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Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 18

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By Mizuho Kusanagi. Released in Japan as “Akatsuki no Yona” by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by JN Productions, Adapted by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane.

The concept of living forever, and being forced to see everyone you care about move on and pass away is not a new one, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a story worth telling again in context. In this case, the context is via Zeno, whose backstory is finally revealed in this harrowing volume of Yona of the Dawn Picking up where the last volume left off, we see Zeno seemingly killed any number of times (in graphic detail – even for a series filled with violence as Yona is, this is a blood-spattered volume, please be warned)driving off the threat for the moment, and earning a group hug from the rest of the Happy Hungry Bunch. He then goes on to reveal more of his past – both his desire to make sure that Yona “proved herself” before he joined up with her (which she has most assuredly done), and then seeing how he’s been around as a Dragon far longer than the others.

Zeno is not just a Yellow Dragon, but the first and only Yellow Dragon, and flashbacks show him with the original Crimson Dragon King and his fellow Dragons. He’s not particularly strong or skilled, but, as we discover, he can recover from any grievous wound up to and including having his head chopped off, and as the attacks go on his skin gets harder. This allows him to fight with Yona’s crew… or at least inspire a terrified retreat… but back in the past, he’s horrified that he has essentially become an undying monster. Then, as he confesses his fears to his beloved King, said king tr4ies to reassure him but almost immediately dies. The two are unrelated, but they drive home something that haunts Zeno for the rest of the volume… he can’t die, and everyone else he knows can. This book very much believes in Heaven, and Zeno can’t be with his friends in the next world.

Or his wife, as we also see Zeno befriend and fall in love with a young woman who lives by herself as she’s dying of an unnamed illness. She tries to politely drive him away, but he’s rather persistent, and their love story is very short-lived but also quite sweet. But of course, she has to die too, despite Zeno’s begging the heavens for a way to have her life on with him. (This is likely one of the reasons why he’s the only Dragon not to harbor romantic feelings for Yona.) Fortunately, we end the volume with Zeno, having essentially shown this flashback to the reader while he recovers, waking up to see the current Dragons and Yona hovering over him, and he joyfully glomps them all in a big group hug. I am happy to see that, while Zeno’s happy ditzy self is indeed a mask of sorts, that he is not secretly in constant agony or anything. He’s found joy once more with his new friends, and I hope that, if he does live past them, he is able to accept it.

A must read volume of Yona (unless you’re against a lot of blood and gore, as I noted), this was a gut-punch to read but all the more rewarding for it.

Classroom of the Elite, Vol. 2

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By Syougo Kinugasa and Tomoseshunsaku. Released in Japan by Media Factory. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Timothy MacKenzie. Adapted by Jessica Cluess.

Tempting as it is to paste my review of the first volume in for the second and see if anyone notices, I will make an effort to say new things. The series’ strengths and weaknesses remain the same. It’s compulsively readable, always a good thing. Its premise can be teeth-grindingly annoying, especially when everyone turns into a vicious sadist for no reason, with a lot of “ha ha, you will fail forever now” sneering. I’m still not entirely clear if this school has a purpose beyond abusing 1/4 of its student body, and I suspect this is not a question I’m going to get answered anytime soon. We do get a couple of new characters here, though, including one who I actually did not want to punch in the face, which is a monstrous improvement from the first book. Sadly, she isn’t in Class D, meaning I am probably out of luck unless we get a spinoff series or something. Plus honestly, shee likely has a dark side too.

The other new character introduced is Sakura, who isn’t annoying so much as passive. In fact, her very passivity is the problem, as she’s also an important witness to an assault by Class D hothead Sudo on three Class C students. He now faces suspension, of course, and every single thing over the course of the entire book does not help his cause. First off, he’s claiming self-defense, but that’s hard to prove when you beat up three guys and you’re fine. Secondly, no one believes him anyway because his first response is to punch everything. Of course, if Sudo gets suspended Class D will lose the few points they gained from the first book (which aren’t given to them as money, by the way – it’s implied they never will be). Can the rest of the class overcome their antipathy towards Sudo and apathy in general and help clear his name? Or will they need to be a bit more… creative?

As I said, there’s also a girl from Class B that we briefly met in the first book but who gets a genuine introduction here. Ichinose is so refreshingly normal that I was almost crying in happiness. She’s friendly and outgoing without (so far) having a scheming dark side like Kushida. She tries to use Ayanokouji to help her with a problem (girl is confessing to her, need a pretend boyfriend). She ends up being of great help to them in the climax of the book. Really, I want her to be the star. She’s certainly more fun to read than grumpy Horikita, who spends the book attempting to help Sudo while being miserable about it, or our “hero” Ayanokouji, whose desire to be average and not stand out is so great that even his own inner narration lies to us – frequently he talks about Kushida as if he knows nothing about her secrets, and there are other points where I suspect he’s straight up lying to the reader. Which is the point – their teacher is trying to get Horikita to figure out why he’s like this – but again, it’s not what I’d call fun.

I can see why this is popular – I sped through it very quickly, and want to read more. This despite the fact that I was frowning most of the time and occasionally wanted to slam the book against a wall. Classroom of the Elite is a war between the writing and the characterization, and it may take more than two volumes to figure out who’s winning.

Classmates, Vol. 1: Dou Kyu Sei

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By Asumiko Nakamura. Released in Japan by Akaneshinsha, serialized in the magazine Opera. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jocelyne Allen. Adapted by Lillian Diaz-Przybyl.

This is the latest in a series of “OMG, I can’t believe we’re finally seeing this title!” LGBTQ releases that we’ve seen in North American this spring. Technically, we’ve seen this one before, as it came out digitally via JManga, then digitally again via the Digital Manga Guild. But this is a print release, newly translated, and looking very nice. It’s not a new title, having come out in 2006, but the story is certainly timeless. There’s a handsome, outgoing boy. There’s a serious, introverted young boy. They fall in love. But as with most really popular titles, it’s not just the story that makes people want to read it. Classmates has a number of individual story beats that I paused and read slower, or went back to read again, because they were handled so well. There’s also some excellent art here as well, as sometimes even a sketchy background shot carries impact. It’s a manga by an author who knows craft.

Hikaru is the easygoing, handsome, long-haired blond, who’s cool, in a band, etc. He’s in an all-boys school, which is practicing for a choral presentation, and notices that a classmate, Rihito, is only pretending to sing. Later he finds Rihito in an empty classroom, trying to learn the song (his vision is poor, so he couldn’t see the music earlier) and Hikaru offers to teach him. Over the course of this, the two fall in love, helped along by Hikaru’s kissing, which is not entirely consensual at first but eventually reciprocated. As the volume continues, you see the passion they have for each other, but is there anything behind it? Moreover, college is coming up, and Rihito, pressured by his parents, is boning up to get into a prestigious university. Is this a long-term thing, or is just another high school romance?

As I said earlier, individual chapters or scenes were what caught my attention here. Student/teacher relationships are a staple of Japanese manga, but you usually see them coming from the POV of the student. Here we get a chapter devoted to Manabu, their music teacher, who tells us why being a gay guy at an all-boys’ school is not all it’s cracked up to be (they’re mostly immature brats), but then runs into Rihito and falls for him immediately (Rihito has a knack for being unconsciously smooth). There are also a couple of fights that were very good, the first after Rihito sees a girl hitting on Hikaru at a concert and drunkenly runs off (Page 114 made me smile hugely) and Rihito’s explosion of emotions (he’s normally pretty repressed) about how he knows nothing about what Hikaru is doing for college or the future. (To be fair, I don’t think Hikaru knows either.) It’s scenes like this that make a series really enjoyable, and I’m very pleased that Seven Seas has also picked up the two-volume sequel to this.

If you like teen romance with passion or classic BL, this is absolutely a series to buy.