Fairy Tail 12

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By Hiro Mashima. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Del Rey.

I hadn’t reviewed Volume 11 of this series, mostly as it consisted of one giant fight, and I always find those harder to review. This wraps up the Tower of Heaven arc, though, and gives Erza a lot more emotional kicks to the teeth, something that was the purpose of this arc.

I am rather glad I read it in Volume format. One thing I’ve noticed about shonen series with long strings of fights, be it this series, One Piece, or Bleach is that they read a lot better 11 chapters in a row than they do waiting from week to week for the next punch to be thrown. Certain fandoms have arcs they dislike more than others – Skypeia in One Piece, Hueco Mundo in Bleach – and a large part of why they may be disliked is this is when the online fandom ‘caught up’ and started to read it week to week… and realized that, yes, 40-50 chapter fights over the course of an entire year CAN feel like they drag out.

The majority of this book features Erza finally battling her old friend and now mind-controlled enemy Jellal. How mind-controlled Jellal actually is is left up in the air, and things aren’t helped by the arrival of Council Member Siegrain, which is an incredibly obvious and poorly handled revelation even though the author didn’t intend for it to be a secret. It’s possible I’m missing the subtle parodying going on here – this is a shout out to Mashima’s previous work, Rave Master, which I haven’t read – but in general if villains are going to stand around being smug jerks, they need to be better than this.

The ending, featuring Erza sacrificing herself to destroy the Tower and save her friends, works much better. I will have to go back and look at previous volumes to see if we only saw her crying from one eye before, but it’s a cool backstory bit that gives a nice emotional punch to the final page of the volume. Likewise, Erza ‘seeing’ her own funeral is heartbreaking, and is a great answer to all those shonen sacrifices who are ‘dying so that others might live’. It’s in the characters and their love and affection for each other, rather than the fighting and posturing, which is where Fairy Tail really shines.

Of course, that’s still just one chapter, and it has to be said that while this book read very fast, in the end I was slightly disappointed. There’s really no way that Mashima’s going to avoid his series being compared to One Piece, not as long as Natsu and Lucy are the hero and heroine. The problem with that is that if he wants to get attention here, he really needs to step up his game. It’s hard not to compare this to the Arlong arc from One Piece, and in most respects it simply pales by comparison.

Fairy Tail continues in Japan, of course, and is about 14 volumes ahead of North America right now. That will only increase, as we may not see a new volume for a year or more with Kodansha’s titles in Limboland. That’s a dangerous state, one that can easily kill off a series that depends on people knowing there’s a new volume every 3 months, and with the ending this volume has, I wonder how many casual readers might think the series finished? Still, if you want to read Kodansha’s answer to One Piece, I’d get it at the library, and just read Chapters 99-100. They’re really good chapters.

Hayate x Blade Omnibus Volume 1

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By Shizuru Hayashiya. Originally released in Japan as Vols. 1-3 separately by ASCII Media Works, serialized in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Currently released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Ultra Jump. Released in North America by Seven Seas.

First off, unlike Seven Seas’ Strawberry Panic omnibus, which printed 2 ‘magazine only’ chapters at the end as extra content, you aren’t gaining anything new here. In fact, you lose something, as the translation notes explaining some of the more obscure Japanese references are not included in this omnibus. So if you already have Seven Seas’ first three volumes, you aren’t missing anything.

If you haven’t picked this series up yet, however, I do recommend it. It’s just fun. Insane antics at an all-female private academy, featuring an insane School President who has girls fight in pairs with swords at random times, with financial rewards (and suggestion of more) for the winners. Into this comes our heroine, Hayate Kurogane, a simply and naive yet nimble girl, who enters the academy under a pretense – her twin sister Nagi is ill, and Hayate is there to take her place till she can recover and enter the school. Sadly, pretense and Hayate don’t go together well, and this is discovered almost immediately. Luckily, the president will let anything happen as long as it interests or amuses her, so Hayate is allowed to stay at the Academy as well.

As the series goes on, we get introduced to more and more young girls with swords – in fact, it can get very difficult to keep track of them all without reference guides – and you gradually come to realize that they’re all nuts in some way, shape or form. Every time you meet someone who’s a supposed ‘tsukkomi’ or straight woman, they do something incredibly stupid to show off their boke side. You can argue Ayana comes closest, but this is a girl who keeps ‘Mr. Nailbat’ by her bedside and threatens loan sharks while wearing a plastic bag over her head. And this doesn’t even get into the girls who are *supposed* to be funny all the time.

Seven Seas has talked up the yuri in this manga series, and it’s certainly there if you want to look for it, but especially in the early volumes I think people who go into this expecting lots of Girls’ Love are going to be disappointed. Even Jun, the resident pervert in the manga (who is also a kickass ninja – it’s that kind of manga) is fairly sedate in these early volumes. That said, any series in an all-girls school with women teamed up as partners with swords is going to have yuri subtext, and there’s some nice bits here.

I also note that Seven Seas used the cover art with Hitsugi and Shizuku for this omnibus, which makes sense. Even the most casual reader of the series tends to read through it looking for ‘Hitsugi moments’. She is the aforementioned School President, and manages to be one of the funniest characters n the series, as well as easily the most badass. She is the personification of this series taken to eleven, as is her partner Shizuku, who once again appears to be the serious-minded straight woman until you see her trying to get over a cold WITH GREAT JUSTICE! They’re my favorite couple in the manga.

As I noted, if you have this already you don’t have to buy it again. But if you haven’t checked it out, do so. Tons of strong women with swords doing funny things while having well-drawn battles. It needs more love.

License Request (sort of) Day: Medaka Box

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By NisiOisiN and Akira Akatsuki. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump.

Most manga in Japan run in magazines, be they weekly, monthly, or what have you. Likewise, it’s a fact of publishing: the popular series keep going, the unpopular series last only a few volumes. This is especially true of shonen manga, and it is ESPECIALLY true of Weekly Shonen Jump, who have let its readership know that a large part of the magazine is based around its reader poll. Popular series at the front, less popular series in the back. The only exceptions are KochiKame, which is uncancellable, and the recently ended Jaguar, which requested the final spot every week.

So the competition is fierce, and many have noted the sheer number of 2-3 volume series in Jump lately that have fallen at the graveyard of popularity. And it has to be said, Jump has a certain mystique. You’re seeing more and more fighting manga in its pages, and fewer and fewer romantic or school-based comedies. And the fighting manga are very muich of the Dragon Ball Z type. Defeat enemy, befriend them, then take on even STRONGER enemy. This was mocked as far back as Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga, which also noted the danger of quickly getting things to unrealistic if you keep doing that.

So, on to my main theme. In May 2009, a new manga debuted in Jump called Medaka Box. The basic premise was that a buxom young girl became Student Council President, and with the help of her reluctant and vaguely grumpy childhood friend, resolves to solve any problem that is given to them. It had a lot of things going against it. The Strawberry 100%-type ecchi fanservice mangas had fallen out of favor with readers lately (especially as Jump got more female readers), the basic premise of ‘we’ll help others around the school’ seemed similar to Sket Dance, another Jump manga, and most importantly, Medaka was far too perfect. Reading the first few chapters, this was clear as a bell. She was a Mary Sue, perfect in every way – the characters in the manga even noted it themselves.

And so, after Jump’s brief new series grace period, it sank like a stone to the dreaded ‘Bottom Five’, the final 5 series of every week – cancellation fodder. Many predicted it would wrap up in 2 volumes, maybe 3. However, those who pay attention to the actual credits of the manga were thinking one thing, and one thing only – when is NisiOisiN going to take things to the next level? Because with him writing this, this CAN’T be all there is.

NisiOisiN is a pen name for one of the more famous young Japanese novel writers at the moment, creator of several series such as Bakemonogatori (which spawned an anime) and Zaregoto (which Del Rey released two volumes of). He is very famous for, pardon the expression, screwing with his reader’s heads, as well as his character and plot twists, where you feel the immediate urge to go back and re-read everything with your newly gained perspective. So, the reader asked, why is he writing pointless fanservice comedy?

We’re then introduced to a 10-year-old boy who is the school disciplinary officer, who decided to take on the Student Council. This proceeds to become a big fight, which gets vaguely ludicrous towards the end. Then the kid reveals that he’s merely one of thirteen other ‘abnormals’ who are being used as lab rats in the school to try to create the perfect human. And they want Medaka to join them, as she is, well, a Mary Sue. She refuses, and proceeds to invade the secret underground base under the school to stop them.

This is only the beginning of the powerups, and the even more powerful characters, and the fights, and the murderers, and the psychos – LOTS of psychos. Finally, after thirty or so chapters and lots of broken ribs later, our heroes have defeated and befriended everyone. And so… we get introduced to Medaka’s old enemy, and his *new* collection of 13 *more* students, who are even more insane, and even more powerful, and by now we’ve gone outside the realms of reality.

If you think this sounds like a bunch of desperate attempts to bump up the popularity so that the series avoids cancellation, you’re likely right. However, the fact that it’s NisiOisiN writing this makes me suspect that this was partially planned from the start, perhaps even down to the first few chapters being so aggressively mediocre. Moreover, for a trainwreck, it’s immensely entertaining. The heroine gets even more epic, even as she runs up against her natural born enemies. The hero keeps getting called ‘normal’ by everyone, which is laughable (he’s insanely strong), but also accurate (he doesn’t have bizarre powers or abilities).

There’s also Shiranui, who may be my favorite character. We’ve all seen girls like her in manga these days. She’s supposed to be 16, but looks about 6. She has pink hair and a big ahoge. She’s perky, ALWAYS eating, and incredibly irritating. She cheerfully announces that she enjoys messing with the hero, her best friend, just to see how interesting it will be. In short, she’s not only the ‘comic relief’ loli, but also really annoying. And then the manga becomes a fighting manga, and we expect her to quietly go away, the way most comic relief characters do when things get serious. Instead, she proceeds to quietly set our heroes up. Then set the villains up. Then send in a whole bunch of new people to help out. And then finally is currently siding with the REALLY evil villains. In short, it wouldn’t surprise me if the annoying token loli is the final Big Bad. That’s pretty awesome.

There’s many ways this is a Jump manga besides the fighting and insane power levels. Power of Friendship is all over this, though it’s parodies and mocked as much as it is used. It’s shown over and over how training and hard work are ultimately a goal in themselves. And in the end, it’s all about choices. My favorite scene in the manga has Zenkichi, the hero, confronting Shiranui, the aforementioned evil annoying fake loli. He asks her whether the series’ current Big Bad is forcing her to join their group. She grins, and notes that she joined them entirely of her own volition. And then… he smiles, and says that’s OK. He’s still annoyed about it, but knows she’s just like this, and as long as it’s her decision, not only is he OK with it, but they’re still friends, even if they’re enemies. This gets her (once he’s gone) to give perhaps the first genuine smile we’ve seen from her the entire manga.

Even if you’re siding with horrible monsters, it’s OK as long as it’s your own goal, and you see it through. Wow, that’s shonen. And Jump.

I can’t really call this a license request, as I can easily see why it has several pitfalls. There’s much gratuitous fanservice, especially at the start, which extends to the covers at times (Medaka is well-endowed, and shows it off constantly). It’s still running in Jump (in fact, lately it’s even headed for the front of the magazine) and lately, Viz has been wary of licensing long-running series unless they’re REALLY popular (Toriko, Bakuman) in case they become things like 60+ volume One Piece. But mostly, the start isn’t good, and the middle and current arc are half entertaining manga and half glorious trainwreck. As Kenshin fans know, it’s very hard to get fans to commit when you say “It gets better after this starting bit.” Medaka Box has the added problem of its start not being very much like its current state.

Despite that, I still want Viz to get this. If only as we recently saw two boys fighting over a pit of vipers. Not what I expected from a fanservicey school comedy.