Manga Rundown: Denting the Backlog
A funny thing happened after I got the five volumes I’m going to write about here. I got another shipment of manga from the Right Stuf. Which means that my backlog of manga to write about has only become that much larger. Rather than wait until one of these series has accumulated enough volumes to provide enough content to write about for a week, I figured it’d be in everyone’s best interest to write about them now. (And do a podcast about one, but that’ll be a few weeks from now.) So just click on the link below to find out my thoughts on the latest volumes of “Kaguya-sama,” “The Ancient Magus’ Bride,” “Blood on the Tracks,” “Inside Mari,” and “Raw Hero.”
Kaguya-sama: Love is War vol. 18 is about as business-as-usual as this series gets. With Kaguya and Shirogane now firmly established as a couple, mangaka Aka Akasaka decides to spend more time than usual checking in with the supporting cast. Which is how we get stories that involve Chika starting a prank game with the Student Council, Ishigami going on a hardcore fitness kick, Shirogane and Ino discovering a mutual love(?) of poetry, and the board game club committing SO MANY criminal acts. Focusing on so many characters and their own stories does have the volume feeling more scattershot and directionless than usual. However, Akasaka’s skills with comedy and characterization (and even a hint of drama) means that each story does succeed on its own terms. Which leads to “business-as-usual” in this volume meaning that this volume is still pretty entertaining.
The person who stole The Testament of Carnamagos is still on the loose at the beginning of The Ancient Magus’ Bride vol. 14, and by the end of it we’re still no closer to figuring out who they are. The same goes for Lucy, her mysterious condition, and the ongoing mystery of who murdered her family. Though the lack of progress in regards to the ongoing story threads is disappointing, there’s still some quality worldbuilding and characterization to help make up for it. We get to spend a whole chapter with Chise and her friends in the Abandoned Hall as they look for magical ingredients on Halloween, and find out that while the place is much more dangerous than advertised, something even worse may still be lurking inside our protagonist. It was also fun seeing the college’s vice-chancellor and her cat familiars face off against Philomena’s evil witch (figuratively speaking… I think) of a grandmother. This all balances out to deliver a volume that’s still satisfying, yet leaves you hoping it delivers some actual progress in resolving its multiple ongoing mysteries next time.
At some point mangaka Shuzo Oshimi will give us a scene where his characters have a sexual experience that isn’t creepy, disturbing, depressing, or some mix of all three. That day has not come in Blood on the Tracks vol. 5, though, at least this experience doesn’t involve Seiichi and his mom (not yet, anyway…). Our protagonist has decided to run away with Fukiishi to her place to hide from his mom. As a plan hatched by two teenagers who still need to rely on their parents for survival, it goes about as well as you’d expect. It also feels like Oshimi is spinning his wheels with this volume as it ends in a way that’s not too dissimilar from the way in which it began. The mangaka does keep the tension high and there are still some moments that deliver on the kind of discomfort this series has been peddling, but I’ve seen this title give us better on both counts in previous volumes.
While we’re on the subject of Oshimi, Inside Mari vol. 7 finally came out after a very lengthy delay. The wait was worth it as the series is undergoing an interesting change in focus. Where its initial agenda involved figuring out how Komori’s mind found its way into Mari’s body (which I still think is the result of a psychotic break rather than any kind of magic), this volume sees us dig deeper into Mari’s past. Which involves an apparently loving grandmother, and a domineering mother who hated said grandma and apparently had her own issues as well. Yes, this means that we’re currently getting two Oshimi series that involve mommy issues, but I’d say this is the better of the two as it’s addressing the topic with relatively more subtlety. Which can also be said of the lovely romance that he’s developing between Mari and Yori here as well.
After talking about a series that emphasizes romantic love and serious character drama, it only makes sense that we should wrap this up with Raw Hero vol. 3. Akira Hiramoto’s series emphasizes only lust and absurd character drama as Chiaki gets promoted both in the JMT and the SALF, and winds up having to deal with Hoshii’s horny frustrations in the latter. It’s actually kind of fun seeing how Chiaki is able to put the wannabe in his place, but that’s only half of the volume’s action. The other half involves Mariko finally getting up the nerve to show her manga to a publisher and wanting to thank our protagonist for it. This leads to a sushi dinner with his brothers, and an actual date that turns into business when it coincides with a meeting with her editor which ends on a ridiculously skeevy note. I’d be worried for Mariko if history, and Hiramoto’s willingness to walk right up to but not cross certain lines in his manga, didn’t already tell me that I should be more worried for the editor instead.