First Look at Comic Walker

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Last month, Kadokawa announced a new online comic portal, Comic Walker, that would debut this week. It has 116 titles in Japanese, of which 18 are also available in English. It also has an iPad and Android app, though I was only able to access the English titles on that, whereas on the website I can also see the Japanese titles. The content is downloaded to your device, similar to Viz’s app store, rather than in a Cloud setting, so you should be able to read it offline (though I didn’t test this.)

The site has a bit of fractured English when you sign up/log in and look at the Contact Info. The translations I checked, however, seem reasonably fine. So what have we got? We get the first chapters (mostly, some had 2 or 3) of 18 titles, 8 of have been released over here in North America in some print form or other – or will be soon. They are:

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (Vertical)
Neon Genesis Evangelion (Viz)
High School D&D (Yen, in May 2014)
Haganai: I Don’t Have Many Friends (Seven Seas)
Kyo Kara Maoh! (Tokyopop)
Takasugi-san’s Obento (DMP)
Sgt. Frog (Tokyopop)
The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya (Yen)

As you’ll notice, some of these already have digital editions over here from their respective companies. I spot-checked some of the titles, and they seem to be using the same text/translation that we’ve seen before. Fans of the Tokyopop titles will be interested, as both of those are out of print here now.

So, what’s as yet unlicensed over here?

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Anime fans will be familiar with Log Horizon, which is just finishing up and has already had a 2nd season announced. This is the manga version, which runs in Enterbrain’s Comic Clear. The ‘sucked into an RPG’ plotline may seem a bit over-familiar to folks, but I know it has fans.

There are two other Gundam titles from Kadokawa’s Gundam Ace. Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin: Special Edition seem to take place after a lot of the current origin comic, and I’ll warm you, there’s a spoiler that I was unaware of, though I imagine most Gundam fans knew it already. (It involves a romantic pairing.) It seems to be in the style of the original, and takes place in Japan (so far – remember, all these are just brief chapters.)

And for the wackier side of Gundam, there’s Gundam-san, the superdeformed 4-koma version, similar to Haruhi-chan. This is for Gundam fanatics only – I admit I didn’t get a lot of the otaku humor. But it looks funny, so I will pretend I get it. LOL!

Kagerou Days comes from Media Factory’s Comic Gene, a magazine I expect to see more titles from in the future. This intriguing title deals with a social shut-in who stays on his computer, who meets a cyber-girl named Ene. Can she convince him to go outside? This is apparently based on a series of songs by the artist Jin.

Tokyo ESP is a Shonen Ace title, and if Tokyopop was still around it would surely have licensed it by now. It features a girl who develops psychic powers after seeing a flying fish, and how she adapts to being telekinetic, especially as it transpires she’s not the only one to gain superpowers. This seems like something X-Men fans would enjoy.

archfiend

The second-best title in terms of verbiage goes to New Sister Archfiend Testament, aka Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha. It is also a Shonen Ace title, and is based on a light novel. Indeed, the premise SCREAMS light novel. Average high school student ends up with two new sisters, who are a demon lord and a succubus, and he invariably ends up as the master of one of them. Ecchi shenanigans no doubt ensue.

Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya Drei! is the sequel to two other Fate/Kaleid titles, which are themselves part of the giant Fate/Stay Night multiverse. This runs in Comp Ace and is also, I suspect, quite ecchi. It’s a pseudo magical girl title.

Nobunaga the Fool is a brand new title running in Kadokawa’s Niconico A, and also had an anime coming out this past winter. I wonder if this fool is anything like The Irresponsible Captain Tylor? Probably not.

Non Non Biyori runs in Media Factory’s Comic Alive, a magazine that you never know when you’re going to get pure fanservice or something really worth your time. (Usually, it’s the former – its fellow magazine Comic Flapper has the same problem, but reversed.) It’s the slice of life seinen manga that you KNEW a rollout like this had to have, involving an elementary school girl who moves to the country from Tokyo, and has to adapt to rural life.

Lastly, and by far the longest title, goes to Archenemy And Hero – “Be Mine, Hero” “I Refuse!”, a Comp Ace title based around a franchise called Archenemy and Hero (Maoyuu Maou Yuusha). This seems to be an alternate telling of the basic premise, so hopefully won’t be too obscure for those who don’t know the series. Similar to Spice & Wolf, this seems to mesh together high fantasy and business economics.

That’s it for now. I briefly looked at some of the Japanese titles. A few I’d love to see. Bodacious Space Pirates has a manga there, as does Full Metal Panic!. There’s also Tonari no Seki-kun, which may show up after Vertical releases it here.

How will this do? No idea. Unlike JManga, it seems geared more to Japanese readers. That said, the titles they have are pretty good, and there’s some actual bestsellers, as opposed to the all new series approach of Manga Box. What do you think, plan to give it a try?

UQ Holder!, Vol. 1

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By Ken Akamatsu. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

It’s pretty easy to tell that this is a sequel to Negima right off the bat – Evangeline appears on Page 1, talking about the difficulties inherent in immortality. It’s the following page that’s the gut-punch for all those who were hoping that this new series would see a lot of the Negima cast making cameos throughout – a metaphorical shot of Eva and the Negima cast slowly parting from one another as she continues on a solitary journey (not even Chachazero?), it’s also Ken Akamatsu telling us that this is 80 years after Negima proper, and most of the girls we loved are now dead. Is this the world that the shippers fought and died for in the “who is Negi’s wife?” wars?

uqholder

Luckily, this is not a grim ‘n gritty story of how the Negima cast dies over the years – at least not so far. No, it’s pure shonen adventure, a Akamatsu has resolved whatever the issues were with Kodansha that caused Negima to end so abruptly and has finally won what he’d been working towards for years – pure adventure, no harem comedy whatsoever. Now, this is not to say we won’t have a few love triangles or fanservice scenes down the road – there’s at least two bath scenes with naked people in this volume alone. But Negima was always held back, at least at first, by Kodansha demanding Akamatsu try to replicate Love Hina, and it’s good to see that this new series is not going to be doing the same.

By the way, I had mentioned Evangeline, and she is the exception to the dead cast list above, being an immortal vampire. Indeed, immortality is the point of this entire series, as our hero is a young man, Tota Konoe (note the last name), whose parents died in a war, who has no memories before he as twelve, and who Eva, under the guise of a schoolteacher, has been raising for the last two years. It’s quite a burden for a young man to bear, but luckily Tota is very much a traditional shonen hero, complete with nonsense about a man’s dreams. (I am pleased it’s immediately pointed out as the nonsense it is.) As for Eva, she goes by Yukihime now, and it’s striking how much she has mellowed out and gotten nicer. The Eva of Negima would never, ever have gotten as close to Tota as Yukihime has – or at least would keep up a facade of disinterest.

The other main character we meet here is Kuromaru, who is an intriguing Setsuna clone. Given this is a sequel to Negima, I’m not entirely sure how much of the character’s looks are down to the fact that Akamatsu can only draw a certain number of faces and how much of it is deliberate, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt here. Tota is not too far off from Kotaro, and earlier we met a young person who was a dead ringer for Shinobu from Love Hina (which took place in the same universe as Negima). Kuromaru not only looks exactly like what Setsuna and Asuna’s child would look like, but also appears to be from the Bird Tribe that Setsuna had so many difficulties with earlier… and Kuromaru is having similar difficulties. Possibly the most intriguing thing, however, is how Kuromaru’s gender is being withheld – not only from the cast but also the reader. It’s clearly being done on purpose, and I’m wondering what’s going on here. Is Kuromaru trans? Or genderless? If so, kudos to Ken, though I suspect that will just open up a lot more questions.

We wrap up UQ Holder with a statement of the premise, which is to find aliens, time travelers and espers… wait, wrong series. To find immortal being like Yukihime and Tota and make friends with them! Luckily Yukihime seems to have her own personal yakuza to help carry this off. UQ Holder is an excellent start for both Akamatsu fans and fans of shonen manga in general, and I have no doubt will be filled with adventure and heart.

(Also, my guess on Tota is that Konoka and Setsuna’s son (via Negi helping out, so to speak) and Kotaro and Natsumi’s daughter got married and had Tota. Because forget diamonds, ship wars are eternal.)

Phantom Thief Jeanne, Vol. 1

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By Arina Tanemura. Released in Japan as “Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Ribon. Released in North America by Viz.

Having almost run out of Tanemura titles to release, Viz has gone back to the early days with this one and license rescued it from the clutches of CMX. And I’m very pleased that they did, because if you were to ask me to take only one Tanemura title with me to a desert island, this would be the one. Her first really big hit, Phantom Thief Jeanne is a magical girl manga that is not afraid to examine the core of darkness that lies at its heart – and yet still be a fun magical girl title for kids. Madoka Magica this is not.

jeanne1

The phantom thief subgenre of magical girls should be familiar to everyone by now – not only through Jeanne, but also via Saint Tail, which uses very similar stylings, and CLAMP School Detectives/Man of Many Faces, where Akira is the male version of this. Naturally, given the thief is a young girl, they are stealing FOR GOOD. Indeed, Maron Kusakabe, our heroine, is a descendant of Joan of Arc (hence the title), and the plot is set up as quite religious – she is using God’s Power to extract the evil from paintings, evil that is being used by Satan to gain human hearts. (This is definitely the French Joan of Arc – Shakespeare would stare in sheer horror at the myth of Joan Puzel today.)

It’s not just the religious themes that give this manga extra depth. Maron has more going on in her background than the usual chirpy magical girl. She’s living alone, her parents having split up and separately decided to leave for another country (suspicious), her magical familiar Finn dashes off her origin story in less than a page (suspicious… though it could just be I live in a post-Kyubey world), and while she does quickly fall for the boy destined to be her love interest (who is also a rival thief with a rival familiar), she absolutely does not want to deal with these feelings, her parents having convinced her that falling in love in a horrible thing to happen to someone. There’s a depth and solidity to Maron’s life that I really enjoyed here.

Of course, it’s not all sadness and broken homes. This is still a Ribon title. There’s lots of fun and silliness, mostly in the form of Maron’s best friend Miyako, whose father is a police officer and who is dedicated to capturing the thief who keeps stealing paintings (as always, the world itself is unaware of the supernatural part of things). There’s lots of love triangle shenanigans as well, with the shy kid in love with Maron leveling up due to demon possession, but amazingly staying leveled up afterwards and trying to become strong enough to court Maron properly. (He clearly doesn’t know what genre he’s in.)

Essentially, this takes the basic beats of the Phantom Thief genre and simply writes them really well. It’s paced well, the characterization is doled out at the right moments, and I can even get used to Tanemura’s trademark GIANT EYES. Anyone wanting to read this will find a cornucopia of details to enjoy, and it has excellent rereadability. Definitely worth buying, even if you already own the CMX version.

And, most importantly, the lead guy is a blond and the runner-up is a brunet! Do you know how little that happens in shoujo? More blond leads!