Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, Vol. 4

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By Izumi Tsubaki. Released in Japan as “Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun” by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the online magazine Gangan Online. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Leighann Harvey.

For those who greatly enjoyed the Nozaki-kun anime, this volume in particular contains some of the most beloved parts of that anime. Here is where you can find Hori desperately trying to teach a lazy Nozaki about background, which leads to the wonderful “Lately everyone’s been really into boxes!”. We have Nozaki, Hori and Wakamatsu playing the otome game, and boggling at the “good-heartedness” of the lead girl, even when it turns out she can date Satan. And we have the festival, which doesn’t have the sweet ending the anime tacked on to make it more of a finale, but does have Wakamatsu thinking Kashima is a guy and Seo’s date, and the beloved candy apple eating. Basically, everything here is a gem.

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(Also, we have that cover, which is absolutely wonderful. You don’t normally think of this title as being sexy, but trust Seo to upend that with one pull of a tie.)

We also meet the rest of Nozaki’s family, though his brother is the one who will actually show up on an occasional basis in future. Like many manga families, the children turn out to have similar personalities to the parents, though both Nozaki and Mayu both seem to be a bit more like their stoic mother. Mayu actually manages to top Nozaki in the “can’t be bothered” sweepstakes, which makes it even more amusing later in the book when he’s paired with the emotionally draining Mikoshiba. Indeed, circumstances have them both end up at the apartment of Tanuki manga author Miyako’s apartment, and Tsubaki shows us why much of the comedy that comes from Nozaki-kun can simply be taking people who’ve never interacted and throwing them together. Turns out their strip, who knew?

And of course there’s Nozaki’s manga, which continues to roll along, even if I imagine its core audience must read it for the eccentricities. Ken can’t possibly smooth them all out. Nozaki trying to “surprise” Sakura ends up failing miserably till he’s not trying anymore, at which point he wins her heart all over again. And speaking of non-romance, Wakamatsu still hates Seo but adores Lorelai, which frustrates Nozaki no end. Seo, of course, is quite happy to go along with this as long as it amuses her, but amusingly, when Wakamatsu ends up being too preoccupied with it to be irritated by her, SHE loses interest in singing! Personality-driven comedy needs to keep surprising, which can be especially difficult in titles like these that don’t really allow for character development, and seeing Tsubaki achieve it every volume is fun.

As always, caveats apply: This is a 4-koma book, which the punchline being a shouted “what the heck?” 90% of the time. But if you don’t mind that, this remains gloriously funny stuff, with a cast that’s extremely strange but fascinating nonetheless.

Very few tanukis this time round, though. Alas.

Black Bullet: Vengeance Is Mine

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By Shiden Kanzaki and Saki Ukai. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nita Lieu.

I’ve talked before about Black Bullet’s flaws – from its shoehorning of “lolicon’ style humor into the text to its simple unrelenting grimness – so let’s try to take this review to talk about what it does well. Because it does do some things very well. Black Bullet has a plan, and that plan is to let you know about the horrors of war. And over the course of this book’s 220-odd pages, you learn over and over again that the noble soldier fighting an unwinnable fight against an unkillable enemy is something that is going to result in hundreds, indeed thousands of casualties. Sometimes, I will admit, Black Bullet overdoes its message – there’s a scene with a cute 8-year-old getting her head cut off that was just so grand guignol it actually turned silly – but for the most part it’s just a sea of horror that hammers its point home nicely.

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The other excellent thing in the book, though again it’s hard to enjoy, is Kisara. I had been ready to gripe about her being underused in the volume again, particularly as there were many times when we were told that she was the most dangerous and deadly of them all – including by the resident insane tykebomb – but we still don’t actually see her doing anything, given that for the most part Rentaro is the hero of this series and it follows his POV. And then we get the Epilogue, and boy howdy. Kisara discovers that one of her brothers is, in fact, responsible for the decay of the monument that led to the events of books 3 and 4 in the first place, and duels him. It’s interesting, because the brother is presented to the reader as being a Grade-A snake, horrible and loathsome, and you are totally not wrong to want to see her take him out.

No, the issue is that she takes joy in doing so, and, in her chosen method, drives a (semi) innocent bystander insane. Her glee and delight as she discusses her revenge being started reminds you what the subtitle of this volume was, and you realize that it was about her all along. Rentaro is, of course, shocked, as this is not the Kisara she normally shows to him. In fact, he realizes that one day he may in fact have to be the one to kill her if she keeps going on like this. I’m not sure when that will play out – final book in the series, I’m guessing – but certainly his utilitarian views are at odds with her “only evil can combat evil” revenge fantasy. It’s a stunning final 30 pages or so.

Of course, my own personal tastes remain an issue here too. This is well-written, the lolicon was at a minimum, and I enjoyed its themes and what it’s trying to say. I just hated reading it as a book for pleasure. It’s very good, bordering on excellent, but I felt the opposite of enjoyment. It was a slog. As such, Black Bullet remains a series that’s hard to recommend, though fans of the anime and of ‘grimdark’ style series will get a lot out of it.

Fruits Basket Collector’s Edition, Vol. 4

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By Natsuki Takaya. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Sheldon Drzka.

As I’ve said a few times before, you can usually tell when a series has suddenly become a big hit by the writing. Fruits Basket has hit it big, to the point where the Hakusensha editors must have told Takaya she can stretch it out how she wants. And so we can get extended flashbacks devoted to Uotani, Tohru’s yanki friend, and how she went from a middle school delinquent to one of Tohru’s strongest protectors. We also get a brief one-chapter day in the life of Minagawa, the over the top president of the Yuki Fan Club, who like any other teenage girl is filled with doubts and insecurities of her own. And we see foreshadowing that I had forgotten happens this early, as the new Student Council members, whose faces are hidden from us, discuss their interest in Yuki… and Tohru. Are they SECRETLY EVIL? (Answer: no, but it’s a nice ominous cliffhanger that won’t be resolved for a while yet.)

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We are also introduced to two more Sohmas. I’ll start with Ritsu, as I’m less interested in him. He’s deliberately grating, in a way that irritates everyone not named Tohru, but it’s not without cause, and once again shows us how hard it is to be living with the Sohma curse, or living with someone who has it. Also, his meeting with Micchan is hilarious – they really are perfect for each other. More important to me is the introduction of Hiro, who I suspect will annoy the new reader even more than Ritsu does. Hiro’s a brat, there’s no mistaking it, and what’s worse, he’s smart and insightful but can’t deal with the emotions that go along with that. Throw in a crush on Kisa, and some veiled suggestion that telling Akito he was in love with her was the worst thing ever, and I find a lot to sympathize with. He also pegs Tohru perfectly, albeit rudely, and we start to see the first signs of the cracks showing in her all-loving facade here, as she admits that she focuses on others to the exclusion of her own needs mostly out of desperately not wanting to look hard at herself.

I’d mentioned foreshadowing before, and the other big introduction we see here will have to wait till next time, which is Rin. She’s in hospital, apparently put there by Akito, and judging by the fact that she’s recently broken up with Hatsuharu, seems to be trying to cut all ties – except to Shigure, who she’s convinced can help her. Rin looks scary, to be honest, and given how popular Haru is with fandom, it’s no surprise that she too gets off on the wrong foot in Furuba fandom, only she doesn’t have the benefit of being a cute guy in this female-driven fandom, so it seems worse. Oh yes, and we also get more of the Yuki backstory that was hinted at in the last omnibus, and I feel bad for saying that Akito smothered him – there was just as much abuse as everyone else has had to ensure. Being a Sohma is suffering.

This is about where the anime broke off, with its adapted ending that to this day doesn’t quite sit right with me. It’s also where Takaya hurt her hand, causing the manga to go on hiatus for a year. It stayed popular in Japan, and became huge over here, but I wonder if we may have gotten a second season otherwise. (Probably not – allegedly she had issues with the director, similar to Kare Kano.) In any case, the first few books in Furuba show us sad teens with emotional problems, but as we move forward, the depth of the writing shows that the sadness and the emotional problems have not begun to be plumbed. If you never read this the first time, you’re missing out.