I also spent my New Year’s reading because of course I did. My job is essentially reading, so I am forced to read many, many things for work. And I enjoy it! Reading things as a translator is different from reading simply for pleasure, and books I would not necessarily enjoy as a reader are fun as a translator because of the different linguistic challenges they pose. But when I take off my translator hat, I can go full holiday mode and wallow in the books I love without wondering how I would translate any particular line. And skip over tiny asides in terrible handwriting (ahem, Nakamura Asumiko) or the details of recipes for food I cannot eat (I’m looking at you, What Did You Eat Yesterday).

At last! More Battan! After I finished that last collection of short stories, I stepped into a terrible Battan-less world. No cutely upturned noses, no sparkling balls of light dancing around the page, no gorgeous ladies making eyes at each other. Just day after sad day of a life without hope, without dreams, without the beauty of Battan’s work. And sure, you can ask why I didn’t simply re-read the many books by her that I already have, but this brain of mine craves novelty! I want new stories! New ladies! New dazzling relationships to fill my shojo heart with drama and romance!

I will not deny that it was a difficult nine months between the time when I finished that short story collection and when I finally returned home from the bookstore triumphant with all three volumes of Soshite in my hands some weeks ago. I will also not deny that this long, dark time could also be said to be at least in part my own damned fault because I forgot to go looking for the series at the bookstore when I was here last summer. The first volume came out in May, after all. I had plenty of chances to buy it. My battan desert was not entirely the fault of the publishing industry.

To be honest, as much as I have loved Battan’s work up to this point (and I have truly loved it on an unabashed fangirl level), the obi copy on this one had me a little concerned. “Sisters’ adultery battle” sounds a lot like sisters adultering with each other or having some kind of adultery-off to see which of them can be the most adulterous of all, and I’m not particularly interested in reading about either of those things. Although I might be able to get into a Shonen Jump style battle manga where the battle is fucking around with as many people as possible in new and creative ways. But I’m pretty sure that already exists as a hentai manga somewhere. 

At any rate! The adultery battle is neither of these possibilities. And the battle itself is more about the sisters and less about adultery. The cheating is just the battleground, as it were. Jun has not spoken to her younger sister Ran in eight years when they are reunited at their mother’s funeral. This is not a happy reunion, and not just because of the whole dead mom situation.

Ever since Jun can remember, Ran has taken and taken and taken from her. Toys, clothes, and eventually the love of her life. That last one was the final straw, and she breaks off all contact with the fervent hope that she never sees her sister again. As an older sister myself who had a rocky relationship with her younger sister for most of our childhood and young adulthood, I can definitely relate to this sentiment. And I think the younger sibling taking stuff from the older sibling is not an uncommon thing, however infuriating it might be for the older sibling. 

Since they launched a few years ago, Torch has consistently put out the strangest manga, the stuff that more mainstream publishers with their print magazines generally wouldn’t touch. I think part of this is that Torch is entirely online, which definitely allows for more experimentation. They don’t have the added cost of putting out a print magazine every month, and they’re not obligated to put out a book of every series they run on the site. Plus I think readers expect very different things from manga online versus manga in traditional print magazines. Weird things come from weird corners of the internet, and readers of online manga maybe not only know this but actively seek it out. Torch might be tapping into that group of readers that has felt underserved by the usual manga outlets, and so they welcome the wild and weird to their (web) pages. 

Whatever the reason, I will always at least pick up a Torch book and judge it by its cover. They brought me personal faves like Magician A (available in English now! /shameless plug) and Kashikokute Yuki Aru Kodomo (please hire me to translate this into English! /shameless plea), and while not all their books meet these admittedly high standards, I’ve at least enjoyed everything I’ve read from them enough to check out their latest releases. Which is why I can’t understand how I missed Battan’s first release and am only discovering their sensuous lines and cat-eyed girls in their second book, this collection of five short stories. Rest assured, I am working to rectify this situation and have ordered everything else they’ve released, including a new series running in Kiss, which looks very yuri and I’m going to be disappointed if those hot girls on the cover do not make out at some point.