Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee 2

Hiroyuki Asada – Viz – 2010 – 9+ volumes

You know, if anything will cause me to start buying Shonen Jump regularly, it will probably be this series (well, this plus the fact I just realized the Impel Down One Piece chapters are being serialized right now, which is awesome). I liked the first volume quite a bit, but promptly forgot about it.  This volume has hooked me for the duration for the series, though.

I like pretty much everything about it, but I think its best feature is its atmosphere, assisted greatly by the art.  Amberground is a pretty amazing place, and having the characters constantly moving through the world of night and doing what they do amidst a sky full of twinkling stars and building silhouetted by the incredible night sky is pretty amazing.  I think I would love it for that alone.

But I also enjoy the plot of the series.  Admittedly, it’s like things we’ve seen before (a gifted main character with a hero to follow sets out on his own life’s journey to achieve his goals and meet back up with said childhood hero), but I think having the main character choose a career as a kind of fantastic mailman is pretty interesting, and I’m liking his journey so far to become one (though it seems like that’ll come to an end next volume).  I also like the quirky, ridiculous names in the series (Lag Seeing is the main character, and he has a dingo assistant named Niche who also carries around a little monster named Steak, there’s also Gauche Suede and Jiggy Pepper, fellow mailmen), and I kind of like Niche as a character too, creepy though she is with her underwear and all.  I had forgotten the ridiculous names, so the line on the first page, “Niche will become Lag’s Dingo!” made absolutely no sense to me in English until I read back through the plot summary on the next page.  All the same, I wouldn’t change it for the world.

The art’s pretty incredible.  I mentioned it with the atmosphere above, but I also love the character designs and the way the rustic towns are designed.  All the little touches are pretty amazing, and I can see why he’s a contributor to Robot.

The plot in this volume worried me a bit.  I thought Lag might have to make a few more deliveries as a non-Bee before he got to become one, but it seemed like this was the last, and he took his test immediately after.  The conflict with the errant letter wasn’t all that interesting (a misunderstood motive behind a friend that departed), but the bridge crossing sequence and the Letter Bee test afterwards were both pretty cool.  I also loved both of the other boys who were trying to become Letter Bees with Lag.  I especially loved how the bizarre Niche schooled the first one and showed up the second one by quite a bit.  And I loved the tantalizing hint dropped at the end that Gauche might not be in the greatest position, which may lead to things outside the Letter Bee world.  Interesting.

But yes.  I like everything about it.  The plot does have a lot in common with standard shounen series, but the fantastic art puts it on another level, and there are just enough quirks and twists in the story to keep it interesting.  But hmm… is Tegami Bachi “graduating” from Shonen Jump?  That’s a shame, especially since the next graphic novel isn’t out until September.  Oh well.  The wait will kill me, and my interest will wane, but it’s likely I’ll be just as pleasantly shocked as I was this time with a wait that long.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.