REVIEW: Servant x Service (manga, vol. 1) by Karino Takatsu, translated by Amanda Haley

Servant x Service is a four-panel comedy comic strip series licensed by Yen Press.

Review:

I know it seems like I’m on some kind of four-panel comic strip series kick, but it’s mostly by accident. I’m trying to get through more of my manga collection, and they looked like the quickest reads and the volumes most likely to help me free up some shelf space. Unfortunately for my shelf space situation, this actually turned out to be pretty good.

Servant x Service is primarily set in a public service office building in Japan. The cast includes several newly hired employees in the Health & Welfare Department: Yutaka Hasebe, a carefree and lazy guy who is also somehow brilliant at everything he does; Lucy (etc.) Yamagami, a woman who became a civil servant in order to find the civil servant who approved her amazingly long name and give him a piece of her mind; and Saya Miyoshi, a woman who can never get her paperwork done because elderly people love talking to her and she doesn’t know how to gently disengage. They are overseen by Taishi Ichimiya, who hasn’t been around that much longer than them. The cast is later joined by: Megumi Chihaya, a temp who cosplays in her free time; Touko, a teenaged civil service geek; and an adorable stuffed bunny.

The beginning of the volume was okay, but not terribly exciting. The humor focused on the quirky cast and their efforts to do their jobs (or not, in Hasebe’s case). The strips about Hasebe featured jokes about his laziness and playboy behavior (he asked nearly every attractive woman for her email). The strips about Lucy featured jokes about her long name, her big breasts, and her oblivious attitude towards Hasebe’s flirtations. Miyoshi was always that person who couldn’t seem to get away from talkative elderly ladies. The artwork didn't really grab me either. Hasebe and Ichimiya looked too similar, and Hasebe's facial expressions sometimes felt a bit stiff and limited.

The volume really started to grow on me when it began to focus more on the various relationships. My absolute favorite was the sorta-romance between Hasebe and Lucy. Hasebe was one of those characters I kept expecting to dislike and then...didn’t. His attitude said he didn’t care about anything, and no one could even really yell at him about it because he was so effortlessly good at his work. He constantly hit on women and even used Lucy’s obliviousness against her, getting physically closer to her than necessary during sign language lessons she’d asked him to do for her. Also, if I remember right, he was the one who was involved in most of the “Lucy has huge breasts” jokes.

He should have made my skin crawl, and yet… After he asked Lucy out for the first time, Lucy learned that, although he’d filled up his phone with women’s email addresses, he’d never actually emailed any of them or asked any of them out. When Lucy rejected him, he asked if they could still go out to eat as coworkers/friends. While, granted, he was secretly hoping she’d eventually change her mind about him, he seemed at least as concerned about making sure that Lucy, who had a tendency to spend all her money on books, ate properly. There was repeated evidence throughout the volume that he genuinely cared about Lucy and what she thought about him, although he did his best to continue projecting his usual carefree image.

I enjoyed the signs that Hasebe was a more complex character than I’d originally taken him to be. As for Lucy, she was the character I most identified with. We both try to do our work well, we both think books are important (I, too, have saved money for books in the past by skimping on groceries), and we’re both pretty oblivious (although I’d probably have noticed what Hasebe was doing during those sign language classes...and then done my best to avoid him from that point on). She hasn’t really done much searching for the civil servant who approved her very long name yet, and I can’t help but wonder if that civil servant will turn out to be Hasebe’s father. It’d certainly add more drama to the series.

I’m a little worried that future volumes will sour Hasebe and Lucy’s relationship for me, but so far I like it. The “Lucy has huge breasts” jokes were frequent enough at times to bug me, but some of them were surprisingly funny. My favorite was a series of strips about the time Lucy’s bra broke just as she got into work. Most of the focus was on Lucy’s coworkers and their desire not to embarrass her but also somehow let her know that she wasn’t hiding her problem as well as she thought she was. This part featured one of my top favorite Hasebe moments. Also, the strip on Lucy's bra shopping difficulties felt depressingly realistic.

Besides Hasebe and Lucy, there was one other office romance, plus one client basically shoving a relative at a character who really wasn’t interested. Those storylines had their fun moments, even though they didn’t grab me quite as much as the developments between Hasebe and Lucy. Miyoshi was probably the most one-note character out of the bunch, although I did like the brief period when she started to become dissatisfied with her job. Of all the characters, she was probably the least interested in romance. I hope Takatsu does more with her in the future.

I definitely plan on reading the next volume, although I do have some concerns about it. I’m crossing my fingers that Takatsu allows the various relationships introduced in this volume to evolve. One romantic relationship, in particular, is already showing signs of strain. Either something has to give, or the whole thing will feel forced.

Extras:

• Four full-color pages.
• Two postscripts written by the author.
• Four pages of translator's notes.
• Six pages of bonus comics that were included on the jackets of the original Japanese editions. Unfortunately, most of these focused on Hasebe's efforts to customize his latest game character so that it looked as much like Lucy as possible.

REVIEW: The Ancient Magus' Bride (manga, vol. 1) by Kore Yamazaki, translated by Adrienne Beck

The Ancient Magus' Bride is a fantasy series. It's licensed by Seven Seas.

Review:

This starts with the heroine, Chise Hatori, being sold in an auction. Her new owner is Elias Ainsworth, a mage with some kind of animal skull (bull?) for a head. Elias tells Chise that she’s to be his new apprentice. He removes her chains and even gives her her own room. It’s hard to believe that all of this doesn’t come with strings attached - and then Elias tells Chise that he also plans to make her his bride.

You’d think that’d be the start of something awful and creepy, except Elias doesn’t actually do anything. He takes Chise to town, where she meets Angelica Purley, an artificer and one of the world’s last witches. Chise also meets other acquaintances of Elias, including Simon Cullum, a priest, and Lindel, caretaker of dragons, and learns more about what Elias meant when he called her a “sleigh beggy.”

So far, so good. I’m crossing my fingers that this is going to turn out to be a sweet “found family” story, because Chise could certainly use it, poor girl. Elias’s sudden “oh, by the way, I also brought you here to make you my bride” revelation was a bit creepy, but it helped that he didn’t seem particularly inclined to do anything about it after that. I’d really like to know more details about his plans for Chise, but the tone of this volume tells me that there probably isn’t anything to worry about. I hope?

My favorite of Elias’ acquaintances so far is Angelica. I realized later on that she reminded me strongly of Fullmetal Alchemist’s Izumi. I’m also interested in Lindel, although that character’s introduction was a bit off-putting.

As far as the ending of the volume goes, the stuff with the cats reminds me of something, but I can’t remember what. A short story? Folktale? I’m not sure.

My primary complaints about this series, at this point, are that it’s unclear when this is set (I thought it was historical, but characters kept referencing computers whenever they tried to explain how magic worked), and the more action-filled moments are occasionally a bit hard to follow. Also, Chise has mostly just been dragged around by Elias so far. No questions, no testing the boundaries of her current life with Elias - she just goes along with Elias and gets rescued when things go awry. Granted, she’s had a hard life so far, was only just recently considered a thing to be sold, and wouldn’t have anywhere else to go even if she did try to leave. I look forward to seeing how she acts after she’s had more time to adjust to her new life.

Extras:

• A picture of the layout of the living room in Elias' house.
• "Silky's Diary," a four-panel comic from Silky's POV shortly after Chise joined the household.
• Two full-color illustrations.
• A one-page comic-style afterword from the author. This first volume of The Ancient Magus' Bride is apparently only Yamazaki's third published volume.

REVIEW: Azumanga Daioh Omnibus (manga) by Kiyohiko Azuma, translated by Stephen Paul

Azumanga Daioh is (primarily) a four-panel high school comedy comic strip series.

Review:

I first read Azumanga Daioh back when it was released in four volumes by ADV Manga. Although I had fond memories of it, I probably wouldn’t have gotten Yen Press’s omnibus edition if I hadn’t spotted it in the midst of a “going out of business” sale shopping frenzy. Happily, it made for a really nice reread, even though the ending didn’t affect me quite as strongly this time around.

Azumanga Daioh is a comedy series consisting primarily of 4-panel comic strips. It doesn’t really have what I’d call a plot. Instead, it follows the high school years of several girls in the same class from beginning to end, as well as the daily lives of some of their teachers. A few of the characters:

• Sakaki: A cool-looking, quiet, and athletic girl who secretly loves animals and other cute things.
• Chiyo: An adorable and smart 10-year-old who skipped a few grades.
• Yomi: A girl who worries too much about her weight, but who also doesn’t let that stop her from eating the foods she loves.
• Tomo: An energetic and annoying girl who tends to do things without thinking them through first.
• Osaka: A transfer student who has a weird way of viewing the world and tends to live life at a slower pace than everyone else around her.
• Kaorin: A girl with a huge crush on Sakaki.
• Yukari: The class’s homeroom teacher. She’s so immature and lazy that it’s surprising she hasn’t been fired.
• Kurosawa (aka Nyamo): The physical education teacher, and Yukari’s best friend.

The strips deal with everything from lunch, to hay fever, to several students’ bizarre dreams. It’s pretty light-hearted and fluffy throughout, although there’s one male teacher who’s extremely creepy.

I enjoyed revisiting this series. The humor didn’t always work for me, but there were still lots of moments that made me laugh out loud. My absolute favorite character was Sakaki, who wanted to become a veterinarian and who dreamed of one day moving out of her parents’ house so that she could have a pet cat (her mom was allergic). Unfortunately, she seemed doomed to be hated by the animals she loved - every time she approached a cat it bit her. However, one of the nice things about this series was that the situations and jokes evolved. Sakaki encountered a couple animals that didn’t hate her, and one of the loveliest moments in the series involved Sakaki meeting an animal who loved her and who she’d be able to live with after graduation (you just have to ignore a few things, like the animal technically being wild).

My other favorite character was Chiyo. She was not only ridiculously cute, she was also a good friend and supportive classmate. It was via Chiyo that Sakaki got to meet the first animal that didn’t hate her. I also loved her various ways of wishing her classmates good luck during their college entrance exams.

Things occasionally got a little weird, what with the dreams about Chiyo’s pigtails and her “father” (a weird and kind of creepy cat thing), but I still loved most of it. The things I could have done without: Yomi’s constant worrying about her weight, the moments when Chiyo’s cat-thing “father” turned vaguely threatening, and creepy Kimura-sensei and his love for teen girls wearing gym shorts or swimsuits. I felt a little bad for Kaorin. Not only did she get separated from Sakaki later on in the series, she also ended up in Kimura’s class (and then he took a shine to her, ew). While it was nice that she got a post-graduation picture with Sakaki, her crush on Sakaki was so obvious that it would have been even better if she’d been given a chance to tell Sakaki how she felt. ::sigh::

Well, complaints aside, I enjoyed revisiting this series. There’s a warmth to it that just sort of creeps up on you. I particularly liked the very end, as everyone prepared to go their separate ways, and the sweet little “You belong” drawings.

Extras:

• Translation notes. These were located at the end of every volume in the omnibus. I really wish they had all been put at the end of the omnibus instead - I hated having to hunt for the right translation notes section, especially since the notes were pretty helpful.
• An index. I can’t imagine ever using this, since it’s only helpful if you remember the title of a particular strip.
• Full-color pages at the beginnings of each of the four volumes.

REVIEW: Arisa (manga, vol. 1) by Natsumi Ando, translated by Andria Cheng

Arisa is a mystery series licensed by Kodansha Comics.

This review technically includes spoilers, since the class's secret isn't revealed until the second half of the volume.

Review:

Tsubasa and her twin sister Arisa have been separated for three years, ever since their parents got divorced. They’ve managed to keep in touch via letters, but Tsubasa is still understandably excited about getting to secretly visit her sister soon. Tsubasa, whose habit of getting into fights has earned her the nickname “the Demon Princess of Higashi Junior High,” absolutely idolizes her seemingly perfect and popular sister.

During the visit, Arisa convinces Tsubasa to pretend be her for a day. The experience is just as wonderful as Tsubasa expected it to be, so it’s a complete shock when Arisa tries to kill herself. Her tipping point appears to have been a note she was given by someone at school: “Arisa Sonoda is a traitor.” What does it mean, and what secrets have Arisa and her classmates been hiding? Tsubasa decides to continue pretending to be Arisa while Arisa is in a coma, in order to solve the mystery and protect her sister.

I don’t think I’ve ever read any of Ando’s other works, but I’m pretty sure her Kitchen Princess series is cutesy romance. In general, her artistic style screams “generically cute." I have no idea how she ended up doing a series like Arisa, a mystery with a distinctly dark and disturbing edge. I was reminded a bit of Higurashi: When They Cry, except that Ando’s artwork didn't push the creepy moments far enough - it was just too cutesy, on the whole, for the subject matter.

Then there was the premise itself, which required a lot of suspension of disbelief. What kind of parents would completely separate their twin children for three whole years? And then their mother was conveniently unreachable when Arisa tried to kill herself and ended up in a coma, while their dad seemed perfectly fine with Tsubasa essentially no longer going to school and instead pretending to be Arisa. And everyone instantly accepted Tsubasa’s weak explanation for why she no longer remembered the class’s creepy “King time.”

Complaints aside, this was a surprisingly gripping first volume. Tsubasa expected to learn that her sister had been bullied and instead discovered that the entire class was taking part in something called “King time.” Every week at the same time, everyone in the class enters their wishes into a website. One person’s wish is chosen and granted by the “King,” whose identity no one knows. The King doesn’t seem to care if anyone gets hurt, and anyone who speaks out against them (the gender of the King is also unknown) risks being ostracized. Ostracized students receive a note: “[Student’s name] is a traitor.”

By the end of this volume, Tsubasa has identified one particular student as potentially being the King, having some connection to the King, or knowing who the King is. While I’m kind of annoyed at her decision to meet with him in private even though he’s already demonstrated that he can’t be trusted, I’m intrigued enough to want to read more.

If I had more shelf space, I’d probably order a couple more volumes right now - the story is interesting enough to make up for the improbable situation and incongruous artwork.

Extras:

• A 6-page comic designed to show off a few of Ando's early character design sketches for Arisa.
• A 4-page comic in which Ando talks about getting a dog. It's adorable.
• Two pages of translation notes.
• A preview of Arisa volume 2.

REVIEW: Skip Beat! (manga, vols. 35-36) by Yoshiki Nakamura, translated by Tomo Kimura

Sadly, there weren't enough volumes of Skip Beat! published in the past year for me to be able to go on a giant binge during my vacation. It's too bad, because this series is consistently enjoyable. It's rare for me to still love a series that's been running for so many volumes, but Nakamura somehow manages to keep the characters and story from stagnating.

That said, these two volumes were pretty weak. I still enjoyed getting to see the characters again, but Ren disappointed me in volume 35, and volume 36 was enjoyable more for what it seemed to be setting up than anything else.

This is the last of my post-vacation reviews. As usual with these, there are lots and lots of spoilers. Read on at your own risk.

Skip Beat! (manga, vol. 35) by Yoshiki Nakamura, translated by Tomo Kimura – Ren averts disaster by convincing Kyoko that he's just Corn copying Ren's voice and appearance. He also blames his lack of a smile on a curse, which can be broken by a kiss of pure and deep love. This puts Kyoko in a bind – she wants to help Corn but 1) she doesn't feel that she truly loves him that way and 2) she feels it would be a betrayal of Ren to kiss Corn. Ren has essentially made himself his own rival. Kyoko solves her dilemma with her acting skills. She kisses Corn not as herself, but rather as a priestess. Ren, as Corn, then kisses Kyoko again and leaves her to go to his meeting with Ten.

I own a copy of this volume but didn't get around to reading it before my vacation, so I made it part of my giant list of library requests. I was a little bummed that it turned out to be one of the more so-so entries in the series.

I wasn't really a fan of Ren in this volume. Instead of finally telling Kyoko that he's Corn, he bent over backwards to continue the lie and then put Kyoko in the awkward position of having to do something that he knew would probably be difficult for her and/or make her uncomfortable in order to help her dearest childhood friend. My only consolation was that he clearly hadn't thought this all through very well, since it made problems for him as well as for Kyoko.

On the plus side, while Kyoko is very good at deluding herself, she's also really good at thinking on her feet. I liked that she was able to come up with a solution that made use of the strengths she had acquired over the course of the series. But still. Ugh. I really wish Ren hadn't come up with that “curse” idea.

Skip Beat! (manga, vol. 36) by Yoshiki Nakamura, translated by Tomo Kimura – Kyoko tells Ren that she and Corn kissed. Setsu's time with her “brother” is up (Kyoko has to go back to filming her show), so she heads out. Unfortunately, Kyoko's show has been getting bad initial ratings. She isn't too upset, but Ms. Amamiya (another person in the show, whose given name I've completely forgotten) is very disappointed. A big accident tempts her to bow out of acting entirely, but Kyoko convinces her to stick with it. The volume ends with a visit from Sho. It turns out that Kyoko's mom has been asking about her but doesn't seem inclined to actually visit her. Sho was worried about how Kyoko would react to this.

When Kyoko finally learns that Ren is Corn, she's probably going to blow up, and I wouldn't blame her for it. Or she'll be hideously embarrassed, which would make me cringe in sympathy. I loved Ren's reaction to Kyoko telling him about having kissed Corn, but I hated that the scene was based on her still not knowing the truth about Ren/Corn.

Although I really enjoyed the direction the series seemed to be taking (which maybe factored into my final rating a bit too much – I'm not sure this volume deserved what I gave it), this volume felt like a very abrupt switch of storytelling gears. And no wonder – I just looked at my volume summaries, and I think the last time Kyoko worked on her current show much was maybe volume 28, almost 10 volumes ago. I had forgotten she even had any other work besides being Setsu.

But, like I said, I'm really looking forward to what might be coming up next. I want to see if Kyoko's show recovers from its low initial ratings, and I want to see what happens with Kyoko's mom. And whoa, Sho was actually a pretty decent guy in this volume. And of course I'm still looking forward to seeing where things go with Ren and Kyoko. I'm glad that Kyoko's at a point where she can be in love with Ren (albeit semi-secretly) and yet not be so consumed by her feelings that she abandons her acting career for him.

REVIEW: A Silent Voice (manga, vols. 3-7) by Yoshitoki Oima, translated by Steven LeCroy

I'm so torn on this series. I use star ratings on other sites, and every single volume left me questioning which rating I should go with.

I feel like this series would spark some great conversations, but parts of it are incredibly unpleasant to read. And I understand that parts are supposed to be unpleasant to read, but it just got to be so much. I also feel like most normal people would have just gone their separate ways and made new friends rather than try to untangle the horrifically snarled knots that these characters kept picking at. The final volume was pretty good, but there was so much awfulness to get through before that. Not surprising, I guess, considering that this series deals with both bullying and suicidal thoughts, but somehow I thought that the first volume would be the worst of it. It wasn't.

This post contains major spoilers.

A Silent Voice (manga, vol. 3) by Yoshitoki Oima, translated by Steven LeCroy – Shoya successfully rekindles Shoko and Miyoko's old friendship (Miyoko was Shoko's friend who completely stopped coming to school when the other kids started being awful). However, the experience leaves him feeling a bit off, so he decides to try fixing more things he ruined back when he bullied Shoko. His next effort is to find Naoka, but that goes badly, resulting in both Shoko and Tomohiro getting hurt. Naoka liked (and still likes) Shoya and blames Shoko for driving them apart. Shoya feels more and more unworthy of being around Shoko. Shoko, meanwhile, finally confesses her love to Shoya, but she does so verbally, and he misunderstands her speech.

Wow, this was a painful read. My vague recollection of volume 2 indicated that Shoya had started to move past some of his negative feelings, but clearly not, because he was a horribly guilt-ridden and self-loathing mess here.

Shoko is still an enigma. While I had guessed that this series would eventually pair her and Shoya up, Shoko's “I love you” in this volume was a complete shock to me. It made no sense at this point in the story and felt uncomfortably like the series was being made more and more about Shoya. There has still hardly been anything from Shoko's POV, and I found myself wondering how she really felt about Miyoko's “fun” day. Did she enjoy it as much as she seemed to, or was she just pretending in order to keep things from becoming awkward?

Also, I absolutely hated the addition of Naoka to the story. Thinking about it now, I've realized that something about her reminded me of FLCL's Mamimi, another character I disliked.

While I was happy to have discovered that the series was only 7 volumes long and that I could therefore finish the whole thing during my vacation, this volume made me doubt whether that was something I really wanted to do.

A Silent Voice (manga, vol. 4) by Yoshitoki Oima, translated by Steven LeCroy – Shoya, Shoko, and others have a fun/awkward day at an amusement park. Naoka tries (unsuccessfully) to reunite Shoya and an old school friend of his. She also tries to talk to Shoko, but Shoya later learns that it went badly, with Naoka saying that Shoko ruined things for Shoya and her. Shoko ended the conversation by saying that she hated herself. The volume ends on a sad (but less strained) note, with Shoko and Yuzuru's grandma's death, which is when we learn why Shoko's mom is the way she is. Her husband divorced her for having a deaf child, leaving her to support two kids on her own (she'd only just realized she was pregnant with Yuzuru when her husband ditched her), with only her mother for support.

I liked this volume more than the previous one, because at least the second half was less strained and awful-feeling. I prefer this series when it really digs into the characters' thoughts and lives, and this volume provided a deeper look at the women who raised Shoko and Yuzuru. I still don't really like Shoko and Yuzuru's mom (using sign language at the dinner table is “indecent,” according to her), but this volume left me feeling like I understood her a bit better. Still, thank goodness Shoko and Yuzuru's grandma was warm, gentle, and supportive towards them, because their mother sure wasn't. Ugh.

I am still frustrated with the way this series is avoiding Shoko's POV. The conversation at the amusement park indicated that there's definitely more going on there than she usually lets people see.

A Silent Voice (manga, vol. 5) by Yoshitoki Oima, translated by Steven LeCroy – Tomohiro's movie-making plans fall apart when it's revealed to all that Shoya was once Shoko's bully, and that several others in the group were either involved or did nothing to stop him. Shoya loses nearly all his friends but tries to keep going and stay happy for Shoko's sake. However, Shoko sees this whole thing as being her fault – she believes that nothing good comes of being with her. So, at the end of the volume she decides to commit suicide by jumping out of a window in her home. Shoya catches her just in time.

Remember that teacher from volume 1 who was a horrible asshole who should never have been put in charge of kids? Well, Shoya got to see him again in this volume, and he was just as much of a horrible asshole. He basically said that Shoko's very existence guaranteed that there were going to be problems in the class. Never mind that he could have done more to stop it since, you know, he was the adult in the room.

I have no idea how I feel about this volume. Shoya was once again abandoned by just about everyone, and Shoko was totally not kidding about hating herself. Despite her constant sweet smile, she must have been hiding as much self-hatred as Shoya. The main characters in this series are enormous pits of self-hatred, and it's terrible.

A Silent Voice (manga, vol. 6) by Yoshitoki Oima, translated by Steven LeCroy – Shoya saves Shoko but ends up in the hospital, badly injured and unconscious. This whole volume is about the aftermath of Shoko's suicide attempt: Shoko helping Tomohiro finish his movie in an effort to fix what she feels she broke; Yuzuru upset because the pictures she'd kept taking hadn't stopped Shoko from wanting to die; Naoka remembering how she stood by as Shoya was bullied; and Satoshi realizing his desire to become a teacher was all about his own creepy wish to monitor the kids of his own former bullies.

This series is so dark, and this particular volume is pretty violent. Naoka beats up Shoko because she blames her for Shoya being in the hospital, and Shoko's mom attacks (like actually physically attacks) Naoka for beating up Shoko. I wasn't surprised that people like Naoka and Shoya's mother blamed Shoko for what happened to Shoya, but I hated that they did, because she was hurting too. If Shoko's emotional wounds had been able to manifest as physical wounds, she'd probably have been hospitalized too.

I hadn't realized Yuzuru's morbid photography was more than just a phase. Apparently Shoko had tried to kill herself before, and Yuzuru's photography was her way of trying to make Shoko want to live, without actually saying so. Which...didn't really work out so well. She comes to the conclusion that she should have talked to Shoko about Shoko's past suicide attempt, and...I don't know. Remember that Yuzuru is actually Shoko's younger sister. I agree that she should maybe have been a bit less vague about telling Shoko that she wanted her to continue living, but at the same time Yuzuru has carried so much on her shoulders for years. I hate the idea of her taking on even more.

The bit with Satoshi really, really creeped me out. There was a hint of some of this in, I think, volume 5, in the way Satoshi handled things when he witnessed a younger kid being bullied. He put a stop to it, yes, but the way he did it made me wonder just how scary he'd be once he was in charge of a classroom. This peek into his motives for becoming a teacher wasn't pretty, although thankfully he'd gotten to the point where he'd realized that too. Still, it seems kind of unfair that characters like Shoya, Shoko, and others had to have the most damaged and ugliest sides of themselves put on display for other characters to see, while Satoshi just gets to quietly reconsider his future with no one the wiser.

This volume finally gave readers a few pages from Shoko's POV, sort of. It was basically like getting to see the world the way she sees it, but with none of her thoughts to go with it. Which got me googling whether deaf people think in terms of an “inner voice,” which in turn made me think that Oima really could have done this part better. At some point, I need to see if I can find any reviews of this series written by deaf people.

A Silent Voice (manga, vol. 7) by Yoshitoki Oima, translated by Steven LeCroy – Shoya wakes up and is determined to truly listen to and look at people, even the ones who are cruel or who hate him. He's also determined to apologize to his friends. However, talking to people is harder than he expected, and he freaks out a little when he sees Tomohiro's movie and accidentally shouts out that it's awesome. The movie is unfortunately not well received by a judge at a public screening, but everyone gets over that. After that, it's time to think of a post-high school future. Shoko wants to go to Tokyo to study to be a hairdresser, but Shoya is scared about her going to a big city. Meanwhile, Shoya decides to be a hairdresser too, in order to eventually take over his mom's business.

I definitely have some issues with this series as a whole, but this was a pretty good ending. It was nice seeing Shoya and Shoko's mom bonding over drinks and stories about their husbands leaving them, and I really liked Tomohiro's film, or at least the way the group worked themselves and their experiences into it. It was a silent film so that everyone, including Shoko, could enjoy it on the same level, and it dealt with bullying.

I disliked the way so much of this series came to be more about Shoya than Shoko, but in a way this volume turned that around a bit. While there was a sense that Shoya had grown internally (even though he briefly took a few steps back when he tried to convince Shoko not to go to Tokyo), he hadn't thought about his future at all, and it showed. Him deciding to become a hairdresser didn't feel like something he really wanted to do, but rather like the only possible future he could think of for himself. On the plus side, he'd gotten to the point where this didn't drag him down or particularly bother him – it was just life, and he'd do the best with it that he could.

Shoko decision to become a hairdresser, on the other hand, had actual history. It turned out that that haircut that Shoya's mom gave her really made an impression on her and made her want to do that too. Which, now that I think about it, makes it even more painful that Shoya's mom couldn't bring herself to speak to Shoko while Shoya was in the hospital. Dang. Anyway, it felt like Shoko was moving forward with her life. If I remember correctly, there was also something about her finding a deaf hairdresser mentor in Tokyo.

The volume ended on a high note and felt pretty satisfying, even though, surprisingly, Shoko never did try to tell Shoya “I love you" again. Seriously, why oh why did that confession happen in volume 3?

I haven't been able to decide whether I'd recommend this series to others. On the one hand, I liked that the characters were complex and that there were very few black-and-white situations and relationships. It'd probably make for excellent discussions. On the other hand, so much of it was just horrible, painful, and exhausting, and the focus on Shoya over Shoko and almost complete lack of Shoko's POV makes me wonder about how good the deafness representation was.

REVIEW: Natsume's Book of Friends (manga, vols. 9-10) by Yuki Midorikawa, translated by Lillian Olsen

This is one of those series I'd have read more of, if my vacation had been a few days longer. I had a pretty large stack of them. I started reading them in an effort to deal with my post-election funk, and the overall gentleness of the series brought me to tears.

I wish I knew how many more volumes I'd have to read it make it past the point at which the anime stopped. Or at least the point at which Season 4 stopped – I recently learned that there's a Season 5 now. I'd love to see some completely new-to-me moments in this series, although I should add that seeing the anime first has in no way lessened my enjoyment of the manga.

Warning: this post includes spoilers.

Natsume's Book of Friends (manga, vol. 9) by Yuki Midorikawa, translated by Lillian Olsen – This volume contains three stories. In the first, Natsume saves a fuzzy little yokai called Karu, which is rumored to be vicious when in groups. However, it and other Karu save Natsume from a yokai that threatens to burn his home for (it thinks) stealing his ring, so Natsume realizes it can't be as bad as the rumors say. In the second story, Natsume is attacked by yokai in simian masks and ends up imprisoned at one of the Matoba estates. Matoba tries to convince Natsume to join the Matoba clan and leave behind humans who don't understand him and yokai who he says will eventually betray him. However, Natsume escapes with the help of all his yokai friends. The third story is a brief look back at an earlier time in Natsume's life, before he went to live with the Fujiwaras, from the POV of a female classmate of his who didn't really know him all that well but who still managed to look past his seemingly strange behavior.

I don't remember seeing the fuzzball yokai story in the anime, but maybe it was there and I just forgot about it. At any rate, the little guy was pretty cute, except for the sharp teeth.

I particularly liked this quote, said by Tanuma to Taki: “I once asked [Natsume] why he hasn't told Mr. and Mrs. Fujiwara what he can see. I thought he was stubborn. He said...it's because he wants them to keep on smiling. At first I didn't get it, but there are days I've had some dreams where he gets eaten by yokai. And I realized that's what he meant. He's late to school, and his classmates laugh, thinking he's overslept again. But a chill goes up my spine.” Oh, my heart. I loved this glimpse into what it's like to be Natsume's friend and to know a little about what he can see and what he goes through. Even if it's hard on Tanuma and Taki, I'm glad that Natsume has human friends who know his secret.

I don't recall liking the second story as much in the anime, but I enjoyed it in the manga because it really emphasized a couple things: one, that Natsume has come a long way and now has a great group of yokai friends, and two, that Natsume's yokai friends may actually make him more powerful than Matoba. That second bit really stuck with me. Matoba is someone who sees yokai as (at best) tools and (at worst) enemies of humans. He seems powerful, but there are likely limits to how much he can accomplish by trapping, tricking, and/or enslaving yokai, and at least a part of him has to be worried that he'll slip up and one of them will kill him. Natsume has encountered some dangerous yokai too, but he doesn't have to constantly force Nyanko-sensei and the other yokai to help him – they just do.

My favorite quote from the end of the second story (Natsume's thoughts): “I vowed to understand and to not look away from the plight of those I can see and hear.”

As far as the third story went, it was nice to see that there were a few people here and there who saw Natsume at least a little for the person he really was, and not the liar and attention-seeker that everyone kept saying he was. Midorikawa has shown readers stuff like this before, so it wasn't exactly new, but I still liked it because it expanded the world of this series a little more. It'd be nice if this girl and Natsume could cross paths again at some point, but, even if they don't, I feel like she'd think about him occasionally and hope he's doing okay.

Natsume's Book of Friends (manga, vol. 10) by Yuki Midorikawa, translated by Lillian Olsen – This volume contains two stories. In the first, Natsume finds himself forced to help a former classmate of his, Shibata. Shibata is in love with a girl he thinks might be a yokai, and he wants Natsume to confirm that she isn't. In the second story, Natori is hired to find and free a harvest god so that a pestilence god can't take over and make the crops in the area fail for the next 10 years. If he can't manage that, then he's supposed to exorcise the pestilence god. Meanwhile, yokai have convinced Natsume is pretend to be the harvest god until they can find and free the real one.

The story with Shibata was so-so – very similar to a lot of previous stories in this series, with a tragic love between a human and a yokai. However, I always enjoy getting little glimpses of Natsume's past, so it was nice to hear a bit more about him from someone who knew him before he went to live with the Fujiwaras. Even if that person was basically blackmailing him.

My favorite detail from that story: Natsume getting birthday cake for Mr. Fujiwara. I seriously love the Fujiwaras. They're just perfect.

The second story was, visually, one of my favorites from the anime, and I enjoyed it in the manga as well. The character designs for the harvest and pestilence gods were so pretty. I suppose the story wasn't really anything special, but it was still fun seeing Natori again. Unlike Matoba, Natori is willing to meet Natsume halfway. In this volume he takes a huge risk, trusting that in the end Natsume will arrive at a solution that will work for everybody. A nice quote from Natsume: “Once the fever's gone down, I should go visit Mr. Natori. We still have our philosophical differences, but...but it also felt like we could complement each other because of those differences.”

As always, this is a lovely series, and I look forward to reading more of it. It has such a gentle and peaceful feel to it.

REVIEW: Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun (manga, vols. 1-3) by Izumi Tsubaki, translated by Leighann Harvey

I didn't know much about this series, going into it. I had heard some complaints that the romance never went anywhere in the anime adaptation, so I expected it to be a romantic comedy. I was surprised, but not displeased, to discover that it was actually far more focused on humor than anything. If I had had more volumes of this available during my vacation, I'd definitely have read them. Now I have to decide if I want to continue this series via purchases or have it be one of those series I catch up on once a year, whenever I take a vacation.

Just as I've done in the past for my big vacation manga binges, I'm going to include all the volumes I read in one post. Each volume will include a synopsis and short review. This post is technically spoiler-filled, but I don't know that any of it would really ruin the volumes for anybody, since the visuals are such a big part of the humor. Still, consider yourself warned.

Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun (manga, vol. 1) by Izumi Tsubaki, translated by Leighann Harvey - A high school girl named Sakura tries to confess her love to cool-looking Nozaki, only to get roped into doing the beta (inking the solid black areas) for his manga – it turns out that he's secretly a shoujo mangaka. Sakura then meets several of Nozaki's other helpers and learns a bit about some of the more annoying aspects of shoujo manga creation, like overly controlling editors and having to make sure nothing in the story breaks Japanese laws.

This is, I think, only my second series ever that deals with the manga industry. The other one was The World's Greatest First Love. It was primarily a romance, but it did give a few peeks into the life cycle of a manga volume, mostly from the viewpoint of manga editors. Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, on the other hand, is primarily humor and looks more at the manga writing/illustrating side of things.

I have no clue how much of the manga creation stuff in this volume was true, but, regardless, it was funny. This series turned out to be one of the best I read during my vacation. I laughed at Nozaki's efforts to create romantic moments in his series that contained no illegal aspects. Sakura got to be his guinea pig for potentially romantic options, which usually weren't very romantic at all.

Then there was Mikoshiba, another one of Nozaki's helpers. He looked like a handsome playboy but was actually extremely awkward – and also unwittingly the inspiration for the heroine in Nozaki's manga. There were lots of other great characters besides him: Seo, a brash girl who made nearly everyone who met her angry; Kashima, a “princely” girl who had tons of female admirers (and who probably couldn't remember any of their names); and Maeno, Nozaki's former editor, who forced all his artists to include tanuki in their works, just because he liked them. Nearly everyone Nozaki knew and every potentially romantic situation he encountered was worked into his series in some way.

One of my favorite moments in this volume was when Nozaki played a dating sim. He was so fascinated by the player character's weirdly helpful best friend that he accidentally found himself shipping them, to the point that he pulled an all-nighter just to create a short fan comic for them in which they could actually end up together. It was both funny and kind of sweet.

Humorous manga can be hit or miss. This one turned out to be much better than I expected – a bit odd, but solidly enjoyable.

Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun (manga, vol. 2) by Izumi Tsubaki, translated by Leighann Harvey – This series doesn't really have a plot, just lots of jokes that run for varying numbers of pages. In this volume, Nozaki is his current editor's fanboy, to the point that it seems like he has a bit of a crush on him. Sadly for him, his editor has no interest in socializing with him and just wants him to do his work well and turn it in on time. Mikoshiba demonstrates his inability to keep from saying things that embarrass the heck out of him, and Kashima may have a crush on the president of the school's drama club (he, by the way, is constantly annoyed with her). At the end of the volume, everyone tries to help out a sick Nozaki by finishing his manga pages for him.

The things I most enjoyed about this volume: Nozaki's unrequited affection for his editor, and Wakamatsu and his horrifying relationship with Seo. The bit with Nozaki and his editor was kind of adorable – I suppose I should have felt bad for Nozaki, but he was as clueless about his editor's desire for a purely professional relationship as he was about Sakura's crush on him. Nearly everything his editor said and did was wonderful, as far as he was concerned.

The stuff with Wakamatsu made me both cringe and laugh. Seo became both the reason he developed insomnia and the sole cure for his insomnia. Also, the poor guy was literally incapable of driving Seo away. Everything he did just made it look more and more like he liked her.

This volume was good, although my enjoyment was a bit more subdued than it was for the first volume.

Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun (manga, vol. 3) by Izumi Tsubaki, translated by Leighann Harvey – Nozaki's editor has a high school class reunion to attend, Wakamatsu inexplicably starts dating Seo (sort of), Kashima tries to learn to sing for Hori (the president of the school's drama club), we get to see a bit of Miyako in college (one of her classmates mistakenly thinks she's dating Nozaki), and Nozaki continues to try really hard to find inspiration for his manga.

Is it just me, or does Nozaki seem to be kind of bad at his job? He seems to be completely lacking in creativity – he can't come up with new storylines unless the real people on which he based his characters go through those experiences first. Also, he can't draw backgrounds and sometimes has problems drawing his own characters. Well, whatever, it made for some great humor. I loved the increasingly detailed set Hori and Mikoshiba created for Nozaki, and I laughed at Nozaki's completely self-serving support of the idea of Wakamatsu dating Seo. Valentine's Day was fun too.

My absolute favorite manga-related bit of humor was the part about Wakamatsu's adventures in learning the numbers for the different screentones. Since he had problems remembering them, he came up with his own names, and Nozaki tried to humor him. The results were hilarious.

I'm definitely going to continue reading this series.

REVIEW: Kobato (manga, vol. 6) by CLAMP, translated by William Flanagan

This post includes lots of spoilers (the description included).

Kobato meets with Okiura without telling anyone, but Fujimoto finds her anyway and overhears her telling Okiura that she believes Fujimoto hates her. That isn't true, of course, but that doesn't stop Kobato from fulfilling Sayaka's wish, to be free of Okiura's father, in the belief that Fujimoto would be happiest if Sayaka were happy. Fulfilling the wish leads to Kobato's death, but that's okay, because she gets reincarnated. Her new incarnation remembers Fujimoto and all the people in her past life, so she heads to them, even knowing that they probably won't remember her. What she doesn't realize is that Ginsei made a wish for Fujimoto to remember her, and so the two love birds are reunited (never mind that Kobato is 16 or so and Fujimoto is maybe in his late 30s). Suishou, the angel who helped Kobato live a little longer, is still within her until at least her next life, but after that the angel will be reunited with Iorogi.

While requesting manga volumes prior to my vacation, I remembered that I was only one volume away from finishing this series. I figured I should take care of that, but I made a mistake – I should have requested volume 5, and maybe volume 4 too, to remind me of what had happened and who everyone was. I last read those volumes way back in 2014, so I had gotten out of the flow of the series' emotional content, although my volume summaries at least helped me remember some of what was going on.

So, this was more than a bit confusing to get back to. I had forgotten how many crossover characters it had, for one thing. Only 20 pages in, and I'd spotted Chitose, Chi, and her sister (not as the actual characters from Chobits, of course, but rather alternate universe versions of themselves), as well as Kohaku from Wish. It should be noted that Kohaku really is the angel from Wish, and that Kobato is apparently set in the same universe as that series, just a few decades or so later. If I had taken the time to think about the implications of that, the ending might have been less of a surprise.

I still don't know that I'd have seen the ending coming, though, because it was just so much. Like, every happy ending CLAMP could possibly cram in there, whether or not it really fit. If I remember correctly, the original setup for this series indicated that someone would have to make a sacrifice – either Suishou would need to fade away in order for Kobato to live out her life with Fujimoto, or Kobato would need to die for Suishou to be free to go back to Iorogi and for Iorogi to get his original form back. Instead, literally everybody got to be with the person they loved. I like happy endings, I do, but I also want them to feel like they were earned, and this just seemed to fall into everyone's laps. Even though reincarnation is part of this world's rules, it still felt kind of like CLAMP had cheated.

I wonder how I'd feel about this series if I hadn't already read Wish? To my mind, this seemed like a cardboard cutout version of that series, with some of the same issues and themes but less tightly focused and with a little less charm. Then again, it's been a while since I've read Wish, and maybe my memories of it are rosier than it deserves. I'll have to add it to my “reread sometime soon-ish” list.

REVIEW: Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto (manga, vol. 1) by Nami Sano, translated by Adrienne Beck

Sakamoto, a new and popular student, coolly and calmly deals with jealous bullies, a wasp, a kid who keeps getting bullied for his lunch money, a scheming girl who wants to make him her boyfriend, and a guy who uses him and other students as his slaves. There's also an extra story called “Broad Shoulders” that I think is unrelated to this series, but it's hard to tell because the main character looked an awful lot like Sakamoto. At any rate, the kid in that story was being bullied for his shoulder pads for some bizarre reason.

I found out about this series via a review somewhere, and I was really excited about it. I figured it would be humorous and weird. Instead, the humor generally fell flat, and the whole thing was weird in an uncanny valley sort of way. The characters looked just “off” enough that I was too busy being creeped out to enjoy this much. I really wasn't a fan of the artwork, which was a little too stiff for my tastes.

Some of the stories were also disturbing enough to make me question whether I have this series' genre wrong. In the story with the kid whose lunch money was being stolen, for example, Sakamoto wouldn't help him until after he'd gotten a job. After the kid tried to stand up to his bullies himself, he told Sakamoto that the lesson he'd learned was this: “I don't need to protect myself or my money, only my pride.” I sort of understand what Sano was trying to get across here, but still...fighting against his bullies could have landed him in the hospital or even gotten him killed if Sakamoto hadn't swooped in to help. In the first story, several bullies tied Sakamoto up and planned to strip him down, take pictures, and send the pictures to everyone. And I still don't know what to think about the story with the guy who was making other students his slaves.

It also bugged me that Sakamoto didn't seem to be interested in helping people so much as studying them and testing his theories about human behavior. There were indications that Sakamoto wasn't human. He refused to say his given name, the only information he gave about his past was that he'd once attended a place called “Innocence Academy,” and he had inhuman physical abilities. He might be a robot, or an alien, or something else entirely. At this point, my best guess is that he's an alien, living on Earth specifically to study human behavior.

If I do continue reading this series, it'll primarily be for the mystery of Sakamoto's origins and identity. None of the other characters were at all interesting or very memorable, Sakamoto's solutions to various situations weren't really that big of a draw, and the artwork kind of creeped me out. I really don't know what Sano was going for here. I mean, the series also included a lot of what I'd normally call fanservice, with many panels of shirtless or barely clothed Sakamoto and other characters, but it wasn't so much sexy as it was discomfiting and vaguely disturbing.

That said, there were still a few nice moments. For instance, I liked the panel in which Sakamoto demonstrated that he could easily remain in a seated position even after his chair had been stolen out from under him.

REVIEW: Chi's Sweet Home (manga, vol. 12) by Konami Kanata, translated by Ed Chavez

This post contains lots of spoilers (right down to the description).

The Yamadas are going to France, and they have a difficult decision to make: should they notify Chi's original owner that they have her, or should they just continue on as they have been? The decision is basically made for them when they find Chi's mom, hurt after being hit by a car (don't worry, she's fine). Although Yohei is resistant, the Yamadas eventually give Chi up to her original owner. What they didn't count on was that Chi would miss them enough to try to go find them.

I probably wouldn't have minded if this series had gone on to be as massive as Skip Beat! or Naruto, so I was a little sad to have reached this final volume. My expectations were also maybe a bit too high. In the end, I felt this volume was a little too rushed and pushed some of its emotional buttons a bit too hard.

I cried during the bit with Chi's mom. Thank goodness Kanata didn't kill her off, but seeing her just lying there after being hit by the car broke my heart, especially since it happened because she was trying to save Chi. The Yamadas' final decision went a bit further in the tear-jerker direction than I was expecting, however, and it just felt wrong. For maybe the first time in the series, Yohei refused to listen to his parents and acted out, and I was right there with him because, darn it, Chi had been part of their family for at least a few months (I'm not sure how much time has passed between this volume and the first, but my guess is nearly a year). The relative ease with which Mr. and Mrs. Yamada gave Chi up didn't feel right.

Unsurprisingly, Kanata turned things around right before the end of the volume, but even that had aspects to it that didn't quite seem to fit. I've never had to make arrangements to get a pet to another country, but I'm pretty sure that the Yamadas wouldn't have had time to finish those preparations with only a few hours to go before their flight.

I still love Chi, I'm glad she got to meet her mother and siblings, and I'm glad she was reunited with the Yamadas in the end, but I prefer the earlier volumes in the series that were just about a cute kitten doing cute things while her first-time cat owners watch.

REVIEW: Attack on Titan: Junior High (manga, vol. 1) by Saki Nakagawa, based on Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama, translated by William Flanagan

In this Attack on Titan parody series, all the Attack on Titan characters are junior high students – including the titans. Eren still hates the titans with his entire being, but his reasons are now ridiculous and viewed by his fellow students as racist. Annie, meanwhile, loathes Eren because his ridiculous reason for hating the titans has now made it impossible for her to openly say what her favorite food is, for fear that she will be mocked.

Eren hears about the Survey Club, a secret club that works to learn the titans' weaknesses, and instantly wants to join. However, since the Survey Club is supposed to be a secret, he still has to join an official club and ends up in the Wall Cleanup Club. On the plus side, at least the Wall Cleanup Club has cool vertical maneuvering gear.

Armin enters the picture when he's forced to attend school in order to give his class a chance of winning special ramen. Later, all the first years battle against the upperclassmen. The losers will be forced to go to the school's folk dance with the titans.

Most of my knowledge of Attack on Titan comes from the anime, since I'm still not very far into the manga. I knew enough to recognize most of the characters and notice the way Nakagawa had tweaked their defining characteristics for this skewed new world. Levi was still obsessed with cleaning (come to think of it, it's kind of odd that he wasn't in the Wall Cleanup Club), Eren was still obsessed with taking out the titans, Armin still preferred to stay out of the way, and Mikasa still propped Eren up with her skills and general scariness. I kind of wish that Nakagawa had either continued the “Eren's obsession with the titans is kind of racist” thread or not included it at all, because it was quickly dropped in favor of the titans legitimately being gross bullies (their favorite thing to do to students they disliked was pick them up and suck on them).

While I enjoyed seeing how Nakagawa had incorporated details from the original series into this parody series, most of the jokes didn't work for me. Eren's behavior towards the titans earned him a Hitler joke, Sasha went from being “Potato Girl” to “Foodstamp Girl,” the “titans suck people” thing was just gross, and Levi, arguably the best character from the original series, was barely in this volume.

I doubt I'll be continuing with this. Reading a parody series I already feel so-so about that's based on a manga series I'm having trouble working up the willpower to continue isn't really appealing. However, I did at least learn something new from this volume: I hadn't realized that Hange's gender was supposed to be a mystery. I don't think I've gotten that far into the manga, and I assumed Hange's gender based on the character's female voice actor in the anime. The translator's almost gleeful refusal to state Hange's gender or give Hange a gendered title or honorific is an ongoing joke in this parody.

REVIEW: Alice in the Country of Clover: Twin Lovers (manga) by QuinRose, art by Kei Shichiri, translated by Angela Liu

In the Country of Hearts, Alice thought of Dee and Dum as rambunctious little brothers. In the Country of Clover, however, they spend most of their time in their adult forms, and Alice is confused and embarrassed by her budding feelings for them. She's also worried that, at some point, they'll want her to choose between them. She likes them both equally and doesn't know how she could possibly do that.

The twins are fairly low on my list of favorite lover interests for Alice, for a lot of reasons. One, I'm not a fan of relationships involving a main character and twins – it comes too close to twincest, which I also dislike. Two, the twins are gleefully violent. Yes, a lot of the Wonderland guys are violent, but they don't all revel in that violence quite as much as the twins. And three, the twins are usually very child-like, even in their adult forms. I'd argue that it's actually a little worse in their adult forms, because the disconnect between their appearance and their behavior is so jarring.

As in The March Hare's Revolution, Alice once again finds herself saddled with love interests who say threatening things that are supposed to be romantic. At one point, one of the twins says “If you leave us, big sis, we might do something bad.” Of course, they're likely to do “something bad” whether she leaves them or not, because killing random people who try to enter the Hatter Mansion is their job.

Alice's internal conflicts about being attracted to the twins apparently weren't enough, so the story included Dee and Dum competing for Alice's love. It was a little odd, since, despite Alice's worries about having to choose between them, the twins themselves had previously seemed perfectly fine with sharing Alice. Their effort to get the best gift for Alice was still amusing, however, and worked out pretty much the way I expected.

This would probably have worked better for me if it had been more about friendship/family-building than romance, since that would have significantly reduced the squick factor. Parts of the story were actually pretty sweet. The artwork was also good, although I noticed that Shichiri's interpretation of Vivaldi was a little different.

REVIEW: Alice in the Country of Clover: The March Hare's Revolution (manga) story by QuinRose, art by Ryo Kazuki, translated by Angela Liu

This post includes spoilers.

In this Alice in the Country of Clover one-shot, Alice finds herself torn between dreams of home, in which her sister is disappointed in her for staying in Wonderland, and her budding feelings for Elliot. On the one hand, the violence Elliot is capable of when carrying out his work for the Hatter family scares her. On the other hand, she loves the side of him that's protective, goofy, and sweet. She doesn't know if he feels the same for her or if he's like her tutor back in the real world, just humoring her.

Elliot has always been pretty low on my list of favorite love interests for Alice, and this volume didn't change my mind. Her attraction to him in the franchise seems to mostly be based on her fascination with his rabbit ears. His personality, ranging from childish and joyful when with Alice and cold-blooded when working for Blood, has never really appealed to me. For some reason, even Dee and Dum, who are the most similar in personality to Elliot, appeal to me more.

There were a few lines I didn't like. For example, at one point Elliot told Alice: “Look. I'm not telling you to fall in love with me. But if you tell me you've fallen for some other guy, I might kill him.” Um...that's not romantic. Alice also described Elliot as "Violence mixed with aching sweetness." Blergh.

Alice's dreams of her sister hint at some of the things that were better-covered in other volumes in the franchise. This volume never revealed what it was that Alice had forgotten, something that might disappoint some readers. If I remember correctly, other volumes indicated that Alice's older sister had probably died. By retreating to Wonderland, Alice also retreated from her memories of her sister's funeral.

All in all, this was mediocre. It glorified some of the franchise's problematic elements a bit too much for my tastes, but beyond that it was more forgettable than anything, adding absolutely nothing to the mystery of Alice's past. I did at least like Ryo Kazuki's art, however.

REVIEW: Another Episode S/0 (book and manga) novel by Yukito Ayatsuji, manga by Hiro Kiyohara, translation by Karen McGillicuddy

Another Episode S/0 consists of a short supernatural mystery novel (novella?) and a manga. It's published by Yen On.

Review:

I was a little wary of this book. I've read or watched every version of Another that's officially been made available in English, starting with the anime, then the original novel, and finally the manga. I noticed I was burning out on the story by the time I got to the manga. Could a sequel novel work for me? Would it be fresh and new enough?

First, I should mention that this book actually collects two different works: Another Episode S, a lengthy story that takes place during the events of Another but isn't directly related to the curse affecting North Yomi's third-year Class 3, and Another Episode 0, a short prequel manga starring Reiko, Koichi's aunt. I'll write about them separately, but my final verdict is that this had some interesting moments but was largely a disappointment.

Warning: Do NOT read this review if you haven't read or watched Another. My review will include major spoilers for that work.

Another Episode S:

It's been a while since I last read Another, but I think this takes place shortly after third-year Class 3's first death. It's presented as a story Mei tells Koichi after they've survived the events of Another. Mei heard that a man she knew, 25-year-old Teruya Sakaki, had once been in North Yomi's third-year Class 3 during an “on” year, so she wanted to talk to him to find out more about the curse. However, by that point he had apparently died and become a ghost.

The story is told from Teruya's POV, as he tries to figure out how and why he died and why his sister and her husband have lied to everyone and told them that he's gone on a trip. He's convinced that, if he can just find his body, everything will be made clear to him. Unfortunately, all he has to guide him are vague and disquieting snatches of memory. Although his memories are too wispy and jumbled to help Mei in her search for an end to the curse, she agrees to help him find his body.

I've read Ayatsuji's The Decagon House Murders. I know he's capable of writing mysteries that don't resort to cheating, but you wouldn't know it from his Another novels. Another cheated by having the POV character simply not think about certain important details. Another Episode S cheated by bending over backwards to choose an unreliable narrator. Considering that Mei was telling this story to Koichi, it really should have been told from Mei's POV, but that would have ruined all of the story's biggest surprises.

Like Another, Another Episode S was incredibly repetitive. Some of the repetition made sense: Teruya was very confused by and bothered about his death and had nothing else to do but obsess about the few things he could still remember. Still, it got a bit old. He'd tell readers something, and then spend the next three or so pages either telling readers the same thing in different ways or reassuring readers that he really meant what he was saying (for example, pages and pages on his death and his reappearance in the living world as a ghost). Also, as in Another, there were lots of seemingly random bolded words and phrases. I could understand why "appear" was bolded, but some of the other choices made no sense to me.

Despite all that bloat, this was a quick read. Unfortunately, the revelations weren't that great. The events surrounding Teruya's death weren't that hard to figure out. Neither was the reason his sister and her husband did what they did, although, I have to say, it was incredibly stupid on their part. You'd think one of them would have realized they were actually making things worse for themselves in the long run. The story's biggest surprise was Teruya himself, but, like I said, I considered that cheating on Ayatsuji's part. I think he might have recognized that, too, because he spent 20 pages, through Koichi, laying out and explaining all the various details that showed why things turned out the way they did. About the only thing that wasn't part of the final analysis was the odd way Teruya tended to refer himself. While I did think that was a clever clue, I was still annoyed at the decisions Ayatsuji made for this story. Was this really the best he could do?

Another Episode 0:

This very short manga shows Reiko at her older sister's shrine, telling her that Koichi is about to come stay with the family for a while – this part takes place just before the beginning of Another. Then a flashback shows Reiko during her own time in North Yomi third-year Class 3, when she first learned about the curse and watched people she knew die.

Oh, this manga. Not much happens, but there's so much emotion packed into such a small number of pages.

You absolutely need to have read or watched some version of Another for it to have the proper impact, because the writer (in this case, Hiro Kiyohara) doesn't bother to explain why these moments are important in the larger scheme of things.

Those who are familiar with the series know that Reiko was the casualty, the extra person, during Koichi's time in North Yomi third-year Class 3. Although she managed to survive her own “on” year, her beloved older sister was one of the ones who died, and Reiko herself died in a later “on” year (I believe she was a teacher then?).

Yomiyama is the worst place to live. Even the people who survive the curse end up scarred by it, like Teruya. And those who are killed by it might have to go through it again in the future, like Reiko. And dang it, Reiko loved Koichi so much, and yet the curse wouldn't even allow him to remember her after she died a second time.

Extras:

• Two full-color illustrations - three, if you count the one on the inside of the cover, although that's just the uncropped version of one of the two color illustrations included in the book.
• Character sketches, cover roughs, the line drawings for several of the manga covers, and a few storyboards.
• Afterwords by both Yukito Ayatsuji and Hiro Kiyohara.

Read-alikes and Watch-alikes:

• Remember Me (book) by Christopher Pike - Another novel in which a ghost tries to solve the mystery of their own death. I've written about this book. 
• When They Cry - Higurashi (manga) by Seventh Expansion and various artists; When They Cry - Higurashi (anime TV series) - Another mystery/horror series. This one tries to mess with your head, making you think you're watching a sickeningly sweet harem series, up until you get to the point where the cute girls start killing people. I haven't read or watched the whole thing, but I've heard there are "solving your own murder" aspects. I've written about the first volume of the manga.
• Between (book) by Jessica Warman - I haven't read this. I added it to this list because it's a YA book starring a ghostly heroine who's trying to figure out how she died.
• Dead Like Me (live action TV series) - The heroine of this TV series, George, dies when she is hit by a flaming toilet seat from outer space. After her death, she learns she is now a grim reaper. This might work for people who are interested in more stories about death and how people (both the dead and those left behind) cope during the aftermath.