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Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online: Second Squad Jam: Start

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By Keiichi Sigsawa and Kouhaku Kuroboshi, based on the series created by Reki Kawahara. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

If you read the first volume of this series and thought “I’m here to read deep characterization and cool gun battles, and I’m all out of deep characterization”, then I’ve got some good news for you. Now, there is some attempt at character, which I’ll get into later on, but for the most part you are not here to see what makes Pitohui tick or reading about Llenn’s desire to save her. You are here to read about guns, and fights, and gunfights. And in this regard, the Second Squad Jam offers just what the first did, and does a very good job of it. There may be a few too many long descriptions of makes and models for my taste, but the concept and strategy of what’s going on here is top notch. You can tell this is the main thing Sigsawa wants to write – in fact, he wrote so much of it that this is a two-parter, with the second half due out early next year.

On the cover we see Llenn with a new partner, Fukaziroh, who is Karen’s real-life best friend Miyu. Miyu is not meant, so far, to have much depth. She is in this book to be FUN, and she succeeds admirably. She’s bubbly, extroverted, acts before thinking, and is also hellaciously strong in game, so is a good contrast to Llenn’s speed and agility. Llenn’s former partner, M, can’t pair up with her as he is pairing up with Pitohui, and this Squad Jam is – stop me if you’re surprised in a SAO title – a matter of life or death for the both of them. Why that is has a lot to do with Pitohui’s twisted personality, and also a lot to do with the original Sword Art Online, which Pitohui was not involved with – in fact, that’s the problem. This is handled pretty well, though if I hear yet another thing tying into Laughing Coffin again I may scream. M has a plan to fix things, though we don’t hear the specifics, for the sake of suspense.

These are not the only returning characters, of course. The squad of huge muscular women who turned out to be cute Japanese schoolgirls is back, and anxious to have a rematch with Llenn. That may have to wait, though, as Llenn is on a direct course to confront Pitohui, who we finally see in action, and it is both amazing and terrifying. She’s sort of broken, but the fact that this really IS just a game means that her cruelty and callousness comes off merely as cool rather than as any form of sociopathy. We also see the paramilitary unit, as well as the machine gun idiots. Now that we’ve gotten the plot out of the way, I expect the back half of this two-parter to be incredibly cool fights from beginning to end. As this is the first volume, there’s a lot of necessary setup that gets in the way.

Still, this is frothy fun. It’s never going to win awards for depth or emotion, but if you need a light novel equivalent of Pixy Stix, then by all means this SAO spinoff is absolutely the title for you.

Last and First Idol

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By Gengen Kusano. Released in Japan by Hayakawa Publishing. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

It needs to be said right up front, this is not remotely a light novel. In fact, it’s not even a novel, but rather, a collection of three large-ish short stories. The first one, which gives the book its title, won the Japanese Seiun Award, their equivalent of the Hugos, and the other two are essentially variations on a theme. This is not to say that they aren’t related to anime and manga – each of the three short stories revolves around a different otaku obsession, and indeed the first story is a repurposed NicoMaki fanfic (as explicitly stated in the afterword). But this is at its core science fiction. Even more importantly it’s of the genre known as hard science fiction. The majority of all three stories is made up of long, detailed, and mostly fascinating discussion of science concepts and themes, sometimes related to our own sciences, and sometimes off on a different tangent (such as the aether in the final story). To enjoy this book, you REALLY need to love science.

It’s not quite accurate to call the three stories in here “variations on a theme”, but they are definitely of a piece. In Last and First Idol, a young girl obsessed with idols finds reality impossible to accept, but her friend is there to ensure that she fulfills her dreams, even after death. In Evolution Girls, a young woman obsessed with Gatcha games is killed and reincarnated in a gatcha-themed world, where she has to fight to survive. And in Dark Seiyuu, we follow a murderous sociopath and her ditzy partner as they kill seiyuu, travel through space, and try to discover the meaning of life. All three stories, to a greater or lesser degree, feature “yuri” sort of relationships, though, appropriately given the inspiration for these stories are shows like Love Live and Madoka Magica, they don’t really progress beyond akogare all that much. All three stories also feature a grotesque amount of violence, laid out in loving and bloody description.

I was impressed with the premise and development of the stories. The characters may not have been all that likeable some of the time, but they were easy to follow as protagonists, and a couple of the stories even had stabs at a happy ending. I was expecting a bit more satire – honestly, despite the concept of things like “immortal idol girls”, “gatcha games that consume your soul”, and “seiyuu piloting spaceships with their evolved uvulas”, there’s not really much commentary on said industries, as the author is more interested in exploring science using the otaku-esque premises as a springboard. The science, it has to be said, can be deadly. I never really did get into hard science fiction as a genre, and my academic career is strictly humanities, so my eyes were glazing over a lot. Also, it has to be said, a great deal of this book involves cute girls killing other cute girls in very detailed ways. There’s a reason I don’t read the Magical Girl Kill ‘Em All books, you know?

So in the end, this is a book that is easy for me to admire and be impressed by, but I can’t really say I enjoyed it. That said, if you are the sort who likes hard SF and Madoka Magica knockoffs, this is absolutely something for you to pick up.

Pop Team Epic

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By Bkub Okawa. Released in Japan by Takeshobo, serialized in the magazine Manga Life Win. Released in North America by Vertical Comics. Translated by Yota Okutani.

Many who read my reviews are familiar with me saying “This was made into a popular anime, which I haven’t actually seen.” That’s not the case here, as I am very, very familiar with the Pop Team Epic anime. In fact, this manga may be operating at a slight disadvantage in that I think almost every single person who buys it will be someone who has seen the anime that came out at the start of 2018. So, the question here is not so much “is this book funny?” (it is, in a PTE sort of way) or “is this book worth my money?” (yes it is, if only for the cover not having mosaics like the CR anime OP did) but more “what does this book have that the anime didn’t?”. There are several comics that weren’t adapted into anime gags, of course, and I will admit that for the most part you can easily see why they chose what they did. But the gags are still fun and worth reading, and it’s interesting to see hwow one gets translated into the other.

In case you are that rare person who bought this sight unseen (and given that cover, I can imagine it), Pop Team Epic is a 4-koma gag strip about two girls, Popuko (the short one) and Pipimi (the tall one). They’re dressed in school uniforms, but we never see them attending any classes. Instead, the strip is an excuse for various pop culture gags, fourth wall breaking exercises, and whatever random humor Bkub thinks of to throw at us. A good comparison might be Nichijou or CITY, though I worry comparing Pop Team Epic to anything just invites criticism. For anyone who’s seen the anime, all the most famous gags are present and correct: “Are you upset?”, “Beef or Chicken”, “Doesn’t get it at all”, etc. In fact, some of the gags look odd for an anime watcher, as Bob Epic Team used them for their own distorted art, and seeing things like the scorpion or zoo scenes as normal quick gag strips is actually a bit unnerving.

For those who had been wondering about how they would translate possibly the most memed of the PTE memes, “You Are Mother Fucker?” is left as is, which might be seen as cheating but is probably the safest option. The translation is, appropriately for a series like this, a bit of a mish-mash. Translation notes are minimal, with the occasional explanation of things like the Slit-Mouthed Woman. For the most part the pop culture gags are left alone, relying on the reader being as big a nerd as the author. There is the occasional adaptation that I noticed – in particular, I’m pretty sure the M*A*S*H reference wasn’t in the original comic – but for the most part the translation is fairly straightforward. Popuko swears quite a bit, though again, not as much as I think the “fan” reading the manga would like.

If you enjoyed the Pop Team Epic anime and want to read how it began, this is an excellent manga to buy. If you didn’t watch the PTE anime and are just curious, I’d make sure you like gag comics with a liberal definition of what “humor” is first. And if you’re a yuri fan, yes, “I wuv you lots” is in here, though don’t expect any hegemony.