Kitaro: The Trial of Kitaro

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By Shigeru Mizuki. Released in Japan as “Gegege no Kitaro” by Kodansha and Shogakukan, serialized in various magazines. Released in North America by Drawn & Quarterly. Translated by Zack Davisson.

This is the final volume of D&Q’s Kitaro collections, and, while Kitaro has never really been serialized in a plot or characterization way, it picks an apt final story to end on. The largest story in the book is the titular Trial, where Kitaro is brought up against the Yokai Supreme Court and charged with helping humans at the cost of yokai. Which, admittedly, there’s a grain of truth to. A number of Kitaro’s adventures have featured him helping hapless humans who are being used and/or outright tortured by yokai – indeed, we’ll see some later in this collection. That said, no surprises for guessing who’s really gotten Kitaro into this mess. After much foofaraw, the trial ends with Kitaro agreeing that he will not only help innocent humans beset by yokai, but also the reverse – such as not helping the shady TV producers who are manipulated by Nezumi Otoko into the documentary stat starts this all off.

As this is the final Kitaro review I’m writing up (presumably), I’d like to expound once again on Nezumi Otoko, the Donald Duck to Kitaro’s Mickey Mouse. The trial story features perhaps Nezumi Otoko at his most iconic – setting up the entire situation in the first place for cash, teaming up with an even worse yokai, framing Kitaro and testifying against him, and then quickly rolling over when things turn against him. Of all the many and varied yokai we’ve seen over the course of the series, Nezumi Otoko’s actions are perhaps the most jaw-dropping – even the evil yokai are more consistent in what they do day to day. But of course Kitaro gives the reason why Nezumi Otoko is who he is – he’s half human, and it’s the humanity in him that makes him crafty and a bit of a complete snake. That said, for Kitaro to continually hang out with him after everything shows he has the patience of a saint… or that Nezumi Otoko has the love of the author.

The rest of the stories in the volume are more typical, featuring the classic Kitaro way of doing things… get devoured and killed by the enemy, then come back and do something about it. The most interesting story other than the trial episode has to deal with a cursed toilet in the middle of the woods (yes, really) and Kitaro also losing all his hair… which, as is pointed out by Nezumi Otoko, is one of the sources of his strength. Honestly, without it he’s almost unrecognizable. I also liked the story of the merman who blackmails/tortures Kitaro into getting him fish, and actually ends up living in a mansion as a human. This leads to the dark punchline where Kitaro agrees to turn him INTO a human, and then the merman finding out that life as a human is not all that greater after all. Also, watch out for the cute maid working in the merman’s mansion who walks off with Kitaro in the end – Mizuki rarely drew cute girls in this series.

The seven volumes of Kitaro released over here, as well as the compilation that came first, do so much to show off the strengths of Shigeru Mizumi as an artist and storyteller. They’re a must for any library. Ge! Ge! Ge-ge-ge-no-geeeeee…

In Another World with My Smartphone, Vol. 18

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By Patora Fuyuhara and Eiji Usatsuka. Released in Japan as “Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni” by HJ Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson.

Any Smartphone book that manages to put Touya in actual danger is automatically more interesting than most. This one actually does it twice. Not that anything actually happens to him… remember what you’re reading. But the Mutant Phrase descend with an anti-God weapon that is so poisonous that it takes Touya out for three days, and later on an inadvisable attempt at waking an ancient weapon results in time literally being rewritten to make sure it didn’t happen… something Touya is aware of but no one else is. Unfortunately, neither of these crises serve to move Touya beyond his typical bland facade… generally the only thing that can do that these days is mentioning love, as per most awkward overpowered male leads in isekai. Sadly, the weddings are still a fair ways away, but at least we’re seeing a number of other plots starting to come together. Could the end be in sight? (Probably not.)

At the start of the book, the regular Touya world and the Reverse World finally merge together, and much of the rest of the volume is spent dealing with the political fallout from that. It does not help that the bad guys choose this moment to launch their ‘anti-Touya’ poison attack, which destroys one of the kingdoms we’d seen previously. (Not Touya’s own hand this time, so that’s good.) We actually get a few Phrase battles this time around, including Ende getting his revenge against the evil twins who mopped the floor with him last time. And we finally get an idea of what happened back in ancient times when the Phrase first invaded, and hopefully a way to avoid it happening again. In between there’s the usual wacky slice-of-life stuff… a young idiot prince comes by to show how strong he is and gets his ass kicked; Hilde’s sister fights a dragon; Sakura sings Freddie Mercury songs. The usual.

I admit, much as I grouse about the series when it’s doing things wrong like having Touya be history’s greatest monster, when it doesn’t happen there’s very little TO talk about in a review of Smartphone. Touya is bland. His fiancees, though they have more emotional range, are equally bland. There’s the royalty of the neighboring kingdoms… they’re pretty bland as well. This is sort of like a “slow life” series without the slow life part. The author says that we’re going to be fighting the Evil God next time, which is good, because when there are fights at least something is happening on the page. The wedding might also help, but that’s still a few books away. That leaves us with Touya wandering around doing Touya things, which is… boring. Dull. Nearly getting killed was the best thing to happen to him all book.

The series is still worth reading for the tiny little things that make it bearable – Sue’s Hammer Throw was great – but I suspect most readers, like me, are waiting for Touya to get married and simply paddling along ill that happens. 2 out of 5 Smartphones this time around.

Outbreak Company, Vol. 12

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By Ichiro Sakaki and Yuugen. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

I feel that I’ve said a lot when reviewing Outbreak Company that the book starts off badly and gets better as it goes along till a good climax, and that holds true here as well. That said, the annoying parts of the book are very annoying. I haven’t used the word ‘queerbaiting’ when reviewing this series, mostly as it’s highly unlikely the author is doing it deliberately to bring in BL fans. (Then again, given that afterword, I may be wrong.) But for the most part the book is content to view Garius the way that Minori does – as a product of BL fantasy that she can ship with either Shinichi or newcomer Rubert – without ever explicitly having Garius say that he’s gay or state he is gay. It may sound like it’s so implied that they don’t have to, but that’s the point – the BL subtext is slathered on with Minori-vision, making it hard to take seriously. There’s no gay characters here, just a bunch of heavy breathing.

I may be more annoyed than usual as Garius and his supposed homosexuality are front and center in the plot this time. The prince of a neighboring country that is on good terms with Eldant has arrived to propose marriage to Petralka. He apparently knew Garius when they were younger, and it is heavily hinted they were lovers in college – again, with just enough plausible deniability that, should the author want, he can satisfy fans that might be put off by that – and the implication is he’s doing this to get close to Garius. The other half of the plot, which works MUCH better, is that Rubert’s country are very much prejudiced against non-humans, and an alliance between the two countries is bad news for most of the cast. Plus there’s the fact that Petralka loves someone else. Can Shinichi get over his obliviousness and self-hatred long enough to solve this new problem? And will Minori ever shut up?

Shinichi’s low self-worth – still stemming, he says, from getting rejected by the girl he likes for being a creepy otaku – has hovered over the entire series. You’d think, after saving the world multiple times and having at least three different women, and possibly more, in love with him that he might be gaining more self-confidence, but the lack of communication about his real feelings – which is the same reason that he can’t recognize the girls are in love with him – has kept him from seeing that he’s changed. This is frustrating to the reader, and also to Hikari and Matoba, who see him as a standard harem lead and want to kick him in the balls. Fortunately, his opening up to Petralka about his past may have helped to trigger something – she and Myusel are far more open about the love triangle they’re in (sorry, Elvia, you were never going to win this one) and the cliffhanger ending is that Shinichi finally figures this out.

Will this affect the plot going forward? Well, we’ve still got 6 more volumes and an ‘after story’ volume to go, so I suspect not all that much. Till then, please enjoy a new Outbreak Company, irritating and teeth-grinding as it still is.