JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Vol. 1

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By Hirohiko Araki. Released in Japan as “Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Evan Galloway, original translation and adaptation by Alexis Kirsch and Fred Burke.

Though this is the third arc in the JoJo’s series, it was actually the first released in North America, as Viz released it on its own in 2005. I never read it, mostly as it was the 3rd part of a series, and from what I hear its sales were no great shakes. But now JoJo’s is becoming more of a phenomenon, and the hardcovers seem to be doing OK, and so thankfully we get to read this somewhat in context, as we are introduced to Joseph Joestar’s grandson, Jotaro Kujo, his somewhat airheaded mother, Holly (she must get it from her own mother), and another epic quest, as Dio has returned from the dead to stir up trouble, kill off a few helpless victims, and make life miserable for the Joestars. And so the stage is set for an epic battle. Sadly, the first volume of said epic battle mostly falls flat for me.

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Jotaro is Japanese, unlike his English great-great grandfather or American grandfather, and shows it off by taking on the staple of 80s manga destined never to be licensed here, the delinquent uniform, complete with peaked cap that is worn slightly off-kilter. Unlike his overearnest/cocky (delete where applicable) ancestors, Jotaro is mostly stoic and cool, which is nice but makes him a lot more of a flat character than his predecessors. Thankfully, Joseph is here, albeit mellowed, and we get a few of the classic JoJo’s types – the mentor and friend, the villain turned good guy, the smug asshole minor villains, and the piles of cannon fodder that lead to many sort-of deaths. (The deaths are not as numerous as you’d expect – the school nurse who is possessed by evil literally has her head ripped off, but should be fine if she’s treated soon. What the hell?)

Of course, the main driving force of this arc is that Dio is back, and clearly up to his old tricks, using Jonathan’s body with his head stapled into it to possess people with parasitic brain worms and casually rape and murder random women in his castle of doom. What’s more, people are now exhibiting new Superpowers, called “Stands” for a reason so stupid I’d rather forget about it. Sometimes these can be cool, like JoJo’s, but they can also be deadly, like his mothers, which is causing her to slowly die by mutating into a plant, as far as I can tell. Thus our heroes must fly to Cairo to take on Dio, provided of course their plane is not hijacked, which it is. This arc is apparently a road movie, so expect lots of foreign settings in amongst the cool poses and piles of gore.

If you read JoJo’s for such things, you should enjoy this volume. There’s cool fights, there’s grotesque violence (the insect pulling the tongues out of an entire aisle of innocents on the plane wins), and there’s occasional stabs at humor, including a bad pun as the cliffhanger. But unfortunately, this was the first JoJo’s that I came away from thinking it was rather dull compared to its predecessors. Given it’s longer than both its predecessors combined, I’m hoping it fixes that soon.

Aoharu x Machinegun, Vol. 1

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By Naoe. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialization ongoing in the magazine GFantasy. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Leighann Harvey.

I have to admit, I wasn’t looking forward to this one. It’s clearly popular, given it’s a Yen Press digital-only title that escaped into print (6 volumes are currently out digitally). But I saw the words ‘survival game’ and groaned, having grown incredibly weary of Battle Royale wannabes, ever decreasing casts, and heartwarming character development followed by murder. Fortunately, Aoharu x Machinegun isn’t any of these things, instead being about a survival game we have here in reality – paintball wars. Only no paint here, instead we have bb pellets, and the party that is shot has to announce it. You can imagine how often that works out. Luckily, the two guys who make up our viewpoint team have found a new, good and earnest young man to be their third. Except what they don’t know is… she’s a woman!

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This title runs in GFantasy, so probably deserves to be called shoujo, as that’s as close as Square Enix really gets to the genre. Our heroine, who sadly isn’t badass enough to get the cover art, is Hotaru, who goes to school dressed in a male uniform, is fairly flat-chested, and has a strong sense of justice that leads her to be hot-blooded and violent. Ergo, no one really assumes she’s a girl at all – only her best friend seems to know. The sense of justice is what leads to our plot, as in order to get revenge for said friend, she ends up invading a host club to take on the guy who was responsible. Naturally, he challenges her to a gun duel, and naturally, she loses. But she does have mad skills, so (not knowing she’s female – he literally tells the others he refuses to have girls on his team) he gets her to join him in outdoor survival gun battles.

So yeah, less Battle Royale and more Ouran High School Host Club. Unlike Ouran, though, the artist seems content to have Hotaru’s secret be a secret for now, which is fine, as neither Masamune (the aforementioned guy) or Tooru (the somewhat creepy next door neighbor who has an unhealthy obsession with Masamune) seem to be falling for her despite themselves. I was actually rather surprised that this trope didn’t pop up immediately, given its appearance in almost all shoujo featuring cross-dressing female leads. But romance is not the point of this first volume. This first volume is driven by Hotaru stressing out, bonding with her new friends, and being so overearnest that it drives everyone to distraction. It’s a good contrast for the guys, who are far more devious, though that sometimes doesn’t work out for them, particularly Tooru.

Nothing in this volume blew me away, but it’s quietly competent, with good action scenes and a likeable hero. And of course it hits on a current trend, while also managing to keep itself light and fluffy. And Hotaru’s very likeable. “Decent” is not really much of a recommendation, but that’s how I come away from Aoharu x Machinegun. Tell you what, I’ll add to it. “Mostly decent.”

A Clutch of Monster Manga

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Readers of this blog may know that I am not wild about the new Monster Girl genre, with one or two exceptions, such as My Monster Secret. That said, I do try to read Vol. 1 of most everything these days, and then try to have something to say about it. But sometimes it’s not a lot. So here we have four books mostly involving monsters, which are mostly monster girls. None of them are horrible, so I wanted to talk about them, but none of them are great either.

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Interviews with Monster Girls. By Petos. Released in Japan as “Demi-chan wa Kataritai” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Magazine the 3rd. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

At its heart, this is essentially a less ecchi version of Nurse Hitomi’s Monster Informary. The difference is that the teacher and counselor here is a normal human, and he’s in a school that is also normal, but with a few “demihumans”, which is the term preferred here for Monster Girls. There’s a vampire, a snow woman, a dullahan who carries her head around, etc. Oh, and one of the teachers is a succubus. While this may sound like the start of a harem, it doesn’t read that way, really. The girls deal with the difficulties of who they are, and the teacher supports and helps them. Its main issue is that originality is really off the table – the dullahan in particular has a lot of Durarara!! in her. As long as it avoids everyone falling for the teacher, it should be OK for monster girl fans.

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Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. By Coolkyousinnjya. Released in Japan as “Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon” by Futabasha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Monthly Action. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jenny McKeon. Adapted by Shanti Whitesides.

Here we have a yuri take on the genre, though how yuri it actually is depends on your rose-colored glasses. Miss Kobayashi is a introverted young office worker who has, through various circumstances, a dragon living in her apartment. Luckily, said dragon can also turn into a cute girl. Things proceed from there, as we see coworkers, and of course other supernatural girls showing up. It’s played very much for comedy – I was amused at Kobayashi’s behavior when drunk, as she releases her inner otaku – though there are moments of sweetness when you realize that things might progress if the author was interested in any romantic progression. I doubt they are, though, so it’s mostly just OK. the author has also done I Can’t Understand What My Husband Is Saying and Miss Komori Can’t Decline!, whose anime has come out here but whose manga are unlicensed.

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My Girlfriend Is a T-Rex. By Sanzo. Released in Japan as “T-REX na Kanojo” by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Gene Pixiv. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Wesley Bridges. Adapted by David Lumsdon.

The title is basically the plot – dinosaurs evolved rather than dying off, and now we have a girl who’s top half is human, whose bottom half is a dinosaur, but whose personality is basically ‘well-meaning clumsy strong girl’. She’s probably the least interesting part of this title, which gets far more mileage out of its hero and side characters. Despite the title, however, Churio (the dino girl) and Yuuma aren’t officially dating. Yuuma is the reason I enjoyed this – he starts off looking like a bland romance manga hero, and then we discover that’s by design – he’s an ex-gang leader and troublemaker who’s trying to straighten up after graduation. This turns out to be more difficult than you’d think. We also get Churio’s best friend, Torika, also a dinosaur girl, but also a vamp who loves using men to get presents. She’s hilarious. I enjoyed this probably more than it deserved.

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Re:Monster. By Kogitsune Kanekiru and Haruyoshi Kobayakawa. Released in Japan by Alpha Polis, serialization ongoing in the magazine Alpha Polis. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Lu Huan. Adapted by Rebecca Schneidereit.

I’m cheating a bit here – this is not a Monster Girl manga, but another in a long line of “I was transported to a fantasy world” titles. That said, all the main characters, including the girls, are goblins of some sort or other, so let’s let it slide. This has the most intriguing premise of the four – the surprise being that the guy who’s now a goblin had superpowers in his previous world, which was filled with espers who could do cool things. After getting killed by a jealous childhood friend, he’s now a lowly goblin, in a world where stats, levels and powerups are real. Sadly, the premise is the best thing about this manga, which means well but is incredibly tedious. There’s not much dialogue – it’s almost all narrative voice, which makes sense given this was adapted from a novel, but the narrator is so dry and boring that everything drags. The other issue is that we have a standard male power fantasy here. Gob-Rou never loses a fight, wins the respect of the goblins, becomes their leader, and by the end of the first book has started to amass a harem. Some self-doubt or failure would help.