Umineko: When They Cry, Vol. 18

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Story by Ryukishi07; Art by Eita Mizuno. Released in Japan in three separate volumes as “Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Requiem of the Golden Witch” by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Shonen Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Stephen Paul.

Last time we finally got the answer to the riddle of the Epitaph, as well as the revelation of who Beatrice is, though that answer required jumping through a few hoops to avoid showing us a face. For the conclusion of this penultimate arc, however, the answers come fast and furious. In fact, one complaint of the audience that had read the original visual novels is that they’re a bit too much like looking at the answer sheet. When Clair and Will face off, we get her declarations, and we see his sword bluntly cutting them off. But the floating words literally stating what happened in the first four arcs was added to the manga especially. Apparently fans had started to get a bit over the top about how there was no real answer to the arcs, and this was Ryukishi07’s response (he worked closely with the mangaka for the last two arcs especially). And here we also find out the truth of what REALLY happened in 1986. Though, like Ange, I don’t think you’re going to like it.

One of the things that was made very clear was that Kinzo’s magic was money. Money is what has the power to make miracles. And so the solution to what really happens, once you realize that the parents actually put their heads together and all solved the epitaph together, is depressingly obvious. What’s more, it mirrors some of the battles in the prior arcs. Jessica’s fistfights against Kyrie and Ronove contrast with her pathetic demise here, having her face literally being beaten to a pulp. (There’s always a gore warning for Umineko, by the way, but this volume is particularly bad.) Natsuhi also doesn’t get a chance to fight back, and her death starts the chain of everyone else’s. As for the identity of the culprit, I’ll avoid mentioning it here, but I will say that we discover, as the reader was well aware, that Bernkastel’s goal is to see everyone suffer for her own entertainment, and given who she’s been “helping” for so long, you can probably hazard a guess. That said, I’m not sure EVERYTHING we see is exactly what happened. There’s a conversation between two characters about Ange that seems a bit too on the nose to not be “dialogue provided by Bernkastel”, to be honest.

Even Lion doesn’t manage to escape Bern’s mass slaughter, as Bern reveals that even in the ONE universe where Lion exists, their fate is also preordained. That said, three cheers for Will, who says what we all want to hear: mysteries that just end unhappily for everyone are not fun to read. Will is there to bring the reader hope, even if it means losing an arm and fighting along with Lion against Bern and her nightmarish army of cats. (Lambdadelta is there too, but honestly she’s more a passive audience member than anything else. She enjoys it, but it’s all Bernkastel’s show.) But still… we’ve got one big arc to go. We know what really happened in 1986. Is there any way to give Ange a happy ending in 1998? Bern says no, and she says it in red, so it’s going to be tough. (I recommend the digital version for that page, by the way, as the color red is actually used for the statement, and it gives it a lot of impact.)

Clearly the answer, however, is not to take the opposite tack either. We should not see an arc that shows us how everything was all happiness, sunshine and rainbows in 1986, not after everything we’ve seen involving the Ushiromiya family. But there’s no way anyone’s motivations would be that misguided. Right? Tune in next time for Twilight of the Golden Witch, aka “don’t mention this arc in the presence of an Umineko fan”. Same time, same publisher!

Fruits Basket another, Vol. 1

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By Natsuki Takaya. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Alethea and Athena Nibley.

There are some stories that cry out for sequels, leaving loose ends and plotlines that would easily carry a new series forward with exciting, fresh ideas. Then there are series that ended nearly perfectly, with pretty much everything resolved, and the idea of a sequel fills you with foreboding and a sense that it’s going to ruin the franchise. Such a series, I’m afraid, it’s Fruits Basket another, the next-generation sequel to one of the most beloved manga of all time. Note I said next-gen: apart from one or two minor characters in small roles (Hanajima’s brother is a teacher, for example), don’t expect any of the original cast in this first volume. Instead we see the sons and daughters of Sohma, who are blissfully not cursed, happy and content, and living the good life at the same high school their parents went to. There’s even a Sohma fan club run by the daughter of the Yuki fan club president. Into this lovely arrangement comes Sawa, our heroine.

The late, lamented Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei introduced a girl named Ai Kaga, who thinks everything that she does is a bother to someone else and makes her feel tremendous guilt. It’s meant to be a parody. That said, if you took Ai and made her 100% serious, you’d come close to Sawa in this first volume. Sawa lives alone with her mother, whose absence is hinted to veer towards actual neglect. She suffers from amazingly low self-esteem, not helped by various childhood incidents that have only reinforced it. Now she’s in high school, but she’s late her first day because her landlord yelled at her for something that’s her mother’s fault. If Tohru was a ray of sunshine and hope into everyone’s lives, then Sawa is a black cloud floating overhead. Fortunately, she soon runs into Mutsuki and Hajime Sohma, the sons of Yuki and Kyo respectively. Soon she’s blackmailed into being on the Student Council and hanging out with more and more Sohmas, incurring the wrath of the girls of the school even as she wonders “why her?”.

The biggest question I have with this series is “why was it written?”. No, seriously. What new story needed to be told here beyond “oh look, Sohma kids!”? If Fruits Basket sometimes felt a bit like “every new Sohma gets to reveal their backstory and angst before being healed by the power of Tohru”, this is meant to be the exact opposite – despite the occasional stab at Mutsuki and Hajime having a “rivalry”, the fact is that the next-gen Sohmas are happy and content. Which is good, y’know, because we don’t exactly want to Fruits Basket main characters to be horrible parents, but it’s also fairly boring. As for Sawa, you can tell that Takaya is trying not to simply write Tohru Mk. 2, but her self-hatred really is through the roof – she’s not plucky like Tohru (or, for that matter, Sakuya and Liselotte) and so she simply grates.

There is a hint in the cliffhanger ending that we may see a Sohma who is not happy and content (Shigure and Akito’s kid – gosh, what a surprise), but for the most part the first volume of Fruits Basket another commits the cardinal sin of being deadly boring. And while normally I wouldn’t be pissed off about that sort of thing, the fact that it’s a sequel to one of my favorite shoujo series AND it’s also put Liselotte & Witch’s Forest (which I’d rather be reading) on hiatus just makes me more annoyed. If you loved the original Fruits Basket, preserve your memories and give this half-baked sequel a miss.

The Voynich Hotel, Vol. 1

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By Douman Seiman. Released in Japan by Akita Shoten, serialized in the magazine Young Champion Retsu. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Alethea & Athena Nibley. Adapted by David Lumsdon.

I had heard buzz about The Voynich Hotel before it was licensed, mostly that it was dark and funny. Weird probably also came up, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I probably should have been. Before it is dark or funny (though it is both of those things), The Voynich Hotel is STRANGE. A lot of the time it’s content to be a mild gag comic about the staff and residents of a hotel in the South Pacific, but then people start getting killed, or selling drugs, or investigating the secret legend of the three sisters from this island’s past (one of whom seems very familiar). And in amongst this we manage to have the start of a vaguely sweet romance between a guest who’s hiding from… something, and one of the maids, who is cute and innocent and one of those is a lie. I’m not even sure where this series is going, save the fact that I suspect there will be more deaths soon.

Our hero is Taizou, a Japanese man who arrives at the hotel hiding from his old way of life. He ends up passing out, but is taken care of by the two maids who run the day-to-day affairs of the hotel: Helena is cute and spunky and excitable and also Maria from Zetsubou-sensei, and Berna is stoic and deadpan also also a Rei Ayanami clone. The cook is trying to kill herself and anyone else she can get to go with her, the owner wears a Mexican wrestling mask, and the residents are equally eccentric – you might say the manga artist was normal, except he’s trying to write a manga and make deadlines while living on this island. There’s also an assassin, and three more arrive during the course of the first book. The assassins are mostly what drive what there is of a plot, but for the most part you’re here to see weird people be funny.

Fortunately, I found it very funny, though you’ll need to set your sense of humor dial to ‘sick’. Leaving aside all the deaths, I have to say that Berna’s ringtone grossed me out but also had me in hysterics – let’s leave it at that. There are also a lot of “shout out” references in this volume, most of them blatant. Helena takes Taizou’s temperature with her head, which he says is so cliched even Mitsuru Adachi wouldn’t do that anymore… wait, no, he would. The police officers who parody Isaac Azimov’s Bailey and Olivaw are also a hoot, though they remind me that Seven Seas has once again rated this series T when it clearly isn’t – there’s no nudity, but reader beware. Possibly the strangest thing in the book, though, is that Taizou and Helena’s growing relationship is rather sweet – well, once she puts on a different shirt, that is.

The Voynich Hotel was very popular scanlated, so I worry that it will suffer the fate of other popular scanlated series licensed over here (I’m looking at you, Franken Fran). It requires a strong stomach at times, but the skewed tone of this series tickled me, and at only three volumes, I’m quite willing to read more.