Sam reviews another Haikasoru offering from Viz, All You Need is Kill, while Michelle checks out the restaurant romance, Eat or Be Eaten, from DMP.

All You Need is Kill

By Hiroshi Sakurazaka
Viz Media, 230 pp.

Most days, we feel stuck in a loop. Seeing the same people, doing the same inane tasks. Day in, day out, it can really wear on a person. For Keiji Kiriya, the main protagonist of All You Need Is Kill, nothing could be further from the truth. Set in the near future, Keiji is living life as a soldier in the war on an environmentally dangerous alien race, simple known as the Mimics. Given a super-powered suit, called a Jacket, Keiji is thrown into his first battle, which he learns will certainly not be his last. Upon meeting Rita Vrataski, a hardened war veteran known solely as “The Full Metal Bitch,” Keiji is thrust into the infinite loop of reliving the past 30 hours before his battle. Baffled by but ultimately intrigued by this, Keiji uses the power of the loop to hone his skills, get closer to his comrades and Rita and somehow figure out a way to win the war, for good.

Overall, I found All You Need Is Kill to be a very simple and straightforward narrative. Everything was to the point, not wasting any time. While much of the book was from Keiji’s point of view and his interactions with world, part of it was more personal. Certain chapters, specifically four-eight of part two, are kept like a journal, documenting Keiji’s attempts at breaking the loop in short broken sentences. This made for a very fast but well-paced read. I very much liked this personalized aspect of the writing, but I never really felt all that connected with Keiji.

At the beginning of the book, Keiji seemed to be somewhat of a slacker, with no drive or ambition for anything in his life. Upon entering the loop, his attitude changes completely, where instead of using these extreme circumstances to his advantage, like Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day, Keiji decides to become the best soldier on the field, even rivaling Rita. The change in dynamic makes sense, allowing the character to appear more human in the sense that he finds his calling, but it didn’t sit well with me; I wanted him to do what most of us would do in this situation—mess around with our surroundings.

All You Need Is Kill also brought some interesting science fiction elements, but they never seemed like a huge portion of the story. It was more about beating the system and learning from your mistakes. The concept of the Jacket added a vague scientific element, allowing the characters to fight the war. I wanted more of an explanation of how they worked or what they looked like. What’s ironic about the story is that both Keiji and Rita rely on using hand weapons (axes) instead of guns or lasers. The Mimics were also vague, being described as bloated grey frogs, complete with tentacles, all while throwing javelins and eating sand. Throughout the book, rumors fly about the intelligence of the Mimics, but it is never examined. I would’ve liked to see a conversation between Keiji and a Mimic instead of mindless fighting. This was a common problem I found through the book. Sakurazaka had a lot of content to work with but dropped the ball with a majority of it.

Let me make something clear, I didn’t hate this book. It is a light read that is certainly fun and understandable, just not as deep as it may appear to be, which was a disappointment for me. I would say that it did translate very well for an American audience, even while being riddled with talks of green tea, umeboshi eating contests, and samurai jokes. It is certainly not an enthralling novel, but if you are looking for something to read for fun over the summer, pick up All You Need Is Kill.

All You Is Kill will be available on July 21, 2009.

–Reviewed by Sam Kusek

Eat or Be Eaten

Written by Jinko Fuyuno, Illustrated by Yamimaru Enjin
Digital Manga Publishing, 250 pp.

Masaki Ashizawa is employed by a management consulting firm and is renowned for rehabilitating struggling restaurants and persuading his clients to his way of thinking. His current project involves finding the perfect chef for a new French restaurant being secretly opened by Chef Yanaginuma, a big name in the business, and when Ashizawa tastes the cooking of Chef Tsubaki, he knows he’s found his man. Unfortunately, when he first mentions the proposal to Chef Tsubaki, he manages to insult the man and must resort to rather drastic measures—volunteering to work as a waiter in Tsubaki’s restaurant for a month—to learn what makes the restaurant a success and simultaneously show that he can be trusted. Gradually, Ashizawa’s attempt to secure Tsubaki as a business partner becomes a quest to better know and understand the man, culminating in Ashizawa’s realization that he wants more than a purely professional relationship.

There are several major things to like about Eat or Be Eaten. For one thing, it has an actual plot and takes the time to educate the reader on various facts about French cuisine. For another, the scenes where Ashizawa is learning the tasks that need doing around the restaurant—like tablecloth wrangling, for example—are a lot of fun. The biggest factor in its favor for me, however, is the age of the protagonists. Both Ashizawa and Tsubaki are grown men in their thirties with professional goals and Tsubaki, at least, is openly gay. Though Ashizawa sometimes acts like a self-proclaimed high school girl as his feelings for Tsubaki manifest—there’s a lot of clutching at his palpitating heart—the fact that the protagonists in a yaoi novel are preoccupied with something besides their romance is a refreshing change.

Of course, it has its flaws, too. Like most light novels, the language is simplistic and features some cheesy lines. Here’s my favorite:

Bright red blood dripped from Tsubaki’s hand. It looked like his heart was crying.

Ashizawa’s characterization is inconsistent; he’s initially described as being “flinty,” but that would be the last word I’d choose for someone who gets flustered as often as he does. The explicit scenes are also a bit odd, as Fuyuno uses the adjective “disgusting” a number of times to describe those excessively slobbery kisses that seem prevalent in this genre. Not that I disagree, but it’s an unexpected word choice. Lastly, the first sexual encounter between Ashizawa and Tsubaki is possibly nonconsensual; it’s one of those times when “no” seems to mean “yes”; given our access to Ashizawa’s thoughts at the time, it seems he’s merely ashamed of his own desires.

There are also some issues with the production of the physical book itself. On many pages, the margins seem to be off, resulting in excess blank space near the spine of the book and text that comes perilously close to being cut off by the edge of the page. Also, while I was doing nothing more than simply holding the book open a pair of pages popped free from the binding.

Ultimately, Eat or Be Eaten is fun fluff. To indulge in a bit of culinary metaphor, think of it as the literary equivalent of meringue.

Eat or Be Eaten is available now.

–Reviewed by Michelle Smith