Urusei Yatsura Volume 3

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By Rumiko Takahashi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

With this volume, we get the last of the core cast of four introduced. Urusei Yatsura had a giant, sprawling cast of dozens, but when it came down to most of the stories, especially in the manga (which lacked Megane, as he and his cronies vanish starting with this volume) there were four leads: Ataru, Lum, Shinobu, and Shutarou Mendou, who makes his debut here.

Mendou’s arrival is sort of the ‘starting’ point of UY Mark 2: with it, the art spiffens up a little (only a little, mind), and the characterization is in place. Lum has become default cute, as opposed to default evil, though is still constantly jealous. Ataru is now firmly in pervert mode, losing any modicum of ‘normal guy’ he had in the first volume. And Shinobu, for the most part, abandons any attempts to win Ataru back from Lum, partly as he’s become the lecher we know and love, but mostly as she falls head over heels for Mendou, along with the rest of the class. She also gains the power of super strength when enraged here, picking up desks with ease to throw them at Ataru when enraged.

There is one story, the first in the volume, that falls in that small category that Viz decided to skip due to cultural issues. This is ‘Father, You Were Strong!’. where Kurama the crow woman takes Ataru back in time to meet her ancestor Ushiwaka, who as all Japanese readers know would go on to become Minamoto no Yoshitsune. She has Ataru there to learn how to be noble and warrior-like, but Ataru takes it upon himself to teach the innocent young Ushiwaka about girls. It’s a fun chapter, but I can see why, with all the historical references most North Americans wouldn’t get, Viz decided to skip it.

One chapter they didn’t skip, though I bet they wished they had while translating it, is ‘Disco Inferno’. (I think the original Japanese is ‘Battle Royale of Love’.) We meet Sakura’s lover Tsubame, who is a giant doofus who’s been studying magical arts in the West. He wants Sakura’s hand in marriage, but first has to get the approval of Cherry. Sakura, likely realizing she’s not ready for marriage yet, takes Ataru (and Lum) along in order to simply foul the whole thing up by his bad luck being around. They end up at a disco (the chapter came out in early 1980, when I believes the clubs were still big in Japan) and Cherry demands Tsubame prove he has enough spiritual power to be a good husband for Sakura. Tsubame, having studied Western spirits, decides to summon Satan. Sadly, he’s pathetic, so summons Santa instead. He then tries summoning a goat-headed demon, only to get Lum’s ex-boyfriend Rei, who wreaks more havoc by trying to kill Ataru, grab Lum, and also get hit on by every woman in the club. The puns are rampant in this chapter, which is why I noted the translators must have hated it.

Then, as I noted, Mendou shows up. He’s clearly there to make a big splash as a major new character. He arrives by helicopter, seduces the entire female class with his suave charm (including Shinobu), and then promptly falls for Lum. The females in the class clearly note Mendou’s huge advantage over all the other boys: he’s rich, and handsome. That’s it. This is made even more clear in a follow-up chapter, where Lum is annoyed that a computer says Mendou is her ideal match. She heads down to the classroom (at this stage in the series, she’s not a student) and tosses Mendou and Ataru, who are both Aries, into a giant alien horoscope thing to see who is her better match. After much wackiness, the astrology chart notes Mendou and Ataru… are equally bad. So Lum, who notes this means she can choose who she wants, picks Ataru. Having someone or something note that, if you take away Mendou’s money and looks, he’s just like Ataru will be a running theme of the series.

Finally, we have the first chapter where Takahashi throws a bone to the readers who like actual romance. She did this very little. The anime was much better at adding sweet moments where Lum and Ataru revealed that aw, they really do love each other. Takahashi actually thought they overdid it, and preferred the characters be jerks. But even she would give us the occasional chapter. This is the first, involving The guys sending a fake love letter to Ataru. They do this to shut Mendou up, as he’s received love letters from the entire female student population. Unfortunately, Ataru reacts to the letter far too much, convinced he has a new girl who’s mad for him. He dumps Lum on Mendou and runs off. Lum is annoyed, but then finds out that the guys faked the note, and the girl they were paying to pretend to be the writer has gotten sick. At first she tells herself Ataru deserves what he gets, but the thought of him being humiliated makes her tear up. (Note how far Lum has come from the first few chapters here.) So Lum dresses up as the writer of the note, and sweet talks Ataru. Ataru knows it’s her (the previous chapter ALSO had Lum dress as a human girl, but led to a far nastier, more electricity-filled conclusion) but goes along with it. As they walk home, Ataru notices, for perhaps the first time, how attractive Lum is, especially when she’s not flying around making his life miserable. He offers to hold her hand, and she accepts.

We still have a bunch of unlikeable protagonists here, mined for comedy in a way that exposes all their flaws and subjects them to constant humiliation. But at least now that Ataru and Shinobu are not being written sympathetically, there’s less of an imbalance to be found. And in the final chapter of this volume, we start to see that, given, oh, 31 more volumes, Ataru and Lum might develop real feelings for each other. Maybe.

K-On! Volume 1

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

When K-On!’s anime burst onto the scene in 2008 (and, like most manga series that run in Kirara, no one had heard of it in North America before it got an anime), its popularity was almost immediate. And, after a brief wait to ensure that yes, this was going to be more like the popularity of Haruhi and not like the popularity of, say, Doujin Work, the manga was licensed by Yen Press. It seems like forever since that happened, but now Volume 1 is finally here, and for fans of the series, it’s worth the wait.

The manga itself is a typical 4-koma, which is to say we get a lot of short gags. We’re introduced to hyperactive Ritsu and her put-upon friend Mio, who want to join the Light Music Club (well, Ritsu does, and is dragging Mio along). Finding the club has no members, Ritsu quickly drafts a passing girl, Tsumugi, who plays keyboards and enjoys watching people be ‘interesting’. Given Ritsu plays drums and Mio plays bass, all they need is a guitar player, who turns out to be Yui, a young and somewhat ditzy girl… who has no experience playing guitar. Not that that stops her from joining the club anyway.

It should be noted that the character designs here are clearly meant to play to the ‘moe’ crowd, and some may find them a little too cutesy. However, while the cast do have moe traits, they manage to be fleshed out enough so that they feel like real people to me. Ritsu, for example, loves to tease her friend Mio, and pretty much does it to the point where Mio strikes back with beatings. It’s a typical double-act that we’ve seen many times in anime and manga before. Unlike many of those acts (Azumanga Daioh, I’m looking at you), we don’t wonder why in the world anyone ever hangs around with Ritsu. Her teasing never gets to the point where *we’re* annoyed – only Mio. And we can even see why, despite Mio’s irritation, they are best friends. She also has odd moments, when she’s not flaking out, where she does get to be the responsible leader of the band. (I will admit, she’s my favorite.)

K-On! is scheduled to be four volumes long, and I will admit that if you’re wondering how the characters grow and develop over the course of the next three volumes, this is likely not the manga for you. Characters in this type of manga are there to be comedic and cute, and no doubt by the end of the series Ritsu and Yui will still be flaky, Mio will still be shy and twitchy, and Mugi will still enjoy fantasizing about the other girls being yuri in front of her (except they aren’t). But for this series, that’s OK. It’s what I want to see. The girls playing their instruments, eating snacks, and having one joke every four panels. It’s a warm, comforting feeling. I like this manga as it makes the characters real and likeable.

I note that this franchise is quite popular with young males on the internet, something which, as manga publishers know, rarely translates into sales the way it does with franchises that are popular with young females on the internet. So, for the guys who will have their excuses out: Yes, the honorifics are all present and correct, including Rit-chan and Sawa-chan. Yes, there are color pages throughout. Yes, the translation is smooth and readable while still staying true to the original and endnoting when necessary. Yen has done a great job here. You have NO EXCUSE not to buy this if you support K-On! in any way. Buy it. Support authors and publishers in ways that don’t just correspond to ‘Your torrent is 57% complete’.

Soul Eater Volume 4

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By Atsushi Ohkubo. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press.

The plot is ramping up in Soul Eater, and again I found that there was more here than just the insane art-deco art. The villain is trying to destroy Maka and Soul, and even though they manage to beat off the minor villain sent to help her along this time, there’s the sense that it’s an ongoing project. Then, after a comedic chapter about final exams, we get a 2-hander devoted to Kid and his two weapons, sent to a haunted pirate ship to investigate a whole bunch of dead souls there. They run into Crona there, who is also trying to collect the souls, and a melee battle ensues.

I note once again how Soul Eater is not afraid to have a very high body count. Lots of innocents die in this, including a cute if grumpy girl ghost who’s trying to get Liz to get over her fear of the supernatural. Her whine of ‘cowardly oneechan’ as she’s sucked into Crona’s soul bag thing is both amusing and creepy. We also once again see how our heroes are on the more chaotic end of the hero side. Maka and Soul are still fighting down corruption from within, and we see that before they joined up with Kid, Liz and Patty apparently were on the streets mugging and killing people for their money. (Patty is particularly deranged, even for her, in this volume.)

The fights are getting more interesting, with the 2nd half of the battle between Maka/Soul and Free being particularly good. The author also seems to have found the right balance between his oddball sense of humor and serious shonen business, though that may simply be that Black*Star wasn’t in this volume quite as much. It looks as if things might get even worse next volume, with Medusa finally being discovered at the school and everyone being sent out to stop her.

If there’s a drawback, it’s that, like Fairy Tail, I have trouble recalling what happens after I read a volume. This does not happen with One Piece. Soul Eater is quite good shonen candy, but it hasn’t yet reached the point where it’s a tasty meal yet.