Category Archives: reviews

Outbreak Company, Vol. 4

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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.

This is quite a short volume of Outbreak Company, and as such it doesn’t really do a heck of a lot to advance the forward plot. Its main thrust can be divided into three: 1) Due to the soccer game from last book being filmed and then leaked onto Youtube, Shinichi and company have to figure out how to cover up something that’s already gone viral; 2) Petralka is starting to burn out a bit, and her advisors aren’t really sure how to deal with a teenage empress; and 3) the author has realized that Minori hasn’t really had much of a backstory, and thus has Shinichi actually notice she’s uncomfortable when he calls her feminine and asks her about her past and background. In the afterword, the author says this was supposed to be Minori’s book but Petralka sort of shoved herself in; I think that may have been a good idea, as while Minori’s past is suitably sad, it doesn’t really tie into anything else. It’s there just for development.

Minori doesn’t even get the cover (she was the logical choice), as instead we have Magical Girl Petralka. Shinichi’s idea to stop the Youtube rumors is to put out a few more video clips that make it clear that this is a movie, and that it’s just CGI people saw. This dovetails nicely with Petralka needing a bit of distraction from the heavy weight of power, and so she ends up being the star. Unfortunately, as you’d expect from a girl who’s done nothing but rule the country or be prepared to rule the country, Petralka decides she likes life on the other side a bit TOO much, and needs to be smacked back with some harsh reality. These are probably the best scenes in the book, and show off the main reason why Outbreak Company is still a good read – Shinichi is very good at reading people, and figuring out what they need.

As for Minori, despite telling Shinichi about her past, and saying that she understands why the other girls have all fallen for him, there’s no indication that she has done the same, which is fine with me. She gre up as the Heir to the Dojo, but as iwth a lot of Heirs to the Dojo who are female, her dad wanted a boy and she can’t help but always be inadequate. Puberty also didn’t help, which is probably why Shinichi’s obsession wi8th her large breasts is not all that welcome (though I would not expect it to end either – this is still a Japanese light novel). That said, she gets to save the day when a large dragon attacks the film site (which is the one part of the book hinting at future plotlines, as the dragon seems to have been mind controlled by another nation), and hopefully she’ll feel more comfortable with herself as the series goes on.

This wasn’t the best volume of Outbreak Company, and it felt more like filling time than anything else. But there were still lots of good scenes and funny character bits, and it’s enough to tide us over till the next book, which I hope is more plot-heavy.

Little Witch Academia, Vol. 1

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By Trigger, Yoh Yoshinari and Keisuke Sato. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by JY. Translated by Taylor Engel.

Despite this being another franchise where I’ve never actually seen the anime, I knew quite a bit about it to begin with. It was a Kickstarter series that blew up into a full-fledged TV anime, it’s been described as “Harry Potter if they were all girls”, and Akko/Diana is the preferred ship, I am told. Other than that, I was ready to be charmed by this manga, which is coming out here under Yen’s “JY” line, so is definitely being marketed to younger readers. Which I can see, as kids will love this. It’s a good title for adults as well, though, and Akko makes a fun heroine – fallible and sloppy, but also filled with a love of life that puts a smile on your face. It also helps that she’s surrounded by a few snarkers to help take the sugary edge off.

The manga does assume to a certain degree that you’re already familiar with its source, but for the neophyte, there is an introductory chapter. Akko is a wannabe witch who’s bad at flying, trying to make her way to the Witchcraft Academy, rather unusual for a Japanese student. Through a series of misadventures, she meets two other students – the glasses-wearing, earnest Lotte and the sarcastic, droopy-eyed Sucy – and she ends up at the Academy, ready to follow in the footsteps of her idol Chariot. The rest of the book shows various Academy events, as we see that Akko is not the best student in the world, but makes up for it with lots of energy, drive and GUTS! In other words, despite being all girls, this is a perfect series to run in Shonen Ace, and it wouldn’t be too out of place in Jump either.

For fans of Diana, she’s not as prevalent in this first manga as I was expecting, but there’s enough of her here to see why fans really like to pair off the two of them – they’re very Usagi and Rei. I can also see the Harry Potter comparison, mostly as the three main characters map somewhat to Harry, Hermione and Ron, though Harry was never quite this hyperactive, and Quidditch is replaced by volleyball – where they aren’t supposed to use magic, but do anyway. If there’s a fault with the manga, it’s that it does feel something like a side story to the main anime – there’s no sense that this is going in its own direction, but filling in some gaps that the main story, which was animated, left out. That said, there are hints that we’re going to be getting a bit deeper, such as the cliffhanger ending to this volume.

If you like the anime, or have kids who did, I can’t see why you wouldn’t pick this up. As for me, it makes me want to try the anime to see what I’m missing.

Napping Princess: The Story of the Unknown Me

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By Genji Kamiyama. Released in Japan as “Hirunehime ~ Shiranai Watashi no Monogatari ~” by Kadokawa Shoten. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Yota Okutani.

We’ve been getting a lot of these sorts of books lately, the novelization of a popular animated film. Well, for some definition of popular – your name sort of hovers above everything else. But we’ve also gotten The Boy and the Beast, and we’re getting Fireworks: Long Title Here in the summer. And now we have Napping Princess, a book that adapts the film of the same name that came out in 2017. It’s a quick, breezy read with a likeable lead heroine and a few very interesting plot twists about two-thirds of the way through. It does, however, suffer from a problem that I really didn’t notice with the other books of this type. This sort of book is meant to enhance or add to the experience for those who saw the movie, and also make those who haven’t seen the movie want to see it. The problem is that after finishing Napping Princess, I’m left with the opinion that the movie is probably better. Which is an issue given I’ve never seen the movie.

The book starts out as a fairy tale, set in a magical kingdom that builds cars. There’s a wishy-washy king, an evil Grand Vizier, and a princess locked in a tower who can do magic. In fact, that’s why she’s locked in the tower. On the other side of things, we’re also in slightly futuristic Japan, where our heroine is Kokone, who lives with her mechanic dad in the middle of nowhere and gets by on imagination and pluck. She also likes to sleep, and dreams that she’s the princess from the fantasy kingdom. These two worlds start interacting together when her father is arrested, supposedly for data theft from Japan’s largest car manufacturer, which her dad worked for years ago. Is this all a setup? What does it have to do with her late mother? And why is it that Kokone has this magical ability to mesh the fantasy world and the real world when she dreams?

To be fair, we never get a good answer to that last question. “Magical realism” is what we’re supposed to think, I suspect. As I said, the plot is fairly straightforward, being a chase sequence for an extended stretch. Our villain ends up being so lame that the author has to put in a narrative jibe noting how much of a cliched villain he’s become – I was expecting to see some sort of story about how he and Kokone’s dad used to be friends back in the day, but no, he doesn’t even get that. The most interesting part of the book was the way the fantasy world overlaid on the real one, as both Kokone and the reader realize about the same time that the casting is somewhat different than expected. (The reader may pick this up a bit earlier, frankly, as the romantic tendencies between the princess and Peach (yes, it’s lampshaded) make little sense if Kokone is the princess.) As with most dead moms in anime, I wish we’d seen more of Kokone’s mother.

As a novelization, this book works very well. Every time it had a major set piece, I kept thinking “I’d like to see this animated”. As a novel, though, I’m not sure it works as well. Still, it’s not actually bad – just slight. It would make a good summer beach read.