In Another World with My Smartphone, Vol. 1

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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.

It’s a bit difficult to know where to begin. I guess I’ll start by saying that by the end of this book, I was enjoying it immensely and had a big smile on my face. The second thing I should say is that this does not actually make the book “good” in any sense of the word. For a few years I’ve had to review the occasional awful manga, and people have sometimes asked me “do you mean that it’s bad in an MST3K way or bad in a bad way”. Sadly, I’ve always had to say that it’s actually the latter. Most terrible things are not remotely entertaining. In Another World with My Smartphone is an exception. Every ridiculous power the hero has, each new cliched heroine that appears, every time the plot rearranges itself so that everything is as “awesome” as possible, and most importantly the complete lack of any sense that things are about to get difficult for anyone makes this book bad in an absolutely wonderful, hilarious way. Everyone who says Kirito or Tatsuya are overpowered self-insert wannabes need to read this immediately.

I should lay out the plot here, though if you have read any isekai you’ll get the gist. Touya (no, not the Touya from Mixed Bathing in Another Dimension, though I now wonder if the name has significance for isekai works) is accidentally killed by a lightning bolt. He’s granted an audience with God, who offers to reincarnate him in a fantasy world where he can have adventures. Touya, a modern thinking sort, asks if he can keep his smartphone, and God obligingly allows it to remain working and gives it unlimited battery. He then arrives in a new world, where he quickly meets up with Kyou and Ryou Fujibayashi… (cough) sorry, with Elze and Linze, two beginning adventurers who he joins forces with. Joining an adventurer’s guild, he gradually adds incredible powers, more cute girls, and heroic feats that make everyone’s jaws drop. In fact, the author literally apologizes for not using the smartphone enough in the first volume – why would Touya need it, when he can fight like a champ, use every single kind of magic, and summon Heavenly Beasts that then become adorable tiger cub mascots?

This is taken from a webnovel, and it’s really, really obvious. Usually with most conversions to published works they at least try to get rid of the excited sense of “I’m going to put absolutely everything into this book!”, but not here. Touya has impossible magic powers. Touya can read the moves of other fighters so he’s able to dodge or counter them. Touya can heal the blind. Touya can solve crimes, provided the suspect is an obvious cliche of an evil Duke. Touya is so pure of heart that the Princess of the land immediately falls in love and declares that he will be her husband. (Touya’s complete panic at this idea is possibly the best he’s written the whole book, and I hope (probably in vain) that future volumes throw him off his game like this.) Touya can read ancient scripts (just like Bob Hope and Steve Allen!), and can make magical reading glasses to allow other to do so. Touya can even accidentally look as if he’s been to a brothel and get lectured by all his girls, because this is still a harem comedy. Is there anything Touya cannot do? Sadly, yes. Touya cannot stop his friends’ menstrual pain. Some things are simply beyond any power.

I mentioned Touya’s purity of heart, and I think the same thing applies to the book as a whole. The reason that this is fun bad and not bad bad is that it’s so innocent of the normal cynicism you tend to see in these works. I joked on Twitter that this was “Baby’s First Isekai”, and that’s not far off. I think authors are allowed to write this sort of thing to get it out of their system. Being mean to it would be like kicking a puppy. There’s apparently an anime of this coming in the summer, and I cannot WAIT to see how the typical male anime fan who hates Kirito is going to react to this. I think I’ll bring popcorn. I’ll also be reading more, because this proved to be insanely fun. Which makes it a big success after all.

Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Vol. 1

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By Canno. Released in Japan as “Ano Ko ni Kiss to Shirayuri wo” by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Alive. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Jocelyn Allen.

Those who follow my reviews know that I have a certain penchant for mocking the monthly manga magazine Comic Alive, which has always seemed to cater to the audience who wants fanservice, tie-ins, and the latest trends, and they want them now. Sometimes that can be a disaster, but on occasion Comic Alive will throw me a curveball and give me a series I can truly enjoy. Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl is one of those series. I came to it at the end of a glut of yuri manga volumes (and who’d ever imagine I’d be typing that phrase even two years ago?), and was worried that a lot of this review would be finding ways to say the exact same thing again. But this title is different enough from its predecessors that there’s some interesting things to discuss.

The cover is somewhat deceptive, leading me to believe that we’d be seeing one of the common default yuri pairings (or CDYP for short), the shy easily embarrassed girl and the overly genki enthusiastic girl. Luckily, that’s not the case. The premise is actually similar to the old shoujo manga Special A – Ayaka is a hard-working diligent student who always gets the best grades, but now in high school she’s up against Yurine, a lazy and apathetic girl who nonetheless always manages to get first place in everything. Ayaka’s competitive nature (instilled by her parents, it’s hinted) won’t allow her to accept this, and so she grows more and more frustrated with Yurine. As for Yurine herself, nothing challenges her anymore, and therefore nothing is interesting… except maybe Ayaka.

By itself this would probably be enough to sustain a series, likely about 2-3 volumes. But halfway through we shift to Ayaka’s roommate and cousin Mizuki, who’s athletic, handsome, and the male half of the Takarazuka pair she has with her friend Moe, who manages the track team and is angling to get Yurine on it. Yes, you guessed right, this is a School Full Of Gay (TM), and so the second half of the story focuses on another couple and their own travails. This one is more easily solved, while it appears that Ayaka and Yukine will be the developing pairing we keep coming back to after wandering away for a bit. There’s also a few one-page shorts detailing that yes, everyone in this school is indeed gay, and while it’s unrealistic, it’s also quite cute.

As I said above, the thing I enjoyed best about this series is the way that Canno’s characters don’t quite go the way I expect them to. They’re still types to a degree, but this first volume gave them a bit more depth than I’d expect for a series like this, particularly Yurine, who also gets a chapter near the end where she hangs out all day with the exceedingly hyperactive Ai, partly in an effort to try to be more open and sociable. (She’s lucky she tried it first with Ai, who plows through social cues like a train.) I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll see more of ai and her own romantic travails in a future volume. In the meantime, Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl may walk on some well-worn paths, but there’s surprising depth here. A must have for fans of yuri.

Durarara!!, Vol. 6

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By Ryohgo Narita and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

When you write a book that creates a series of events that spiral into chaos, as Narita specialized in, particularly in this series, it can be many things to many people. For every character that’s involved in wacky hijinks, there’s another who’s undergoing a traumatic life-changing event. The skill is to keep those balls up in the air, and more importantly, to make everyone distinctive and memorable. As the books go on, we introduce more and more new cast members, and you need to be able to care about everyone without consulting the wiki to remember who they are (A Certain Magical Index suffers from this quite a bit). Luckily, Narita is quite good at this, so we can empathize not only with our heroes, but even the passing villains who get curbstomped by yakuza, and said yakuza, who are finding all of these gangs and Russian assassins simply exasperating. It’s all things to all people.

And so Durarara!! can be a comedy. There’s lots of great humor here, even if some of it is pretty twisted. Shinra’s diary of Celty fetish outfits, and her reaction to same. Chikage’s absolutely ridiculous chivalry, with equal measures of “knight in shining armor” and dumb sexism. Speaking of sexism, Erika gets to play the depraved bisexual in this one, groping Anri for no reason other than she wants to and to give the illustrator some fanservice to draw. Not OK, Erika. There’s also her and Walker namechecking Index and Shana in the middle of a pitched fight. And Mairu and Kururi’s chatroom gabbling is always worth a smile.

But Durarara!! is also ridiculously heartwarming. The fact that Shizuo has grown and changed as a person is a literal plot point here, as that very growth is what spoils Izaya’s plans. I loved the way that he bonded with Akane at the end, after saving her from Vorona and Slon. Celty might be weirded out by all the talk of Akane killing him, but it’s sweet in a Ryohgo Narita way. Anri may not be able to admit how close Mikado is to her, but her attempts to protect him are wonderful to see, as are Mikado’s absolutely pathetic attempts to protect her and also stop the Dollars gang from kidnapping Rio and her friends. For all that I like to say that Durarara!! is about terrible, twisted people, a lot of them have a good heart. Oh yes, and who doesn’t get a warm feeling in their heart when they see Izaya get what he deserved at the end of the book? I know I smiled. Well, cackled, really.

But I’m avoiding the elephant in the room, and that’s the fact that Durarara!! Book 6 is also a tragedy. We see a bit of it in miniature with Akane, a genuinely sweet little girl who is broken by events (and helped along by Izaya) to the point where both Celty and Shiki are disturbed by her but can’t quite put their finger on why. Vorona is shown that she’s nowhere near strong enough to take on Ikebukuro (don’t worry, she’ll be back). And then there’s Mikado, who is being used as a pawn by both Izaya and Aoba, and who finally makes a decision to go to a very dark place. Several times in the book we see people seemingly know Mikado better than he knows himself, and he’s given several opportunities to back off, to do the right thing, to become a good person. And he absolutely rejects all of them, agreeing to become the Blue Squares leader so that he can “fix” the Dollars. The most chilling moment in the book isn’t when he stabs Aoba in the hand with a ballpoint pen (though that is the most famous moment). As Aoba also realizes, it’s right after, when he switches back to innocent, kindhearted Mikado like flipping a switch. Mikado has chosen to embrace the darkness, and I appreciate that the narrative shows us how much of a terrible tragedy that truly is.

So we’re at the end of another arc, and that means next time we’ll see a lot of wandering around and setting up future plotlines. Still, books like that are what lead us to books like this, which is a highlight of the series.