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Strike the Blood, Vol. 6

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By Gakuto Mikumo and Manyako. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jeremiah Bourque.

Sigh. And here we are again, blank screen. It’s you vs. me, as I try to fill you up with another 500 or so words about the latest volume of Strike the Blood. The goal, as always, is not to simply cut and paste from the previous five reviews. As always, this goal tends to be thwarted by the plot, characterization, and writing in Strike the Blood, whose cookie-cutter quality means that the same things happen over and over again. Let’s face it, the big surprise in this volume was that for once Kojou is not biting a different girl to gain more superpowers… though in an icky way, I suppose that his possessed younger sister may count. I’d prefer to think that it does not. Other than that, though, it’s business as usual at Strike the Blood, Inc.

Even the covers depress me, as you can’t even get the ‘new harem member gets the cover’ cliche that you do with most other series of this sort. No, Strike the Blood now has 16 volumes out in Japan, and it’s Yukinas all the way down. The ‘new girl’ this time, sort of, is Nina Adelard, an immortal alchemist with a tragic past that’s tied into Kanon’s own tragic past. She spends most of the book either occupying Asagi’s body or taking on her appearance, and I suspect her ending up as a “fairy-like” creature will allow her to take on a role in future books similar to a magical girl mascot. (It also reminds me of Index, as much of this series does, though for once I believe that Strike the Blood actually did this first.) The plot involves lots of alchemy and liquid metal, and a few guards end up dead in horrible ways, but aren’t dwelled on.

Asagi also ends up dead briefly, which might have had more impact if there was any chance that it would stick. We do get more concrete proof that as long as she’s on the island she’s effectively immortal. Unfortunately, with no computer problems to solve this time, Asagi is in full on “tsundere anime girl” mode, which means wacky cooking antics and exploding stoves. (Yukina, of course, is also in cliche mode, reacting any time Koujo even briefly pays attention to another attractive female.) Everyone else fills their function: Kanon is waifish and still somewhat broken, Natsuki flits around saving the day and being the cute loli teacher. and Yaze continues to get hints that he may one day be relevant to the plot without actually being so in this book.

And so as ever I’m left with saying the same thing. The writing is good, moves quickly, the fights are exciting. But this could be written by the Light Noveltron 3000. And there’s still no real sign of any developing main plot, anything that might carry over from book to book. Things are neatly wrapped up, and I suspect Book 7 will have another danger to the island that is also neatly wrapped up. Strike the Blood is, when you get down to it, Strike the Blood. It is shaped like itself, and can’t really be reviewed as anything but that.

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, Vol. 7

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By Izumi Tsubaki. Released in Japan as “Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun” by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the online magazine Gangan Online. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Leighann Harvey.

The danger of most comedy titles is that they aren’t funny all the time. Not every joke can land, and sometimes you find yourself merely smiling and them moving on to the next page. That’s why it’s satisfying when you come across a volume that has an even greater number of hits than misses. I won’t say every page is fall-down funny, but the seventh volume of Nozaki-kun has an even higher ratio of laughing out loud than its previous volumes, which says something given that this is one of two manga where I can’t read it on public transit as I do laugh out loud too much. (The other is Oresama Teacher, by the same author.) By now we know the characters so well that we can anticipate what’s going to happen, but that doesn’t make the jokes any less funny. And, as always with this title, everyone plays the straight man or funny man depending on the situation.

The first chapter is a good example, dealing with cell phones and how manga that runs for a long time finds technology moving beyond it. We get gags about the fickleness of shoujo heroines and Nozaki and Sakura’s general ignorance of modern tech themselves (they still have flip phones, and react to smartphone discussion with what can only be called “dull surprise”). You’d think the punchline to the chapter would be Nozaki’s deranged idea of having him and Sakura communicate using cans on a string, the ultimate in low tech. But then Sakura’s general adoration of Nozaki adds to the gags, as does the class reacting to her doing this while having her normal phone sitting on her desk. The capper is two random students jokingly testing the can-and-string phone… and falling in love. Amping up the ridiculous is one of Tsubaki’s strengths.

Elsewhere, we see Miyako going out with her friends drinking for once rather than working on her manga, which actually rebounds on her later when she comes close to missing a deadline. (It’s hilarious but also personally terrifying for her, as she worries that she’ll be given back to Maeno for editing as a punishment.) Seo/Waka shippers get a chapter that is a gift from God, as Wakamatsu, at the advice of his team (who are trying to defuse her in some way), tries confessing to Seo, only to find her reaction to be very un-Seo like. This is the one chapter that defies our expectations a bit, as we expect some sort of ‘non-romance’ reason for Seo running off and getting embarrassed by the whole thing, but no: it’s just that she apparently has difficulty with directness. It’s really, really adorable. Though not as adorable as Sakura “bullying” Nozaki so he can get manga ideas, and getting a bit too much into her role.

Humor is subjective, and I’m sure some people won’t even giggle at any of these. But I found this to be one of the most rewarding volumes of Nozaki-kun to date, and it’s always one of the first things I read when it comes out. Great stuff.

Not many tanukis this time, but they are well-deployed and caught me by surprise.

your name.

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By Makoto Shinkai. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

I’m coming at this novel from a somewhat unique perspective, I think, as I am one of the few people reading it who hasn’t already seen the movie first. In fact, the author states he initially wasn’t going to write a novel at all (novelization might be more accurate), feeling that it was a story he felt best told through the medium of the animated movie (in particular, the music used for it). But the novel kept niggling at him, and he finally buckled down and wrote it. It’s from the perspective of its two leads, Mitsuha and Taki, which gives an opportunity to better get inside their heads, but also means we only see scenes they’re involved in. So if people are asking me whether your name. is worth reading if you’ve seen the movie, I can’t tell you that. I can say that by the end of the book I was enjoying it enormously, and I’m very happy I read it.

That said, the book comes with a warning from me to my readers: if you are bothered by second-hand embarrassment in your reading, them parts of this book are going to be like crawling through glass. The main premise involves a bodyswap between a boy and a girl, so we already get the normal ‘I’m acting weird and everyone is puzzled’ scenes, but the kids are also teenagers, meaning there’s lots of weird body issues and teen crushes, leading to the most awkward date ever. That said, both kids are nice, and the contrast between the way-out countryside and the middle of Tokyo was a nice contrast. Mitsuha’s perspective takes up a lot of the beginning and near the end of the book, while Taki’s has most of the middle for obvious plot reasons.

There is romance as well, of course, though it’s done so subtly that it almost crept up on me. At one point during the aforementioned awkward date, Taki’s crush says she can tell he’s in love with someone else, and he’s honestly as puzzled as the reader is by this point. But as things snowball, you can see the depth of feelings grow deeper and deeper, and by the end of the book we are quite content to actually not see the final familial confrontation because we’ve gotten what we wanted. More surprisingly, and without wanting to spoil too much, the ending is not quite as bittersweet as some of Shinkai’s other works, even though it still remains somewhat ambiguous. I have a sneaking suspicion that this may be one of the reasons that this movie has been a bigger hit than any of his other movies – bittersweet is lovely, but doesn’t sell as well.

There are a few niggles – The book may be a bit TOO fast and short, for one. I’d also like to have seen more of Mitsuha vs. her father, and the side characters are not as developed as our leads. There’s also a side story volume coming out in the fall (by a different author) that may expand on this, as it apparently shows the story from other perspectives. But your name. is an emotional journey, and as the book goes on you’ll find yourself turning the pages faster and faster. I can’t speak for those who’ve seen the movie, but if you like romance with a touch of sci-fi, this is definitely worth a buy.