K-On! High School

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By Kakifly. Released in Japan by Houbunsha, serialized in the magazine Manga Time Kirara Carat. Released in North America by Yen Press.

And so at last we come to the end of the K-On! gravy train, with the sequel that never really made sense. With the college series, at least we had several things going for it: it had the original characters we’d loved from the start, we could see their continued development and growth as a band, and they could finally stop telling school jokes. Well, that last one didn’t really happen, but still. But with the High School volume, we have one remaining main character, whose best moments came when she was interacting with Yui, who’s gone. She’s put together with a few of the supporting cast and two new girls. It’s not really that much of a surprise to see this is the less compelling of the two stories.

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That said, Kakifly is making an effort, and this isn’t a total slog. Probably the best joke in the entire book comes right at the start, with Azusa deciding to ditch the pigtails to give herself a more mature, sempai-esque image. This doesn’t last long at all. Then Ui, who we all recall is identical to Yui despite not being a twin, takes her hair down and starts to glomp Azusa. The gag is then carried further when Ui announces she’s really Yui, who snuck back to high school just to snuggle some more. As Azusa herself notes, this makes perfect sense because Yui only thinks with her senses. Of course, it is still Ui in the end, having mastered the art of taking a joke to its logical conclusion. (I could do without the dumb bust-size capper, though.)

We get two new characters added to the threesome (sorry, did I forget to mention Jun? It’s because she makes that little impression on me), one of whom is there to emphasize similarities and one of whom is there to be different. The moment Sumire appeared we were going to compare her to Mugi just based on appearance alone, so it was a good choice to actually make her be Mugi’s maidservant. They’re both sweet and mellow, but Sumire tends towards the shy end of the spectrum, whereas Mugi… tends more towards the yuri end. As for Okuda, the quiet stoic girl is a type we hadn’t yet seen in the series, and it’s amusing to see her total lack of ability at singling or playing instruments, as well as seeing how she brings something to the club anyway.

Of course, this title was always going to be short-lived by virtue of 3/5 of its cast already being third-years. Azusa and company do their one big concert, it goes pretty well… but that’s it, it’s time for them to graduate. I’d hoped we’d get a better sense of whether Azusa would try to continue a band with Ui and Jun or just join back up with Afterschool Tea Time, But there’s not even that much closer, the series just sort of stops. There’s nothing actively boring or bad about this, and it was reasonably fun to read. But you forget most of it 90 minutes later, and the problem is that of all the K-On books, this one was the least necessary.

Attack on Titan, Vol. 9

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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.

(Note: This review is based on a review copy provided by the publisher. So was the Sailor Moon review yesterday, come to think of it. Also, DO NOT discuss spoilers for Vol. 10-present in the comments, even if it is legal on Crunchyroll now. Also, this review spoils shamelessly everything before Vol. 10.)

There’s so much to talk about in Volume 9 of Attack on Titan that there’s no way I can get to everything. So I apologize to Mike, who tried to have an awesome battle scene but showed off his human frailty instead, and Beast Titan, who is fascinating and clearly very important from here on out, and the horrible tragedy of Connie’s village, and Eren, who finds new resolve – again – in finding ways to destroy titans. Because I’m going to talk about Sasha right now.

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It’s not exactly a secret that I am very fond of Sasha. Her scene in Volume 4 was not only funny, but came at a point where the author was finally trying to differentiate the non-stars from each other and help us remember who they were. We saw her resolve even in the face of stark terror when she chooses to join the Survey Corps, and see that resolve fail in action when she begs for her life after a Titan gets the upper hand. She, along with Connie and Jean, represent the “normal folks” of the 104th Trainees. And now she’s on a mission to notify the Northern villages that Titans are coming – including her own village.

The way this chapter is framed is fascinating, though I do wonder if I only see that because of extracanonical knowledge. The author apparently planned in this chapter to kill Sasha off, only to have his editor say “Doesn’t it feel like the wrong time to do that?”. And really, up until the moment Sasha slips out of the Titan’s wet, bloody grip, the whole chapter feels like an epic farewell. She was able to rescue the kid, and now she goes out fighting in a glorious death scene that contrasts against Mike’s stand against Beast Titan in the previous chapter.

We get a flashback to her father, which establishes Sasha as conservative, set in the old traditional ways, and (of course) ravenous. He calls her a “bit of a coward”, which apparently sticks in her craw, as it doesn’t seem like too long after that she’s joining up. We also get another flashback, seeing Sasha interacting with Krista and Freckled Girl Always With Krista, showing Sasha has been trying to hide her natural accent and talk formally so she doesn’t sound like a hick. Freckled Girl objects to her not being herself, while Krista notes that no matter how she acts, Sasha IS herself by definition. It’s a cute flashback, even if Sasha is somewhat puzzled as to why she’s thinking it as she heads for her death. We even get the “yes, my life was filled with moments like these” musings we always see before a character is killed off.

Except she doesn’t. She uses her hunting skills to get arrows in the Titan’s eyes, has a narrow escape, and meets up with the one survivor of the village, a little kid who has met up with… her own village, who are alive and OK. Including her father, who is rather stunned that the cool woman who took down a Titan as his daughter. So instead of going out in a blaze of glory, the entire chapter is recontextualized as a women coming into maturity, realizing what is selfish and what is selfless, and gaining the respect of her family. Love it.

By the way, Freckled Girl is actually relevant enough to get a picture in the front of the book now, though she’s listed as “Name Unknown”, which might surprise anyone reading this volume, who has forgotten that her name was never revealed till now. It’s a surprise as THE ENTIRE INTERNET knows her name. Luckily, we learn it here as well, in Sasha’s flashback, as Krista calls her Ymir. Hrm… where have we heard that name before? Not since Vol. 5, so the reader might be forgiven for forgetting. Hange doesn’t forget, though, and is stunned to find that someone named Ymir is among the 104th Trainees… especially as Krista seems to be hiding a big secret as well.

The Attack on Titan manga tends to veer back and forth between big revelations that are well signposted in advance (Annie’s true identity, Ymir) and things that come pretty much as “Wait, WHAT?” moments. Krista having a secret identity and being the one person who can choose to say why the Walls Are Full Of Titans is the latter. I suppose you can connect her general kindness to all things to a religious upbringing, but it still seems a bit much. That said, I like that we are slowly giving the rest of the squad their own backstories and motivations, and presumably we’ll hear about Reiner and Bertholt at some future date.

In the meantime, everyone wants to find Krista, which is a problem, as she and Ymir are trying to figure out where the wall is broken and how Titans got in. (The wall isn’t broken, but let’s leave that aside for now.) We get a nice little character sketch of her and Ymir here: Ymir wants Krista safe, and if that means being a coward or acting like an obnoxious jerk, well, that’s what it takes. Krista, meanwhile, placed 10th in the trainee exams, and knows that Ymir should have been there – indeed, may have been higher – but slacked off so Krista could get the choice to go with the MPs. Krista, of course, didn’t. Krista suspects that Ymir is always next to her because of her family, but Ymir notes no, it’s for her own sake.

The two search squads, having not found a hole in the wall, and forced by Titans to hole up in an old abandoned castle. This includes Ymir, Christa, Bertholt, Connie, and Reiner. First, off, we have an amazingly over the top scene where Connie, who has seen the devastation of his village with no actual bodies, and also a Titan who looks a lot like his mother, starting to wonder if his village all became Titans, similar to Annie. Ymir promptly laughs and starts mocking Connie in an amazingly loud voice while sweating, changing the subject away from humans who can turn into Titans entirely. It’s hard not to see this as incredibly suspicious.

They go scrounging for food, and we now hit the scene that forced the yaoi and yuri fandoms to unite as one in one giant pile of squee. Reiner sees Ymir in a storeroom looking at cans, and she jokes about guys creeping into a girl’s room at night. Ymir says she didn’t think that Reiner was the sort to be interested in girls, to which he responds that he didn’t think Ymir was the sort to be interested in guys. Attack on Titan is, at heart, a military-themed sci-fi thriller, with romance really, really low on the list. So seeing two characters casually joking about being gay in a non-romantic setting is just amazing. And if we weren’t guessing that Ymir was always around Krista because she was in love with her, we certainly are now. Also, she can apparently read ancient writing that no one else can.

Sadly, a Titan assault interrupts this before we can find out more, and we finally get to a cliffhanger. What a volume. I’m not sure the pacing always works (admittedly Ymir has been in the background since the start, but her sudden rise to main character status is still a bit of a shock), and there are still the usual art issues. But this is an amazing page-turner, and I fully support any shoehorned-in characterization as long as it deepens and expands their relationships with each other. And it’s nice to see an expanded sexuality in the series as well. In the end, how much did I enjoy this volume? Well, I wrote a review that’s almost three times as long as my normal reviews. Get it.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Short Stories, Vol. 2

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By Naoko Takeuchi. Released in Japan as “Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon” by Kodansha, serialized from various sources. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

And so we come to the final final volume of the Sailor Moon manga. Kodansha has indicated there’s an artbook coming along, but for the moment, this is it. And I really wish that it ended better. I’ve been a huge supporter and preacher for this entire series, pointing out how awesome it is, and thus it saddens me that this collection of three short stories has only one that really measures up to the standards set by the series in the past. And no, that’s not the one the anime chose to adopt into a movie. (I do give big props for that cover, though, which has a post-coital Usagi and Mamoru in bed, with Usagi winking at the viewer. Fourth-wall breaking has always been in the Sailor Moon manga to a degree, but this really takes it in new directions of cute.)

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Let’s start with the story that takes up over half this volume, Princess Kaguya’s Lover. This was adapted into the 2nd of the 3 Sailor Moon movies, Sailor Moon S. And indeed that’s quite deliberate: Takeuchi wrote it with a movie in mind. I don’t think it ran in a magazine, but instead appeared straight in the original tankobon. It also stars Luna. Luna, Artemis, and Diana have gotten dramatically less focus in the manga than they did in the anime, which ironically helps the story a bit here. We’ve never seen Artemis pining over Luna quite as much as we do in animated form, so there’s less bafflement at Luna’s treatment of him. And the invasion of yet another female villain poised to destroy the world is handled with the usual Sailor Moon aplomb. At heart, though, this is a love story about a cat and a human, and that’s just sort of uncomfortable, even if Sailor Moon does transform Luna into a human so she can say goodbye to her (already in love with his childhood friend) crush. (Also, Venus and Jupiter have birthdays 6 weeks apart! Throw them separate parties, sheesh.)

Casablanca Memory is the reason to pick up this volume, as it’s excellent. Given Rei had to share a short story with Minako last time (and that really was Minako’s more than Rei’s), it’s fitting she gets one of her own. This takes place early on in the Senshi’s lives, around the time they first met Jupiter. Rei’s background has been quietly mentioned before, but this story is all about it: her father is a prominent politician with no time for family, and has assistants to remember things like “when is Rei’s birthday” and “get her something nice.” Her mother was a quiet supporter of her father, but fell ill and died, which Rei has never forgiven him for. Then there’s Kaido, the assistant of Rei’s father, who’s like an older brother to her… or maybe something more. The story isn’t perfect – it’s never clear if Kaido is possessed or was posing as a Dark General all this time, and his death is also very ambiguous. But it really gives you a good sense of Rei, and is at least very much in character.

And so we come to Parallel Sailor Moon, the final story in the manga, and the nadir of the series. This was written a couple of years after the series ended for an artbook, and the author noted it was in an alternate universe AND THANK GOD, because everyone in this is shallow and awful. Takeuchi has, throughout the manga, had a bad habit of making her characters shallow and annoying for the sake of humor. Since this story is all humor, that’s all we get. The premise has our heroines all grown up and married, with kids of their own, and apparently not senshi as they all live in modern-day Tokyo. They’re all noted to be daughters of prominent families who had arranged marriages, and the kids are “wise above their years” cynics who would not be out of place on an 80s ABC sitcom. Usagi has had a 2nd child, Ko. Ko is hyper-annoying and loves to eat, and everyone hates her. There’s not even the “we love Usagi for all her faults” here, except for one panel where they realize she’s in trouble. It’s just “Ugh, her.” I just… I identify with the characters more than anything, so seeing them portrayed like this hurts my soul. I laughed once the entire story, when Hotaru remarked about how they were going to take over the world as civil servants. That was it.

There are a few extras here, with a timeline for the series (real-life timeline, i.e. publishing dates) and Takeuchi’s description of visiting Cape Kennedy to see space shuttle launches. But overall, despite Rei being cool and beautiful, this book is for those who want t have the complete collection, and I suspect that of all the re-releases it will be the one I dip into least. Still love Sailor Moon, though.