Ichi The Witch Review

 

 

Now, we’ve all seen that a lot of manga and anime have ended recently: My Hero Academia, Kyokuto Necromance, Dear Anemone, Fabricant 100, Tenmaku Cinema, The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins and possibly Psych House (although I both certainly hope not and would not be surprised).

 

Thank God Oda has confirmed that we should have another 8 years of One Piece to look forward to.  And it doesn’t look like Spy Family is going anywhere, either.

 

Boy, a ton of manga that I’ve reviewed for this blog are on there, aren’t they?

 

But this also means that a lot of new manga must come out to take their places: Martial Master Asumi, Dogsred, Me and Roboco and today’s reviewed manga, just out last week: Ichi the Witch.

 

Now, as a writer, I am all for turning old tropes on their heads.  For the longest time, men have enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) most of everything this world has to offer.  And “warrior princesses” by this point have become so ubiquitous that the only way one could be different and paradigm-shifting anymore would be to go back to the pink, fluffy, singing, animal-loving, perfectly obedient princess that was always present in the early Disney movies.

 

That being said, my point is that, because men already have everything, I am wary of stories that tell of “male empowerment”.  Nobody is going to cheer for a straight kid beating out a gay kid to perform in a musical or win in a drag competition.  Men, and in particular straight white men already have everything, so having them come in and take over a place specifically made for women or minorities just smacks of disgusting greed and practically colonialism.

 

So the right-wingers would probably love the concept, but not me.

 

But the story, art and world of Ichi the Witch stand to speak for themselves.  (Provided you ignore the massive elephant in the room.)  The levels of detail and the stark black-and-white artwork remind me heavily of something from Clamp, or Black Clover.  Ichi himself sort of resembles the protag from Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba as well (I’ve never read it).

 

Even the world reminds me of Black Clover.

 

But magic isn’t exactly freely available in this world, unlike Black Clover.  Magical spirits appear before people like the Kwamis from Miraculous Ladybug, asking that people complete their trial rituals before they can access magical powers.  These creatures are called Majiks, and women who hunt them to acquire their powers are known as Witches.

 

Only women, mind you-because it’s apparently next-to-impossible for a man to gain control of a magical power.  (Hello, American Horror Story.)

 

Happy local hermit boy Ichi was abandoned in the woods when he was very little with only a knife.  It had been meant for him to kill himself with, but the boy possessed too great of a subconscious will to live, and so he became an expert survivalist and hunter.  But, like seemingly all other shonen heroes, Ichi has vowed to never kill anything except for sustenance or self-defense.

 

One day, he came upon the evil Majik known as Uroro, sleeping on the mountainside, and he set about preparing for the day when it might attack him, eager for the challenge.

 

And, lo and behold, Uroro does indeed awaken and go on a rampage one fine day, drawing the attention of the Witch authorities.  Their strongest Witch Descarass goes in to engage him, but Uroro reveals that, while his ritual of forcing his heart to stop sounds easy enough on paper, he has also set the condition that his heart can never be harmed by a woman.

 

That is where Ichi comes in.

 

The series even indulges in a small amount of the traditional Japanese style of humor that I love, such as the intimidating Uroro thinking that Descarass is stalking him, or him pathetically begging for his life right before Ichi delivers the kill, and Descarass having over-the-top reactions to Ichi’s earnest yet silly behavior.

 

Now, again, the series has literally just dropped, so we have no idea where it’s going or what’s going to happen next.  But I like most of it, aside from the whole “male empowerment” thing going on.

 

Maybe these cultural norm things are just different in Japan or something.  But I fully intend to keep reading, and hopefully we will be able to see the series grow and change as we move into 2025.

 

That is, you know, if society still exists in 2025, following the election.

No Antidote For Love

 

Once again, fans, I have found the time to hit up my local Barnes and Noble in search of new manga.

 

But, this time around, I had a list prepared containing the two series that I had found on my last trip that I wanted to review.  Sadly, though, only one of the series wound up making the cut, and it was this one:

 

“Marriage Toxin”, with Story by Joumyaku, art by Mizuki Yoda.

 

Master assassin of the Poison Clan, Hikaru Gero, only takes on missions to assassinate “human scum”.  In his spare time, he loves candy and cleans obsessively whenever he’s stressed.  All of this leaves little time to find love.  And, as he sees it, who could ever love an assassin, especially one who sacrificed basic human social skills for awesome training, the way he did?

 

But this soon becomes more of a problem than he first realized, when his family insists that their clan produce an heir, even if it means breaking up his gay sister and her girlfriend and forcing her to copulate with a man.

 

Luckily for Hikaru, his next target is a serial marriage swindler named Mei Kinosaki.  Jealous of her success with men, he asks for her help in finding a mate.  In exchange, he will spare her life.  And, after seeing Hikaru pulling off impressive feat after impressive feat to save her life alone, Mei determines that he shines most as a protective knight.

 

So now we have an assassin, battling other assassins, in various attempts to try and woo a woman via his rescue/combat skills.

 

This series contains many elements that I enjoy: cool superpowers (often to the point of almost literal; one assassin can literally bend water like Katarra and swim in land), great storytelling, shonen-style battles and a ton of Japanese humor:

 

To wit, in the first volume alone, we have: Hikaru developing a cleaning fluid that can eat through metal, a sea-going art thief riding a pet shark, a guy who can spit bullets from his mouth with the force of a gun, a creepy Bug Master assassin who gives all his “pets” cute names, and, of course, Hikaru’s cringe-worthy, over-the-top attempts to woo ordinary women.

 

With this mix of cool and comical, the series is very reminiscent of Spy x Family, with a dash of Hunter x Hunter, and maybe even One Piece, with how over-the-top and downright silly some of the aforementioned gags are.

 

But one thing that separates Marriage Toxin from those others (so far, anyway), besides the serious way in which some things are treated, is the shoujou-like treatment of love and building relationships.  It’s not all-fighting, or all-comedy, but a mélange of all three elements.

 

Like macaroni and cheese with weenie bits in it.

 

Mmm…Macaroni and cheese with weenie bits in it…Drool…

 

Morality is also another big thing here.  Hikaru only kills “human scum”, the worst of the worst with vile personalities and no empathy for their fellow man.  A handful of villains and side characters also tend to have sympathetic traits, or are committing crimes for just reasons.

 

Another thing is the LGBT elements of the story, both expected and not (No Spoilers).  Hikaru’s sister is in a lesbian relationship and, while it isn’t treated with derision, it isn’t actually treated like that much of a big deal.  Granted, we only see one picture of the two of them happily playing with sparklers, but the only people who really say Boo about it do so offscreen, and only for the sake of their family legacy.

 

But one thing I do have an issue with is Hikaru’s relationship with Mei.  I know that, up to this point, at least, Mei appears to be written as the woman Hikaru is ultimately going to end up with, but something tells me the endgame of them producing biological heirs may or may not be something that will be able to happen.

 

Well, the first volume does end with Hikaru fighting to save a cute female art thief, so I guess we’ll see.

A Legend Returns!

 

Many moons ago, back in 1996, a novel was written: a sort of Japanese Hunger Games, by Koushun Takami.  (But, although both the novel and the ensuing manga predate said series, Suzanne Collins has sworn up and down that she hadn’t heard of either one.  Still didn’t stop the Internet for ripping her a new one about it, though…)

 

Anyway, less than five years later, in the year 2000, a manga version, written by Takami himself and illustrated by Masayuki Taguchi, was released in manga magazine Young Champion, where it ran for five years.  And, right in the middle of that run, volumes began releasing overseas via Tokyopop.

 

I cannot stress that last point enough: The manga.  Didn’t.  Even.  Finish before they started translating it.  And that is darn cool.

 

I can remember picking up these volumes to read whenever I went to the library.  Just sitting there in the air conditioning or the heat, watching teens violently murder each other and do sexy stuff and cry when their friends died.

 

Let it never be said that I wasn’t a mature young man.

 

Anyway, I recently had a free evening to go down to my local bookstore and try to find something new to review for this blog.  And, lo and behold, in no small part due to the bookstore’s alphabetizing its shelves, do I spot this new entry from a series/author who’d been gone so long I’d almost forgotten about him: Koushun Takami’s “Battle Royale: Enforcers”.

 

Set 20 years after the apparent ban on the Battle Royale games (despite all of Asia still being under the control of the East Asian Dictatorship), Takami returns to his richly-developed world alongside new artist Yukai Asada. 

 

Now, as technology has grown and risen a lot, even since a mere 20 years ago, the game itself has also grown and changed.  With the fall of reality TV (and, no doubt, the decline of the Hunger Games and its ilk since then), the affair is no longer televised this time around (if it even was before).  The bomb collars have been replaced with poison-release implant chips, for punishing people who try to break the rules.

 

And, while he made for a perfectly hateable villain (at least in the manga version), the director of the game has been replaced with a sinister AI named Sister, who takes the form of a creepy traditional Japanese doll and seems to be the only “teacher” at the academy that our heroes attend.

 

The students are also given tablets (Gasp!  How modern!) with special apps (Double gasp!) that allow them to more easily navigate through the game.  Most notable are not only the Map app, but also the special one-time use app that enables them to hide from the radar for a brief period of time.

 

You can bet that’s going to wind up being a game-changer.

 

But one thing that hasn’t changed is the theme of rock ‘n’ roll as a form of rebellion.  As did previous protag Shuya Nanahara, so does our current protag, the peppy Rion (and yes, despite how names like that are usually used in Japanese, he’s a boy).  Our opening chapter starts off with him and a friend breaking into an abandoned music room for a jam session while they sneak off from their class’ mandatory litter patrol.

 

This is Daitoa Academy, a creepy fascist school for a creepy fascist future.  The cruel student council members seem right at home in this world, where it is revealed that they are actually working with the dictatorial government.

 

When an earthquake (or what appears to be an earthquake; it could be anything, given the sneakiness of dystopian governments) forces the students into a high-tech underground bunker, Sister reveals that they have been chosen to essentially be the next class to go through the Battle Royale program, despite it apparently being outlawed 20 years before.

 

Another new wrinkle in the current system is that, rather than only one person winning, an entire five-person squad of people can theoretically make it out of the game this time around…provided they kill off every member of all the other squads.  This literary device enables for the use of more nuanced writing techniques, such as The Chains of Commanding and the ever-classic Fighting A Friend trope.  And what if two lovers are put on separate squads?  Can you say “Star-Crossed Lovers”?

 

There is also a mention of the winning squad having been “rehabilitated” and a few lines of throwaway dialogue about (at least) their class being looked down upon, but whether or not the school is a penal colony for delinquents or free-thinkers still has yet to be discussed.

 

Koushun Takami’s deep and interesting character writing has continued to shine through thus far in Volume One, but so far there has been much less bloody gore and fanservice than there was back in the original manga.

 

If you’re into that kind of thing.

 

But what does remain is the mind games and strategy aspect, all “Person X was on Floor Y and it will take him Z minutes to get back here” and stuff.

 

Personally, though, I am just here for the interesting characters, interesting designs and action (and, okay: a little bit of fanservice), so I think I am just going to strap myself in and hopefully enjoy the ride.

 

Until next time, then!  Only two more reviews for the year!

 

(I would have done more, and sooner, but the trials of being an adult and living in the real world have been getting in the way.  Frowny face.)

 

Not So Different

Not long ago, I had occasion to stop by my local Barnes & Noble for the first time in forever.

 

While there, I took note of three new manga series that looked like they might be worth a review.  Today I will be discussing only one of them, and leaving the other two as a surprise for later.

 

This one is Kocha Agasawa’s “You And I Are Polar Opposites”, which I just so happened to find a few days later on the shelves at my local library.

 

Talkative social butterfly Suzuki secretly has a thing for the aloof Tani.  But she isn’t just your run-of-the-mill bimbo (for lack of a better term).  Suzuki works hard at being agreeable and going with the flow and trying to be liked by everyone, which is the standard Japanese approach to things.  But, while Tani doesn’t exactly go against the grain, he doesn’t exactly go out of his way to be liked or super-friendly with anyone.  He stays true to himself, rather than follow the herd, even if it means that barely anyone likes him or know him.

 

Gasp!  Individuality is cool?  Why didn’t anybody tell me, he said sarcastically.

 

To be honest, going by the cover art and the blurb on the back, I was expecting a bit more of a clash of personalities.  Like, Tani would be the one kid in the class who never said or did anything, and Suzuki would be this tattooed violent biker gang chick with dyed hair or something.

 

Not to say that the series is bad or anything, it’s just…very ordinary.

 

But it does try to be funny, which, I think, is a bit of a reprieve.  I mean, I didn’t laugh, but I could see how some people would.  And, on occasion, the art slips into a super-deformed Doraemon-like style to help emphasize that a joke is being made.

 

I enjoy that the problems and the romance are down-to-earth, but I wish that there could have been more of a hook to make the series even more memorable.  As it stands now, “You and I Are Polar Opposites”, despite the cool, long title is, at the end of the day, a pretty standard romantic comedy manga with a slightly above-average emphasis on the comedy.

 

I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing, then feel free to pick it up.

 

Guess that’s why they tell you not to judge a book by its cover…

 

Kyokuto Necromance Review

 

Kaoru Uno lives with his elderly grandmother Umeko, who is gradually falling more and more ill.  One day, after Umeko collapses, Kaoru has a vision of small bizarre creatures surrounding her.  And then things really get weird.  A famous novelist named Yoji Amane appears at his school the next day and addresses Kaoru by name, despite the two having never consciously met.  He drags Kaoru into his car and pulls him away from school to discuss his late father’s ring, which was the only thing he gave to Kaoru before he died.  Amane explains that the ring is connected to creatures called shiryo or death spirits, which devour human souls.  This is something that Kaoru gets a lesson in firsthand as he encounters his grandma again, she barfs up a ton of shiryo and they all merge into one to attack him.  Kaoru attempts to fight the shiryo off to save his grandma, but nothing happens until he strikes it with the hand that bears his father’s ring.  This releases some sort of barbarian spirit with a rose-shaped spear that, sadly, we don’t really get to see in the first chapter, as the shiryo is then defeated by Amane.  He summons his own spirit, a bug-like girl named Chitari, who devours the shiryo’s soul after Amane turns her into a sword and cuts it apart.  He calls this process of fighting shiryo with shiryo “necromancy” (which is not right at all).  It seems that Kaoru’s father was once Amane’s partner, and he asked him to take care of Kaoru after his death.  This leads to Kaoru offering to work for Amane and the start of our story.

 

I have no idea where to even begin with all of the tropes this series has wound up borrowing from other generic supernatural battle manga.

 

I can count notes of at least Shaman King, Bleach, Jujutsu Kaisen, Soul Eater and maybe some hints of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

 

Now, I liked all those series, don’t worry.  (Bleach became a little hard for me to follow in it’s initial run, but then I read through all 50-some of the English volumes throughout one magical summer.  And the anime was good.)

 

The shiryo look bizarre enough to resemble the curses from Jujutsu Kaisen, Amane reminds me of L from Death Note, Kaoru’s shiryo reminds me of a Jojo Stand and Chitari turns into a sword a la Soul Eater.

 

Sure, it’s all very standard and it’s a hodgepodge of stuff from previous and already-established series, but sometimes standard is good.  Sometimes you just want something generic and mindless, and this series is still in its infancy, so the jury is still out on how it will wind up going.

 

That being said, I do have at least two problems with it.

 

One, necromancy is nothing like exorcism.  Necromancy involves a specialization in the dead.  Shiryo are “death spirits”, which, while connected, are not the same.  Necromancy involves more resurrecting the dead as spirits or zombies.  And I’m not sure how long I can overlook this for the sake of “Rule Of Cool”.

 

But, with all due respect, what else would you expect from non-English-speaking Japan?  It’s like how they named the South American town in Dead Rising “Santa Cabeza”.  And I suppose I’ve grown to more-or-less overlook that by now, as well.

 

Secondly, it feels like kind of a ripoff that we saw Kaoru awaken this shiryo barbarian spirit thing from his father’s ring, and then we don’t get to see it actually do anything.  I mean, it’s Amane and Chitari who wind up defeating the shiryo that was plaguing Grandma.  If Kaoru is the main character, then we want to see him kicking butt.  But at least he does get to land one hit on the shiryo before it instantly heals itself.

 

All in all, I found Kyokuto Necromance to be worth my time for the moment without being too dumb (unlike that new Yakuza manga with Academia Quirks from a space rock, which I felt to be TOO standard).  And who knows-that Anemone manga has turned out to be not-half-bad.

 

Maybe Kyokuto Necromance will be, too.

 

Check it out on the Shonen Jump website!