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Waiting for Spring, Vol. 1

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By Anashin. Released in Japan as “Haru Matsu Bokura” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dessert. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Alethea and Athena Nibley.

One of the things I am very fond of repeating over and over again is that a manga does not have to be new, exciting or revolutionary to be enjoyable. Yes, it’s always nice to see something that doesn’t follow the same well-worm path, but the well-worn path is comforting. A lot of people walk it every day. You know where you’re going. It’s the same with shoujo manga, and I know that a few people might be looking at Waiting for Spring and thinking “is there anything here I couldn’t read in a dozen other shoujo titles I’ve seen in the past?”. And the answer is, nope. It is thoroughly predictable in every way, and features character types you are not only familiar with but overfamiliar with. It is the well-worn path. I quite liked it.

Mitsuki is our heroine a first year high school student who’s trying to move to a school without too many of her old classmates to be more popular, but we know how well that works out. She’s pretty isolated, though she does at least have a part-time job at a cafe. The cuties of the school are Towa and his three other friends (who have names, but let’s face it, Towa is the one to remember), who are up and comers on the basketball team and have huge fanbases already. Things then start to go wrong as a) she gets a confession from one of the guys… who then actually looks at her and realizes he’s got the wrong girl; they’re likely going to start going to that cafe, meaning it will be overrun with their female fans; and worst of all, they’re generally nice guys if a bit insensitive, and they have that Mitsuki wants: self-confidence. Gradually she begins to hang out with them, despite the inherent dangers, and finds herself falling for Towa.

As you can see, this is not breaking any new ground, but it’s sweet. Mitsuki is likeable and awkward without being a doormat. Towa is nice and friendly without being bland. I don’t like the guy who accidentally proposed, but he’s meant to be the butt monkey of the series anyway, so that’s fine. Mitsuki also does eventually make a friend of another girl, which reassured me as sometimes these reverse harems can be fairly skimpy in that department. Reina also obsesses about the four guys, but not for the same reasons as the rest of the group – we, the reader can tell she’s a BL fanatic fantasizing about them, but Mitsuki herself doesn’t get it. And Mitsuki is slowly becoming more outgoing and forceful, reminding the fanclub why you go to a basketball game in the first place – to cheer the guys on. Her grades are bad, but even that is made into a decent plot point.

This hits a lot of good emotional beats, and there was no point at which I sighed and had to go “well, every shoujo series has a scene like this.” The guys may be overly insenstive at times, but none of them seem to be the sneering ass type. In short, if you just finished a comforting, easy to read shoujo series and were thinking of getting another one, Waiting for Spring will suit you fine.

Aho-Girl – A Clueless Girl, Vol. 1

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By Hiroyuki. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Karen McGillicuddy.

Do you know, I actually tried to research the difference between Aho and Baka as I read this? Thanks to Ranma 1/2, I think ‘baka’ is far more prominent in my mind as the default meaning for ‘stupid idiot’, and I’d assumed that ‘Aho’ was a stronger, cruder variant. Turns out it’s just regional differences – Aho is Kansai, Baka is Kanto. Whichever one you use, though, you know coming in what sort of series this is going to be. And it does not disappoint. Featuring the incredibly clueless Yoshiko and a supporting cast who seem to be her foils but turn out to be just as weird as she is, this is a series designed purely for the 4-koma format. You will laugh, you will get frustrated with the lead, you will want to strangle her and then realize that her childhood friend is already doing it. It lives up to its title – “what if Haruhi Suzumiya were an idiot and Kyon had no impulse control?” might be a good descriptor.

There’s no real plot to speak of beyond ‘high school’. Yoshiko is the titular girl, who can be defined by the title. Akkun is her perpetually angry childhood friend, who thinks he’s the tsukkomi here but in reality is just as broken and likely would be arrested for abuse if this series weren’t so silly. There *is* a straight man, fortunately, in Sayaka, a nice and sweet girl who you feel bad for for having to appear in a series like this. Other characters include Akkun’s younger sister, who also has bad grades but unlike Yoshiko just seems to have normal attention problems; Yoshiko’s highly desperate mother, who despairs of her daughter ever getting a man and is not above date raping Akkun in order to get Yoshiko to achieve this; and the as-yet-unnamed Head Monitor, who has fallen for Akkun but seems completely incapable of dealing with it like a normal person.

That last descriptor seems to apply to the series, which runs on comedy, and therefore features people missing points, doing incredibly dumb things, and making amusing faces. Yoshiko is so out there that even the neighborhood elementary school children think she needs to stop playing and study. One gets the sense that she got a lot of this from her mother – Yoshie may be my favorite character, as what seems to be just “oh, my daughter is strange and I want to fix that” gets increasingly perverse – drugging Akkun so that she can teach her daughter how to rape him would be a line one should not cross except 1) it fails immediately, and 2) it’s completely ridiculous. Technically the weak point here is Sayaka, who is the standard cute shy young thing, but the series needs SOMEONE to be the baseline, so I’m fine with her too.

I’m not sure how well this will work on a regular basis – I was already pretty worn just reading one volume. It’s the sort of series that works best in a weekly magazine – collecting it is a bit too much at once. Still, lacki9ng a weekly magazine for Kodansha, here we are, and I think it’s amusing enough to satisfy readers who like funny 4-koma series.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Stratagem

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By Yoshiki Tanaka. Released in Japan as “Ginga Eiyū Densetsu” by Tokuma Shoten. Released in North America by Haikasoru. Translated by Tyren Grillo.

Well, I did ask for more politics, and we get it here, though there’s not really a lot of political backroom dealing. Instead, what we get is Reinhard sitting back, letting everyone else hang themselves, and then strolling in and taking everything over. I’m still not quite sure we’re supposed to like Reinhard or not, and certainly his casual lack of empathy as he sacrifices people for his own ends can be chilling, but there’s no doubt that at the end of the day he can make the decisions that lead to the Empire gaining power, whereas Yang Wen-Li is never going to be that person (much to Yang’s own relief, I suspect). It can be a bit uncomfortable to read – “what if the Space Nazis were the best option?” is essentially where were’ going with this current plot – but it’s certainly fascinating.

Yang in particular is not having a very good book. He’s back at his Death Star, but the fight that comes to him is just a diversion, and he knows it. Moreover, Julian has been transferred away from him , and though Yank knows that right now it’s the best thing to do, particularly as he needs someone he can trust on Phezzan, it’s not doing wonders for his psyche. Julian is not only the son he never had, but also his minder, and Yang is now required to do things like wake himself up. The horror! Sadly, while Yang can figure out exactly what’s going to happen, he can’t do much to stop it – indeed, the first third or so of the book doesn’t even have him in it. Julian does get to be awesome when he gets to Phezzan, but it’s preventing further damage control more than anything else.

Speaking of Phezzan, the trouble with trying to play both sides against each other in a never-ending war while you sit back and make money off of it is that sooner or later you may get called out by one of the sides. The scenes where The kidnapping of the emperor occur are probably the most amusing in the book, as Reinhard solves almost all his problems by literally doing nothing, allowing the resistance to escape with the World’s Brattiest Emperor, a 7-year-old child with no impulse control and a tendency to bite. This of course gives Reinhard a good excuse to send every ship he has to attack the Alliance, and install an 8-month-old girl on the throne as the new emperor. Even his enemies are sitting back and staring at how much everything just comes together for Reinhard here.

You may notice we have a new translator, though I didn’t see any appreciable difference in quality. A lot of the time Legend of Galactic Heroes is written like a musty old history textbook, and that comes across very well here, though it may annoy some people not used to this sort of narrative. Legend of Galactic Heroes is never going to be a series that inspires obsessive love, but it is noble and staid, and wears its empire building on its sleeve. We’ll see how the chips fall next time. And will Reinhard and Yang ever meet face to face?

Oh yes, and Rupert dies, probably because he’s in a Wagnerian novel series and his name is Rupert.