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Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family, Vol. 2

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By TAa, based on Fate/Stay Night by TYPE-MOON. Released in Japan as “Emiya-san Chi no Kyou no Gohan” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Ace Up. Released in North America by Denpa Books. Translated by Ko Ransom.

Admit it, you’re surprised this review is here at all. Let’s face it, if ever there was a manga series that cried out “review the first volume, then do the subsequent ones as Bookshelf Briefs”, it’s Emiya Family, a series that has zero plot and static characterization. And yet that doesn’t make it bad – indeed, its lack of plot and the fact that the characters are all basically “lovable cooks” is its main selling point. We don’t want to be reading about Sakura’s abuse at the hands of her brother, we want to be getting gags about how seaweed reminds Rider of Shinji’s hair, and Shinji’s complete lack of presence in this volume. (At one point, Sakura is described as “Matou’s sister”, and it took me a bit to realize they meant Shinji.) If you loved Fate/Zero and its grim darkness, this is obviously not for you, but it’s a great antidote. Heck, even Saber Alter shows up here ready to eat rather than ready to kill.

First of all, a sad note for those who were hoping this emulated Fate/Hollow Ataraxia a bit more: Kotomine Kirei seems to be alive in this universe. One of the joys of FHA was that everyone was alive and living in peace except for his dead ass, and I will miss that. Also, please, no mapo tofu recipes. Gilgamesh also gets a brief cameo, and we may be seeing more of him in the next volume. Archer continues to be absent from the main series, but in a special chapter that ran in a different magazine, helping Otoko not fall to her death on the steps to the shrine and making delicious food that tastes oddly like Shirou’s for some reason. And while Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family mostly concerns itself with the “original” cast, it is also a giant advertisement for the universe in general, so it’s no surprise that there’s also a Fate/GO extra chapter with Mash asking Archer and Boudica how to cook dragon meat stakes. We even see Jaguar Man! (I also like that the book did NOT offer an alternative meat to dragon in the recipe. Go kill a dragon to cook this properly, dammit.)

The entire series, of course, is based on the original Fate/Stay Night visual novels, and the large, LARGE amount of cooking that goes on there. Here we see that Shirou’s cooking has become almost legendary among the school, to the point where the student council get fired up at the sight of his fried chicken nuggets. There’s also the Christmas episode with Berserker, but I will admit that the anime’s vast expansion of that chapter works better. This is still sweet, though. I was also highly amused at Lancer being aggravated that Shirou is not banging Rin, and spending his meal trying to get the two of them together. (Sorry, Lancer, status quo is the norm here.) And Sakura doesn’t get as much to do, but I was sort of amused by the chapter where she gets upset at the Servants never gaining weight when they eat, unlike her. (Everyone assures her she looks fine, and I’m sure if Rin were there she’d add that it all goes to her chest.)

Again, unless you only read Fate for tragedy or battles, this is almost the perfect manga to pick up. It will leave a smile on your face and a growl in your belly.

Kokoro Connect: Nise Random

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By Sadanatsu Anda and Shiromizakana. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Molly Lee.

This volume had its work cut out for it, at least in regards to me. The title translated as “Random Fakes”, and it’s not spoiling anything to let you know that we get a pile of “Heartseed’s magic lets me impersonate another person so that I can quietly destroy their lives”. This plotline makes me very uncomfortable, always has, and so I was cringing through a large part of the first third of this book. Fortunately, the author knows that our heroes have been down this road before, and we eventually end up going in a completely different direction. What the book really is is an extended character study of the new first-years, going into their personality quirks (and flaws) in a much deeper and more traumatic way than the short story volume ever could. The book trusts that you will go along with the author’s good judgment and understand that these are good kids at heart. Unfortunately, with Chihiro, I worry the reader may give up and just quietly hate him.

We pick up after the start of the plot has happened offstage. Chihiro’s narration reveals that he has been approached by Heartseed (who, let’s remember, the main cast has NOT QUITE told the newbies about yet) and offers his usual “I will give you a power, entertain me” bargain. The power is the impersonation tactic I mentioned above. Unfortunately, Chihiro is still dealing with being cynical, arrogant, and bitter, so he resolves to screw up the Club as much as possible. Fortunately, there are a few plot twists that get in the way. The first is that the club (minus Taichi, who admits he was being stupid) have been down this road too many times to not realize something’s going on with Heartseed. Secondly, when it comes right down to it Chihiro is a lonely kid who breaks pretty easily, and when he realizes that things are going bad and they’ll catch him, he tries more drastic tactics. Which have more drastic effects.

Chihiro is not the only main character in this book, of course, as we also get Enjouji’s POV for several scenes. She’s a more tolerable type, being the “why would anyone be interested in me when I am so normal and ordinary” girl. This is why she admires Taichi so much, besides his voice, as he has that ability to unite everyone around him. (This comes as a surprise to Taichi, who is still going through a bit of an identity crisis, and this book REALLY doesn’t help.) I liked the constant ship tease between her and Chihiro, even though it may not go anywhere – we’ve all seen the two friends who everyone just assumes are a couple even though they really aren’t. As for flaws in the book, well, Chihiro pretending to be Taichi and getting Inaba to strip was a bit beyond the beyond, and I kind of feel she didn’t get mad enough at him afterwards. (You could argue he wasn’t punished enough for his actions, but a) everyone agrees Heartseed is really to blame, and b) he already hates himself so much punishment would feel odd.) Honestly, lovesick Inaba really doesn’t work for me at all. I like her with Taichi, but not like this.

So despite its premise, this ended up being an excellent volume in the series. It’s definitely worth picking up, especially if you liked the anime.

Mythical Beast Investigator, Vol. 1

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By Keishi Ayasato and Koichiro Hoshino. Released in Japan as “Genjuu Chousain” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Famitsu Comic Clear. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Angela Liu. Adapted by Ysa McFarlane.

As if the shot of the adorable young woman sitting politely in the forest with her red-eyed demon flayer behind her weren’t reason enough to believe this might be a wee bit darker than expected, it’s also written by the person who wrote Torture Princess. Then again, that may actually be par for the course in this genre. We’ve seen an extensive amount of “cute young thing is introduced to (or is already part of) supernatural world manga series, and almost all of them tick the ‘darker than they seem’ box. The Ancient Magus’ Bride, The Girl from the Other Side, etc. The world is filled with wonders, but the world can also easily kill you – or worse. Fortunately for THIS world, we have Ferry, the titular investigator, who is traveling the countryside looking for villages that are having issues with monsters and fixing them, along with her bodyguard Roxy Music… erm, sorry, Kushuna, who seems to be a monstrous rabbit demon.

Ferry, of course, will tell you she’s not an Official, just a Member of the investigative team. That said, she certainly has the knowledge and will to do a good job. The first part of the story concerns a wyvern that is rampaging in a village, which is unusual for this sort. Ferry quickly finds that the wyvern had a “ribbon maiden” by its side, and that she was very quickly sold out to bandits by the “save our own hides” villagers. As such, well, the wyvern is upset. Fortunately, Ferry also has Kushuna, who is theoretically more cynical and hard-boiled than she is, and tells the wyvern to essentially stop throwing a temper tantrum and go and rescue his girl. This actually turns out to be a running theme of the manga, as we run into some other villages that instinctively fear and despise monsters and beasts, only to find either a) they’re not as bad as feared, or b) they were never dangerous to begin with.

This does change with the final story, which also serves to give us a cliffhanger. Here we have an actual beast that is killing young children, and the father of one of these children bent on revenge. One of the really nice things about this series is showing off how Ferry thinks about her job and how to do it, and that it’s not merely “stop the problem”. In this case, that’s part of it, but she also needs to help the father work through his grief and do so in a way that is not “after I kill this monster, I will die”. Kushuna is there to do Ferry’s dirty work, but the good thing about Ferry is that she is well aware that the dirty work exists – he’s not protecting an innocent or anything. Ferry just happens to be very, very good at her job. Or at least, I am assuming so, unless she gets eaten by the water horse, which is the cliffhanger.

If you enjoy these sort of pastoral fantasy monster sort of tales that Seven Seas has created a niche market for, this is another good entry. I’ll be getting the next volume.