Kizumonogatari: Wound Tale

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By NISIOISIN. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by Vertical.

I have somewhat optimistically tagged this as ‘Monogatari Series’, but at the moment this is the only volume licensed, with potential other titles depending on how this one sells. It’s also not the first book in the series in Japanese publishing order – it’s actually third, after the 2-part Bakemonogatari books. That said, the author and agent both recommended that North America release this book first, as it’s the first in the series chronologically, introducing us to our hero, Koyomi, his vampire ‘master’ Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, his practical yet somewhat strange classmate Tsubasa, and the standard unreliable mentor figure Oshino. Also, it has vampires. Come on, vampires sell, and this series needs readers who haven’t seen or heard about the anime in order to do well.

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Though I am spoiled a little bit, I freely admit I am one of those readers – this is my introduction to Monogatari proper, as I never got around to watching the anime. This despite it being by Nisioisin, an author I’m very fond of. I read the two Zaregoto books released years ago by Del Rey, which feature a narrator who is far more opaque than Koyomi ever gets to be. And I have spoken before about my obsession with unlicensed Shonen Jump manga Medaka Box, featuring a cast of superpowered yet broken teenagers and their quest to find empathy. Monogatari is more like the latter than the former, as Koyomi has a certain obsession with describing his sexual impulses that reminds you that he’s a standard high school teenager. That is the most otaku-ish element of the book, actually – Koyomi is a bit of a perv, and his narration tells you this up front with a long, detailed panty shot description that, ironically, kickstarts the entire plot.

Once things actually settle down and we get to the vampire battles, the prose kicks up, though there’s always a large amount of the quirks that have made Nisio famous – long scenes of people philosophizing about the nature of humanity, fourth-wall breaking discussion of how this will never become an anime with all this violence (for the longest time, it wasn’t – the book is only getting adapted starting next year), and the occasional tortured wordplay – Nisio loves his puns and odd jokes based around kanji readings, and you can tell, even translated, that they’re all here. Actually, the translation by Vertical is excellent – I can tell there are substitutions at times, but they’re well done, and you get the sense of what the character is trying to say or point out.

As I said before, there are several fight scenes here, and they’re exciting while they last, but have a tendency to be over very soon or get undercut, as usually the exciting fight is not the point of the scene. The main reason to read the book, though, is Koyomi’s interaction with the two lead women – Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade (and if you think that make is bizarre, you don’t know Nisio), a vampire in all senses of the word, but one who has lived a little too long and finds what may be a soulmate in Koyomi, and Tsubasa Hanekawa, a ‘prim and proper class president type’ who nevertheless has a disturbing compulsion to interact with and help Koyomi, to the point of not only being willing to sacrifice her own life for him, but also let him grope her sizeable chest in order to fire him up. (To be fair, she finds the second one far more difficult to actually go through with, and he backs off at the last minute.) You want to know more about the both of them, as they both seem to have horrible things as yet unstated driving their actions.

As for Koyomi, aside from his occasional perverse narration, he seems to be a fairly standard, somewhat emo teen, going on about not wanting to make friends or get close to anyone, then throwing that all away. By the end of the book he’s not quite a vampire, but I suspect that his inability to not meddle will be what drives any future books. In any case, Kizumonogatari is excellent, and if you like stories with vampires, stories with lots of clever dialogue, or even stories with extended monologues on the nature of panties, it will serve you nicely. Let’s hope we can see more of the series someday.

Attack on Titan, Vol. 17

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By Hajime Isayama. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

It’s no secret that the development of Historia’s character has been one of my favorite parts of Attack on Titan, and this volume continues to feature that, as she refuses to be treated like precious china merely because she has the Reiss lineage, saddles up to help defeat a titan who is actually her father, takes credit for it to further Erwin’s plan to stabilize the city, and finally is crowned Queen, though arguably her best moment comes shortly afterwards, where she somewhat falteringly punches Levi as a callback to where he abused her in order to get what he wanted. Of course, he has, and his genuine smile of thanks is rather touching here.

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Moreover, we see what the effect of being ruled by someone who did not get controlled by the Firt King is that actual progress is allowed to be made. Underground inventions are allowed to come to light, leftovers from the giant titan battle are used in new and exciting ways, and Historia herself spends most of her time seemingly running an orphanage on a farm outside the city. (See: front cover, which looks like it should be called Little Titan on the Prairie.) This comes after the rest of Kenny Ackerman’s flashback, where he meets a young, starving orphan Levi and teaches him how to fight and get by in the streets. Again, Kenny’s search for something to strive for is relatable, and I like the description of everyone being “drunk on something”, but in the end he’s still a villain.

And then there’s Eren, who spends a lot of time being his usual emo self, then sees what Historia has been doing and literally punches the whine out of himself. This might come back to haunt him, of course, as following this we see him overextending himself to the point of physical exhaustion, as he realizes that right now he is the only one who can do these things. I suspect he sees Historia more as an inspiration than as someone to be romantically interested in, though naturally Mikasa takes offense at anyone female getting remotely close to Eren. I’ve sort of given up on the idea that Mikasa’s feelings for Eren are going to remain familial, as the author has far too much fun with her repressed jealousy, but I don’t enjoy it. There was some genuine amusement late in the volume involving Marlowe, who has transferred to the Survey Corps despite Hitch’s tsundere exhortations, which everyone but he and Eren can see through (Eren being similarly clueless about any romance).

There’s still quite a bit of mystery here, which I suspect will get solved a bit more in 18, when we go back to training to visit our old instructor. In the meantime, this is a nice solid Titan volume, with a good fight, the usual somewhat questionable politics (yay, isn’t military rule great?), the usual questionable art (Isayama is good at terror, not so good at non-terror), but excellent plotting and characterization, and makes you want to keep reading.

Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon?, Vol. 4

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By Fujino Omori and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka?” by Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On.

This volume of Bell Cranel and his ongoing adventures has the main story only take up 2/3 of the book, the rest being filled in by two character developing short stories. While both stories are enjoyable, and I did like the main tale, it does feel a bit like the author wanted to hold off on the next big twist till Vol. 5, but could not quite come up with enough material to squeeze into this volume to pad it out. Welf Crozzo’s backstory is mostly given in an infodump, and his issues are resolved simply by having Bell be who he is – Bell is the sort to not go after someone for his own personal gain, and Welf has had nothing but that most of his career.

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Welf adds a needed dynamic to Bell’s group, though, especially given this is essentially a shonen manga in light novel form. He adds the loud, brash type who rushes in first, which complements Bell’s extremely skilled but self-loathing personality and Lilly’s savvy yet cynical not-a-hobbit-honest girl. Which is good, as it’s also made apparent in this volume that in order to delve further into the dungeons they’ll need more people – don’t be surprised if Vol. 5 brings us another regular, and I bet she’s female. As usual, the story is presented smoothly and with a minimum of fuss, showing off an amusing sequence where the gods give Bell a nickname (and remind us of Freya, otherwise absent from this book) and a brief look at Aiz, who is trying to go beyond the impossible as Bell has and finds it’s not as easy as he’s making it seem.

The two short stories both have large amounts of Hestia in them, which makes up for – once again – a fairly small part in the main book. Hestia can’t go dungeon crawling with Bell, which given that’s the main thrust of the book means she’s always going to be getting the beginning, the end and not much else. The better short story was the second one, a simple character piece showing us Hestia three days after taking Bell in, and how she starts to fall in love with him. The other piece develops a small house that specializes in potions, and how unfortunate circumstances have led them to try to put one over on easy suckers – meaning Bell, who luckily has Lilly with him to be genre savvy. The best part of this story had Hestia and Lilly describing how oblivious Bell is and how the two of them are delegated to ‘goddess who isn’t even female’ and ‘cute little sister’ in his eyes. Given the ‘rivalry’ scene in the last volume, I’m pleased to see them bonding over lack of affection.

While not as strong as the other volumes of the series, this is still a very easy read, and I suspect we’re due for a major crisis point soon. Also, for fans of the anime, they adapted this into a single episode, so pick it up to see how much was cut out.