Takane & Hana, Vol. 1

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By Yuki Shiwusa. Released in Japan 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.

I am known for being notoriously easy to please, but it has to be said, I have a type. I have a certain kind of manga that I will automatically pick up sight unseen, and will always assume I will love unless proven otherwise. That type is shoujo manga from Hakusensha’s Hana to Yume magazine. From Skip Beat! and Oresama Teacher back through Fruits Basket and the complete works of Banri Hidaka all the way back to Here Is Greenwood, Hana to Yume is almost always a win for me. So I was prepared for Takane & Hana to please me. And yet I admit to surprise. It surpassed my expectations. What’s more, it surpassed them on the inside cover page. When you can win over a reader before the table of contents, you’re doing something right. Best of all, it kept my attention and kept me laughing and grinning the rest of the volume.

Hana is a cute high school girl with the misfortune to be the younger sister to a girl that is absolutely gorgeous. Her father also works as a corporate guy for a rich conglomerate, and the head of said conglomerate wants his grandson to marry – and thinks that Hana’s sister is pretty and would be just the thing. Unfortunately, the sister blows the whole thing off, so (as the grandfather is getting on and they may as well) they disguise Hana as her sister and try to have the marriage meeting anyway. It is, predictably, a disaster. The grandson, Takane, is arrogant, grumpy, and insensitive, and Hana blows up and storms out. Except… Hana blowing up intrigued Takane, and now he’s taken an interest in her. What follows is their hilarious semi-courtship, involving Takane’s social ineptness and sneering visage, and Hana’s razor-sharp tongue.

I cannot begin to count the things that this series does that are right in my strike zone. Even the cover has her pulling on his tie – I love shots like that. Hana is a down-to-earth girl with a line in retorts, and realizes right away that this is a war to see who can be the most in control. At the start she’s winning over him hands down, as underneath the arrogant persona Takane is awkward and doesn’t really know many social cues – and also is seemingly a genuinely good businessman, something that impresses her. As the volume goes on we see Takane get his own back a bit as Hana has to realize that yes indeed, she may have feelings for him after all. This is all conveyed through some excellent art, particularly the faces – Takane’s one-sided sneer, which is how Hana can tell he’s genuinely happy. Hana’s various reactions to the dumb things that he does. Hell, even when she points at him in an accusatory way at one point, her finger has a little mini-Hana face on it. The art fits the story, which is to say it’s hilarious but also can be romantic when it wants to be.

Essentially, if you are me, this is essential reading. Thankfully, most of you are not me, but even so I highly recommend Takane & Hana. I haven’t been this excited about a shoujo title in some time.

Strike the Blood, Vol. 8

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

This does not quite hit the highs (relatively speaking) of the previous volume, mostly as the entire volume is “let’s reveal the backstory the reader has been in the dark about for so long” and not much else, but it’s still a pretty solid volume of Strike the Blood. While we’re technically carrying on from the end of the last book, most of this is Kojou (and Asagi, along for the ride for some reason) remembering the events that led to him becoming the Fourth Primogenitor, which took place just before the start of the series. There’s a lot of attempts at worldbuiding and introducing potential new antagonists, which doesn’t work quite as well as the author likes. The good news is that there were a couple of genuine surprises in this volume, which is especially impressive given that Strike the Blood is one of the most by-the-numbers light novels out there.

Despite being on the cover as always, there’s very little Yukina in this book, which makes sense given it’s predominately a flashback. (This, by the way, means we have now gone TWO WHOLE BOOKS without her catchphrase of “No, sempai, this is OUR fight!”. I feel like I’m going through withdrawal.) She and Natsuki have removed Kojou and Asagi to her dream prison space so that Kojou can recover the memories of what really happened and be controlled if that happens to drive him insane (spoiler: it doesn’t.) What we see is not particularly surprising: Kojou is a natural at empathizing with others, which is why all the girls fall for him, and that also works here for Avrova. I hate to break it to people who may roll their eyes at the appearance of another one, but Avrova is, in fact, a blond vampire girl with the body of a child. That said, while she occasionally tries to be haughty in a Shinobu Oshino sort of way, she’s really more introverted and scared. Her bonding with Kojou was the best part of this book.

I’d mentioned surprises, and it comes in the form of Veldiana, who we’d met in the prior volume as a somewhat harried colleague of Kojou’s father. (Speaking of which, both Kojou’s parents appear quite a bit in this book, and while they are admittedly trying their best to save Nagisa’s life, it doesn’t change the fact that they are terrible, terrible parents.) Veldiana is played, in the first half of the book, as something of a comic relief character, and we assume that this is going to be her role in the book. But no, she’s here to teach a darker lesson about what happens when you let revenge consume you, and (leaving the epilogue aside, which I wasn’t too fond of) it works very well. There are also one or two scenes that are not surprises, but the way that they work out with precision timing is also well handled – watch for Kojou bribing the enemy with ice cream.

Strike the Blood is never going to rise to the level of the top light novels being released over here. But it has at least risen to the level where I don’t feel the need to make fun of it or wonder if it’s written by a Light Novel artificial intelligence. As always, the fights are well written and make you want to see them animated. It’s a decent volume in what has become a decent series.

Juana and the Dragonewts’ Seven Kingdoms, Vol. 1

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By Kiyohisa Tanaka. Released in Japan as “Ryuu no Nanakuni to Minashigo no Juana” by Mag Garden, serialized in the online magazine Alterna pixiv. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Adrienne Beck. Adapted by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane.

The immediate gimmick of this series, one that’s not uncommon in fantasy but which I haven’t seen too much in manga, is that of a foundling story. The world we’re in is populated mostly by dragonewts, including the hero on the cover, who seems to spend his days scavenging the immediate area for old relics of the previous long-dead civilization, the Muernandes (or “humans”, as we would call them). He finds an egg, and inside is Juana, which is very odd. She comes out of the egg looking about six years old and speaking Spanish, which is even odder. Nid, the dragonewt who found her, is determined to see if there are others like her, so sets off on a journey to the northern lands where they might find a bit more evidence. That is, of course, if they can get past Nid’s naivete, Juana’s tendency to run off when she’s curious, and very dapper villains.

While Nid is not much of a mentor, being the equivalent of a young adult himself, this series feels very much in the mold of other gentle Seven Seas fantasies like The Ancient Magus’ Bride and The Girl from the Other Side. The worldbuilding is done by showing, not telling, which I always approve of, and while Nid has a tendency to be ostracized (again for the meat-eating thing, which I found quite fascinating – a reminder that this is indeed a dragonewt world with dragonewt prejudices) he does have one or two allies… \or at least boisterous loudmouths. As for Juana, she spends the entire book speaking untranslated Spanish, which means (unless you also speak Spanish, which I admittedly do not) that the reader is as much at a loss as Nid as to what she’s saying. That said, she’s pretty good at making her needs known anyway. And at least even I know what “Me gusta!” means.

There are, honestly, a LOT of mysteries still to discover here. We need to know more about this world, which is so different from ours and yet has many similarities i9n terms of the types of people in it. The cliffhanger reminds us that there are still bad guys floating around, though with a top hat and cane it has to be said that the bad guys look fabulous. And of course, everything about Juana is simply odd, though she’s fairly unconcerned herself. In addition to the mysteries, though, I’d argue the main reason to read this is it’s simply pretty well written. There’s elements of comedy, involving the large and boisterous dragonewt who makes Juana her clothing for their long journey (a spacesuit – it’s much hotter on the planet now). There’s elements of sadness, such as running across a dying old dragonewt in the middle of the forest, and realizing that there’s not much they can do except listen to his story. And there’s honest to god terror at the end, as Mr. Smith shows his true intentions and Nid appears to be headed towards a rapid death.

Juana is only two volumes and counting in Japan, so we’ll catch up pretty quickly, but I’m definitely on board. Another well-crafted and likeable fantasy manga is always welcome.