Category Archives: reviews

Love in Hell, Vol. 1

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By Reiji Suzumaru. Released in Japan as “Jigokuren” by Futabasha, serialized in the online magazine Web comic High!. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

Everyone discusses how difficult it is to write comedy, and the same applies to the person who is trying to review it. One person’s subtle satire is another’s amazingly offensive insult, and one person’s tasteless bodily function joke is another’s “BUT FARTING IS HILARIOUS!”. There are almost as many types of humor in the world as there are people, and sadly I am only allowed to use my own here. So I have to note that Love in Hell just didn’t quite gel for me, despite an interesting premise. Indeed, the author came up with the premise and setting first, which shows, as I think it’s a lot more fleshed out than the characters.

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The use of Hell here is interesting. It seems throughout the volume like your typical city, only with suffering and pain added to every equation. You need to get jobs, earn money, etc. But the way you earn money is by, well, atoning for your sins. Usually in the form of having your head chopped off, being boiled to death, etc. Being hell it’s quite nonlethal, but the pain hurts the same. In fact, we’re even told at one point that this is one of the nicer bits of hell, and we see a hole that goes down to a lower level where they keep the adulterers and murderers.

Our hero is not an adulterer or murderer, and indeed is somewhat surprised to find that he’s in hell, as he can’t quite think what he did that was bad enough. He seems to be fairly shiftless and thoughtless throughout, but by the end of the volume we’re not quite sure how he ended up here either. Rintaro is nice enough so that you’re rooting for him in the book, but he’s not really possessed of any good virtues because… well, he needs to be someone who’s believably sent to hell. He’s just a dumb manga romantic comedy schmuck, only here instead of getting punched into the sky Love Hina-style, he gets maimed and brutalized.

The girl on the cover, our heroine, is Kiyori. Like the hero, she comes from a certain ‘cliched romantic comedy manga’ background: easily embarrassed, neophyte who’s trying hard but bad things keep happening to her. The first bad thing that happens to her in Rintaro, as her promotion prospects are tied to him actually putting in repentance time in hell, and so far it’s not going well. We also have him walking in on her naked, and seeing she pads her bra, something which didn’t need hell to be one of the oldest manga cliches.

In the end, while the premise is interesting, and there’s promise of a more serious plot in the 2nd volume, the characters simply didn’t grab me enough to make this rise above ‘serviceable’. I smiled a couple of times, and I’m sure the couple will eventually be cute and moe (there’s only 3 volumes, so this shouldn’t get too drawn out). I wonder if it wouldn’t have been funnier in a 4-koma style. As it is, though, Rintaro and Koyori just can’t quite manage to carry this title on their backs.

From the New World, Vol. 1

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By Yusuke Kishi and Toru Oikawa. Released in Japan as “Shin Sekai Yori” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

The question of “how much fanservice is too much” has come up often in discussion of manga in North America, and it’s usually the case that we have a lower tolerance of it than Japan does. That said, there’s simply so much of it, particularly in Kodansha’s Weekly Magazine and its monthly spinoff, that sometimes you just have to smile and nod at the boobs and move on. I review Fairy Tail every month, and Negima back when it ran, and rarely commented on the fact that every 4 or 5 chapters would just be a blatant “look at all the naked women” bath scene or shower scene or whatever. It was rarely connected too much to the plot, so could easily be edited out of my memory.

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It’s impossible to do that with From the New World, whose fanservice goes above and beyond the call of duty. The series has an intriguing post-apocalyptic premise, which a town teaching kids magic and the kids then going over the fence to explore the forbidden countryside. There is some horror thrown into the mix, as one of the lead characters gets unpersoned about 1/3 of the way through, to such an extent that the others don’t even remember she existed – that was handled quite well. And the action scenes, when they do come, are pretty decent. The story starts with a “here is how everything fell apart” flashforward, so no doubt we will soon see the entire world destroyed or something like that.

But it needs to be said: Saki and Maria (and Reiko when she was with them) have naked bathtime fun, with groping. There’s jealousy of the guys in the group, which leads to “you must THINK ONLY OF ME” and more groping. And then at the end it goes above and beyond, and there’s a full-on lesbian sex scene. I expect hot springs nudity from my Kodansha titles, but this boggled my mind, and compared to the prior mood of the series seemed so utterly jarring. I’ve no doubt that part of this was on purpose, but only part – I think a great deal of this series sells on guys buying it to see girls having hot lesbian sex. (FYI for yuri fans, think Kannazuki no Miko more than Maria-sama Ga Miteru.)

So I went to research what the hell was up with this… and wish I hadn’t. The manga is based on an award-winning novel, and also has an anime to its name. Apparently there is a vague plot-related reason for the hot lesbian sex, which I sort of guessed. But apparently two of the guys are also supposed to be in a relationship with each other. This was made clear in the novels, and toned down but kept there in the anime. The manga seems to have removed the male relationship entirely. And from what I can gather, the yuri fanservice gets even more blatant as the series goes on. I guess the editors know what sort of audience they want the series to connect to.

If you can get past the sex scenes and nudity, there’s a dark and twisted science fiction story here that might eventually pay off. I just found it impossible to do so. Which, given the amount of manga I read with nudity and yuri in it, says a lot.

Attack on Titan, Vol. 8

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By Hajime Isayama. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

This review has spoilers for the big reveal that everyone on the internet already knows.

The eighth volume of Attack on Titan begins in a very interesting place, as we start off with a day in the life of Annie and her fellow military police. As you can imagine, they’re just as quirky a squad as our heroes, in their own way, but their bosses are no Erwin Smith – you sense a certain uncaring laziness to them. Annie gets into an interesting philosophical discussion on the nature of idealism and power, and I certainly get her point that at times it can be terrifying to have a true believer in charge of things. All this is upended, however, when she runs into Armin, freshly returned from the outside. Eren is about to be captured/dissected, and he has a plan…

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Of course, all this is a ruse, as Armin has merely figured out what the rest of us suspected two volumes ago: Annie is the female titan. From the moment that we saw Eren could become a Titan, we wondered if it was something unique to him (likely due to his father), or if other titans had similar secret identities. There’s a rather amusing joke here where Armin describes the various subtle clues he discovered that led him to think Annie was the culprit, and then Mikasa chimes in “plus they look alike”. (Speaking of Mikasa, there’s an undertone of jealousy in her conversations about Annie I didn’t really like. I know she and Eren are close, but I really don’t want to see their relationship go down a romantic road.)

So there’s a big, city-destroying battle between Eren-Titan and Annie-Titan that ends with Annie encasing herself in amber in order to avoid getting captured and tortured. More importantly, we know certain Titans now have motivation beyond “kill and eat”. Certainly Annie, as a Titan, took delight in killing, particularly with Levi’s team members. But she also seems to have a troubled past with her own father (more similarities to Eren), and a deeper reason exists here. As for everyone else, the rest of the 104th squad are quickly quarantined in case, y’know, Titanism is contagious, but they all seem to be OK.

Then there’s the other big reveal in this episode (which is right about where the anime ended, if you want to start reading from that point on). In the fight with Annie, Mikasa destroyed a chunk of the outer wall. Inside… is a Titan, in suspended animation. A Colossal Titan. The revelation that the walls are full of Titans sort of waiting patiently for something is rather mind-boggling, and I wonder if the obviousness of the Annie reveal was to make this plot twist more impressive. It also finally ties in with the religious leaders who have popped up occasionally throughout this series, and who were clearly aware of the secret of the walls. Bringing devout believers into a series like this is unnerving – on purpose – but not quite as unnerving as seeing the formerly eccentric and happy Hange almost murder a man in cold blood. War does things to people,’s psyches, and war secrets do not help all that much.

The cliffhanger announces that Wall Rose has now been breached by Titans, so I presume Vol. 9 will have a lot more action. There’s many places this story could go from here, a pivotal volume in the series.

(Also, go look for the “Annie Are You OK” video on Youtube, and you will never get Smooth Criminal out of your head while reading this.)