Thus Far, A Riddle

It took a while for me to find anything really new and exciting-looking at my local B&N (that's Barnes and Noble to most of you), but yesterday I saw a title that I think I'd heard of before: Akuma no Riddle.

It's apparently recently been made into an anime and dubbed by Funimation.

Anyway, the basis of the story is that there are several color-related classes at a certain all-girls school.  Mojyo, I think the name was.  Unbeknownst to most, however, the Black Class is composed of twelve assassins and their target: the seemingly-unknowing Haru Ichinose.

She's cute, funny and kinda stupid, and she refers to herself by name all the time in the manner of a very young Japanese child.  Perhaps she's trying to be cute?

The assassins themselves all seem to come from dark and disturbing backgrounds, which I'm sure we'll see further as the series progresses.  There's a girl who changes personalities at night, just for starters.  That was the one who really stuck out for me the most.

Our target is also initially being pursued by cold new transfer student Azuma Tokaku, the best student in another elite assassin class.  Or was it an assassin school?  I can't remember. 

Anyway, by the end of the first volume, Azuma has, for some reason, announced a desire to protect Haru from their classmates, rather than competing with them to kill her.  But is she only saying this to try and get close enough to kill her?  Given what this series has been like so far, I wouldn't put it past her.

Not too much happens from chapter to chapter.  It almost reads like a slice of life boarding school manga, aside from the occasional cold analysis of an assassination and finding the target.  I like assassin stories as much as the next guy, but thus far it seems like a less-funny version of Assassination Classroom (which I love!) with possibly one or two shades of Strawberry Panic thrown in there.

But, given the story we've set out so far, with luck we'll soon see some more fighting and/or crafty assassination attempts.  With luck, we'll also see more of the girls' personalities.  That should help us tell them apart.

I think I'll take a look at the anime, but I'll also continue reading the manga as well.  The first volume wasn't much, but it piqued my interest.  Will it pique yours?

Up, Up and Amazed!

Hello once again, dear readers!

My apologies for there being such a long period between updates, but I haven't exactly been reading a bunch of new manga lately, what with there being so many pre-existing series that keep getting new volumes out all the time.

In retrospect, I could've done Tokyo Ghoul.  It's been so long that it's hard to remember what I've started since our last update.

But lately my local library has gotten in Vol. 1 of "My Hero Academia", so I'm going to go with that.

In a world where 80% of the population has superpowers, everyday human child Izuku Midoriya dreams of someday becoming a hero anyway, despite the fact that he possesses no powers.

But, one day, a liquified bad guy accosts Izuku and he is saved by famous Silver Age hero All Might.  In his haste to question All Might on the validity of a non-powered person becoming a hero, Izuku inadvertently releases the villain and later winds up on the front lines of the ensuing crisis.  All Might appears once again to save the day, but he witnesses Izuku's boldly charging in to save a classmate.  This gives the secretly breaking down All Might the proof he needs to select Izuku as his next successor.

The big thing about All Might's power is that it can be passed down, each inheritor growing stronger from the strength of the previous and all those he's saved.

And thus begins our unlikely hero's journey to true heroism.

The story itself is good, the characters so far aren't too bad.  Some of the names are weird (Izuku for the main hero, Ochako Uraraka for the heroine.  Seriously.  Ochako.  That isn't even a real name.)

It's like Tiger and Bunny, or X-Men or something, but mixed more with the traditional Japanese school setting.

But what I really liked about My Hero Academia was how it played with the traditional Western superhero and Japanese shonen manga tropes.

For example, in the battle I mentioned above, one would usually expect the main protagonist to somehow unlock some hidden power he'd never even known about and use it to thwart the villain.  This does not happen.  The mentor character, at the cost of damaging himself, jumps in to save the protagonist after witnessing that he has heroic qualities in him.

Also, Izuku isn’t just GIVEN a special power (which, of course, he can’t control), but he instead earns it, doing hard labor for almost a year in order to ensure that his body and mind are worthy of it.  That being said, he doesn’t somehow manage to become a hero through hard work alone, either.

It's very (or at least slightly) unlike what you usually see in comic books, regardless of where they came from geographically, and so I would recommend this series to any of my manga-reading friends.

Pervy Prison School

Dear Readers,

My apologies, but I have been neglecting this blog recently.  I've somehow kept forgetting, no matter how many new manga/anime I've started.   I think I've even finished the entirety of the Viz translated Bleach since my last post!

And now, without further ado, my review of what is apparently the hot new anime this season: "Prison School".

When I initially read the summary on Wikipedia, it didn't seem all that bad.  I was picturing a combination Deadman Wonderland/every pervy manga series ever, but what I got was something...slightly different.

In a school with over 1000 female students, the rules have recently changed to make it coed.  We follow these five new male students: Kiyoshi the normal guy, Gackt the Three Kingdoms geek, Joe the shadowy guy, Shingo the bleach blonde and Andre the fat guy with the freaky little face.

A peeping incident goes horribly wrong one night (and just after Kiyoshi finally got a date with one of the girls!) and the hot student disciplinary council throws all five of them into the "school prison".  There they are abused and forced into hard labor.

Therein lies the difficulty: Kiyoshi escaping in time to meet the girl on the appointed date.  A date, of course, on which he still happens to be in prison.

The setup sounds pretty basic, but there are some serious problems here.  I have no problem with nudity fanservice (from the girls), but there's a lot of really gross stuff in there too.

One part of the plan involves faking a trip to the bathroom and then sneaking out through an air duct.  This requires the use of an MP3 player to provide the sounds of someone making a bowel movement.  And, if that weren't gross enough, in order to get the sounds just right, Gackt actually shits himself in class and records the sounds.

There is also a scene of a girl peeing, the other boys' desires to be dominated and humiliated by the hot glasses-wearing girl pictured above, and an unfortunate shower scene that winds up insinuating that Kiyoshi and Gackt are gay.  Plus Andre's tiny face on his giant body is really freaky, especially with his English Funimation voice.

A big part of the puzzle is that there is some supernatural element that seems to be there, but not quite.  The girls are not allowed by the rules to fraternize with the boys, or else they'll be thrown in the prison as well.  And they are especially wary of talking to them in front of the school's crows.

This is because one of the council girls is rumored to be some sort of "crow user" and does indeed find out about the peeping incident through them somehow, but, at least in the first volume, this is never brought up again.

The only strange thing seems to be the prison setting.

I almost don't want to continue reading it, because of all the gross parts and the fact that it can really only end one of two ways.  But stuff with logistics like this isn't all bad now and again.  And I'm a little intrigued as to exactly which way the series will end.

You can read it if you want; just don't expect a lot of really good hot chick fanservice.

"Hardly The Greatest Show On Earth"

This particular entry may come off as a mite bit odd to some of my more long-time readers.  The last time I was down at the bookstore, I saw that the manga version of Karneval had released in English.  However, unfortunately, I did not have enough time to read it before we had to leave.  So I decided to content myself with watching the anime, which I knew had been released in English by Funimation.

In a strange, European-inspired world, a mysterious organization known as Kafka seeks to accelerate the evolution of humanity into high-powered monsters called Varrukas through drugs.  The national defense force known as Circus seeks to stop them.

A mysterious boy named Nai, searching for his lost patron, carries with him a bracelet-shaped ID from circus when he meets hard-hearted thief Gareki.  Suddenly pursued by a Varruka, they quickly encounter Circus and begin searching for both Kafka and the missing patron.

The voice acting in this anime is passable, particularly its use of Greg Ayres as Gareki and two voice actresses from Haganai (Sena's and Kobato's).  Story and action-wise, it reminded me pretty much of almost Black Cat meets Sakura Wars.

Perhaps I should clarify: Circus is called Circus because, for some reason, in addition to keeping the peace, they also see fit to put on parades and stage shows and such-like for the populace of wherever they happen to touch down.  But, unlike Sakura Wars, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with increasing their spiritual powers for combat.

Maybe it's because I didn't watch every single episode back-to-back, or maybe it was just the limitations of it being condensed into a single 13-episode anime season, but I didn't really feel like I could connect to any of the characters.  It was good to see Gareki starting to find a purpose, but that was about it.  Most everyone's backstories and motivations felt more than a little cliched, and the battle sequences weren't really anything to write home about.

If you liked Black Cat enough, then maybe you would feel some attraction towards this awkward knockoff.  Don't get me wrong: I did enjoy Black Cat, but Karneval (if you'll pardon the pun) simply fails to perform to their standard.

Eyes on Nurse Hitomi

For the first time in a long time today, I stopped off at my local B&N (that's "Barnes and Noble" for the non-texting crowd).  There wasn't a lot of new stuff there, but I did pick up the first volume of a very strange new series.  It's called Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary.

Our protagonist is the clumsy cyclops prominently pictured above, the titular Nurse Hitomi.  In a world that starts out looking an awful lot like ours, several students at a local high school have been going through strange new changes as a result of puberty.  Our first story introduces us to a girl whose tongue has grown to, like, three feet long.

And it only gets weirder from there.

In the first volume alone, we are introduced to Tongue Girl, an immortal zombie, two girls who are alternately growing and shrinking respectively (dramatically reversing their former size dynamic) and one girl who is turning invisible.

As the story moves onward, we gradually see that there are more and more monster-like girls in this world, walking the streets just like ordinary people like you and me.  (Apparently, they are just accepted and everyone lives in peace.  No fantastic racism here...yet.)  That makes this series a lot like A Centaur's Life or Monster Musume.

The former was a mite bit boring for my tastes, the latter too heavy on fanservice at the expense of the plot.  Thankfully, Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary suffers from neither of these problems.  (Although they do mention that the growing and shrinking friends are both growing and shrinking out of their clothes, so the potential for future fanservice is definitely there.  And the other girl's invisibility is pretty sporadic, so she sometimes only makes her clothes invisible.  But all this is nowhere near enough to derail or detract from the plot.)

That being said, the art style is a little on the weird side, and the fall-apart zombie girl's body separation is a very odd mix of the comical and the surreal, maybe a hair or two creepier than the separation powers of Trafalgar Law or Buggy the Clown from One Piece.

I'm not really one for monster girls, or girls with monstrous bodies or abilities.  Some green chicks like Gamora or Elphaba from Wicked aren't bad, but that's about it.  Wings, hooves, tails...all of them instantly kill any sexual interest I might have had.  That's why I never got into Leela from Futurama.

The stories it tells aren't bad, though: friends dealing with a bizarre new inverted size relationship, learning about self-confidence after turning invisible, dealing with recklessness, learning to love oneself warts and all.  Basic school guidance counselor stuff, but with monster girls.

It's a weird series with weird art, long story short.  But we shall see if it gets any easier or any more interesting as the series goes on.  I'm not against it, not by a long shot.  Go pick up a copy and decide for yourself if it's worth it.

Wild Wild West!

From the mind that brought you Rurouni Kenshin and the later series Buso Renkin comes the three-volume Western "Gun Blaze West"!

In the American 1800's, a young boy named Viu Bannes lives with his older sister after their parents are killed by gunslingers.  One day, a man named Marcus Homer comes along and inspires young Viu to become stronger.  He tells him of a mysterious places off in the far West where the best and the strongest go.  The name of the place is Gun Blaze West.

Tragically, Marcus is seemingly killed in a gunfight right before Viu's eyes (thankfully, Viu defeats the bad guy soon after).  Years pass, and soon Viu starts off on his own journey to master the ways of the gun and discover the promised land of Gun Blaze West.  He is joined by the smart guy rope master Will Johnston and the lady immigrant samurai Colice.

Now, I'm not much of a Western kind of person.  It just seems to me like all the basic traits have been done to death: guns, horses, bathing in barrels, saloon brawls.  But Gun Blaze West takes some of the original tropes and then throws in some more wild-style crazy action elements.

For example, Viu learns a special skill called Concentration One later on, learning how to exercise extreme focus for one second at a time.  There's a freakin' armored giant with an army of knights and a freakin' super-soldier, for cryin' out loud!  This ain't yer Daddy's Western, son!

My little brother probably said it best when he called it "One Piece with cowboys instead of pirates".  Sadly, the series only lasted for three volumes.  Nobuhiro Watsuki wasn't exactly too enthused about it and it got cancelled relatively quickly.

But it tells a good story, and the action elements are relatively unique.  If you can find this series anywhere, I would strongly advise you to pick it up.  It's a good way to kill a little time (in a good way).

No Game No Life, No Good

Oftentimes, even if I wasn't interested when I saw it at the bookstore, I will pick up a graphic novel at the library simply because it was something new on the shelves.

Sometimes they turn out to be mildly good (Attack on Titan) and sometimes they turn out to be mildly unpleasant (case in point here).

The story begins with a group of high level gamers, going off to challenge a mysterious urban legend known as Blank (who, for some reason, is not outright written as "Blank" but visually represented by an empty space).  Even though they've stacked the deck in their favor, they are all still wiped out, to a man.

When we cut away back to the real world, we see lazy and overconfident brother/sister duo Sora and Shiro.  The two of them make up Blank.

Now, Sora is stated to be a NEET (slacker with no job and no life, sponging off of his unseen parents like a parasite).  Shiro is only eleven years old, yet still, for whatever reason, speaks in a weird-cute Hulk Speak thing where she's, like, missing verbs and such.  "Brother is a NEET", for example.  She is also stated, paradoxically, to have a genius intellect, able to see all 10,000 or so possible moves in chess right out of the gate, as well as learn an entire language in one day.

Both of them are lazy and greedy, having no jobs and no friends.  They are also cheaters and scammers, seeing the world around them as a boring, rotten mess.

So, luckily for them, a mysterious email comes up and invites them into another world after beating a chess game.

Now, I know what you're thinking: .Hack and Sword Art Online, right?  Wrong!  Shiro and Sora are entirely different.  They just want to keep surviving in a fantasy world that is way more fun than our current one.  They literally have no interest in going home.

That's unexpected, to be sure, but it's not how things work.  People can't just run away to a better world when life gets hard.  People have spent your entire life teaching you how to live in the real world, and you can't just throw that away.  You have to dig in your heels and fight to prove that you can survive on your own.

Anyway, this new world is your typical sword and sorcery stuff, where all issues, large and small, are decided by games.  It is, almost literally, the perfect world for our "heroes" (and I use the term loosely).  Therein, they meet an alleged princess of that world, who is naive and bad at gaming.

And, perhaps thankfully, that is where the first volume ends.

I personally would not advise wasting your time on this series.  There is no action, little comedy, no real likeable characters, and a small amount of bathtime fanservice thrown in simply to get the pervert fans hooked.

These people have so much potential (such as it is), yet they waste their lives alone in their room, no one else around but each other.  And then they get thrown into a world that is practically just sitting there and waiting for them to manipulate it.  They seem to care about each other, but that's it.

I can only hope that these two good-for-nothing jerks get themselves a good old-fashioned wake up call, and quick.  Now I understand how my brother doesn't like people like Soma Yukihira from Food Wars, although he may be slightly better than these two.