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The Asterisk War: Quest for Days Lost

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By Yuu Miyazaki and okiura. Released in Japan by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Melissa Tanaka.

Another volume of Asterisk War brings along with it more of the same, and honestly these books are so short I frequently wish that Yen had decided to omnibus them, especially since the plot to this volume is essentially “more tournament arc”. Nothing particularly surprising happens – even the cliffhanger ending is signposted from the moment we meet the sweet innocent girl who’s the victim of it. There is cool fighting by tactics. There is cool fighting by unlocking the next level of abilities. There are also Saya and Kirin, whose fights we don’t see until the final chapter. I have a sneaking suspicion how that will turn out, but it’s also part of the cliffhanger ending. So yes, nothing whatsoever new here, but as always the prose is readable, it’s not too offensive (though there are a few stereotypes), and fans of this sort of thing will eat it up like candy and then move on.

One thing I did like is Julis (who is reminding me more of Rin Tohsaka every volume) managing to get Ayato to have a reason to fight and win that isn’t just “well, I guess I’ll help her achieve her goal”. The drive to succeed, to surpass, to go beyond your limits requires something to strive for in these sorts of stories, and given that Ayato is, if I’m being nice, sot of bland it’s especially important for him to have this. He’s on a quest to find his sister, but there’s always been an undercurrent of “she must have had a good reason” that’s stopped him from really investigating. If the tournament ends next volume (which it looks like ti’s shaping up to do), I expect we’ll get more answers, though whether we get his sister is another matter.

Both major battles in this book are against students from Chinese Stereotype Academy, aka Jie Long Seventh Institute. We get both a noble fighting pair who are simply very good at what they do, and a team of twins who are very good at what they do but are also jerks. They don’t cheat per se, but they hammer on weaknesses and love to break their opponent. Dishonorable is a good word for them. Needless to say, Ayato and Julis fight against them near the end of the book, and the fight is probably the best part of the novel, even if, once again, the lack of surprising things happening is clear. If I were to tell you that the twins have a reaction that’s basically “This… this CANNOT BEEEEEE!” towards the end of the fight, I’m sure you would just sigh and nod.

Kirin and Saya are here as well, and Saya gets a flashback that shows off her childhood with Ayato, but honestly it’s harder to develop these two as their personalities are naturally passive – likely that’s why we didn’t see their fights till the very end. In any case, this volume of Asterisk War may not convince uncertain readers to keep going, but it also won’t make them decide to drop it once and for all. It’s still the equivalent of having a Peppermint Patty for dinner. Tasty, but you really want a lot more.

My Love Story!!, Vol. 13

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By Kazune Kawahara and Aruko. Released in Japan as “Ore Monogatari!!” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Margaret (Betsuma). Released in North America by Viz. Translated by JN Productions. Adapted by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane.

Like a lot of ongoing Viz titles, I haven’t actually reviewed this series in full since the first volume came out, saving my thoughts for a Bookshelf Brief. This is not to say I have not been loving the series, it’s one of my favorite recent shoujo titles. But it’s not something I really try to analyze deeply or get into the nitty-gritty of, more a manga that I can relax in after a long, hard day. It’s soothing. Even its dramatic tension was soothing. Critics have said that it’s a bit too sweet and sappy, and they are 100% correct. If you tend to gag on too much sugar, we may have lost you around the 10th time Takeo swooned and thought “I love her!” to himself. But now Yamato’s about to go to Spain. What will the long distance relationship become?

Obviously, this is a romance manga, and the thrust of the story is about Takeo and Yamato. It can get a bit ridiculous at times (I screwed up our relationship. I must FLY TO SPAIN to fix it!), but even that is so over the top and glorious that by the end you find yourself grinning like a loon. To no one’s surprise, Yamato’s running away from home did not pan out, so she does end up going to Spain for her senior year. The ‘relationship’ part of this separation goes quite well, but Takeo has a best friend to remind him to study so he can get into college, while Yamato lacks such a friend. And so she starts to fall behind, which leads to a series of brutal misunderstandings. And by brutal I mean “everyone immediately realizes what went wrong and yells at him to fix it”. It’s the final volume, we don’t need extended drama, we just need a montage of every supporting player since the start. And a punch. The punch was really good.

Speaking of the puncher, for all that it’s a romance manga, Sunakawa has been just as much of a major character as Takeo and Yamato. He gets a lot to do here, and I wonder if the authors were aware of all the theorizing about his sexuality that went on, as there’s something for everyone here. He and Takeo go on a vegetable-picking vacation with tons of BL subtext, and the final pages are basically Takeo hoping that Suna finds his own awesome girlfriend someday. As for me, I tended to see Sunakawa as asexual, and the manga does not disabuse me of that notion either – he cares deeply for Takeo, but simply lives at something of a distance from the other hormone-addled teens at his school. He was a terrific friend to the end, and the reason this manga works so well is the strength of his character in among the two lovesick doofuses.

And so we end with college, and with our couple together and (presumably) marrying soon. It’s a good ending to this sweet series, where the reader usually found themselves thinking “oh, that’s adorable!” at least four times a volume. Highly recommended to heart-on-your-sleeve shoujo romantics.

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!: You’re Being Summoned, Darkness

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By Natsume Akatsuki and Kurone Mishima. Released in Japan as “Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!: Chūnibyō demo Majo ga Shitai!” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

Another day, another KonoSuba novel, and another manga series being parodied in the subtitle. This time it’s You’re Being Summoned, Azazel-san, a long-running seinen comedy manga with two anime series. Last time I said that we might get a bit more plot, and that’s certainly true, though thankfully that does not mean that things get any more serious. Sure, Kazuma is being put to death for crimes against the state, but honestly, he could have gotten out of that about eight different ways simply by not being Kazuma. And as you may have guessed by the cover, Darkness features heavily in this book. We get a lot more detail on her background, and find that her strong sense of self can even duel with a lesser demon. This, again, does not make her any less ridiculous. Summing up KonoSuba remains one of the easiest things in the worst: selfish protagonists do stupid things, and the reader laughs.

I’m actually very impressed that Kazuma falls into this category as well. It would be all too easy to turn him into a Kyon type, merely reacting against the antics of everyone else. But no, he manages to make some head-scratchingly selfish and foolish decisions throughout, especially near the start, simply by running his mouth off. Of course, he does also save the day at the end – sort of, in reality Kazuma mostly saves the day by directing others to do so – but one wonders how far he’d go if he simply reined in his put-upon ego. Megumin has a reunion with a classmate of hers, and Yunyun seems to be more powerful but in reality may be even more pathetic than Megumin, which takes some doing. The name really doesn’t help, and I was highly amused that Kazuma and I had the same reaction to it.

As indicated above, Darkness gets the most to do here. The revelation of her family background is not all that surprising, really, and I was relieved that she doesn’t really switch personalities too much when she’s back in her home. As for the marriage meeting, it’s the highlight of the book, with Kazuma’s scheming and Darkness’ sabotage attempts combining in the best way, culminating in a duel which seems to end in a wet T-shirt contest. I’d mentioned before how shipping was minimal in the series, but it’s picking up – Darkness’ angry description of her ideal man does sound an awful lot like Kazuma, and the bath scene he has with Megumin gets a lot more awkward when he realized that she’ll grow out of being ‘underage’ pretty soon. As for Aqua, her part in all this is to be ridiculous, and she succeeds at this admirably. She and Kazuma make a great baka duo.

This volume takes us halfway through Season 2, meaning we only have one more till we catch up with the anime. Of course, the series is so popular there may be a third anime before December. In any case, fans of KonoSuba will enjoy this a great deal, as it’s still one of the funniest light novels being released.