Gate 7, Vol. 1

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By CLAMP. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Jump Square. Released in North America by Dark Horse.

It’s been a busy fall for CLAMP here in North America. xxxHOLIC is finishing out its run at Del Rey, The re-release of X is out this week from Viz, and their new series, Gate 7, has come out from Dark Horse. This one runs in Shueisha’s Jump Square, which is still shonen but is well known for experimentation. And, like its parent magazine Weekly Shonen Jump, also has a large female readership. Which plays right into what CLAMP does best.

The trouble with giving the audience what they want, of course, is that they do not particularly want originality, or experimentation, or new things. What an audience typically wants is the same story told over and over, only with the names changed so we can pretend that they’re different characters. Heck, sometimes CLAMP even bypasses that, relying on using tried and tested characters in new situations (Tsubasa, X…). Of course, the problem with this is that reading the first volume of a new work of theirs can feel a bit like making ticks on a list.

Let’s see, straight man hero who seems to exist to be exasperated, befuddled, and ask questions: check. With a supernatural secret: check. Meets up with two complementary hot, long-legged and tall guys who may or may not be lovers but the fandom will have decided they are from panel one: check. And a mysterious person of ambiguous gender to hook up with the hero, again giving a frisson of BL while still having an out if the creators do decide they need them female for some reason: check. And the entire plot, about a war between two sides to see who can gain the powers of demons.

So I think we’ve established that this is The Pick Of The Best Of Some Recently Repeated CLAMP Hits Again, Vol. 2. That said, CLAMP would have to work much harder than they are to tell a boring story, and the whole thing ends up being interesting and a page-turner almost despite itself. Working in the Edo period history is not only a good way to ground everything, but quite timely given how many Edo period manga are coming out here these days. The lead is nice enough, even if his “history buff” trait screams of a plot device. I wish he’d have more personality, but I suspect if he got upset he’d be a complete Watanuki clone, instead of just half of one. Hana is Hina from Suki with added powers: still having that same sense of childlike naivete that everyone wants to protect. Tachibana and Sakura are any number of types, but in this volume I was most reminded of Kurogane and Fai.

See how I try to talk about how I still found the manga enjoyable, but ended up drifting off into how everything reminded me of something else again? Yeah, I think I’ll have to go with that. CLAMP are now marketing nostalgia for CLAMP. And this title is for everyone who liked X and Tokyo Babylon and RG Veda and Tsubasa and wants to set their empty glass down on CLAMP’s bar and say “Another, please!” And y’know, it’s still pretty tasty, even if you know exactly what you’re getting.

Oresama Teacher, Vol. 5

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

In the last volume of Oresama Techer, it was non-stop wall-to-wall delinquency. Here we get a change of pace, and we see a few chapters of Mafuyu managing to deal with life as herself. Although, being who she is, delinquency is never all that far away…

The cliffhanger kiss from last volume is rightly tossed away quickly. Despite a bit of tease, this is not particularly a romance manga. Instead, we start off with our two leads showing us once again that they completely fail at anything resembling normal in their life. Mafuyu’s idea of beach couple fun is straight out of shoujo manga (old-school shoujo, not the modern HtY-style), and Takaomi is far more interested in working off steam and starting fights. He’s always been menacing in a comedic way in the prior volumes, now we get another glimpse of the sort of beast lurking within – Mafuyu is awestruck, and she should be.

Takaomi actually gets a bit of backstory here, though its presentation is fairly elliptical. Given the author’s style, both here and in The Magic Touch, her previous series, I’d say it’s 50-50 whether the subtlety is deliberate or accidental. Tsubaki-san is fantastic at basic gag comedy – even more here than in her prior series – and her pacing has improved monumentally. But plotting is still a weakness, and it’s noticeable even in this volume, which is a collection of ‘breather’ anecdotes. No one is reading this series to discover Takaomi’s past, or to see which guy Mafuyu will hook up with. (Contrast this with The Wallflower, another gag manga, where people *are* reading it for the romance – and thus are far more annoyed.)

Still, you can get away with this as long as the book is funny. And it’s funny. I read this while I was depressed over having no power this week, and it managed to buoy me right up. There’s facial expression comedy – the entire sequence with the ninja boy, and the contrast between his stolid expression and his actions, capped by Mafuyu and Takaomi’s stares. There’s character-based comedy – the entire sequence with the rich girl and her butler, typing in with Takaomi’s past and featuring him being both brutal (he carries the heiress around like a sack, as he’s used to doing with Mafuyu) and touching (his yelling at the butler to step up and not be satisfied with what little he has). And there’s the purely random “what the hell” style Osaka comedy (the entire sequence with the flower arranging club, or Sakurada imagining Mafuyu revealing that she’s really an alpaca wearing a human skin).

This volume was not as strong as previous ones – the extended 4-koma series at the end reeked of filler – but it’s still great fun. And now that Hayasaka has managed to tick off another villain with his sheer denseness, I expect things to get even worse for the public morals committee. Perhaps we may even need to see the return in Volume 6 of… SUPER BUN!

Cross Game, Vol. 5

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By Mitsuru Adachi. Released in Japan in 2 separate volumes by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

At last, we can now talk about the big secret that comes halfway through Cross Game. Well, after we finish up the big game, of course. It’s an 8-volume series, and we’ve still got four to go. Will our team manage to defeat their rivals and go to the Koshien in their second year, and first with Ko and Azuma?

Hi, spoiler on the cover, thanks for ruining everything as always. In any case, no, of course they don’t. Sports manga have to follow a certain pattern, after all. Ko and Azuma and company have no had to experience the harsh realities of competition nearly enough. And Ryuou is a very good team. We really know that they’re going to win when we’re introduced to the likeable players they have behind the two supposed “superstars” – calm and patient Mishima to contrast with overhyped slugger Shimano, and cocky yet analytical phenom Oikawa replacing the cool – perhaps too cool ace pitcher Matsushima. It’s no coincidence that both replacements mirror Seishu’s own Ko and Azuma.

So yes, Ryuou wins and goes to the Koshien, and Ko and Azuma get a reminder that they’re not perfect yet – but also that they have another year to go. There’s lots of the usual Adachi touches here. Ko’s apology to the third years who will be graduating, and their hug. Ko’s fatigue and injuries, and his pitching through them. Aoba, once again, asking what Wakaba would be like were she there. (Her sister’s reply is both accurate and eerie foreshadowing.) Half the enjoyment of this manga is re-reading it and picking out little subtle bits you missed the first time around.

As for what Wakaba would be like were she around, well, one merely needs to look at the cover, which clearly shows Aoba standing next to a teenage Wakaba… oh, wait, no it isn’t. Instead, it’s Adachi using one of the hoarier cliches in fiction – the lookalike of the dead romantic interest. There’s a new soba shop in town, and their daughter, Akane (come on, he HAS to be trolling Takahashi here, even if it is a common Japanese name) is a dead ringer for a 17-year-old Wakaba… well, at least that’s what everyone isn’t saying. There’s a lot of stunned gazes, a few muttered asides, and some discussion of “ghosts growing older”, but mostly what we see here is Ko and Aoba trying to deal with her mere presence. They both, typically, share the same reaction – they’ve no idea if she looks like Wakaba as a teen or not, as Wakaba is still 12 in their heads.

As with the previous section, the second half of the volume is rife with fantastic character moments. Azuma’s quiet happiness at seeing his brother being cheerful, and his needling of Ko about fulfilling Wakaba’s dream – and Aoba’s, since she can’t participate. Mizuki doing his best to be nice and helpful to Aoba, but never quite getting the hang of it, mostly as he tries hard to do what Ko does naturally by being a brat towards her. Aoba’s detailed research on Akane, and Ko’s annoyance that everyone seems to assume that he’ll end up with her the moment she arrives. (Clearly they read the same big book of cliches Adachi did). And of course Akane herself, mostly still a nice, polite cipher, but her increasing puzzlement at everyone staring at her as if she’d grown a third head is apparent.

I remain ecstatically happy that Viz picked this series up. I do hope they do more Adachi in the future (digital?), but for now I will enjoy this, a release once again appropriate for the season – baseball is wrapping up, time to move on.