As I mentioned in my last post, I got a ton of books at Comitia 109, and am still slowly working my way through them. Here’s a look at another couple of books from the batch.

1 Melissa by Mephisto (circle: Angraecum)

Sadly couldn’t find the circle cut, they must have been listed under a different name. The artist states in the afterword that this is his first stab at an original book.

The title character is a girl magically bonded to an “arsenal” housing millions (or billions, depending on who you ask) of the world’s mightiest weapons. She acts as the key to the arsenal, and is thus able to conjure up any of the weapons at wish.

A being of immense worth, and, at the same time, danger, she is confined to a cell on a prison island, which the protagonist (a newly-hired guard who frames the story with a letter to his mother) catches her trying to escape from.

From there on, things quickly escalate into an all-out battle, as a sorcerer-soldier from a hostile country (?) attempts to abduct Melissa, and she singlehandedly whoops his ass as the guards stand uselessly by.

The art has a dynamic, fairly conventional style, and definitely a little rough around the edges. But not so much as to distract from the story too much. Ultimately, the book reads very much like a prologue. It’s a very, very brief glimpse into Melissa’s universe, and roughs out her character just enough that I might look for a sequel, maybe.  Time shall tell whether we ever see more of her.

But man, that cover. gorgeous.

The artist: Mephisto on the web, pixiv, and Twitter

2 雑貨屋 by Biyora (circle: クレープたべたい) (Zakkaya by Crepe Tabetai)

Circle thumbnail:

雑貨屋 translates into “general store”, and modernly also refers to a store selling assorted trinkets for home decoration etc. The heroine of the book is a gatherer, who scours the ruins of an ancient city in the “forest of stones” for rare artifacts to sell in her store.

The story starts out with a guy pestering her to get him an “iron flower,” seemingly an everyday item that she has run out of stock of. After some convincing, the heroine agrees to make a run and get supplies.

It turns out that the “iron flowers” are actually gears (like the ones on the cover), and the artifacts the heroine is selling are various machine parts such as pipes, screws, and cables. Upon returning to town with her bounty, she briefly encounters a friend who bugs her about bringing back machines, which are evil according to her. Except for windmills and weaving machines, which are necessary for life. This leads to a bit of really witty dialogue, as the heroine calls out her friend for being a hypocrite.

She delivers the gear to the guy, who uses it to fix up a mechanism to draw up a big parabolic antenna. Nobody knows what it is, so they just decide it’s a big iron flower, which the ancients built for purposes of… Hanami (picnics under blooming trees).

And finally, in the last 4 panels, the story takes a 180 degree turn worth of an M. Night Shyamalan movie. Totally took me by surprise, in an awesome way. I was on the fence on whether to spoil it, since most of you won’t get to read it, but decided against it, in case someone sees this who might. If you want to know more about the book, feel free to contact me.

The whole book is drawn in a deceptively simple, comicky style, but there’s a surprising amount of detail crammed into the art, with purposeful, clear lines that convey a lot of confidence. It’s only 8 story pages, and the story is super compact, well structured, and with great, witty dialogue.

The artist: Biyora on Pixiv, Blog

That wraps up the second round of my doujinshi reviews, hope you enjoyed! Lots more to come, let’s see if I can keep up the pace.