It’s a manga rundown!

So I was looking at my “to review” pile and saw that there’s an excessively large amount of manga in it.  Enough to take me into December if I tackled each volume at my normal rate. Then I remembered that I’ve got another order of manga coming in from The Right Stuf as I write this and realize that if I do want to talk about all these volumes I’ve read, I should do it as quickly as possible.  That being said, you’ll find my thoughts on several volumes of manga that I’ve been reading — including the annual volume of Berserk — condensed down to their most notable bits.

Wacky hijinks involving living sushi, giant chicks, hapless Russian spies with optic camo and a showdown between Robert and Poseidon’s skeletal enforcer make up the first half of Pandora in the Crimson Shell:  Ghost Urn vol. 10.  Though they further the series’ penchant for lightweight fun, even when the action gets serious, these chapters show that the sharper focus demonstrated in the last volume was no fluke.  In fact, the third chapter is easily a high point of the series as Nene and Clarion utilize their special talents to help a scientist and his wife connect with their daughter after she was raised in a high-tech incubator.  I won’t lie: this storyline made me surprisingly emotional and I was grateful to see how it tied back into the main storyline if only for the fact that it kept the waterworks from flowing.

If “Berserk” is ever finished, then all of my feelings regarding its publication schedule at this time will simply fade away.  I say this because Berserk vol. 39 maintains the series’ high standard for quality while making some notable advancements to the overall plot now that the main cast has arrived in Elfhelm.  Though there are the expected wacky hijinks involving Puck, he apparently had quite the reputation before leaving home, the place is a vibrant magical enclave of witches, warlocks, and creatures of the fay unlike anything else we’ve seen in the series to date.  This is balanced out by Schierke and Farness’ journey into Caska’s mind to rebuild her damaged psyche, which is represented as a desolate wasteland haunted by demons. The thought of seeing Caska restored after 12 years (if you go by the English release dates, Japan has had to wait over 20 to get to this point) is a very compelling idea to me and I hope that I’ll only have to wait just another year to see it finally realized.

I still believe in Inio Asano, but Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction vol. 2 doesn’t do much to suggest that his style hasn’t coalesced into a formula at this point.  The mix of happy, sad, wacky, surreal is still there as high schoolers Kadode, Oran, and their friends deal with having that alien spaceship and its various scout craft constantly hovering over their heads.  Much of their conversation about this and life in general feels more like a reiteration of what was said in the first volume, with only a relationship spat between a friend and her boyfriend making a real impression.  Oh, and we do meet one of the aliens in this volume and he gives us the volume’s most distinctive visual after a sneeze. Other than that, he mostly blends into this world without too much distinction. Which may be Asano’s point, but it’s a familiar one without much to have it stand out from similar stories.

It’s hard writing up reviews for something like What Did You Eat Yesterday? vol. 13.  It doesn’t have an ongoing plot and its chapters are basically just standalone vignettes revolving around the lives of couple Kenji and Shiro.  This volume alone has Kenji having a spring roll party with his neighbor and her husband while enduring the latter’s clueless comments with the patience of a saint, Kenji nursing Shiro while the latter has a fever, a dinner party between the couple and Gilbert and Kohinata, and Shiro observing his manager’s clueless actions as his wife prepares to divorce him.  This series isn’t a grand epic, but really just a fun hangout session with characters whose quirks we’ve come to appreciate after so many volumes. Though I don’t think this series will ever fix the problem of how the narrative grinds to a halt more often than not when the cooking begins, it’s something I’m willing to put up with just to have the chance to hang out with Kenji, Shiro, and their friends in each volume.

It might seem like a tricky thing for a series like this to pull off but Kaguya-Sama:  Love is War vol. 4 delivers its first multi-chapter arc.  Yes, instead of its usual trick of setting up and resolving a wacky situation in the space of a chapter, vol. 4 strings together multiple ones as Kaguya’s plan to get Shirogane to ask her for a ride home during a rainstorm backfires and leaves her with a cold.  This leads to Shirogane battling Ishigami and Chika in a cutthroat card game for the right to visit Kaguya at home, which eventually has a dazed Kaguya inviting Shirogane into her bed, and a fierce battle of wills as the two of them try to apologize by VERY POLITELY offering each other cake.  It’s great stuff that sees mangaka Aka Akasaka successfully finding ways to evolve the series’ formula while still adhering to its rules.

We’re still in flashback land for Battle Angel Alita:  Mars Chronicle vol. 4 as Erica continues her tutelage under the delightfully evil Baron Muster in the ways of villainy.  This leads the both of them, and a bunch of henchman into the Martian desert on a hunt for the planet’s legendary treasure that may hold a cure for the Baron’s condition.  This may sound fun, but the execution feels decidedly perfunctory with mangaka Yukito Kishiro using the quest as a way to get through a number of plot points — some interesting and some not — before leading us into another flashback.  Though all this is helpful for fleshing out Erica’s backstory and Muster’s character, I’m still eager for the story to get back to the present day where the real drama is taking place. I’m also less certain about the new additions to Alita’s backstory here as she was plenty interesting already without being part of royalty.

R.I.P. Pork Bowl.  The pig that Hachiken named is dead and butchered but his meat now belongs to our confused protagonist.  He wasn’t sure how buying the pig’s meant would help him, yet as we see in the first few chapters of Silver Spoon vol. 4 Pork Bowl’s (delicious) remains provide food, comfort, and even clarity for Hachiken.  So the results of this mini-arc do surprise a little. This is followed up by another mini-arc that’s dumb in a way that will be immediately familiar, and even enjoyable to, anyone who has ever been or sympathized with a guy in high school.  No, it doesn’t involve sneaking out for romance. It involves sneaking out for crop circles. The rest of the volume is business as usual for this series with the drama of some secret business between Mikage and Komaba providing a decent plot hook for now.  Fun stuff, as expected.