A Certain Scientific Railgun, Vol. 12

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By Kazuma Kamachi and Motoi Fuyukawa. Released in Japan as “Toaru Kagaku no Railgun” by ASCII Media Works, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Nan Rymer, Adapted by Maggie Danger.

Warning: the first paragraph of this review, above the picture, is spoiler-free for the most part. After that I will not only be spoiling the volume itself, but also A Certain Magical Index 15, which comes out in May 2018 from Yen On. Most Index fans know this spoiler well, but for the casual readers among you who have only read Railgun, stop after the first paragraph. This is a solid Railgun volume, with thankfully little to no fanservice (Kuroko is absent, which helps). It’s a book of two halves, the first of which features Saten and Frenda meeting by chance and bonding over canned fish, then getting caught up in a nasty situation because Saten has once again been mistaken for something more than she is. The second half sets up a new arc as Mikoto and Misaki investigate a girl who is yet another Secret Project of Academy City’s endless array of mad scientists. Railgun readers should enjoy this.

OK, spoiler-free time is over. THIS BOOK HAS SO MANY DEAD PEOPLE. A lot of what Kamachi has been doing with Railgun (and unlike most spinoffs of popular light novels, you can tell he has a major hand in this series) has been to fill in the blanks between Index volumes where Touma wasn’t around, not just from Mikoto’s perspective but also others. He’s also taken a lot of the cast and expanded their roles immensely to give them depth, and no one’s a more obvious example of that than Frenda. We’ve seen Frenda multiple times through Railgun, first as a villain in part of the Railgun-only Sisters arc, then again in the Railgun anime ending helping Mikoto take out a Big Bad, and then various spotty cameos. Now she gets a big focus story as she works to help save Saten – despite the fact that she wonders why the hell she’s doing this – from the machinations of SCHOOL, a dark organization which is using Indian Poker for its own nefarious ends. Frenda really is likeable here, and when she and Saten text each other at the end, you smile, hoping she’ll turn up again.

But to the reader of Index Novel 15, which came out 8 years before these Railgun chapters, this is tragedy. Because Frenda dies, ripped in half as revenge for being “a traitor”. The “One Week Later” at the end of the arc, showing Saten texting Frenda and getting no response, and seeing Uiharu at her door instead, is horrible, and meant to be incredibly depressing. Also, note that Uiharu’s shoulder and arm are in a sling – I suppose I should be grateful that Railgun isn’t going to cover that as well, as that’s also an Index 15 thing. Oh yes, and SCHOOL will, with one exception, also be entirely dead by the end of Book 15 (and in one case, good riddance – my lip curled when I saw Kakine on the page). As I said, this volume is crawling with people who, in the main series, die horribly. It CAN be read without knowledge of those events, and is still quite good. But for those who know what happens next, the first half of this volume is very different. I definitely recommend coming back to it later on after you read Index 15.

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, Vol. 2

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By Ryo Shirakome and Takayaki. Released in Japan as “Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou” by Overlap. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Ningen.

This is definitely a stronger volume than the first one – as with many authors, you get the sense that this is the story he wanted to tell all along, only he had to spend an entire volume giving us actual plot and backstory. But Hajime has hit world’s strongest already, and together with Yue he can pretty much carve up anything. So what’s left is the two of them snarking their way through various confrontations, beating nearly to death anyone who wrongs them, and attacking their second dungeon, which thankfully is very different from the first – in fact, the dungeon may be the highlight of the book. And of course they meet a new girl, the bunny girl on the cover. Admittedly, a lot of the plot points we had in the first book get short shrift (the rest of the class have approximately 20 pages of the book), but in a book this ridiculous that’s fine.

One of the reasons that the book works so well is the addition of Shea (whose name I think is meant to be pronounced Shee-ah, but sorry, I’m likely going to be saying Shay due to romanization habits), a loud, hyperactive, overly dramatic bunny girl who is the polar opposite of Hajime and Yue. I suspect Arifureta fandom may disagree with me on this – I haven’t verified it, but I’m pretty sure that Shea is the sort of character that readers came to Arifureta to get away from, and I bet that they winced with every whining complaint out of her mouth. These readers are wrong. Shea is quite funny and amusing, and while she starts off as the abused whiner of the group, the book is in many ways about adding her to the ‘harem’ naturally – I was relieved that Yue warmed up to her relatively quickly, as I don’t need genuine love triangle drama in my unrealistic harem fantasy – and by the end she is, if not an actual love interest, at least a valued party member.

As I mentioned in my review of the first volume, Arifureta tends to work better the more ridiculous it gets, though this is not an ironclad rule – Hajime’s training of the rabbit clan, and subsequent overdoing it, left just as sour a taste in my mouth as it did in his – and that’s likely why the best part of this book is Hajime, Yue and Shea conquering their second dungeon, which features zero monsters but eleven million kinds of traps. There’s hallways that turn into slides, there’s the ever popular washtub to the head, and there’s even a boulder rolling towards them down a slope, which is so cliched it’s remarked upon. This is added to by the constant taunting messages of the dungeon master, Miledi, who we never see (her spirit is inside a golem), but whose personality shines through with every teasing abusive message she writes for our heroes. This whole section was very fun, and the fight scenes were good.

As always, know what you’re getting into – this is still wish fulfillment fantasy of the highest order, with a ridiculously dark!grey!independent Hajime and his two companions, a gorgeous loli and a busty bunny girl. There’s no sex this time around, but that’s mostly due to lack of opportunity. It is still for fans of these sort of light novels only. But if you are one of those fans, and can get over Shea’s hyperdramatics, this is a very good addition to the series, and a definitely improvement over the first book.

Waiting for Spring, Vol. 1

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By Anashin. Released in Japan as “Haru Matsu Bokura” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dessert. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Alethea and Athena Nibley.

One of the things I am very fond of repeating over and over again is that a manga does not have to be new, exciting or revolutionary to be enjoyable. Yes, it’s always nice to see something that doesn’t follow the same well-worm path, but the well-worn path is comforting. A lot of people walk it every day. You know where you’re going. It’s the same with shoujo manga, and I know that a few people might be looking at Waiting for Spring and thinking “is there anything here I couldn’t read in a dozen other shoujo titles I’ve seen in the past?”. And the answer is, nope. It is thoroughly predictable in every way, and features character types you are not only familiar with but overfamiliar with. It is the well-worn path. I quite liked it.

Mitsuki is our heroine a first year high school student who’s trying to move to a school without too many of her old classmates to be more popular, but we know how well that works out. She’s pretty isolated, though she does at least have a part-time job at a cafe. The cuties of the school are Towa and his three other friends (who have names, but let’s face it, Towa is the one to remember), who are up and comers on the basketball team and have huge fanbases already. Things then start to go wrong as a) she gets a confession from one of the guys… who then actually looks at her and realizes he’s got the wrong girl; they’re likely going to start going to that cafe, meaning it will be overrun with their female fans; and worst of all, they’re generally nice guys if a bit insensitive, and they have that Mitsuki wants: self-confidence. Gradually she begins to hang out with them, despite the inherent dangers, and finds herself falling for Towa.

As you can see, this is not breaking any new ground, but it’s sweet. Mitsuki is likeable and awkward without being a doormat. Towa is nice and friendly without being bland. I don’t like the guy who accidentally proposed, but he’s meant to be the butt monkey of the series anyway, so that’s fine. Mitsuki also does eventually make a friend of another girl, which reassured me as sometimes these reverse harems can be fairly skimpy in that department. Reina also obsesses about the four guys, but not for the same reasons as the rest of the group – we, the reader can tell she’s a BL fanatic fantasizing about them, but Mitsuki herself doesn’t get it. And Mitsuki is slowly becoming more outgoing and forceful, reminding the fanclub why you go to a basketball game in the first place – to cheer the guys on. Her grades are bad, but even that is made into a decent plot point.

This hits a lot of good emotional beats, and there was no point at which I sighed and had to go “well, every shoujo series has a scene like this.” The guys may be overly insenstive at times, but none of them seem to be the sneering ass type. In short, if you just finished a comforting, easy to read shoujo series and were thinking of getting another one, Waiting for Spring will suit you fine.