Seven Seas

Gunslinger Girl is one of the only stories I know where it does not constitute a spoiler to reveal that this or that character dies. Artist Aida Yu makes it clear very early that every cyborg-assassin girl is going to die, probably horribly. At its best, Gunslinger Girl uses the constant presence of death to its advantage, for example with Triela’s story and her relationship with Hilshire. Sometimes, though, Aida overplays his hand, and especially in Seven Seas’ most recent omnibus volume (volumes 11-12) his writing gets tiring and predictable.

Got back from a week-long trip to London a few days ago, and I celebrated my return with a whole bunch of new comics.

I started off with volume two of A Certain Scientific Railgun, which has one of the most convoluted origins I’ve ever encountered. Railgun is illustrated by Fuyukawa Motoi, and is a spin-off of a light novel series, A Certain Magical Index, written by Kamachi Kazuma (Index also has its own, separate comic adaptation). Seven Seas publishes Railgun in North America, but not Index (comic or novel version). I’ve heard they released the spin-off first because they expected Funimation to have released the anime adaptation, but in typical Funi style they have the license but now, months later, still no actual release, but Seven Seas decided to just go ahead with their own Railgun release schedule anyway.