Übel Blatt, Vol. 0

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By Etorouji Shiono. Released in Japan in two separate volumes by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press.

After finishing this first omnibus, you can absolutely see why Übel Blatt was licensed, and why I think it will do very well over here. The plot is straightforward and is the sort of thing that lends itself to a long, drawn-out story. The hero is mostly likeable (more on that later) and you understand his burning need for revenge; the action, though incredibly bloody and violent, is well-drawn and not at all confusing. You find yourself drawn into the story and wanting to find out what happens next. It’s very well-written. It also has a rape so mind-bogglingly appalling in the first few pages that my jaw dropped, as well as two “semi-consensual” sex scenes that also push the limits. So there’s that.

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Let’s back up a bit and talk about that plot. It may seem very familiar to fans of The Seven Deadly Sins, and that’s because it’s the exact same plot. Of course, Übel Blatt started in 2004, a good 8 years before Kodansha’s shonen series, so any inspiration most likely runs the other way. In any case, we have a typical manga fantasy world, where everyone is living in castles or huts but we also have flying zeppelins. The young man on the cover is Köinzell, who flashbacks show was once a cute young kid but now appears to be older, far more angry and bitter, and not quite human anymore. He’s on a mission to wipe out the legacy he and his companions left behind, one that has him and three other (seemingly dead) friends branded as traitors. Along the way, he meets a young girl trying to save her brother, an even younger girl just trying to get to the next country, and a seemingly endless number of evil monks.

This is a fun series. Köinzell is mostly serious, even in his lovemaking, but this isn’t really a manga that needs comedy relief. Even the token little girl who gets taken along for the ride doesn’t really get too many wacky antics here. The first half came out as a “Volume 0” in Japan, but unlike most other Volume 0s appears to have actually debuted at the same time as Vol. 1, so I will assume it’s not ‘go back and rewrite the backstory to make it fit what I have now’. There are some men and women in the background I’d like to see more of.

It’s just very hard to recommend a manga where you have to admit that it begins with one of the mook villains explicitly raping a woman, then when he tosses her aside to rant for a bit, his HORSE decides he’s going to get some as well. I understand the need to show that this is a desperate and horrible world which our heroes will need to save, but there are better ways to do it than this. What’s more, Köinzell (who is, to be fair, not the usual sexless hero, something that surprised me) is not much better, recognizing a young woman’s crush on him and having her stripped and his hand down her pants within ten seconds.

Thus my recommendation of this series is tempered by “if you can get past the rape, assault, and non-consensualness with many of the female characters”. I hate saying that. As with Japan, I suspect Übel Blatt’s main audience are young college-aged men who like fantasy series with a lot of sex and violence, and this is probably better than a few others coming along, though I’d try Berserk (which has similar issues all around) first.

Barakamon, Vol. 1

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By Satsuki Yoshino. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the magazine Gangan Online. Released in North America by Yen Press.

The genre of ‘Fish out of water city boy moves to the country and is slowly won over by the laid-back, charming ways of the locals’ is so well known in Japan that it’s become a bit of a cliche, but we don’t see it too often over here in North America, likely as it’s almost always filled with hard-to-translate dialect humor, lacks a big, eventful plot, and relies essentially on being heartwarming. The series Yotsuba&! has a similar feel, but whereas that’s all about the child, Barakamon is definitely about the young man, Seishuu Handa, and his reactions to his new neighbors and attempts to deal with the mess he’s made of his life.

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The thing I like best about Handa is that he’s got a lot of decent guy underneath him, he just tends to stress out a lot and overreact to things. I have issues with this myself, so can identify. His constant admission of hating children does not really mean that he’s bad at dealing with them – at times he proves to be even better than their local teacher, and certainly bonds straight away with young Naru, the first-grade girl who practically moves in with him from day one. But he’s at a crossroads in life after one very ill-advised tantrum (he had to move from the city as everyone thought of him as ‘the guy who punched an old man with a cane’), and worse, he’s starting to see the old man’s point about his calligraphy.

Calligraphy is Handa’s profession, but trust me, you don’t need to be an expert to enjoy this – god knows I’m not. I did smile when I saw Handa’s efforts to have fun while writing characters, and later on seeing the calligraphy filling a room that he called his failures. He understands his problem but is unsure how to fix it – somewhere we’ve all been. The basic cure is likely “stop being so serious”, something I expect the rest of the cast will take care of before too long.

Other than young Naru, the rest of the cast get introduced fast and furious, but haven’t stuck around as long. She has a shy friend, Hina, and a young boy who has a crush on her and doesn’t know what to do. There’s also Hiroshi, a young high schooler whose idea of effort, and what everyone else expects of him, is frustrating to both him and the reader. This was probably my favorite chapter in the volume, as Hiroshi gradually comes to realize that he may THINK he’s giving effort, but compared to others he really does deserve all the average grades he gets. It also shows off our hero’s tenacity.

The presentation is good – there’s a final page explaining the title and some of the dialect jokes. The dialect itself is translated as ‘vaguely Southern’, but not enough to really jar the way some other publications have done (I’m thinking Osaka from Azumanga here). The plot reminds me of Yotsuba&! combined with Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei, and how can you go wrong with that? Anyone who enjoys slice-of-life mangas should enjoy this one, and given it’s 10+ volumes in Japan, Yen has fast-tracked it, so expect another volume in 2 months.

Vampire Knight, Vol. 19

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By Matsuri Hino. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine LaLa. Released in North America by Viz.

And so after 19 volumes, we come to the end of this particular journey. Yes, there’s a novel due out next month, but for the main manga, this is it. There’s even a limited edition, which has (in my opinion) a better cover art picture and a limited edition hardcover artbook, which features some lovely character pieces. Vampire Knight has always been a series that I’ve found to be of the moment. I may forget what’s actually going on the moment I put down the book, but while I’m reading the book, I’m swept along by the drama and emotions going on within. This last volume takes that and amps it up even further, as Yuki and Kaname compete to see who can out-self-sacrifice each other.

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This is not to say there aren’t some issues. The incestuous subtext that’s been bubbling under the entire series becomes text early in this volume, and while it’s not dwelled on, I can’t say I was all that happy with it. Most of the supporting players who had large roles earlier in the series are reduced to little more than cameos here, though again it was excellent to see Yuki’s human best friend, Sayori, pop up to remind us that the world isn’t entirely vampires. (Nice flashforward as well.) And of course the entirely of this volume seems to feature both Kaname and Zero trying their best to protect Yuki by removing any agency she might have to strike off on her own, which usually makes me growl, but…

Yuki isn’t having any of it. The series has balanced a knife edge as to whether Yuki will finally slip and become a princess who needs to be protected and rescued or a knight who does the rescuing, and it’s to Hino’s credit that the final decision is Yuki’s, and it’s to live up to the title. Possibly the best panel in the entire volume shows Yuki, in her school uniform and sword in hand, dragging Aido (who is literally flapping in the wind” while shouting “We’ve got an academy to protect!” It does a heart good to see this.

As for Kaname’s master plan, well, in the end there’s not much they can do about it, but they do manage to find a sort of deus ex machina that can be fired off after a thousand years. The epilogue shows that all of the hatred and political intrigue that has dominated vampire life (and the series in general) seems to have dissipated. And Yuki and Zero are together, though this is given really short shrift – in the end, it’s not about whether Yuki ends up with her brother or her classmate, it’s about Yuki working with others to save both vampires and humans. Romance is an afterthought.

Vampire Knight’s pleasures may be fleeting, but that doesn’t make them any less enjoyable. A lot of Vampire Knight’s covers have featured the main characters looking out at the reader, and the limited edition one does the same, with Yuki, Zero and Kaname lying exhausted yet satisfied (yes, yes, OT3), and saying to the reader, “We’re done. Is this enough?” It’s a very good conclusion.