A Devil and Her Love Song, Vol. 2

2 Replies

By Miyoshi Tomori. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Margaret. Released in North America by Viz.

In Volume two of this series, we delve further into the psyches of both Maria and Kanda, and get a good look at how the series overall is going to shape up. Basically, if you dislike hardcore bullying, or people abuse authority? You may wish to consider another series. I wish you wouldn’t, though, as this is really quite good.

It can sometimes be frustrating that so many manga series are devoted to life in high school. Do we really need to relive those years all over again? And this volume is especially good at showing us the darker side of high school – Maria has virtually the entire class (save our two heroes, of course, as well as Tomoyo, the girl we dealt with in Volume 1) united against her, with Ayu Nakamura only being the most obvious. Given the nature of shoujo manga, I expect Maria will eventually win over one or two more of these girls, but in the meantime, it’s hard to take – especially given how vicious they are here, calling Maria a slut and ripping off her rosary (which them gets thrown away by the teacher.)

Oh yes, that teacher. Another trend of Japanese manga and anime dealing with bullying is that ‘blame the victim’ seems to be the norm (not that this is limited to Japan). Fruits Basket had Kisa being urged to “get stronger” so that she wouldn’t be bullied, and Medaka Box has a bullied track star afraid to tell anyone as *she* would be the one cut from the track team. Towards that end, we have the class’ sadistic teacher, who seems happy enough to use Maria to further his own ends. He’s over the top, yes, but I also liked the fact that he is a clever bully – he manages to turn things around against Kanda quite well, and is compared uncomfortably with him. Teachers in Japan hate the nail sticking up, which is exactly what Maria is – and what Kanda tried not to be every day.

Vol. 2 delves deeper into Kanda’s psyche, as we see not only how much of his everyday behavior is a false front, but how much he relies on that front to get him through life. Maria has no filters, so is unable to see just how people use them to make things less harsh. (I’ve noticed her tendency to use full last and first names with everyone.) The trouble with these filters, of course, is it makes it harder for genuine feelings to get through – on either side. Maria is so unfiltered that she makes an impression right away, but I also loved the end, where Maria notes that the class is so angry with Kanda because he was so important to them in the first place.

This is a 13-volume series, and we’re barely into it. Which makes sense, not because Maria will have to defeat and/or befriend teachers and bullying classmates in order to get that brass ring, but that it’s becoming clearer that the biggest obstacle is her own self-hatred. If Maria keeps thinking of herself as making everyone and everything around her worse, then she’s never going to be able to open up. She seems to realize this, and is happy that she came to this new school. As we get more of her backstory (and the cliffhanger here seems to imply the next volume may have more of it), hopefully we’ll get to see her begin to cope with not being a devil, but simply a teenager who’s been through a harsh life.

Manga the Week of 4/18

5 Replies

Man, April has been a very busy month for manga. Let’s see what’s hitting stores this week. It’s a lot.

Dark Horse, a company that’s cut back on manga in recent years, has three whole new books out! There’s Vol. 22 of popular violence ‘n service title Gantz. Vol. 41 of Oh My Goddess!, which is not known for its violence or fanservice. Well, not the kind of service Gantz offers, anyway. And after 7 years, we see Vol. 2 of The Monkey King, another adaptation of the famous story by Vampire Hunter D artist Katsuya Terada that ran in Shueisha’s Ultra Jump.

From Kodansha, we get Vol. 5 of their two newest Shonen Magazine titles. Thriller Bloody Monday (which reminds me of 24), and mystery Cage of Eden (which reminds me of Lost, only with far more shots of breasts drawn in loving close-up).

Seven Seas gives us two volumes that many folks got today from Diamond – for once, it’s Midtown being a week late. Blood Alone Vol. 6 has vampires in it. And Toradora Vol. 4 has tsunderes in it. It’s arguable which creature might be more scary to the average person…

Udon offers us Vol. 1 of a manga I know absolutely nothing about, Captain Commando. It seems to be some sort of superhero thing. And is apparently not from Japan, but original to this publisher? I guess? Looks interesting, at any rate.

Viz’s third week is usually its most interesting. We see Vol. 6 of my favorite Ikki title Dorohedoro; Vol. 6 of the Tenjo Tenge omnibus; and Vol. 2 of the X reprint, which should look gorgeous if nothing else. And apocalyptic.

Lastly, Yen has a giant pile of releases. New Betrayal Knows My Name. New Black Butler. New Black God. And that’s just the B’s! There’s also the 2nd Durarara!! manga, which should finally give us some Shizuo; a 6th volume of Zombie massacre title High School of the Dead; and the final volume of Higurashi’s latest arc, the Atonement Arc. After this we take a 5-month break before the next arc begins, so enjoy Higurashi now for the summer months!

So what are you getting out of that large pile of manga?

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Vol. 12

1 Reply

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.