One Piece, Vol. 73

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By Eiichiro Oda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

I’ve talked about the disparate chaos going on in this One Piece storyline for a couple of volumes now, and while it doesn’t decrease in this new volume there seems to be a purpose behind it. The Tontatta Army states its intended objective – turn all the toys back into humans, give everyone their memory back – and then point out they realize this could lead to an outcome even worse than what they have, but they want to leave that up to the people – a sort of controlled, directed chaos. That type of chaos is seem throughout here, as we get a lot of explanations about what’s been going on, both here and through the series.

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It’s not just order vs. Chaos either – the reveal that the old king of Dressrosa is still alive allows the series to contrast his rule of peace with Doflamingo’s suppressive, violence-led style. Like Crocodile, he comes into the kingdom as its supposed savior, having first set up the circumstances where he can do so. He talks about the heritage of his ancestors, but I’m not sure he actually cares about that, and a more telling speech is seen when he’s yelling at the melee fighters who tried to run away during their match, saying that taking a hit and getting bloody was better than any act of cowardice. It’s not just chaos, Doflamingo loves brutality.

We get a little more revealed about the past of One Piece’s universe, in what for Oda is a giant block of exposition, as the disgraced fighters bring each other up to date. I’m not particularly surprised that it ends up having royalty and aristocracy as the villains – the cruel rule of the powerful over the oppressed has been one of this series’ top themes, with Alabasta being such an exception that they actually had to single it out here as being different so as not to paint Vivi and company with the same brush as the others. In addition to that, there’s a strong anti-terror message here in seeing the reaction of everyone to the King’s demand for ransom money – pacifism is a noble intent, but unless one realizes that there’s a limit to it, it may lead to an even bigger tragedy, because people can be bastards.

Through all this, we have the ongoing adventures of our heroes. Sanji gets a few moments to try to look cool, which I would enjoy more if they weren’t so telegraphed and obvious. Nami has an inspiring speech used as a comedic undercut, which made me facepalm, but she redeems herself a bit with a better rousing speech towards the end. As for Luffy, he mostly spends this volume just watching everyone, but we do get a dramatic revelation as a cliffhanger. It’s presented as a mystery (indeed, Viz’s ‘next volume’ blurb has us wonder who the mystery stranger is), but anyone who recalls the flashbacks to Luffy’s childhood will have guessed it by now. It’s nice to see confirmed what most already expected.

So after as much exposition as I think we’re going to get, I expect Vol. 75 to be a series of giant fights. Should be fun. One Piece: Still Excellent.

Meteor Prince, Vol. 1

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By Meca Tanaka. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine LaLa. Released in North America by Viz.

Meca Tanaka was an author I enjoyed back in the old CMX days – I was quite find of Omukae Desu. She has a certain messy style with a lot of words that reminds me a bit of Banri Hidaka, though really many Hakusensha artists have this, as their magazines have a lot more dialogue than the average Shueisha and Shogakukan title. Here we see her writing a short two-volume series about an alien who comes to Earth looking for a soulmate, and the girl with a life of bad luck that he declares is the one.

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I was a bit worried at the start, what with the jokes about “shall we mate now?”, but it’s made clear right off the bat that consent is required first. Io, the alien, is not particularly adept at human social conventions, but he’s an alien so gets more of a pass than the usual shoujo boyfriends who are just bad at interacting and boundaries. Once Io realizes what Earth requires, he does his best to try to work within its rules, even if they baffle him. He’s also very cheery and friendly (except for one moment where he gets jealous), which actually works against him at the end, as Hako can’t tell if he’s being sincere about his love, especially when he seems to give it up so easily.

Hako also impressed me. Honestly, with the sort of life she’s led, she should be a lot more broken than she is, and it’s definitely a good thing that she’s been taken in by the occult club. That said, she gets a lot more emotional as the title goes on, and it becomes clear that a lot of her open cheerfulness is a mask. She’s also shown to be somewhat stocky (well, by shoujo manga standards), so makes a nice change from the usual tall thin girls. She’s a nice girl. You want good things to happen to her. Io ends up being a good influence.

As for the rest of the cast, I already commented on Twitter about finding Erina fascinating. Unlike Io, there’s no excuse for her – she’s just constantly smiling with closed eyes, all the time. I think the only time she remotely shows another emotion is when Io pretends to be injured and drives Hako away, and even then it’s less anger and more ‘tsk tsk’. I hope we find out something about her in the 2nd volume. As for the club president and Matchan, they make a nicely goofy beta couple – indeed, the president (is he ever named?) seems to be starring in a completely different manga, possibly Nisekoi. Matchan might feel a bit cliched to Western readers, but the girl who shows embarrassing emotions as anger is a classic Japanese trope, and so I just deal with it.

This is over in the 2nd volume, and honestly it almost felt complete in this first one – you could stop right here and have a satisfying ending. Still, I enjoyed it. It wasn’t deeply meaningful or anything, but was good enough for me to seek out the next in the series.

New License Roundup

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It’s the start of 2015, and some publishers are just itching to give us some new titles, even though cons in January are thin on the ground. The solution is, of course, social media. This week Seven Seas and Yen Press/Yen On announced titles. Let’s take a closer look.

Seven Seas is gracing us with four new titles. Akuma no Riddle is a newish title from Kadokawa’s Newtype magazine, and it also had an anime series last spring. The most important points about this series, in no particular order, are 1) it’s written by Yun Kouga, the author of Loveless, and drawn by Sunao Minakata, the artist of Pixy Junket. (Oh come now, surely SOMEONE remembers it…). 2) It has a yuri vibe to it, taking place at an all-girls school. And 3) It’s about girls being trained to be assassins. The last may be the most important.

Golden Time is a more comedic title, running in ASCII Mediaworks’ Dengeki Daioh. It’s based off of a light novel, and has everything you’d expect if you hear the words ‘comedy/romance’; childhood friends, one of whom has now forgotten everything; a female lead who is somewhat difficult for fans to like but will clearly be the main romantic option; and lots of angst. It’s by the author of Toradora!, which Seven Seas also releases.

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Orenchi no Furo Jijō (Merman In My Tub) is for female readers what Golden Time might be for male readers. It runs in Media Factory’s Comic Gene, which specializes in oddball shoujo, much like Kodansha’s Aria. The premise sounds a lot like Monster Musume or Ane-Imo, only with a BL subtext couple.

And there’s Mushoku Tensei – Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu. This runs in Media Factory’s Comic Flapper, which already gives it a leg up in my opinion. A middle-aged NEET who’s wasted most of his life get killed trying to stop a truck from hitting three high school students, and is reincarnated in a fantasy world, determined to make better choices and live a life with no regrets. The series has a lot of fans, though I have heard the lead character has a lot of perverted talk. But hey, based on a light novel, what did I expect? In any case, should be fun for fans of SAO or Log Horizon.

Next, let’s take a look at Yen Press, which announced four titles yesterday: one purely manga, and 3 where they announced the light novels on the Yen On line, and the manga (already out in one case) on the Yen Press side.

Oh, yes, there’s some Madoka Magica as well. Let’s start with that. Puella Magi Homura Tamura is a cute slice-of-life spinoff series, for those who like the characters but wished they stopped dying tragically all the time. There’s also Homura’s Revenge, where Madoka joins Homura in going back in time to change things, and I expect it will end badly.

Rust Blaster is the debut work from Yana Toboso, and I believe complete in one volume. It has vampires! And is by the author of Black Butler! Can’t imagine why this was licensed, who would buy such a combination? :)

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On the LN/manga combo side, we first have Strike The Blood, which also has vampires, one of which is our hero. He’s being watched closely by a teenage sword expert who has been sent to follow (indeed, stalk might be more accurate) the vampire and take him out if he becomes a threat. If you guessed their love story is part of the story, you’re right. The manga runs in Dengeki Daioh, and the author is also known for the g-dropping series Asura Cryin’.

Black Bullet looks far more future apocalypse, detailing the world 10 years after being ravaged by a virus, which is being combatted by Cursed Children and their minders. Basically, he’s a high school student who can do Tendo Style Martial Arts (I’m sure it’s a coincidence), she’s a childhood friend with superhuman powers. Together, they fight crime! The manga ended at 4 volumes, and ran in Dengeki Maoh, a Daioh spinoff devoted to games and light novels.

Lastly, and to the horror of Baccano! fans, who keep waiting for their big day, Yen On announced they have licensed the Durarara!! light novels by Ryogho Narita. Yen Press has been putting out the manga for a couple of years, and I suspect this, along with Index, was their most requested license. The story of Ikebukuro and the truly insane weirdos who inhabit it, the 2nd series of the anime is also set to begin soon. By the way, perhaps the biggest news for me: All three of these light novels will have digital versions. After seeing SAO, Accel World, and Index all print-only, I was worried that Dengeki Bunko was a no-go area for digital reads. It’s great so see this.

So which one of these new titles excites you the most?