In most gag manga, the moments of seriousness are brief and are quickly broken up before they can build to anything threatening the general hilarity.
In dramatic manga, the moments of comedy are brief, breaking up the tension with a soft smile from time to time.
In most action manga, the emotions are brief, building up in a fireworks climax during a battle, driven by the need to win.
In most romantic manga, the action is brief, confined to bursts of energy in order to move the characters from one situation into another.
In Hayate x Blade, Volume 6
First, there’s the climax of the A-Team’s nefarious plot to blackmail Hayate into leaving the school, culminating in a 80 vs 8 randori. Maid costumes, ladles, cheesy lines and Michi suddenly being awesome! And finally, the entire A-team slayed where they stand by the appearance of their belove Akira. In a maid costume.
Then, we start to get some insight into the relationship between Ayana and Yukari and even as we are told what we are told…we’re given some hints that nothing in this relationship is what it seems.
And finally, in the middle of a school festival that is full insanity, the Hoshitori bell rings and a very, very serious fight begins.
Speaking as a reader, this is one of my favorite volumes in any language. Artistically, Hayashiya-sensei’s art has really coalesced by now and you can practically feel the impact as sword hits sword. As a copy editor, this volume was *brutal*. The editor and adapter had a lot of work to do – this is a volume full of really obscure references. But damn, what a volume!
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 4 (Ayana x Yukari and Maki x Yukari for the win here)
Service – 4
Overall – 9
I can’t tell you at this point whether we’ll see a Volume 7, but I know that I, at least, hope and pray that we will. If there was ever a fight that we deserve to see the end of, it’s this one.
I agree this volume was amazing, it has been a very long time since I’ve had a manga make me snort out loud so many times. I love this series and I hope to see a Vol. 7 not just for a sense of completion of the fight, but also out of love the series.
I guess vol 7 depends on how well the omnibus sells. I’m probably not the only one who has double and triple copies of one volume by now.
You wouldn’t happen to know if Sid in uncensored in the omnibus? I don’t think that’s going to be a deciding factor whether one is going to buy it or not but it would be a nice bonus.
@LJ – I know nothing about the Omnibus volumes, having not had a chance to see them.
I’m buying extra copies of the books for my library, myself. :-)
There might not be any more volumes? Argh! I’ve been buying them religiously and so has my brother. Have sales been that poor?!?
@theengineer – Don’t make leaps. That there is no Volume 7 scheduled release yet does not mean sales are poor. :-) Seven Seas says that they are releasing the omnibus volumes to try to build the audience a little more.
Volume 7 and 8 may also have to be renegotiated, as the licensor has changed. Mediaworks was previously the publisher, now it’s Shueisha. I don’t have the vaguest clue as to the terms of Sevens Seas’ licensing (nor would I ask, since it’s none of my business) but I imagine that the change has to have *some* affect on them.
Not entirely sure what omnibus is but whatever, I’ll buy that too.
I guess I’m in a lucky minority here, since I’ve gotten my Japanese to the point where I can read Hayate X Blade in Japanese, although it’s slow going, and there are some bits I don’t get. I got impatient waiting for vol. 6 to come out and finished it just before the English version was released.
I was a bit disappointed they didn’t translate the omake at the end for volume 6. I’m still not sure if the winter-uniform-wearing ghost who haunts the art club room actually was a ghost or not.
I suppose you haven’t heard if the omnibus is going to use any of the cover art from the Shueisha publications? It’s so much more dynamic and eye-catching than the other versions.
@LJ: when it comes to Sid, nothing can beat reading her curses in katakana. It’s at least 5x funnier.
@Mark – Since there is no omake is the original Mediaworks editions, I’m going to have to assume that that is a later addition to the new Shueisha edition.
Seven Seas licensed this series with Mediaworks, not Shueisha, so they don’t have the new editions to work from – therefore, no omake. I also have the older edition, and have never seen the omake myself. (I’m going to assume that the extras were added so fans had some impetus to buy the new edition when they already had the old one.)
As I have said many times, I don’t pretend to know anything about Seven Seas’ licensing agreement, but as they originally made the agreement with Mediaworks – since that was who owned the license at the time – so, it seems unreasonable to assume they have access to any Shueisha materials, unless 7S are now renegotiating the license with them.
Hi!
There’s something buggin’ me.
The group that’s scanlating HxB uses the 7Seas volumes as base material for their releases. I mean: scripts, sound FXs, translation notes, everything… when they don’t re-typeset the text (as it is in the 7Seas version, of course) they just scan the 7Seas volume as it is and upload it on the web.
And I can’t stand this.
Damn, we don’t even know if 7Seas will continue releasing HxB (due to the disappointing sales), and those guys do what they’re doing claiming to be “manga fan that bring english manga to the masses”, while they’re obviously committing theft.
Thanks for your time! \(><)/
@Kill-chan
From what I can tell it’s not a group scanlating it but an individual person.
And that individual person should not be associated with the actual group that’s going to translate the untranslated volumes of Hayate x Blade. I’ll shamefully admit that I’ll read their scans, since theirs will be coming out faster than Seven Seas apparently. Its very frustrating, having to wait when the last volume translated stopped in the middle of one of the best duels so far. BUT I will also purchase Volume 7 and so on when it is available to have a copy of it in my bookcase. And to also support the official release.