Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, Vol. 1

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By Midori Yuma and Waco Ioka. Released in Japan as “Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi: Ayakashi Oyado ni Yomeiri Shimasu” by Enterbrain, serialization ongoing in the magazine B’S LOG COMIC. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Tomo Kimura.

There are times when you simply have to trust in the good taste of a publisher. I admit, reading the first volume of Kakuriyo, I wasn’t all that drawn in. It’s apparently based on a series of novels, and sometimes reads like it: there’s a ton of exposition laid out by characters to the heroine (who also gets to exposit on her own past) in an effort to get the story to where the author wants it to be and have the reader understand things. Which is fine, but works better in prose than it does in a shoujo manga. As with a lot of series featuring a young human woman meeting up with a bunch of yokai, most of the cast start off as jerks, with one or two exceptions, including her dead grandfather who got her into this mess. That said, there’s a lot here that I can see should translate into a fun series down the road, so I will assume this just starts slowly (like many other series I follow).

Our human heroine is Aoi, a young woman in college (college? In a shoujo manga? Well, it’s is B’s Log…) whose grandfather recently passed away. He had a reputation as a lothario, fathering a lot of children and then skedaddling. To Aoi, however, he’s the precious grandfather who took her in and raised her, so she’s a bit conflicted when she thinks about his past. Also like her grandfather, she can see yokai, and does her best to be nice to when when she does, despite the fact that she gives then so much food it feels like she’s starving herself to death. One day she runs into an ogre yokai at the steps of a shrine, and gives him her lunch. But when she gets her lunchbox back, she’s transported to a yokai inn! Turns out that her grandfather was also a troublemaker in the yokai world, and offered up his granddaughter in marriage to get out of a debt. Now she either has to marry him… or work off her debt in the inn. But will anyone hire her?

As I said, most of the first volume is dedicated to the setup, as it’s only in the final chapter that we get the sense we know how Aoi will survive in this world (if you guessed tasty food, give yourself a pat on the back – there’s even a ‘let me describe how I make the food’ section). Genji, a young man who can change his appearance from boy to man to woman – and does so frequently – is the one yokai who seems to be nice to Aoi, and he helpfully explains the ways of the inn to her. The Odanna, the ogre wh0o brought her there in the first place, seems like the sort that’s outwardly standoffish but warms up when you know him better – the funniest scene in the book involves Aoi being “tortured” by getting a nice warm bath and dressed in a lovely kimono. Aoi herself is in a long line of “plucky young women” we’ve seen in this sort of book, and seems to have her head on straight.

So overall I would say that while I was merely mildly entertained by this first book, it shows promise and makes me want to read more. I trust it will improve by the volume.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Desolation

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By Yoshiki Tanaka. Released in Japan as “Ginga Eiyū Densetsu” by Tokuma Shoten. Released in North America by Haikasoru. Translated by Matt Treyvaud.

Before we discuss the events of the second half of the book (which I will spoil out of necessity), let’s talk about the fairly normal first half. Reinhard is headed with his entire fleet towards Iserlohn, and Yang and company are doing their level best to try to at least slow them down. There are a few more times when we see Yang being the master tactician and manipulator that he is, and a lot of the Empire’s finest being hotheads when they shouldn’t be. The stage is set for Reinhard and Yang to negotiate terms. We even get one last debate, in Yang’s head, about the need for democracy vs. a dictatorship. Yang is well aware that Reinhard is a kinder, gentler dictator, and that forcing democracy is likely to make people far more unhappy than they would be under the Emperor’s hand. But it’s notable that the Empire only seems the better option because of these circumstances, and we’ve also seen Reinhard’s petulant side as well. Plus he’s STILL not married. What of the future?

But in amongst this, you’re getting the foreshadowing. LOGH is many things, but subtle it ain’t, so we get several scenes showing us the Church setting Yang up to be assassinated (using a character I had honestly forgotten about – this cast is too damn big) and setting the audience up to expect another near escape like Yang had a couple of books ago. But then we get things like “this was the last time the two would ever speak”, and you start to realize what’s going to happen. And then it does. Yang is killed on his way to the peace talks. Not even in a pitched gun battle or anything, but shot in the leg and slowly bleeding to death. Given that it’s a series about the horrors of war, among other things, it seems fitting, but everyone agrees this was not the way that Yang should have died (Frederica’s dream of the death of Yang as an 85-year-old grandfather is possibly the most heartbreaking thing in a heartbreaking book.)

As you can imagine, the rest of the book deals with the fallout from this. Iserlohn is devastated, of course, and many of their allies flee. The cause is kept alive, with Frederica on the political side and Julian on the military side, but both agree they’re only doing this because they know it’s what Yang would do; Frederica’s saying that she’d be happy to let democracy go hang if it meant getting her husband back is chilling. And the ominous foreshadowing is not done yet. Mittermeier and von Reuentahl also get a “they would never speak again” foreshadowing, and I suspect the latter is going to turn on Reinhard soon, or at least be made to seem like he is. And Reinhard spends much of the book in bed with a high fever… not the first time this has happened. He’s been ill QUITE a bit, which is another reason he’s being pressured to marry. With the Republic in tatters, is the Empire far behind?

There’s two more books in the main series, and lots more to resolve. It’s hard not to leave this book feeling depressed, though, and I will admit that most of the reason I read this was to read about Yang Wen-Li. Like his family and allies, I’ll continue to read the books, but also like them, I’m not looking forward to it nearly as much. A well-written equivalent of a drive-by gangland killing.

Katanagatari: Sword Tale, Vol. 1

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By Nisioisin and take. Released in Japan in three separate volumes by Kodansha BOX. Released in North America by Vertical, Inc. Translated by Sam Bett.

This is the third major series of Nisioisin’s to come out over here as a novel, after the popular Monogatari Series and the cult classic but poor selling Zaregoto Series. These books reunite Nisio with the artist for the Zaregoto books, and the art is sufficiently stylistically awesome. As for fans of Nisioisin’s wordplay, not only do they get tons of that in these volumes, but we get footnotes from the translator (which he indicates are totally optional) explaining many of the original lines and why they’re puns, as well as his own translation choices. It’s the sort of thing I wish that we could have seen with the Monogatari books, as it might have made several readers less dagnabbit mad. The book is also very metatextual, a common thread in Nisio’s work, with suggestions that certain elements will be followed up with in future books, or announcing the tragic backstory of one of the characters is coming. That said, it’s a very Nisio series, but how does it hold up as an actual book?

Our hero is Shichika, who lives on a little-known island with his older sister Nanami. He’s the heir to a school of swordsmanship, the Kyotoryu, that does not use swords – but aside from not using swords, it’s handled exactly like a classic sword school. As a result, Shichika is essentially a blade himself, which makes sense given that sometimes he tends to have the emotional depth of an inanimate object. Into this island steps Togame, who is there to hire Shichika to help her locate twelve Mutant Blades, katanas that rightfully should belong to the Shogun but are instead being used by twelve other people. After the events of the first book, which involve the first of those swords, Shichika agrees to accompany her, leaving the island and his sister and going to get each sword one by one – though that always means a battle.

As I hinted before, Shichika is almost a parody of the “simple country bumpkin’ type who isn’t so simple, and much is made of the fact that he has never really had to think before now, so isn’t used to it. This makes him a pleasing contrast at least to super-genius Ii-chan and overly florid Araragi. He’s fine with leaving the thinking to Togame, who is a self-titled “schemer” but whose schemes haven’t really been able to do much but postpone the inevitable fights so far, and whose fragility makes her easy to use as a hostage or a distraction. She’s also less clever than she thinks, as the best gag in the book, a misuse of a British greeting she has, attests to. Together they make each other more interesting, which is all one can ask. As for the sword wielders, by the end of the first omnibus three are dead, though you are only meant to feel sympathy for the last one – indeed, the ninja clan that start the book as the main antagonists have become, at the author’s own insistence, the comic foils of the story.

It’s clear who this book is meant for: fans of the anime, as well as fans of Nisioisin’s eclectic narrative style. Both should find this series very entertaining, though even I found Shichika somewhat wearing by the end. I’ll definitely be getting the next set of three this spring.