Hybrid x Heart Magias Academy Ataraxia, Vol. 1

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By Masamune Kuji, Riku Ayakawa, Hisasi, and Kurogin. Released in Japan as “Masou Gakuen HxH” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comp Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Caleb Cook.

Every once in a while, despite knowing that it’s not really my thing, I take a look at one of these “excuse to draw large breasts” series. If I’m unlucky, I can’t even finish the thing. If I’m lucky, I find enough points of interest to catch my eye besides the boobs. Most of the time, though, I finish the volume and think “well, that certainly was that kind of series”, and such is the case with Hybrid x Heart, which also manages to work in the cliche of the magical academy of fighters. The thing that did surprise me, though, is how much the basic plot feels like Evangelion. Boy who was abandoned for being useless is brought back in a time of crisis to use his mecha powers to save the world, being led by his older sister, who is not a great Gendo figure, but we can’t have everything. The difference is that in order to save the world, he has to feel up the female cast until they gain power.

Yes, you read that right. Usually these series at least try to put a veneer of technology over the ecchi deeds, and we try to get that here with talk of “hybrid counts” and how it’s Kizuna’s power that basically refuels them. But it’s really about the breasts, which are groped quite a bit in this series, because there’s also a lot of mecha fighting and the girls who do the actual fighting need a bit of a recharge. I did notice that this is the sort of series where we not only credit the original character designer, but the original mecha designer, and the powered suits do look pretty cool if you’re into that sort of thing, though I imagine hardcore Gundam types might want to see more mecha battles and a bit less groping. As for the characters, they’re very generic, with the heroine Aine seemingly OK with Kizuna doing whatever he wants as long as she gets more power, and the standard blonde American Yurishia who will no doubt be the first main rival figure.

This was originally a light novel, and I think, as with the other series of this sort where the manga was licensed but the LN wasn’t (High School DxD, Testament of Sister New Devil) I should probably be grateful – the groping and constant boobfest is bad enough visually, but as prose I think it might be unbearable. As for the art, it’s passable, though I do note that Aine (blue hair) and Yurishia (blonde hair) have a tendency to look a lot alike in black and white, and it can be hard to tell them apart. Honestly, this reads sort of like the harem Evangelion fics you used to see back in the day on FFNet, with of course one big exception: no one is getting lucky here. The series doesn’t go beyond groping in this first volume. I’m not sure oif that will change, but in the meantime, I can recommend this series only to the most hardcore “must get everything with mecha” fans, or its likely audience, 13-year-old boys.

In Another World with My Smartphone, Vol. 5

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By Patora Fuyuhara and Eiji Usatsuka. Released in Japan as “Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Andrew Hodgson.

First, off, here’s a surprise with this volume of Smartphone: there’s no new love interest. Touya’s list of wives is still stuck at five, and (for anime watchers who were rather startled to see her name on the flashforward) Leen here does nothing except dole out the occasional exposition and pine for the library to be discovered. That does not mean that there’s not a lot going on here: the story is jam-packed as always, though typically it does not appear to follow a specific path so much as meander. Touya sets up his new duchy, adding renovations to the castle (game room with bowling alley and whack-a-mole), gets the major rulers of the area obsessed with mahjong, creates roads, brings in new businesses, and creates a legion of soldiers (including a team of ninjas led by Tsubaki from the Eashen volume). Typical Smartphone stuff, and nothing that would raise an eyebrow. But let’s talk about the religious dictatorship.

This is the first volume to come out after the anime finished, so I expect may grab a few more readers who want to see what happens next. They may be surprised. Not so much by the evil and hypocritical dictatorship – such things are a dime a dozen in manga and light novels, and honestly the fact that the main Cardinal was described as looking exactly like Hitler barely raised an eyebrow. No, what startled me was Touya’s vehement reaction to the attempt to proselytize his nation, which in my opinion really went above and beyond natural “I’m not a fan of organized religion”. Touya’s past on our Earth pre-death has been completely ignored as we’ve gone along, but I do wonder if there was something in his past that led to this. I also suspect the author has an ax to grind. To be fair, Touya does say that he’s fine with people worshiping God in the way that they want – but he’ is very much against organized religion trying to flex its muscle, and says so vehemently. Where this becomes hilarious is that the God of this series – the one who resurrected Touya, which is why he can say “Sure I do” when people ask if he believes in God – comes down from on high to thank Touya for his speech decrying religion, and affirms to the somewhat terrified priestess watching that he really barely watches over the world at all – humans should seek to improve the world themselves, rather than rely on deities. The entire chapter is rather mind-boggling, and I wonder how it will read here in the West.

There is also a certain amount of backstory regarding the Phrase, which is not discovered through hard work and research, but instead given to us in an infodump by Ende, whose sole purpose in this series is to give exposition and look like Kaworu from Evangelion. The series’ faults are all still there – Touya is ridiculously overpowered, and finds out in this book he actually is a demigod; the BL author seems to have driven him into a complete “ew ew ew” rage whenever she’s remotely mentioned, which is irritating; and as I said before, despite the Phrase there seems to be no driving force behind this title beyond “watch what Touya does next”. That said, I’m content to do just that. The fiancees don’t get much to do here, but they all do kick ass in the final story, without Touya’s help, which pleased me. Oh yes, and Touya used his powers at Olga and Lyon’s nuptials for one of the sweetest wedding speeches you will ever see – it may be the highlight of the book. If you hated Smartphone, this won’t change your mind. If you loved Smartphone, unless you’re an Evangelical Christian, this will give you what you want.

Oh, and Touya also invents baseball. Because of course he does.

Gabriel Dropout, Vol. 1

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By Ukami. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh “g”. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Caleb Cook.

We’ve seen a lot of comedy manga lately from various publishers, but it’s been very hit and miss, which is not surprising given the nature of the beast. Comedy is hard, and comedy is also subjective. Sometimes something that’s enjoyable for a volume or two is going to be tiresome in the long haul (I’m looking at you, Aho Girl). Sometimes something that other readers find funny is going to rub you the wrong way, or you end up sympathizing too much with a group of characters who are clearly meant to be complete asses. That is, I suppose, theoretically possible with the cast of Gabriel Dropout, but I for one welcome a series that is not afraid to show us that both Heaven and Hell are combining to produce angels and devils that seem to specialize in being lazy, unproductive, pathetic, cruel, and completely unable to fulfill their original mission. If only as I find it very funny indeed.

Once again, the title is the premise. The girl on the cover is Gabriel, an Angel who graduated top of her class in Heaven, and is sent to Earth to learn how humans work so that she can help them in the best way possible. We do not, thankfully, see her arrival and fall – that would ruin the comedy. Instead, we simply cut to her, months later, down on Earth in a filthy apartment, playing RPGs, manga and rubbish stacked high, lazing around in her underwear. Her explanation for how this happened is as vague as it is self-serving, but I don’t care, as this sort of character is simply funny. She has a good snarky monologue in her head, can be the boke or tsukkomi as required, and clearly has the ability to be noble and upright but chooses not to. She’s assisted by Vignette, a demon who is essentially her mirror image – she needs to be doing bad things but has wound up being the student council president type.

These two alone would be a decent enough comedy, but we then add the ludicrously over the top Satanya, also a demon but far more egotistical, dramatic, and stupid. She’s the sort who brings her own downfall on herself, but it’s her reactions to everything that are wonderful. Then we see Gabriel’s fellow Angel Raphael, who is basically Mugi from K-On! if she were totally evil. Raphael lives to tease and troll, and therefore we see her most often with Satanya, who is the perfect victim. The premise of the series seems to be that the Angels and Devils would function much better of they were on each other’s team, though nobody is actually trying to do anything genuinely bad – Satanya regards throwing away a bottle without taking off the cap first as the height of villainy, after all.

Again, comedy is subjective, and I think some people might not enjoy this as much as I did. Certainly if you take Satanya’s suffering seriously the entire cast might simply be giant jerks. But I found Gabriel Dropout very funny, and am definitely adding it to my list of ongoing comedy manga. Whether it can survive the long haul… is a question the next volume will have to answer.