Isin Nisio

Really, it's more like 4 1/2 stars. Most of that half star short of five is due to personal taste. I am uninterested in fanservice, and vampires weak to sunlight is a pet peeve of mine (fun fact: it was the 1922 German silent film Nosferatu that introduced the 'sunlight hurts vampires' bit of lore! Not Carmilla, Dracula, or the myths surrounding the creatures the modern vampire was built from!). That, and emotional/ethical objections to Kisshot's situation at the end of the story.

I feel like show more I missed some things by reading it in English (alas, I don't speak Japanese, so...), but the wordplay I could discern was still quite enjoyable. I take my hat off to Ko Ransom for handling such a translation.

The story is absurd at times, and the characters are aware of this. Tropes are toyed with, but it rarely feels forced. For the most part Araragi and Hanekawa act like ordinary people would in unlikely (even impossible) situations.

The characterization is nuanced to a degree that newcomers to the series may find startling. It's delightful how Kisshot (the vampire) isn't just a powerful human, but an entity with inhuman psychology and different cultural expectations. With Araragi in particular it is important for readers to take observations with a grain of salt. He has a few blind spots despite being a fairly astute narrator (especially about himself).

As for the rest...

Full disclosure: I struggle with suicidal depression. Ergo, I typically have Strong Feelings about any media that addresses such issues.

First, kudos to Nisioisin for recognizing that suicidal feelings can fluctuate (gosh, it's almost like depression is a disease and isn't entirely logical!).
But, Araragi's final choice made me a little sick. More so when it's dressed up to look entirely altruistic (but! We do have Oshino's pointed observation: "And now, in a way you've [Araragi has] chosen to keep a vampire as a pet--having filed down its fangs, plucked out its claws, crushed its throat, and castrated it. You, who were made a pet, turned around and made your master your pet. That's all there is to this story. It's certainly no heart-warmer.").
I'm not exactly pro-suicide, but the point remains that only Araragi's choice was honored. Kisshot chose death, and was overruled. It it's not like Araragi wasn't warned that she'd be miserable. True, he offers to let her kill him, but that doesn't really solve her problem, does it?

TL;DR: I thought it was great, and I'll be reading the rest of the series. show less

Kizumonogatari stars Koyomi Araragi, a 17-year-old loser. He avoids having friends because he believes they would “lower his intensity as a human” (although one wonders if this isn't just his way of making himself feel better because no one wants to be friends with him). His life seems to be going nowhere, until one day he comes across Tsubasa Hanekawa, class president and all-around model student, and accidentally gets an excellent view of her panties when the wind blows her skirt show more straight up. Instead of getting upset or fleeing in embarrassment, Hanekawa decides to be Araragi's first friend.

Later, Araragi tries to wipe away the memory of Hanekawa's panties by buying some porn. On his way home, he comes across Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade (name found online, because otherwise I'd never have figured out how to spell it all), “the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire.” Someone has removed all four of her limbs, and she is dying. She asks Araragi to save her by letting her drink him dry, and he, in a fit of pity and realization that he's a loser whose life, he decides, is probably worth less than hers, agrees. He expects to die but instead wakes up as Kiss-Shot's new servant, the one who now has to get her limbs back from the vampire hunters who took them.

This book was garbage on multiple levels. I was a little surprised at how much I hated it. Both the author and the series are very popular, so I figured that, even if there was as much fanservice as I'd heard, the book would still have other redeeming qualities. Unfortunately, it did not.

However, I do have some good things to say, so I'll start there. The narration was fabulous. Cristina Vee, Keith Silverstein, and Eric Kimerer are to be commended. They did as well as they possibly could, considering the material they had to work with, and they managed to make the clunky dialogue somewhat listenable. I especially enjoyed Cristina Vee's work – if I hadn't known better, I'd have thought there were two female narrators, one for Hanekawa and Kiss-Shot's cutesy voices and one for the older version of Kiss-Shot. The desperation she put into dying Kiss-Shot's voice was great.

The voice acting combined with the background music, which went so far as to feature specific character themes, made listening to Kizumonogatari a little like listening to an anime. I really enjoyed that and hope that Vertical continues their foray into audiobooks. Hopefully with better books than this one.

All right, now for the bad. I suppose I'll start with the gross fanservice. NisiOisiN stopped short of having Hanekawa or Kiss-Shot suggestively suck on or eat something, but what did happen was still pretty awful. I swear, at least an hour or two of this 9.5-hour book was Araragi obsessing over breasts and panties. None of it was what you'd call sexy or erotic, just clunky and awkward. The description of Hanekawa's panties felt like it took ages (the text mentioned that Araragi had gone on for almost two pages), Hanekawa's reactions were closer to how women in porn movies might behave than to anything resembling reality, and unfortunately there was worse to come.

In one scene, Kiss-Shot spoke to Araragi and then laid down to sleep in the same room while he was still there. Araragi was amazed at how casually she did this and found himself thinking that it would be rude for him not to...do something (the “something” wasn't stated, but I figure “grope her” was high on the list – so yeah, Araragi thought it was impolite not to sexually assault a girl who was trusting enough to fall asleep in the same room as him). There were multiple jokes about Kiss-Shot's flat-chestedness when she was in her 10-year-old form, and then even more jokes about the hugeness of her chest when she was back to her 27-year-old form.

In one especially cringe-worthy scene, Araragi asked Hanekawa to allow him to touch her breasts, ostensibly to help him better ignore Kiss-Shot's enormous breasts during his upcoming battle with her. Hanekawa agreed and went so far as to remove her bra and tell him he had to fondle her breasts for a full minute. Araragi, shocked at his good fortune but nervous about the possibility that she might later claim that he'd forced himself on her, asked her to clearly voice her consent. Soon Araragi was using that as an opportunity to embarrass Hanekawa by making her talk dirty to him. The exact things he asked her to say: “Araragi, I beg you, please fondle my bra-less boobies! It's a great honor to have my breasts fondled by you! I've worked hard to grow these lewd breasts, all so that you could squish them one day, Araragi!” Oh, Cristina Vee. I hope they paid you well.

The story wasn't anywhere near good enough to balance out the grossness. Araragi won most of his battles through blind luck. The big revelations near the end weren't terribly shocking, either because I'd begun to guess what was going on or because Araragi's narration was just that bad. Seriously, the guy could suck the fun and excitement out of anything. In Araragi's first battle, his enemy turned his own arms into swords and hacked Araragi's hands off. It should have been a fast-paced, action-packed scene, and yet Araragi persisted in narrating everything to death.

The ending was worse than I expected. Hanekawa had to figure out pretty much everything on her own and then tell Araragi. Araragi, meanwhile, was horrified by one particular bit of info (which he had to practically be beaten over the head with) but then forgot about that horror when the story needed him to pity Kiss-Shot again. The weird relationship that Araragi and Kiss-Shot ended up with didn't sit well with me, but I suppose it was necessary to make room for all the series' other related stories.

I've been intrigued by the series' various anime adaptations for years - the clips I've seen have looked absolutely gorgeous. However, I think this book has finally killed my desire to see them. I'm thankful for that, considering how much Aniplex of America charges.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

There's a serial killer terrorizing the streets of Los Angeles, and the mysterious clues he has been leaving in his murderous wake seem to be taunting authorities. Onto the scene comes the L, the best crime solver in the world, to untangle the case. He recruits Naomi Misora, an FBI agent on a leave of absence from the bureau, to be his eyes on the ground, and soon enough she finds herself working alongside the decidedly creepy Ryuuzaki, who claims to be a private detective hired by the show more families of the victims. But as the mysteries start to unfold around the two of them, it becomes clear that L and the killer, whose name is Beyond Birthday, have a mutual past—something that has to do with Wammy House…

(animenewsnetwork.com)

So I was really excited to read this book and I was not disappointed! I absolutely loved the anime Deathnote so when I heard there was a side story book I thought "I have to read that now!"

One of the beauties of this book is the actual murders themselves. Don't get me wrong, they are creepy and pretty gruesome. But the way they are planned out are quite amazing really. There are clues in each murder that have to be solved. Riddles and big pictures. Beyond Birthday was truly a genius. Lets give some props to Naomi for figuring them out!

Another reason I really wanted to read it was to see L again. If you've seen Deathnote you'll know what I mean when I say he was my favorite character. But honestly, this story is more about Naomi and her investigations. I really liked her as main protagonist. I just kept waiting to see if she would figure out the next clue. She was quite clever. Another character I want to mention is Beyond Birthday himself. And let me just say, that is such a cool name! But anyways, he was a very interesting antagonist. We get to see the psychological side of the story as we see BB slowly digress into madness. Wait what am I saying? He's been crazy this entire time! He was a clever, crazy, genius. Honestly, he was one of my favorite characters just because he was so interesting.

So if you loved Deathnote I highly recommend this novel. It's a short read, only 176 pages. But it's well worth it. If you like good murder mysteries, I think you will still like it as well. This is one of those murder mysteries that make you think a bit more. It maybe boring for a few readers (I was into the entire time), but it really is worth the read. 4.5/5! show less

I’ll start this review off with a warning: the book assumes you’ve read (or watched) most of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s Death Note. I’m going to be writing this review with the same assumption - there are major spoilers for the series from here on out.

Okay, so this book stars L and Naomi Misora. If you don’t remember who Misora is, she was the FBI agent who began investigating Kira after her fiance, FBI agent Raye Penber, was killed by him. The book’s narrator is Mello, show more who has decided to write down some of L’s cases after his death, starting with this one. You know, in between hunting down Kira or something.

Anyway, Misora is trying to decide whether to resign from the FBI after a particular event that got her suspended when she receives an email from her fiance that actually turns out to be from L. L wants her help with a case he’s currently working on: the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, also known as the Wara Ningyo Murders or the L.A. Serial Locked Room Killings. There have have been three murders so far and, due to the murderer’s pattern, L believes there may yet be a fourth and even a fifth, unless he and Misora can find the killer first. L sends Misora to be his eyes and hands, although it’s not long before she’s joined by Rue Ryuzaki, a suspicious and strange private detective who has a habit of crawling around on all fours and eating disgustingly sweet snacks.

I went into this feeling somewhat hopeful. My one previous experience with NisiOisin’s writing was Kizumonogatari: Wound Tale, which I loathed, but this was a Death Note prequel starring one of my favorite characters from the series, L, so it was possible it would be better. I figured I’d be happy if NisiOisin delivered a competent mystery that stayed true to L as a character and didn’t include multi-page panty descriptions.

Panties showed up once but weren’t described in detail. L was okay, although he occasionally came across as a little pathetic. There was one part where he seemed to be fishing for compliments from Misora, and I found myself wondering how old he was in this story. I spent a good chunk of the book a little annoyed with him, because it seemed like he’d arranged for Misora to “help” him primarily so that he could get a chance to look cool around a pretty woman. Thankfully, the situation wasn’t quite what I thought it was, although that wasn’t revealed until fairly late in the book.

As for Naomi Misora… I don’t recall having any particular opinions about her when I read the original series and watched the anime, but NisiOisin managed to make me dislike her somewhat. Some of that might have been the translator’s fault - for example, Misora’s word choice when she came up with an idea that she realized wasn’t very good: “no, that was retarded” (124). But Misora’s rant when L asked her what she thought about Ryuzaki was definitely all on NisiOisin:

“‘Creepy and pathetic, and so suspicious that if I weren’t on leave, I’d move to arrest him the moment I laid eyes on him. If we divided everyone in the world into those that would be better off dead and those that wouldn’t, there’s no doubt in my mind that he’d be the former. Such a complete freak that it amazes me he hasn’t killed himself.’” (55-56)

I have a feeling that NisiOisin intended readers to find this humorous, Misora accidentally and very pointedly insulting L, but instead it made Misora seem horrible and cruel.

The mystery itself left me feeling torn. The puzzles the killer left behind were incredibly contrived, and I had trouble believing in the solutions Misora and Ryuzaki came up with, several of which relied heavily on what I felt were unfounded assumptions. Three murders didn’t give them much data to work with when trying to figure out the murderer’s patterns, and their justification for the date when the fourth murder would occur was, in my opinion, particularly weak.

According to Wikipedia, one of the things NisiOisin is known for is creating characters with extremely strange names. As amusing as it was, I wish he’d reined that tendency in here, because it made the characters seem like idiots. The police noted that each crime scene had Wara Ningyo dolls (similar to voodoo dolls?) nailed to the walls, that the murderer had painstakingly wiped away all fingerprints, and that they were all “locked room” murders, but they couldn’t find any similarities between the victims. The first victim was a 44-year-old male freelance writer named Believe Bridesmaid. The second was a 13-year-old girl named Quarter Queen. The third was a 26-year-old female bank clerk named Backyard Bottomslash. Although the characters considered the possible implications of the alliteration in the victims’ names, not a single person commented on how strange those names were and whether that strangeness might be part of the killer’s pattern.

The book’s pacing was terrible, and the tone should have been tense, considering there was only a short amount of time before the next murder, but NisiOisin kept peppering the story with awkward little jokes. My attention started to wander but was captured again when it was revealed that this case had a closer connection to L than I originally thought. The final revelations did take me by surprise, but I was also annoyed by them. It boggled my mind that a killer who was supposedly so smart couldn’t come up with a better way to beat L in a battle of wits. Even if he’d succeeded, he’d still have lost.Not only would he have been dead, he’d never have been 100% sure that L couldn’t figure out what he’d done.

It was a quick read the offered a few nice tidbits for fans of Death Note in general and L in particular, but the tone and pacing could have been so much better, and the final revelations somehow managed to be both surprising and disappointing. I have one Death Note novel left, Death Note: L, Change the World, and I hope it turns out to be better than this one.

Extras:

Includes one page of color artwork by Takeshi Obata and a page of black-and-white artwork before each chapter.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less