Category Archives: reviews

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Vol. 12

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By Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki. Released in Japan as “Kurosagi Shitai Takuhaibin” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Dark Horse.

It’s been a long, long wait, but it’s great to see a new volume of this horror/comedy/workplace series. The reasons for the long wait are many: first off, I imagine Carl Horn was quite busy, as he also edits all the Oh My Goddess and Evangelion titles for Dark Horse, and OMG was on a ‘speed-up’ release schedule. He also had Excel Saga 22 and 23 in there somewhere. But mostly I suspect it’s due to poor sales, as Carl admits in the liner notes. This is why the cover for Vol. 12 is now a normal manga cover as opposed to that cardboardey-feeling cover we had for 1-11. Luckily, the content inside is still excellent.

That cover image above comes without the little ‘Parental Advisory: Explicit Content’ sticker partially obscuring Sasaki’s face, but the sticker is most definitely needed, as this particular volume has explicit sex to go with its explicit gore. No, Karatsu hasn’t gotten it on with either Sasaki or Kikuchi – though he and Sasaki are absent from the last story for a “trip to Hawaii” that’s apparently in Vol. 13. Instead the first story deals with the dangers of virtual reality RPGs, and also trying to sell your identity – or buy another one. As you can imagine, when unscrupulous people get a hold of something shady that needs marketing, bad things happen. Note this is not only the most sexually explicit in the volume, with both sex and nudity, but it’s also the goriest – “Talk about loss of face!” is a grotesque pun here. It also has the most unpleasant of this volume’s villains. Luckily, she gets hers as our heroes make another of their grand entrances. And as a bonus, Sasaki gets to wear another ridiculously impractical outfit, even if only in VR.

The middle story was my favorite, even though I knew it would end poorly. It features a washed-out comic and a club hostess who meet cute, immediately fall for each other, and are basically adorable. In *this* series? You know how long they’ll last. That said, the adorable is there, and it’s refreshing seeing Eiji Otsuka writing the closest this series will ever get to romantic comedy. This story deals with both discorporation – the talent of the hostess girl – and the Japanese housing market, which proves to be as bloody and cutthroat as anything else in this series. It’s also a rather cynical take on the world of showbiz comedians, with the villains here giving off a very seedy, sub-Jerry Lewis vibe. It also has the happiest of the three endings – well, as happy as you’re gonna get.

Lastly, we have a story about a dollmaker longing for his dead sister, who passed away during World War II. Unfortunately, this also ties in with both Korean politics (which the authors have gone into before, possibly as it makes Japan very uncomfortable, and they love pushing buttons) and realdolls (complete with many creepy otaku and some cameos of dolls based on Ayanami from Evangelion and Yoko from Gurren Lagann). It’s the weakest story in the volume, possibly due to Karatsu and Sasaki’s absence (Makino is there but doesn’t do much, as per usual, but that does leave the bulk of things to the “goofy” characters), but not without merit, and has a morbidly cynical punchline. Plus there’s some more Makino/Yata ship tease, which pleases me.

For those wondering about the small fragments of plot that have been going through previous volumes, well, there’s none of that here. What we get is a strong horror manga, with dark veins of comedy and a few heartwarming spots (OK, very few). It’s a solid series that needs more love.

Skip Beat!, Vol. 27

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By Yoshiki Nakamura. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz.

We left off last time with Ren and Kyoko posing as siblings – and all of the awkwardness that comes from this, including having to share a room. Volume 27 does now pull back on this at all, but makes things a whole lot worse, as we get to see, for once, Ren lose control rather than Kyoko.

Before that, though, we have some highly amusing scenes in which Kyoko finds, once again, it’s hard to act method when you have no idea what something is like – in this case, being spoiled. You can tell Ren is having an absolute ball with this, and Kyoko’s faces throughout as a picture – especially as she realizes that seeing Cain acting like a petulant child is actually sort of a turn-on for her/Setsu.

This cuteness is just a setup, though. The real meat of the volume is what happens next, where Kyoko is accosted by a gang of young guys looking for “a good time”. She, naturally, sics her “brother” on them, which is fine, as Ren is quite good at dodging, and these thugs are nothing special. At least until they start pulling out weapons. When one of them knocks Kyoko to the ground, the sight of Ren losing control is rather scary. If not for us (we’ve had flashbacks spoiling us for Ren’s traumatic past for some time), then certainly for Kyoko, who is stunned. It’s made worse by the fact that she can’t break character, but has to break up the fight. Strong stuff here.

Afterwards, in the hotel room… well, we’ve done comedy. We’ve done drama. Now it’s time for some romance. Well, quasi-romance, that is – it’s only Vol. 27, after all, you shouldn’t expect any real development just yet. But Kyoko gets into character too easily, which means that if she’s worried about her brother drowning in a tub, she’s gonna walk in on him. What follows is both hilarious and sexy, showing the depth of feeling Ren has for Kyoko (and his complete misinterpretation of her reaction), as well as Kyoko’s growing love for Ren – which she’s oblivious to, of course. The highlight here has to be Kyoko upset that she didn’t see “all” of Ren… so that she could make her doll more realistic.

Meanwhile, just because Kyoko’s doing Setsu doesn’t mean she’s not also still involved in Box R. Indeed, her two roles are bleeding into each other, and it can be hard to switch. I like the way that Skip Beat! shows us that, even though Ren and Kyoko are prodigies, acting is still a difficult profession – and that even if you’re method acting, you still have to keep your head in the game. Which is definitely something Ren is having trouble doing. He begs Lory to have Kyoko “fired” as Setsu, as he worries he won’t be able to control himself around her. Lory agrees – provided Ren fires her himself, saying he “doesn’t need her”. Oh Lory, you’re such a wonderfully manipulative ass. XD

I mentioned this volume is Number 27, so it seems appropriate that it ends with everyone realizing just how much Kyoko has grown up recently – and how gorgeous she’s becoming. Poor Ren. He’ll have rivals before you know it. In the meantime, one of North America’s longest shoujo series continues to show why it’s so popular. Lots of fun.

The Drops of God, Vol. 3

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By Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto. Released in Japan as “Kami no Shizuku” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Morning. Released in North America by Vertical.

The third omnibus of Drops of God sees the first major plot advancement in the series. After spending so long trying to guess which wine was described in the will, one of our heroes finally gets it right. Of course, that does leave eleven more. And there’s still a few other problems to solve along the way…

(Incidentally, my cover for V. 3 is different from the one above. Last minute change? Or multiple designs?)

Once again, we have a plotline about how wine is far more than just an alcoholic beverage. We left off at the end of the last volume with an amnesiac woman who only had a description of wine to link her to her forgotten past. The trouble is, she’s now married – and both she and her husband are worried that if she recovers her memories, she’ll remember she was in love with someone else. Even though it relied on a contrived coincidence (two car accidents in the past leading to tragedy?), I really enjoy the way the authors used this, showing that it doesn’t necessarily take amnesia to avoid the past. And indeed, that the future can also shape the past – when Kaori recovers her memories and discovers her old love, we see that she and her husband are not the only ones whose lives are shaped by the tragedy. Throughout this plot, wine comes into play, acting almost as a mnemonic in order to be a gateway to prior events.

We then get the battle for the first apostle, which comes down to a very interesting point: these are not ‘the 12 best wines’ that Shizuku’s father has been describing, but 12 wines that he wanted to describe. This means that the first apostle revealed here depends on it not being an outstanding wine, but rather a wine that you have to work at to enjoy. Not only can I empathize with this, but of course it opens the playing field of wine even more to the cast. As with previous volumes, we get lovingly detailed depictions of the scene they’re imagining (and that his father described), which allow you to see the similarities and differences between the two wines picked, which differ only in the year made. It’s a good scene.

Characterization of the regulars continues to be the weak part of the series, but to be fair this is a manga about wine, not about Shizuku and Miyabi. We do get a little more development of her character here, showing her first love from high school returning and shocking her by being a cold businessman, but honestly I thought the best part of the manga for her was her superdeformed jealousy of Shizuku having lunch with Sara. Any love story that happens in this series will take even longer than Oishinbo’s did (and that took 47 volumes!), mostly as when it comes to love Shizuku seems to be thick as a brick. Something lampshaded by the other cast members. Speaking of the rest of the cast, the Italian wine snob, Chosuke, gets a rather sweet little backstory showing why he dislikes French wine so much.

The volume ends with the first half of the story I mentioned above with Miyabi’s old love. It involves trying to show that brand name doesn’t always mean quality, but to do that they have to note that in terms of wine, it frequently does. Lafite and Rothschild aren’t the top names in wine just due to marketing and publicity. They’re the cream of the crop, and I liked the scenes where Shizuku and Miyabi realize what a big hurdle they have to overcome. In the meantime, they’re also searching for the second apostle. Given this is a manga series, I have a sneaking suspicion Shizuku is going to fail hard at finding it, but we shall see.

This continues to be a good solid foodie manga. The broad points (p;lot, characters) are cliched, but the writing is what makes them stand out, and shows the work of two long-standing professionals. Definitely one for your shelves… though maybe the drinks cabinet instead?