Oh My Goddess!, Vol. 45

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By Kosuke Fujishima. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Afternoon. Released in North America by Dark Horse.

Sometimes there’s just too much to say for a Bookshelf Brief, and that’s certainly the case with this volume of Oh My Goddess. Since my last full review 2 years ago, we’ve been going through hell like a video game, with various mini-bosses being taken down. In the midst of this, Keiichi and Belldandy had to break their contract in order to get past one obstacle. Once they reconnect it, Keiichi notices that his feelings for Belldandy, while just as strong, seem more… arousing than normal. And there’s a reason for that, one that set fandom alight when this chapter first came out about a year and a half ago.

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Like most everyone who has now read this series for 45 volumes – indeed, hardcore fans may have read the series THREE TIMES by now, in 32-page floppies, then the flipped volumes, then the unflipped volumes – and I had always assumed that the total lack of sexual desire between Keiichi and Belldandy was a function of Japanese fandom and the “we must keep our idols pure and virginal” mentality, as well as a strong dose of “if they actually do get it on, the manga will end, and this is a GIANT CASH COW, so nothing can happen.” Now Fujishima is saying this has all been deliberate on the part of heaven, who have locked up Keiichi’s libido magically so that he and Belldandy won’t procreate – because of the past past experiences with demigods.

That wasn’t the thing that made fandom upset. It was that Belldandy and Urd were aware of this all the time, and said nothing. It’s worth noting that for those who remember the very early days of the series, this retcon is very awkward. Keiichi spent most of the first volume or so trying to get into Belldandy’s pants, and this vanished around the same time that his eyebrows stopped being huge and 80s-shaped. What’s more, Urd’s constant attempts at aphrodisiacs and love potions now make a whole lot of no sense. That said, for a manga that is looking forward and not backward, it’s a fascinating twist, and Belldandy clearly feels horrible and self-doubting about it.

There’s not really much to worry about, as K1 is pretty much the perfect boyfriend, so even when Bell and Skuld’s mother suggests they may have lost the trust between them (oh yeah, she showed up as well, forgot to mention that) he’s quick to smile and show that if anything, he loves her even more. Keiichi and Belldandy can be sickeningly sweet even when they aren’t stressing about whether they truly deserve each other, and I have to assume that if you’re still reading the series you’ve just resolved yourself to that happening. It can be adorable in the right mood.

I note Hild’s plotline is resolved here, which was meant to be the main goal of this arc. Instead, it’s turned into a combination of Dante’s Inferno and Orpheus, with Keiichi and Belldandy having everything that they know and trust about their relationship torn apart and destroyed so that (presumably) it can be rebuilt even stronger and with more sweet smiles. Plus hey, Keiichi can now see her and get aroused, which is a big step forward for the wrong type of fan. :) We end up with a cliffhanger that looks as f it may involve past lives, and I suspect won’t work out nearly as well as K1 and Bell have. But we’ll have to wait a long time for that, as the volume likely won’t arrive till August 2014.

(By the way, there is an excellent tribute to the late Toren Smith by Carl Horn at the end of this volume, well worth reading even if you’d dropped the series long ago. This is one of the series that everyone things of when they think of Toren, so it was lovely to see.)

Senran Kagura: Skirting Shadows, Vol. 1

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By Kenichiro Takagi and Amami Takatsume, based on the game by Tamsoft. Released in Japan as “Senran Kagura – Shoujotachi no Shinei” by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Alive. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

As I’ve noted before, I try not to let this review blog be entirely “wow, this is really terrific”, so sometimes I get a first volume of something that I’m wary of or suspect may not be for me. And yet, looking at the basic premise of Senran Kagura without actually seeing the character designs, this should be quite appealing to me. Five female kickass ninjas battling against the forces of evil. No major male characters to swoop in and save them. Some plotlines that show the attempt at character development. And yet…

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Even though I read it last, the afterword of this volume really sums up the mindset of the creators. Not only do we have several references to “boobs”, but we get at least three to “mega boobs”. The artist, who seems to draw herself as a bell pepper, also pledged to keep drawing the characters’ boobs for the happiness of the audience. And, doing a little research about the game itself, I see there’s nothing out of place about this at all – the game is a side-scrolling platformer whose big selling point apparently is using 3D technology on the lead females’ breasts. You can tell this is the point by the fact that the manga stars five different girls, and even the least endowed of them is still a double-D.

In amongst all the lovingly detailed breasts, we get the girl whose main habit is sexually harassing the other girls, and we also get the girl (named Yagyu, and wearing an eyepatch – we never get first names of these girls, but it’s clearly Jubei) who has a repressed but obvious yuri crush on her best friend. (I had hoped this might actually go somewhere, but again, checking the game work notes that it’s due to “she looks just like my dead sister” rather than, y’know, just being a lesbian.) There’s the cute clumsy one, there’s the stoic class president type, and there’s our naive yet filled with purpose heroine. It’s like they were ticking boxes off a checklist.

I’m no stranger to fanservice, of course – I read Negima, and Cage of Eden, and Excel Saga, and Higurashi. But all of those titles use fanservice as a spice, something that is there to attract the male reader flipping through the magazine to check out the story. The entire volume of Senran Kagura involves the ninja plot being secondary to showing these girls in as many titillating scenes as possible. Honestly, you’d think there’d be MORE here than there is – for all the attention to the bosoms of the leads, there’s no nudity at all. Just lots of busty women running around hitting each other.

In the end, the audience for this is, I suppose, those who played and enjoyed the original games, or saw the anime that also came with it, like most Japanese media franchises. But if you’re just coming to this series cold, and wanted to see a lot of huge-breasted women molesting each other… you’d probably get a better payoff getting a Project H book or something.

Alice in the Country of Hearts: The Mad Hatter’s Late Night Tea Party, Vol. 1

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By Quin Rose and Riko Sakura, based on the game by Quin Rose. Released in Japan as “Heart no Kuni no Alice – Boushiya to Shinya no Ochakai” by Ichijinsha. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

We have now had about seven or eight spinoffs to the Alice series, most of them being variations on “well, what if Alice fell in love with this person instead?”. It’s been so long, in fact, that we may have forgotten that the original manga adaptation was pretty definitive about Blood Dupre being the canonical love interest, and its 6 volumes revolved around that. Of course, being an otome game adaptation, the manga can easily delight in all the possible routes. But it does mean that this spinoff, also dealing with Alice and Blood, is coming to us with a handicap: is there anything introduced here that we can’t get in the main series?

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That’s not the only handicap, unfortunately. I’ve said before that I prefer Alice when it’s a psychological mystery rather than when it’s “which hot guy do I want to go out with”, and despite occasional attempts at a plot, this is very much the second. Alice is clearly attracted to Blood, with only his resemblance to her old tutor and his blunt ways holding her back. And even that doesn’t last long – Alice and Blood are in bed halfway through this first volume. (Again, I note that I am pleased that the series allows Alice to be sexually active without shaming or punishing her for it – probably a benefit to running in Ichijinsha’s josei line, where this sort of thing wouldn’t be out of place.)

As for Blood, well, he’s a charming rogue, and thus has the usual charming rogue issues. He’s attracted to Alice and wants her around, but demands control, and is jealous when she sees other men – particularly Julius. Yes, this is a Hearts world, so the clockmaker is back in the story, and everyone still hates him. I’ve mentioned before how much of this is due to the metatext of the game – his status as a neutral party, his connection with death that might remind Alice of why she’s in Wonderland in the first place – but this is a romance rather than a mystery, so honestly it’s mostly just the fact that they’re different types. Julius offers Alice peace and relaxation, something that Blood simply cannot provide.

There’s a lot of old ground gone over again – this being the Hatter Route, we get the subplot involving his secret relationship with Vivaldi again, as well as his ability to fluster and enrage alice simply by opening his mouth. If you’re a fan of Blood Dupre, you may want to give this a try, but for those wondering if this is a required read as an Alice fan, I’d have to say no. You get most of what happens here in the main series. (I was amused to see that this seems to be the only non-BL series the artist has drawn – she specializes in smutty yaoi.) I still like the Alice series, but the spinoffs are running out of ways to charm me.