No Game No Life, Vol. 3

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By Yuu Kamiya. Released in Japan by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On.

The usual caveats apply: there’s lots of skeevy art of underage girls, Sora spends much time discussing how to secretly film naked girls, and the not-quite-incest plot I was desperately hoping would be avoided from now on gets another peek. That said, I imagine anyone for whom those are a deal breaker would not be reading Vol. 3, so let’s move on to discussing Sora and Shiro, our heroes. It was refreshing seeing the start of this book from Shiro’s perspective, particularly as once Sora returned it went back to being mostly him, as he’s the one that talks. Sora and Shiro not only love each other like family (or more in Shiro’s case), but also idolize each other, and they each get narratives at some point bemoaning that they aren’t good at what the other excels in. Sora at one point mocks those who think this series is about the two growing stronger and maturing, as he points out they’re both already perfect.

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The amusing thing about this, of course, is that it’s almost immediately undercut by Sora’s own actions, something Jibril cheerfully points out. Like it or not, this world is going to make the two of them change. That said, Sora also has a point – in terms of actual gaming ability, and the narrative need for victory, [ ] are already at the pinnacle. We don’t read this series to see how these two learn how to be better players – if anything, Stephanie fulfills that role in a way, though she’s still used almost entirely as comic relief instead. No, our heroes are already the best, and there is simply no doubt they will win – the question is how. Reading the long action sequence in the middle of the book, where they compete in a virtual shooting game against the Werebeasts, it really is astounding how much of the surprise twists were long thought out in advance by Sora beforehand. The same applies to the Othello game at the start.

Speaking of the Werebeasts, Izuna is the one who gets the most development in this book. Before the game starts Sora asks her whether she’s ever had fun playing a game. Of course the answer is no – with the fate of her entire nation always on her shoulders, this is a heavy burden. Plus she always wins, so it’s a boring heavy burden. But after her loss, she quickly realizes how exciting it is to be able to play someone who can kick her ass, giving her something to strive for. As for the fate of her people, what was somewhat clear in the first two books is made more explicit – the main plot seems to be Sora and Shiro uniting all of the 16 species into one nation, and the main difficulty is convincing everyone that they aren’t actually evil.

I’ve mentioned the books main flaws above, but as I hinted before, I really wish the author would do more with Stephanie – we’ve seen flashes of how smart she can actually be when she’s not dealing with Sora and Shiro or being humiliated, and I long to see more. Sadly, the fourth novel looks like a fluffy beach story, so I suspect I won’t get it. Other than that, the humor I liked in the first two books is still there, with lots of popular gaming references. There’s also some vivid horror as well with Sora’s fate towards the start of the book, and later Chlammy’s as well. There’s a fascinating series here beneath all the ecchi posturing and naked fanservice.

Akuma no Riddle, Vol. 1

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By Yun Kouga and Sunao Minakata. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Newtype. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

I admit I wasn’t paying too much attention to this when it was licensed. I hadn’t seen the anime, and “yuri in a girls’ private school’ has come to mostly mean cutesy fluff or cutesy angst. There’s certainly some angst in Akuma no Riddle, but it avoids the cutesy entirely, as the cover might suggest. Instead what we have here is a sort of survival game manga, but where almost all the stars are capable of taking care of themselves. And at the center is Azuma, a young girl who is not as cool and stoic as everyone thinks she is, and seems to be missing something essential – perhaps a killer instinct.

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This is another case where the cover design was changed at the last minute – the cover you’ll get has different typeface than the one above. In any event, Azuma is a star student at an academy devoted to assassination. She is being sent by her eccentric and somewhat nasty school administrator to another private academy, where she’s to join a class that technically doesn’t exist. Her goal is to assassinate a certain girl. Of course, neither she or we are told who the girl is, but it becomes pretty obvious right off the bat. As the volume goes on, we meet the rest of the cast, all varieties of young, female, and no doubt tragically broken girls who are there to kill said one person. And Azuma, who has her own past to deal with which makes her, as the manga puts it, an assassination virgin, has to decide which side she’s going to be on.

There is a strong sense of plot and character here, which is surprising given the entire volume is basically given over to just introducing about half the cast. Azuma is likeable in her awkward aloofness, and you can see her struggling to understand emotions that come easily to everyone else. Haru is adorable, outgoing, a fluffy bunny sort of person, and has an amazingly tragic past, and I’m not suite sure if the series if going to make her a shining beacon of hope of shatter her like a glass egg. Of the other girls we get a sense of, there’s an “arrogant bully” type, who ends up being our first attempted killer. There’s a girl with what appears to be multiple personalities. And there’s Nio, the only attendee of the class who originated with the school itself, and who is easily the most irritating character in the series to date – deliberately so.

Of course, looking at the credits I shouldn’t be remotely surprised that I enjoyed this so much – the story is by Yun Kouga, author of Earthian, Loveless, etc. She’s not doing the art this time around, but the artist gets her basic aesthetic, so that’s OK. I’m not quite sure where the series is going to go after the end of this volume – I suspect we will be getting an “And Then There Were None” type culling of the herd, so to speak – but ideally I’d like for Haru’s idealism to at least stick around a little longer, if only to avoid the series ending with a giant pile of corpses. Oh, and the yuri in this so far is mostly nonexistent. Doesn’t matter, recommended anyway.

Kill La Kill, Vol. 1

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By Ryo Akizuki, based on the anime by TRIGGER and Kazuki Nakashima. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Udon.

There’s an episode of Monty Python that features John Cleese as a man who’s quite interested in shouting, so much so that he screams every line at the top of his lungs. As I worked my way through the first volume of Kill La Kill, it occurred to me that what this really needed was for everyone’s voice to be just John Cleese shouting. It starts with the volume at maximum and that’s where it ends too. And I don’t just mean the characters shouting, although boy do they shout. The situations, the fight scenes, the backstory, everything is so over the top that the whole manga is just 160 pages of “YES I’M INTERESTED IN SHOUTING, BRIAN!”

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The premise, equally ridiculous, is that Ryuki has come to an elite private school academy in order to track down her father’s killer. She has one half of a giant pair of scissors that she uses as her chief weapon, and suspects the student council president has the other half. When she arrives, she is immediately befriended by a small, cheerful chatterbox who spends most of the volume being kidnapped and pseudo-tortured to drive the plot. Can Ryuki find out the truth and win as she battles everyone? And will she need the help of the sentient, perverse school uniform she’s forced to wear in order to do so?

As you can see, the plot is just as shouted as everyone else. I think even if you knew nothing about Kill La Kill you’d know this was based off of an anime just by the aesthetic. I’ve never seen the anime, but I’ve heard enough about it to know that it’s completely ridiculous and also somewhat polarizing. The polarizing elements are here as well – Ryuki’s battle outfit is fanservice personified, and she clearly hates it, but the manga enjoys lingering on her. And there’s a creeper teacher whose presence is entirely unwelcome, in my opinion. That said, honestly, the manga moves so fast and doesn’t really linger on anything long enough for me to get vaguely irritated before something else is already happening.

This isn’t the sort of thing I could read if it were a long series – it’s simply too exhausting,even after only one volume. Luckily, it only seems to be three total, which sounds about the right amount. I’m not sure fans of the anime would get much out of this – it honestly feels like a straight up port of the episodes, though I can’t actually verify that. But for those who were curious, and enjoy seeing a lot of goofy action and manly shonen poses (though it’s technically seinen, probably due to the costume), Kiss La Kill is a decent series provided you don’t take it remotely seriously.