Demonizer Zilch, Vol. 1

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By Milan Matra. Released in Japan as “Kamigoroshihime Zilch” by Fujimi Shobo, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dragon Age. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Before we begin, I do want to note that, even if in Japan it’s meant to be pleasant onomatopoeia or something, having the word ‘Zilch’ in your title is just asking for trouble. As for the manga itself, I once again run into my problem of wanting to read first volumes even though I suspect it’s going to turn out badly. Dragon Age titles are usually not a favorite of mine. And I’m also fond of saying that originality is not as important if your cliched plot and cliched characters are interesting. Unfortunately, at some point you run into a work which can’t even meet that low bar, and such a title is Demonizer Zilch. It’s not difficult to read like some other otaku-oriented titles are, but after reading it, I found it hard to remember what was in this and what was in other similar manga I’d just read.

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The author, for Yen Press fans with long memories, is known over here for Omamori Himari, another Dragon Age title with a similar demographic. Our hero, Haruomi, is passive and aloof, haunted by memories of his sister and childhood friend being taken from him and disappearing. Then, while out at karaoke with his friends, he runs into various mysterious girls with mysterious powers, all of whom seem to want to kill him except one, the aforementioned Zilch of the title. She arrives, kisses him, calls him master, and proceeds to blow away the enemy for him. Turns out Haruomi has latent powers, which his parents experimented with, and they are now coming into play as there is a war between the vaguely evil human Church and the vaguely evil Demons that Zilch is part of.

First of all, this is somehow not based on a light novel. I can only assume, therefore, that figuring out within 15 pages that the two girls who work for the church and are trying to kill Haruomi are his sister and childhood friend all grown up is something the audience is meant to do. I certainly hope so, as it’s thuddingly obvious. Beyond that, you may be getting this series confused with The Testament of Sister New Devil, which came out a couple months back and also features a lot of the same things going on. I certainly did, and had to remind myself which book was which as I wrote this review, which made me sad, as it meant I had to think about Sister New Devil again. Oh, and I didn’t mention the harem antics, or the fanservice, which are there in typical Dragon Age bucketloads.

On the plus side, there was nothing mind-numbingly offensive. The fanservice is nothing we haven’t seen ten million times before, but hey, at least the girls have actual nipples. It reads fast and the action sequences make sense, which is always good. There’s a lot of backstory doled out, but you don’t really have to understand it to get the gist of what’s going on – if you like, imagine all the adults in this title speaking in the Peanuts cartoon ‘wah wah’ voice. Oh, and the biggest plus, this is a brand new series just out in Japan, so we don’t have a Volume 2 for a while yet. If you enjoy harem fantasies with nudity and things blowing up, you likely don’t read my blog anyway. But you can give this a try.

Blood Lad, Vol. 7

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By Yuuki Kodama. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I reviewed the last volume of Blood Lad in the Bookshelf Briefs, and I will admit that it’s hard to find new things to say about it at times. This is a very straightforward series, with even the plotting and counterplotting amongst the villains being of a very shonen nature, and it doesn’t really lend itself well to overanalysis. We continue to build up to the big battle between the villain and his minions and the Blacklisted, who are classic ‘misunderstood’ types. Braz keeps trying to figure out a way to destroy the villain without getting killed himself. And there’s more wacky harem antics with Bell and Fuyumi… ah, wait, I can talk about those.

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Yes, Bell has wised up and realized that it’s not really Staz that she loves, but the Stax who is protecting Guyumi – i.e. the Staz who loves Fuyumi, though neither he or Fuyumi are quite there yet. Having realized this, she’s free to confess to him and accept his confused non-reaction, where he doesn’t realize what would make anyone fall for him at all. And Fuyumi, who has always tended to be the flattest of the characters (quiet you), gets a bit more depth and emotion here. She’s also unsure if her attraction to Staz is her need for his blood or genuine, and she’s also put off by the fact that he’s being nicer to her, as opposed to ‘being more interested in her skull’. Unfortunately, we don’t get any further here, but it’s nice to see the author trying to put some effort into her.

There’s also Burgundy, the minion of our villain Akim (or is he Akim? Does it really matter when your murderous villain is being gradually taken over by a different murderous villain?). She’s hanging out at Pati’s cabin in the woods, waiting for our heroes to be done with their training from hell (said training providing most of the comedy in this volumes, especially the end where Bell gets crushed by her own boulders). Once Staz and Wolf return, she goes into insane combat mode, but Pati refuses to believe that she’s irredeemable, to the point where he too turns into a monster and escapes with her. We,, of course, as the audience, are rooting for her as well – just because redeemed villains are a trope as old as the sky doesn’t mean they aren’t nice to see.

So it looks as if we’ll see a giant free-for-all next time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we wrap up in 2-3 more omnibuses. Blood Lad won’t win any manga awards anytime soon, but it’s always entertaining, and is starting to show a bit more effort in characterization. Oddly, the author’s efforts have mirrored the lead character, Staz, who has also been forced to take things more seriously and grow into greater power. I would prefer seeing him in the fight coming up rather than miniboss 1, 2, and 3, but can’t have everything.

The Boy and the Beast

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By Mamoru Hosoda. Released in Japan as “Bakemono no Ko” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On.

this was one of those titles that I picked up but knew absolutely nothing about except the bare minimum. This is a rarity for me, as regular readers know. I was aware it was from the author of Summer Wars and Wolf Children, so expecting a heartwarming coming of age story was pretty much it, and that’s what I got. The main thrust of this new work is fairly predictable, and it’s also quite short, so you can zoom through it. That said, there are individual moments in the work that quite surprised me, and the characters are fun and easy to like, even the Beast in the title, who is the focus of the one bad word in the whole child-friendly novel (he’s called a prick, because, well, he is).

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Our hero is a young boy who gets the benefit of both a dead mother AND a disappeared father, who escapes his snooty mother’s attempts to take him into their family and heads for the streets. There, he accidentally runs into two men with faces like beasts, and (evading police looking for runaways), ends up in a completely different world, one where beast people are the norm and being a human is strange and untrustworthy. Turns out that one of the guys he followed is in competition to be the village “grandmaster”, with the slight problem that he’s an angry hothead with no social skills. Since our hero is an angry hothead with no fighting skills, the two are made for each other. An apprenticeship begins.

It is fairly impressive that Kumatetsu, the Beast of the title, is as much of a jerk for as long as he is in this book. There are flashes of goodwill, but the way he was raised and self-trained makes him simply bad with people, including Kyuta, his own disciple. The long journey where you’d expect them to bond and become close is instead an exercise in Kyuta learning from the other masters while Kumatetsu stands around bored. He’s a difficult man to like. That said, once Kyuta returns to Shibuya on a regular basis, his anger gradually reveals itself to be the desperate loneliness we knew was there all along, and his actions towards the end of the book develop well from his character.

Speaking of Shibuya, there are several odd narrative choices in this work, some of which are clearly there to make sure we can get through this in 190 pages or so. Eight years pass by in a few paragraphs, and suddenly Kyuta is one of the best fighters there is. I’d wished for a bit more there, perhaps a montage of various scenes through the years. The Shibuya stuff also surprised me – I was not expecting to return to our world until the end of the book, frankly. Kaede is nice and a good match with Kyuta (or is it Ren)?, and I loved her stubborn refusal to let him fight alone. Indeed, the entire climax of the book takes place in the middle of the city, as the two of them battle a giant magical Moby-Dick, something which must look amazing in the movie that this also is (it came out in Japan in July).

Some sources call this an illustrated novel, be warned. The one illustration is on the cover. But it doesn’t matter, as this is a decent story, well-told. It’s a good comfort book to read on rainy days, or get for your tween kids.