really strong monster (which almost happens right at the end). As we’ve cone to expect with DanMachi in general, the plot beats are very cliched – we literally get a “you’re not my mom!” scene here – but that doewsn’t make it less heartwarming.

Also this plus one or two hilarious scenes of “why we never give Aiz alcohol” make this one of the strongest books in the entire series. Highly recommended.

Kaiju Girl Caramelise, Vol. 1

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By Spica Aoki. Released in Japan as “Otome Kaiju Caramelise” by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Alive. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Taylor Engel.

As a lot of people know, manga magazines/genres in Japan tend to be loosely divided into four categories: shonen (for boys), shoujo (for girls), seinen (for men), and josei (for women). There are more of these, of course, such as magazines for little kids, but for the most part those are the typical genres. I say “loosely” divided as over the years it’s becomes easier for readers and creators to cross over into titles they might not be expected in. More and more women are reading Jump, and not just for BL fantasies. Guys are enjoying Betsufure titles. This comes up because the creator of Kaiju Girl Caramelise had previously been serialized in shoujo magazines such as Princess. As she says in the afterword, when she got a title for Comic Alive, which is a media-oriented seinen magazine, she thought at first she’d need to make it more obviously for guys. Her editors explained that no, this story really works best as shoujo, do it that way even though we’re Comic Alive. And they were right.

Kuroe has suffered her entire life from some sort of illness that causes her to grow kaiju parts, particularly claws and tail, when she’s experiencing feelings of love or passion. Needless to say, this doesn’t win friends or influence people, and so in high school she’s a sullen loner who avoids everyone and is given the cruel nickname “Psycho-tan”. (Kudos to Yen for the footnote explaining the nickname in Japanese, btw.) Given that this IS a shoujo title, she quickly captures the attention of the hottest boy in class, and ends up “tricked” by him into going on a date with her to get expensive pancakes. Unfortunately, his being nice to her, listening to her advice, and holding her hand puts her repressed feelings into overdrive, and she quickly runs away before turning into a full-blown Godzilla-style Kaiju, rampaging through Tokyo and horrifying everyone. The metaphor is about as subtle as a truck.

Despite the unsubtlety, this first volume is a lot of fun. The artist had previously done Beasts of Abigaile, which I also enjoyed. Kuroe is intelligent and likeable, if also somewhat blunt and caustic. Arata is a nice guy (no, not like that) who so far has no idea that the girl he likes transforms into a 30-story-tall monster when she thinks about them dating. There’s a third girl introduced in the standard “oh, he has a girlfriend of course he does… wait, no” sort of way, and she’s amusing in a fangirl sort of way – let’s hope SHE never finds out the truth about Kuroe, as I don’t think this series needs to go down a yuri road. And as always in series with troubled teens, I am always appreciative of a concerned parent, as Kuroe’s mother knows the truth about her condition and wants Kuroe to be happy despite it.

This is, as you’d expect, a fairly lighthearted series, but it’s also sweet in its own way. It’s just started in Japan, so I wouldn’t expect new volumes every two months, but it’s worth checking out.

Re: ZERO ~Starting Life in Another World~, Vol. 10

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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 Jeremiah Borque.

As with my review of the 9th volume, I recommend that this review not be read by anyone who’s only seen the anime or manga versions of Re: Zero.

The first half of this book is merely good, as it has to set up the basics of what will be the next arc. Subaru and Emilia arrive back at the mansion only to find that the other half of the village – the one with Ram – is not there. Instead they’ve ended up at the Sanctuary, an area deep in the woods that is the home to demi-humans. Headed over there, Subaru quickly runs afoul of the Witch Echidna, who is able to wrap him around her little finger despite the obvious handicap of being dead. Her tomb is home to a trial that Emilia must take – and, it appears, Subaru is able to take it as well, as he quickly gets sucked into the first of the three tests it involves. Which is good for the reader, as it involves confronting and accepting his past… a past that we’ve been almost entirely ignorant of till now.

So yeah, as expected, Rem is still in a coma and no one remembers her, and it appears that this is going to be the case for the entire arc. I suspect that Rem fans are not going to be too happy with the bright side, which is that this will allow Emilia to get more character development that she didn’t get in the previous arc. Unfortunately, as with Subaru’s character development in the last few books, this is going to begin with a certain amount of frustration – while Subaru is pretty much able to pass the first test with flying colors, Emilia fails the “confront your past” part every single time. I expect a future book will tell us why, but till then, sobbing on the ground and calling out for Puck (who is also absent, for reasons we don’t yet know) is not a good look for her.

The main reason to read this book is the chapter where Subaru confronts his past, which means that we actually get to know his past. His parents are both fantastic in their own way, two people who you read about for ten seconds and immediately understand “yes, these are absolutely who his parents would be”. Subaru suffered as a kid from what a lot of us do, which is being above average in academics and athletics to a certain age, but then starting to fall behind others. Subaru, who was measuring himself by his “perfect” father and coming up short, overcompensated by being more boisterous and doing more crazy, dangerous things at school – something that eventually lost him his friends and made him decide to stop going to school altogether. The trial allows him to do something that he can’t do in real life – say goodbye to both his parents, and assure them that he’s stopped standing still and is moving forward. The entire sequence is terrific.

Unfortunately, Re: ZERO still has its main gimmick in play. And so at the end of the volume Subaru is brutally murdered, and we see a face that I’d honestly totally forgotten about doing the killing. I’m not sure how far back he’ll go, but I suspect we won’t be seeing the first stage of the trial all over again. Also, his idea to take the trial FOR Emilia as her knight is a bad one, and I hope it gets scrapped. In any case, this is a fantastic new volume of an excellent series. Man, remember when I hated Subaru? It seems so long ago now…