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Dorohedoro, Vol. 9

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By Q Hayashida. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Ikki. Released in North America by Viz.

This bright pink volume of Dorohedoro feels very much like the calm before the storm, or the sort of thing that ends with the tag ‘End of Part One’. There’s not as much pulse-pounding action here, and the revelations are still mostly hinted rather than stated outright. But we’ve almost got Caiman’s past, and we’re starting to learn Nikaido’s, and it’s going to turn out SO BADLY for both of them, isn’t it?

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I especially feel as if I may have seem the last of Caiman, at least as Caiman, and that’s a shame, as he’s such a big, lovable doof. With a lizard head. But he’s always wanted to retrieve his memories, and is now starting to see the downside to all of that. Unfortunately, it’s not really something he can stop doing, either. Hayashida, by the way, does a terrific job of showing just how agonizing Caiman’s ongoing headaches are – including giving us an x-ray of his brain to drive it home!

Meanwhile, Shin and Noi are also hot on the trail of the cross-eyes’ boss, despite him possibly being dead. This leads us to the funniest moment of the series, where we meet the boss’ grandfather, and react to his appearance. Even in the most horrible moments, Dorohedoro still finds a way to be completely ridiculous, and it’s a big reason why I love it as much as I do. If this series didn’t have a high level of comedy and weirdness, it would simply be too bleak to function.

Meanwhile, I can’t really feel bad for Chota – who brought it all on himself, and makes things even worse towards the end. What we do get via his character, however, is the start of Nikaido’s backstory, as she began to keep a diary while at En’s so that she didn’t lose herself. (I’ll be honest, at first I thought the diary would be a giant fakeout, but the flashbacks do seem to make it genuine.) Little Nikaido is absolutely adorable, and you know her backstory is going to be amazingly wretched, so I’m just enjoying the tiny kid messing around with time magic while I can.

And of course I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the omake chapter at the end. Shin and Noi are my favorite characters in the series, and I also tend to ship them. So far, though, any in-series romance has been just tease. It’s clear that Noi has a crush on Shin, but his feelings for her have been more ambiguous. Now we get a flashback to Shin from ten years ago, forced to attend a masquerade ball by En where he has to dance or get poked by devils with a pitchfork. (This sounds like most of the junior high dances I attended, only everyone usually chose the pitchfork over dancing with girls.) Shin looks adorably cute here, and his dance partner even more so. I love seeing side stories like this.

All in all, another solid volume of Dorohedoro. I see in addition to Scott Pilgrim’s creator giving a blurb, the man behind King City is also praising the series. Viz should be happy. It may not generate Naruto sales, but Dorohedoro has become one of their prestige series, and needs more love. And gyoza. It always needs more gyoza.

Angel Sanctuary, Vol. 1

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By Kaori Yuki. Released in Japan as “Tenshi Kinryouku” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz Media.

It’s worth noting that this came out in the mid-to-late 90s in Hana to Yume, which these days is better known as the home of series like Oresama Teacher and Skip Beat!. It evolved rapidly in the early years of the 21st century, because back in the late 80s-early 90s there was a lot more darkness and a lot more androgyny in the magazine. And one of the best examples of this is Kaori Yuki’s Angel Sanctuary, a 20-volume series about angels, demons, impossible relationships, and above all strange things happening so fast the cast cannot get proper time to angst (but they manage to work it in anyway).

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First of all, yes, as my Manga Bookshelf colleagues have noted, this first volume is a bit tedious at times. There’s a lot of setup, a lot of putting pieces in place, and a lot of backstory that really doesn’t make much sense. We also don’t get enough time to like Sara’s friend as herself before she’s immediately possessed/killed/whatever. That said, I think that the volume manages to succeed anyway, almost entirely on mood. Everything is tense here as we wait for horrible things to happen to our lead, Setsuna, who is a typical troubled teenager with an atypical love for his sister, Sara. He’s having enough trouble trying to shut out his own lustful desires, he really does not need folks coming down and saying he’s the reincarnation of an angel. In fact, his hotheaded and impulsive personality is very reminiscent of a shonen protagonist. But boy, is he in the wrong series.

I mentioned the incest elements, and it’s worth noting how they’re handled. Given that here in 2013 there is an overabundance of incest in almost every manga or anime designed for the otaku, you’d think it would lose its thrill. But this is not here to titillate. Setsuna’s feelings are powerful and deep, and they horrify him. I loved that the first thing he did was check the family register to make sure that one of them wasn’t secretly adopted – he’s read other shoujo manga, I see! But no, he doesn’t get an out that way. And of course Sara feels the same way, though I don’t think either of them is quite aware of the depths of their love just yet. It helps that, familial relationship aside, they make the cutest couple in the book – which, to be fair, is not about romance. Well, not shoujo schoolgirl romance anyway.

The art is another strong point here – at times, it’s the only humor in the series, and I love some of Setsuna’s facial expressions and asides. Given that the series is about angels and demons, there’s also a lot of androgyny on display here, and I guessed wrong about the gender of two of the characters TWICE before nailing it down. (Kurai and Arachne also provide much needed humor here, I should note.) But overall, if I was to use a word to describe this series, it would be overdramatic. And I don’t necessarily mean that just in a bad way. It’s a great series for teenagers – particularly, I think teenage girls would eat this up – as everyone is pretty and your forbidden love is, literally, the end of the world.

Kanokon, Vols. 1-2

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By Katsumi Nishino and Rin Yamaki. Released in Japan as by Media Factory, serialized in the magazine Comic Alive. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

As I’ve noted before, in general these days I try to give every new Vol. 1 a chance and a review. Sometimes, though, I suspect on seeing the advance solicit that I know I’m just hurting myself. Kanokon was that sort of title. Moe foxgirl on the cover. Runs in Comic Alive. Harem title. Lots of overt fanservice and sexuality with little actual sex. Male lead whose sole good quality is his endearing niceness. That said, I was hoping at least for a chance to write a scathing review with lots of amusing vitriol, a la Sasameke or Qwazer of Stigmata. But the manga doesn’t even hit those levels of bad. It’s simply a mediocre-to-fair yokai harem manga.

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The title is another of those abbreviations that are becoming increasingly needed in a world where every book coming out has a title like “My Light Novel Can’t Possibly Be This Awkwardly Phrased” (AwkPhr for short). In this case, Kanokon stands for “Kanojo wa Kon to, Kowaiku Seki wo Shite”, or “She Coughed With a Cute Little “Yip”. (eeeeurgh…) Seven Seas does helpfully have a couple notes at the back explaining this, as well as a few other culture notes. As for the plot, if you were asked to write a harem manga for comic alive and given the premise of yokai, this is probably what you’d come up with. New transfer student Kouta is from the country, and thus attracts the attention of the popular girl Chizuru. She turns out to be a fox yokai, and has not only fallen for Kouta but can also merge and take over his body to a degree, though it depends on their feelings for each other. Cue angry brother, angry classmate, angry fellow yokai, and teachers, all of whom would like to see Chizuru be a bit more reticent and a lot less horny.

From what I understand, the anime got a lot more blatant, or perhaps this just feels worse when you see it as moving images. In any case, I was not nearly as horrified as my friends who saw the anime said I would be. Instead, it was more of a malaise. There does appear to be an ongoing plot that has potential to get interesting (and thank God this was in omnibus format, as if it had just been the first half it might have been unbearable). That said, the story has some very dumb stuff in it in order to allow the plot to function, particularly how, in creating a juvenile delinquent school for troubled yokai, they then allow totally normal humans to attend, for reasons I cannot fathom. (Yes, yes, learn how to blend in, etc. Still, highly dangerous.)

With all that said, I went into this knowing it was not a series for me. It does, however, have a fanbase of people who love this sort of thing. Cute fox girls, titillation, some fights, and a lead non-entity they can project themselves on who has a girl falling all over herself to sleep with him (and I’ve no doubt there will be more girls added later on). It does its job well for those readers, and thus is not actively radioactive. It’s simply not my thing.