Ghost Diary, Vol. 1

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By Seiju Natsumegu. Released in Japan as “Kaidan Nikki” by ASCII Media Works, serialized in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Krista Shipley, Adapted by Shannon Fay.

For a while now, there has been a war going on in manga, though some may not have noticed it. Here at Manga Bookshelf, though, we pride ourselves on observational skills, and have watched the fallout with much interest. I am referring, of course, to the battle between manga being licensed about yokai and manga being licensed about monster girls. Both seemingly involving the same thing, but in reality these are very different beasts. Monster Girl series, with one or two exceptions, show us various types of creatures living alongside humans in society, while yokai series tend to involve humans investigating said creatures as dangerous and mysterious phenomena. Ghost Diary ran in Dengeki Daioh, so honestly I was expecting the former, but make no mistake about it, this is a relatively serious work, and its dark turns surprised me.

The plot involves a group of high-school occultists who go around searching for mysterious things. That said, most of the club are there to fill out the cast, and the real stars are Kyouichi, a teen exorcists who is haunted by a tragic past, and Mayumi, the standard cardboard cutout tsundere who likes him. Kyouichi’s older sister disappeared after a battle with a yokai that was coming after Kyouichi himself, and he’s vowed to find her. Luckily, he has help. Unluckily, it’s the worst kind of help. Chloe is a grim reaper who seemingly wants to find Kyouichi’s sister as well so she can get her memories back, and offers to help him out when he needs it, to the point of moving into his house. Unfortunately for Kyouichi, Chloe is not going to be one of those quirky mentors you see so often in these sorts of series.

As you may have guessed by my brief snarkiness in the prior paragraph, I wasn’t all that impressed with the love interest in this series, and the rest of the club is also a bit underwhelming (even the shy girl who speaks through her doll has been done better elsewhere, though I admit the overweight yakuza is new). But make no mistake about it, you want to read this manga for the relationship between Kyouichi and Chloe, as she kills his friends (then resurrects them, to be fair), destroys what might otherwise have been a heartwarming chapter about a dead baker who was moved by Kyouichi’s sister, and otherwise behaves like she may be the villain of the series. But she may not be – certainly at times she does behave very much like the mentor she wants to be, and it’s unclear if she’s the antagonist of the whole series or just a horrible creature. I want to see more of her.

This series is not for everyone – the last chapter has some disturbing rape threats from a man trapped in the body of a prepubescent boy – but overall I was pleasantly surprised. This is a dark take on a genre that already gets pretty dark. And it’s only three volumes, so I’m definitely interested in finishing it. Let’s hope that Kyouichi can survive it.

Baccano!: 1932 Drug & The Dominoes

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By Ryohgo Narita and Katsumi Enami. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

This was the final Baccano! light novel that was used in the 2007 anime adaptation, but even if you’ve seen the anime you should read this anyway, as it’s startling how much was left out and how much was changed. The anime needed a little bit more plot to add to its “let’s move back and forth between various time periods” style, and Eve’s subplot seemed to fit the bill. They had little to no use for Roy Maddock and his drug addiction, though, and so he was completely eliminated. Which is a shame, as while I have little use for Roy himself, who is not as interesting as virtually everyone else in this book, his girlfriend Edith is awesome, and having Roy also means we meet Kate Gandor, Keith’s wife – and actually hear Keith speak more than a few lines of dialogue!

Eve Genoard, younger sister to ne’er-do-well Dallas, is front and center on the cover, and I’d wager that she gets to have the hero’s journey here – as I said before, Roy is a bit too flat for me to really grant that to him. You could argue that Luck Gandor may also qualify – he’s worrying that he’s lost an essential humanity since becoming immortal, and it’s through dealing with Eve and the Runoratas that he comes to accept who he is now and realize that he hasn’t changed as much as he thought. He’s certainly unrepentant about what he did to Dallas – who, let’s remember, killed several men in the Gandor mafia clan – but he allows Eve a chance to possibly rescue Dallas from his watery grave. (Luck wonders why he was so soft-hearted, which is hilarious given that earlier in the book, all three Gandors were terrified about the idea of having to punish a woman, mafia-style, for betrayal – they end up giving her a haircut.)

This happens right after the last two books – in fact, the first third of it actually happens before the last two books, as it begins in late December 1931 and ends in early January 1932. And we do see characters from the previous books. Isaac and Miria have a smaller role than usual, but it’s their theft of the Gandor Family Fortune which sets most of this in motion, and their obsession with dominoes that gives us some more comedy, though I think it’s REALLY OBVIOUS that Narita only added that plot so he could use the title, which comes from Eric Clapton’s band Derek and the Dominoes. Firo spends most of the book grumbling and whining, which seems a bit out of character for him. And we also see a few people who look like they’re being introduced for future books, such as Tick, the Gandor family’s smiling torture specialist, and Maria, a walking Mexican stereotype who can’t stop saying “amigo” but who is a lot of fun anyway. The Daily Days also get a lot more here to do than usual, and the one morally dubious guy of their bunch gets his after a ride on the Rail Tracer express (not lethal, for once).

That said, the book ends with a sort of tragedy, and it involves another immortal who appears throughout the book – Begg, who seems to have been one of Maiza’s group who became immortal back in 1711. He’s now the Runorata family drug expert, and spends his years trying to perfect a drug that will make everyone live in their own happy world, with no problems or worries. Given the halting, jittery way he speaks, you get the feeling he’s tested a lot of drugs on himself. And, despite an attempt at a heartwarming scene with Czeslaw (which is also rife with foreshadowing), in the end we see him at the start of the 21st century, burned out in an institution, barely able to respond to Maiza. Immortals may live forever, but they can still damage their mind, and it’s sad to see, even if you question the entire premise of what Begg wanted to achieve.

All in all, a good addition to the series, with lots of fun stuff happening, though I don’t think it hits the heights of Book 2. Next time we’ll move forward a bit – quite a bit – and see what the cast is up to in 2001.

Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 5

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By Mizuho Kusanagi. Released in Japan as “Akatsuki no Yona” by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by JN Productions, Adapted by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane.

In general, I’m always a bit wary of ‘chosen one’ narratives, which Yona of the Dawn is shaping up into being. The difficulty is striking a balance between following the chosen one because you know they will be a good person who can change the world, and following the chosen one out of a literal compulsion you can’t control that draws you to them. Yona of the Dawn tries to have this both ways, and I like that the new Dragon, Jaeha, is reluctant to follow his supposed destiny, being very happy being what he is, which is a showboating, girl-loving pirate with the classic Hana to Yume “sleepy eyes”. Of course, this is still a shoujo manga, and thus the cliffhanger has him running into Yona and immediately his heart skips a beat, because of course it does – if you’re going to write romance cliches, do them properly.

Meanwhile, as predicted, the Blue Dragon decides to come with them, and even gets named by Yona, who is, of course, still the Chosen One but balances this out by being caring and loving and sweet and nice, etc. Names turn out to be pretty important in this book, as the male cast who aren’t Hak gradually start to call Yona by her first name. Hak is an exception, though, and this is the best scene in the volume, as Yona tells him the reasons that she wants him to still call her “your highness” and treat her as royalty. It’s so that they don’t forget her father or what he did. This is immediately followed up with the heartbreaking revelation that most people in the country seem to regard the late King with contempt as a terrible King, much to Yona’s distress. (In reality, putting the distance between her and Hak may be authorial fiat – let’s face it, this is a reverse harem manga with an obvious endgame, and it’s best to delay it as much as possible.)

Most of this volume is, of course, the standard quest, as Yona and company continue wandering the land hunting for Dragon Warriors. This means that they have to stop and fight injustice whenever they can, of course, even if they’re supposed to keep a low profile (Yona’s red hair really does not help with stealth missions). The humor in this book is fairly predictable, mostly revolving around Hak’s inability to practice what he preaches, and everyone (including Yona) seeming to think that he spent time in a brothel, much to his frustration. Jaeha looks like an excellent addition to the cast, balancing nicely with the other guys’ personalities. This of course assumes that he does join the main cast, and I suspect the next volume will show us Yona trying to convince him of the righteousness of her cause.

In the end, this is another top-notch volume of Yona of the Dawn, which continues to be one of Shojo Beat’s best series.