Durarara!!, Vol. 3

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By Ryohgo Narita and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On.

Anyone who reads any of Narita’s two main series, Baccano! and Durarara!!, knows how much he likes his gangs and gangsters. Be it yakuza, mafia, camorra, or just kids wearing colors and yelling about territory, it’s a huge theme in his books. And with the teenage gangs he does a very good job showing off how much the desire for control and power is motivated by simple fear, and how easy it can be to let situations spiral out of control. We learned at the end of the last volume about who Masaomi Kida really is, but this third volume shows us that, of the three teens who have been our protagonists so far, he may be the weakest… which of course makes his comeback and true strength just that much more satisfying.

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I think Narita’s habit of creating a bunch of divergent situations and then arranging them so that they all crash into each other at the end is something that might work better in a novel than in an anime – a lot of people have complained about the episodes of DRRR!! where nothing happens, but of course it’s all just required setup. the book doesn’t really have this problem, and so you enjoy seeing more and more information get revealed as time goes on. Both to the reader AND to the characters – the reader has been aware of the true identities of Mikado, Anri and Masaomi for some time, but it’s not till the climactic battle that each of them sees the truth.

We also meet Saki, Masaomi’s not-quite-girlfriend and the target of much hatred among the fan pairing community, mostly for existing. I like her, while acknowledging that we aren’t supposed to at first. She’s almost Izaya’s thrall, and as with everything Izaya touches, we’re automatically leery of her. Her constant smile is also not helping. It’s only towards the end of the book that we see the other side of her, the one that genuinely did fall in love with Masaomi, and see her crying and showing emotions. Honestly, it’s easier to blame Izaya here, who loves emotionally manipulating people just to see what happens and because it amuses him. He remains the most punchable person in the entire cast, and given this cast also has Namie, Seiji and Mika that’s saying something. Except wait, there’s someone more punchable.

Yes, this is the volume where we meet Shingen, Shinra’s even-more-eccentric-than-the-son father, who immediately establishes himself as an impulsive freak designed to give Celty migraines (except, of course, she does not have a head, but I suspect Shingen gives them to her anyway). As with Shinra, it’s never really clear when he’s decided to turn serious or not – or how much of his goofing was done to deliberately throw Celty off her game. In any case, a word to the wise, he can be teeth-grindingly annoying, and I know a few people who skip past him in the anime.

This is the longest book in the series to date, and the extra words work well. We get someone of the other minor characters fleshed out a bit, such as Kadota, Erika and Walker. The translation is smooth, only faltering a bit when it has to deal with the Japanese prose habit of never identifying who is speaking, so you have to make more contextual judgments than is strictly necessary. And the art is finally starting to mature a bit and be less flat-faced, with a bold, striking cover. If you enjoy DRRR!!, and can put up with Shingen, then this is definitely an excellent purchase.

Danganronpa: The Animation, Vol. 1

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By Spike Chunsoft and Takashi Tsukimi. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Dark Horse.

I have made my opinions on the glut of ‘survival game’ manga well known by now, I hope. In general, if you’re writing a survival game manga, you need a lot to keep me interested, as teens locked in a school and killed off one by one has zoomed WAY past vampires and sadistic shoujo boyfriends in the things I avoid sweepstakes. And yet sometimes I do hear so much about a title that I feel the need to check it out anyway. Such a title is Danganronpa, which was originally a game and then got adapted to an anime. The manga wears on its sleeve that it’s adapting the anime and not the game, which is likely why it’s only 4 volumes instead of the 9-10 I’d expect otherwise. That said, what makes Danganronpa stand out?

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Well, for starters it’s far more overdramatic than the usual glumness I’ve seen from survival game manga before. Monokuma, the bear lurking in the background on the cover, seems to be both the manga’s mascot and its villain. He’s a ludicrously cruel and over the top figure, making bear puns as he gleefully executes people. He’s just a lot of fun, and stands out in particular because the rest of the cast of students are stereotypes, many deliberately so. Our hero is the average “player character” type, we get the jock, the idol, the fashion plate, the overweight otaku, etc. With a cast like this, that sort of shorthand is necessary as you’ll know at a glance what they’re like and how they’ll react. Plus, of course, the cast starts getting killed off fairly quickly, so you don’t have to remember all of them.

The other interesting aspect of this title is the trial sequence. Basically the kids are told they can escape the school if they kill someone – but they have to get away with it. There’s a trial, and if the killer isn’t found, the rest of the cast will get punished. Of course, the killer is found, as our hero is very good at deductions, and is helped out by a stoic girl who seems to be a detective, and I suspect may be a love interest except this is one of those series where everyone tends to die, so I won’t commit to that just yet. And the kids aren’t complete sociopaths either, mostly killing out of terror and fear of blackmail. I was also amused at how easy it was to solve the first murder’s ‘written in blood’ clue, and the manga must have agreed with me, as the cast also figures it out immediately.

This is a title that’s pretty much marketed to fans of the gmae or anime, and they should find it quite enjoyable. If you haven’t seen either, it’s still pretty good, keeping in mind the usual irritations of the genre. The comedy and dramatics help make that less of a poison pill this time around, though.

Paradise Residence, Vol. 1

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By Kosuke Fujishima. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Afternoon. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

For all that Fujishima’s Oh My Goddess! was a series with angels, devils, and everything in between (that is when it wasn’t just about vehicles and those who love them), there was an awful lot of what is generally termed ‘slice-of-life’ in the series. And before that we had You’re Under Arrest, which also took a basic premise (female cop buddy movie) and used it as a springboard for everyday amusing situations. As a result, it should not come as a surprise that his new series details the rather everyday, slice-of-life adventures of a girls’ dormitory way up a hill, and the eccentric characters therein. Of course, the problem with this is that the series needs to rise and fall on said eccentric characters, and so far we don’t really get a good handle on any except one or two.

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Our two heroines are on the front cover posing for us, and they are very much of the Miyuki and Natsumi school of personalities. Takanashi is brash, sleeps late, loves to eat, is not very good at school but makes up for it with energy and heart. Misawa is her best friend, the straight man of the group who exists mostly to react to Takanashi’s antics and sometimes sigh. The dorm they’re in is old and tends to fall apart easily, but its residents all love it, particularly when defending it against their all-girls’ school’s other dorm, which is modern and state of the art. We get the overly sadistic sempai, the elementary schoolgirl who acts as a dorm mother (she’s the daughter of the REAL, almost never seen, dorm mother), the overseas student, the otaku, the eccentric artist, etcetera.

The volume begins pretty much in media res, showing off the group’s everyday school and dorm life. We see how Takanashi deals with dogs, heat, and typhoons, as well as what appears to be a rivalry with a stuck-up girl from the otehr dorm. After this volume, we get as an extra “Volume 0”, a collection of the initial chapters that ran as one-offs in the spinoff good!Afternoon while Fujishima was still working on Oh My Goddess!. I can see why it was put later, as the characters are not quite in character yet, but it does give a better introduction to everyone than the initial first volume does. There’s also a short story featuring Takanashi’s parents, about the springtime of youth, etc.

This is light and fluffy fun. If there’s a flaw it’s that that’s all it is. There’s not as big a hook to draw people in as there is with Oh My Goddess!, and I doubt we’ll get serious plotlines here. The pacing can be slow, as you’d expect with this genre. And sometimes there’s a gag thrown in that just doesn’t work, such as one girl comedically falling into another girl’s breasts during a blackout, as if Fujishima is reminded that fanservice has moved on since 1985 and tried to imitate it. But if you like Fujishima, and his art is very nice here, this should appeal to you. It’s also over in Japan, so should wrap up pretty soon.