Servamp, Vol. 1

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By Strike Tanaka. Released in Japan by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Gene. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

In general, I’m very reluctant to talk about a manga or anime being unoriginal, mostly as many of my absolute favorite titles have been made of of little bundles of cliches. Particularly shoujo titles, and Comic Gene is sort of a shoujo-ish magazine, if you squint. That said, after reading the first volume of Servamp, my general reaction was “that was pretty good, but I feel I’ve read it all before”. It might just be that I am simply vampire’d out – the North American market is absolutely glutted with vampire manga, with more and more coming every month, and Servamp (Vampire Servant, in case you were unaware) is another example of the genre. That said, it’s not actually a bad volume, just a little worn.

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Our hero Mahiru is a serious young man who tends to get irritated easily (though that gets toned down later in the book when he meets another young man who also gets irritated easily), but is more defined by his inability to stand aside when there are people that need help. He even picks up stray cats on the street, which proves to be his undoing when said cat turns out to actually be the immortal vampire Kuro. Not that Kuro is all that impressive – he’s lazy as hell, not wanting to show off his strength even when it would save lives. Turns out he is one of seven (at least we’re told seven at the start) vampires based on the Seven Deadly Sins, and Kuro happens to be Sloth. But Mahiru won’t let him slack, especially when someone appears to be going on a vampire killing spree in the city.

This description likely makes the title sound more serious than it is. There’s lots of light-heartedness iin this series, particularly in the interaction between Mahiru and Kuro. As you can see from the cover art, Kuro has this sort of sleepy hangdog look that’s funny even when he’s at rest, and his desire for food/drink/sleep just gets even funnier because of it. Later in the series we meet more eccentric vampires, including Love (asks Mahiru to check out his “boobies”, despite being male) and Wrath (the sole female character, who has a pissed-off expression on her face in order to “look cool”). And the one major death we actually see is semi-handwaved away the following day, for reasons as yet unknown.

So it’s put together well, but again, there’s a sense you’ve seen this all before. The use of the Seven Deadly Sins as eccentric weirdos is unfortunate coming after Kodansha’s license of a shonen series with a similar premise. Mahiru’s grumpy straight-man lead reminds me a bit of Devils and Realist, and honestly there’s also a bit of Alice here as well, in terms of his gradually acquiring a bunch of seeming killers around him. (The author has apparently done BL in the past, but there’s no real teasing here, though Love seems very camp.) Even the cliffhanger ending made me say “yeah, I was expecting that surprise.” It’s well told, and fans of manga with lots of handsome young men or supernatural action series might enjoy it. But I hope to be at least startled by a plot or character in the future.

Maria the Virgin Witch, Vol. 1

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By Masayuki Ishikawa. Released in Japan as “Junketsu no Maria” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine good! Afternoon. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

There is a scene in the show Arrested Development that has become a meme, where a character finds a bag in the fridge labeled “Dead Dove – Do Not Eat” and, curious, opens it to find… a dead dove. He responds “I don’t know what I expected.” I sort of feel the same way about the first volume of this new fantasy manga. I knew going in it was by the author of Moyashimon. This is a series known for its eccentric humor. And yet somehow the premise led me to expect that it would be a fairly dark and serious piece. Thus, when confronted with a Volume 1 that was quite silly in many places, I felt a bit nonplussed. It’s filled with eccentric humor. I don’t know what I expected.

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The titular witch is in medieval France, trying to stop the English and French killing each other by any means necessary. So far this has involved using a succubus as her familiar to seduce specific people before the battle, making them uselessly aroused. There’s two problems with this: a) Maria is doing this as she has no experience whatsoever, not even being sure what a male looks like; and b) there’s a lot of pederasty in the army and Church as well, leaving an adult-looking succubus high and dry. Maria tries creating a second succubus to seduce other men, but he ends up being sort of like a Ken doll. Add to this that the Archangels are upset with Maria taking a personal interest in the Lord’s work (the Lord taking a very hands off approach to humans all wanting to kill each other) and you have a very angry and frustrated heroine.

While there is a serious battle towards the end, much of this is played for laughs, particularly Maria’s virginity, which she desperately wants to be rid of but is too repressed to really do much about (witness her reaction to her succubus moaning about her “sore jaw”). By the way, the book is rated T for Teen, but I’d have bumped it up a notch, as there’s frank talk of multiple sexual practices and a few of George Carlin’s 7 Words You Can Apparently Say In Manga. It’s not M-for-mature stuff (Maria’s too innocent for that), but I still raised an eyebrow a few times.

I do feel that the author should commit himself one way or the other, as I don’t know that the humor and serious plotline are balanced properly. There is a nice little story here involving how much a “witch”, someone with powers beyond mere humans, should involve herself with God’s creation – indeed, the presence of God’s archangels makes this explicit. But there’s a certain juvenile snickering about Maria’s virginity that made me sigh, and it provided the largest dose of the humor. Things aren’t helped by Maria and her succubus and incubus all looking very similar (they’re all based on her), so that when they’re standing together having a conversation it can be very hard to tell them apart.

If this were a long-running series, I’m not sure whether I’d feel inspired to continue. But there’s apparently only two more volumes, so I think there’s enough interest here to keep going, provided the reader knows what he’s going to get. Don’t be surprised at your dead dove.

Oresama Teacher, Vol. 18

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By Izumi Tsubaki. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz.

Most of the last several volumes have been seeing each member of the student council try to shut down the Public Morals club, and failing. As to why they’re doing it, well, we’re told that it’s due to Takaomi having a bet with the head of the school, and that his ‘opponent’ is said head’s grandson. But we’ve seen from the very start that this is not really correct. Every time we try to figure out why Hanabusa is doing this, besides “for the lulz”, it’s vanished like smoke. Indeed, as the volumes piled up and each of the Student Council members, by virtue of interacting with Mafuyu and her friends, became better people, you began to get suspicious that this was all a setup and that what Hanabusa is really doing is a form of extreme therapy.

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And indeed, that’s absolutely correct. It’s made explicit by Hanabusa’s comment to Hayasaka, saying that if Mafuyu had arrived a little later on she’d have seen Hayasaka on the Student Council instead of the Public Morals club. We even get scenes of most of the old members showing how much they’ve grown – Kanon is able to interact with her childhood tormenter again, Komari’s nature is starting to be better understood even by people who aren’t Aki, and as for Momochi…

As yes, Momochi. When a villain turns out to be not a villain after all, there needs to be someone stepping in to take their place. Having Momochi turn out to be shady after all is not exactly a surprise, as her mysterious smirking nature has been played up from the moment we met her – she essentially comes off as an evil Michiru Kaioh from Sailor Moon. Seeing her try to manipulate Mafuyu and Hayasaka is not particularly a surprise. Seeing her drug both of them, and apparently attempting to brainwash Hayasaka into forgetting all his happy memories, is a big surprise. I wasn’t really prepared for this manga to take so serious a turn, even with the mystery of Hayasaka’s past sticking out like a sore thumb. It’s disturbing, and makes a great cliffhanger.

This is not to say that the humor has suddenly vanished from the series – it’s just as funny as ever. Most of it is admittedly packed into the first half, which wraps up Mafuyu going back home for the break with a test of courage. Yui is along for the ride, and ropes others into his own special brand of insanity, leading to some wonderful looks of pity and disgust on Mafuyu and Kangawa’s faces. No one does that flat stare of “wtf? Seriously, wtf?” quite like Tsubaki. And there’s also a beach chapter, with the boys showing off their eccentric (or not) swim trunks, and Okegawa being given a forcible reminded that Mafuyu is a girl by having her wear a bikini. And then we have Mafuyu’s attempts to learn to swim, which would make Rumiko Takahashi proud.

So things aren’t going to get all dark and grim, but I do suspect that Hayasaka will soon be taking a forcible leave of absence from the club soon, and that fixing whatever psychological damage he’s sustained may be the next arc. As for Momochi, is *she* just a simple villain? Or, like Hanabusa, is there something else driving her? She seems focused on Hayasaka, dismissing Mafuyu entirely. Sadly, we’ll have to wait a bit for the next volume (it only came out in Japan 5 months ago), but I’m sure it will be worth it.