Archive for the Light Novel Category


Light Novel: R.O.D., Volume 5

October 20th, 2010

Read or Die, Volume 5 continues the story from Volume 4. Indeed, it begins the very next day after a giant paper dragon has swum up the Thames river only to be defeated by British Library Agent Yomiko Readman.

Dokusensha has upped the ante for the Guttenberg Paper – they have kidnapped the Queen and are demanding the Paper in return. And they demand that Yomiko be the one to make the exchange.

Joker decides that Ziggy Stardust, British Library boffin and Faust should create a fake to make the exchange with. Faust disagrees strongly and is put under house arrest as a result. Ziggy also disagrees, but the fake is made. Just before Yomiko leaves to make the exchange, Faust goes out on a “date” with her in the British Museum, where he says that he is troubled, but doesn’t say why.

In the meantime, author Sumiregawa Nenene is also under house arrest in Yomiko’s apartment. Because Yomiko cannot explain what is going on, she simply confines Nenene to her room, sets Wendy to watch her and doesn’t return for days. Nenene moves past sulking into depression and eventually abandonment, all of which is quickly shaken off when Yomiko returns…to say goodbye. Nenene tackles Yomiko in an embrace, then proceeds to yell at her for keeping her locked in a room! Yomiko apologizes, but insists she stay there for her own good. Yomiko leaves after promising to return, soon.

Yomiko heads over to Picadilly Circus, where she once again encounters Ou-En, the young Asian man she had met in Hay-on-Wye. As the police and army close in, he uses his Paper abilities to cut down all of the surrounding military. Yomiko can only watch, stunned, as it happens too fast for her to even respond. Ou-En takes the Paper but, as they part, they each take a slice at the other. Yomiko manages to make a pretty severe cut on Ou-En’s neck, but he contents himself with a lock of her hair, and tells her that he’ll “see you again in China.”

When Yomiko returns to the British Library, she learns that the Paper had been switched and she had handed over the real Guttenberg Paper…and that Faust is missing, presumed to be a traitor. Yomiko reminds Joker that he mentioned they had an agent in China. She asks to go there to get the Paper back. He agrees.

In China, Yomiko leaves the airport and finds herself in front of a book store, where she purchases some books – only to have them stolen from her. As she gives chase, the thief is stopped by an attractive woman who identifies Yomiko immediately, then introduces herself as the British Library agent in China…Nancy Makuhari.

Meanwhile, Wendy and Nenene settle into Yomiko’s apartment in Tokyo, where she has asked them to wait for her. Nenene wonders why the nameplate says “D.N.” and suddenly realizes that they are in Yomiko’s late lover, Donny Nakajima’s, apartment. Wendy is shocked to learn that Yomiko had a lover at all, but something shifts in Nenene and she decides to spend the time writing a new book, since that will make Yomiko happiest. As she clears a space to write, she finds an old, dusty diary with the name “Donny Nakajima” on the inside cover. …

In an epilogue, we meet a man named Joel who lives in an apartment on Baker Street in London, who can hear Nenene yelling at Yomiko through the walls. And boy, if they weren’t two women, he’d be sure they were lovers, because that’s *exactly* what Nenene sounds like – a jilted woman yelling at her missing boyfriend.

Volume 5 was not as riveting as some of the previous volumes, but it had a lot of story-building. We hear a story about Yomiko’s father from an ex-colleague in MI6. We get a deeper look at Dokusensha, Faust’s story is expanded – as opposed to Gentleman’s, which is where I supposed it would go. And the betrayal by Faust guarantees that he’ll be back. Volume 5 also introduces Nancy, something that will change this series forever.

While the beginning and middle were a little weak, man does this series have awesome endings. I read 200 pages for the last 20, every time. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 5
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 4
Service – 2

Overall – 7

Gee, Yomiko and Nenene sound like lovers to an outside listener? I’m shocked. For the record, even Wendy can see that Nenene doesn’t just like Yomiko. In a scene that echoes a similar scene with Anita from ROD The TV some years later, Wendy asks Nenene if she loves Yomiko and Nenene has the exact same problem with answering honestly. From *our* perspective (and Joel’s) it’s obvious that she does.





Lesbian Light Novel: Vertigo

September 2nd, 2010

Vertigo (ヴァーティゴ) by Fukami Makoto, is a story of a cop and her ex-army partner as they track down and defeat a criminal operation that has been killing people all around Tokyo.

On the one hand, Vertigo is an incredibly crappy science fiction novel, with “cybernetic’ everything and “nanotubes” used in the stupidest, least convincing way possible. All the women are clothed in form-fitting bodysuits (with the occasional tactical vest thrown in for good measure) or otherwise scantily clad, yet somehow fully protected. For instance, Reo’s halter top there on the cover is “armored mesh.” Uh-huh.

On the other, Vertigo stars two strong female leads, neither of which back down in a pinch, neither of which flinch from a fight, whether hand-to-hand or projectile.

On the one hand, the art for the book portrays women with such exceptionally large breasts, hips and contoured nipples and crotches that it pretty much ruins your ability to see them as anything but human-shaped milk cows. You can get a sense of that from the cover image. To drive my point home, here is a picture of Nako, a side character, one of Reo’s ex-lovers. The picture is Not Safe For Work or Brain. Don’t come screaming to me if you click it.

On the other, one of the characters, ex-army, now police detective in training, Hashibe Reo, is an out lesbian in a long-term relationship that is not broken up or even threatened by anything in the plot and there’s a discussion of when same-sex marriage became legal in Japan and how it was a good thing all around for everyone. Reo loves her lover Rina and Rina loves her back – they are considering marriage. And we end the book pretty sure that Reo and Rina will get married, after all.

On the one hand, dedicated police detective Natsume Shizuka kills her own neglectful mother who she thought had been dead for years.

On the other, Shizuka ends the story with a nice girlfriend, a new job and a happy ending.

One the one hand, the plot combines Chinese terrorists, an illegal fight club, (a scene in which Reo and Shizuka are inexplicably required to kiss each other by a passing stranger, but otherwise has nothing to do with the plot,) a possible Christian cult, and an evil pharmaceutical company.

On the other, the actual plot had just about *nothing* to do with any of the above. Except the evil pharmaceutical company.

On the one hand, gang rape as a form of torture was used as a main plot point, and on top of that, the book included childhood flashbacks of threats of rape and a brother that was forced to do child porn and subsequently killed himself.

On the other, the after-trauma situation was handled with grace, sensitivity and honesty.

Reading Vertigo has been a challenge on several levels for me. The kanji, sci-fi/military/police procedural as it is, was *way* above my level of comprehension. I was dedicated and experienced enough to grasp a lot from the context and lucky enough to know more than the average otaku about hand-to-hand combat, so I actually understood (and enjoyed) the bit about Capoeira and could figure out a lot of the rest. But man, do I so not know the words for a lot of normal business things. ^_^

It’s pretty apparent from the predictability of the plot, that this was written to become a movie – and if it does, I’m sure it will be successful. It has pretty much something for everyone (well, everyone likely to go see a scifi-action-suspense-movie like this.)

I can’t say I liked it, but I also can’t say I didn’t. It was both really awful and really good at the same time – sometimes in the very same sentence. In conclusion, I have to say, Vertigo was an aptly named novel.

Ratings:

Art – AAAAUUUGGHHHH MY EYES!!!!!
Story – 2 and 9 all at once
Characters – 9
Lesbian – 9
Service – 10 Googolplexes

Overall – I’m feeling dizzy. Pick a number. That’s what it was.

Today review marks a wonderful day – the addition of yet another new Okazu Superhero! I want to welcome and thank with all my heart and the parts of my brain that don’t hurt, Mari Kurisato, for sponsoring today’s review!





Light Novel: Noblesse Oblige ~ Kayamori Kuzuha’s Resolution

August 23rd, 2010

Kayamori Sakurako is the granddaughter of the head of the Sacred Tree Blue Heaven Style of sword fighting. On her first day of high school, her grandfather names her his heir, and awards her the sword name “Kuzuha,” the fourth woman in the family to bear the name.

When Kuzuha gets to school, she comes across a young man attacking a schoolmate of hers. Although the schoolmate is also a kenshi, a swordfighter, she’s trying to protect the people around them and is, as a result, losing. Kuzuha jumps in and saves the other girl, who turns out to be Kajimoto Ami, a member of the school’s self-policing organization, Luminous Force. Thus Ami and Kuzuha meet…fatefully.

You know how you’re listening to someone talk and you suddenly realize you have no idea what they are talking about and you have to say, “I’m sorry, now who was that and what was going on?”

I felt like that through the entirety of Noblesse Oblige ~ Kayamori Kuzuha’s Resolution. (ノブレス・オブリージュ ~茅森楠葉の覚悟~)

Which is not to say that this was a bad book. It wasn’t. I just kept wondering things like, “so what’s going on here and why do we care?” and “why was this book written, again?” This may makes it seem like I wasn’t enjoying it, but that’s not true. This was a nice novel, in fact, it had some really excellent elements, I just felt like I was missing something, as if it was a franchise extender for a game or something else that I couldn’t find.

I can’t synopsize the plot of this book, because there isn’t actually a plot. The point of view starts as Kuzuha’s, then switches to Ami’s for the rest of the book, except when it switches back in the middle of the story to Kuzuha’s.

The book takes place at Seibou Girl’s Academy, an elite academy for daughters of the nobility (kazoku) and the knightly class (kenzoku). Ami seems to be the sole commoner at the school. That she is part of Luminous Force, protege to the Guardian of the West, does not make her popular, but neither does she seem to be bullied. She is hounded by a random girl who demands that she admit that the reason she’s a Luminous Force member is because she and her mentor, Sayaka-sama, are LOVERS. Ami’s reaction is wonderful. “Lovers?” she thinks. “First I’ve heard of it.”

Kuzuha is trying to integrate being the public heir to her family’s fighting style into her life. She visits another of the Luminous Force members, Guardian of the South, the seventh of her line to bear the name Nanami. Kuzuha’s maid and Nanami fight, but when Nanami attempts a killing blow, it’s Kuzuha who stops the blade with her bare hands. In return for injuring her, Nanami spoils Kuzuha a bit at school.

Ami and Kuzuha are set up by another member of Luminous Force, Eastern Guardian Koyuri, to fight as part of the school festival, but Kuzuha takes a dive. It later turns out that she had never before picked up a shinai in her life, having always practiced with live blades. Ami finds herself sympathetic towards Kuzuha and really, really wants to be friends with her. The more she gets to know about Kuzuha, the more she respects and admires her. It’s obvious that Kuzuha is a truly excellent swordswoman, and the loss to Ami was a gift to the other girl, to cement her position as a member of Luminous Force,

One day, Ami is waiting for the bus when Kuzuha pulls up in her family’s private car. Inexplicably, she tells Ami that she’s found glasses like Ami’s and wants to do her hair up like Ami has. She’s girlishly excited when the her maid tells her they look the same. After asking to borrow Ami’s sword, she leaps out of the car and runs after…the guy who attacked Ami in the second chapter. The kid, not knowing Ami well, except superficially, believes he is fighting Ami, so when he is summarily defeated by Kuzuha’s Pure Sky Cut, they are all pretty sure he’ll never bother her again. When they reach school, they learn that Nanami has taken Kuzuha into Luminous Force as her protege.

Ami retaliates for that act of kindness by bringing Kuzuha’s best friend into Luminous Force so those two can be closer, too.

The final scene, Koyuri pairs Ami and Kuzuha up for a re-match, this time, for real. The end of the book is actually kind of silly, and everyone is laughing by the final page.

And I still have no idea what the book was about. ^_^

However, the sword fighting was really pretty good, until the very end with the Pure Sky attack which is right out of comics. The book had me hooked when Kuzuha’s maid, Kofuyu, mentioned that she uses only a wakizashi to fight. As I’m inordinately fond of wakizashi, (indeed, it’s the only kind of Japanese blade I’m comfortable with, having trained all those years with a two-edged sword, and because of a certain wakizashi I once had the pleasure of bearing…) I just got all tail-waggy happy at that scene.

The other element which was excellent was the complete lack of Yuri. It’s not like there weren’t lead-ins all over the place: Kuzuha’s close relationship with her maid Kofuyu, Nanami and Kuzuha, Ami and Sayaka, Kuzuha and her best friend Suzune, Ami and Kuzuha…and you know what? None of them were anything even close to being treated with stupid service. In fact, all the relationships seemed totally organic and normal considering the unreal setup. The one I expected to be totally Yuri-fied was Sayaka and Ami, since they were *clearly* the Sachiko and Yumi of the series, but it never once went there. Sayaka was cool, kind, sympathetic, friendly, scolding, but nothing more. She was a firm/kind mentor, Ami her protege. The end.

When Ami watches Kuzuha defeat the guy, disguised as Ami, her desire to embrace Kuzuha was really, honestly, just to give another girl, a friend, a hug.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 1
Swordplay – 8
Service – 1

Overall – 8

So despite the fact that I really haven’t a clue what this book was about, or who it was for, or why it was written…I liked it. There’s a sequel, about the other Luminous Force member, Harumi. I’m sort of even tempted to get it. ^_^





Yuri Light Novel: Double Engage: Itsuwaru no Hime ha Kishi to Odoru

June 27th, 2010

Here’s the recipe for Ichijinsha’s Iris Bunko Yuri Light Novels:

Take a princess, (must have blonde hair and be 16) and have her told about 80 times that being married is a woman’s greatest happiness, then make her marry someone icky.

Add a savior whose hair, eyes and clothes are all the same color, (she must be female and 17 years old).

Spice it up with sexually suggestive older woman who makes everyone uncomfortable. Fold in horse, carriage, bath scene and at least one kidnapping/arrest.

Soak overnight and cover with a light frosting of being on the run. Read at room temperature.

***

Double Engage: Itsuwaru no Hime ha Kishi to Odoru (偽りの姫は騎士と踊る―ダブル・エンゲージ) best exemplifies, in my opinion, the word “mediocre.” There was nothing wrong with it, although Princess Diana is a tad more clueless than I enjoy in my lead characters. And there was nothing stellar about it, although Diana and her female knight Effie kiss, several times, in a real kiss-like manner, not just chastely pressing their lips dryly onto the other’s.

And, despite the possible threat of men who don’t really care about Effie’s or Diana’s happiness, there’s really only one actually semi-threatening scene and that comes from the female brothel owner who puts Diana on the auction block (where she is, of course, rescued by a disguised Effie.)

There’s even a vaguely sort of semi-realistic conversation about what the two of them will do, since they can’t get married, really, that is thrown in just before they ride off together into the sunset without resolving the issue at all.

Nonetheless, there was no doubt as I read this book that we were just going through the motions.

Which kind of leads me to wonder – why is “entertainment for women” so gosh-darn dull? In “entertainment for men,” women wear very little, but they *do* alot. It seems to me in these Iris imprint novels, the women wear great big fluffy dresses covered in flowers and they get dressed and undressed a lot (something that to me always implies that, regardless of who the imprint *says* it’s for, they expect that audience to be at least in part male) they don’t *do* much. There’s a lot of talk of love and stuff, but what’s the point of a story about a knight and her princess in which the only fight the knight has is with a combat-knife wielding maid? (Well, actually, there is a point. That maid will show up in the other novel in the series, but you know what I mean.)

It’s not like there wasn’t a great set-up, Some years ago, Diana’s throne was taken over and she wants to regain it. Threatened with marriage to someone she does not love in the country to which she has been exiled, she runs away, accompanied only by her beloved Knight, Effie. The king that has taken Diana’s throne is none other than Effie’s father! Effie, renouncing her existence as Princess Euphemia to be Diana’s Knight Effie, swears to kill her father and her two brothers, if she has to, to regain Diana’s throne.

And, in retrospect, there were some really decent elements in the romance part, as well – Diana and Effie do say they love one another, they do kiss for real, they do discuss marriage. But it’s all kind of wasted, because…

The king dies when they get there and they decide to just, you know, leave. The end.

…

Really, this was not *bad* it just wasn’t *good.* Dear Ichijinsha. Please, no more princess stories. You just don’t know how to write them.

Overall – 5

It turns out that there’s a second Double Engage story, about Effie’s brother Arwain and the combat knife-wielding maid, written by the same author. My wife asked, “Would you read it?” and without hesitation I said, “No way.”





CANAAN Light Novel, Volume 1 (上)

June 17th, 2010

If you have watched the Canaan anime, you have read the Canaan Light Novel.

The Light Novel is very much a novelization of the anime series, written by a competent writer and enhanced with pleasing pencil art illustrations.

The LN series is in two parts. This first volume is, like the anime it shadows, a nice mix of exposition interspersed with action. We meet young photojournalist Ohzawa Maria and her mentor Mino, see a lot of Shanghai both above ground and below. We learn about the UA Virus,  and a bioterrorism threat by the terrorist group the Snakes, just as Shanghai hosts an International Conference on Terrorism. And we meet Canaan and Alphard, our foils that are the same in every way, except that they are not the same at all.

If you have not watched the anime, you will find no difficulty following the story – it is well told and well-executed. There is a lot of moral ambiguity – governments are terrorists, just as much as the terrorists are and the only truly innocent in the book is the title character, the assassin Canaan. Her synesthesia was one of the most visually striking qualities of the anime – I wasn’t sure it would translate well into text. I’m pleased to note that the author is competent enough to communicate it well. It works.

As I sat down to synopsize the plot, I find that it’s actually too complex for me to do it simply without losing much of its appeal. On the other hand, if you haven’t watched the anime and don’t really care about Canaan a priori, I’m also not sure I could convince you to pick this book up without it.

So I’ll do what I always do and focus on the Yuri. ^_^

Maria and Canaan’s relationship is a difficult one to nail down simply. They love each other – so much so and so obviously so that crazy villianess Liang Qi comments on it. But, then, Liang Qi herself is obsessed with the love of Alphard, the apparent villain of the series. And Alphard is obsessed to the point of monomania with Canaan, someone who she believes stole everything she had, even her name. (I’m still not convinced she’s entirely wrong.)

Canaan is, as I said, an innocent. She absolutely, unreservedly loves Maria and there’s a sense that, were she actually aware of things like “love” in the adult sense, she might actually be “in love” with Maria. But…she is not. Her love is like a child’s, or a puppy’s. Not because she is stupid or childish, but because Canaan does not yet know desire – and there’s no real way to know if she ever will at this point.

Maria’s love for Canaan is less perfect/more human, but is also, at the beginning at least, more admiration. She sees Canaan as something unearthly, like a superheroine. Yes, they are friends, but until she sees what she considers to be a flaw in Canaan, Maria is unable to regard her as an actual human. She is very much a Lois Lane to Canaan’s Superman and ultimately, Maria’s desire to bring them both onto an equal footing is what will drive the plot in the second volume – and change them both forever.

I was very, very vexed with the anime for bringing both of them right up to the moment of recognizing that they love each other, then providing what I saw as a rather lame excuse for “not that way, though.” As the novel has been, so far, an exact duplicate of the anime, I expect no less in the second volume. But, for the moment, Maria and Canaan yearn for each other more as the series puts them through increasingly dangerous situations.

This novel ends with the Snakes’ takeover of the Terrorism conference and Alphard’s plan to infect all of the world representatives with the UA Virus. The final scene in the book is Alphard fighting Canaan in the tunnels below the building.

So, basically, if you liked the Canaan anime and want to re-experience it through a text format, this is a good, compelling action story. If you like action flicks, and want to practice your Japanese reading skills, this book is an excellent choice – it has a fair amount of furigana and even the technical/scientific stuff is not impossible to understand.

I think this novel would have a chance to sell reasonably well, were it to be brought over here in English, as long as the translation was competent. (I don’t know if Seven Seas has a Kadokawa contact, but this would not be a bad match for them. A little Yuri, high gaming interest on account of it being Type-Moon, moe, action. I think they could make it work, since they have decent translators and adapters.)

Ratings:

Art – 8 (the pencil art mitigates what is otherwise typical moe)
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – ??? You could pretty much put any number on it, from 0 to 10 and be right. Let’s split it down the middle and say 5
Service – 4, but like 85% of that is Liang Qi

Overall – 8

It’s a good read and I’m glad I took a chance on it. Nice mix of character and plot, action and emotion, comedy and tragedy. Kind of the best of all possible worlds for a Light Novel and one of the best of breed I’ve seen in a blatant franchise extender.