Strike the Blood, Vol. 12

Leave a reply

By Gakuto Mikumo and Manyako. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jeremiah Bourque.

At the end of my review of the 11th book in this series, I had a lot of questions that I wanted to see answered in Vol. 12, and unfortunately, and somewhat frustratingly, none of them are. Natsuki isn’t even mentioned, and since it takes place entirely off the island we’ve no idea what things will be like the next time she sees Kojou. Yukina does run into two other members of the Lion King Agency, but they seem to get along just fine, and there seems to be no real consequences as of yet to her breaking off from doing what the Agency says last time. In fact, Kojou and Yukina almost end up being guest stars in their own series, as while they do eventually show up and figure in the climax (and yes, the “this is my/our fight” running gag is present and correct), much of the book seems designed to introduce us to those two other Lion King Agency members, one of whom gets stacked on the harem pile. As you’d expect.

In case you’re curious, Yukina is the heroine on the cover of this volume of Strike the Blood. It’s always interesting to see who’ll be featured next. Meanwhile, she and Kojou do finally get off the island, mostly due to Vattler, who is here to save the day and even donates his harem of young princesses – who also seem to be a crack combat squad A-Team style – to help with this latest crisis. And it is a crisis, because kidnapping Nagisa to try to kill off what’s inside her proves to be a big mistake, and now there’s lots of things to deal with. For one, there’s a dragon named Glenda, who can also turn into a young teen girl (and gets to be Koujo’s snack of the week so that he can get a new beast vassal). And there’s also the JSDF, who seem to spend half of all Japanese light novels being useless until our heroes arrive, and the other half being evil. It’s a little of both here.

As always, the book reads fast and the fight scenes are good. Thre’s always one bit of annoying fanservice that I twitch at, and this time around it’s Asagi spending the entire volume in a school swimsuit-like plugsuit for no real reason other than to be humiliated and gawked at. That said, as always Asagi doesn’t do much but her scenes count – I liked her relationship with the descendant of the Second Primogenitor, Iblisviel, and her complete lack of fear or loathing at his existence – not to mention her airport ramen recommendations, which may be the funniest scene in the entire series to date. That said, at the end of the book I have even MORE questions (we also find Asagi may not be the ONLY Priestess of Cain) and even fewer answers. If I’m going to sit here and read about Yukina getting jealous at every single thing Kojou does, I need to have some sort of plot payoff. Maybe I’ll get that next time when we get back to the island. Till then, enjoy some fights and heavily dropped hints.

Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 18

Leave a reply

By Mizuho Kusanagi. Released in Japan as “Akatsuki no Yona” by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by JN Productions, Adapted by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane.

The concept of living forever, and being forced to see everyone you care about move on and pass away is not a new one, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a story worth telling again in context. In this case, the context is via Zeno, whose backstory is finally revealed in this harrowing volume of Yona of the Dawn Picking up where the last volume left off, we see Zeno seemingly killed any number of times (in graphic detail – even for a series filled with violence as Yona is, this is a blood-spattered volume, please be warned)driving off the threat for the moment, and earning a group hug from the rest of the Happy Hungry Bunch. He then goes on to reveal more of his past – both his desire to make sure that Yona “proved herself” before he joined up with her (which she has most assuredly done), and then seeing how he’s been around as a Dragon far longer than the others.

Zeno is not just a Yellow Dragon, but the first and only Yellow Dragon, and flashbacks show him with the original Crimson Dragon King and his fellow Dragons. He’s not particularly strong or skilled, but, as we discover, he can recover from any grievous wound up to and including having his head chopped off, and as the attacks go on his skin gets harder. This allows him to fight with Yona’s crew… or at least inspire a terrified retreat… but back in the past, he’s horrified that he has essentially become an undying monster. Then, as he confesses his fears to his beloved King, said king tr4ies to reassure him but almost immediately dies. The two are unrelated, but they drive home something that haunts Zeno for the rest of the volume… he can’t die, and everyone else he knows can. This book very much believes in Heaven, and Zeno can’t be with his friends in the next world.

Or his wife, as we also see Zeno befriend and fall in love with a young woman who lives by herself as she’s dying of an unnamed illness. She tries to politely drive him away, but he’s rather persistent, and their love story is very short-lived but also quite sweet. But of course, she has to die too, despite Zeno’s begging the heavens for a way to have her life on with him. (This is likely one of the reasons why he’s the only Dragon not to harbor romantic feelings for Yona.) Fortunately, we end the volume with Zeno, having essentially shown this flashback to the reader while he recovers, waking up to see the current Dragons and Yona hovering over him, and he joyfully glomps them all in a big group hug. I am happy to see that, while Zeno’s happy ditzy self is indeed a mask of sorts, that he is not secretly in constant agony or anything. He’s found joy once more with his new friends, and I hope that, if he does live past them, he is able to accept it.

A must read volume of Yona (unless you’re against a lot of blood and gore, as I noted), this was a gut-punch to read but all the more rewarding for it.

Classroom of the Elite, Vol. 2

Leave a reply

By Syougo Kinugasa and Tomoseshunsaku. Released in Japan by Media Factory. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Timothy MacKenzie. Adapted by Jessica Cluess.

Tempting as it is to paste my review of the first volume in for the second and see if anyone notices, I will make an effort to say new things. The series’ strengths and weaknesses remain the same. It’s compulsively readable, always a good thing. Its premise can be teeth-grindingly annoying, especially when everyone turns into a vicious sadist for no reason, with a lot of “ha ha, you will fail forever now” sneering. I’m still not entirely clear if this school has a purpose beyond abusing 1/4 of its student body, and I suspect this is not a question I’m going to get answered anytime soon. We do get a couple of new characters here, though, including one who I actually did not want to punch in the face, which is a monstrous improvement from the first book. Sadly, she isn’t in Class D, meaning I am probably out of luck unless we get a spinoff series or something. Plus honestly, shee likely has a dark side too.

The other new character introduced is Sakura, who isn’t annoying so much as passive. In fact, her very passivity is the problem, as she’s also an important witness to an assault by Class D hothead Sudo on three Class C students. He now faces suspension, of course, and every single thing over the course of the entire book does not help his cause. First off, he’s claiming self-defense, but that’s hard to prove when you beat up three guys and you’re fine. Secondly, no one believes him anyway because his first response is to punch everything. Of course, if Sudo gets suspended Class D will lose the few points they gained from the first book (which aren’t given to them as money, by the way – it’s implied they never will be). Can the rest of the class overcome their antipathy towards Sudo and apathy in general and help clear his name? Or will they need to be a bit more… creative?

As I said, there’s also a girl from Class B that we briefly met in the first book but who gets a genuine introduction here. Ichinose is so refreshingly normal that I was almost crying in happiness. She’s friendly and outgoing without (so far) having a scheming dark side like Kushida. She tries to use Ayanokouji to help her with a problem (girl is confessing to her, need a pretend boyfriend). She ends up being of great help to them in the climax of the book. Really, I want her to be the star. She’s certainly more fun to read than grumpy Horikita, who spends the book attempting to help Sudo while being miserable about it, or our “hero” Ayanokouji, whose desire to be average and not stand out is so great that even his own inner narration lies to us – frequently he talks about Kushida as if he knows nothing about her secrets, and there are other points where I suspect he’s straight up lying to the reader. Which is the point – their teacher is trying to get Horikita to figure out why he’s like this – but again, it’s not what I’d call fun.

I can see why this is popular – I sped through it very quickly, and want to read more. This despite the fact that I was frowning most of the time and occasionally wanted to slam the book against a wall. Classroom of the Elite is a war between the writing and the characterization, and it may take more than two volumes to figure out who’s winning.