Midnight Secretary, Vol. 1

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By Tomu Ohmi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Petit Comic. Released in North America by Viz.

I often joke when discussing licenses that the thing most companies tend to look for is “does this manga have vampires in it? And are they hot??”. But of course in general there has to be more substance to it than that. We need smart, compelling characters, we need some intriguing backstory, and of course we do need some nice seductive romance. With Midnight Secretary we get two out of the three, and I suspect the intriguing backstory will come in future volumes as this develops more of a plot.

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Kaya is a young woman living with her mother who is highly skilled but has one big problem (at least it’s a problem to her): she has a face that makes her look far too young. So, in order to get the secretarial work that she’s so good at, she does her hair up in a tight bun and wears glasses, looking very much like the cliche of what we think good secretaries should be. Like most Petit Comic heroines I’ve read about, her family has fallen on hard times, and her father has passed away from being incompetent… um, from stress. Luckily, she has a new job as secretary to the company director. Unluckily, he’s a womanizer, arrogant, and unimpressed with her looks. Oh yes, and he’s a vampire.

I am pleased that we get the reveal to this right off the bat, and that, after a bit of soul searching (and some blackmail on Kyohei’s part) she manages to file “vampire” under “things I have to manage in my boss’ day”. Indeed, Kaya takes her job very seriously indeed, and once she accepts what Kyohei is, she’s quick to research everything about vampires (most of which, amusingly, is wrong) and try to deal with the issues. And yes, sometimes that involves his sucking her blood, but only in emergencies. And it’s totally not one of the most erotic experiences she’s ever had, nope.

Kyohei’s brother is the executive director, and Kaya notes he isn’t a vampire, something I was prepared to have be wrong but no, it appears that is the case. It’s amusing to me that most of the drama in this fist volume comes less from Kyohei’s vampiric tendencies and more from the corporate intrigue. Kaya is far more valuable to him for her smarts and her spying ability than as a free meal ticket. Of course, he does eventually get her hair down and glasses off, and we start to see the smoldering passion that will no doubt justify this series’ 7-volume length. Indeed, by the end of Vol. 1 Kyohei is finding that other women’s blood just doesn’t do it for him, and he adds ‘blood for me’ to the endless list of Kaya’s tasks.

This is a fun series, with a more capable heroine than I’m used to seeing in this type of title. I wonder if we’ll get more of Kyohei’s vampire backstory as the series goes on, or if it will stick to corporate intrigue. And of course how these two will fall deeper in love. It’s another spicy romantic josei series from Shojo Beat. Fans of romance and the supernatural will snap it up.

Young Miss Holmes, Casebook 5-7

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By Kaoru Shintani. Released in Japan as “Christie High Tension” by Media Factory, serialized in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

The Young Miss Holmes series wraps up here with an omnibus of the final three volumes, and also takes a departure from canon, as only the first story, “The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist”, is a Watson story published by Conan Doyle. That said, some of the titles of the remaining stories here may be familiar with Holmes and Watson, particularly the “Canary Trainer” mentioned in “The Adventure of Black Peter”, and the infamous “Giant Rat of Sumatra”, mentioned in the “Adventure of the Sussex Vampire” story. Shintani makes a decent effort at leaving the Holmes canon, and it allows him to do a bit more with Christie than simple sleuthing, particularly in the finale, which is basically an action movie with very little detecting.

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The canonical Holmes story, Solitary Cyclist, does a decent job of having Christie and Sherlock join forces. Violet Smith is an old friend of Grace, Christie’s governess. Christie herself is chomping at the bit to become more independent, while still retaining a childlike air (particularly in the Circus chapters). That said, she’s not only more mature than most girls her age but far more modern, discussing how she has no desire to be a young lady the way the Victorians see them, and is already taking her savings and starting a pension plan to allow her servants to retire happily. It’s a good way to try to drag Holmes into the 21st century a bit, while still maintaining the charm of the original. (That said, I could have done without the appearance of Queen Victoria herself, in the weakest part of the book.)

The book is not faultless, of course. There is less nudity and gore than the first two omnibuses, but there’s still lots of corpses for an All-Ages rating, and Comic Flapper and Shintani still seem to sexualize Christie more than is necessary on a few title pages. The use of ‘moneylenders’ once or twice comes with some Victorian stereotypes, although it’s not really bad unless you’re looking for it. (Indeed, most of the villains here suffer from “I am ugly and therefore a villain” disease, which is quite common in comics and manga alike.) “The Dying Message” and “The Flying Dancer” aren’t too bad, but are weaker than the other stories we see here.

The Canary Trainer story is easily the creepiest of the book, featuring murder, suicide, child slavery, hypnotic suggestion, and child prostitution. It also merges Christie and Holmes the best of the five stories seen here, as they start out pursuing two totally different cases that only turn out to be the same thing right near the end. However, in a shocking display of canon ignorance, Shintani may have drawn Mycroft Holmes as slim. Luckily, there’s an out: everyone who says “that must have been Mycroft” didn’t actually see him. Perhaps it was Sherringford. Let’s go with that.

Things come to a head with the 7th volume/last third of the book, The Giant Rat of Sumatra. This helps to avoid the stereotype of “foreign villains” by sending a troup of good guys from India to help protect Christie from the thuggee bad guys. They are, of course, led by a young woman who is basically the Indian version of Christie, complete with tomboy mannerisms and snarky retainers. She’s good in a fight, however, which is a bonus, as Christie decides to simply go to ground in her mansion and let the villains come to her. Which they do, in one big final conflagration.

The series ends with the return of Christie’s parents, which marks a good stopping point – I’m sure they won’t totally stop her getting into adventures, but no doubt she will have to slow down a little. Shintani is currently writing a sequel, Christie London Massive, featuring a 17-year-old Christie, a whole new cadre of battle maids (led by Nora, no fear, she’s still there), and perhaps a familiar adversary of Sherlock Holmes thrown into the mix. Of course, that’s Japan. Whether it comes out here or not depends on how well the print and E-Book versions do. I had a ball reading them, particularly as a Holmes fan, and definitely recommend picking up the whole series.

Also, there is a dodo. For some reason.

Helter Skelter: Fashion Unfriendly

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By Kyoko Okazaki. Released in Japan by Shodensha, serialized in the magazine Feel Young. Released in North America by Vertical.

When I first heard about the new title that Vertical had licensed, and its basic premise, I started to formulate in my head an idea of how it would probably go. We already knew it would be about modeling and plastic surgery in some way. It was not a great leap forward to imagine there would be a younger, more successful rival, a controlling mother figure, and the hubristic slide into inevitable tragedy. And technically, that’s all present and correct in this volume. But that doesn’t begin to describe what a stunning ride this is, and how much you get drawn into its characters and storyline.

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Liliko is the star here, and she’s far more self-aware than I was really expecting. She starts at the top of the modeling game, but it’s taken a lot of work to get her there. Moreover, a secondary plotline throughout the book discusses the shady characters who did her plastic surgery, and how the law is getting closer and closer to them. Really, while Liliko is flagrantly horrible at many points in this book – she notes at one point that she’s so broken that the only thing that gives her satisfaction is breaking others – she’s no worse than na lot of the top strata in the business she’s engaged in, which uncaringly throws away stars once they lose their looks or get embroiled in scandal.

Actually, the character I was most fascinated with throughout the book was Hada, the young woman who starts as Liliko’s gofer/assistant and ends up falling for her hard, in all the wrong ways. I was initially expecting Hada to end up killing herself – there are a few suicides in this book, and I wondered if one of the corpses I saw would be hers. Then, as things got worse, I realized that it was more likely she’d wind up arrested. Then I wondered if she’d be the chief witness for the prosecution. Then, as things really spiraled, it became clear that there was no separating Hada and her easily led boyfriend from Liliko for any period… not while they’re still completely codependent on each other.

There was one thing I didn’t think worked here, or at least that didn’t resonate with me as much as the rest of the book. Takao Nanbu, Liliko’s boyfriend at the start of the book, likes to speak in a philosophical, slightly smarmy way, and he simply grated on my nerves with all the Tiger Lily stuff and talk about past lives. Certainly he added a different element to the story (and oh do I feel bad for his fiancee getting caught up in Liliko’s psychotic drama), but especially towards the end I felt his monologues were simply overdone.

It’s hard to discuss the main selling point of this manga, as it’s basically an underlying tone. So much happens here that could be termed a car crash, but Okazaki is so compelling a storyteller that you read on anyway, even as modeling turns to adultery, assault and multiple suicides. The title is completely appropriate – and no, despite the song getting a mention right at the end, I don’t think it’s entirely talking about The Beatles. The Helter Skelter is a British amusement park ride (tornado slide for U.S. readers) that is a wild, out of control ride that makes the reader want to go back to the top when they hit the bottom. Likewise Liliko hits rock bottom at the end of this book, but that doesn’t mean that we should count her out, or that this is the end. Her story (and possible new downfall) is only beginning.