Kyuujitsu no Warumono-san / Mr. Villain’s Day Off by Morikawa Yuu

If you’ve ever asked yourself “I wonder what Dr. Doom [fill-in other favorite villain] does on his day off? Does he go shopping in his full armor and cape or what? What’s he like when he relaxes?” then Kyuujitsu no Warumono-san / Mr. Villain’s Day Off is for you.

SPOILERS

.

.

.

If you’re looking for something fun and light, with a tiny bit of a heart, this manga is nearly perfect. There are a couple of weird subplots that I skim when I hit them (namely a very out of place story of a friendship between an oak tree spirit and a cherry tree spirit, but also some of the origin stories of the Good Guys–oh, and, of course, the weird Santa stuff), but, otherwise, I’m fully sold on this concept.

I tend to like really like fictional villains, however.

Over Easter weekend, I was on a panel at MiniCON that was meant to plumb the depth of this question, “Why do we like to ship dark with light?” but it got derailed by a fellow panelist insistent on shaming us for enjoying immoral and “cruel” characters. I’ve since spent a lot of time pondering the questions we were never allowed to fully consider. One of the conclusions I’ve come to is that it is inherently sexy to consider, “What is this person like when they’re at home, relaxed?” It unveils them, right? Being shown this intimate moment makes the person automatically more vulnerable, exposed, and authentic.

Thus, with villains, the stakes are higher. Vulnerable is something they are never meant to be.

The villain is also someone who is often larger-than-life. Thus, the instant we start to imagine them as “real” people who need to do their laundry or decide which ice cream to buy at a 7/11, they just become ridiculous. It’s just funny to think about. Cute. This is the same reason why Way of the House Husband doesn’t have to work that hard to be funny. The situation is already hilarious. Gangsters doing battle with the dishes (or, famously, a roomba), is just… it’s absurd and ridiculous and fun.

As soon as you take the villain off the battlefield, strip him of the costume of his office, he becomes… something else. More human, certainly, but possibly even, this guy:

I also love that he’s gracing the convenience store with his presence. That’s some prime villainy, right there.

One of the things I ended up liking about this manga is that we aren’t expected to believe that The General is anyone all that terribly different when he’s “on,” as opposed to when he is “off.” In fact, we get a very early scene in one first chapters in which we see the The General entirely from the point of view of a new recruit. The General is terrible to behold (and if you watch the anime in Japanese, the voice actor is great at sounding completely evil and threatening when just saying “hello,”) but he sees this overworked subordinate and says, “Listen, this war won’t be won overnight. Leave some of this work for tomorrow. Go home, relax.” And… this scene does a couple of things. First, as I noted, it establishes that The General is really just a guy who values time off, not only for himself, but for everyone, including his lowliest subordinate. Second, when we later see The General being kind to strangers and animals, it feels believable. Like, maybe The General is a good guy, deep down, being Evil is just his job.

But he is good at his job.

And I really appreciate that. Half way through what’s out on the scanlations so far, I found myself craving more and more of the “on” persona. This guy–

The one with the tail and the claws.

I was glad to see more of The General “at work,” because I think this story works best where there’s a bit of a balance. There are times both in the manga and the anime where, if I’m not reminded that this guy is the Big Bad, it could stray into boring.

Except that I’m also a fan of manga where the entire plot is, “and we go camping.” I think it helps that The General is not from Earth. You can see the ears, but we also see that the headquarters is on some dark shadow moon and the characters often speak of a far away, Mother Star. As an aside: This may be a direct reference to The Power Rangers, but I never watched because I am a fake fan. The Rangers clearly ARE the Power Rangers, they all go by color names and the one adult female character is, in fact, the Pink Ranger. My point is, slice-of-life stuff often works better for me when the characters are doing something uniquely Japanese-feeling, such as finding wonder in nature.

Like, there’s an entire chapter where The General just goes to the beach.

I can’t believe I got this far without noting that The General is also weirdly obsessed with pandas. This is actually a huge part of the humor.

Anyway, I love the art, particularly whenever we get a glimpse of The General’s darker persona beneath the hair.

As the anime is how I found this manga, I would recommend, weird Santa Claus stuff included

Akuma no Kare / My Devil Boyfriend by Anything (naop)

So, yeah, Akuma no Kare is a one shot and is exactly as dirty as the cover implies. It’s also not yaoi, but bara.

SPOILERS

.

.

.

.

Tsutomu is a regular salaryman who, somehow, buys a grimoire and attempts to summon a demon. Initially, his plan seems to be to exact revenge on the people at his job, but the demon that appears in the magic circle is so hot that Tsutomu is like, “Nah, what I want is sex!”

Which for levels of bara hotness, I don’t necessarily think this is a bad choice on Tsutomu’s part! I mean… hello, MUSCLES!

At any rate, after the signing of the contract, the devil, Kurahato, discovers that maybe he’s the one that shoulda read the fine print because it turns out Tsutomu is a top.

Wacky sex ensues.

The end.

Maybe? It’s not clear. Baka-Updates believes it’s fully scanned and Akuma no Kare is listed as a one-shot, which it may be, but often one chapter stories are parts of anthologies and this seems to have its own cover, complete with R-Rating. Full volumes are usually 5 (or 5.5) chapters, so I have my suspicions that perhaps the scanlators got part way in, discovered that there wasn’t going to be any romance and that these were beefy, bara men and quit at chapter one. Although, who knows? Anything seems to maybe be an artist’s circle of which naop/naop-loop is part of so its possible that the rest of the manga is filled with work by the rest of the group. (It’s unclear, however. His Tumblr, however, seems to just have work by himself however, and is using the Anything name??)

Other than untangling this mystery, there’s not a huge amount that I have to say about this little demon romp. The art is very bara, but if know what you’re getting, I found it cute and smutty and funny– so, if that’s something you can also appreciate, go for it!

If not, do me a favor? Don’t read it and leave comments on how gross it is.

I noticed that the comments at Manganelo all were on par with “Ugh! My eyes! I can’t unsee it. I need Bleach!” and “What was that?” Especially since the comments (possibly from the same people) is all “F*CK HIM HARDER” (and even more explicitly gross) when its the exact same level of smut, but two bishie boys. Likewise, someone on Baka-Updates seems to have taken the time to give a one-star rating to not only this particular bara, but literally everything else nanop-sensei has ever had published, including titles that have no fan translation/scanlation. Which, maybe they’ve read in the original Japanese, but which seems more likely an attempt to make sure no one scanlates anything else of his.

THIS is why I can’t have nice things.

You know what I don’t always like? Straight romances. Yet, somehow, you don’t see me spending my waking hours going around to every single shoujo title and giving them a one star rating out of spite.

I have better things to do with my time. Like read bara.

Plus, let’s get real, this bara hate? It’s homophobic.

Unlike yaoi and Boys’ Love, Bara is a genre that is not written by women or for women. Bara is written by gay men for gay men. It’s not just hairless, skinny, androgynous, weeping, bishi twinks having sex with each other and living in some woman’s fantasy of heteronormative, deeply gender-coded “gay” life. Instead, the men have bulging chests, hair, and the stories tend to be fairly “wham, bam, thank you, man,” and not romantic at all. There’s one by nanop-sensei called, and I kid you not, Glory Hole. I am suspecting I can guess without reading it what happens in that manga…. and how hot it might be.

But, apparently, all of a sudden because the men look like men, commentors feel like they need to point out that it’s smutty and gross.

Like yoai isn’t smut?? I can point you to a few titles if you think it’s all just flowers, holding hands, and blushing. And, also, that is not to say that Akuma no Kare doesn’t have it’s cute moments…..

Making a demon blush is pretty darned cute.

I mean, none of this is news. Breaking, breaking: the homophobes are ruining it for the rest of us! is not exactly a brand new occurrence. It’s just… it’s 2024, y’all. Can we let bara exist?

It would be amazing, honestly, if we could support it? And not just the ones who we’ve decided are acceptable like Tagame Gengoroh. What would it be like to live in a world where men are allowed to have big bodies, body hair, and belly fat and still be hot as fu*k? Bara might give us a clue. And it would be nice for those of us who like that to be able to read it. If this isn’t for you, that’s okay. But, don’t get in other people’s way is all I’m saying.

Hades-sama no Mujihi na Konin / Lord Hades’s Ruthless Marriage by Yuho Ueji

I’m not normally the type for straight-romance, but the schtick of Hades-sama no Mujihi na Konin / Lord Hades’s Ruthless Marriage is that Hades is really NOT interested in marriage. Unfortunately, that rat b*astard Cupid stuck him right int he forehead with an arrow (as you can see on the cover of the first volume.)

This whole thing is unbelievably stupid, but I have to admit that I enjoyed it anyway.

SPOILERS

.

.

.

.

Look at this terrifying creature (with a literal pansy on his a$$). A person can suddenly understand everything that’s wrong with Greek and Roman mythology, if you imagine this little f*cker zipping around intentionally causing mischief.

This is basically the plot.

It is a comedic re-imagining of the literally classic story of Hades/Pluto and Kore/Persephone in which neither Hades nor Kore are particularly looking for love, but some little twink sticks his nose in. In this version, Kore is hiding out in Hades in order to escape her meddling mother, Demeter. Hades, having been shot in the head by Cupid, blindfolds himself in order to escape falling in love with the next person he sees. Thinking he’s alone, he removes the blindfold and Kore literally falls into his lap.

Cue: shojo roses and flowers in bloom!

Only, neither of them fall instantly or madly in love immediately, but Hades had requested that anyone who removes the arrow can be granted one wish. Possibly also to be a brat, Kore asks that he take seriously the search for a wife.

This completely bums out our gloomy hero, but a god is good to his word, so the hijinks ensue as Hades’ entertains absolutely all other callers, instead of the one we all know he’s destined for.

I mean, there are three volumes and I will probably stop here, but it’s actually kind of funny, particularly if you are a Greek/Roman mythology fan. I’m always interested to see how different gods get portrayed, and currently I find Poseidon to be the hottest.

Do I recommend? I dunno. I mean, silly is sometimes just what the doctor ordered, so maybe? I waffled about my feelings about the art. Sometimes, it felt too busy for me, but every once and a while I was struck by a hot/nice shot like the one above.

I kind of feel like Cupid’s butt steals every scene it’s in? But, is that worth picking it up? Up to you.

Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu / The Summer Hikaru Died by Mokumoku Rei

Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu / The Summer Hikaru Died is a poignant, deeply sublimated, barely acknowledged (but definitely queer) love story between a boy and… the monster that returned in the body of his dead friend. A new genre, perhaps? Horror Romance or Romance Horror?

SPOILERS

.

.

.

.

Yoshiki has a problem. His best friend (and unrequited love) Hikaru went missing in the mountains. In desperation, Yoshiki went looking for him and found a body, but before he could tell anyone, he collapsed with a fever. When Yoshiki woke up, who should have miraculously returned but Hikaru?

Yoshiki knows that what came back isn’t Hikaru.

But he can’t decide if that matters. The thing that is wearing his friend’s body has many of Hikaru’s memories and Hikaru was such a precious friend that it’s important to know that in Japanese, the title of this manga can be read two ways. It can be as published with Hikaru’s name, or it can be read: The Summer the Light Died.

There’s no question that Yoshiki is gay. Mokumoku-sensei teases around the edges saying it explicitly, out loud, but all the signs say “yes.” In their first scene together, Hikaru teases Yoshiki that he’s so awkward and serious about the question he’s about to ask that it seems like the build-up to a love confession. At another point, Yoshiki says he’ll never have a girlfriend. When he has a feeling of being suffocated by their small, rural town, several of the pressures seem to be in expectation of marriage. Moreover like many of us who grew up in a small town, Yoshiki is looking for others like him–in the scene above, knows that the fight that one of the village’s families is having isn’t about the fact that their heir is sick, but that he’s gay.

The Hikaru of the past–whom we see a lot in flashback–is completely clueless–or at least plays that way, because the Hikaru who is inhabited by something else, however, seems to be aware that Yoshiki was important to the Real HIkaru.

I feel safe calling it gay.

Especially since everything else Mokumoku-sensei has drawn is yaoi. Nandemo Shite kureru Doukyuusei / A Classmate Who Will Do Anything For You is straight-up smut, whereas Period is a bit more subtle in the romance department. You only get the “gay” in the final panel. (Note: Period is a well-written, if disturbing one-shot about the kind of love that has you helping bury the body… literally.)

Plus, as someone who also spent my high school years closeted this reads very real. Yoshiki will say something like “he’s not sick, he’s gay,” but when Hikaru asks if that’s some GLBT thing, possibly opening up an opportunity for Yoshiki to say more about it, Yoshiki will just shrug it off and go gloomy. <–High school me feels seen. When you’re deeply closeted sometimes you just try out saying the thing, but then back the hell off. These two do that dance constantly throughout.

The Summer Hikaru Died was published as seinen according to Wikipedia, though Baka-Updates has it as both seinen and Boys’ Love. I will say that I tend to trust Baka-Updates, as they seemed to be more aware of the kinds of things the original publisher tend to publish. But, this sort of thing is very seinen, especially with all the horror elements and the deep, deep sadness of the whole thing.

I found this whole thing INTENSELY compelling. I’m always interested in supernatural stories that ask the question “What does it mean to be human? To have a Soul?” Especially, when the mangaka doesn’t pull any punches and let’s Hikaru be scary, strange, and… murderous. There are a lot of scary monsters throughout, don’t go in expecting something strange and wonderful. It’s strange and wonderful, but also SCARY and horrible.

And I love it.

Plus, the art is fantastic.

I even love the art of Mokumoku-sensei’s smut!

So, if you think you can stand a heavy dose of tragedy and horror, I highly recommend this one. (If not, the smut is cute.)

Orochi (Vol. 1) by Umezu Kazuo

Someone at the Ramsey County Library is obsessed with horror manga. They have an enormous pile of Ito Junji’s work, and, the other day, I stumbled across Orochi… by the mangaka who is said to be one of Ito Junji’s inspirations, Umezu (Umezz) Katuo. 

Even though I’m not really in a horror mood, it seems to be what’s available at the moment, so I picked it up.

SPOILERS

.

.

.

.

The library had at least four volumes of Orochi, but I only picked up the first two and returned the second volume without reading it. At some point, I may go back and read the rest. What I read was interesting enough, but I’m already listening to a horror podcast and I’m just feeling full-up on horror at the moment. I should have no problem going back to the other volumes at some later time because all of the stories in Orochi are episodic. They’re only connected by a strange woman, Orochi, who doesn’t age. She’s got unexplained supernatural powers (including the ability to reanimate the dead!) but little understanding of human nature.

Volume one starts with “Sisters,” the story of two sisters who are convinced that they will become ugly the moment they turn eighteen. For reasons she never explains, Orochi insinuates herself as a maid in this household to watch the whole disaster unfold. And it’s a disaster, alright. It’s the kind of horror story, in fact, that I tend to like–the kind that asks you to wonder which is more horrific: the threat of a curse or human nature?

The second story is called “Bones.” It follows a very unlucky woman who seems to be haunted by terrible fate. First, her family treats her terribly, and then, when she finally escapes them and finds a loving husband, he’s tragically injured. Just as he recovers, he slips and falls to his doom.

Or so it seems.

In “Bones,” the confusing part of the story, for me, is that Orochi seems to be the instigator of the horror. For some reason, after seeing how sad the woman is after the loss of her husband, she attempts to make an animated doll for his soul to inhabit. The spell(?) goes wrong and things get truly horrific from there, as Orochi discovers that she has somehow reanimated the rotting corpse of the husband.

What confuses me about this is… what was Orochi thinking in the first place? Like, a life-sized animated DOLL wasn’t going to be any better! And, she didn’t do any of this immediately after his death, but long enough that when Orochi runs into the husband’s animated corpse, his tongue has rotted away so he can’t speak.

I mean, yes, this is kind of a classic situation? This is very “The Monkey’s Paw.” Plus, there’s a nice twist in this story as it reveals something unexpected about the wife along the way, but I spent the whole story trying to figure out what was up with Orochi. Was she some kind of moronic child spirit? Was she an alien sent to observe us with zero understanding how people work? How in the heck did she think that bringing someone back from the dead was ever really going to make things better for anyone? If things had gone according to plan, what was that going to be like. “Oh, hello, Mrs. Grieving Widow, let me present you a porcelain version of the man you love, which will never age, into which I have trapped the living soul of the man you love. Okay, bye! Have fun kids!” Was that the good version of this story??? I mean, a rotting corpse is much more horrific to look at, but the doll wasn’t really going to be all that much better. Could actually have been creepier?

At any rate, I can see how it is that Umezu-sensei is considered “the god of horror manga.” His art style seems almost like woodblock carvings at times. Unlike a lot of other art from this time period, I find his style more natural. I mean, it’s horrific, but so much of the stuff from the 1970s can be overly wispy and “big-eyed.” His stuff reads a lot like modern horror art? Honestly, compare this to the monsters/demons in Meiruko-chan and they’d be right at home.

Do I recommend it? Obviously, I wasn’t in the mood, but the stories are good. There’s a thing that sometimes happens with non-Western horror for me, which is that I will get to the conclusion and feel sort of let down because bad things just happened for no good reason. Orochi, at least in the first volume, had none of that for me. The endings of both “Sisters” and “Bones,” while horrible, were still satisfying.

So, I would say that if you are a fan of horror–definitely pick these up (particularly, if you can convince your library to buy them.) If you’re the sort who loves Junji Ito and the like, I think it behooves you to check out Umezu’s work. It’s interesting that Viz Media is making Orochi available now. Like, these hardcover editions are BRAND-NEW. I think that there must be a real sense that some of these stories (and their amazing art) should be preserved for the next generation. Umezu-sensei is still alive, but he was born in 1936, which makes him 88 this year (2024).

Meiruko-chan (Vol. 1) by Izumi Tomoki

Just looking at the art-style of the cover of Mieruko-chan, I worried that this one might have been shelved in the adult section of my library because it was ecchi. While there is an inordinate amount of “fan-service” (lots of high school girls stripping down to bras in the locker room, implications of going without underwear to class), it’s really not all the much worse than things I’ve seen in some shounen titles. I suspect the reason that Mieruko-chan has been shelved in the adult manga section of the library is its Ito Jinju-style horror art.

SPOILERS

.

.

.

.

I mean, I have only read the first volume, so it’s entirely possible that there is a more obvious reason that my library decided this one needed to be kept away from teenagers (at Ramsey County there is a very forbidding set of stairs that takes you to the majority of its collections, actually, but also the adult manga.)

According to the little afterward comic in the fist volume, Izumi-sensei started Mieruko-chan as a Twitter comic, which was, as I note some time ago, kind of A Thing for a while a few years ago (the article I link to here talks about the rise of self-publishing in general, but specifically how One Punch Man, among others, sort of blew the door open.)

At any rate, the story of Mieruko-chan is fairly basic–a young girl develops the ability to see the unseen creatures that go bump in the night and tries desperately to just ignore them. Which, I mean, is how a lot of these things START, but kudos to Izumi-sensei for deciding to run with the gag.

I do think the idea of this kind of horror as kind of a gag manga is a decently unique twist. A huge portion of the plot of the first volume is just Mieruko trying to act cool when faced with one Eldritch horror after another, which has a certain kind of absurdist humor to it.

Possibly, the librarian buyers of this book regulated it to the adult section because, early on, Mieruko’s big-breasted friend, Hana, gets a groping demon attached to her. Here she is, talking about her favorite donuts, completely unaware of what Mieruko sees…

And, like, the solution to this problem ends up being finding an even-sexier target for the demon (the high school nurse, by chance, who is then able to destroy the demon with her “home made perfume” <–which sounds like witchcraft to me, but that’s probably just my Western perspective misreading something perfectly obvious to the Japanese audience.)

So, I mean, I guess if I were a librarian, I might be all, “WHAT IS THIS SEXUAL HARRASSMENT?? MUST PROTECT THE CHILDREN!!” looking at the above image and the several similar ones that followed before Hana gets rid of the groping-demon, but this is one scene? Most of the rest of the book is just Meiruko, as I say above, just trying to get on with life without tipping off the demons that she is aware of them. I mean, okay, there is a very vaginal, labia-faced ghost/demon attached to a boy who is clearly a cheater-McCheater face, but I mean… at least Tomoki-sensei seems to be intimately aware of female anatomy and is clearly able to find the clitoris. If you want to see it, she’s in chapter 5: (I considered posting a picture, but I won’t because I suspect I would get complaints. Which, I’m sure is what the library is thinking, too?)

I honestly always forget how much more “dirty” women’s bodies are to Puritan America. Like, probably the boob-squeezing plus the labia-faced monster is enough for the librarians to decide it’s X-rated.

I would hope that teenagers would be like, “Yep, labia, Congrats, that is a gross monster,” and move on, but this is why I’m not in charge at libraries, I guess. Frankly, I’m still mad, to this day, every time I come across My Brother’s Husband in the adult section. There is LITERALLY NO SEX in that book. Instead, it’s a sweet GLBTQIA+ 101 guide to meeting your first queer person. Meanwhile, the weirdly nonconsensual Boys’ Love manga, Polar Bear in Love is SHELVED IN CHILDREN’S. I would fully flip these choices. My Brother’s Husband is a perfectly fine book for kids under the age of 13, and Polar Bear in Love should be stuck with all the other BL in the adult section.

/ rant

The volume of Mieruko-chan ends with a real kicker, which is that we discover that Meiruko’s family is being haunted by her own father’s ghost…. so, I mean, there is a good reason to consider continuing on to volume 2 to see what happens, if anything, with that.

My recommendation is–if this sounds like a fun set-up and you’re not overly bothered by vaguely ecchi art style OR Ito Junji-like body-horror, then go for it. For myself, I’m just not sure how much of any of this I’m particularly invested in. If you prefer to watch, Crunchyroll has the 2021 anime available for streaming. I can actually imagine that this is WAY funnier in an anime, you know? There’s going to be something really amusing about Mieruko just trying to NOPE her way through a day filled with Ito Junji creepy-crawlies.

Heck, I might even try watching it.

Hikari no Hako / Box of Light by Erisawa Seiko

A couple of weeks ago I met a friend for coffee at a Barnes & Noble. While I was there, I did my usual scan of the various manga titles. I would have loved to have taken home all the titles that seemed interesting, but, due to budget constraints, I had to pick just a couple.

One of the ones I picked was Box of Light. The back of the book describes it as a story about a connivence store that exists on the crossroad between life and death. And, I thought, “Okaaaaay, sure! Why not?”

SPOILERS

.

‘

.

.

I actually started reading this manga immediately after I first bought it, but then set it down. I didn’t pick it up again for several weeks. Unfortunately, I think that’s because it’s not nearly as compelling in execution as it is as an IDEA.

The idea is solid. There’s this convenience store that people wander into when they’re on the verge of death. The first story is a prime example. A woman dying from overwork doesn’t quite know how she got away from work long enough to find herself wandering the aisles, but now that she’s here a snack or two sounds like just the thing to get her energy levels back so she can return to work. The whole book is full of these kinds of stories. Part of what is always in the reader’s mind is… oh, no, this person doesn’t know they’re already half-dead.

This should be a pretty riveting plot device.

Something about it doesn’t quite work for me. I’m not sure exactly why not.

I found myself far more interested in the chapter where the otherworldly bad guys attempted to replace the two parttime workers with self-checkout machines. I am also weirdly invested in the continued good health of “darkness cat,” a cyclops cat-shaped monster made of “darkness” (a kind of evil miasma) which is normally a bad thing, but this one eats other darknesses to protect the store for some reason.

And, I think that’s part of my issue with this one at the moment.

Usually, by the end of a first volume, I have a good sense of who is who and what the story wants to be. But, this one seems to be part anthology of stories of random people who are near death, and a light exploration of the world around the convenience shop. I think it might be better served if it were one or the other. I know I’d prefer a story about what the heck is this place and what purpose it serves and what exactly are shades, etc., etc.

I think that my sense that I don’t quite connect to this yet is that, outside of the cat/not cat, a lot of the art seems sort of uninspired? A bit flat?

It’s not a BAD manga, however. Maybe I just need to read more of it. I see there’s a volume 2 out (and scanlated.)

Call of the Night/Yofukashi no Uta by Kotoyama

I ran into someone that I’ve been on anime panels on with in the past at CONvergence (a local-to-me / Minneapolis science fiction convention) this last weekend, and I asked him what he’d been watching. He recommended Call of the Night/ Yofukashi no Uta, a story about an insomniac boy who meets a strange vampire girl.

SPOILERS

.

.

.

.

As I said in a later e-mail, the moment that sold this story to me, was this:

In which our middle school hero, Yamori Ko, is attempting to get help on how to deal with his insomnia and is told to consider taking any emotional problems to people he trusts. This made me laugh? Probably because it is also followed by a number of adults suggesting a liberal application of alcohol (the three people, I suspect, that we see later passed out on a park bench). Also, Yamori is very sympathetic here–who hasn’t hoped to get answers from the internet and has only gotten terrible or useless advice?

One of the things I actually found quite charming about this story was the fact that Yamori really loves the feeling of wandering around after dark. We will later meet Yamori’s childhood friend, Asai Akira, who has a similar take, but from the other side of the clock. She likes to get up super early.

When I was a middle schooler, I was actually Asai.

All of the rest of my friends were like Yamori. Either unable to sleep or just general night owls. I was a morning lark and would get up and get out the door an hour or two before the sun rose. I was particularly fond of strolling the empty streets of the small town of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, in the strange light of false dawn.

So, when Kotoyama-sensei describes the eerie, yet special feeling of being out and about in non-standard times, when the streets are hushed, and the rest of the world is asleep, I really felt it in my bones, you know?

So, kind of unexpected? To be so moved to remember that feeling?

Although this manga is an award winner, having won the 2022 Shogakukan Manga Award in the shounen catagory, so maybe I’m not alone. The story itself is very compelling. Initially, it seems like the story isn’t going to be very original. When Yamori finally makes friends with Nanakusa Nazuna, the vampire, he thinks the answer to his problems is to become a vampire, which can only happen if he falls in love with Nanakusa.

And, I mean, she’s such a charmer, how could you not?

But, what follows is kind of an interesting exploration of the differences between lust, love, friendship, and all the other complicated feelings that people have for those we like.

And of course, there’s a complication. There’s a time limit. Once he’s been bitten (which happened the first night they meet,) Yamori only has a year to figure out how to fall in love.

In the meantime, however, Yamori and Nanakusa have adventures. They meet other vampires with interesting stories, discover the threat of a hunter who is capable of killing vampires, and solve mysteries. Yes, they solve some simple mysteries and it’s kind of cute?

I was surprised how much I liked this one. The manga series is on-going in Japan. There is also an anime, so you can consume this one however you like. I will say that I was initially un-fond of the art (I didn’t hate it, but there are a lot of panty shots, etc.,) but it eventually grew on me (and I was able to ignore the skads of half-naked ladies.)

But, hey, bonus: if you’re into half-naked ladies this one might be for you!

So, in short, I recommend this. The story was compelling and cute and occasionally made me feel like it’d been too long since I was out after dark.

Gate 7 (Volume 1) by CLAMP

The great manga collection clean-up continues! As I continue to sort though the random manga I’ve collected over the years, we come to Gate 7 , which I really started to like right about the time when I imagine most Western readers starting feeling overwhelmed by it.

Alas.

SPOILERS

.

.

.

.

The story begins like just about every urban fantasy-esque, hidden world manga you’ve ever read. A seemingly normal boy who has a deeply geeky passion for history and a deep love of Kyoto, finally gets the chance to visit his favorite city… only to get instantly caught up in a magical battle between forces he doesn’t understand.

I have a lot of sympathy for Takamoto Chikahito here, honestly.

But thanks to this random encounter, Takamoto gets adopted by two hot men and their fem agender demon companion. You know, like you do.

The guys don’t really introduce themselves because they fully intend to wipe the memory of this encounter from Takamoto’s brain. Only magic doesn’t seem to work on him. That was, in fact, how he’d managed to blunder through a magical barrier into the middle of the supernational battlefield that these three were engaged on. Eventually, we learn that the dark-haired one, who controls the power of light, is named Sakura and the light-haired one, who controls the powers of darkness, is named Tachibana. We will later discover that there’s a very obscure reference to a garden belonging to a Heian period emperor where a tachibana (orange) tree was planted on the right and a sakura (cherry) tree was planted on the left, like sentinels or honor guards.

The little demon person is called Hana and is maybe an oni in service to the clan that these guys belong to called Ura-Shichiken (translates to Seven Secret Houses… or, you know, the seven gates), but I didn’t get far enough to know for certain.

I will tell you that the reason I’m a terrible person who should not be trusted is that I immediately fell in love with this guy the moment he showed up:

This is the clan’s head, Said Mikoto, the reincarnation of Hidetsugu Toyotomi. Because of the oni he inherited, everyone simply calls him Hidetsugu.

Apparently, this is where a lot of people said, “I’m out.” According to Wikipedia, when this manga was reviewed by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, they said, “The only drawback to this series is the fact that a reader does need to have at least a little bit of knowledge of Japanese history in order to truly understand some of the concepts introduced” Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network apparently felt similarly hampered by the need to constantly refer to the glossary in the back.

I’m not entirely sure I agree.

I thought the story read fine without knowing any of the information presented in the glossary. Honestly, I didn’t realize there was a glossary until I got to the end of the manga. I read all the information in it (which is where I found out the whole thing about the orange and cherry trees,) but knowing that didn’t actually change how I read the story? Mostly this kind of fighting manga / supernatural mystery manga? For instance, who Hidetsugu was is very much discussed in the text of the manga. The characters discuss this, on the page, at length. What we know about him is that he was a powerful warrior from some past time plagued by a bunch of misfortune having at least something to do with his line of succession which is how this random modern guy, maybe, ended up an oni that once belonged to Hidetsugu. Sure knowing more about the historical Hidetsugu is interesting? But, he didn’t REALLY HAVE AN ONI, so, you know, just following along on the mystical, made-up stuff is what’s actually important, and all of that is there.

The real question of this manga, which I was fairly interested in, is: “What the heck is our hero, Takamoto?” There’s a bunch of discussion in this first volume about how he’s… negative space? A “not.” This is why he’s immune to a bunch of different magic things. But, at one point Hidetsugu suggest that this makes Takamoto like Hana.

Which is interesting.

Let’s not lie. I love these stupidly complex worlds and set-ups. So, it is with a heavy-heart that I must report that this manga never finished. It got four volumes in and then was put on extended hiatus, which then became permanent.

Thus, as tempting as it is for me to read forward, I’ll probably stop here. Given how MUCH information and plot we got in the firs volume, I can only imagine that this series just builds in more and more historical references and world building. I just don’t want to get invested in the mystery only to be left hanging. Unless there is a reader out there who has read the whole series (in so much as got written) and tells me it’s worth it!

Alas!

The art is actually better than the scans above would have you believe. This is also another series that would benefit from finding the officially licensed in English versions. Not only do they provide the glossary for non-Japanese history buffs, but also the translation is easier to read. Also, one of the other complaints about this manga is how busy the backgrounds are and how difficult that makes the story to visually process, I will say that scans are always a bit muddy, so seeing the manga as it was drawn does, in fact, help with that.

Do I recommend it? I don’t think I can, since it quits without a true ending. Will I keep it? I almost want to. There is room on my shelves and there is a part of me that would like to keep an eye out for the remaining three volumes to see where the story goes. I mean, I could read it online? But, I did like having the extras that the glossary provided. We’ll see, I guess.

Did anyone out here read it? What did you think?

Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto / Someday’s Dreamers (Vols 1 & 2) by Yamada Norie and Yoshizuki Kumichi

This week, I continue reading through and reviewing the random pile of manga that I’ve collected over the years. I have a vague memory of pulling the first two volumes of Someday’s Dreamers off a shelf at HalfPrice Books and deciding to bring it home.

On the back cover, this one bills itself as “A cross between Harry Potter and Sailor Moon.”

No wonder it took me so long to read it.

SPOILERS

.

.

.

.

Yume is a sincere, naïve, nice girl from the countryside who has been sent by her family to the Big City to learn magic. After a spectacularly failed love confession to a boy who loved soccer more than anything else, Yume can’t really handle boys and men. She freezes up and has no idea how to behave.

Of course, immediately upon arriving in Tokyo, she nearly walks into traffic and is rescued by none other than a boy!

The boy in question is very baffled by her, but he shows her to her train and gets her on her way. Overwhelmed by wanting the ‘pay back’ his help, Yuma uses her wish-fulfilling powers to grant him his biggest desire: money. She makes a bunch of cash suddenly appear inside his jacket, puffing up like a pregnant belly, causing him to exclaim:

I apologize for the terrible image. I took it on my phone’s camera. But, this is one time when the official licensed manga was actually much more funny than the fan scanned and translated version. If you go to the same page in the version that I linked to above on Mangakakalot, they clearly miss the opportunity that the visual presented them, possibly in an effort to be true to the original Japanese.

At any rate, this is where we learn how Yume’s magic works. Magicians can manifest other people’s wishes. They can make “dreams” come true. The best magicians do this by truly understanding their client’s wants and needs. Oh, and yes, magic is a business in this world. Most of the manga, in fact, is about Yume learning the ropes of the job expected of all magicians.

Yume then meets the person who will be her instructor, Oyamada Masame.

Who turns out also to be a man.

Apparently there is a way to read the Kanji of Oyamada’s given name in a more feminine way, and thus mistakes were made. Yume gets over all of this pretty quickly however, and begins to learn to practice magic. Oyamada doesn’t do a whole lot of teaching, but rather sends her out with clients and sees how things go. Possibly Yume doesn’t need a lot of help since her mother is a famously powerful witch.

Everything seems to be going pretty well, at least until Yume is sent out to help an old woman, who is dying and who has lost her memory, relive a moment from her past. Yume gets into taking on the role of the client’s dead daughter and is devestated with the woman finally passes, especially since her death seems to be assisted by a fire that consumes the entire estate, as well.

The second volume is all about Yume getting over this trauma and learning that you can’t wish death away, something that Oyamada is well aware of, having lost his first love to a tragic car accident. His heart as, all this time, been closed off, even though he has a lover (and possibly a child with) in a woman named Melinda.

The story is complete in two volumes. It apparently launched several spin-offs, including: Someday’s Dreamers: Spellbound (2004) and Someday’s Dreamers: Summer Skies (2008).

Some of the complaints I’ve read about this manga are that the magic isn’t real. With the exception of the time that Yume manifests money for the helpful boy (and later makes weeds in a garden disappear), all magic seems capable of doing putting people into a kind of trance where they imagine how things could have been or, possibly, will be. There is one scene in which two middle schoolers really want Yume to help their retiring teacher get a chance to watch the lunar eclipse. The only barrier is that it’s cloudy out. Given that Yume can make money appear out of thin air, you’d think moving a few clouds aside would be child’s play. However, she tells the kids that she can’t change weather; it’s too complex. (Actually, I buy that?) But, what she does instead is fulfil the teacher’s fantasy of having a drink with his students on the moon.

Like ON the moon.

Actually, on the moon.

So, magic, at its most powerful, seems to be a kind of shared hallucination? So, it’s not clear what this really does for anyone. It makes people temporarily happy. As one commentor I read suggested, this seems like the sort of thing people could do for themselves by just imagining?

I think that, ultimately, that may have contributed to my own sense that this story didn’t entirely grip me. There was nothing wrong with the story (unless, like with the commentor I quote above, you want or need the magic to be more useful in a practical-sense,) but there is a sense that the world building isn’t fully complete. Visually, the story is very pretty, as you can see in the panel above, but it’s sort of as pretty as it is shallow.

I’m not sure that’s really a detraction, however? I sometimes really enjoy stories where people are just good to each other, the end. Yume is deeply sincere in wanting to use her magic to make people happy and that carries with it a certain kind of wholesome charm.

Would I recommend it? Certainly. Sometimes what a reader (including this one) wants is a pleasant, low-stakes story. Will I keep it on my shelves? Probably not. Because the story is so light in terms of world building, I don’t see the need to want to return to this world and read it again and again.

But once through? It was fine.