Attack on Titan, Vol. 13

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By Hajime Isayama. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

For a while there Attack on Titan was able to keep its readership breathless, with a chase sequence and rescue that went over multiple volumes, following a long extended siege that revealed stunning information about half of our cast. There’s been no time to catch your breath and think about what’s really going on. And that’s this volume’s job, to try to take a step back and work out what everyone is fighting for and why. And the answer is not really one that anyone is going to find pleasant. Levi notes it himself while discussing things with the team – this has been a horrible, twisted world for 100 years now, and there’s no sense that even stopping the Titans will really fix anything. Do we really want the good guys to win if the leadership in place is so rotten?

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The whole Survey Corps team, minus the four obvious ones, are now back together again and part of Levi’s new squad. Sasha has returned relatively unharmed from her trip to the north, and attempts to bring a certain levity with her – her interactions with Jean about food are meant to be reminiscent of the first few volumes. Even here, though, we cut from the comedic scenes to Levi staring into space, overlaying his old squad – now all dead – with the new team he’s in charge of. Levi is not the most personable guy in the world – between him and Hange, who’s wildly mood swinging through this entire volume, we might almost have a functioning human – but I think he’s good at knowing how to get what he needs, and right now that means he has to be mean to Eren, as being driven into a corner seems to be the only thing that allows Eren to control his Titan abilities.

Then there’s Historia, whose past comes into play here. She explains her childhood to the squad, and it is, needless to say, horrible. Living her life as best she can, and only realizing once she starts reading books and other stories how truly terrible it is. Abused by the other children, and her own mother despises her. Then she’s almost killed, only saved at the last minute by her father denying her own existence. What makes it worse is that there are also bits she can’t recall, as a mysterious young woman, the only person who ever shows her any love and affection (besides Ymir, and trust me she’s cut up about that as well), erases her memory every time they met as kids. This is actually the most plot specific part of the volume, as Eren is also dreaming about that young woman, who may be related to both of them? Who knows.

Meanwhile, back in the city, Pastor Nick has been tortured and killed by the military police, once again showing us how it’s the Survey Corps versus the world here. Erwin is doing his best to try to get on top of things, and in the end makes the decision that the royal government has proven itself unfit to lead, and needs to be overthrown. Which is all very well and good, but he says that at the same time as we cut to Levi and Hange, about to torture the same MP who tortured Pastor Nick. Replacing one group who advocates torture to get results with another one does not fill me with glee, though I may have to save that subject for the next volume.

This has never exactly been a fun series to read, but this volume in particular is grim and grimy, helped along by Isayama’s art, which has improved to “OK” but that’s still a step below most manga artists, including the ones who draw his spinoff stories. I also disliked everything about the subplot with Armin being threatened with rape by a member of Reeves Company, particularly as, seeing some of the cast laughing about it later, I think we’re supposed to see it as a funny interlude rather than disgustingly awful. Attack on Titan is still one of the most compelling series out there, and you’ll want to see what happens next. But when the fighting slows and you start to deal with the city, its citizens, and our heroes, you can’t help but feel weary.

Dorohedoro, Vol. 13

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By Q Hayashida. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in a Shogakukan magazine to be named later. Released in North America by Viz.

Most of the recent volumes of Dorohedoro have consisted of a lot of what readers are looking for with the series (gore, comedy, the odd gyoza mention) along with small dabs of plot and one big thing that everyone will remember after they finish the book. Last time it was Nikaido’s flashback, which was showing us how traumatized she was as a child and the circumstances that led to her use (and misuse) of her time magic. And I’m pretty sure that after Volume 13, everyone will be discussing what happens in the final moments with Kai and Natsuki. But let’s try to mention a few other things first.

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Given the traumatic nature of what happens at the end of this volume, I knew we would have some humor in here somewhere, and a lot of it comes from seeing genderbent Nikaido, who has to disguise herself using magic to enter En’s mansion, now taken over by the Cross-Eyes. In her male body, she’s still her regular self, and is I believe what anime fans describe as a “keet”. This leads to more fun when she runs into Kai/Caiman, who is still having memory issues and has difficulty dealing with Nikaido being so informal. Particularly when the spell wears off and she transforms back into her buff, stacked, naked body in front of him. (This is a strong volume for fans of Dorohedoro’s fanservice – Nikaido fights as a man bare-chested for a while, and we also see Noi naked after her recovery.

Yes, Noi and Shin have been rescued from being mushroom’d at the end of the last volume. The fact that there’s yet another mysterious En family member with tremendous powers is played for laughs here – this man is able to become invisible, but does too good a job, so people forget he’s there after a while. She’s able to use smoke to heal Shin (via a full-on kiss, which I think startles Shin more than anything else) and they’re back in action. Actually, a great deal of this volume is the En family regrouping, and trying to resurrect their leader. Hasn’t happened yet, though.

And now let’s talk Natsuki. She’s been one of the most optimistic, hopeful and fun characters in the last few volumes, more of a mascot than a real threat. That changes here when a crisis shows off her repressed magic, which has almost godlike defensive capabilities. She’s delighted, but the rest of the cross-eyes are terrified – they know what Kai does to people with strong magic, and immediately plot to get her away from him. But in the end this is *not* particularly an optimistic, hopeful manga, and Natsuki is not one of the main characters. And thus, right before she leaves she runs into Kai, and gets brutally torn apart, in one of the goriest bits of the entire volume. And unlike En, I’m pretty sure she won’t be coming back. Kai is scary. I miss Caiman.

I expect the fallout from this will take up a chunk of Vol. 14, along with Nikaido’s continued practice of her magic and the search for En’s devil-shaped tumor. In the meantime, another fun yet brutal volume of Dorohedoro, which even in its most confusing moments still manages to be exhilarating through sheer verve.

An updated look at Crunchyroll Manga

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When I first looked at Crunchyroll’s new manga lineup back in October, it consisted of about 10 Kodansha titles, and its main purpose was essentially to be the Kodansha equivalent of Viz’s Jump – get the most popular titles out weekly to discourage scanlators. (Which has worked, to a degree – not necessarily for speed but for accuracy. I know a few Attack on Titan readers who wait for CR as it will be coherent.) Now, 10 months later, we have almost fifty different titles on the site. What’s been going on?

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Kodansha still has the largest presence on the site, and are still adding new titles that may interest the North American reader, such as the new Onizuka spinoff/continuation. It’s still predominately Shonen Magazine and its subsidiaries, but there has been an effort to add some seinen as well, notably the Morning title Investor Z. (By the way, not all of the licensing is through Kodansha – a large number of the titles on the site seem to be licensed via ‘Cork’, including the Anno ones. Investor Z is one of those.) Most of their titles are ongoing concerns – updated weekly or monthly as their Japanese fellows are. I do note A Town Where You Live has finished, but Vols. 1-11 still seem to be absent from the site – going backwards is not Kodansha’s priority.

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Moyoco Anno has agreed to let several of her more obscure titles be translated on Crunchyroll, from a variety of genres. Most originally ran in the josei magazine Feel Young in Japan, which her her primary outlet these days, though The Diary of Ochibi is a short one-pages that runs in a newspaper.

Then there’s the former heavy movers and shakers at JManga, all of whom are now involved with Crunchyroll to some degree. LEED Publishing, which is Takao Saito’s company, has put out four of its already finished volumes from JManga onto Crunchyroll, I suspect with the same translation. They’re good series, though. I particularly liked Doll. Shonen Gahosha has both old and new titles – Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru and Sun-Ken Rock are basically “license rescues” from JManga that are now on Crunchyroll – not a surprise given they’re both two of the companies more popular unlicensed in print titles – Sun-Ken Rock for its violent content, most likely, and Soredemo for its oddness. They also have Arpeggio of Blue Steel, which Seven Seas is releasing in print here, and Spirit Circle, which gives the appearance of being a fluffy comedy, but… isn’t.

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And then there’s Futabasha, which now has the 2nd most titles on the site thanks to a big push these past few months. Futabasha was the biggest player in JManga as well, but we’re not seeing any of the content that was on there in the past. These are mostly new, ongoing series that run in their main magazine, Manga Action, which it’s pushing for similar reasons to Kodansha. It’s a very different genre, though – Manga Action is seinen and it shows. Even the one title they have by a shoujo author is that author’s debut in a seinen market. As you can see by the cover image of Inside Mari, which is by the author of Flowers of Evil, there’s a lot more ‘sex and violence’ in Futabasha’s titles – a number of what I’d call ‘sex comedies’ and several violent murder mysteries. Futabasha doesn’t really have much shonen, which may be why they’ve always found it hard to grab a foothold in North America, but it’s good to see them making these titles available for curious readers.

The odd title out on this list is The Tenth Prism, licensed via Cork, which is actually a seinen Shogakukan title, running in Big Comic Spirits. It’s by the author of Firefighter Daigo of Company M, so the author isn’t unknown here. Sometimes with licensing subsidiaries you can see titles in places you’d never expect, which is certainly what I’m seeing here.

What can we see from this list, now that it’s so heavily expanded? Crunchyroll Manga is very much catering to male readers. Almost exclusively, I’d say. There’s only one or two titles on there that might be classed as shoujo, and Kodansha, for all that they’re adding Magazine titles, hasn’t put up any ongoing series from Nakayoshi or Betsufure. Futabasha has a shoujo magazine as well, but we’ve seen nothing from it. And the josei we’re seeing, via Moyoco Anno, is for the adult female reader. I’d like to see a few titles for younger female readers on here. Other than that, the main emphasis for most of these series is simulpub – get them out fast to beat the scanlators. It usually doesn’t beat them, as scanlators work from illegal raws released early, but it’s a better product, so the incentive is to wait.

Will Crunchyroll have expanded even more in 10 months time? And which of their newer titles is your favorite?