"The Promised Neverland" Review

Welcome, once again, my readers, to another anime/manga series review.

For those of you who stay on top of the recent anime schedule, you would know that a little series called "The Promised Neverland" has recently gotten a TV anime.

(And, yes, I know how redundant that whole sentence was, so just bear with me.)

(Oh, and SPOILERS AHEAD!)

Now, I don't know if I ever noticed this series when it first hit the American shelves, but learning its secret in a Youtube video got me intrigued.  I knew from the blurb advertisements at the back of Jump's other manga that these kids were being raised in an orphanage with a terrible secret, but it wasn't until I watched this video that I learned they were being raised as livestock to be eaten.

(I will link to the video down below once my review is done, don't worry.)

Our story begins in the idyllic Grace Field House, where protagonist Emma lives with her other 27 adopted siblings, under the care of a woman simply known as "Mom".  Every day they take tests, and there is only one rule: stay within the set boundaries.

There is a reason for this.

One day, when little girl Conny gets "adopted" but forgets to bring her favorite toy rabbit, Emma and her friend Norman follow after her to deliver it.  They follow a truck into a dark place, only to find Conny dead with a plant growing out of her torso.  And then they meet the demons.  Emma and Norman escape, but some fragments of overheard conversation reveal the horrible truth: their life at Grace Field House is all a lie, and "adoption" means their purchase for slaughter and devouring.

The series from then on leads into a Death Note-esque game of strategy, cat-and-mouse, and surprise twists as the children plot their escape.

I love how we're just dropped into this world, with no real explanations for anything, so we, the readers, really feel like we're learning about this world and the truth of it right along with Emma and Norman.  Each protagonist character feels different and unique from the others, as well.

And, personally, I thought it was creepy enough when I first heard about it, because I thought the kids were just being fed to other humans.  And I don't know if it's better or worse that they're being fed to these demons, these alien, decidedly-INhuman things that look like they'd be more at home as Hollows in Bleach or Taboo in Psyren.

(Pick up those two series, too, if you get the chance.  Or at least Bleach.)

The intellectual battle side of things feels like a breath of fresh air in today's manga climate of hack-and-slash, punch-punch-punch adventure fantasy manga.  Now, all that stuff is well and good, but I haven't seen something like this come out of Jump since Death Note itself (and maybe possibly Bakuman).

(Though, that being said, maybe there are also hints of this kind of story present in Platinum End, Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba's latest work.  But I'm rambling.)

All things considered, I would suggest giving The Promised Neverland a look-through the next time you visit your local bookstore/library.

Try before you buy and all that.

And here's the link: (seems I can't, look up "horror anime" on Youtube and watch the one by "Mother's Basement")

Reviewing This Yuri Manga Is My Job

But I enjoy every minute of it!

Seriously, though: Before we begin, I would like to apologize for a slight fudging of my last manga review for Wonderland.  I wanted to review nine new manga of this new year for 2019, but Wonderland Volume 1, I believe, released here in America back somewhere around December 2018.  I was just so excited to share a genuinely new and intriguing manga with all my followers (all three!) that I decided to fudge a little.

I hope we can still be friends. ;)

That being said, I follow Yen Press on Twitter, and they posted a schedule of new manga releases one day.  Now, I love yuri, so I decided to pick this little beauty up this afternoon.  (Plus "Dive" was all sporty and never once slowed down to tell us what anything meant.  Just like every other sports manga!  Grr!)

High school student Hime Shiraki may look like an angel, but she's actually a greedy little devil!  Hime has been polishing her looks, all for the day she becomes a rich man's wife (out of desire, not out of an arrangement).  But all that changes one day when she runs into and injures a young girl from the Liebe Girls' Academy Cafe.

Yep, you read that right: Academy Cafe.  It's like a role-playing butler cafe-type place, but with schoolgirls.

Now, I've never been to a proper maid/butler cafe.  But the one I have gone to sucked ass!  Dinky little food, bad acting and poorly-choreographed dancing, stupid "getting to know you" games for all the customers, and they even charged you for taking pictures!  Not to mention only one damn maid in the bunch!

Phew...rant over.

But, keeping up the act, as well as doing it right, proves tough for Hime, particularly when the cool and beautiful Mitsuki Ayanokouji-senpai keeps getting on her case for messing up.  And, when Hime's shy, bespectacled friend Kanoko follows her to work one day, she is also dragged into the madness!  And the fun continues when Hime and Ayanokouji are paired together as lovey-dovey Big Sister/Little Sister types, a la Strawberry Panic (a just-okay series, in my humble opinion).

When Hime confesses about her facade to a closed changing room, as well as about her feelings for Ayanokouji, thinking it's Kanoko in there, the curtain pulls back to reveal none other than Ayanokouji herself!

Hime spends the next few days panicking until she and Ayanokouji sit and talk it out.  As it turns out, Hime was once found out by a disagreeable girl in her grade school, which left Hime ostracized and with a complex about it.  And that girl's name?  Mitsuki Yano, Mitsuki Ayanokouji's true identity!

Now, this series isn't hot or anything, but it's sweet, but not in a sick way.  The characters aren't near-featureless moe blobs, but don't expect a ton of fanservice.  This is a realistic series.  And, since this volume ended on such a big shocking revelation, I, for one, think I'll continue reading.

There's been a real resurgence of yuri/lesbian manga here in the U.S. for the last couple of years now, with things like Kase-san, Murcielago, Harukana Receive, Citrus and Netsuzou Trap smacking our shelves.  Some have been hot, some have been sweet, but none have yet to achieve that crucial balance, as far as this reader is concerned.

(This one hasn't, either, but we'll all keep our fingers crossed for the future!)

Merry Christmas and a strange New Year!

Welcome back, everyone, to a new year and a new set of manga for me to review.

And here we are, starting off 2019 with a good one.

In Ishikawa Yuto's "Wonderland", we follow Yukiko "Yukko" Honda through quite an unusual day.

(And no, she isn't almost asleep on a riverbank when she spots a rabbit with a waistcoat, so let me stop you right there.)

No, when Yukko wakes up one morning, she finds that she, and seemingly everyone else in her city, has shrunk down to a scant few inches tall.  After her parents are killed by the family cat, ironically while trying to save her, Yukko sets out on the back of her family's (literally) big friendly dog Poko to find help.

But the Alice allusions don't just end there.  When threatened to leave a store because of her dog by Zippo-toting thugs, Yukko finds herself rescued by a foreigner (I guess?) named Alice, who she can just barely understand.

Attempts are made to contact the outside world and to get help from the military barricade around the town.  And we all know what the military is really doing when they quarantine off a small town...

Sadly, there isn't all that much shrinking process, for all the talk we've been doing of shrinking.  We actually get to see one National Defense Force guy getting his protective suit punctured and then shrinking down like everyone else, but whatever this is is shrinking the people clothes and all.

(Big sorry to all my fellow "shrinking out of clothes" enthusiasts.) :(

There's a fair amount of humor in this manga, as well as plenty of violence, gore and fanservice.  The humor itself is a little what I like to call "Japanese", where something silly just happens out of nowhere or right immediately after a lot of serious build-up.  For example, Poko being too distracted by dog treats to help out in a battle, or Alice pretending to use the miniature toilet in a dollhouse.

Unlike Attack on Titan, so far this series, Wonderland, seems to be pointing towards a legitimate reason and explanation for things being the way they are.  And our Alice seems to be a big part of that.  She's definitely more than she seems...

Has my review gotten you interested?  I sure hope so.  Keep an eye on this blog for eight more manga reviews coming in the new year.

Saving the Best for Last!

Well, here we are, readers: the final one of the nine manga I promised I’d review before the end of the year.  And what a manga!

This offering is called “Kamo” (or, more properly, “Kamo: Pact with the Spirit World”), named after the protagonist, Kamo Mitchell.

Born with a weak heart and slowly dying, Swiss native Kamo (I’ll explain later) is approached in the hospital by a spirit named Crimson.  This skull-faced individual asks that Kamo help him consume the souls of twelve other spirits, in order to prolong both their lives.

Kamo accepts, in order to keep on living for both himself and his parents.  But then reality sets in and Kamo must flee the hospital and live for a time on the run, lest his miraculous recovery be found out and researched clean into oblivion.  He vows not to return home to his loving parents until all twelve spirits have been defeated.

The first volume works to set the stage and introduces us to their first adversary, Thunderbolt.

But, before you say anything, he is more than just a lightning bolt attack user, he can also consume electricity, change the weather and travel through power lines.  He starts off small, but then quickly grows into something resembling one of the Hollows from Bleach.

Kamo fights Thunderbolt using Crimson’s magic flute as a held weapon, along with some musical magic tunes from Crimson himself.  Thunderbolt escapes, but, during the fight, Kamo saves a man named Enno, who takes him in for a while.  And his daughter is friends with the mysterious occult expert Shokola.

She becomes an ally of theirs, but doesn’t ultimately do very much aside from providing support and information.  (Hopefully, that will change.)

In the end, Kamo is forced to forever enjoin his soul with Crimson’s, creating a form that more resembles one of Bleach’s Arrancars.  Thunderbolt is defeated by this new form and we end with Kamo feeling drained and, I guess, trying to recover in time for their next spirit battle mission.

This series feels unique to me, and not just because it’s set in Switzerland and done by Swiss native Ban Zarbo.  (FYI, sah-weet name!)  Speaking of which, the names are fun, and the cast shows more than just the usual standard Japanese white-bread characters.  Shokola is Latina and Kamo is, I guess, Japanese.  It feels almost like an American superhero comic, in that way.

(Although, I must admit, having Shokola liberally pepper her speech with Spanish words and expressions may smack a bit of maybe trying a little too hard.)

The art style is realistic and the concept, while done pretty often, is not handled badly at all.  Crimson is basically Ryuk, in that he finds a human to give his powers to and to aid his own life, but he still gets to keep his secrets and is under little obligation to actually help Kamo.  Initially, he lies about only being able to lend the hero character so much power, but then he’s forced to admit his lie and help Kamo to hold his own against Thunderbolt.

Oddly, there is no visible mention of a curse, or a price to pay for Kamo’s acceptance of Crimson’s deal.  That’s kind of a nice touch and an interesting twist on the typical story, in my opinion.

Kamo himself is typical in some respects, such as his desire to go to a normal school and live like a normal, not-sick kid.  He is also very selfless, running away so as not to get too many innocents involved, as well as forbidding Crimson from killing anyone after finding out what he did to a doctor at the hospital who tried to stop him.  Kamo is also sick and dying, but he’s not calmly accepting and ready to throw in the towel, nor is he fighting out of a selfish desire and a hunger for more life the way Crimson is (at least, not yet).

Finally, let’s talk about Thunderbolt, this volume’s first villain.  His power set is interesting and his design is unique, but what’s really great about him is his personality.  We learn after the fight that Thunderbolt has been around for years now, killing tons of innocent people just for fun.  He doesn’t even seem to get anything out of it other than sheer joy: no battle experience, no sustenance, no visible reward for it that he must return to some evil master or something.  Nothing.

He’s also smug and a jerk, laughing to Kamo about all the innocent people he’s killed and trying to manipulate him into making mistakes in battle.  He also mocks Kamo’s ability to do anything against him and his battle strategies.  And, like a lot of such characters, he actually has the strength to back it up.

I, for one, would love to see this series continue and thrive here in the US.  Sadly, the manga is probably all the world is ever going to get.

You see, this title is being put out by Tokyopop, people I haven’t really heard from for many, many years now.  These days, it seems they’re mostly focused on Ameri-manga and graphic novel adaptations of Disney movies (including the horrendous Alice in Wonderland remake that forced me to really take a look at my life and I hate).

You’ve got to admit, such a history doesn’t really bode well for any big sort of media release, does it?  Let’s hope it doesn’t just end after a few volumes like Sokora Refugees and Peach Fuzz did.

And, while we’re at it, let’s all hope that Kamo at least makes it to the level of “forgotten cult classic”.

That’s probably about the best we can hope for.

See you all in 2019!

I Hunger for Endo Yasuko

One day, penniless high school student Makioka Shizue happens to see Endo Yasuko doing...something to another girl.  As she tries to get away, Yasuko corners Shizue and does the exact same thing to her.  Yasuko proclaims herself "a crazed killer" and that Shizue tastes good, leading them into a food-for-food agreement (that is, Yasuko pays for Shizue's meals if Shizue gives Yasuko her blood now and again).

But, before Shizue agrees to their "commitment kiss", Yasuko goes to prey on another student by the name of Akari Agawa.  The terrified Akari then goes on to hire a cheap American vampire hunter named Ashley Nelson to exterminate Yasuko.

And, while all of this is going on, several girls from the school have gone missing and a dippy detective is running around asking questions.

But, don't go getting me wrong: this manga is nowhere near as serious as the preceding Spartan summary would have you believe.  It has its funny parts, both within the main story and (much more frequently) in the bonus 4-koma that we see after every chapter.

All of the characters have really unique designs and the art is good.  And it has a nice dose of realism to it.

It's never explicitly said that Yasuko is a vampire, just heavily implied.  For a while there, it looks like she just might be a normal human, until a blood hunger causes her to grow into a giant.

Speaking of Yasuko, I love the fact that this supernatural love interest (Yes, it's a yuri!) is by no means an "Ace" character who's good at everything, nor is she completely stupid like Youko Shiragami from My Monster Secret.  (Although, to be fair, she is just as slapdash as Shiragami-san.)

And, on Shizue's side, when I first started reading the manga, I initially thought she was a boy.  She has short hair and doesn't look all that feminine or attractive, so you can forgive me for thinking so.  Shizue reminds me of Haruhi from Ouran, not only in terms of appearance, but also because she initially decides that the vampire feeding she witnesses is none of her business and tries to run away.  (Though this is also tempered with a nice dose of everyday-Joe cowardice.)

Akari Agawa, by the way, is more of a nuisance tsundere than a true threat to our heroes.  Plus Ashley can't speak Japanese, leading to her learning it, which is one of those nice touches of realism I mentioned earlier.

But what really drew me into this manga, before I even knew it was a yuri, was how the back blurb was written.  It mentioned the missing girls (if I recall correctly) and questioned whether or not Yasuko was a vampire.

This intrigued me.  I came in fully expecting a lot of cryptic sentences and avoidance of the topic, leaving us to wonder for quite some time until the big reveal (which there has not been yet).  But wouldn't it have been something if Yasuko was just a freak with a biting fetish or your run-of-the-mill everyday serial killer.

What if there was no vampire at all?

But it's still pretty cryptic and interesting, so I'll keep reading. (Plus, we're given a scene of Shizue taking her top off to feed Yasuko, and the next volume promises a bath scene.  And who can honestly say no to yuri, vampires and sweet, sweet fanservice?)

Kenka Banchou Otome Review

Hinako Nakayama and Hikaru Onigashima are long-lost twins, separated at birth.  While Hinako was raised in an orphanage and learned to fight for her own survivial, Hikaru was brought up as the heir to a powerful yakuza family.

Unfortunately for him, being the next head of said family means Hikaru must take control of a high school full of thugs as their top fighter, as is family tradition.  But Hikaru hates to fight.  That’s where our protagonist Hinako comes in.  Her brother uses their family ties to guilt the dutiful Hinako into posing as him and going to his all-boys high school (while he, of course, does vice-versa).

This is the basic story of “Kenka Bancho Otome” or, in English, “Love’s Battle Royale”.  (I have no idea why it’s called that.  I speak Japanese and, more literally, it would mean something like “Battle Squad Leader Maiden”.)

Right up front, this story pings several shojo manga and gender bender tropes.  What do you want to bet that we’ll soon run into a pretty girl who either wants to fight Hinako, learns her secret or else falls in love with her?  Or a guy who thinks “Hikaru” is cute and suddenly starts questioning his sexuality?  (Oh, wait: we might already have that.  I forget.)

And, of course, Hinako was saved in her youth by a mysterious hottie, who just so happens to be fellow student Rintaro Kira.  Although one problem I have with this series is that Rintaro looks a little bit too much like fellow hottie Takayuki Konparu.  This became a problem early on, as I quickly got the two of them mixed up.

Also present is teen idol Yuta Mirako, who instantly sees through “Hikaru’s” disguise and has a dark past.  (Ooh, shocker!  Right?)  And then there’s Totomaru Minowa, the strongest and hottest guy in the school, who we all know will eventually end up with Hinako.

One downside to this series is that we never see any of the real Hikaru’s adventures playing pretend in the girls’ school.  And, let’s face it, that would probably be more fun.  I mean, changing clothes for gym, upskirt shots and tons more female eye candy than we’re currently getting.

Apparently this manga is based on a Spike Chunsoft video game dating thing.  And I think there’s an anime.  Maybe it’s better in one of those incarnations (or possibly both).

On the upside, one interesting thing about this manga is Hikaru’s servant Sakaguchi.  He’s a man, and yet he bows and scrapes and drools over Hikaru as if he were a pervy old man after “the young mistress.”

You definitely don’t see that every day.

Fluffy Protags, Fluffy Manga

For some unknown reason, female animals all over the world have begun transforming into cute humanoid girls.  One such girl is big-horned sheep Youko.  For a time, she lives with her flock and master in relative peace, long enough to learn how to talk and wear clothes and help out on the farm.  But, one day, Youko finds herself abducted by strange men, at her master's request, and taken away to a place where she can learn to be more human and eventually blend into society.

That place is the school Animalium.

Youko begins making friends at Animalium, such as the beautiful and airheaded Merino sheep Fuwako.  Our girls set about learning how humans do things and how to control their new human bodies and so forth.  But Youko, at least initially, while friendly enough, thinks mainly of learning how to be human quickly so she can go back to her master.

This series is basically, long story short, a very fanservice-y Japanese school slice-of-life thing.

Not only are all of the animal girls, or "Arcoids" (Animals Reformed and Cultured to be HumanOID) female, but they also run the risk of turning back into their animals forms during times of stress.

Anyone else remember Fruits Basket?  This is sort of the inverse of that...No, wait: not really.  They're animals turned human that turn back into animals; the Sohmas were humans that turn into new animal forms.

Oh, forget it.

The fanservice part comes not only from the tendency of Arcoids to burst or shrink out of their clothing when they become animals, but also from the quite frequent uses of all-girl Japanese bath scenes.  Plus, since they're all girls, we may run into some more yuri-ish scenarios.  (And you all know how much I love yuri.  Sexy yuri, that is.)  We've already seen something like that in Volume One, where we meet a wolf who wants to get close to a rabbit.

Needless to say, we have yet to see any real serious story or any enemy threats or anything, but this series isn't too bad for what it is.

And no, it is not just another T&A-fest like that Daily Life with Monster Girls one.

One gripe I do have with "DNA Doesn't Tell Us" is the names.  "Fuwako" isn't so bad, if a tad on the nose, because it obviously has roots in "fuwa fuwa" or "fluffy" in Japanese.  But some of the girls have much dumber names based solely on what they used to be.  Examples include Rilla the gorilla, Roo the kangaroo and Harry the hedgehog.  (Although the last one is a tad more forgivable than the others because it is based on "harinezumi" or "hedgehog.)

I will probably keep reading this series until I grow bored with its lack of action.  The adventures they have are reasonable and down-to-earth and the characters are pretty standard for a slice-of-life manga such as this.

The last few pages show us the un-domesticated animal girls side of things, where we see several half-dressed half-animal girls crawling around on all fours with no sign of speech or sentience.

I doubt they'll be evil or like the hard-to-teach special needs kids, but with any luck they'll make things interesting moving forward.