Category Archives: reviews

Kakushigoto: My Dad’s Secret Ambition, Vol. 1

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By Kouji Kumeta. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Monthly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America digitally by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Kevin Gifford.

Kouji Kumeta, back in the olden days when he was romanized as Koji Kumeta, wrote a series called Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei that was dear to my heart. Featuring a despairing teacher, his eccentric class of students, and overanalysis of Japanese trends and cliches, it ran for 30 volumes and features a very surreal, quite disturbing ending. Sadly, it sold less and less well over here in North America, and petered out with the fourteenth volume. But now, moving from Weekly to Monthly Shonen Magazine, we have a new series from Kumeta, starring a father who desperately wants to hide his profession from his elementary school-aged daughter… because he draws ecchi manga. Indeed, his most popular series, Testicoooool, probably gives you an idea why he does not want his daughter to know this. That said… despite the more realistic premise, this series is for fans of what Kumeta does best: overanalyse things to death, make obscure references, and draw striking poses of most of the characters. The art continues to be fantastic.

There is, to be fair, more of an attempt to hold to the plot and characterization of the title than there ever was with Zetsubou-sensei, which was an excuse for anything to happen. Most of the chapters are about two things: Kakushi’s attempts to hide his manga profession from his daughter and actually drawing the manga with his assistants, and Hime’s school life with her teacher and the cast of Zetsubou… OK, yeah, there’s no getting around that. Hime’s classmates are very obviously elementary school versions of the girls from Zetsubou-sensei. I spotted Chiri, Akira, Nami, Kafuka, Manami, Maria, Matoi… they all have slightly different names, of course, but even then, “Riko Kitsuchi” is clearly “Chiri Kitsu” swapped around. He’s having fun. That said, apart from Riko being a bit overbearing, they don’t ACT like their counterparts. It’s pure fanservice.

Hime’s mother is not in the picture, and Kakushi is shown to be a single parent. This allows him to occasionally be a “harem protagonist”, though like most of those he’s clueless about it. Hime’s teacher clearly has a crush on him, one chapter has him accidentally winning over several single women in the area, and a high school girl trying to be an idol, who finds that Kakushi actually listens to her rambling, might be a stalker in the making. That said, Kakushi only has eyes for his little girl, who he is deeply overprotective of. Many of the chapters show him trying to watch over her and make sure she isn’t bullied by the other kids (which is not going to happen, mostly as Hime is a sweetie pie). As for whether she will find out… well, the manga begins with her, as a high school girl, having the secret deliberately revealed to her, and the end of this volume implies that’s because Kakushi has died. (I’d say that ending is too dark for a comedy manga, but then remember how Zetsubou ended, so maybe…)

It’s the in between that counts, though, and this series ended up running for twelve volumes. I’ll be reading more, though I admit I read it for the creator, not the characters or plot.

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest Short Stories

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By Ryo Shirakome and Takayaki. Released in Japan as “Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou Shouhenshuu” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen

This was not the Short Story collection I expected, to be honest, at least not till the final third of the book. What it is is a rounding up of most of the very short stories that the author wrote for giveaways, store-exclusives, etc. A lot of series have these, few bring it out as a real volume. (J-Novel Club has quite a few of them as Premium Extras for subscribers, and indeed I think a lot of these originally appeared as exclusive extras in earlier books.) The book breaks down in four sections: the first are short-short stories taking place within the timeline of approximately Books 1-5 of the main series; the second is an alternate universe where the characters are at a “magical academy” type school; the third has three short takeoffs on popular fairy tales; and the fourth is the short story written exclusively for this book, which has the main cast (along with Myu and Remia) ending up in the crossover event we all wanted to see.

The cover features Hajime, reminding us why he’s rarely on the cover as he looks far more chuuni than grimdark; and Myu, whose character trait in this volume is to show off how she’s taking after her “daddy” despite only having been around him a short time. As for the content… I’m gonna be honest, while these were cute, about 2/3 of the book does not lend itself to a review. There’s lots of harem fights, there’s characters being dorks, there’s indiscriminate destruction of anyone who would dare go after Myu, etc. The Academy/Fairy Tale chapters are even less important, so I’ll skip them entirely. I did enjoy the chapters showing Hajime’s parents, first in a flashback showing off their otaku occupations (honestly, they remind me far too much of the parents from Outbreak Company) and then showing how upset they are at their son’s disappearance.

The main reason to get this is the last story, which has the cast, taking a final voyage with Myu (and Remia) before leaving her behind, and ending up spirited to a cursed city by a phantom whale that seems to only communicate with Myu. Unfortunately, the monsters here are too powerful for this group to handle. Yes, even Hajime. Fortunately, this whale can also reach back… in TIME! Yes, you guessed it, the cast of Arifureta meets the cast of Arifureta Zero, with Miledi being somewhat baffled as to why everyone hates her, Meiru becoming a total siscon about little Myu, etc. Eventually they do team up to take down the Big Bads, and we see Miledi and Yue comparing themselves to each other, as do Oscar and Hajime. Sadly, due to plot contrivance, they don’t remember the meeting afterwards, but hey. (This story also serves to show that Remia’s “ara ara” personality is for show, as if we hadn’t guessed, and also that she may be falling for Hajime for real.)

So in the end, this is pretty light and fluffy, and not an essential purchase. But it’s reasonably fun, and the last quarter was quite entertaining. Arifureta fans should like it.

Something’s Wrong with Us, Vol. 1

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By Natsumi Ando. Released in Japan as “Watashitachi wa Douka Shiteiru” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Be Love. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Sawa Matsueda Savage.

One of the first things I noticed when I began to heavily overanalyze manga artists is that shoujo artists started out in the magazines for younger readers – the Margaret, Nakayoshi and Hana to Yume types – and then, after many years of long and faithful service, graduated to the magazines for adult women – You, Be Love, and Silky. I used to wonder if it was like being kicked upstairs into the House of Lords. I suspect it may be more that the josei magazines come out with far less frequency and are thus easier to handle on a schedule basis. The reason for this drawn out prologue is that this new series is by Natsumi Ando, famous – or infamous – for her shoujo potboilers that ran in Nakayoshi over the years, such as Kitchen Princess and Arisa. And now she’s “graduated” and started a series for Be Love, which seems to be doing quite well given it’s 11 volumes and counting over there.

Nao is a happy young child, who adores her mother, a sweetsmaker who has take a job at a prestigious sweets shop. She’s shy, but makes friends with the cute young boy who’s the heir to the business. Then there’s a murder, which Nao witnesses, and the very same cute young boy accuses her mother of the murder. Fast forward to Nao at age 21, still dealing with PTSD from the murder, her mother having died in custody meaning Nao can’t hold a job, suddenly finding work at the very same sweets shop, whose young heir is now gorgeous… and about to get married. That said, the family seems to be as cruel and overdramatic as ever, and Tsubaki is no exception. Can Nao find out why her mother was framed all those years ago? And can she do it while being used as a pawn… and possibly fall in love?

I will admit that I tend to start off enthusiastically reading Ando series and then gradually lose interest, and I’m not sure if this will be the same. It’s a very good start, though. Ando has used dark, dramatic arcs before, but rarely from the start, and Nao being 21 rather than a teenager helps lend heft to the murder accusation and aftermath plot. Tsubaki seems like the sort of asshole who will gradually be shown to have a nice side deep down that we see in many of these series, but so far he’s hiding it pretty well, and he has a MUCH harder hurdle to clear than simply “I am a rude jerk” to win Nao’s heart. I am expecting, given the nature of the series, that his accusation of Nao’s mother is not all that it seems, and in fact the entire family looks like they wanted a scapegoat… and may want one again. Given that “like accused criminal, like accused criminal’s child” is a thing in Japan, I am in fact expecting it soon.

I haven’t mentioned the sweets, for which I apologize. This book is also all about sweets, and the endnotes are mostly about the nature of them – these are Japanese sweets, not Western. They do help relieve a bit of the darkness that this series exhibits. If you liked Ando’s shoujo drama, her josei drama should definitely appeal. As for me, we shall see how long I last with this one.