Category Archives: reviews

The Irregular at Magic High School: Visitor Arc, Part III

Leave a reply

By Tsutomu Sato and Kana Ishida. Released in Japan as “Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei” by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

A word of warning that I’m still mostly grumpy about this volume, as I have become about this series in general. I think it’s become something where I’m interesting in seeing where the author takes things, but hate every decision he makes when he takes them. This volume wraps up the arc with Lina coming to Japan and Shizuku going to America, and also the killer “parasites” that do, in fact, kill more people before they are taken down. There’s also graduation, as Mayumi and the rest of her year move on to University – though not, the author reassures us, away from the story, though no doubt they will appear less. And there are some nudges towards the main plotline, as Erika figures out what family Tatsuya is really from. I was thinking at the start of this arc that she, like Honoka, might actually confess to him, but that’s unlikely to happen now. Besides, we know which ship will win.

I am almost at the point with Tatsuya and Miyuki where I wish they DID sleep together, if only as it would provide an excellent dropping point. But no, we continue to have Miyuki try to be the dutiful little sister even as her thoughts are growing more and more romantic and sexual as she gets older. As for Tatsuya, well, he’s ambivalent to everyone else, and seems to be pushing back on Miyuki when she takes things too far, but it’s hard to gauge his feelings on the matter given his past and lack of emotions. That said, I’m not really rooting for Honoka here either, who seems to have forgotten she confessed to Tatsuya and was rejected several volumes ago and is goaded by Shizuku (over the phone, and likely sleep-deprived) to press her case harder. This does lead to the funniest part of the book, where Honoka “makes herself useful” against the forces tailing them in a way that you know would have made Tatsuya facepalm if he had the ability.

As for Lina, her arc overall was “there’s always someone better than you”, in this case Tatsuya and Miyuki, showing her that she’s not as terrific as she thinks she is. Which is fine. I was far less happy with the “you’re too nice to be a soldier” bullshit from Tatsuya, which I’m fairly sure he would not have said had Lina been a man – but then if Lina had been a man I suspect her character would have been killed off anyway. It’s also a bit off that we never really see Lina reuniting with her superiors, or how they felt about her performance. I’m sure she’ll show up again, but it’s likely going to be a while, and I bet I’ll never really see resolution there, just as we never really resolved the 2nd part of the Nine Schools Competition after it got attacked. The author drops loose ends like crumbs.

We start the new school year next volume, which seems thankfully to be a single volume arc. I’ve no doubt that we’ll expand the cast with exciting new freshman. Till then, I’m honestly happy to see the back of this arc.

86 –Eighty-Six–, Vol. 1

Leave a reply

By Asato Asato and Shirabii. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Roman Lempert.

I have a certain reputation for being a softie, and will freely admit that I drop series sometimes just because I find them too bleak and depressing – in fact, see my review of WorldEnd a few months ago. But sometimes I get a book that, even though it is unrelentingly downbeat and cruel, I end up enjoying far more than I thought, simply because the writing is so damn good. Such a book is 86, a blunt look at war and racism seen from an alternate universe that seems eerily close to our own at times. It examines how easy it is for people to fall into hatred and murder, how being idealistic and thinking something is wrong is not really enough when you’re in a position of great privilege, and the constant physical, mental and emotional strain of being a disposable soldier whose “leaders” want them to die. I was depressed while reading most of the book, but I absolutely could not put it down. It’s stunning.

The Republic of San Magnolia is at war with the Legion, weapons of the Empire. Fortunately, they have unmanned drones to fight the battles for them! Unfortunately, their technology isn’t great, so their “unmanned” drones are manned by the Eighty-Six. There are 85 Sectors in the Republic, and it decided to take all those who weren’t “pureblood” and put them in an 86th, which is essentially a concentration camp, and send them out to fight the war. They’re not people, after all, just subhuman pigs, so it doesn’t matter what happens to them. Our story follows Lena, a young idealistic “handler” who thinks this is wrong, but also thinks that she can do something about it by virtue of forcefully making her point. She’s assigned to a new group of Eighty-Six, the crack squad who are on the front lines preventing an invasion of the Republic. Unfortunately, her squad is getting diminished by the day. And they have no respect for her. And the enemy are horrifying.

This is absolutely a book with an agenda, make no bones about it. It’s about human dignity and rights, and how easily everyone can throw away someone else’s for their own. The technology of the “Legion”, which is a bit higher than the Repiblic’s, allows for a truly terrifying scene where we see what has happened to many of the 86s who have died in battle, and it causes Lena to have a bit if a screaming fit. There’s also several scenes where Lena has her hypocrisy and privilege pointed out to her in the most caustic of terms, and she’s the one who grows the most in this book, to the point of sacrificing almost everything – but not her ideals. Despite being unrelentingly grim, the book somehow avoids being cynical. I honestly felt it was a one-volume series till the very end – it was apparently written for a competition, so had to be self-contained. (It won.)

I hate to repeat myself, but I don’t think I’ve been this blown away by a first volume in quite some time. If you are tired of isekais, or tired of fascism, or just love good prose, and don’t mind a lot of death and degradation, 86 is absolutely a series you should be reading. Highly recommended.

Plunderer, Vol. 1

Leave a reply

By Suu Minazuki. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Ko Ransom.

Yes, yes, OK, I should have known better. Sometimes I preorder new series without paying much attention to what’s actually going on. Like, for example, the fact that this is written by Suu Minazuki, creator of Gou-dere Sora Nagihara, which I wasn’t fond of; Judas, licensed digitally by Viz but looking to be along the same lines; and Heaven’s Lost Property, whose length is probably the only reason it too was not brought over here. The author has a reputation for fanservice, let’s put it that way. Now he’s turning his attention to fantasy with this series, which features a plot which made so little sense that I had to go back and read the explanation again. It also gets pretty dark, to the point where I wonder if the editor said “can you add some blatant panty shots to cheer the reader up?” and the artist smiled and gave a thumbs up. That said… it’s written for an audience of teenage boys, and boy, does it know that market.

We start off with Hina, a young girl (she seems to fall into that “am I eight years old or sixteen?” type) who is searching for the Fabled Ace, a war hero who may or may not be a legend. Instead she finds a perverted guy who wears a mask, whose goal is to look up her skirt, and a nice bartender woman, whose goal is to explain why everyone has number tattooed on them. Each number is a thing that a person can achieve – the bartender has a number that’s the times her food has been called good, while Hina’s is apparently the miles she’s walked – and when that number hits zero, the person is sucked up by black tentacle things and sent to “The Abyss”. The achievement can be ANYTHING, which makes it simply confusing. Moreover, Hina is naive and trusts too easily. Fortunately for her, she has an ally, sort of. Unfortunately, it’s the pervert in a mask.

This series runs on fanservice to a large degree – when Hina has to disappear from the plot for a bit, we are introduced to a young sergeant major in the military who fills much the same position – and I absolutely do not recommend it to anyone whose tolerance for panty shots is low. That said, what about the rest of it? Well, I’ve made my opinion of the “count” thing clear, I think it’s overly confusing and a plot convenience. The actual plot is following Hina and Licht (the guy in the mask) as they try to avoid everyone going after her as she has a “ballot”, which is another macguffin that means essentially “whoever holds this has power”. The overall tone of the manga suggests it’s going to be fairly grim, and I suspect a few of the cast are not going to survive. That said, this is written by a creator who’s been around for several years, so the composition is fine, and the fights are exciting enough.

Basically, this is a volume that hits its demographic, but ONLY its demographic. If you’re a teenage boy, you’ll love this. All others should read something else.