Last semester, CJAS screened the first season of one of the more popular shounen-harem series in recent years: Zero no Tsukaima, a.k.a. The Familiar of Zero. Originally a series of light novels from Japan, the series (still in serialization as of this writing) proved popular enough to warrant an anime adaptation and an additional retelling as a manga.
It is the story of a student-mage of noble background, Louise, who unintentionally summons a teenage boy from Japan named Saito into her world of magic, mystery, and fan service to act as her familiar. All is not sunshine and roses for our hero Saito, however, as his new mistress treats him no better than a dog, and only softens as time goes on. As he struggles to make a living for himself under the furious eye of Louise, there is action, adventure, and even the budding of romance for our happy couple-to-be!
Sounds like a fun anime if I ever heard one, no? Well, I hate to disappoint you all, but I beg to differ. Zero left a bitter, bitter taste in my mouth, that special flavor that only comes from good, old-fashioned bad writing and an unhealthy abundance of wasted potential. Be afraid, ladies and gentlemen. Be very afraid.
Currently unfinished at three volumes, Legal Drug is predominantly episodic, with hints as to the back story of the two main characters. The story follows the Green Drugstore’s two employees, who bear a striking resemblance to the boys of xxxHOLiC. Kazahaya is essentially Watanuki with blond hair, and Rikuo is Domeki with moderately more expression. They tend to fight like cats and dogs (or rather, Kazahaya fights, while Domeki—er, Rikuo—winds him up). But there’s more to the story than meets the eye, and each of the boys has a special ability, which they use when their pre-cognative boss sends them out on “special errands.”
Instead of giving you, the reader, a long synopsis of the episode and giving away everything that happens in the fifty-minute OVA, I’ll just briefly summarize the important plot points. The OVA starts directly after Ultimate III, with Alucard having just recently killed Alhambra and learning about Millennium’s plans for full-scale war. While this is going on in Brazil, Enrico Maxwell and the Iscariot Organization learn about Millennium through an old priest who corroborated with them during the experimentation process to create a vampire army. The organizations (Hellsing and Iscariot) meet, and eventually, the Queen of England gives Hellsing the green light to wage war against Millennium. However, Millennium has already declared war on England and launched two squads to attack England. Most of the army is launched as a primary fighting battalion set to land in London, while a small group is launched to provoke an attack. Leading the second group is this volume’s main villain, First Lieutenant Rip van Winkle, the huntress.
Using her power to control a magic bullet to continuously weave through the enemy and rip through metal, Rip and a fraction of the Millennium vampires kill the crew of a British naval vessel and claim it as their own. Of course, England will not tolerate this attack and asks the Hellsing Organization to deal with this problem. After tons of one-sided fighting (i.e., Alucard ripping the nameless vampires to shreds), it is time for the climactic battle between Rip and Alucard. Unfortunately, this battle lacks the same amount of adrenaline-pumping action the previous three volumes had in their respective climactic battles. Alucard, though, does still revel in his “bad-assery” during the fight.
The Clow cards have escaped from their binding, and Sakura must recover them with the advice of the card’s stuffed animal guardian Kero-chan and the technology and fashion of her best friend Tomoyo!
Shonen-ai/Shojo-ai Note: Except for one paring, all shonen-ai/shojo-ai inclinations are mild and one-sided. And while some are “You don’t want to think about this too much,” they’re easy to ignore. One pairing is reciprocated. Maybe. Possibly. Only CLAMP could have one guy say to another, “You are my most important person,” and still have that be a debated pairing. All but the most stubborn dissenters acknowledge that the two are a couple. (Though this raises the question, if they dislike slash so much, why are they reading CLAMP?) If there is a rating less than G, then Cardcaptors gets it. Also, yes, I was being annoyingly vague on purpose.
Continuity Note: Things from Cardcaptor Sakura appear in xxxHOLiC. Whether this means they’re in the same world is up for debate.
Tokyo Babylon is a classic, and for a good reason. Well-written and eerie, it makes for a very interesting read. It is also short enough to keep from being either a large time or money sink. The only problems people might have is with the art style or the clothing styles. Eventually, however, both these things become integral to the feel of the manga and the characters, making Subaru’s shift in clothing at the end that much more startling.