[continued from previous message]   
      
   Tatsu's original boss, and Ms. Torii's new cat (we've already had some bonus   
   strips where Tatsu's pet cat can communicate in thought bubbles, now there's   
   another cat for him to talk to).  Recommended.  $14.99/$19.99Cn, rated Older   
   Teen (there's rather a lot of blood in the cat adoption chapter).   
      
        Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. vol 9: Viz Media - Most of this volume is   
   taken up by the big fight against the artificially-enhanced super-Kaii (a   
   Kaii-ju, if you will), interspersed with a focus on the flattened-affect ace   
   magical girl from AST and flashbacks into why she's that way.  In the wake of   
   last volume establishing who the actual bad guys were, and who was just being   
   manipulated or used by them, this volume gives us more reason to sympathize   
   with the unwitting pawns who might eventually come around to being on the   
   right side eventually.  This, of course, makes the end of the volume a   
   perfect time for a big reversal.  Recommended.  $14.99/$19.99Cn/#10.99UK,   
   rated Teen for fantasy monsters.   
      
        Shy vol 7-8: Yen Press - This is all part of the big Tokyo "dome of   
   darkness" battle, but with plenty of flashbacks, including "Shy enters   
   someone's memories" to get a sort of diegetic flashback.  The strong emphasis   
   on fighting does make for weaker chapters because Bukimi Miki's action art is   
   hard to decipher at times.  Overinked, shooting for dynamic but ending up   
   with overly busy.  It's the sort of art that could be saved by color, so you   
   could more easily tell who was who and what was what, the actual layouts are   
   generally competent but then drowned in SFX lines.  This does make the   
   quieter moments stand out for their clarity, but there's just too much of the   
   manga version of "unsteadycam" in the fights, especially when all the Secret   
   Ninja Arts come out and the panel fills with wind or water or whatever.  The   
   story is interesting, some good psychological/emotional stuff in there, it's   
   just kinda tedious to wade through the fight scenes sometimes.  Mildly   
   recommended.  $13.00/$17.00Cn each, rated Teen LV and I'm still not seeing   
   why it gets a language warning.  Plenty of (somewhat hard to follow)   
   violence, though.   
      
        Infini-T Force vol 1: Nakama Press/Mad Cave Studios - Like Wolf's   
   Daughter, this was one of those "I'll see if it shows up on the shelf" books   
   that interested me in principle, but not enough to just preorder.  Unlike   
   Wolf's Daughter, it has yet to actually hit shelves locally, but as noted   
   above it did make it to LibraryPass a few months after it got to shelves (and   
   volume 2 went on LibraryPass a week later, but I'll go ahead and leave that   
   for next month).  High school student Emi lives alone in an apartment   
   building which she also effectively manages for her parents (the dialogue   
   says they're just out of town most of the time, but that sure looked like a   
   shrine to the departed in one scene).  She gets a mysterious oversized   
   "Possibility Pencil" in the mail and finds that things she draws with it   
   becomes real, sort of a Harold and the Purple Crayon, if Harold was a high   
   school girl with a tendency to show up on panel undressed or nearly so.   
   Yeah, if I have a significant qualm about this book, it's that the creative   
   team seems to be aiming at a "lolicon" fan base a little.  Nothing that would   
   require censor bars for US publication, but...a definite pervy male gaze   
   thing going on.  At least she doesn't get that from any of the other   
   characters, just the artist.  Anyway, shortly after getting the pencil, she   
   ends up in the middle of a robbery that's rapidly going wrong, and in   
   desperation wishes for heroes, drawing four heroes as if the pencil is doing   
   the drawing for her.  And Ken the Eagle, Gatchaman himself shows up to save   
   the day (hence Mad Cave's involvement in this translation).  The rest of the   
   volume has the three others showing up, although there's some weird causality   
   going on since one of the heroes turns out to have been a guy who's lived in   
   Emi's building since before she got the pencil.  The other heroes are also of   
   1970s vintage: Casshern (spelled Casshan here), Tekkaman, and the only one I   
   hadn't heard of before, Hurricane Polymer (spelled Polimar here...I wonder if   
   there were licensing issues with the accepted spellings).  It's basically a   
   reverse isekai situation, and when Emi tries to send Casshern home the portal   
   she manages to draw is blocked by a robot monster thing which may or may not   
   be one of Tekkaman's enemies and seems to be playing timeline cop.  All four   
   are heroes, and they have rather different ideas of what that means.  Each   
   also manages to find an excuse to be in Emi's civilian life (although the   
   neighbor already had an excuse), although Emi keeps having to insist to her   
   friends that the latest guy hanging around is not her boyfriend either.   
   (Casshern still looks about her age despite being pulled from a time decades   
   after the end of his war, so it's not quite as scandalous as when her friends   
   think she's dating Ken.)  There's a lot of plot elements tossed around in   
   this volume, and there could be multiple mysterious foes or a single one with   
   a lot of agents, and there's factionalism among the heroes as well.  (I dunno   
   if Polymer/Polimar was originally supposed to be in the Gatchaman setting,   
   but in this telling they were, and while they hadn't met before Emi drew them   
   to her world, they knew of each other and did not think highly of each   
   other.)  Lots of unanswered questions, not least being "why would a high   
   school girl in the 21st Century be summing a bunch of 1970s anime heroes?"   
   Still, despite the occasional creep factor, I'm interested enough to give it   
   another volume.  Mildly recommended.  $10.99/$14.99Cn, rated Teen 13+.   
      
        Expected next month: Probably getting caught up on Shy, maybe another   
   Infini-T Force, Cat + Gamer vol 8, Kaiju No. 8 vol 14, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear   
   vol 12, Tank Chair vol 5, After God vol 6.   
      
      
   Other Trades:   
      
        Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, whatever. If it's bigger   
   than a "floppy" but not Manga, it goes here.   
      
        The Nefarious Nights of Willowweep Manor: McElderry Books - This one was   
   a bit tricky to find.  Not only because stores have to decide whether or not   
   to shelve it next to Dire Days, but also because at the store I (eventually)   
   found it at, Dire Days was in Young Adult GNs and Nefarious Nights was in   
   Kids' GNs.  The inciting incident of this installment is the arrival of   
   refugees from another "gasket universe," this one built upon the tropes of   
   Edwardian literature, mainly the murder mysteries (although there's some   
   clear expies of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves in the mix).  Their arrival starts   
   changing the nature of Willowweep, mixing murder mystery tropes in with the   
   gothic romance tropes, and it is revealed that the multiversal threat which   
   was dealt with in Dire Days is not the only danger out there.  After all,   
   while monsters are appropriate to the gothic sensibilities, if you're going   
   to have a murder mystery there needs to be a person doing the murdering (we   
   do not talk about the orangutan).  Of course, the protagonist is not genre   
   savvy in this genre, so she's back-footed like the rest of the Manor's   
   regular residents.  Recommended.  $14.99/$19.99Cn, ages 12 and up.   
      
        Expected next month: Maybe the Power Fantasy vol 2, still not sure I   
   want to get that.  Watson's Sketchbook vol 1-2 for sure.  Punderworld vol 2   
   might come out in time for the September reviews.   
      
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)