Category Archives: reviews

Full Metal Panic!: Fighting Boy Meets Girl

Leave a reply

By Shouji Gatou and Shikidouji. Released in Japan by Fujimi Shobo. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis.

I am, of course, very familiar with this series already. I even read this book many years ago, back when it was first released by Tokyopop. But that doesn’t really matter, because about 1/4 into the book I felt like I was reuniting with an old friend. The story of “average” high school girl Kaname Chidori and her encounter with mercenary and socially inept goober Sousuke Sagara has already had five novels out in North America (before Tokyopop dropped it), several manga adaptations (all of which are very out of print), and several anime series, which I think are actually still available to watch on Funimation and the like. All this for a series whose first book came out twenty-one years ago. It’s not the best thing ever, but it’s fun and makes you smile, and (as always with this author) the action scenes are first-rate. And of course it has Kaname, one of the top three ‘angry girls’ of the Golden Age of Fandom, and the only one fans eventually forgave.

Yes, that’s right, we get all-new cover art too, as J-Novel Club is using the updated Japanese release. For those who don’t know of this series, Sousuke is, as I noted, a mercenary with a group called MITHRIL, who is not affiliated with anyone but basically rides around in a cool submarine and fights terrorists. One day he and his two fellow mercs are given a mission to protect Kaname, a seemingly ordinary high school student, though they don’t know why they’re protecting her. Sousuke thus has to infiltrate the high school as a new transfer student. Sadly, he’s been a soldier his entire life, starting as a young child, and so… well, let’s just say hijinks ensue. Things turn serious when their field trip plane is hijacked by the enemy, though, and Kaname is taken away to have experiments run on her that show she’s not as normal as everyone thought. Can Sousuke rescue her? And will she ever stop yelling at him?

The thing that struck me on this reread was, despite Sousuke’s ineptness when it comes to being a high school student, how quickly Kaname was drawn to him. She’s clearly attracted right away, and despite his being… well, Sousuke, seems to be gradually falling for him, to the point that the author has to put up an obstacle to make sure she’s lost all respect for him by the time the books gets to the serious bits. The subtitle of the novel shows it’s as much a romance as an action movie, and since Tessa only has a minor role in this first volume, there’s nothing stopping the two of them from growing closer through being under fire. The other thing that struck me was how much military jargon was in this book. The author says he changed a few named and made things a bit more “futuristic”, but that doesn’t stop many descriptions of Labors… erm, Arm Slaves as they rampage through the jungle and beat each other up.

To sum up, this is a fun action series with two interesting lead characters. Kaname gets mad at Sousuke constantly but the author is very careful to show exactly why he deserves it (intentionally or no), and Sousuke’s stoicism was (at the time) a nice change from the typical male harem schlub. This is a series worth revisiting, and I’m very happy it was rescued.

SPY x FAMILY

Leave a reply

By Tatsuya Endo. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the online magazine Shonen Jump +. Released in North America by Shueisha on the Manga PLUS platform. Translated by Colin Milliken.

Over the last few years, North America and Japan have been trying to do something about piracy in various different ways, one of which has been simulpublishing. Putting out chapters at the same time as they’re released in Japan, for either a nominal charge, a yearly fee, or just plain for free. This means that we’re not merely getting popular new series from Japan after they’ve taken off, but we’re also getting potential hits – or bombs – as they debut. Shueisha, a few months ago, stuck their feet in the water with their Manga PLUS app/website, which gives readers a pile of series to read for free, from older titles like Naruto and Assassination Classroom to the newest chapters of current Jump series. Most of these are, I assume, done in conjunction with Viz Media. But they also had a bunch of debuts that run either in Jump Square or in Jump +, their online magazine, that are translated by the Media Do people. And none have quite hit the manga readership quite as hard or fast as Spy x Family.

Lloyd (aka Twilight) is a brilliant, if somewhat emotionally stoic, young spy, who is known for success. He is asked by his superiors to infiltrate a private school, the only location where a reclusive enemy is known to appear, and take him out. Unfortunately, the school has rigorous rules that are set in place, so in order to infiltrate, he’ll need a wife and child. The child is Anya, who he finds at an orphanage and snaps up when he sees she can read and write. The wife is Yoru, an office lady who is at that age where she really needs to have a man in her life (mostly as the Berlin Wall-esque world they’re living in tends to arrest unmarried older women as security risks). Together they can infiltrate the school. Oh, yes, there are a few more things. Yoru is actually Thorn Princess, a powerful hitman/assassin. And Anya is an esper, and can read the thoughts of everyone around her. The key to the series is that Lloyd and Yoru do not know each other’s secrets, and neither one of them know Anya’s. Anya can read minds, so knows both their secrets, but that’s OK, as they’re SO COOL!

If you’re wondering why this series has gotten so much buzz after a \mere four chapters, well, it does nearly everything right. The characters are cool yet flawed, and each also have the opportunity to be funny. The future plotline will, I hope, have Lloyd and Yoru falling for each other for real, and that will be terrific, because they’re perfect for each other. And we all await with baited breath the moment that they find out about each other (though really, Yoru should likely have guessed when she was proposed to using a grenade pin as a ring). The series runs on cool and funny, and carries both off, from the sleek action moves when we see Yoru killing any number of bad guys, running after purse snatchers, or even judo flipping an enraged bull, to the ‘this is ridiculous’ savvy of Lloyd and Yoru packing multiple different outfits just in case their clothing is damaged and they have to change. And then there’s Anya, who is adorable and cute to the nth degree, and you just want to pick her up and hug her forever. Seeing Lloyd trying to open up to her, and her attempts to manipulate things so that he doesn’t abandon her like everyone else has (being a young esper is not a fun life) is incredibly sweet.

To sum up, this is a well-written, cool and hilarious series that you can read legally for free. And it’s only four chapters long (the first chapter is about 85 pages, so there’s a lot of content here), so you aren’t trying to catch up but are getting in on the ground floor. How long will it last? Well, I suspect that’s up to Japanese readers. I will say that it’s currently the 6th most popular series on the Manga PLUS site. Which, given it’s up against most of the current and past Shonen Jump lineup, is quite a feat. Go read it and make it even more popular.

My Next Life As a Villainess! All Routes Lead to Doom!, Vol. 3

Leave a reply

By Satoru Yamaguchi and Nami Hidaka. Released in Japan by Ichijinsha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Shirley Yeung.

The author admits in the afterword that the series was supposed to end with the second volume, which was pretty obvious (see my review of said volume), but presumably the series did well enough for more. As such, this is the “difficult second album” for Bakarina, with the first half of the book in particular spinning its wheels and showing us the same sort of thing that we’ve seen before. Katarina goes around the school festival with her classmates, eating lots of food, and coming across her friends one by one as they attempt to either flirt with her or cut off others flirting with her, which Katarina herself remains blithely oblivious. And, of course, we then get to read it again, because one of the conceits of the book (which I sometimes quite enjoy – see the second half of the volume) is that we see Katarina’s POV followed by other POVs of the same scene. It can be exhausting.

The best part of the first half of the book is the play, where one of the actresses falls ill and Katarina has to take on the role of the wicked stepsister. (I thought this was a ploy by Jeord, but apparently not.) Since she blanks on her lines, she just decides to act the part on instinct, and everyone is amazed at how well Katarina can play a villain! It’s metatextually delicious, frankly. The meat of the book, though, is in the second half, as Katarina is kidnapped as part of a plot to get Jeord to give up his claim to the throne. This is supposedly engineered by the second price’s fiancee Selena, but she’s more an easily led dupe. (Her idolization of Katarina also shows that our heroine is not the only one in the cast to completely misinterpret everything.) In reality, it is the smiling “butler” Rufus who is doing this, theoretically on behalf of the eldest son.

There are no real surprises in Bakarina, to be honest – even the secret identity of one of the characters was easily guessed once I saw their reaction to Katarina being Katarina (hysterical laughter – she’s clearly a reader stand-in). You read this series because you enjoy seeing Katarina being dense, and also because you enjoy seeing Katarina converting everyone around her with the sheer power of her niceness. This world, as it’s an otome game, runs on tropes, and this gives Katarina, who has memories from the real world, an advantage at times in dealing with people unable to understand why in God’s name she’d go this far for someone. That said, we may have finally hit a turning point regarding the main relationship, as after being scared out of his wits by Katarina’s kidnapping, and also seeing that Rufus (who now loves her, of course) bit her on the neck, responds by kissing her, and explicitly stating his love. Even Katarina can’t ignore this. Right?

There is some setup for future books here, as graduation is coming soon and we’;re clearly going to have Katarina working for the Ministry with Maria… and no doubt the rest of the cast. Still, this was an enjoyable book despite all its flaws, and got better as it went along. It’s definitely a book where you see the smoke pouring out of the author’s brain as they write, though.