86 –Eighty-Six–, Vol. 4: Under Pressure

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By Asato Asato and Shirabii. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Roman Lempert.

The author brags about how this volume of 86 is much lighter in tone than the previous three, and I guess that’s true? Certainly the first quarter of the book makes a determined effort to be amusing, sweet and heartwarming in turns, with the only big drama being the arrival of Annette and her realization that her childhood friend Shin does not recall her at all, which makes atoning for her guilt rather difficult. Lena and Shin are VERY shippy here, despite the fact that Shin has difficulty getting that sort of thing. Frederica and Kurena play the part of the wacky jealous not-girlfriends to a T. But there is a plot here, which leads to the battle and action sequences, and that’s when the reader realizes that even in the lightest of 86 novels, things are still going to take a turn for the very dark, as we find out exactly what the Legion has been doing all this time, and how hard it’s going to be to defeat them going forward.

After the two-volume interqual, Lena is finally reunited with her former team, and she’s brought friends, as we add to the cast a great deal of the 86 who were fighting with her after Shin and company left and ended up in the Federation. Things are… still not great in terms of the Republic. In fact, they’re still monstrously bad, with lots of “give us back our animals they are not people” racism from their side – 86 has never been subtly about such things, and that doesn’t change here. Unfortunately, just because Lena (and Annette) have reunited with Shin doesn’t mean things are going to be happily ever after. Leaving the Legion aside, it’s pointed out that the 86 have had to cut away everything that is not related to battle in order not to go mad. If Lena wants them to regain that, she’ll just be forcing them to feel the unbearable pain again. Can she live with that? And as for Annette, isn’t this all just about her?

The second two-thirds of the book are an extended battle against the Legion in an underground subway complex with shopping mall attachment, which is annoying to our heroes as their powered suits don’t function as well there. The fight introduces a new variety of bad guy to the stage, and they’re pretty lethal right up front, taking out all of Annette’s bodyguards and almost managing to kill Shin. The exact nature of how they came to be, as well as how the Legion used the republic to get to that stage, I shall briefly gloss over except to say that it was disturbing and also disgusting. It’s well-written, though I was a bit annoyed by the return of the Legion with Kaie in them to taunt our heroes. We already got a sequence where they destroy the possessed Legion and seemingly send her to the afterlife properly, I didn’t need it all over again.

Future cover art makes me think the lighter tone will stick around, and none of the named cast that we remember died here, so in that respect this is a bit of a breather novel in the series. It’s also extremely well-written as always. Fans of the 86 won’t be disappointed.

One Piece, Vol. 93

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By Eiichiro Oda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by Stephen Paul.

Because One Piece has been running for so long, there aren’t a lot of plots that it hasn’t at least taken a glance at along the way. That’s probably why Oda is having so much fun with the time travel angle introduced here, with the long-lost heroes reappearing twenty years later, seemingly the same as before. The eventual beat when they all finally arrive hasn’t happened yet, but we do meet Momonosuke’s little sister, who is now of course a young woman, and also a striking reminder of how Oda loves to contrast ugly men and gorgeous women when he draws. (Or in this case ugly boys.) She’s got a lot going on in this volume, so it’s amusing that the thing I noticed most was Oda mocking shippers in her interactions with the completely sexless Zoro. (To be fair to Zoro, he does get that people would take them sleeping together the wrong way.) And then there’s Toko, which… well, I’ll get to her.

As with previous Wano volumes, the action slips from place to place almost too fast to follow, trying to make sure that everyone gets something to do. This means we get to see Nami and Robin in the baths (and Nami accidentally flashing everyone, which reminds me of her deliberately doing this in Alabasta); Sanji being, well, Sanji; Luffy, still in prison, having to fight off most of the guards one by one for entertainment, and meeting up with an old, seemingly feeble man who of course has a very badass past; and Shopper trying to deal with the fact that he’s now allied with Big Mom, who has lost her memories and thus is bright, cheery and friendly again. Chopper, of course, knows this will only last till her memories return, so spends a lot of the time terrified. (There’s some interesting lettering going on in these scenes to show “girly’ speech – excellent job by Vanessa Satone, the letterer and touch-up person.)

And then we get to the end of the book, where Oda reminds us how well he can have chaos quickly turn to tragedy, with the public execution of Yasu, who turns out to have a secret identity (not a surprise). He’s spent much of the time bopping around the manga dressed up as the stereotypical Japanese jester, with a giant grin on his face. The grin remains even as he’s about to be executed (by firing squad, a particularly dishonorable death in the period that Oda is riffing on here), and there is an explanation of everyone smiling and laughing in the face of tragedy… but then after his death, it turns far too creepy for that to really be the case, especially when his daughter sees his death and can’t stop giggling (as she has the entire book) even as she cries out that her father is dead. The cliffhanger, unfortunately, implies that it may be the One Piece equivalent of drugs at work once more.

So yeah, everything is kind of terrible at the moment. Sure would be nice if we could start a revolution soon. Still, this was a chaotic but solid volume of One Piece, a bit better than the last couple of books.

So I’m a Spider, So What?, Vol. 8

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By Okina Baba and Tsukasa Kiryu. Released in Japan as “Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

I’ve discussed before that the world that this book takes place in is a really horrible world to live in, but I don’t think any book to date has hammered that home quite like this volume, which shows us again and again the downside of “everyone is morally grey trending towards black”. On the surface, the plot of this book involves Ariel, White (Shiraori is used sparingly here, so I’ll stick with White for now) and company slowly moving towards the demon lands, only to be halted by the presence of an ogre/oni who is terrorizing everyone and everything in their way. White’s narration is seen less than ever before, and flips back and forth with the ogre’s narration, with cameos from Vampy, Potimas and a few humans. Those cameos are important, though, as they remind us that one person’s practical decision is another’s life-breaking horrible tragedy. And the reader may not agree with the practicality.

There’s actually a timeskip involved here: the book takes place two years after the end of the last one. Unfortunately for White, she’s no closer to being able to use any of her powers than she was before – she may be a God now, but in terms of fighting ability she’s as weak as a kitten. In her head, she spends most of the book whining and moaning about it. Of course, in reality she’s as silent as ever. Fortunately, by the end of the book she’s in enough of a life-or-death crisis that she’s able to regain a bit of her powers. This is the light part of the book, as, deadly danger aside, Ariel’s group is a lot of fun, and the danger they’re in never feels too lethal. It’s the slice-of-life camping trip part of the book.

And then there’s the rest of the book. The countryside is being plagued by a series of infants being kidnapped,l and as we’ve read the early books we know exactly who and what is behind that, but here we see how it’s affecting the families who are destroyed, and it’s heartbreaking. Ronandt, who was so much fun as a goofy old man obsessed with our spider, has been demoted as he’s lost all sense of what is harsh training and what is abuse. The adventurers in this book almost all die like dogs, and those that don’t ponder just giving up and going back to their farm. The ogre is a walking ball of rage half the time (we’ve seen him in earlier books as well, but here he’s getting his “official” intro) and the half that he isn’t is depressing and bleak… then horrific and disturbing. Lastly, Buirimas, the man presented throughout the book as a noble warrior who died without ever seeing his wife and infant… is also shown to have done something so mind-numbingly inhumane that I have no words. Again, when you don’t think of others as people, you lose the ability to make correct moral judgments.

So overall this was a good book, but the mood shifts are a pain in the neck, and by the end I was very glad it was coming to a stop. Next time hopefully they’ll hit the demon land, and perhaps another timeskip can put us closer to where we left off with Shun and company? Oh, and Potimas is still the worst. I really hate him.