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Amagi Brilliant Park, Vol. 1

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By Shouji Gatou and Yuka Nakajima. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Elizabeth Ellis.

In the beginning there was Full Metal Panic!, a long series of light novels that sadly will probably never be rescued but which spawned a long-running anime franchise. Then there was the spinoff, Fumoffu, which was FMP as a gag comedy and featured Sousuke dressed up as an amusement park mascot. As the author admits in the afterword, the design of the mascot was so perfect that the author just poached it outright (with permission) for his new series Amagi Brilliant Park. Sousuke is not inside the costume this time, but fortunately we have Isuzu, who is sort of a gender-reversed Sousuke with about the same amount of social skills and the tendency to use guns as the first and only option. Fortunately, the male protagonist is not a Kaname expy, but instead Seiya is a young man (and former child star) who is smart, handsome, athletic, and smug about all of this. He’s clearly the perfect person to take hostage and beg to save your magical theme park. Which is what Isuzu does.

For most of this book, I will admit, I was a tad underwhelmed. Isuzu and Seiya were flawed characters, but it sort of felt that the flaw was meant to be a “quirk” rather than lead to actual character development. The same applied to other characters – the other heroine is blind, but this is apparently so irrelevant the anime didn’t bother to adapt the blindness. In addition, as part of his job to save the magical amusement park, Seiya is given a magic power, but it’s hilariously useless and for the rest of the book he simply never bothers. The writing itself is solid – no surprise, given the author’s experience – and it definitely does not have the “I am adapted from a webnovel” feel that so many titles do these days. But I really wanted something more from the series, and as the deadline to save the park crept up I was wondering what weird plan our hero would come up with to save the day.

Then came the revelation of what that plan was, which I will do my darndest not to spoil. At first I was sure it was a fakeout, because there was absolutely no way that they were going to go down that dark, cynical road. But they absolutely do, and I literally said “Holy shit” out loud when I read it. It’s a horrible thing to do, and while Seiya wins the day and the amusement park is (for now) saved, both he and Moffle (one of the “mascots” who is the spitting image of Bonta-kun and also the only one we care about in this volume) feel like it is a bitter, undeserved victory. It absolutely is. And it made the book so much better for me, knowing that in among all the wackiness of Isuzu shooting things and the mascots talking about getting it on with hot moms, the author is ready to pull the rug right out from under his readers with this sort of thing. It made me sort of ill. Bravo.

The next volume is supposed to be more lighthearted, and I’m not sure that’s really what I’ll want. But for now, I recommend Amagi Brilliant Park to fans of FMP or ‘comedy workplace’ series who don’t mind the hero coming off as something of a tortured sociopath. I’ll be reading more.

Otherworldly Izakaya [Nobu], Vol. 1

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By Natsuya Semikawa and Virginia Nitouhei. Released in Japan as “Isekai Izakaya “Nobu”” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Udon Entertainment. Translated by Caleb D. Cook.

There’s a small subset of isekai series that seem to involve a restaurant that is modern Japanese and yet caters to fantasy characters. This one is particularly odd in several ways, though. It’s based on a light novel series, which makes sense if you think of it as an isekai manga but no sense whatsoever if you think of it in its real genre, which is a “everyone enjoys food and describes it” manga. (I’m not sure it’s technically a foodie manga as there are no recipes. You aren’t supposed to make these yourself.) That said, if you DO see it as an isekai manga, it’s probably one of the few I’ve seen shown almost entirely from the POV of the existing fantasy characters. The “Chief” and Shinobu are the staff of the izakaya in question, and by the end of the first book we know the same thing about them which we knew at the start – nothing. It’s about the fantasy cast, and food.

Even the isekai part of the series is a bit vague. The plot involves this izakaya (think pub) in a side street of a medieval town, which gets traffic at first mostly from the guards who are exhausted after a day’s work (just like real izakayas). They are poleaxed by things like cold beer, oden, etc. – basic Japanese pub fare. It becomes somewhat clear as the book progresses that the izakaya has a “back area” that is connected to modern-day Japan, where Shinobu and the Chief get ingredients and (presumably) live. In other words, they are the ones who are transported to another world. But, as I said earlier, this is a series about the food and the people eating it. boisterous guards, their grumpy captain, an uptight tax collector (who is not Gustav St. Germain from Baccano!, but happens to look just like him), and a spoiled rich girl wander in, think they’re not going to like the food, and like the food.

In the end, you have to think of the series as a food manga to really appreciate it. The attention given to the food is, of course, excellent, and the characters make you really want to dig in. As I said earlier, Shinobu is the waitress girl on the cover, and she’s bright and helpful and that’s about it – likewise, Chief is straightforward and somewhat stoic. There’s some sort of language barrier that isn’t quite made clear – Shinobu using untranslated Japanese at times (particularly her long, drawn-out “haaaaaiiii!”) is meant to show this, but she can also clearly communicate with everyone. The other very odd thing about this isekai is that, as far as I can tell, there’s no magic or fantasy in this world whatsoever. It’s in some sort of German medieval world, but the only isekai think is the Japanese pub. It’s a very odd combination, but the relaxed mood and food descriptions in this volume means I’ll be coming back for more. And hopefully getting at least some backstory for our staff.

Outbreak Company, Vol. 5

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By Ichiro Sakaki and Yuugen. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

Every volume of Outbreak Company seems to begin trying its best to irritate me, I swear. It’s as if the creator has to present his bonafides before he gets into the meat of what he actually wants to do. Hence we begin with Shinichi, who has just been kidnapped by this world’s equivalent of Saudi Arabia or something similar, going on and on about moe fetishes for a bit, followed by his summarizing the entire plot for those readers who may have wanted to start with Book 5. That said, this book does show us, even more than usual, that Shinichi is very fond of these fetishes AS FICTION, and when they’re given to him in real life he is reasonably creeped out by them. And given that the entire premise of this book is basically “Shinichi has done the Eldant Empire so much good and now the entire female cast (who either love him or are at least good friends with him” proceed to rescue him:”, the reminder is needed. Shinichi is a model otaku – he can separate fiction and reality.

Myusel gets her second cover, and also pretty much separates herself from the harem pack here. We get a large chunk of the book narrated by her (out of necessity, as Shinichi’s been kidnapped), and her love and devotion to Shinichi is really impressive. As is her use of automatic weapons towards the climax, which given it gets two interstitial pieces of art may have been the excuse for the plot. At this point, if she’s not Best Girl by the end of the series I’ll be very surprised. Elvia too gets a lot to do here, given that it’s her country who has kidnapped Shinichi – we get to meet her sisters, and see how the family dynamic is. It honestly looks like it’s a good thing that Elvia was captured and stayed with the main cast. That said, it was rather startling how much she was treated as ‘evil spy’ at the start of the book given that she’s pretty much lazed around drawing and occasionally firing off soccer balls. No one forgets how she first arrived.

The plot itself is quite interesting. We’ve seen for the first four or so books Shinichi dealing with a very unequal world, where humans are the ‘norm’ and elves, dwarves, beastmen etc. are considered less than human. The core of the series has been showing that this is a bad thing. Now, however, we see Elvia’s country, whose king has set things up so that everything is equal – by force. People eat the same things, work the same jobs, are married in mass ceremonies to whoever the King picks out for them… it’s pretty damn appalling. Shinichi is supposedly kidnapped so that he can write something that will make the population of Bahairam love their king the way the magical girl movie made everyone love Petralka, and after wracking his brain and avoiding the obvious, he finally gives in. He can’t do it. Equality is important, but not at the cost of individuality.

Of course, all this may have been planned all along, and we see at the end that Shinichi’s idea of fixing things may be the smartest. Overall, though, this was a very good entry in the Outbreak Company series, and should appeal to those who enjoy it and don’t mind Shinichi occasionally leaping off of otaku cliffs.