The Way of the Househusband, Vol. 1

1 Reply

By Kousuke Oono. Released in Japan as “Gokushufudou” by Shinchosha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Kurage Bunch. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Sheldon Drzka. Adapted by Jennifer LeBlanc.

Sometimes, it has to be said, an author comes up with a premise that is so magical that you are tempted to say that it writes itself. This is never a good thing to say, especially to the person writing it, but let’s face it: the premise of this manga, which is that a yakuza thug is trying his hardest to go straight and become a househusband, is magical. You should read it for that alone. Fortunately, the execution is also very good, showing off a minimal cast and going in several directions that I wasn’t expecting. I have to admit, I suspected that the gag would be how good the husband is at typical housewife things, but no. He’s really good cooking with knives (a holdober from his former job), but is otherwise trying to learn on the job, so to speak, and we see him fail several times. There’s also the matter of his face. Let’s face it, he has a face that yearns to stare someone down and yell “Huuuuh?!” menacingly.

At some point in the past, our hero met his wife, fell in love, and decided to give up his unlawful career to be a homemaker while she became the breadwinner. In general the series falls into three different scenarios: one where he’s trying to do a housewife thing, and we are amused at the results and at the faces he makes; another where he’s interacting with his wife, who can seemingly beat him up (we see her strongarm him through a window when he overreacts to buying her a birthday gift she had already by cutting off his pinky) and loves PreCure; and interacting with an old member of his gang, who looks up to him and wants to get him back into the old yakuza (mostly, from what I can tell, so that said guy can be protected, as he’s a bit of a wannabe schlub). Through it all, our hero makes it clear: being a househusband is what he does now. And he’s going all in.

Again, the author knows his strength, and it’s in drawing that “Huuuuuuh?” face that our hero wears seemingly all the time. He may no longer be “the Immortal Dragon”, but his face seems to be stuck that way, causing lots of misunderstandings. Sometimes this causes problems for his more down-to-Earth wife, who has to explain to the store clerk that the “white powder” he wants is flour. At one point she tries to do something about his image by dressing him in less stereotypical clothing, which leads to a series of hilarious fashion disasters. It’s also the best chapter for showing off their marriage, as we see them fighting but also trying to accommodate each other. They make a pretty great couple. Oh yes, they also have a cat and a Roomba, and the two combined may make the funniest chapter in the book, at least for pet owners.

There’s not much plot development here beyond the basic premise, but why would you want it? I hope at some point we see a flashback as to how our couple met and fell in love. But other than that, the main reason to get this is that it’s funny. Recommended.

I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, Vol. 5

Leave a reply

By Kisetsu Morita and Benio. Released in Japan as “Slime Taoshite 300 Nen, Shiranai Uchi ni Level MAX ni Nattemashita” by Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jasmine Bernhardt.

I tend to enjoy this series, and so I will try to be charitable about some of its… quirks. A lot of the series involves revisiting plots and characters that we’ve seen before, and this gets turned up to eleven in this book, which starts with a dungeon crawl that turns out to be a tourist trap… much like the tourist trap we saw in the previous book. There’s also another festival, which gives our heroes the opportunity to run another cafe, only this time they have more people on their side, which is good as the cafe has a LOT more visitors. The festival itself is a cavalcade of “oh, that’s where they got to” reunions. It might be annoying if it weren’t for the matter-of-fact, blase tone of our heroine, whose tendency towards lack of surprise helps ground the reader as well. Even when she does react, it sounds more like tsukkomi than anything else. This series “chugs along”, in the best and worst sense of the term.

There’s a new character introduced here, who ticks off a few more boxes. She’s an intelligent mandragora, one that’s been around for a century or two but still tends to act exactly like a child who’s intellectually mature but emotionally stunted. Sandra quickly moves in with the others and becomes the tsundere they never knew they needed, as well as giving Azusa a child who is not essentially perfect. In fact, her other two slime children may be a bit TOO perfect, as we find when they attempt to go to a local elementary school and blow away the competition… and the teacher. Speaking of imperfections, Sandra, being a walking plant, is quick to point out what a horrible garden Azusa has, and this may be why no one likes to eat their veggies in this hourse. With the addition of some really good soil, we briefly get a nice foodie manga scene.

The highlight of the book, though, is the spinoff at the end, giving an origin story for Beelzebub, who (no surprises here) turns out to have been a LOT like Azusa, to the point of being a low-level officer worker for 1500 years as she didn’t really want more responsibility or trouble. Unfortunately, the new Demon Lord takes notice of her and immediately appoints her Minister, thereby upending her entire life. There’s lots of fantastic scenes in these two chapter, including Beelzebub trying to perfect her new over the top haughty personality, and dealing for the first time with the Leviathan Sisters and their complete opposite personalities. It also makes you realize why she’s always dropping in on Azusa, and why she keeps asking the slime kids to come live with her: after 1500 years on her own, she’s discovered what friendship is, and wants more.

If you’re looking for surprises or emotional depth, these books must be like Kryptonite for you. If, on the other hand, you want a relaxing book that goes at its own pace and does what it likes (even if it’s the same things it’s done before), this is another good volume.

Koyomimonogatari: Calendar Tale, Part 02

Leave a reply

By NISIOISIN and VOFAN. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by Vertical, Inc. Translated by Daniel Joseph.

There are spoilers towards the end of the review for the end of the book, which is hard to talk about without spoiling.

The second half of Koyomimonogatari feels like it’s sliding slowly towards a darkness that you really don’t want to see. The first half of the collection (i.e. the first book, as Vertical split it in two) was fairly lighthearted and bantery, with only Nadeko’s story coming across as ominous. But as we get into the events of the 2nd half of Araragi’s school year, and things take a darker turn, it’s no surprise that the short stories do as well. The exception to this, oddly enough, involves Shinobu, whose donut-filled discussion with Araragi ends in a punchline so sweet that I’m glad it was delivered by the matter-of-fact Hanekawa. (Hanekawa is away almost the entire book, but the magic of cell phones means she can still be there to provide Araragi with the right answer. Honestly, these two need to see less of each other, it’s not good for them.) But even Tsukihi’s story involves a presumed extra person in the tea ceremony ghost story, and the last two stories almost end up defining everything that goes before them.

NISIOISIN said in the afterword that he wanted to have a look back at the series as he wrote this, and, as with the first book, there’s a lot of foreshadowing and backshadowing going on here. This is particularly true of Nadeko, who isn’t actually in these stories (she had hers already) but of course ends up lurking in the background as her main story took place from late October to early January – almost a three-month chunk. We saw that in the original stories through the point of view of Kaiki and Nadeko herself, but here we see Araragi’s own perspective on things, which is rather fatalistic, something that is no longer surprising with someone like hm. Araragi would be perfectly fine sacrificing everything he has to help someone who needed help, and I wonder how he and Shirou Emiya would get along. (Oh God, the idea of Araragi as Archer is horrific and hilarious.)

The last two stories in the book focus on two of the heroines that aren’t in the “harem” per se. Kagenui is there to try to help Araragi solve his “I’m turning into a real vampire” problem, but there are other forces getting in the way here, mysterious and unknown though they may yet be. (That said, it’s Ogi. Come on, of course it’s Ogi.) As such, the ending of her story has her removed from the plot – it’s called Koyomi Nothing, which fits as there’s a blank space where an ending should be. As for Koyomi Dead, well, the story spoils you as to what’s going to happen from the start. Gaen is the final heroine, in more ways than one, and her pragmatic disposal of Koyomi is both in character and also mind-boggling. (I like how she says that Shinobu won’t go on a rampage after his death because she’s seen the bad future where she does. Um, correct, but she can still kill YOU, Gaen.) It does solve Koyomi’s problem, though!

This is a pretty big cliffhanger, ending with Koyomi seemingly in the afterlife (Mayoi’s presence implies that). Unfortunately, folks are going to have to wait a while to see how it’s resolved, as we’re once again going back in time to fill in gaps. Owarimonogatari 1 will show us how Araragi first met Ogi, and also delve into why he became such a misanthrope before the series began. In the meantime, enjoy these short stories that shed light on why he is who he is now. (No, not dead. You know what I mean.)