Category Archives: reviews

Soul Eater Not!, Vol. 1

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By Atsushi Ohkubo. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press.

It didn’t really dawn on me until I’d finished the first volume how accurate the title would prove to be. It sounds odd, given it’s a Soul Eater spinoff with many of the same characters, including cameos from the two heroes, and that it takes place at the same Academy. But this is an altogether different type of reading experience, and I felt that the author was smiling at me as I finished it and saying, like a little kid, “Enjoy Soul Eater – NOT!”

This is not to say that the manga is bad. The author has skills, and I was entertained throughout. The basic premise is that we follow the life of a new Japanese student, Tsugumi, who’s found out that she’s a weapon, and therefore transfers to the Academy (which is in Nevada, something I’d forgotten – you keep thinking Soul Eater is on a different planet with that sun and moon) in order to meet her partner and find her place (and not be thought of as a danger to others). There she meets two new friends, the bubbleheaded yet strong Meme and the tsundere princess Anya. They have cute classes, run into occasional cute danger, and in the end Tsumugi is even confessed to! … well, not quite, but a guy asks to be her partner.

This seems to begin shortly before the actual Soul Eater manga does. Sid, their teacher, isn’t dead here, and Medusa is still the school nurse (although apparently her younger sister will be the main antagonist). The first volume consists entirely of what I’ve come to think of as typical shoujo situations – the three girls have to deal with some classroom jerks; the three girls get part-time jobs as waitresses; etc. All of the heroines are drawn with very broad strokes – Tsumugi is polite yet worried and with low self-esteem; Anya is such a cliched tsundere that I wouldn’t be surprised if she were artificial. Even Meme’s ‘big-breasted airhead with secret skills’ has been seen before.

There’s also what I tend to call ‘fake yuri’, i.e. close female friendships with lots of hugging and lovey-dovey feelings without the actual relationship behind it. Meisters and weapons tend to be thought of as couples, and both Anya and Meme want to pair up with her. (This is in addition to Akane, the serious-looking young man who asks her to partner with him at the end. So yes, Tsumugi is also the star of a harem manga as well, something else that Soul Eater proper most decidedly isn’t.)

This is the big problem with the series to date. There’s nothing new or challenging here. And for those who enjoyed Soul Eater for its weird design or its occasional graphic horror, so far there’s none of that either. It reads as if Square Enix asked the creator to rewrite the series, only make it more like K-On!. There’s nothing bad about this – it’s a fun story well-told. But compared to its parent series, so far it feels like there’s nothing there.

Angel Para Bellum, Vol. 1

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By Kent Minami and Nozomu Tamaki. Released in Japan by Flex Comics, serialization ongoing in the online magazine Flex Comics Next. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

It has to be said, despite my ongoing joke that it succeeds because it has the word ‘vampire’ in the title, Seven Seas’ license of Dance in the Vampire Bund has proven to be one of their big successes. And as you’d expect when there is a big success, they likely decided to look around and see what else the artist had done that might pick up a similar audience in North America. After filtering out titles the author did that are too pornographic to really be licensed hre… you’re left with very little. Tamaki-san seems to specialize in various kinds of ‘adult’ work, a lot of it running in the borderline H magazines such as Takeshobo’s Vitamin. However, he also recently teamed up with an author to do an online serialization for Flex Comics, which seems to be more about action and religion that showing off the female body.

As readers who follow my site likely know, if I spend almost 200 words talking about the background to a manga rather than the manga itself, it means I’m already reaching for things I can say. But let’s get down to brass tacks. This series introduces us to Mitsuru, a young, pretty, and very emotional young man who is apparently also the key that will bring about the final apocalyptic war between heaven and hell. Protecting him are a team of angels, including Archangel Gabriel, aka Kyrie, his ‘older sister’ figure who recently disappeared, and Revy from Black Lagoon… um, sorry, I mean the Archangel Azrael. They are battling against a group of nasty demons, who want Mitsuru dead so they can bring about the war on their own terms.

The religious terms come thick and fast in this series, and may grow to be more relevant later, but honestly the war in heaven is really just a plot hook on which hangs a bunch of action and things blowing up. Gabriel/Kyrie can call down heavenly fire, the various demons can turn into slavering Cthulhu-like horrors, and of course everyone can fire guns. There’s even a few sequences of roof hopping. As for the other, non-action type of fan service, Gabriel and Azrael are seen nude often (especially Azrael, who walks around topless most of the time) and we are told they are androgynous and also have male members. It’s all just for show, of course – Mitsuru is far too innocent to bother thinking of taking advantage of anything, and spends most of this volume in a constant state of trauma in any case.

There were one or two moments in this manga I felt worked pretty well – the description of how humans let angels or demons possess them, and seeing it work on a sweet young thing at a coffee shop was well-handled and rather chilling. For the most part, though, I don’t think the first volume of this series really cohered all that well. There was a lot of theoretical plot tossed around – and we meet Uriel, a third Archangel who is (of course) in the body of a little girl – but for the most part it can be summed up as ‘Mitsuru gets menaced, then rescued, then lots of things blow up, get shot, or catch fire’. Hopefully it will gain more depth later on.

The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan, Vol. 1

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By Nagaru Tanigawa and Puyo. Released in Japan as “Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoushitsu” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press.

It is noted in the ads at the back of this volume shamelessly plugging the rest of the Haruhi franchise that in order to get maximum enjoyment from this work, you need to have read the original books, particularly the 4th novel, Disappearance (which was made into the Haruhi movie). I think this is quite accurate. Without the context of Haruhi, this seems a lot fluffier and pointless than it really is. Not that it isn’t already light as air – this is not a manga for those who seek the sci-fi adventures the original sometimes gives us. But knowing the original series as we do helps us to see what the artist is trying to achieve here by, in effect, changing Kyon’s decision in the 4th book. What if he’d stayed, and his memories were also rewritten? How would that universe have kept going?

As you might guess by the cover, the focus here is on Yuki, who is back to being the meek and shy but far more human Yuki we saw in that novel. Luckily, she’s not a complete wallflower. One sensible thing this manga does is start ‘in media res’, as it were, showing us several chapters of Yuki, Kyon and the other interacting before going back at the end and giving us a flashback as to how they met. This allows us to see a Yuki more comfortable with Kyon (although she’s still awkward around him) and even lets her have the occasional snarky line, although that’s mostly directed at Ryouko, who fires right back.

Ah yes, Ryouko. Fans have a tendency to influence other people’s creations, as many writers will tell you. Especially when this is a spinoff once-removed sort of series. The artist, Puyo, is also writing the Haruhi-chan gag mangas for Shonen Ace, which feature his own conceit of Ryouko coming back as an adorable plushie-like creature and basically losing every trace of evil in her. Likewise, fandom in Japan read the first Haruhi books (and Disappearance) and theorized that Yuki and Ryouko would be eating meals together and such before Haruhi showed up and Ryouko went insane. Combining the two, here we see Ryouko as a pure onee-san figure. She has a quick temper, and gets easily frustrated, especially by Yuki’s indecision, but this is a Ryouko who is not going to be stabbing Kyon anytime soon – a genuinely good-hearted character who really is Yuki’s best friend. It’s quite sweet.

There are a few flaws here, of course. As with Haruhi-chan, Puyo’s art can be highly variable, especially when he draws faces. Unlike Haruhi-chan, he isn’t allowed the luxury of going super-deformed all the time. So sometimes we see some very awkward poses and art. In addition, our hero Kyon, deprived of Haruhi’s antics giving him a cynical and sarcastic inner monologue, comes off as being a bit dull, the standard romantic lead for the shy girl who wins her heart by… well, by actually interacting with her. His sharpest moments are actually with Ryouko, who is trying to nudge the two leads together, much to Kyon’s clueless bafflement.

Even with the universe having been rewritten, and Kyon and Haruhi not meeting each other, she’s still not very far away. This time around, an older Haruhi gets Yuki to draw figures on the ground – this time sending out a message for Santa. It’s another example of what this series is trying to do. It’s taking the characters of the Haruhi franchise (including Haruhi, who will get more to do in the next volume) and putting them in situations that make you go ‘Awwwww’ and smile. If you enjoy the sharp, caustic comedy of the original franchise, it would be best to stick to that. As an AU alternative, though, this is simply cute as a button.