The Devil Is A Part-Timer!, Vol. 5

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By Satoshi Wagahara and 029. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Kevin Gifford.

As the series has gone on, the astute reader may have realized that Enta Isla is not simply a place where fantasy devils and angels lived, but a place where an actual War in Heaven broke out and humans were caught in the middle. In other words, where I’d mentioned before that the series was a bit like A Certain Magical Index in the way that it used religious themes for its own ends, I apparently didn’t know the half of it. Here we see Angels descending to Japan to try to discipline one of their own, and Maou gets caught in the middle because a) it’s his series, and b) Chiho ends up hospitalized due to a series of unfortunate coincidences extending back to the start of the series.

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Of course, the main people who get character building here are not Maou and Chiho, but rather Emi and Suzuno. Emi is forced to deal with the fact that her mother is in Japan, her father may be alive, and her very EXISTENCE is an affront to Heaven. And Suzuno, who had already had a bit of a crisis of faith in the second book, is now having to deal with the fact that the Angels who inhabit Heaven may not be all that angelic, and in fact may simply be equivalent to just another gang. Again, using Western religious imagery as the impetus for fantasy plotting is not unique to Japan, but it works particularly well here as we come to realize that there really aren’t good and bad guys here, just a bunch of people struggling for power and worship. That said, I do still want to find out one day why Maou was so horrible pre-series.

To be honest, though, the real joy of this book isn’t really the plot revelations or the depth of character. It’s not even the action sequences, or the sight of a busty teenage girl in pink pyjamas flying though the air and firing beams of energy. No, it’s the entire cast spending the first third of the book discussing digital TV and what makes really good udon. Devil Is a Part-Timer has good backstory, don’t get me wrong, but the best reason to read it is still the tiny minutiae of life in Japan as being lived by a bunch of fantasy heroes. Rika’s stunned reaction when none of her companions know who Toshiba is; Maou’s middle management skills saving the day once again and coming up even in the oddest situations and possibly best of all, Suzuno’s obsession with the delicious cheap udon they get at once shop. It’s simply fun to read.

I could say that about the series as a whole. Everyone’s likeable by now – Emi gets less tsundere by the book, though she’s still got a ways to go – and the prose is smooth and clear, one of the best of Yen On’s light novel efforts. It’s still in the top tier of light novels currently being released.

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.