Clearing Out my Manga Backlog
There were times last year where I was worried that I wouldn’t have a manga title to review in a given week. Flash forward to today and now my “to review” pile is positively choked with manga. Which is a good thing as there have been times in the past where, as some series concluded, there would be enough new ones debuting to replace them. Thankfully, that hasn’t been the case and the situation I find myself in now is the kind of First World Problem I’m happy to have. So click on the link below to see my thoughts on a lot of familiar titles to this site, as well as one brand new one that’s heading up the list.
Yukiyo Fujimoto is about to enter his 30’s without ever having a girlfriend. Then one day he winds up being contacted by several notable women from his past all at once. Could it be that his “moteki” — translated as “season of popularity” on the back cover — has come at last? That’s the setup for Moteki: Love Strikes! vol. 1 and mangaka Mitsuru Kubo proceeds to put Yukiyo through the wringer as he tries to find love with a former co-worker, an (almost) former flame, and a longtime friend, and get out of his own way of this in the process. If the idea of a guy who suddenly finds himself in the middle of several potential relationships with girls sounds too similar to the trainwreck that “Genshiken: Second Season” wound up being, you can rest assured that the mangaka makes this situation a lot more believable and relatable than that series could’ve hoped to be. That said, this is still a series focused on a guy who agonizes about why he’s never had a girlfriend and what he’s going to do now that he may be able to get one. If that doesn’t appeal to you then the sharp execution probably won’t make up for it.
The previous volume may have sagged a bit in the middle but Golden Kamuy vol. 4 hits the ground running and keeps up a furious pace through the end. After finishing off the battle of hunters, with Retar’s fate hanging in the balance, we’re immediately plunged back into the race to find the hidden gold. Not only do we get some more insight into why Tsurumi and Hijikata want the gold for their own respective ends, but the two leaders’ paths cross in explosive fashion in the course of a bank heist and its fallout. This is in addition to escape artist Shiraishi crossing paths with Hijikata’s ridiculously strong enforcer Ushiyama which first leads to a wild chase through town and then a potential team-up to track down another tattooed convict who is also a ruthless serial killer. It’s a volume crammed fit to bursting with incident, and yet it still finds time for its usual bits about Ainu culture and cuisine.
While I’m still enjoying the series, The Ancient Magus’ Bride vol. 7 leaves me feeling that it has fallen into a bit of a rut as of late. You know how it goes, when faced with a problem Chise chooses the most reckless and self-endangering option, angering and distressing Miles in the process. As for Miles, his lack of human understanding continues to alienate and frighten Chise. These things come up again as Chise now has to deal with the dragon’s curse she’s been afflicted with in light of her actions at the end of the previous volume. We get some good scenes with a witches’ coven as the two spend a rare moment trying to solve the problem together, and there’s some interesting stuff done with Cartaphilus/Josef here as well. Yet I’m still left wishing that the couple at the center of the narrative had done a better job of talking through their problems rather than going off on their own and leaving us with a cliffhanger which manages to be dramatic and a bummer at the same time.
If you go into The Girl From the Other Side vol. 4 expecting answers to the many questions its narrative has raised so far, then you might be a little disappointed. However, if you go into it expecting utter heartbreak tempered by brief moments of warmth and comedy then you’re going to come away satisfied. Depressed, maybe, but satisfied. That’s because this volume focuses on Shiva’s Auntie and her acclimation to life as an Outsider like Teacher. She’s upset by it and more than a little resentful of Teacher as well. Yet she’s able to cope by resuming her duties as Shiva’s guardian, comforting the girl when she’s sad, going out to pick berries and flowers with her, and baking a raspberry pie which leads to the one sequence of out-and-out physical comedy featured in the series to date. All this just makes the reveal of what eventually happens to newly transformed Outsiders much more difficult to take when it hits. Vol. 4 also ends in a way that has me dreading Shiva’s reaction to the final page. So while I really do want to read vol. 5 when it hits, I realize it’s really going to hurt when I do.
I have to admit that I’m impressed with how effectively creators ONE and Yusuke Murata have sidelined the title character from the main conflicts in One-Punch Man vol. 13. Well, maybe “sidelined” is too strong a word for it because Saitama’s journey to the top of the martial arts tournament he entered under a different identity also speaks to his ongoing efforts to finally have a meaningful fight that doesn’t end with one punch. He thinks he’s found that in Suiryu, a fighter who is as burly as he is arrogant, but things don’t go to plan. Mind you, that’s even before the monsters who are terrorizing the city find their way into the colosseum where the tournament is being held. Said monsters also provide a satisfying challenge for the members of the Hero Association to work through even if they can’t quite manage to do it together. The threat of hero hunter Garo hasn’t been forgotten either, which leads to another memorable monster encounter. Even if the series is currently juggling three different storylines with little overlap, they still manage to entertain on their own terms.
Last up is Neon Genesis Evangelion: Legend of the Piko Piko Middle School Students vol. 2 which continues to deliver the same gaming-based goofy humor of the first. It also continues the trend where the “Evangelion” manga published by Dark Horse that that show the least respect to the franchise tend to be the better ones. So yeah, I did laugh at the cast’s experience with visual novels, attendance of the Tokyo-3 Game Show, their heading out on a camping trip to catch crabs, and seeing Unit-01 flabby and in a food coma after eating all of the sushi-shaped entry plugs. The humor here is… an acquired taste if you haven’t figured it out by now. I enjoyed it, and the promise of a third volume at the end is actually welcome, so long as creators Yushi Kuwata and Yukito eventually call it quits before their shenanigans descend to “The Shinji Ikari Raising Project”-levels of drudgery.