The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Vol. 12

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By Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki. Released in Japan as “Kurosagi Shitai Takuhaibin” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Dark Horse.

It’s been a long, long wait, but it’s great to see a new volume of this horror/comedy/workplace series. The reasons for the long wait are many: first off, I imagine Carl Horn was quite busy, as he also edits all the Oh My Goddess and Evangelion titles for Dark Horse, and OMG was on a ‘speed-up’ release schedule. He also had Excel Saga 22 and 23 in there somewhere. But mostly I suspect it’s due to poor sales, as Carl admits in the liner notes. This is why the cover for Vol. 12 is now a normal manga cover as opposed to that cardboardey-feeling cover we had for 1-11. Luckily, the content inside is still excellent.

That cover image above comes without the little ‘Parental Advisory: Explicit Content’ sticker partially obscuring Sasaki’s face, but the sticker is most definitely needed, as this particular volume has explicit sex to go with its explicit gore. No, Karatsu hasn’t gotten it on with either Sasaki or Kikuchi – though he and Sasaki are absent from the last story for a “trip to Hawaii” that’s apparently in Vol. 13. Instead the first story deals with the dangers of virtual reality RPGs, and also trying to sell your identity – or buy another one. As you can imagine, when unscrupulous people get a hold of something shady that needs marketing, bad things happen. Note this is not only the most sexually explicit in the volume, with both sex and nudity, but it’s also the goriest – “Talk about loss of face!” is a grotesque pun here. It also has the most unpleasant of this volume’s villains. Luckily, she gets hers as our heroes make another of their grand entrances. And as a bonus, Sasaki gets to wear another ridiculously impractical outfit, even if only in VR.

The middle story was my favorite, even though I knew it would end poorly. It features a washed-out comic and a club hostess who meet cute, immediately fall for each other, and are basically adorable. In *this* series? You know how long they’ll last. That said, the adorable is there, and it’s refreshing seeing Eiji Otsuka writing the closest this series will ever get to romantic comedy. This story deals with both discorporation – the talent of the hostess girl – and the Japanese housing market, which proves to be as bloody and cutthroat as anything else in this series. It’s also a rather cynical take on the world of showbiz comedians, with the villains here giving off a very seedy, sub-Jerry Lewis vibe. It also has the happiest of the three endings – well, as happy as you’re gonna get.

Lastly, we have a story about a dollmaker longing for his dead sister, who passed away during World War II. Unfortunately, this also ties in with both Korean politics (which the authors have gone into before, possibly as it makes Japan very uncomfortable, and they love pushing buttons) and realdolls (complete with many creepy otaku and some cameos of dolls based on Ayanami from Evangelion and Yoko from Gurren Lagann). It’s the weakest story in the volume, possibly due to Karatsu and Sasaki’s absence (Makino is there but doesn’t do much, as per usual, but that does leave the bulk of things to the “goofy” characters), but not without merit, and has a morbidly cynical punchline. Plus there’s some more Makino/Yata ship tease, which pleases me.

For those wondering about the small fragments of plot that have been going through previous volumes, well, there’s none of that here. What we get is a strong horror manga, with dark veins of comedy and a few heartwarming spots (OK, very few). It’s a solid series that needs more love.

Skip Beat!, Vol. 27

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By Yoshiki Nakamura. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz.

We left off last time with Ren and Kyoko posing as siblings – and all of the awkwardness that comes from this, including having to share a room. Volume 27 does now pull back on this at all, but makes things a whole lot worse, as we get to see, for once, Ren lose control rather than Kyoko.

Before that, though, we have some highly amusing scenes in which Kyoko finds, once again, it’s hard to act method when you have no idea what something is like – in this case, being spoiled. You can tell Ren is having an absolute ball with this, and Kyoko’s faces throughout as a picture – especially as she realizes that seeing Cain acting like a petulant child is actually sort of a turn-on for her/Setsu.

This cuteness is just a setup, though. The real meat of the volume is what happens next, where Kyoko is accosted by a gang of young guys looking for “a good time”. She, naturally, sics her “brother” on them, which is fine, as Ren is quite good at dodging, and these thugs are nothing special. At least until they start pulling out weapons. When one of them knocks Kyoko to the ground, the sight of Ren losing control is rather scary. If not for us (we’ve had flashbacks spoiling us for Ren’s traumatic past for some time), then certainly for Kyoko, who is stunned. It’s made worse by the fact that she can’t break character, but has to break up the fight. Strong stuff here.

Afterwards, in the hotel room… well, we’ve done comedy. We’ve done drama. Now it’s time for some romance. Well, quasi-romance, that is – it’s only Vol. 27, after all, you shouldn’t expect any real development just yet. But Kyoko gets into character too easily, which means that if she’s worried about her brother drowning in a tub, she’s gonna walk in on him. What follows is both hilarious and sexy, showing the depth of feeling Ren has for Kyoko (and his complete misinterpretation of her reaction), as well as Kyoko’s growing love for Ren – which she’s oblivious to, of course. The highlight here has to be Kyoko upset that she didn’t see “all” of Ren… so that she could make her doll more realistic.

Meanwhile, just because Kyoko’s doing Setsu doesn’t mean she’s not also still involved in Box R. Indeed, her two roles are bleeding into each other, and it can be hard to switch. I like the way that Skip Beat! shows us that, even though Ren and Kyoko are prodigies, acting is still a difficult profession – and that even if you’re method acting, you still have to keep your head in the game. Which is definitely something Ren is having trouble doing. He begs Lory to have Kyoko “fired” as Setsu, as he worries he won’t be able to control himself around her. Lory agrees – provided Ren fires her himself, saying he “doesn’t need her”. Oh Lory, you’re such a wonderfully manipulative ass. XD

I mentioned this volume is Number 27, so it seems appropriate that it ends with everyone realizing just how much Kyoko has grown up recently – and how gorgeous she’s becoming. Poor Ren. He’ll have rivals before you know it. In the meantime, one of North America’s longest shoujo series continues to show why it’s so popular. Lots of fun.

New Manga Licenses from Sakura Con and Anime Boston

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Been a while since I did a licenses post, but this weekend had two conventions bringing us three publishers announcing a whole bunch of titles. So what exactly is coming soon?

First off, from Vertical, a redone, re-translated, deluxe omnibus version of Ai Yazawa’s fashion romance Paradise Kiss, which first came out, not in Shodensha’s josei magazine Feel Young, but in a fashion magazine for young women, Zipper. I’ve reviewed it before for the Manga Moveable Feast, and it’s a great pick up. Yazawa went on to the even more popular Nana, of course, and fans of that series should like this as well.

Dark Horse announced several licenses that seemed obvious for them, but the one that stood out was the one that didn’t. Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai (better known as OreImo, and translated as My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute) started life as a light novel, then (as with most moe light novels) quickly became a franchise, spawning two manga series, two anime series, a web animation series, two games… In any case, Dark Horse has licensed the first manga series, which is four volumes and ran in ASCII Mediaworks’s Dengeki G’s magazine. The series is best described as ‘not quite incest’, and is staggeringly popular among fans of ‘moe’ and ‘little sister’ type anime/games.

The rest of Dark Horse’s announcements look more like something we’d expect from them. Blood-C is a manga adaptation of the anime of the same name, from the Blood the Last Vampire/Blood+ series also licensed by Dark Horse. This current incarnation runs in Kadokawa Shoten’s Shonen Ace. Evangelion: Comic Tribute is a one-volume doujinshi collection featuring popular mangaka doing takes on Evangelion (I imagine it’s similar to Bandai’s Code Geass Knight and Queen anthologies). Emerald and Other Stories is a collection of several short stories written by Blade of the Immortal author Hiroaki Samura, most of which I believe ran in Kodansha’s Afternoon magazine, home of BotI. Lastly, Yoshitaka Amano is doing a new illustrated novel, Deva Zan, which like much of Amano’s recent work seems to be written for the Western market, i.e. Dark Horse will publish it first.

Then there’s Yen Press, who made several announcements as well, and like Dark Horse it was a mix of surprising and obvious. The surprise was the announcement of Thermae Romae, an award-winning manga from Enterbrain’s Comic Beam about a Roman bath designer who time-travels to various places to see what modern bathing is like. The very definition of ‘better than it sounds’, it will be coming out in omnibus hardcover editions.

Kaoru Mori’s A Bride’s Story has done pretty well for Yen, so they’ve decided to license Anything and Something, a collection of short stories that only just came out in Japan a couple of months ago from Enterbrain. Again, hardcover.

Also in an oversized omnibus is a license that many fans had been begging for. Umineko no Naku Koro ni is not so much a direct sequel to Higurashi as it is a thematic one. A group of people gather on a secluded island, and bad things start to happen. Generally thought to be deeper than Higurashi, it’s also more cynical and bittersweet. (For those who missed it, the final two ‘arcs’ of the main Higurashi series, which were 6 and 8 volumes in Japan, will be coming out in omnibus format here as well, starting in September with the Massacre Arc.)

Blood Lad comes from Kadokawa’s Young Ace, and is 5+ volumes. It’s a comedic take on vampires, demons and werewolves, which makes it an obvious choice for licensing over here in the West, where the mere word vampire grants a certain number of sales.

Yen is re-releasing Alice In The Country Of Hearts this June, and they’re picking up the sequels that Tokyopop originally had before they went under. My Fanatic Rabbit ran in Mag Garden’s shoujo magazine Comic Blade Avarus, and seems to focus on Elliot, the “March Hare” of the series.

Another Haruhi spinoff, The Misfortune of Kyon and Koizumi, seems to be another ‘doujinshi anthology’ similar to Dark Horse’s Evangelion one. Needless to say, Kyon and Koizumi will feature. It also seems to be another ‘alternate universe’, similar to that of the also licensed Disappearance of Nagato Yuki.

Lastly, the author of High School of the Dead also has another title, Triage X. It runs in Fujimi Shobo’s Dragon Age (meaning it’s another Kadokawa title), and is filled with high school assassins, violence, and fanservice. But fewer zombies.

So, what has you the most excited? (Also, anyone else noticing that 2-volume omnibuses are the new 1-volume paperback?)