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   troubled cat cafe and solving problems there via his Deku-like notebooks and   
   obsessive study.  This is something of a transitional volume, tonally, and it   
   sometimes feels a little rough as it whipsaws between realism and magic.   
   Hopefully things settle down a bit soon and Wataru Nadatani finds a groove.   
   Mildly recommended.  $12.99/$17.50Cn, no rating (but some fantasy violence)   
      
        Go! Go! Loser Ranger! vol 15: Kodansha - Meanwhile, one year later....   
   There was a time jump as part of the quiet climax of the Three-Way Battle,   
   and some non-Fighter-D stuff set up for the new normal, but now D is back in   
   the saddle and working on his new plan for taking over the world.   
   Conveniently, the Ranger Force has a sort of general amnesty for everyone who   
   fled in the wake of the Three-Way Battle, so he can pick up his slot on Green   
   squad without hassle.  I do think the "story so far" section could stand a   
   few more pages, because there are a LOT of characters who the reader is   
   expected to keep separate without much in the way of in-story reminders (as   
   I've noted before, this series would be a lot more clear in color, or at   
   least with shading tones that made it clear who was which color).  In keeping   
   with the series so far, D is mostly a monkey wrench in everyone else's plots,   
   as he doesn't really seem capable of succeeding in his own even with a lot of   
   luck and help from people who think he's advancing their own plans.  Lots of   
   deep ethical crises and social upheaval and D really just doesn't care about   
   any of that stuff happening around him...it really is a good depiction of a   
   nuanced heroes-vs-monsters story from the point of view of a side character   
   who has no depth at all and staunchly resists acquiring any.  A sort of   
   complement to Isekai Samurai in that respect, his very lack of ethics (beyond   
   "monsters should rule!") provides a sort of greenscreen against which   
   everyone else's morality jumps into sharp relief while they project their own   
   expectations onto him.  Recommended.  $10.99/$14.99Cn, Rated Older Teen 16+   
   for a lot of fantasy violence.   
      
        Spider-Man: Octo-Girl vol 3: Marvel/Viz - The "story so far" page really   
   drives home that everyone's name is alliterative, although without the actual   
   Japanese text it's hard to tell how many are also puns like Taka Toma being a   
   reference to a bird of prey.  Marika Maruko might be a Man-Mountain Marco   
   riff, and I think Kirika Kurabe might be heading in a Mysterio homage   
   direction, but that's some wild guessing.  The majority of this volume is an   
   extended battle, although it's broken up by occasional flashbacks to the   
   preparations.  It's Taka Toma's assault on Across Tower, Across being the   
   invention-stealing analogue to Norman Osborn (although they do exist in the   
   616 continuity, according to one of the notes pages).  Your basic slimy   
   multinational that acquires tech in ways both technically legal and very   
   definitely not (although you'd be hard pressed to prove it in court) and is   
   fully prepared to deal with the sort of supervillains they inevitably   
   irritate along the way.  And superheroes, although they're less worried about   
   the heroes because their sort never worries about the Good Guys.  While   
   technically their opposition now is mostly middle-school girls (please ignore   
   that some look like first-graders and others like high-schoolers), it also   
   includes two instances of Otto Octavius, and like many such tech ghouls they   
   never think that the inventor of their stolen tech might just have backdoors   
   that their people aren't genius enough to eliminate.  Needless to say, by the   
   end of the volume things are not going according to anyone's plans, although   
   Otoha is adapting pretty well to this super-person lifestyle.  I get the   
   feeling that by the time they finally resolve the head!Otto issue (if it ever   
   gets resolved), Otoha will be ready to start an independent tech hero career   
   alongside her friends, in a sort of Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm A   
   Supervillain way.  Recommended.  $11.99/$15.99Cn, rated Older Teen (kids in   
   peril, if nothing else)   
      
        After God vol 7: Viz - Last volume, it was possible that the   
   mild-mannered veterinarian sidekick-like character was bluffing when he faced   
   down Alura, but everything gets laid on the table for the readers, even if   
   the characters still have reason to keep secrets from each other.  While this   
   is the biggest deal in terms of the overplot, a lot of this volume focuses on   
   the efforts of the servants of one of the other gods (the "pile of wings"   
   Ahf-Azu) as they dance around the Anti-God taskforce and we get their   
   backstories.  As often happens, Waka herself doesn't do much, although she   
   does get at few scenes at least.  Sumi Eno is pretty thorough at rotating the   
   POV, to the point it's hard to tell if there really is a main protagonist as   
   opposed to an ensemble cast where any two characters may be allies or enemies   
   at any given time.  The snake god continues to be a goofball, but an often   
   tragic one, and questions of identity are often answered murkily if at all.   
   Recommended.  $14.99/$19.99Cn/#10.99UK, Rated Older Teen for massive body   
   horror although the ultraviolence is pretty restrained this time.   
      
        Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. vol 10: Viz - Meanwhile, one year   
   later....  Yes, another year-long time-skip, although in this case it wasn't   
   laid out at the end of the previous volume.  In the wake of the frame job   
   enacted by the oligarchs (the villain is, as often the case, capitalism)   
   everyone in the company has had to scatter to the winds, helped here and   
   there to find new jobs by allies who were limited in what they could do   
   overtly.  Technically, by taking the fall, Shigemoto protected the others   
   from legal problems, but that didn't keep them fully out of the eyes of the   
   enemy.  As long as they all kept their heads down, they'd be okay, but   
   obviously they weren't going to do that forever, and with the passage of a   
   year they're ready to go back to work, with the first order of business being   
   getting in contact with Shigemoto and trying to restore the dream of   
   Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc.  Their first gambit seems to be a failure,   
   with an unexpected enemy standing in their way, but we do at least get to see   
   their new uniforms and techniques.  The obvious having failed, it's time for   
   a new strategy, which forms the basis for the next arc.  A mix of old allies   
   and questionable new allies will help them...for now, at least.  But they're   
   up against The System itself, and it's not just one Bad Guy who needs to be   
   thwarted but an entire corrupt capitalist nation, if not the world itself.   
   So...an appropriate enemy for a magical girl series, yes?  If the stakes   
   aren't the world or nothing, are they really even magical girls?   
   Recommended.  $14.99/$19.99Cn/#10.99UK, Rated Teen (fantasy violence)   
      
        Expected next month: Easygoing Territory Defense vol 6 (release date of   
   Nov 25, but it's not a title my local B&N stocks and they don't ship   
   pre-orders until the date of release, it's currently due to arrive December 2   
   or 3 in the mail), Touring After The Apocalypse vol 4-6, Spy x Family vol 15,   
   Infini-T Force vol 5, Asadora! vol 9.  There's a couple of books that looked   
   interesting from the ordering page, I'll wait and see if they show up on the   
   shelf though, they didn't interest me enough to order sight-unseen.   
      
      
   Other Trades:   
      
        Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, whatever. If it's bigger   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)