The Girl I Saved on the Train Turned Out to Be My Childhood Friend, Vol. 5

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By Kennoji and Fly. Released in Japan as “Chikan Saresou ni Natteiru S-kyuu Bishoujo wo Tasuketara Tonari no Seki no Osananajimi datta” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Sergio Avila.

I am reading too many of these high school romcoms, to be honest. There’s been a big glut over here the last few years, spearheaded by Oregairu and Tomozaki, but the best of them all have some motivation to them beyond “which girl is he going to end up with after finally having a clue beaten into him?”. You can’t simply ride on that alone, or you run the risk of… well, of being this series, which is running on fumes in terms of “I am not getting that these women are all throwing themselves at me”. Theoretically there should also be the film/acting subplot, and that does vaguely rouse my interest a bit. Hina is getting it ground in her face that acting is a series of failed auditions forever till your break, and Ai has gotten that break on the back of her idol work, but is dealing with the cattiness and fending off date requests that that entails. It SHOULD be interesting.

Ryou’s film is nearly finished, just requiring Ai to film some remaining scenes when she’s not doing her acting gig. He’s still trying to get Shizuka to star in his new film idea he’s had, but a) there’s no script yet, and b) she really doesn’t want to. It doesn’t help that her mother is overly worried about her, which is coming out as anger. It also doesn’t help that, as a result of that, Shizuku is lying to her. This leads to a run away from home plot!… that lasts about five pages. This series just can’t get that dramatic. As for Hina, since she’s still depressed about her failed audition, and lacking much else to do, she’s helping Ryou study for school… mostly by forcing him to do it. Ca they all get together in time for a summer festival? And will the girls manage to convince Ryou they like him?

This series is not much like Oregairu at all (Ryou wishes he had Hachiman’s narrative panache), but they do share one thing in common, which is that the relationship between the lead and his little sister is the best thing about the series. Mana remains the best character in this by a country mile, being cool, self=confident, chiding but also supporting her brother, and being friends with all his various girl friends. If she had a spinoff, I’d read it, mostly as it would not be this series. There’s nothing wrong with this except that it’s boring, and I keep waiting for a payoff that I know is a good 7-8 books away, if that. The reason that a lot of romcoms these days have the leads hook up early is that everyone got tired of series like these, where we know who will win (it’s Hina) but we have to watch Ryou being thick as a brick for ten more volumes before he gets it.

If you have to read every romcom out there, this is one. I think I’m going to drop it here.

Bofuri: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, So I’ll Max Out My Defense, Vol. 11

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By Yuumikan and KOIN. Released in Japan as “Itai no wa Iya nano de Bōgyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

One of the more enjoyable things about the Bofuri series is that it’s NOT ‘we’re trapped in a game’, there are no real consequences, and everyone is free to do whatever. This is important, because it undercuts dramatic character development and potential angsty trauma. In addition to Maple, we’ve also been following the twins Mai and Yui, who are trying to do with Strength what Maple does with Defense. They’ve been pretty good at it, but are starting to hit a bit of a wall. This calls for deep thought. Should they try to experiment with non-strength things? Should they finally break free of the twin thing and actually take different skills, each one becoming their own person? Should they… grow up? Or should they, perhaps, find a way to use eight giant hammers at the same time? The answer is yes, they should octo-wield. This is a dumb game, they don’t seem to have any real life issues associated with it, and octo-wielding is hella cool.

Frederica is on the cover, but barely gets any page time, alas. The bulk of this book is taken up by a new event, which can best be described as “kill as many monsters as you possibly can”. There’s no PvP element to it, so folks are free to team up, and we see a few fun pairings. My favorite is Maple, Mii, and Velvet, aka Two Chuunis and a Dojikko. There’s also plenty of Maple and Sally, as we get to see them tackle a rarely used dungeon that basically thrown the monsters from all the previous floors at once. And eventually everyone has to team up to take down the giant final boss and his orb of power. the orb is far trickier than the boss, as the boss can be flattened by the Hammer Sisters, while the orb is made of sterner stuff. Amidst all this, is there time for… a different game?

The other highlight of the book is seeing Risa try, once again, to get over her fear of horror. It’s clear that the game is going to throw “6th level monsters” at them in the future, and Sally hates that she’ll always be useless when that happens (though she does OK in one fight by simply wrapping a blindfold around her head and firing off magic randomly, which I can’t wait to see animated). Her solution is to buy a really scary horror VR game and play it with Kaede, who has no issues with horror and is always down for a new game. Needless to say, it goes pretty much exactly as you’d expect. Risa being terrified of ghosts is just funny, especially with Kaede’s blase attitude towards them. We also once again get a tiny bit of “Risa REALLY likes Kaede” here, but blink and you’ll miss it. At least, unlike other authors, we don’t get a constant stream of “I’m straight, though”.

This should give Bofuri fans a good time, even though there’s no plot or character development. There won’t be, really. And that’s fine.

A Certain Magical Index NT, Vol. 1

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By Kazumi Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “Shinyaku To Aru Majutsu no Index” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Alice Prowse.

I will admit, the moment I saw that the new series of Index books had been licensed, my first thought was “oh, is the anime announcement coming soon?”. It’s been almost four years since A Certain Magical Index 22 came out. While sales figures are never easy to come by these days, word on the street was that it was not exactly one of Yen’s best sellers. But it *is* one of Dengeki Bunko’s best sellers, and a “flagship” title for the company. And there did seem to be some genuine excitement (and hopefully enough sales to justify the cost) of the massive 2000-page Index omnibus that came out earlier this year. So sure, let’s go. We’re jumping back into Index, featuring our favorite ditzy nun, tsundere electro girl, and schlub with a magic hand. Some bad news to report, though, as none of those three feature heavily in this book. This first volume of NT (New Testament) is about the other two male protagonists.

The return of Index also means the return of the “let’s try to keep track of things” paragraph. Introduced in this book: Fremea Seivelun, Kuroyoru Umidori. Also, though we briefly saw Leivinia Birdway in Book 18 of Index, this is her entrance to the story proper – on the 2nd to last page. This book takes place on Guy Fawkes’ Day, the 5th of November, and one week after World War III. Touma has been declared missing presumed dead. From a brief cameo we see of Index, she’s not taking it well. The Railgun manga has not gotten to this point yet. Its most recent arc is a flashback, and the most recent current arc takes place around Vol. 16 of the first series. In Japan, this came out on March 10, 2011, only five months after the “final” volume of Index. The Railgun manga had just released Book 6, so the Sisters arc. And the Index anime was just about to wrap up Season 2.

World War III is over, and peace supposedly reigns over Academy City. Of course, you know that’s not going to last. Much to the irritation of Accelerator, his attempt to stop all the “darkness” of the City can’t even make it work for one week before a new group of eccentrics is trying to use him to help cause chaos. As for Hamazura, all he wants to do is go on dates with his cute girlfriend. Sadly, his cute girlfriend comes with the other two remaining members of ITEM, who are both sadists, so instead he gets chased around the worst slums of the city by goons… and runs into an old friend of his from the gang, Hanzou. Hanzou is watching over a little girl, Fremea Seivelun, whose last name is the same as ITEM’s now-murdered member Frenda. Yup, it’s her little sister. And while Fremea may just be a Level 0, it seems everybody and their brother wants to murder her.

For the most part this “new season” of the Index series plays it pretty safe, as the entire volume is essentially a massive action movie. It’s along the lines of Lethal Weapon, though Accelerator and Hamazura are not exactly wisecracking jokers. The *real* goal of the Freshman, the latest oddly-named group, seems to be having Accelerator and Hamazura, who previously barely interacted, team up with each other to get revenge on the city for killing Fremea. Their leader is a type we’ve seen before, the smug teenager who has really awesome powers derived from scientists experimenting on children, but they turn out to not be QUITE as awesome as Accelerator’s powers. And yes, surprise surprise, Touma is not dead, and shows up at the very end to save the day, stop the villain, and get kicked in the balls, in that order.

If you’ve never read Index, for God’s sake, don’t start now. But if you’re an Index fan, put away that Baka-Tsuki PDF and go buy this.