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.)