The Devil Is A Part-Timer!, Vol. 3

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By Satoshi Wagahara and 029. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen Press.

After Sariel proved to be a rather creepy and awful villain in Book 2, I was not going to be surprised if another archangel showed up to make trouble for Maou and company, and sure enough, Gabriel pops up halfway through the book to alternately threaten and be amusing. As with Emeralda, he seems to have some sort of regional accent in the original, which is conveyed by giving him a sort of ‘valley girl’ style voice – if you imagine Poland from the Hetalia books, you’re on the right track. In any case, as a villain he’s merely OK, mostly as we’re used to these guys being taken out fairly easily by now. As a comic character he’s funnier, being a whining slacker who seems to simply be very bad at his job, and he naturally ends up staying in Japan once the book ends.

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That said, clearly the more important new character here is Alas Ramus, the magical child who appears from inside an apple (Ringotaro?) and immediately declares that Maou and Emi are her mother and father. She’s cute and clingy, as you’d expect from a girl who acts one year old most of the time, but she’s also a magical macguffin, so is allowed to do things like explain the plot in baby talk. Somewhat less successful is her resolution of the battle with Gabriel, mostly as the author wants to pretend briefly that Alas Ramus is returning to the fantasy world, so we get a brief “oh no, she sacrificed herself” beat. The trouble is that, as I indicated earlier, this isn’t the sort of series that would seriously do that, so of course it turns out she actually merged with Emi’s Holy Sword, which is now even more holy.

The bigger impact that Alas Ramus has is on the pseudo-harem that the books continue to tease. Chiho has a brief crisis of conscience when she realizes that, even after Maou says he depends on her, she still can’t help getting jealous about Maou and Emi raising a child together. (It’s almost as if she’s a teenager or something…) And Emi is again starting to realize that perhaps Maou is not quite the Fantasy Hitler that she wants to imagine him as, and continues to have more of the worldview that she keeps intact in order not to have a complete nervous breakdown kicked out from under her. (The cliffhanger implies the breakdown will not be long in coming.) And Maou gives us some backstory that suggests that most of the atrocities that happened while he ruled Ente Isla were less “I am evil” and more “I wasn’t really paying attention to my underlings”. And, more importantly, that he bitterly regrets that was the case. This is the best part of the book.

So while I don’t think this was quite as good as the first two books, it’s still very entertaining, and also continues the story past the anime, for those who hate to read already adapted novels. And the prose style, particularly the snarky narration, is excellent – as I’ve said before, this is one of Yen On’s smoothest translations. Definitely a fun read.

Dorohedoro, Vol. 17

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By Q Hayashida. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hibana. Released in North America by Viz.

Despite all its violence and loving depictions of chopped-up corpses, Dorohedoro has always had a loose relationship with actually killing characters off, given that there are several deus ex machinas in this universe able to resurrect someone from the dead given enough time and materials. No one really doubts En is eventually going to be back, for example, and even though Fujita lay at death’s door and lost an arm in the last volume, he’s fully healed early on here. This is why when we do see genuine death it has an impact, even if there’s something in the back of our heads saying “are they reeeeeaaallly dead?”.

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Natsuki’s death in Vol. 13 was such a death, and it gets confirmed here in the worst way, as Ton, the one most dedicated to finding her true fate, ends up sharing it. This is actually sort of sweet and touching in a horrible way, as Ton comes across her body, now strangely mute, but can’t escape where he thinks they are. There’s even a ‘going into the light’ cliche to show off that yes, they are indeed dead. The same can’t be said for the rest of the cross-eyes, though, as even though the majority of them are horrible butchered by their boss, who they’ve finally decided is not worthy of following, we could still see them come back, as we were able to save the corpses’ heads. It’s that kind of series.

Meanwhile, En’s party is also discussing death. Sure, they have Noi, and Judas’ Ear, but there’s still some kinds of lethal blows that you just can’t fix. Luckily, there’s an operation that makes a person virtually unkillable, even if they get their brains blown out. Admittedly, the operation is almost always lethal, but that’s why you do it on someone like Noi, who already has amazing resurrection powers. I love that Noi hates this, and regards it as a safety measure because she’s too weak – something Ebisu is quick to point out is basically correct. When you have the ability to heal anyone from certain death, you get coddled a bit, whereas Noi just wants to keep punching people till their bodies are piles of goo.

And then there’s Nikaido, whose motives are becoming more and more questionable as she gains more and more of her devil powers – her usually expressive eyes get narrowed to pinpricks, and the gyoza she made in a devil-induced flurry last time seem to be dangerously addictive. It’s a bit difficult to talk about morality in a series like Dorohedoro, where even the nice and sweet people happily go around butchering passersby. But you get the sense that something here is off, that Nikaido is heading down a dangerous road. This is not helped by the absence of Caiman – Risu just does not have the same ability to restrain her weirder impulses. In the meantime, we’ve now gathered the entire cast at the department store setting, and Fujita has managed to find En’s tumor, so I suspect the next volume may contain even more gore than this one, if that is strictly possible. Assuming you can get past the gore, highly recommended as always.

Yowamushi Pedal, Vol. 1

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By Wataru Watanabe. Released in Japan in two separate volumes by Akita Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Champion. Released in North America by Yen Press.

This upcoming year will see a bit of a renaissance in sports manga, a genre that has always had difficulty catching hold of readers in North America. Yes, Eyeshield 21 was finished, as was Cross Game, but for the most oart sports manga has been synonymous with “won’t be licensed”. A large part of this is that most sports titles go on for years, with volumes reaching Naruto or One Piece levels. But not selling like Naruto or One Piece. But we may be seeing a change. Viz has a volleyball and basketball manga due out in 2016. And at the tail end of 2015, Yen Press gives us Yowamushi Pedal (it’s untranslated to keep its large fanbase – I think yowamushi means ‘weak’ or ‘cowardly’), a shonen cycling manga that is almost a template of what the traditional sports manga is like.

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Fans of Eyeshield 21 may find a lot of this familiar, in fact. Our hero is Onoda, a geeky otaku-type who lives for anime and rides his “mommy bike”, complete with basket on the front, to Akibihara every week to get the latest deals. The gimmick is that riding to Akibihara and back every week is 55 miles. On his little bike he’s had since elementary school. And he’s done this since he was 9. As a result, though he’s totally unaware of it, he has amazing natural skills when it comes to bike riding. As I said, folks may be reminded of Sena, who developed his running speed in response to being bullied every day. Onoda’s life gradually changes when he meets Imaizumi, a serious cyclist who will be playing the ‘stoic competitor’ role, and in the second half of this omnibus he meets Naruko, a loud hothead who would not really change much at all if you swapped the k in his name with a t, to be honest.

The art style is not really as polished as you might see in Jump, but it’s pretty decent, especially for a weekly series. (Compare this with Yen’s previous sports manga Sasameke, which I’ve lambasted before, and whose art was one of its main nonselling points.) But the main point of the series is the characters and the racing. Onoda associates sports clubs with the opposite of him, and to be fair he does lack the stamina that you’d expect a lot of cyclists to have. Getting past this mental block, and showing him how bike racing can actually be fun is the forward momentum of the first omnibus. Like many sports manga, we’re starting to pile on cast. In addition to the three leads I mentioned, we have the token girl in the manga, who works for a bike shop and gets to deliver the exposition; and a large number of guys already on the team we meet right at the end, some of whom will no doubt get fleshed out as we go along.

I anticipate Yowamushi Pedal will be one of those series where you need to double check the cast list on the internet as you go along. That said, most of the cast here is likeable (or sort of irritating in a likeable way in Naruko’s case), and you want to read more of Onoda’s journey of self-discovery – the goal of any sports manga.