Oh, My Sweet Alien!

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By Kouji Miyata. Released in Japan as “Yome ga Kore na Monde” by Enterbrain, serialized in the magazine Harta. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Sheldon Drzka.

This sort of premise will be very familiar to anyone who reads books or watches television, aliens aside. The story of a normal man who ends up marrying a wife who has a supernatural secret – or even is just of an amusing foreign nationality – has been around forever, and Oh, My Sweet Alien! is simply adapting that premise to suit its own needs. That’s not to say that this manga is dull – predictable, yes, but I was entertained throughout, mostly as the author manages to find a nice balance between the wife being a “funny foreigner” type and the wife being a genuinely weird, unnerving alien. It never gets too horrific – this is a sweet comedy, after all – but we do see the collection of human skins she has to wear to pass herself off in this world, and at home she’s not above using her tentacles as easily as she does her hands – in fact, more easily. As the story progresses and they have a child, the complications remain the same – predictable, but fun.

As we find out in a flashback, Nobuo, our young man, was abducted by aliens to be fitted with an implant, seemingly as some sort of rite of passage for a young alien girl (who is referred to as “the wife” throughout, I believe). Somewhat delirious from the abduction, and touched by the fact that she doesn’t want to give him the implant, he proposes to her, and they move in together. The rest of the book could be described as “wackiness ensues”, really. We get alien in-laws, Nobue’s grumpy mother, and two more aliens (from Venus, no less) hell bent on breaking up the couple by seduction. All of these could easily be rewritten from “alien” to “foreigner”, as I said, but seeing how :”alien” plays out is what makes this fun. I was a little frustrated at times (Madoka, the female alien homewrecker, can be quite annoying before she’s gradually toned down a bit), and the gratuitous nudity feels a bit out of place (without it, honestly, you could lower the age rating a bit), but the sweet moments are really sweet, and the humor can sometimes be fantastic – I loved the “I will reveal my secret” gag of the final chapter, for example.

Sadly, this is all we’re going to get of this title – the author died of a brain hemorrhage three years ago. It’s a shame, because of the many varieties of western publishers’ “Monster Girl” series that have been flooding the market faster than you can say Alice in the Country of Hearts, this was on the cute, fun side, and it’s nice to see one that stars a happily married couple who love each other despite all of the obvious differences. It’s not for everyone (I will mention the nudity again, there really is quite a bit of it), but fans of the genre should definitely give this a try.

Silver Spoon, Vol. 1

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By Hiromu Arakawa. Released in Japan as “Gin no Saji” by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Amanda Haley.

It’s honestly hard not to get a bit choked up reading this first volume of Silver Spoon, one of the manga licensing holy grails of the last few years. Cries of “it’s a new series by the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist! What’s stopping them?” were met with the response of “It’s a FARMING manga”. But here we are, and finally, seven years after its debut, we have Silver Spoon, a farming manga, in our hot little hands. In fact, I was rather surprised to see that “from the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist” is nowhere on the covers. It’s possible, of course, that they did not want to give mistaken impressions – fans of the fantasy action movie that FMA was much of the time would likely be taken aback a bit by this slice-of-agricultural life series. But in the end I think that’s fine, as Silver Spoon stands out on its own without any help. It’s a truly refreshing series.

Our hero is Yuugo Hachiken, who has arrived at an agricultural high school up in Hokkaido, the only student in the school who doesn’t come from some kind of farming background or family. We don’t learn his circumstances right away, except to see that he doesn’t seem to have a purpose in life. The other students definitely all are goal oriented – they have to be, given the nature of the industry they’re all in. Hachiken is an excellent student, but he’s also far too serious and tends to suffer from “if I don’t get straight A’s and the 1st place in class I am a failure” syndrome. Here, though, he’s thrown head first into farming life, with the help of the cute girl who “rescues” him after he chases a runaway animal on his first day and gets lost, Aki Mikage. He’s immediately smitten, but romance is on the back burner here. The main thrust of the series is seeing Hachiken learn about animals, farms, and the cycle of life, and trying to come to terms with it.

Arakawa grew up on a farm, and it shows. The attention to detail here is fantastic, and even though there’s a lot of exposition you never feel bored. Hachiken too is a well thought out protagonist. He’s uptight, and seemingly the sort of person you’d expect to break after a few days of the grueling work the kids have to put in at the school, but while he whines a lot, he never thinks of giving up. (And the one time he tries to slack off he’s quickly put in his place.) Moreover he’s quite happy to tutor the other kids in things like math and the like, and already seems to be showing signs of “trying to do it all”. The rest of the cast is also introduced well – Mikage is sweet and upbeat, the baseball-playing Komaba is stoic and serious, etc. Fans of Fullmetal Alchemist may find the gym teacher a bit familiar as well. And the animals are fun as well, particularly the horses – though there are hints there may be piglet drama coming up soon.

After waiting so long for this series, I am so happy to report that it doesn’t disappoint. It’s a relaxing, easy read, and you’ll also learn a lot about animal care. I urge everyone to go and buy this, as I desperately want it to succeed. Highly recommended.

How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord, Vol. 2

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By Yukiya Murasaki and Takahiro Tsurusaki. Released in Japan as “Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo Dorei Majutsu” by Kodansha. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Garrison Denim.

The second volume of this series picks up right where the first one left off, both in terms of the plot and in terms of my feelings about it. It’s rare to see a series that has so many of the things that I dislike in it be something I still want to read, but there you have it. I want to find out what happens next to Diablo, Shera and Rem. I find the pacing and narration easy to read. The book is occasionally funny, and the battles are well done. On the minus side, we double down on “this is why slavery is OK here”, complete with explanation of how it would work if good, nice people were in charge of slaves. We get another in a long line of villains who are meant to be as evil as possible, though for a change this one is not written by Reki Kawahara. He still works in rape threats AND incestual feelings, though. That said, honestly, for fans of this sort of book? This volume delivers the goods.

Shera got the cover of the first book, so Rem features here, even though the plot revolves around Shera. Her brother is trying to force her to return to the Elven Kingdom and become a broodmare (with him, which makes the whole thing even ickier), first trying threats, then using a mind control that is so painfully obvious that the only person it would ever work on is an insecure Japanese hikkikomori with no social skills who is pretending to be an over the top demon lord. Lucky for him! (In all seriousness, Diablo’s “mask” slips quite often in the dialogue, and he frequently sounds less like a demon lord and more like a typical tsukkomi-style protagonist. No one really remarks upon, this, so I’m not sure if it’s just sloppy writing or a deliberate attempt to show his “Diablo” is not as perfect as he’d like – certainly by the end of the book Rem seems to be seeing through him.) Naturally, Diablo, once he snaps out of it, goes to Shera’s rescue, but then he has to take on the very powerful Governor of the city they’re staying in.

I continue to like the relationship between Rem and Shera, who bounce well off each other, and are rapidly becoming close friends, much as Rem may not want to admit it. And while the fanservice is not my cup of tea (particularly the final “gag” involving the grasswalker adventurer who gets Diablo drunk and lives to regret it), it’s exactly the sort of thing that readers of this series would like to see. We’re also introduced to a Holy Knight named Alicia, who’s fairly straightforward and dull, and thus the epilogue pleased me as I’d been expecting something else to be going on with her right from the start. I suspect that the next volume will get back into the whole demon lord revival thing that had been a part of the first book. In the meantime, this is only for readers of harem isekai, I want to emphasize again. But I will be sticking around despite all the book’s faults, which is a positive thing.